Microsoft Technology Playground

Zune 2 Photo Gallery

2007-10-03T20:57:00.000+05:30

Check out Microsoft's new portable media players and various accessories in this extensive Zune 2 photo gallery!

Free 2007 Microsoft Office System Training for IW, MBS and ISV Partners

2007-10-03T20:43:00.001+05:30

Microsoft have launched a new initiative to help Microsoft Certified Partners holding the Information Worker, Microsoft Business Solutions or Independent Software Vendor competencies get up to speed on the new Office platform. Microsoft is investing an incremental US$5 million to get this initiative off the ground.

For more information visit http://iwaccelerator.com.

Office Live Small Business Helps Small Businesses Get Started With Search Engine Marketing

2007-10-03T20:41:00.000+05:30

Microsoft® Office Live Small Business (http://www.officelive.com), a provider of Web-based services for small businesses, is teaming up with The Search Agency Inc. (http://www.thesearchagency.com) to deliver a new range of services designed to help small businesses get up to speed on search engine marketing. The Search Agency will design keyword advertising campaigns for Microsoft Office Live Small Business customers and lead courses that teach the essentials of search engine marketing. The Search Agency is an industry leader in search engine marketing (SEM) and search engine optimization (SEO).

“As more and more small businesses get online, marketing their Web sites is crucial to business success,” said Baris Cetinok, director of project management and marketing for Office Live Small Business at Microsoft Corp. “Our goal is to make search engine marketing and optimization accessible to the small-business owner who recognizes their importance but may not be sure where to start.”

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Protect Public Computers with Windows SteadyState

2007-10-03T18:45:00.000+05:30

This article series will focus on “Windows SteadyState” – a completely free toolkit from Microsoft that helps administrators take control of shared access computers running Windows XP. This article series will include a short introduction to the possibilities we get with Windows SteadyState (WSS). We will look at the new version compared to older versions, system requirements, Windows Disk Protection (WDP).

If you have ever managed shared access computers, like computers in schools, public libraries, Internet cafes, kiosk machines, etc, you probably know how hard it is to keep the computers running in the long run, as well as keeping the security level high and up to date, without too much work and “hands-on”. What we need is a solution that protects hard disks from unauthorized changes – as some changes are required (ex. updates) and others are not (like when kids - and others - change the desktop layout, Start Menu shortcuts, system settings and worse).

Maybe you, like me, have tried hardware solutions with hard disk controllers redirecting writes to the system/boot partition to a hidden partition which is then “flushed” at every reboot. This is a very good solution; however we do face a problem when updating the computers, ex. Windows Update, Office Update, antivirus signature updates, etc. In this case the computers must be booted in “manager” or “admin” mode before we can perform any changes.

You probably also tried loading tons of local Group Policy settings to keep curious fingers off the system settings, Start Menu & Desktop options, etc, just to keep the computer usable for more than a couple of days. But still, you didn’t quite feel this was good enough for your scenario - maybe partly because of the fact that all local users were hit by those same local policy limitations, even administrators and support.

Microsoft provides a solution for administrators with the above mentioned, very common problems. The toolkit is called Windows SteadyState – there is no additional hardware required… You are just a quick download, a few clicks and a helpful ‘wizard’ away from complete system protection.

If you have ever dealt with the mentioned problems before, you probably tested the Microsoft Shared Computer Toolkit, which was pretty good, actually. Windows SteadyState is an enhanced edition of this toolkit – it’s just even easier to set up, configure and manage.

These are some of the new features added to the toolkit:

New user console with tabbed navigation that lets you easily manage shared computers from a single console.
Windows Disk Protection is now file-based so you can set up and install without changing your disk partitions.
Windows Disk Protection now supports Group Policy so you can manage it in an Active Directory environment.
More software restriction options give you greater control over which programs can be used.
More user restriction options, including significantly greater control over Internet Explorer.
High, medium, and low security defaults allow for quicker and easier customization.
Easily import and export user restrictions directly from the console, without using command line tools.
Easier setup and better documentation to help you get started.

With these great enhancements in mind, let’s just recap the most fundamental and extremely important technology we get with Windows SteadyState for Windows XP: Windows Disk Protection!

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Video: Zune's new 'click-flick' hybrid interface

2007-10-03T13:02:00.000+05:30

Microsoft's new Zune devices, announced Tuesday night and set to be available next month, will come with a new button that can be used either by clicking or by moving a finger across the touch-sensitive surface.

Drew Peterson of Microsoft's Zune team demonstrated the interface for me at a media briefing Tuesday afternoon. Here's the video.

Zune 2 Preview

2007-10-03T08:03:00.000+05:30

Microsoft's introduction of the Zune portable media player last year was inauspicious at best. It started with a viral marketing campaign in mid-2006, aimed at reaching out to the hip, cool, and compulsive youth market that the Zune team so desperately wanted to court. Then, instead of keeping the tech press up to speed with the device and its associated software and online service, the Zune team made what I personally consider to be its biggest mistake: It briefed a handful of digital media bloggers instead. The Zune, as everyone now knows, arrived with a thud. And though the device's marketing campaign was called "welcome to the social," the silence, as they say, was deafening.

It featured a bigger screen than the iPod of the day, had a more grippable and attractive exterior, complete with a cool "double shot" dual color effect. It had wireless features in a day and age when no mainstream devices offered this functionality (read: no iPods). It also had a few disadvantages. The Zune's online service, Zune Marketplace, offered just music, and none of the TV show, movie, podcast, audio books, games, and other content iPod owners find in spades on iTunes. The PC-based software you used to manage the Zune and access Zune Marketplace was an utter disgrace, with huge performance issues. And where Apple's iPod came in a range of sizes and form factors, with Zune, you just had the one unit: A middle of the road hard drive-based model with 30 GB of storage. The Zune 30, in Zune-speak.

Depending on how you look at it, the Zune's first year was either an epic disaster or a decent first step into the market. Compared to the iPod, the Zune didn't exactly fare very well; Microsoft sold about one million Zune devices in its first 8 months of availability. But Apple sold over 32 million iPods in approximately the same time frame. Of course, Microsoft prefers to compare Zune sales to the single iPod model that it technically competes most closely with, which was a 30 GB iPod for much of that first year. And according to the marketing mavens at NPD, Zune was consistently the number two selling MP3 player in the market for hard drive-based devices that cost $250 and less. Sure, it was a distant number two--the Zune typically controlled only 10 percent of that market--but look at it this way: Just by entering the market, Microsoft was able to jump ahead of products from Creative, Samsung, iRiver, and others, and do so with its very first device.

Looking back over the past year, I fault Microsoft for two things. First, the company completely blew its chance for a big entry into the market, and there's no way to undo that now. Second, after promising to move quickly on new features (podcasting support anyone?), Microsoft instead let the Zune sit and simmer all year. Sure, we got new colors over time, augmenting the white, black, and weird brown Zune 30s that debuted back in November 2006. But the software never really improved, and thus the Zune owner's experience never really improved either. Now, a year later, I can tell you that this happened so Microsoft could focus on the announcements discussed here. But it was a tough time to be a Zune owner. Hopefully, news of what's coming this year will perk things up a bit.

New devices

First up, as you might expect, Microsoft is filling out the Zune family with two new products. Note that I said "filling out" there: The company is not replacing its existing Zune 30 product but is rather augmenting that device with three new devices and two new device form factors. "We're going to continue selling the Zune 30," Zune marketing director Jason Reindorp told me in a recent briefing. "But we're also going to update that device with new software and features."
Coming in on the ultra-portable end of the market are two flash-based devices, the Zune 4 and Zune 8, which sport 4 GB and 8 GB of storage, respectively. The Zune 4 and Zune 8 will come in black, pink, and green matte designs, as well as glossy red versions. Physically, these devices are identical.

On the high end is the Zune 80, with 80 GB of hard drive-based storage. The Zune 80 will come only in black. All new Zunes will feature a subtle new version of the double shot color effect, so that they hang together visually with the existing product. "They're meant to be part of the same family," Reindorp said. All of these devices are considerably thinner than the current Zune 30.

Zune PC Software

The Zune software, which I believe is simply called Zune, has been completely rewritten from scratch, so you can kiss that Windows Media Player-based Frankenstein from the first generation goodbye for good. Reindorp didn't mention this, but I was told previously that people responsible for the Vista version of Media Center worked on this software, and it shows in the streamlined simplicity of the interface

Zune Marketplace

The new Zune Marketplace is dramatically different from any other service out there, with full-bleed photography, biographical information, music, video, podcasts, playlists, and so on. Microsoft says it will have 3 million tracks at launch. But brace yourself for maybe the best news of all.

The company is going to launch with one million DRM-free MP3 tracks. But these aren't just MP3 songs, they're "pure MP3s," devoid of any watermarking or tracking technology. Reindorp tells me that the company "absolutely refused" to go in that direction, or settle on non-standard audio technology. So the Zune's DRM-free tracks will be pure MP3. Halleluiah.

Accessories

In another dig at Apple and its consumer-unfriendly policies, Microsoft is doing something a bit different with accessories. That is, it's not automatically obsoleting old devices or accessories just because something new is out now. "This is a minor thing, maybe," Reindorp said, "but I like that we're doing this. We went out of way to ensure that all of the new accessories work fine with the original 30 GB devices. Likewise, all of the original accessories will work with the new devices." Bravo.

As before, Microsoft will be grouping accessories into packs, such as the Car Pack, AV Pack, and Cable Pack, in order to make it really simple for consumers to get exactly what they need.

Timing

Microsoft plans to launch the new Zune devices, Zune software, Zune Social and Zune Cards, and the new Zune Marketplace in mid-November. I will have a full review of the new devices and services available by then, so please stay tuned.

Final thoughts

While I will need some hands-on time with the new Zunes before I can render an educated opinion on these devices, this much is now clear: Though Microsoft has moved achingly slow over the past year with regards to updates, existing Zune users have much to cheer about, as every single new software feature will be available to them. The new Zune lineup seems nicely fleshed out, though Microsoft is still lacking a true video device like the iPod touch. On the other hand, the Zune 4 and Zune 8 seem like better pure music devices than Apple's new iPod nano, which went wide in a weird bid to attract video viewers.

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System Center Data Protection Manager 2007 - Evaluation Software

2007-10-03T08:02:00.000+05:30

System Center Data Protection Manager (DPM) 2007 is the new standard for Windows® backup and recovery -- delivering continuous data protection for Microsoft® application and file servers using seamlessly integrated disk and tape media. DPM enables rapid and reliable recovery through advanced technology for enterprises of all sizes.

DPM protects Windows® data by continuously capturing data changes with application-aware byte- and block-level agents, providing an easy-to-manage and robust disk/tape data protection solution, and one-click lossless application recovery. DPM enables IT administrators and end-users to easily recover data in minutes from easily accessible disk instead of locating and restoring from less reliable tapes. DPM combines the best aspects of disk and tape and reduced infrastructure requirements with Microsoft’s experience in Windows Server® technology to provide a technically advanced and comprehensive data protection solution for the most demanding Microsoft environments – from the SMB to the Enterprise. To learn more, visit http://www.microsoft.com/dpm

[ Download ] - Registration Suggested for this Download

More Zune 2 Details Surface Ahead of Launch

2007-10-03T07:13:00.000+05:30

Although the news won't officially hit until midnight tonight, further details of the Zune players have leaked ahead of Microsoft's secret Tuesday night event for press and bloggers. Sources have confirmed to BetaNews, as well as additional information from Zune news site Zunerama indicates that there will be two new Zune models, including a new 80GB HDD-based player, along with 4GB and 8GB flash based versions.

Every Zune will include the Wi-Fi wireless functionality that is central to the platform's allure, and would allow customers to sync and share content over the air. An FM tuner will be included as well. Also for the first time, the Zune will be nearly equal to the iPod and iTunes in terms of content capabilities, with the software allowing for the organizing of music videos, pictures, and podcasts. Still missing is television shows and movies, sources say.

However, the second generation Zune will allow for those with Windows Media Center to transfer recorded content to the device for portable viewing. The Zune Marketplace will receive a redesign as part of the launch, with 3 million tracks available. Possibly the most important announcement of all is up to a third of these tracks will also be available in MP3 format without copyright restrictions, which means they can be playable on any device including the iPod.

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New Updates Available for Vista, Server 2008

2007-10-02T23:33:00.000+05:30

Microsoft have released a few updates on the Microsoft Download Center to resolve various issues in Vista and Server 2008:

Windows Vista:

KB941229 (x86) (x64): This update addresses issues with Media Center for Microsoft Vista.
KB941651 (x86) (x64): This is a reliability update. Install this update to improve the reliability of Windows Media Player 11 for Windows Vista in certain scenarios.
KB941600 (x86) (x64): This update resolves some reliability issues in the USB core components on the Windows Vista operating system.
KB941649 (x86) (x64): This update resolves some compatibility and reliability issues in Windows Vista. By applying this update, you can achieve better reliability and hardware compatibility in various scenarios.

Windows Server 2008:

KB942239 (x86) (x64) (IA64): Install this update for Windows Server 2008 Beta 3 to provide the same storage upgrade support that is included with Windows Server 2008 RC0.

