Over the past few years, I’ve felt like the lone voice in the wilderness trying to communicate that Windows Vista wasn’t as horrible as people had heard. Indeed, for the first year of that OS’s existence, Microsoft was largely mum, and it wasn’t until the software giant fixed the few real problems with Vista in Service Pack 1 (see my review) that the company finally turned its attention to marketing the fact that, yes, Windows Vista was actually quite good, thank you very much. Efforts like the Mojave Project, the Seinfeld/Gates advertisements, and the “I’m a PC” ad campaign did a lot to overturn Vista’s bad PR, and presumably Windows 7 will finally put all that nonsense to rest for good.

Full Article – http://www.winsupersite.com/win7/win7_skus.asp

Nine of out 10 critical bugs reported by Microsoft Corp. last year could have been made moot, or at least made less dangerous, if people ran Windows without administrative rights, a developer of enterprise rights management software claimed today.

BeyondTrust Corp., which touts its Privilege Manager as a way for companies to lock down PCs, tallied the individual vulnerabilities that Microsoft disclosed in 2008, then examined each accompanying security bulletin. If the bulletin’s “Mitigating Factors” section, the part that spells out how to lessen the risk of attack or eliminate it entirely, said that users with fewer rights “could be less impacted than users who operate with administrative rights,” BeyondTrust counted the bug.

Full Article – http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=9127318&source=rss_topic125

Nine of out 10 critical bugs reported by Microsoft Corp. last year could have been made moot, or at least made less dangerous, if people ran Windows without administrative rights, a developer of enterprise rights management software claimed today.

BeyondTrust Corp., which touts its Privilege Manager as a way for companies to lock down PCs, tallied the individual vulnerabilities that Microsoft disclosed in 2008, then examined each accompanying security bulletin. If the bulletin’s “Mitigating Factors” section, the part that spells out how to lessen the risk of attack or eliminate it entirely, said that users with fewer rights “could be less impacted than users who operate with administrative rights,” BeyondTrust counted the bug.

Full Article – http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=9127318&source=rss_topic125

There’s been much debate recently on whether Linux will be able to strive in the netbook war once Windows 7 is released. Although it is too early to claim a preemptive death for Linux on netbooks, there are a couple of reasons that make it clear Windows 7 will become clearly dominant in the netbook war.

Netbooks are secondary computers

Even more so than laptops, netbooks are primarily for portable use and are not desktop replacements. Almost everybody that is purchasing a netbook most likely has another computer at home. If Microsoft is able to make a good impression of Windows 7 on the netbook, this could influence them to go out and purchase Windows 7 for their desktops at home, resulting in higher sales. Microsoft knows this and I won’t be surprised if they they are willing to minimize profits for this kind of exposure.

Full Article – http://windows7center.com/windows-7-news/why-windows-7-will-win-the-netbook-war/

Many posts start with a thank you and I want to start this post with an extra special thank you on behalf of the entire Windows team for all the installs and usage we are seeing of the Windows 7 Beta. We’ve had millions of installations of Windows 7 from which we are receiving telemetry, which is simply incredible. And from those who click on the “Send Feedback” button we are receiving detailed bug reports and of course many suggestions. There is simply no way we could move from Beta through Final Release of Windows 7 without this type of breadth coverage and engagement from you in the development cycle. There’s been such an incredible response, with many folks even blogging about how they have moved to using Windows 7 Beta on all their machines and have been super happy. The question we get most often is “if the Beta expires in August what will I do—I don’t want to return to my old [sic] operating system.” For a Beta release, that is quite a complement and we’re very appreciative of such a kind response.