Cumulative Update for Media Center for Windows Vista Available

2007-10-02T23:28:00.000+05:30

This update addresses issues with Media Center for Microsoft Vista. For complete listing of issues included in this cumulative update, see KB941229. After you install this item, you may have to restart your computer.

In addition to the fixes that are contained in the updates that are listed in the "Hotfix replacement information" section, the October 2007 Cumulative Update for Media Center for Windows Vista resolves the following issues:

Several issues that are related to the Media Center Extensibility Platform
An issue that affects digital cable card components when you use Scientific Atlanta cable cards
Interaction issues that occur between Media Center PC and Microsoft Xbox 360 when Xbox 360 is used as a Media Center Extender.
Autolaunch issues that occur with video CD (VCD) media

[ x86 | x64 ]

Microsoft Debuts New Licensing Program

2007-10-02T23:27:00.000+05:30

Protecting customers and partners from the problems associated with counterfeit software has long been a Microsoft priority, and the company continues to invest in developing solutions to help customers resolve licensing deficiencies.

Most recently, Microsoft has responded to customer feedback by creating programs that add options for legalizing Windows XP Professional. The Get Genuine Kit (GGK), launched in July 2006, and the Get Genuine Windows Agreement (GGWA), launching today, seek to make it easier for businesses to obtain legal licenses of Windows XP software. With GGWA, business customers can now purchase full licenses of Windows XP the same way they acquire other software, through a Volume Licensing program offered through their reseller.

These programs follow the genesis of Microsoft’s Genuine Software Initiative (GSI), which unites Microsoft’s many anti-piracy efforts under a single corporate umbrella. The initiative targets three strategic areas: Education, Engineering, and Enforcement. Within each area, Microsoft is driving activities and creating programs that inform and protect consumers and resellers from counterfeit software and other forms of software piracy.

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Signup for Office Live Workspace Beta

2007-10-02T18:57:00.000+05:30

Vista Home Premium: $86 Shipped

2007-10-02T14:57:00.000+05:30

Good deal at Micro Center: The OEM version of Windows Vista Home Premium for a mere $80, 1/2 or 1/3 of the retail price and $22 less than Newegg’s normal price. With $6 shipping you can be enjoying Vista on the cheap. Just remember that, as an OEM version, it can only be installed on one computer and cannot be moved to another PC later on.

Microsoft Sandcastle September 2007 CTP Available

2007-10-02T11:31:00.001+05:30

Sandcastle produces accurate, MSDN style, comprehensive documentation by reflecting over the source assemblies and optionally integrating XML Documentation Comments. Sandcastle has the following key features:

Works with or without authored comments
Supports Generics and .NET Framework 2.0
Sandcastle has 2 main components (MrefBuilder and Build Assembler)
MrefBuilder generates reflection xml file for Build Assembler
Build Assembler includes syntax generation, transformation..etc
Sandcastle is used internally to build .Net Framework documentation

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Microsoft acquires Jellyfish.com

2007-10-02T11:30:00.000+05:30

We want to welcome some new folks to the Live Search family - We recently purchased a company called Jellyfish.com, based in Madison, Wisconsin. Jellyfish has done some really innovative work in comparative shopping engines. We think the technology has some interesting potential applications as we continue to invest heavily in shopping and commerce as a key component of Live Search. Stay tuned for more great stuff from our new colleagues in Madison!

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New Microsoft Management Pack Downloads Available

2007-10-02T04:44:00.000+05:30

Quite a few new Management Pack downloads popped up today on the Microsoft Download Center. Here's a list for those interested:

Microsoft Begins Buildup to Windows Server 2008 Release

2007-10-02T00:41:00.000+05:30

The long march to the release of Windows Server 2008(Longhorn Server), continued last week, as Microsoft Corp. made the first "release candidate" version available for downloading from its Web site. Several IT managers who are testing the beta predecessors of Release Candidate(RC) 0 said they're largely impressed, though not without some reservations.

Robbie Roberts, IT manager at Windrush Frozen Foods Ltd. in Oxford, England, has been using the upcoming operating system in live applications for two months. "We were involved in the Windows Server 2003 rollout, and we had tons of bugs," he said. "We absolutely expected tons of problems with Windows Server 2008."

IT officials in Georgia's Fulton County, where Atlanta is located, said that Windows Server 2008 has made it easier to tighten security through steps such as locking down unused ports and preventing insecure systems from connecting to the county's network.

But, they added, there is still a lack of support for key third-party applications. As a result, the county doesn't expect to move most of those applications to the new operating system until a year from now, said Jay Terrell, deputy director of IT. "We're not rushing to put anything into production that would hurt our users," he noted.

Microsoft to Debut Zune 2 on Tuesday

2007-10-02T00:39:00.000+05:30

According to sources close to the situation, both Microsoft chairman Bill Gates and Design and Development chief J Allard will be on hand for the event. The main part of the announcement will center around the players, which will include the first flash memory based Zunes.

Entering the flash-based device market is very important for Microsoft, as the category is by far the most popular. While the Zune has managed to grab a 10 percent share of the HDD player segment, overall that has amounted to about a 3 percent share of the market in general.

Not much change in the Zune's design will accompany the new HDD players, which would look similar but thinner. The flash based players will measure 3-inches by 1.25-inches and are said to look much like the iPod nano. The smaller Zunes will be video capable, and are rumored to include Wi-Fi and higher storage than competing products.

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Microsoft Nears D-Day for VoIP Launch

2007-10-01T21:59:00.000+05:30

Microsoft has been laying the groundwork for its march into the voice market for some time now, throwing out tantalizing tidbits along the way including a wide-ranging partnership with Nortel Networks in July, 2006, to develop integrated VoIP products and the release of the public beta of its Office Communications Server (OCS) 2007 in March.

While solution providers at large have heard the rhetoric and seen hints of what's to come, they've been waiting to get their hands on Microsoft's new technology so they can appraise for themselves just how big an impact it will have on the VoIP space.

The Redmond, Wash.-based company on October 16 is set to unveil some of the long-awaited building blocks of its unified communications plans. At a launch event in San Francisco, Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates and Business Division President Jeff Raikes are set to showcase several products, including OCS 2007, which promises to bring VoIP, presence, instant messaging and conferencing together; the Office Communicator 2007 unified communications client; Office Live Meeting 2007 hosted conferencing and the RoundTable videoconferencing system.

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Windows Server 2008 Screencast: Server Manager

2007-10-01T20:51:00.000+05:30

Time for another Screencast! In my previous Screencasts on Windows Server 2008 I went through the full installation of the Enterprise version and a Server Core Installation. In this Screencast I wanted to go through Server Manager and Initial Configuration Tasks. Now that I have a fully functioning server it's time to get down to the business of managing it.

So firstly we have Initial Configuration Tasks which is all about shortening the time it takes to get a server up and fully functional on your network. It allows the administrator to specifiy in a logical manner, operating system settings that were previously exposed in the Windows Server 2003 Setup, such as Administrator password, domain information and network settings.

Next is Server Manager. Now Server manager has been in previous versions of Windows Server, but has been dramatically improved in Windows Server 2008, allowing administrators to manage all aspects of the their server from a single console. I've been using Windows Server 2008 for quite awhile now and having a single management console makes working with servers much easier than it was in the past. You can still use the individual tools if you wish but having the one console right there is much easier.

So onto the screencast! As usual I've uploaded 2 options for watching. Click the picture below to watch the SoapBox video and the graphic below to watch the stream.

[ View ] - Server Manager Video

Office Live Workspace: What it can and can't do

2007-10-01T20:48:00.000+05:30

As Microsoft unveils its new Office Live Workspace today, the comparisons to Google Docs are inevitable. However, as explained in today's story, there's one big difference: The new Office document-sharing and collaboration service won't let users author documents inside a Web browser. That will still take place on the desktop, inside the traditional Microsoft Office applications. The service will synch the document to the Web service for purposes of storage and collaboration.

Of course, there are alternatives out there, such as OpenOffice and the aforementioned Google Docs. But Microsoft itself won't be providing any full-blown, free online alternative to its second-biggest money-maker.

Not yet, at least. Eric Gilmore, senior product manager for Microsoft Office, said last week that the company isn't ruling out the possibility of providing Web-based document authoring. He noted that there's plenty of opportunity to make money with advertising-supported software and services. But for now, he said, there seems to be bigger demand for online document storage and collaboration.

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TechNet Security Series Seminar 1 - 28 Sep 07

2007-10-01T16:49:00.000+05:30

The first TechNet Security Series Seminar happened on Friday 28 September 2007. Here are the presentations that were made during this seminar, now available for download:

Session 1: Advanced Security Measures for Clients and Servers
Session 2: Security Enhancements in SQL 2005
Session 3: Security Considerations for Wireless Environments
Panel Questions

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Microsoft’s new computing platform - Surface

2007-10-01T12:00:00.000+05:30

It's not often that one gets a chance to attend a demonstration of a new method of human-computer interaction. Having been too young to witness the development of the command line in the 1950s or the modern graphical user interface at Xerox PARC in the 1970s, it was a genuine thrill to visit Microsoft's campus for a personal demo of "surface computing." While future computer historians are unlikely to view this technology as being anywhere near as groundbreaking as the CLI or GUI, the multi-touch interface nonetheless serves as an innovative way of interacting with the personal computer.

Microsoft Surface has taken many years to come to fruition. The original idea was developed in 2001 by employees at Microsoft Research, and it was nurtured towards reality by a team led by chief architect Nigel Keam. Not content with merely coming up with a new idea, the Surface team is committed to actually releasing it to the commercial market as early as the end of 2007. From there, the team hopes that the product will make its way from retail and commercial establishments to the home, in much the same manner as large-screen plasma displays have migrated out of the stadium and into the living room over the past few years.

Microsoft began the Surface project back in 2001, after the idea had already been proposed by employees in the Microsoft Research division. For many years the work was hidden under a non-disclosure agreement. Keam mentioned that, although necessary, the NDA made it frustrating when Microsoft scheduled the official Surface announcement just days after Apple announced the iPhone. While both projects employ touch-sensitive screens with multi-touch capability, they are very different from each other, and the development timelines clearly show that neither was "copied" from the other. As Keam put it: "I only wish I could work that fast!"

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Inside Windows Vista SP1

2007-10-01T10:38:00.000+05:30

Virtually everything I've learned about SP1 recently is good news, though anyone hoping for dramatic changes will be disappointed as this release marks a return to what Microsoft calls a more traditional type of service pack.

Windows Vista SP1, unlike Windows XP Service Pack 2 doesn't introduce major new functionality or break existing applications. But it does provide a number of valuable changes, including, yes, a new kernel version, a surprising array of performance, reliability, and compatibility fixes, a number of small functional changes, and an aggregation of previously-released security fixes and other hot-fixes.

Developed in tandem with Windows Server 2008--and not just concurrently, but literally together--Windows Vista SP1 once again realigns the development paths of the Windows client and server products. So much so, in fact, that the first Windows Server 2008 service pack will be the same as Windows Vista Service Pack 2 (SP2). These products, Vista SP1 and Windows Server 2008, are literally being developed in lock step.

SP1 roadmap

Last month, Microsoft shipped a beta preview of Vista SP1 to a small group of testers along with a similar beta preview of Windows XP Service Pack 3 (SP3). As noted in my Vista Service Pack 1 Revealed showcase, there wasn't must there there, so to speak: SP1 didn't appear to change the Windows user experience very much, though there were some welcome reliability, compatibility, and performance updates. This month's release, and the subject of this article, is the first true beta release of Vista SP1. The Vista SP1 beta, like a similar beta release for XP SP3, has shipped off to about 12,000 beta testers, according to Microsoft, and they're providing feedback to the company that will be used to ensure Microsoft can keep its previously announced shipping schedule.

"We're now at beta, Windows Client product manager Dave Zipkin told me. "The plan is still to ship Windows Vista SP1 in the first quarter of 2008, and it's looking positive based on the feedback we've gotten so far." (Windows XP SP3, meanwhile, is scheduled for later in the first half of 2008.)

Microsoft also plans to ship a public release candidate version of SP1 via MSDN and TechNet by the end of the year. This will allow the company to dramatically expand its pool of testers and garner a wider range of feedback. It's not clear if the company intends to ship this publicly via its Web site as well. I was only told that it would be "fairly broad."

Rethinking Service Packs

One of the major goals of SP1 is to realign Windows service packs with the original vision, where these updates are basically aggregates of previously-released fixes along with a small number of new updates and some very small functional changes. This has important ramifications for Microsoft's business customers, as service packs will no longer be as disruptive as was XP SP2. "We're going back to what service pakcs were before XP SP2," Zipkin told me. "A standard service pack is about improving the experience, but not about adding new features or breaking applications."

Vista SP1 also marks another change with regards to service packs, because Microsoft now has a number of other avenues for delivering updates to customers and service packs now are just one method of doing so. "We're amping up the volume of things we deliver over Windows Updaste," Zipkin said. "It's a better, more frequently used channel. And Windows Update isn't just for security updates. We've done this all along: There were application compatibility fixes and reliability and compatibility updates delivered for XP on Windows Update over the last five years. But we're being more aggressive with Vista and intentionally pushing a higher volume. We've been planning this for quite a while."

While some customers have asked Microsoft to deliver service packs more frequently, the reality is that the company's testing environment and quality criteria bars make such a change unlikely. Instead, Microsoft feels that it can deliver more frequent updates via Windows Update and then continue shipping service packs less frequently. Service packs aren't going away, however, as there will always be enterprise customers that prefer to update systems in slow, measured ways. Plus, some features and changes will always be more appropriately delivered through service packs, so these updates will usually include a number of small fixes that weren't delivered previously in other forms.

"Windows Update lets us deliver incremental updates, including security fixes," Zipkin said. "It's an ongoing way to keep people up to date and secure without the massive effort and energy that's required around deploying service packs. Companies are all different. Some just want big service packs with no interim updates, while others want the reverse. So we have more options."

In addition to service packs and Windows Update--the latter of which includes related technologies like Microsoft Update, Automatic Updates, Windows Server Update Services, and so on--Microsoft delivers updates to customers in a surprisingly disparate number of ways. The company offers end users manual software downloads via its Download Center, of course. It delivers private updates to OEMs and PC makers, including hot fixes that are never added to Download Center. "These are built into the install images that end users ultimately buy on new PCs," Zipkin told me. "They are hardware-specific, and usually related to new devices, new combinations on the motherboard, and so on--PC makers like Sony, Lenovo, and Dell always innovating on the motherboard--and they're also pushed into the restore partitions." These private hot-fixes are then "baked into" the next service pack I was told. "Every single hot fix we create heads to the next service pack," Zipkin added. "Service packs are always cumulative."

Microsoft isn't the only one developing changes to Vista. Its partners are working on application and hardware compatibility issues on an ongoing basis, an effort that has made Vista the most compatible Windows version Microsoft has ever shipped. And the compatibility picture is only improving over time. "We had over 250 logoed applications at launch in January," Zipkin said. "Today we're at over 2000." Likewise, Microsoft and its partners have fixed over 80 enterprise deployment blockers since RTM (release to manufacturing)--these are troublesome but much needed business solutions such as VPNs, enterprise anti-virus, and so on.

Similar progress has been made with hardware compatibility. At launch, there were over 10,000 logoed devices and over 700,000 new devices have gained the logo since then. "We push those updates through Windows Update, so if you have a hardware compatibility issue and It's solved, you'll simply get the drivers automatically and be up and running," Zipkin said. "We prioritize on the most common incompatibilities using Windows Error Reporting, Online Crash Analysis, and so on, and can see all of the 'device not found' errors. We have a similar view into crashes and hangs." Microsoft also meets with hardware makers on a weekly basis to remediate application compatibility issues.

Though some Vista customers are inexplicably waiting for the release of Vista Service Pack 1, Microsoft has in fact already delivered a number of low-level reliability and compatibility updates to Vista users via Windows Update, and more are on the way, including an important new set of fixes scheduled for October 2007. These updates are always optional, so that customers can choose which they want. Beyond SP1, Microsoft will employ the same tactics, and deliver most updates when they can, rather than wait for the next service pack.

What's in Vista SP1

Microsoft describes Windows Vista Service Pack 1 as a vehicle for delivering improvements and enhancements, not new features. It is built and tested to enable smooth transitions for applications from the initial shipping version of Vista to Vista SP1. "It's a rollup of what's already out," Zipkin said. "On top of that, we've added other improvements."There are fixes for the top crashes as reported by OCA, some of which will have been delivered previous to SP1, and some of which will be new to SP1.

There are a number of performance fixes in SP1 as well. Zipkin told me that Microsoft was addressing a number of scenarios that have caused user concern, including file copy, unzipping files, Resume and Hibernate, and shutting down delays. In one example, the Vista Sync Center had an issue that added five seconds to shutdown. "There's no single performance issue," Microsoft Director John Gray said. "We think of performance as 'the things that customers do." The file copy issue is a good example. Though many customers have reported slowdowns with file copy in different scenarios, each of these scenarios--same disk to same disk, disk to disk, across the network, whatever--are actually different types of actions. And though many have complained that the Vista copy dialog seems to get hung up while displaying a "calculating" message, the system is actually still copying the file while that message is being displayed. So in that case, the message and whatever calculation its doing need to be addressed (and have been) but the actual file copy is progressing normally.

While Microsoft shipped a pair of fixes last month that address various Vista performance issues, the company is also planning a second major shipment of performance fixes this month (October 2007), so be on the lookout for that. "Performance issues are one of the most satisfying things to fix," Zipkin said. "Some are being pushed out in August and October before the service pack, and others will come in SP1. We're fixing things like the photo screen saver, which was taking up too much memory and slowed performance when users tried to get back to work, and the copy calculation issue."

Vista SP1 also includes support for emerging hardware and standards that we're so widespread in late 2006 (at Vista's RTM) but are gaining in important now. "We can't wait for the next version of Windows to add support for this stuff, " Zipkin said. "But we also need the hardware to test it on, and it wasn't available last year." Wireless-N is a great example: This type of networking equipment is becoming increasingly common even though it hasn't officially been standardized or finalized. "We can test it and certify it [for Vista] now even though the spec isn't technically finalized yet," Zipkin said. "We can't wait on Windows 7."

Microsoft is also addressing complaints about the BitLocker administrative user experience. The BitLocker control panel is being extensively updated and the feature now supports the ability to automatically encrypt non-system drives. (This functionaltiy is also available in Windows Server 2008; that makes sense, given that Vista SP1 and Windows 2008 use the same code base.) Incidentally, I was told that BitLocker would continue its behavior of not working with external USB drives, as this is by design."BitLocker is not about moving data from machine to machine on a flash drive," Zipkin told me. "This is not going to work because it looks too much like an attack."

There are dozens of other tiny refinements. Printing to local printers in Terminal Services (TS) is much easier. Printer management has been improved. The Search item is being removed from the Start menu to accommodate antitrust complaints from Google. (You can still access the Search window by tapping F3 or WinKey + F, by the way.) Disk Defragmenter has been updated so you can choose which drive you'd like to defrag. "Nothing huge," Zipkin added.

"Service Pack 1 doesn't change the Vista value proposition," he said. "There's plumbing stuff, behind the walls--no UI, but in the system--reliability stuff, based on Watson and OCA data. We discovered where crashes were occurring in Vista. It turns out most of it was not in Microsoft code usually. We we work with our ecosystem partners to address these areas. We look at the top hitters--it's a huge tail--and move the dial. Sometimes this happens in standalone updates, while some will wait for SP1. We put them through beta, look for regressions over several months. We will have confidence by then that they're OK to ship to customers. We do a massive amount of testing internally, automated and otherwise, but it really helps to have customer testing. But it never fails: You release into the real world and then you find more issues. There are just so many hardware permutations."

About the co-development of Vista SP1 and Windows Server 2008

One thing that may be shocking to some about Vista Service Pack 1 is that it is being development alongside Windows Server 2008. (I did report this over a year ago, but it remained a source of much confusion over the intervening months because of the company's public silence about this topic.) "Windows Server 2008 and Vista SP1 are aligned," Zipkin confirmed. "They are a common engineering project, two separate products that share the same kernel and code base."

The kernel issue is a related source of information: I also reported well before Vista shipped that Vista SP1 would include a "new kernel that will bring the Vista kernel up to date with the improvements in Windows Server 2008." This is absolutely true, I was told, though Microsoft is very nervous about any misconceptions this statement may carry, so I'd like take this opportunity to, hopefully, clear this issue up once and for all.

My explanation goes as follows: Vista SP1 and Windows Server 2008 are being developed together and share the same kernel. This kernel is newer than the version that shipped in Windows Vista, so it is a "new" kernel version that includes some significant updates. That said, new kernel versions are often used by Microsoft to denote new product versions, and in this case, Vista is still Vista. More important perhaps, this new kernel won't institute a round of compatibility issues, as is generally the case when a new kernel (and thus, typically, a major new Windows version) is introduced.

Microsoft's explanation is more nuanced, and Gray and Zipkin were quick to draw a distinction between a "new" kernel and a kernel that, in their minds, is simply evolved over previous versions. Fair enough: I certainly agree that the overriding concern here should be that whatever changes are occurring in the Vista kernel won't require enterprises or other businesses to hold off on Vista testing, as Vista SP1 won't do anything to break compatibility.

"Kernel code isn't just the kernel," Gray said. "All of the things that make up the lowest level of the OS can be considered part of the kernel, even the shell. Focusing on the kernel as a differentiator [between Vista SP1 and RTM] doesn't do justice to issues that are more important to customers, like compatibility and the device driver model, neither of which are changing. We have extended and expanded major portions of the kernel since NT 3.1. It's still based on the same code, but it's evolved over time. We added Plug N Play support and various other capabilities over time. The memory management we have now is far superior to what we had five years ago."

"Vista has an enhanced kernel over what appeared in Windows XP and Windows Server 2003," he continued. "They all introduced new breaking changes. But up until Vista was finalized, Vista and Windows Server 2008 shared the same code base. Yes, it's correct to say that Windows Server 2008 has the new kernel. But it's the Vista kernel now too, because it's in Vista SP1. It's an evolutionary change. Vista SP1 and Windows Server 2008 share the same kernel code. They are evolving together."

They're also being released together. And going forward, the co-development of Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008 (or more accurately, the client and server versions of Windows) will continue. Microsoft will ship an SP2 release concurrently for Vista and Windows Server 2008, and while that package of updates will be the second service pack for Vista, it will be the first for Windows Server 2008.

Deploying Windows Vista SP1

Microsoft promised to make slipstreaming almost laughably simple in Vista: I was told that users would be able to copy service packs and other hot-fixes into an UPDATE folder in the root of a Vista DVD or install image and just install the system, and all those updates would be automatically applied. It sounded fantastic, as it would to anyone whose suffered through the XP slipstreaming process countless times, and I was looking forward to testing this with Vista SP1.

Something funny happened on the way to SP1, however. First, Microsoft was curiously silent in public about this update between the end of 2006 and the middle of 2007, no doubt in part to convince its enterprise customers not to wait on the release before upgrading. And when Microsoft finally did break its silence at the end of summer 2007, it released a whitepaper describing the various ways in which users and admins could deploy SP1. And the only slipstreaming option that was mentioned was one in which Microsoft slipstreamed it for you and then supplied you with a new install DVD. Huh?

The fear, of course, was that Microsoft had given up on the drag and drop slipstreaming method, thereby erasing one of the key benefits of the new system. And this fear was only exacerbated by Microsoft continued silence on the topic.

So it with a sense of relief that I can now report that drag and drop slipstreaming--excuse me, offline updating--is still happening. It's just not happening in Vista SP1. "Vista Service Pack 1 will not be able to be applied as an offline update to prestaged install images," Zipkin told me. "But this will work as planned with future update, post-SP1 updates. We ran into some unexpected issues with the servicing stack, so we can't do it for SP1. But we're planning to add this capability for SP2, though we can't make any promises. This will be a bigger issue around SP2 than it is now. We think this is a one time thing. But you can still make your own slipstream DVD using the old '-integrate' method as with XP if you want to."

With Windows Vista Service Pack 1, there are essentially three ways to get the bits. The simplest way, an integrated or slipstreamed DVD that includes Windows Vista with SP1, will ship in early 2008. So customers who buy boxed copies of the OS starting in early 2008 will simply get both in a combined package. The same thing applies to volume licensed versions of the OS and versions that ship with new PCs: Vista will simply be integrated with the SP1 updates and that will become the baseline Vista OS going forward.

The second method is aimed at consumers and small businesses: They can simply use Auto Updates to automatically download SP1. As with previous Microsoft service packs, it won't be automatically installed, however: Instead, users will see a prompt about the release and opt into the install. The download itself is (in the beta) and will be (in the final version) about 51-55 MB, depending on the system. (XP SP2 was 110 MB.) "It uses differential technology to decide what it needs to download," Zipkin explained. "It scans your system, looks at what you need, and then only downloads those files."

Note that Windows Vista Service Pack 1 will never be pushed to users as a "mandatory" update. It will, however, be required if users wish to stay on Vista's support path going forward.

The third way is a standalone installer, and this is, perhaps, the final bit of controversy and misunderstanding with SP1 today. There are three scenarios for the standalone installer, which includes everything any customer will need to move from Vista RTM to Vista SP1: Corporations that need to roll out SP1 in volume, third party services (like Best Buy's Geek Squad) that need a mobile and offline updater, and users with no Internet access. The standalone installer, by necessity, is larger, but it includes all 36 languages currently supported by Vista and will work with any Vista disk. Right now, it weighs in at about 1 GB for the x86 version.

The controversy surrounding the standalone installer involves the time and effort it currently takes to get it installed. During the beta, testers are experiencing three lengthy reboots, and Microsoft has received a number of complaints about this process. Well, here's some good news: This is a beta-only issue. By the time most customers install SP1 in early 2008, the installer will only require a single reboot.

What's happening is that Vista SP1 requires two or three prerequisites, depending on whether BitLocker is installed. These prerequisites need to be installed before SP1 can be successfully deployed, and they each require their own reboot. (One of these prerequisites, incidentally, is the servicing code mentioned previously that is causing the offline updating limitations.) Before the end of calendar year 2007, Microsoft will ship final versions of these prerequisite updates to Vista customers via Windows Update so that they will be installed well before SP1 is released. (They may ship as part of the company's regularly scheduled monthly security patch update cycle in November. Or not. They're not sure yet.) That way, Vista-based PCs can reboot silently overnight once or twice between now and SP1. So when SP1 ships, most customers will experience just a single reboot for install. These updates will also go out on new PCs this holiday season so that those machines are ready for SP1 as well.