This post is about the path from where we are today, Beta, to our RTM (Release To Manufacturing), building on the discussion of this topic that started at the PDC. This post is in no way an announcement of a ship date, change in plans, or change in our previously described process, but rather it provides additional detail and a forward looking view of the path to RTM and General Availability. The motivation for this, in addition to the high level of interest in Windows 7, is that we’re now seeing how releasing Windows is not something that Microsoft does “solo”, but rather is something that we do as one part of the overall PC ecosystem. Obviously we have a big responsibility to do our part, one we take very seriously of course. The last stages of a Windows release are a partnership across the entire ecosystem working to make sure that the incredible variety of choices you have for PCs, software, and peripherals work together to bring you a complete and satisfying Windows 7 experience.

Full Article – http://blogs.msdn.com/e7/archive/2009/01/30/our-next-engineering-milestone.aspx

We shipped Silverlight 2 last month.  Over the last 4 weeks, the final release of Silverlight 2 has been downloaded and installed on more than 100 million consumer machines.  It has also recently been published to corporate administrators via the Microsoft SMS and Microsoft Update programs to enable them to automatically deploy across enterprises.  Over 1 in 4 computers on the Internet now have some version of Silverlight installed.

Silverlight 2 was a major release, and delivered an impressive set of cross-browser, cross-platform functionality for Media and Rich Internet Application experiences.  It has been great watching new sites launch using it.

Media Experiences

Silverlight 2 enables the highest quality video on the web, and delivers it with the lowest TCO of any media platform.

One of the capabilities built-into Silverlight 2 is its support for “adaptive streaming” – which enables video to be delivered at multiple bitrates (for example: 400Kbits, 800Kbits, 1.5Mbits, 2Mbits) with Silverlight dynamically choosing the optimal bitrate to use depending on the network bandwidth and CPU capability of the client (it can also automatically switch bitrates seamlessly if conditions change later). 

Full Article – http://weblogs.asp.net/scottgu/archive/2008/11/16/update-on-silverlight-2-and-a-glimpse-of-silverlight-3.aspx

The Internet Explorer 8 Release Candidate is the last major IE8 testing milestone. It indicates that we believe that IE8 is implementation complete for CSS 2.1. We also believe IE8 RC1 has the most complete implementation of the CSS 2.1 specification in the industry.

The only way to know if a browser has correctly implemented a specification is to develop a comprehensive set of tests for the specification. These can be used to determine both the support for a specific part of the spec and the behavior of a specific browser. Web developers can also use these test pages as examples of how to combine various layout properties and elements in their pages and know that their page will interoperate well across all the browsers that pass those tests.

Full Article – http://blogs.msdn.com/ie/archive/2009/01/27/microsoft-submits-thousands-more-css-2-1-tests-to-the-w3c.aspx

Microsoft debuted its Windows Experience Index (WEI) tool in Windows Vista as a way to measure the relative performance of the components in your PC. As such, each key hardware device in the PC, including the microprocessor, RAM, graphics (for the UI and for more advanced tasks), and hard disk, is assessed and awarded a sub-score; and the lowest scoring component is used as the basis for the system’s overall WEI score. In general, a higher-scoring PC will perform better, overall, than a lower-scoring PC. Likewise, a higher-scoring component on one PC likely performs better than a lower-scoring component on a second PC.

Full Article – http://www.winsupersite.com/win7/ff_wei.asp

ince Windows NT4, clients who wanted to join a domain always needed a direct connection to the domain, either via VPN, dial-in or direct connection. New in Windows 2008 R2 is the option for an offline domain join.. how does this work.. ? read on!

A new program is introduced called djoin.exe. We can use djoin.exe to join a computer to the domain without actually having a connection to it.

How does this work?

1. Logon to a system that already is a member of the domain with an account that is allowed to join computers to the domain

2. Use djoin.exe to create a text file (the blob) that contains all information for the computer to join the domain when it is online.