"SP1 won't need 3 reboots in the final version," Zipkin said. "When SP1 comes out, most people will have already gotten these prerequisites. It will affect beta testers and reviewers but not customers. The average consumer won't ever see this."

Despite improving its deployment tools somewhat dramatically in Windows Vista, the deployment picture remains largely the same for customers. Consumers and very small businesses should acquire SP1 via Windows Update as before. Medium-sized businesses can utilize Windows Update, Windows Server Update Services, or third party distribution tools with the standalone installer. And enterprise customers on volume licensing can acquire slipstreamed Vista install images from Microsoft. Customers who purchase new PCs in early 2008 and beyond will receive an integrate copy of Vista and SP1 as expected.

Windows Vista SP1 guidance

You're probably familiar with the established conventional wisdom that larger companies won't even consider rolling out a new Windows version until the first service pack is made available. Microsoft had hoped to convince its business customers that, starting with Windows Vista, the first service pack is no longer a requirement and that they should begin planning deployments with the initial shipping version of the OS. It's not clear that Microsoft's business customers have really gotten this message, but the company is continuing its communication efforts in this regard. Certainly, the messaging on SP1 is consistent with what the company has repeatedly said in the past.

"Home users shouldn't wait," Zipkin said. "The Vista user experience isn't changing with SP1, and compatibility is improving on an ongoing basis. We've got stuff coming down the pike that will hit well before SP1." There are also a number of out-of-band functional improvements to Vista that are happening outside the SP1 track that will significantly increase Vista's appear to consumers. I'm thinking of Windows Live Photo Gallery and Windows Live Mail specifically, both of which expand dramatically on capabilities that are built into Vista.

Corporations, Microsoft says, are already moving to Vista, and the arrival of SP1 shouldn't change anything. "Our business customers already have the tools and guidance they need to deploy Vista," Zipkin said. "Some are waiting to deploy, but they can do some pre-SP1 work to hit the ground running. They can begin application compatibility testing on the SP1 beta or Vista gold [RTM] code, as the compatibility picture isn't changing. There are architectural changes moving from XP to Vista, but that's a remediation you will need to make with SP1 too." Microsoft is planning a "fairly broad" SP1 release candidate for later this year and expects many businesses to start pilots at that time. "There's no need to stall things because of SP1," Zipkin said.

Final thoughts

Microsoft's initial silence on Windows Vista Service Pack 1 (SP1) was alarming on a number of levels, and while the company's public disclosures over the past month were heartening, a number of troubling questions remained. Today, however, I can report that Vista SP1, finally, is a known quantity, which a logical and even desirable feature set that will improve the end user experience only in subtle ways but will provide a number of useful functional, reliability, performance, and compatibility changes. As a long time NT fan, I'm happy to see Microsoft return to its original vision for service packs, and of course the advent of widespread broadband Internet access has made only made Windows Update more valuable. Between SP1, the many other improvements delivered via Windows Update, and an ever-expanding cadre of free Windows Live products and services, the Vista picture just keeps getting better. And that's saying something, given how good this OS was at launch.

[ View ]

Vista and ExpressCards: An Update

2007-10-01T10:35:00.000+05:30

I have heard from some people that they are not able to get an Sil3132 based eSATA ExpressCard to see an attached drive. I thought it was just a driver issue until recently I was testing a new Dell Inspiron 1420 notebook and experienced the same issue. I could get the driver to successfully to install on Vista-32, Vista-64, and Windows 2008 RC0. But only Windows 2008 RC0 actually saw an attached disk drive.

I tried everything, updated the firmware of the eSATA card, the latest drivers, different cards (but same 3132 chipset). Nothing worked on Vista-32 or Vista-64.

Note that I installed Vista SP1 slipstreamed as part of a new install, I have not tried an upgrade in place. Between, if you are trying to get a Sil3132 card to work under Windows 2008 RC0 x64, go to www.siliconimage.com and get the latest drivers from their site.

Microsoft Charts Its Software Services Strategy and Road Map for Businesses

2007-10-01T10:31:00.000+05:30

Microsoft Corp. today laid out the next phase in its strategy for online services, offering a road map for new offerings that synthesize client, server and services software for people and businesses. These offerings will combine elements of client-based programs with software that runs large servers and new services delivered over the Internet.

The offerings announced expand Microsoft’s existing portfolio of software plus service solutions that weave together the best of software and Internet services to provide a new generation of rich, seamless experiences that are personalized, integrated and available online anywhere. This approach gives individuals and organizations greater freedom of choice in how they interact with the people, information and activities they value most.

Microsoft plans to deliver a wide variety of new solutions during the coming months under two key families of service offerings: “Live” and “Online.”

“Live” services from Microsoft are designed primarily for individuals, business end-users and virtual work groups. Live offerings span entertainment, communication and productivity. These services emphasize ease of use, simplicity of access and flexibility, and are ideally suited for situations where people either don’t have access to professional technical expertise or don’t require high levels of system management.

[ Office Live Workspace Pre-Registration | Dynamics Live CRM ]

[ View ]

Microsoft Rolls Out Search Improvements

2007-09-30T15:04:00.000+05:30

Microsoft Corp., the No. 3 Web search provider in the U.S., is rolling out changes to its search engine aimed at narrowing the gap between it and market leader Google Inc. Microsoft is quadrupling the number of sites it searches for new information and overhauled the core technology that decides which results to display, said Satya Nadella, corporate vice president for Microsoft's search and advertising group.

Nadella said the updates will be phased in by the end the month. Among them, he said, are improvements to the way Live Search interprets what users are looking for, even if they misspell a word, type in two separate words instead of a compound word or use a variation, like "driving" instead of "drive."

Microsoft singled out four search categories for intensive attention: shopping; local searches and maps; health and entertainment.

When users type a product category or a product name into Live Search, they'll get links to back photos, shopping guides and reviews of that particular product. Microsoft culls product ratings from many sites and presents an average it calls the "opinion index."

The company cleaned up the look of its local business search and maps Web page, cutting out a second search box and a floating toolbar over the map that Nadella said confused users. Microsoft added one-click driving directions from major intersections, plus the ability to see real-time traffic conditions and find alternate routes.

Microsoft launched a dedicated health information search site based on MedStory, a health search company it acquired in February. The results include a mix of regular Web listings and specific health and medical content licensed from sources like the Mayo Clinic.

The software maker also added some glitz to its entertainment search results. Now, name searches for celebrities turn up photos, thumbnail-sized videos, and new features like the "Celebrity xRank," which gauges whether online buzz around a certain celebrity is currently positive or negative.

[ View ]

Vista file copying showdown: RTM vs SP1

2007-09-30T07:49:00.000+05:30

As announced this week, the first beta build of SP1 (6001.16659) has been released on Microsoft Connect. The initial reaction from most tester has been largely positive noting improvements in file operations such as moving, copying and deleting files. However I haven’t seen anywhere post any benchmarks or evidence to prove it is indeed faster.

I composed this side-by-side video comparison of Windows Vista with and without SP1 copying two sets of files across a wireless network. Both the RTM and SP1 machines were running from the same system configuration on separate partitions with exactly the same hard disks. Any difference in time should theoretically be the effect of the operating system.

Whilst this benchmark is hardly scientific, it is obvious Vista SP1 has fixed the “calculating time remaining” bug. As soon as the dialog box appeared, it immediately began copying the file. The copying progress is also more accurately indicated with updates approximately every second in both the text and progress bar. It took approximately 30 seconds to copy the entire file.

But it wouldn’t be a good story without a twist. Vista RTM may have started slow and appeared slow throughout the file copying operation, it actually only took 3 seconds longer to copy the first file. Unexpectedly the progress bar just zooms to the finish line in the final seconds. Of course in the second test, the problem becomes rather obvious and there is a clear advantage in SP1.

UPDATE

A lot of people have told me since that Virtual PC’s I/O performance may have affected the results. File copying in SP1 may be even faster than it appears in this video which is even more promising.

UPDATE 2

I have since redone the entire test with the feedback received. First, no more Virtual PC. The Vista SP1 install is now running natively in a separate partition. Secondly, I’ve added a second test copying hundreds of smaller files. The result is again positive with SP1 finishing ahead of RTM by nearly a minute.

Halo 3 Review Xbox 360

2007-09-30T07:27:00.000+05:30

Halo 3 is a potent intoxicant that's lured thousands of gamers. Even I got my copy, and I've been hooked ever since!

The Solo Campaign

The single player is awesome, like I said earlier. However, I didn't very much like the visuals in the first frame. But as I progressed, the game just kept looking better. But I'd better come to the visuals later. For now, let's talk about the lengthy but brilliantly crafted single player campaign.

Halo 2 was an exciting game, and the climax was intriguing. Halo 3 starts exactly after Halo 2 ended: you see Master Chief stranded in a forest. His suit locks up to protect him - and you find him in a very amusing position. The game starts off soon after, and you've to reach a rendezvous point. But let me tell you that reaching the place isn't that easy. You've to battle many Covenant units - and this experience teaches you all the basics of the game. The gameplay is very similar to Halo 2, which is not a bad thing at all.

Sergeant Major Johnson and the Arbiter (the second playable character) find Master Chief in the forest whom they help throughout the campaign. Those who've played Halo 2 would know the story behind Cortana and her absence. But for the newcomers: Cortana was Master Chief's advisor and guardian throughout the first 2 games; she's actually an AI program with female programming. Master Chief loses Cortana in Halo 2. But he can see images of Cortana, trying to reach him throughout the campaign in Halo 3.

The game begins, and there's no peace: earth has been ravaged by the Covenant. And as Master Chief, you'll go through various well designed levels and missions, which include destroying antiaircraft vehicles, facing the Flood, and many more. There are many twists and turns, which will make sense to you only if you've played both the prequels.

Multiplayer Mayhem

The real forte of Halo 3 is the multiplayer. The interface works like a charm when it helps you filter matches.

Campaign

You can go online and create or join a campaign game. It's basically the same single player campaign, with the exception that you can play it with up to 4 players. And it's fun!

Forge

In Forge mode, you can create maps or make changes to available matches. The host can decide who gets the liberty to edit the map - and all this is done without pausing the game. The editor can go into a special mode and add weapons, vehicles, power ups, and much more. The created maps you can save, upload, or share with friends.

Theater

The Theater is the recorded history of your achievements. Basically, it saves the last 25 games that you've played. There are times when you strike a triple kill and want to brag. The Theater is the best way to do it. Simply save the movie and share it with a friend. A great, enjoyable feature!

File Sharing

File Sharing is is where you get to share your favorite movies or created maps. It's a new addition, which makes Halo 3 more interactive.

Game Modes

There are various game modes like Slayer, Death Match, Team Slayer, Oddball, and so on. You can either play a team game or a solo game of Slayer. Most of the matches are customized by the host, so don't be surprised if you suddenly find unlimited ammo and a rocket launcher in hand!

Graphics & Sound

The game looks as good as it plays - although I still hate the first level. (But then it gets much better later on.) The level design is excellently detailed; the character modeling is good; the lighting and particle effects - superb. The vehicles look awesome, and so do most of the weapons. And the sound effects as well as the background score are great.

Windows Vista Media Center Internet TV Beta Notes and Screenshot Gallery

2007-09-29T23:01:00.000+05:30

This week, Microsoft announced the beta availability of Internet TV, an upcoming new feature for the Windows Vista version of Media Center. (Which is itself available in the Home Premium and Ultimate editions of that operating system.) This new feature, available only in the US, allows Media Center (and Media Center Extender) users to watch streaming television-like content in a manner that is similar, but very much not identical, to the ways in which they can now enjoy live and recorded TV, digital movies, and other video content.

Because this is such a new feature, I haven't been able to fully test it and provide you with a quick look. My early opinion isn't hugely positive: The quality of the videos being delivered via Internet TV is middling at best--far below television-based standard definition quality--and for whatever reason, this video doesn't seem to integrate very well with Media Center.

That said, Internet TV is an interesting way for people without TV tuners in their Media Center PCs to enjoy a limited range of TV-like content. I say "TV-like" here because, while the content is indeed technically from television, it is pre-packaged in ways that aren't necessarily very familiar to TV viewers. You can't watch ongoing news reports, for example, though there are news "segments" from MSNBC and sports "clips" from FOX Sports. There are also full episodes of just one TV show--"Arrested Development," admittedly one of the funniest shows ever made--various concert videos from second-tier musical acts, and a number of movie trailers. Nothing particularly compelling.

I'm not sure how Microsoft intends to expand this functionality in the future--hopefully it won't be left to die like much of Media Center and the Ultimate Extras--but I'll keep my eye on it. For now, here are a few quick shots.

[ View ] - Windows Vista Media Center Internet TV Beta Screenshot Gallery

Vista SP1: Create a recovery disc

2007-09-29T22:40:00.000+05:30

One of the new administrative tools Windows Vista Service Pack 1 provides is the ability to create a recovery disc. At first, the name might fool you into thinking the type of discs system manufacturers provide to you when you purchase a new computer to restore your computer to a factory state, but this is not that. A more appropriate name would be “Windows repair disc”.

To be blunt, this tool creates merely a slimmed-down Windows installation disc. It takes a normal Windows installation disc image and strips out all the “installation” functionality leaving only the repair tools and common system files.

What a lot of people don’t know (or need to know) is that their Windows Vista DVDs are in fact running Windows PE, an extremely lightweight version of Windows that can be booted from removable media for the purpose of system maintenance. Up until now, creating a Windows PE image was not an easy task. This tool basically simplifies it down to just two clicks.

You can find the tool in the “Start menu” > “All programs” > “Maintenance” > “Create a Recovery Disc”. You will need either a blank CD or DVD along with your original Windows installation disc. It will take approximately 5 minutes to complete.

If you boot this CD/DVD, it will look identical to your Windows installation disc. You will be asked to choose a language and even present you the “Install now” button. If you do decide to go on, you won’t get very far before an error stops you.

To enter the Windows Recovery Environment, click the “Repair your computer” link at the bottom of the welcome screen and select the Windows partition you wish to repair. After this, it will present you with a list of options including startup repair, system restore and command prompt. This is identical to the repair screen you would see in your installation disk. From here, you can even do a literally last-minute backup by sticking in a USB flash drive and copy documents across. Because it runs Windows, most USB drivers are available and it’ll work out of the box.

Because this is not an actual Windows install disk, it only takes up a few hundred MBs to fit on a CD, and you are free to make as many copies as you like and even share it with others. It’ll be even better if you can create a bootable USB version.

Beyond Microsoft Office: we compare 9 suites

2007-09-29T12:53:00.001+05:30

Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint and their Office allies can be great applications, but not everybody needs everything they offer. How do you know where to start when shopping for alternative software? You'll save money with a different brand, but will it do the trick? Should you buy boxed software, download freebies for your hard drive, access browser-based apps, or juggle all of the above?

We've reviewed nine productivity suites--including downloads and online services--and cooked up a jumbo chart mixing up their gumbo of features and file formats. IBM's release of Lotus Symphony beta added more spice to the stew last week, while continuous updates to the online applications keep us on our toes. All nine products support traditional Microsoft Office files, although not all can read work in the new Office 2007 formats. And although shunned by Microsoft, the Open Document Format is gaining in popularity

[ Alternatives to Microsoft Office Suite ]

Internet TV Plug-in for Media Center

2007-09-29T10:37:00.000+05:30

Microsoft will be releasing a beta of their new Internet TV plug-in today (US only), it should be automatically downloaded to your PC and will show in the TV+Movies strip. The video content will come from MSN Video, so you might have seen links to some of the content off your Hotmail account or after a search on MSN. Over 100 hours of content is supposed to be up, and I assume more will come as time goes on.

Since I have been playing with it over the past week, I must say that it is the most impressive Internet TV application I have used so far. The main reason I feel that way is because it is one of the few that actually have a UI that provides easy navigation, especially with a remote.

Video quality seems to depend on the specific content, some of which looks very nice and some of which is so bad I wouldn’t bother attempting to watch. There are a few Halo 3 trailers that looks pretty good (silently above SD), but I watched the premiere of Journeyman and it looked like it was about 320x240 at 400kbps. That is clearly not something that I wanted to watch through a Media Center Extender on an HDTV.

Content is actually pretty good for only having 100 hours up. Full seasons of Arrested Development are up, content from other joint-MSN properties like MSNBC and FOX Sports, a number of concerts from bands/groups like John Mayer, the Pussycat Dolls, Oasis, Elton John, and more. There is also select content from National Geographic, History, HGTV, bio, A&E, and more.

All of the content is ad supported with the help of YuMe Networks, which actually works nicely from what I have seen so far. Now, I’m not sure how much of the advertising was live but basically after the video is done streaming I got a quick ad. 90% of the time in my testing, it was a Xbox 360 ad or some sort. I except more to show up, and I really don't think it will be bad at all.

Overall, I’m impressed with the Internet TV plug-in just as I’m impressed with the Sports Lounge that was launched at the beginning of the year. As long as Microsoft continues to add content, I can see myself using this often. For a platform that gets very few feature updates on a regular basis, these plug-ins do a pretty good job filling the void.

Silverlight Journal Note Converter Sample RTM

2007-09-29T08:34:00.000+05:30

The Silverlight Journal Note Converter Sample RTM reads the ink content of a Windows Journal file and converts the ink to XAML.

The sample creates a complete Silverlight web application (including html and JavaScript files) that is ready to deploy to a web site. Additionally you can load the application locally in a browser (Internet Explorer, FireFox or Safari). The web application enables you to flip through the pages, and to write, erase, and select ink in the document.

[ Download ] - Genuine Validation Required

Microsoft System Center Essentials 2007 Post Release Hotfix Rollup

2007-09-29T08:33:00.000+05:30

This patch is a rollup of important post-release fixes for System Center Essentials 2007.
Included are:
(KB 936339) Windows-based computers are not displayed in the Network Topology diagram view in System Center Essentials 2007, and WSUS component parts fail on the Essentials 2007 agents after you deploy the agents

- Fixes a problem in which Windows-based computers are not displayed in the Network Topology diagram view in System Center Essentials 2007. The WSUS component parts of Essentials 2007 also fail on the Essentials 2007 agents.

(KB 937831) The installation of System Center Essentials 2007 fails during the Reporting part of Setup and the following information is logged: "The specified domain does not exist or cannot be contacted"

- Fixes a problem that occurs if the computer's NetBIOS domain name does not match the domain or if the computer's domain suffix does not match the domain.

[ Download ]

Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 Team Foundation Server Power Tools - September 2007 release

2007-09-29T08:32:00.000+05:30

The Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 Team Foundation Server Power Tools is a set of enhancements, tools and command line utilities that improve the Team Foundation Server user experience. This release includes everything from the previous Power Tools release and includes two great new tools: the Team Foundation Server Best Practices Analyzer and Work Item Templates.

Team Foundation Server Best Practices Analyzer (TFS BPA) – TFS BPA is a diagnostic tool that performs the following functions: gathers configuration information from a Team Foundation Server deployment, performs specific tests on the Team Foundation Server deployment, analyzes the collected information according to specific rules, reports the findings as information, warning, or error messages, and lastly provides links to articles to resolve warning and error messages.
Work Item Templates - Work Item Templates feature that supports the ability to create, apply, capture, and set default work item templates. This feature adds additional menu items to the Team Work Item Templates menu.

[ Download ]

Microsoft Confirms Stealth Updating Mucks Up XP Restore

2007-09-29T08:30:00.000+05:30

Microsoft Corp. Friday confirmed that Windows XP users who repair the operating system cannot update their PCs with the latest patches because of a file included with the stealth update pushed out to machines this summer.

"When an XP repair CD is used, it replaces all system files (including Windows Update) on your machine with older versions of those files and restores the registry," said Nate Clinton, program manager for Windows Update (WU), in a post to the Microsoft company blog dedicated to the update service. "However, the latest version of Windows Update includes 'wups2.dll' that was not originally present in Windows XP. Therefore, after the repair install of the OS, wups2.dll remains on the system, but its registry entries are missing. This mismatch causes updates to fail installation."

The Windows Secrets newsletter reported the patch installation failures after tests on Windows XP machines that had been restored by an in-place reinstall. The root of the problem, said the publication, is that seven DLLs from the latest revision to WU -- not just one -- failed to register themselves with XP. Microsoft could not provide an explanation for the discrepancy between the claims.

The file cited by Clinton, wups2.dll, is one of the seven fingered by Windows Secrets and part of the so-called stealth update that Microsoft sent to most noncorporate Windows XP and Vista users beginning in July and running through this month. The update was delivered and installed without prior notification, even when the PC's owner had told the operating system not to download or install updates without notification and permission.

Computerworld on Thursday confirmed through testing that the WU update silent update -- tagged as 7.0.600.381 -- blocks 80 patches and hot fixes from installing on a just-repaired system restored with a retail version of Windows XP SP2. After executing a batch file recommended by Windows Secrets, the batch file registered each of the seven suspect DLLs. The updates could be installed, however.

Clinton said the problem would be fixed by registering only the wups2.dll file. He also listed the steps users should take, and promised that a document providing more detail would be posted to Microsoft's support database. As of midday Friday, the document, designated KB943144, had not appeared on Microsoft's support site.

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System Center Essentials 2007 Evaluation Edition

2007-09-29T08:24:00.000+05:30

Microsoft System Center Essentials 2007 is a proactive and unified management solution that enables IT professionals in midsize organizations to more efficiently secure, update, monitor and troubleshoot their IT environments.

Essentials 2007 provides:

Proactive monitoring, troubleshooting and asset tracking to keep your IT environment secure and up-to-date
A unified solution with a single console for managing your servers, clients, hardware, software, and IT services
Efficient execution of complex management tasks like troubleshooting end user issues, monitoring, and server and client software deployment

The evaluation edition is valid for 90 days after installation. The Evaluation Edition can be activated to a full product without requiring a full re-installation. Please see the System Center Essentials FAQ for more information.

[ Download ]

Internet Explorer 8.0: The silence is deafening

2007-09-28T23:33:00.000+05:30

How far along is Microsoft with the next version of Internet Explorer (IE) — which might be IE 7.5 or IE 8.0, depending on what Microsoft decided to do since last time we heard anything truly tangible from the IE team (which was about a year ago)?

Posters on Microsoft’s Channel 9 site are asking for an IE update. Among them is Dave Massy — a former Senior Program Manager on the IE team who resigned from Microsoft in February 2007.

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Microsoft Offers Manual Fix to 'Stealth' Windows Update Bug

2007-09-28T21:43:00.000+05:30

It turned out to be an insignificant problem after all, rather than something on the order of a rootkit: the discovery that Microsoft's Windows Update feature updates itself even when users turn off "automatic updates" - a fact that Microsoft had actually documented quite well, but which few had apparently read. But now, a claim that the self-updating update subsequently unregistered Microsoft's Windows Update drivers in XP-based systems forced its own drivers to become unregistered.

The claim comes from Windows Secrets writer Scott Dunn, who wrote the initial article about what he called a "stealth update." After using an XP install disk to roll the operating system back to a previous state, he discovered the system's capability to install updates retrieved from the Internet would fail.

The solution, Dunn discovered, was to re-register the drivers replaced by the self-updating update feature manually, using the regsvr32 utility from the command line.

I experienced similar behavior on two occasions in August, on separate XP-based systems where upgrades to our hard drives triggered failures in our system activation - this on fully-licensed, separately purchased copies of XP Professional SP1. Both times, I found myself rolling back Windows to the original SP1 state, then upgrading Windows Update to "Microsoft Update" - the new version that (supposedly) works well in Firefox. Then I downloaded once again several security rollups and patches, only to find they would not install.

While the discovery gave me headaches, I declined to write a story about it...since, to tell you the truth, if I did stories every time I had something foul up for us in Windows XP, I'd never get anything else published. In any event, with the aid of available MSDN documentation, I was able to solve the problem in about 90 minutes' time, having been inspired to unregister and re-register drivers - which I'd done before in similar circumstances. It worked, and I put away my aspirin bottle.

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Windows Home Server Release Documentation

2007-09-28T21:41:00.000+05:30

This document contains late-breaking information to help you set up and run Windows Home Server.

It is divided into three sections:

Pre-Installation contains information you need before you install.
Installing contains information about Setup.
Post-Installation lists any issues that affect how the product functions. Information may also be included to correct or enhance performance, reliability, or security.

[ Download ]

Microsoft Likely to Include Free Games Rather Than Drop Price of Xbox 360

2007-09-28T20:51:00.000+05:30

Although manufacturing costs of the Xbox 360 will be cheaper than ever after the switch to the 65nm CPU platform codenamed Falcon, Microsoft will likely stick with its current pricing throughout the rest of the year. But that’s not to say that there won’t be some value added to help entice those on the fence to choose Microsoft’s console.

Briefly spotted on Best Buy’s online store, but now removed, were two pages that listed new bundles that added Forza Motorsport 2 and Marvel: Ultimate Alliance to both the Xbox 360 Elite and Xbox 360 Premium SKUs. Both consoles were listed at their current prices, indicating that the two games were an added value package.

Gaming blog Kotaku uncovered marketing images for both the aforementioned bundles mid-August, and the appearance of such bundles in Best Buy nearly confirms their pending existence on the market.

The packaging shown in the images also matches up with previous information provided by Microsoft’s marketing, which added taglines “Go Pro” to the Xbox 360 Premium system while the Xbox 360 Elite displays “Go Big.”

Bundling games with the Xbox 360 is already standard practice in Canada. Best Buy in Canada is selling Xbox 360 Premium with Forza Motorsport 2 and Amped 3, while Wal-Mart substitutes one winter sport with another by adding in NHL 2K8 with Forza Motorsport 2.

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Microsoft blogger accidentally leaks Office Mobile upgrade

2007-09-28T20:50:00.000+05:30

A Microsoft employee on Thursday accidentally blogged about an upgrade to Office Mobile that shouldn't be available for another couple of weeks. The upgrade, when it becomes available, should solve an incompatibility issue that left Windows Mobile 6.0 users unable to read Office 2007 file formats.