3. On the new computer use djoin.exe to import the blob

4. Reboot the new computer when it’s connected to the network

Full Article – http://blog.avanadeadvisor.com/blogs/parzival/archive/2009/01/27/12399.aspx

Web-based email is great because you can check it from any computer, but there’s one little catch: it’s inherently limited by your internet connection. From public WiFi to smartphones equipped with 3G, from mobile broadband cards to fledgling in-flight wireless on airplanes, Internet access is becoming more and more ubiquitous — but there are still times when you can’t access your webmail because of an unreliable or unavailable connection.

Today we’re starting to roll out an experimental feature in Gmail Labs that should help fill in those gaps: offline Gmail. So even if you’re offline, you can open your web browser, go to gmail.com, and get to your mail just like you’re used to.

Full Article – http://gmailblog.blogspot.com/2009/01/new-in-labs-offline-gmail.html

Joey was there for me in a pinch when I went looking for something new to put up for today.
He was doing some work on a demo for Active Directory Recycle Bin, and he showed me what he’s working on.
The new Recycle Bin functionality in Server 2008 R2 is really cool – you can actually undelete objects, and all their attributes are restored as if the object never went away – no requirement to rejoin the domain for computer objects, for example.
The feature is all implemented in PowerShell, so Joey also gives us a sneak peek at the new PowerShell GUI.

Full Article – http://edge.technet.com/Media/Active-Directory-Recycle-Bin/

Internet Explorer 8 is the latest version of the familiar web browser you are most comfortable using, helping you get everything you want from the web faster, easier, more privately and securely than ever before.

• Faster Internet Explorer 8 is more responsive with new pages and tabs, opening up fast and reliably. You can now get to the information you care about most, in fewer steps; one click access to your webmail, favorite news sites or other online services.
• Easier Reduce the steps to accomplish many common tasks, and automate your access to real time information updates. You can keep track of your favorite sports team, news, weather with a single click.
• More Private Helps protect your privacy and confidential information where ever you go on the web.

Download http://www.microsoft.com/windows/internet-explorer/beta/default.aspx

If you live in the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, France, Japan, Spain, Germany, Italy, and the Netherlands then you have a new way to get your Hotmail on your mobile phone: via POP3. The POP3 protocol is a standard email protocol that lets you retrieve email messages from a server and deliver them to your designated program.

Here’s the technical information you need to know:

POP server: pop3.live.com (Port 995)  
POP SSL required? Yes
User name: Your Windows Live ID, for example [email protected]
Password: The password you usually use to sign in to Hotmail or Windows Live
SMTP server: smtp.live.com (Port 25)  
Authentication required? Yes (this matches your POP username and password)
TLS/SSL required? Yes

First off: thank you for your interest in beta testing Windows 7! As we near January 24th, we wanted to update everyone again on the next steps for the Windows 7 Beta. The amount of feedback we have received has been amazing and continues to pour in. We are at a point where we have more than enough beta testers and feedback coming in to meet our engineering needs, so we are beginning to plan the end of general availability for Windows 7 Beta.

Because enthusiasm continues to be so high for the Windows 7 Beta and we don’t want anyone to miss out we will keep the Beta downloads open through February 10th. Customers who have started but not completed the download process  will be able to do so through February 12th.

Full Article – http://windowsteamblog.com/blogs/windows7/archive/2009/01/23/general-availability-for-the-windows-7-beta-to-end.aspx

t’s astonishing to consider how dramatically Microsoft’s strategy for Windows has changed over the past decade. Ten years ago, Microsoft was being sued by the US government for bundling so-called middleware products in Windows, potentially harming competitors and consumers alike. Many, myself included, questioned the strength of the software giant’s eventual antitrust settlement, but the ramifications of that agreement don’t just persist today; they in fact guide Microsoft’s product development in ways that few could have possibly foreseen. The most obvious result of that settlement, in fact, is the Windows Live Essentials suite, a collection of Windows applications that, a decade ago, Microsoft thought nothing of bundling directly into the OS. Today, they are free but separately acquired. As Windows users, we are all the benefactors of that change.

Full Article – http://www.winsupersite.com/live/essentials_2009.asp