Jason Langridge, who works in Microsoft's Windows Mobile group in the U.K., wrote that Office Mobile 6.1 was available and he included a link to the download page. But a representative with Microsoft's external public relations firm said that the upgrade was put up on the site initially for internal testing and was accidentally made available to the public.

The new version of Office Mobile is expected to become available very soon, probably within the next two weeks, he said.

Vista file copying showdown: RTM vs SP1

2007-09-28T20:48:00.000+05:30

Copying files is the Achilles’ heel of Windows Vista, “calculating time remaining…” the blue screen of death equivalent. If anyone tells you Windows Vista isn’t slow at copying files, then they obviously haven’t downloaded any DVDrips and tried to move it onto another computer. It was anticipated Windows Vista Service Pack 1 would fix this problem amongst other things.

As announced this week, the first beta build of SP1 (6001.16659) has been released on Microsoft Connect. The initial reaction from most tester has been largely positive noting improvements in file operations such as moving, copying and deleting files. However I haven’t seen anyone post any benchmarks or evidence to prove it is indeed faster.

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Microsoft Office Communicator Mobile 2007 Available

2007-09-28T10:12:00.000+05:30

Microsoft Office Communicator Mobile (2007 Release) extends the reach of Office Communications Server 2007 to information workers who use Windows Mobile powered devices.

Communicator Mobile provides presence and communication features that are similar to the desktop version of Microsoft Office Communicator 2007 when users are away from their desks.

[ Download ]

Hidden Vista tools

2007-09-28T10:09:00.000+05:30

As the release manager for Vista, he had overall responsibility during the development period for the success of the ‘Most Secure Windows Ever’ project.

The flexibility of the new operating system is just as important as the security features. In particular, Vista is equipped with far better admin tools than previous versions. Previously, administrators were forced to add tools from Resource Kits, but now Vista comes with a lot of tools already on board, as we’ll explain later.

You can tell just by looking at the increased minimum hardware requirements that there’s a lot more in the new version of Windows. It used to be possible to keep an installation of Windows 95 under 200MB, but Vista requires 40 times more hard disk space. Even in comparison to Windows XP, Vista needs five times more space.

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Microsoft Applications using .NET Framework

2007-09-28T10:07:00.000+05:30

Two of my ISVs were asking about Microsoft applications which use the .NET Framework. When I had a quick look on the web I found a very good but quite old post from Daniel on this area (still very much worth a read)

Code sizes:

Visual Studio 2005: 7.5 million
SQL Server 2005: 3 million lines
BizTalk Server: 2 million lines
Visual Studio Team System: 1.7 million lines
Windows Presentation Foundation: 900K lines
Windows SharePoint Services: 750K lines
Expression Blend: 250K lines
SharePoint Portal Server: 200K lines
Content Management Server: 100K lines
Dynamics SL has 3.4 million Lines
Card Space
Microsoft Business Portal
Dynamics CRM
Microsoft Student 2005 (Encarta 2005) has innovations based on .NET
Office Accounting 2007
Office SharePoint Server 2007
Outlook Calendar Printing Assistant
SQL Reporting Services
Windows Live OneCare
Windows Live toolbar
Windows Live for TV
Windows PowerShell
Windows XP Media Center Edition (eHome is a managed application)
Windows XP Tablet PC Edition (part of the shell is managed)
XPS

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Microsoft extends Windows XP's stay

2007-09-28T10:00:00.000+05:30

Bowing to pressure from customers and computer makers, Microsoft plans to keep Windows XP around a little longer.

Large PC manufacturers were slated to have to stop selling XP after January 31. However, they have successfully lobbied Microsoft to allow them to continue selling PCs with all flavors of Windows XP preloaded until June 30, a further five months. Microsoft also plans to keep XP on retail shelves longer and will allow computer makers in emerging markets to build machines with Windows XP Starter Edition until June 2010.

The move indicates the continued demand for the older operating system, some nine months after Windows Vista hit store shelves.

In recent weeks, several PC makers launched programs that allow new PC buyers to more easily "downgrade" their Vista Business and Vista Ultimate machines to Windows XP. Fujitsu, which was among those lobbying for the change, has started including an XP restore disc in the box with all of its laptops running Vista Business.

Software Licensing and Protection Services 2008 - Code Protector SDK Available

2007-09-28T09:41:00.002+05:30

Microsoft Software Licensing and Protection (SLP) Services Code Protector secures .NET code using an SLP Permutation - which is a customer-specific instance or private permutation of the Secure Virtual Machine (SVM) - that acts as a unique "software CPU".

SLP Code Protector compiles selected .NET function MSIL using the Permutation into SVM Language (SVML) - a private intermediate language that is specific to that particular Permutation. The functions that are transformed to SVML appear like regular MSIL functions in terms of interfaces but are much harder to reverse engineer.

SVML runs on the .NET platform ensuring the highest level of interoperability and code optimization.

[ Download ]

Microsoft Download Center Daily Downloads

2007-09-28T09:41:00.001+05:30

Quite a few new downloads popped up today on the Microsoft Download Center. Here's a list of some of the more noteworthy ones:

Off to a good start - eWeek reviews Viridian CTP

2007-09-28T09:39:00.000+05:30

With availability of Windows Server08 RC0 and the CTP of Windows Server virtualization (aka, Viridian), I've seen the first review/comments on Viridian CTP. eWeek's Jason Brooks posted a review under the title "Hypervisor Showdown: Microsoft vs. VMware." Jason's summary is:

Along with the Release Candidate 0 build of Windows 2008 that Microsoft recently released came the debut public appearance of Microsoft's Windows Hypervisor, once known by the code name Viridian. Based on eWEEK Labs' early tests of the RC0 code, Microsoft's VMware challenger appears to be off to a good start.

Of course Jason's install had some hickups. He had to update the BIOS. For more setup guidelines, see Jeff's post or Robert's post. And Jason installed a Linux guest VM (rPath Mediawiki appliance), and the install "panicked shortly after boot." As Ben points out, the CTP has limited guest support, but I'm interested to hear about SLES, RHEL and Sun guest VMs running within Viridian.

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Windows Home server - Cool "Add-Ins"

2007-09-28T09:35:00.000+05:30

The three finalists presented their Add-In wares to a panel of esteemed judges, who in turn determined the first, second and third prizes…each with an associated award of cold, hard cash. Without further ado, the winners are (drumroll, please):

First prize: Andrew Grant for Whiist. Whiist is a very cool (and free) Add-In that allows users to easily host multiple web pages and photo albums on Windows Home Server. With Whiist it’s a snap to make an Office document – or anything that can publish to HTML – into a web page on your homeserver.com site. Simply drag photos into a website folder, and you can post albums of your favorite pictures to share with friends and family.

Second prize: David Wright for Jungle Disk. Jungle Disk provides inexpensive online backup and storage of Home Server content, using Amazon’s S3 infrastructure. A really nice solution for “personal disaster recovery” and assured protection of your most important content. It will be available for purchase this fall.

Third prize: Prakash Gautam for Community Feeds for Home Server. This free Add-In pulls text, audio or video down to Home Server via RSS, so it’s viewable from an Xbox or any Windows Media Connect device. Very interesting possibilities here for creating personalized media libraries, accessible to the whole family at home or away.

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IIS 7.0 Manager RC0 for Windows XP, 2003 and Windows Vista SP1 Available

2007-09-28T09:34:00.000+05:30

With the release of Windows Server 2008 RC0, in IIS we are also releasing the ability to manage the Web Server, the new FTP Server and the new modules remotely using IIS Manager 7.0.

In the past with previous Beta we shipped similar functionality under a different name, however for the first time this is the real way we will be supporting this remote administration from different Windows versions when Windows Server 2008 final version comes along.

The reason this release in particular is exiting is because for the first time all the UI extensibility is enabled for these platforms making it possible to build your own UI modules, install them in the server and have the clients that connect to your server automatically download the new functionality and use it as it was part of the IIS Manager release.

Another reason this is important for us is because this is the first time we are releasing support for x64 which is something required for customers using Windows Vista 64 bit edition or any other 64 bit version of Windows.

You can download and install them from:

x86: http://www.iis.net/downloads/default.aspx?tabid=34&g=6&i=1524

x64: http://www.iis.net/downloads/default.aspx?tabid=34&i=1525&g=6

This RC0 version will not be able to connect to any other older build of Windows 2008 Server including Beta 3, so if you need to still manage Beta 3 version you will need to install the Beta 3 build of the tool which can safely live side-by-side with the RC0 build.

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Issues installing updates after repairing XP

2007-09-28T09:31:00.000+05:30

We received reports today that some Windows XP customers haven’t been able to install updates from Windows Update/Microsoft Update with the latest version of the Windows Update client. We are only seeing this issue when users have performed a “repair” on their Windows XP installation. I wanted to take a minute and let folks know what we know about this right now and what we’re doing about it.

After getting the reports, we began actively reproducing and investigating the issue. We have identified the root cause and the steps to resolve this issue.

Here’s what we found: when an XP repair CD is used, it replaces all system files (including Windows Update) on your machine with older versions of those files and restores the registry. However, the latest version of Windows Update includes wups2.dll that was not originally present in Windows XP. Therefore, after the repair install of the OS, wups2.dll remains on the system but its registry entries are missing. This mismatch causes updates to fail installation.

If you experience this issue, you can contact customer service using the contact info at http://support.microsoft.com/security. Additionally, a KB article describing the steps to resolve this issue will be available soon. I will update this blog with a link to the KB article when it is available. In the meantime, here are the steps included in the KB:

1. Stop the Automatic Updates service. To do this, follow these steps:

net stop wuauserv
exit

2. Register the file that is used by Windows Update and Microsoft Update. To do this, follow these steps:

regsvr32 %windir%\system32\wups2.dll
Note: for x64 machines regsvr32 %windir%\syswow64\wups2.dll

3. Start the Automatic Updates service. To do this, follow these steps:

net start wuauserv
exit

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SWsoft: Two Kinds Of Virtualization Better Than One

2007-09-27T16:16:00.000+05:30

If one type of server virtualization technology is good, then two must be better. At least that seems to be the thinking over at SWsoft, which is improving its Virtuozzo container-based server virtualization technology while readying the beta release of a new hypervisor-based technology under its Parallels brand, and preparing a unified management approach to both.

SWsoft, a Herndon, Via.-based developer of server virtualization and server automation software, acquired Parallels, which develops software applications that virtualizes desktop PCs and allows Windows applications to run on top of Apple's OS X operating system, over three years ago.

And now is the time to start working the two together, said Curt Daniel, vice president of marketing and alliances at SWsoft.

Installing Windows Server 2003 in a “Viridian” VM

2007-09-27T16:14:00.000+05:30

Earlier this week, I posted instructions on how to install the "Viridian" CTP on Windows Server 2008 RC0. VMs aren’t very useful unless you can install an operating system in them, so I thought that today’s post should center on doing just that. As you may have guessed from the title, today we’re going to talk about installing Windows Server 2003.

Before we begin, you should make sure that you’ve created an external virtual network switch. See yesterday’s post for details on how to do that. You should also have a Windows Server 2003 CD or CD Image (which I’ll refer to as an ISO from now on) handy. Ideally, you’ll have SP2 integrated into the installation media, but if you don’t, we’ll take a trip to Windows Update later on.

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Microsoft Unveils Extenders for Windows Media Center and Internet TV Beta

2007-09-27T16:13:00.000+05:30

Today at DigitalLife, Microsoft Corp. joined initial launch partners in revealing highly anticipated details about new Extenders for Microsoft® Windows Media® Center. These devices, which are expected to be available for purchase this holiday season, will allow easy access to premium cable, high-definition TV, popular video formats including DivX, music, paid movies, photos and more from any TV in the house, with a wired or wireless network connection. People can even pause a recorded show in one room, and then resume it from the same moment in another room.

Microsoft also announced that the Extender technology will be incorporated in HP’s current line of MediaSmart high-definition televisions.

Adding to the wealth of content available on PCs running Windows Media Center in Windows Vista® (available in Windows Vista Home Premium and Ultimate), Microsoft also launched a beta test of Windows Media Center Internet TV, which will offer more than 100 hours of ad-supported entertainment from MSN® Video, including full-length shows, music concerts and movie trailers.

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Microsoft Releases Updated Live Search Engine

2007-09-27T16:10:00.000+05:30

Microsoft Corp. is releasing an update to Live Search (http://www.live.com) centered on improvements to core search technology and deeper advancements in the vertical search areas of entertainment, shopping, local and health. Collectively, these improvements mark a quality milestone based on the company’s focus on delivering a better search experience for consumers and advertisers.

“With this update to Live Search, our engineering focus is on the areas that matter most to our 185 million consumers who use our service every month. We have made dramatic progress in delivering a better search experience to our customers,” said Satya Nadella, corporate vice president of the Search and Advertising Platform Group at Microsoft. “We know what kinds of things consumers are searching for, and we have invested in those key high-interest verticals, including entertainment, shopping, health and local search. With the core platform in place we intend to win customers and earn their loyalty one query at a time.”

The majority of Live Search customer feedback has focused on improving overall search relevance to deliver richer and deeper results and investing in differentiated experiences in high-interest consumer areas such as entertainment, shopping, health and local search.

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Windows Server 2008 Virtualization Product Overview

2007-09-27T16:08:00.000+05:30

Get an early look at Windows Server 2008 virtualization by downloading this product overview. This document provides an overview of Windows Server Virtualization and explores Microsoft's Virtualization Strategy, how it addresses key business needs including server consolidation, business continuity, testing and development, moving toward a dynamic data center and branch office.

[ Download ]

FTP7 for Windows Server 2008 RC0 Available

2007-09-27T16:06:00.000+05:30

Today Microsoft released the newest version of our FTP server for Windows Server 2008 Release Candidate 0 (RC0).

Listed below are the links for the download pages for each of the individual installation packages:

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Microsoft Office Mobile 6.1: Upgrade for Microsoft Office 2007 file formats

2007-09-27T16:05:00.001+05:30

Microsoft Office 2007 introduced new Open XML-based file formats for Office applications. These new file formats reduce file size, improve security and reliability, and enhance integration with external sources.

To allow Windows Mobile users to work with Office documents created in the Open XML formats, Microsoft has developed an upgrade for Word Mobile, Excel Mobile, and PowerPoint Mobile applications. This upgrade to the Office Mobile applications allows viewing and editing of Word documents and Excel workbooks and viewing of PowerPoint slideshows created by using Microsoft Office 2007.

[ Download ]

Windows SDK for Windows Server 2008 RC0 and .NET Framework 3.5 Beta2

2007-09-27T16:03:00.000+05:30

The Windows SDK for Windows Server® 2008 and .NET Framework 3.5 provides the prerelease documentation, samples, header files, libraries, and tools (including C++ compilers) that you need to develop applications to run on Windows Server 2008 Release Candidate 0 and the .NET Framework 3.5 Beta2. To build and run .NET Framework applications, you must have the corresponding version of the .NET Framework installed. See System Requirements on this page for more details.

This SDK is compatible with the RTM release of Visual Studio® 2005 Service Pack 1, including Visual Studio Express Editions, which are available free of charge. Prerelease editions of the next version of Visual Studio are available from Visual Studio 2008 Beta2 and can also be used with this SDK.

[ Download ]

TV Toolbox beta 3 now available for download

2007-09-27T16:02:00.000+05:30

A new beta version of TV Toolbox for Windows Vista Media Center has been released recently on the MCEDev.com site. This beta includes bug fixes and functional changes that address issues reported by customers who used the first 2 beta versions. Here are some links to additional information about TV Toolbox:

If you are interested in editing and converting your recorded TV shows to other formats in Windows Vista Media Center, I encourage you to check out TV Toolbox.

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New and Improved Windows Vista Developer Story

2007-09-27T16:00:00.000+05:30

Come and read the new and improved Windows Vista Developer Story. The developer story used to include only abstracts of each article in the MSDN Library, requiring you to download the documentation file to read the complete content. Now we've published the complete articles in the Library for easier browsing. You can, of course, still download the documentation file.

Come back often to the main Windows Vista Developer Story page on the Windows Vista Developer Center to see what's new.

Enjoy!

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Microsoft: 'Halo 3' nets biggest day in entertaiment history

2007-09-27T15:55:00.001+05:30

Halo 3, the much-anticipated Xbox 360 game that launched Tuesday, set the all-time record for most revenue earned in a single day by any entertainment property, Microsoft said Wednesday.

The company said that Halo 3, the third and final episode in the hugely popular franchise, netted $170 million in sales in the U.S. in its first day. If true, that would top previous records set by the motion pictures Spider Man 3 and Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.

There's little doubt Microsoft has been pinning a great deal of hope on Halo 3 and was expecting it to be the must-have game for the Xbox 360, much as the original Halo was for the original Xbox when it came out in 2001. The theory is that many consumers will buy Xbox 360s to play the new game, though only time will tell if that is true. Microsoft did not release any new figures on immediate Xbox sales.

Judging by initial reviews, the game is being very well received critically, in addition to racking up the big bucks.

According to Microsoft, more than a million players have logged on to Xbox Live to play the multiplayer version of the new game, since it came out and all told, it has garnered more than 1.7 million preorders.

The game sells for $59.99.

Why Microsoft must abandon Vista to save itself

2007-09-27T15:51:00.000+05:30

While Vista was originally touted by Microsoft as the operating system savior we've all been waiting for, it has turned out to be one of the biggest blunders in technology. With a host of issues that are inexcusable and features that are taken from the Mac OS X and Linux playbook, Microsoft has once again lost sight of what we really want.

As we're more than aware, Vista Ultimate comes at a premium. For an additional $160 over the Premium SKU price, Ultimate gives you a complete backup and restore option, BitLocker Drive encryption, the ever so popular Windows Fax & Scan, and the "Ultimate Extras." But what started with a promise of "Extras" by summer, quickly turned into an apology from Microsoft and the eventual release of DreamScene and Windows Hold 'Em (among others) today. And while each of the "Extras" runs just fine, Microsoft's "Extras" blunder is just another reason why the company must abandon Vista before it's too late.

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Inside Microsoft's plan to bring in outside talent

2007-09-27T15:49:00.000+05:30

Before Brian McAndrews agreed to take charge of a crucial piece of Microsoft Corp.'s online advertising business, he insisted on a key condition: that he be granted certain power over the engineering part of the operation.

The new job didn't have to include that authority, but Mr. McAndrews, new to the company, argued that to succeed in his mandate - leading the charge against Google Inc. - he needed it. And in Microsoft's engineering-driven culture, such a team could promise something else for Mr. McAndrews: longevity as a Microsoft executive.

That Microsoft granted his request illustrates a new approach Chief Executive Steve Ballmer is taking as he tries to expand the Redmond, Wash., company into new areas from online music to videogames to Internet advertising. Mr. Ballmer has found he must tap outsiders rather than rely so heavily on homegrown managers as in the past.

How Microsoft fares with Mr. McAndrews will be a test for Mr. Ballmer, who has tried over the years to make the company a more hospitable place for outside talent. Another test will be Don Mattrick, whom Microsoft hired this summer to head its videogame group after a long career as a top executive at game giant Electronic Arts Inc.

Next for Microsoft Xbox: winning casual gamers

2007-09-27T15:44:00.000+05:30

Microsoft Corp has cemented its reputation among hardcore gamers with the launch of alien shoot-out "Halo 3," but it is still struggling to attract the mass market audience that has flocked to Nintendo Co Ltd's Wii console.

Widely expected to be one of the top-selling games of the year after its Tuesday debut, "Halo 3" should help Microsoft sell more of its Xbox 360 gaming machines and finally turn a profit in its entertainment division this fiscal year.

"I think that you will have a lot of people begin to look at the Xbox 360, especially for holiday purchases," said Van Baker, an analyst with market research firm Gartner, citing the strong reviews for "Halo 3," which starts at $60.

Microsoft has said it had 1.7 million advance orders for the game in the United States, but it won't release actual sales figures for a few days.

Microsoft Acknowledges Floating Point Bug in Excel 2007

2007-09-27T15:43:00.000+05:30

It's the type of bug that, when discovered twenty years ago on the world's leading spreadsheets of the time, generated controversy and sent thousands back to their software stores for refunds: Excel 2007 has a bug with the display of floating-point values, a Microsoft developer confirmed on his team's blog yesterday. BetaNews confirmed the bug's existence, which leads to some values in floating-point multiplication to be "rounded" to incorrect values.

The problem appears to be with certain kinds of pairs of values whose product is either 2¹⁶ (65,536) or 2¹⁶ - 1 (65,535). When one or both factors has floating-point precision but is only slightly fractional - meaning, it has perhaps one or two decimal places but is otherwise not "imaginary," to borrow its mathematical meaning - Excel renders the product as 100,000 instead.

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Facebook and Windows Live Spaces

2007-09-27T15:35:00.000+05:30

In all the coverage of Microsoft allegedly pushing for a five percent stake in Facebook, there has been next-to-no mentions of Microsoft’s own social-networking platform, Windows Live Spaces.

Live Spaces, when it launched as a new and improved version of MSN Spaces, already had 112 million monthly unique visitors and stored 4 billion uploaded user-uploaded photos. In 2007, Microsoft says Live Spaces has 115 million monthly unique visitors, more than 2.5 billion page views per month. Microsoft says there are 93 million Live Spaces (not necessarily users) out there.

Comparatively, Facebook has 26.6 million unique users per month and 15.8 billion page views. There are an estimated 40 million registered Facebook users.

Given that Live Spaces looks like a credible Facebook competitor (at least on virtual paper), why has Microsoft seemingly done so little to promote Live Spaces? For one, many of its users are not U.S.-based. For another, Microsoft’s been struggling with how to position its Live Spaces service.

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MSN Video Times Ads Right for Users

2007-09-27T15:34:00.001+05:30

Today, Microsoft Corp. released its latest version of MSN Video, offering consumers and advertisers an enhanced experience by improving the ability to find and discover premium and user-generated video content from the expansive MSN Video library, adding new community sharing features, and introducing a new time-based advertising delivery model.

The new MSN Video makes it easier for viewers to find and discover the breadth of video content from more than 40 leading video content providers, as well as video from across the Web. MSN Video now also integrates Soapbox user-generated videos directly into the same easy-to-use destination, and enables people to search and browse the entire MSN Video catalog while concurrently watching a video in a split-screen format. In addition, MSN Video users are now able to easily create playlists of their favorite videos and share them with friends.

“This latest release of MSN Video will make discovering, watching and sharing video easier and more entertaining than ever before,” said Rob Bennett, general manager, entertainment, video and sports for MSN. “By increasing the discoverability of our deep catalog, making it easier to share videos with friends, and improving the advertising model, we are continuing in our mission to make video an integral part of the MSN experience.”

DreamScenes RTM dated July 19

2007-09-27T15:30:00.000+05:30

The release of the final version of DreamScenes plus the content pack yesterday might not rejuvenate the Ultimate Extras excitement to its former shine, but progress is progress. I think the saying “better late than never” couldn’t be more true on this occasion.

Whilst yesterday was as good as any, could Microsoft have released DreamScenes sooner? A lot sooner? Say, Thursday July 19, 2007?

I hate to play devil’s advocate all the time but sometimes questions, even stupid ones like this, needs to be asked. Especially when tiny pieces of evidence suggests otherwise.

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Microsoft Baseline Configuration Analyzer

2007-09-26T14:34:00.000+05:30

Microsoft Baseline Configuration Analyzer (MBCA) is a command line tool that will analyze/benchmark a system’s (or environments) configuration with respect to a predefined baseline configuration.

A baseline configuration is basically a best practice model (for a Microsoft product) as defined by the product team and/or domain experts. Baseline configuration models are made available for a few Microsoft server products.

[ Download]

Sharing folders vulnerable to buffer overflow, remote exploitation

2007-09-26T13:33:00.000+05:30

Even though the recent webcam vulnerability in MSN/Windows Live Messenger was only just addressed, another exploitable bug has already surfaced. This time it's a buffer overflow error that affects the Sharing folders feature in Windows Live Messenger 8.1 (and maybe other versions) running on Windows XP.

The safety of the Sharing folder feature got questioned before, but we now have a concrete example of how it can be abused. A Spanish security expert going by the name of Lostmon Lords has discovered that an attacker can cause a Denial-of-Service (DoS) or even execute arbitrary code in Windows Live Messenger 8.1 by means of a specially crafted jpg, wmf, gif, ico or doc-file.

blue screen of deathThe attacker can "Create a sharing folder" for its victim and then put the malformed file into the physical location of that folder on his hard drive (My Computer > My Sharing Folders > victim@hotmail.com). Note that if the attacker would drag & drop the file directly into the Messenger window, his own client would crash. Considering that the victim has accepted the sharing folder, the attacker can simply click the sharing icon to crash Windows Live Messenger, or even Windows XP entirely when the process isn't terminated in time. The victim then needs to delete the sharing folder entirely to cease the exploitation.

The vulnerability was discovered on the 20th of August 2007 and reported to Microsoft on the 23rd. The company responded one day later that it will address the issue in "the next service pack". Although there have been no reports yet of actual exploitation via this method, you should note that in order to protect yourself you should avoid sharing folders with contacts you don't trust.

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Ex-MS security guru dumps Media Center for Linux

2007-09-26T13:30:00.000+05:30

Veteran Microsoft security expert, Jesper Johansson, says he may dump Microsoft's Windows Media Center in favour of Ubuntu-affiliated LinuxMCE after struggling with Redmond's DRM (Digital Rights Management) software.

Johansson -- the ex-senior program manager for security policy at Microsoft who moved to Amazon.com in September last year -- wrote in his blog today that he may drop Windows Media Center for LinuxMCE after experiencing difficulties resolving problems caused by Microsoft's DRM software.

After Johansson's five-year-old child complained that On Demand, a US cable network's on demand video system, was not working through Window's Media Center, he attempted to resolve the problem.

"Upon inspecting the problem I found that the video would turn on, the screen would flicker for a second each of black and the video a few times, and then the Blue Screen of DRM came up. It also wouldn't play any premium channels," he wrote.

Microsoft Office Live eBook on Build a Web site That Sells 1.0

2007-09-26T13:29:00.001+05:30

Get your free downloadable ebook “Build a Web site That Sells” from Microsoft Office Live. This ebook includes tips, techniques, and tools to help you design an effective and engaging Web site, generate more Web site traffic, maximize search engine results, provide a more secure online experience, and much more.

[ Download ]

MSN UK launches redesigned homepage

2007-09-26T13:23:00.000+05:30

After the January Effect we spoke about some months back, all has been quiet on the MSN hompeage front for a while now. Today MSN launched a new homepage design for the UK portal. Featuring a new header with a London Eye logo, it is very similar in appearance to the existing Australian NineMSN portal that was tested in beta form at the start of the year.

The new Wave 11 UK homepage now features a sidebar that contains some basic Windows Live Integration, through which users can access Windows Live Maps and their Hotmail inboxes too once signed in to Live ID. Disappointingly none of the links offer any functionality on the homepage itself though, instead redirecting users to the appropriate pages within the various Windows Live services.

In the sidebar there is also a module promoting the main Windows Live services, with Hotmail, Messenger and Spaces included, along with Live Maps and interestingly Skydrive. While it may seem slightly strange that MSN UK is promoting a service that only offers 500MB storage, Skydrive most likely needs to be scaled over the next month or so before it launches out of beta. The sidebar also adds MSN Weather functionality, with users able to pin the 3 day forecasts for upto 4 locations.

What else does Microsoft have up its document-management sleeve?

2007-09-26T13:22:00.000+05:30

SharePoint Server is Microsoft’s document-management solution. But it sounds like the Softies are planning to add more offerings to their stable of document-management wares, starting later this year.

At a recent presentation in France, Microsoft officials made a passing reference to “S2,” an enterprise-content-management portal that Microsoft plans to launch in the final quarter of this year.

I asked one attendee of that briefing what else Microsoft had to say on S2. He said Microsoft officials didn’t supply any details beyond the codename and the due date. And when I asked Microsoft for more information, officials declined to comment.

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'Halo 3' packaging scratches disks

2007-09-26T13:17:00.000+05:30

Less than 24 hours after die-hard fans finally got their hands on a copy of "Halo 3," blogs brimmed with reports that special limited-edition packaging is scratching the video game disks.

Microsoft Corp., which owns the studio that makes "Halo 3," responded quickly on its Xbox Web site with details for a replacement program. Customers can fill out a form and send in their scratched limited-edition disks for a free exchange through the end of December.

A Microsoft spokesman and a member of the company's outside PR firm did not immediately respond to calls and e-mails from The Associated Press requesting more information.

Microsoft is selling the limited-edition version, which comes in a tin decorated with the "Halo 3" logo, for $70. A regular copy of the game costs $60, and a "legendary" version, which comes with a replica of the helmet worn by game protagonist Master Chief, costs $130.

Richard Mitchell, the lead writer of the Xbox 360 Fanboy blog, said one of the disks that came in his limited-edition set is scratched but the damage didn't seem to interfere with playback.

The AP received several review copies of "Halo 3" in limited-edition tins. Both the game disk and an "essentials" disk had come loose from plastic housing designed to keep them in place. The game disk had been scratched but seemed to work fine.

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Windows DreamScene released!

2007-09-26T13:14:00.000+05:30

I wrote about The Ultimate Team’s intention to ship the remaining promised Ultimate Extras (DreamScene and the remaining Language Packs) by the end of the summer. Unfortunately summer never really came to Seattle this year—so we missed our cue. That being said, we are pleased to announce that Windows DreamScene is now available.

As most of you already know, Windows DreamScene transforms your desktop from a static wallpaper image into a full-motion video. In conjunction with Stardock, we’re pleased to also offer a number of cool, new animated DreamScene desktops, including “Aurora”. Additionally, you can use your own videos as DreamScene desktops or visit Stardock’s Dream.WinCustomize.com website to download Stardock’s DeskScapes (an add-on to DreamScene) as well as a collection of fabulous content created by Stardock and members of the Ultimate community.

While we are excited about shipping DreamScene, the remaining 19 language packs are, unfortunately, not yet ready for release. Recently we realized that Ultimate customers who tried to install the language packs that shipped earlier this year were experiencing an unacceptably high number of failures during installation. We continue to make delivering the highest quality, most secure Extras our top priority, and we will not ship any Extra until it is absolutely ready. We know this is disappointing, and again we apologize, but we are working hard to ensure that all of the remaining language packs will be ready for release by the end of October.

On a different topic, as the broad beta for Windows Vista SP1 nears, people have noticed that the screen which welcomes customers to Windows Ultimate Extras has changed. Our intent in making this change was simply to broaden the definition in anticipation of a broader range of Ultimate Extras being available in the future—that do not necessarily map to the original, narrow definition.

While I can understand how community sites and bloggers may have read the new definition and assumed that Microsoft is not shipping any more Extras, in reality the opposite is true. In addition to the remaining Language Packs, we plan to ship a collection of additional Windows Ultimate Extras that we are confident will delight our passionate Windows Vista Ultimate customers. We will shed more light on these plans once the Language Packs are finally dislodged from our delivery pipeline!

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Seagate: Vista OS requires 250GB to 1TB of storage

2007-09-26T13:12:00.000+05:30

Looking to change computer storage from a commodity to competitive differentiator, hard drive manufacturer Seagate Technology LLC launched a new set of tools today to help its channel partners change the way they take storage to market.

The vendor sees an increasing demand for storage driven primarily by two trends: the increased storage demands of the Windows Vista operating system and the advent of the digital pack rat, who stores ever-increasing amounts of songs, pictures and videos.

Consequently says Pete Steege, Seagate's senior marketing manager, storage is playing an increasingly larger role for system builders.

"We're seeing a couple of trends in the market adding up to real opportunity for solution providers that we're taking advantage of," said Steege.

The hard drive has gone from an afterthought, says Steege, to the heart of the machine. Calling Vista the "poster child for storage" he says users need 250GB to 1TB of storage to fully leverage the operating system. And with the need for backup, that becomes 500GB to 2TB. Seagate's offering in this higher-end space is the Barracuda 7200.11, its new 1TB drive.

New Updates Available for Vista, XP, Server 2003 (Updated)

2007-09-26T13:09:00.000+05:30

Microsoft have released a few updates on the Microsoft Download Center to resolve various issues in Vista, XP, and Server 2003:

Vista (x86):

-KB938126: Install this update to enable new types of Windows Media Center Extenders, such as digital televisions and networked DVD players, to connect to the Windows Media Center PC.
-KB933228: Install this update to resolve an issue where a user may receive a "Page can not be displayed" error message when using Internet Explorer 7 to access a web server configured to use OpenSSL.
-KB939786: Install this update to resolve an issue where the system cannot listen for HTTP traffic when a non-administrator user starts an application.
-KB932385: Install this update to resolve an issue where CGI applications that set multiple instances of a response header in Internet Information Services (IIS) 7.0 do not work as expected.

Vista (x64):

-KB938126: Install this update to enable new types of Windows Media Center Extenders, such as digital televisions and networked DVD players, to connect to the Windows Media Center PC.
-KB933228: Install this update to resolve an issue where a user may receive a "Page can not be displayed" error message when using Internet Explorer 7 to access a web server configured to use OpenSSL.
-KB939786: Install this update to resolve an issue where the system cannot listen for HTTP traffic when a non-administrator user starts an application.
-KB932385: Install this update to resolve an issue where CGI applications that set multiple instances of a response header in Internet Information Services (IIS) 7.0 do not work as expected.

XP (x86):

-KB931678: Install this update to resolve an issue where an access violation may occur when a pop-up window in Internet Explorer 7 is closed on a system running Windows XP with Service Pack 2.

XP (x64):

-KB938680: Install this update to prevent problems which may occur when you use Windows Server 2003 to implement Winsock Direct (WSD) in a fast System Area Network (SAN) environment.

Server 2003 (x86):

-KB940349: Install this update to improve the reliability, scalability, and memory optimization of the Volume Shadow Copy Service (VSS) in Windows Server 2003.
-KB938680: Install this update to prevent problems which may occur when you use Windows Server 2003 to implement Winsock Direct (WSD) in a fast System Area Network (SAN) environment.

Server 2003 (x64):

-KB940349: Install this update to improve the reliability, scalability, and memory optimization of the Volume Shadow Copy Service (VSS) in Windows Server 2003.
-KB938680: Install this update to prevent problems which may occur when you use Windows Server 2003 to implement Winsock Direct (WSD) in a fast System Area Network (SAN) environment.

Server 2003 (IA64):

-KB940349: Install this update to improve the reliability, scalability, and memory optimization of the Volume Shadow Copy Service (VSS) in Windows Server 2003.
-KB938680: Install this update to prevent problems which may occur when you use Windows Server 2003 to implement Winsock Direct (WSD) in a fast System Area Network (SAN) environment.

How to install the Windows Server virtualization role in Windows Server 2008 RC0

2007-09-26T13:04:00.000+05:30

This post walks through how to install the Windows Server virtualization (WSv) role in Windows Server 2008 RC (Release Candidate) 0. As I mentioned in my previous post, WSv is a “preview” – in other words, pre-Beta release.

If you have access of MSDN, Technet or have signed up at Microsoft Connect, you will be able to access the installation media for Windows Server 2008 (note it may take a little while for the builds to propagate). If you want to give WSv a whirl, you must have specific hardware capabilities. Your processor must be 64-bit, have XD/NX (eXecute Disable/No Execute) turned on, and support Intel VT or AMD-V. Further, the BIOS must support these features. It is recommended that even if your hardware does have these capabilities, you upgrade to the latest version of the BIOS.

Although the WSv preview is now generally available, we have a relatively limited hardware support matrix at this time. In other words, even if you have a machine which meets the hardware capabilities above, it is possible we have not tested WSv on that hardware - there always remains the possibility of a BIOS or hardware incompatibility.

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AJAXWorld: MS preps preview of Astoria for Web data services

2007-09-26T13:02:00.000+05:30

Microsoft plans to release the second Community Technology Preview (CTP) of its Astoria Web data services technology around Christmas and envisions Astoria's use in a variety of Web application platforms.

The Astoria project is focused on merging Web technologies and concepts with the Microsoft Data Platform to provide infrastructure for Internet applications. Currently available in a first CTP, Astoria could bolster data access in AJAX (Asynchronous JavaScript), Microsoft Silverlight, and Adobe Flash applications, said David Wright, Microsoft architect evangelist. Astoria also could be used for stateful mashups, he added.

Wright spoke about Astoria at the AJAXWorld conference in Santa Clara, Calif., on Monday. Astoria is intended to build what Microsoft calls cloud data services.

Windows Home Server update coming Tuesday

2007-09-25T16:52:00.000+05:30

Microsoft said Monday that it has finished a planned update to its Windows Home Server software, paving the way for Hewlett-Packard to finish its product based on the new operating system.

HP, which had expected to be one of the first to offer a home server based on Microsoft's software, earlier said that it would wait for this update before releasing its MediaSmart Server. The changes are designed to improve the products "usability and out-of box experience," Microsoft said.

The software update is also being made available to other Windows Home Server customers via Windows Update. More details on the software are available on Microsoft's Windows Home Server blog.

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Windows Live FolderShare Beta

2007-09-25T12:29:00.000+05:30

Windows Live FolderShare is a great, easy way to keep your files synced between multiple devices. With FolderShare, you create a private peer-to-peer network that syncs your files and lets you share them with colleges and friends. You no longer need to worry whether your files, photos, or videos are on your home PC, your laptop, or your work computer. FolderShare keeps them all in sync, letting you access them from any computer set up with FolderShare or any web browser - even the browser on your mobile device! Files can be up to 2 GB in size, there are no limits on the quantity or size of files transferred, and all file formats are supported.

The software's sharing feature is an easy way to send others large files - no more trying to zip files to get them through email, burning to CD/DVD, or uploading to a website. To use FolderShare, you must download and install the FolderShare Satellite - the software that is installed on the device(s) you want to sync or share files with. This software runs in the background and automatically updates your files on the other connected devices. The software, part of Windows Live Services, works on Windows 2000, XP, Vista, or OSX and it's completely free! FolderShare can be downloaded here.

How it works :
FolderShare is a service that allows you to securely keep files synchronized between your devices, share files with friends or colleagues, and remotely download your files from any web browser. FolderShare consists of two components - My FolderShare and the FolderShare Satellite.

My FolderShare: Configure and manage your account from here.

Go to www.foldershare.com from any web browser and login to access your "My FolderShare" page.
From here you can do any of the following:

Setup devices to sync or share with
Invite others (via email address) to share your files
Manage your account - upgrade your subscription, change your email address or password
Get help
Download the latest software

FolderShare Satellite: The software you need to install on the device(s) you want to sync or share files with.

The FolderShare Satellite will run in the background when you are online.
As you update shared or synced files, it will automatically update them on the other devices connected.

Though its an service acquired by Microsoft long time back, but now it is under Windows Live Services. Let us see how its promoted for its better use.

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A Warning About the Windows Vista SP1 Beta Standalone Installer

2007-09-25T12:26:00.000+05:30

Robert McLaws: By now you're aware that the Windows Vista SP1 Beta has been released to beta testers for a thorough shakedown. I just wanted to give anyone who still has UAC on a bit of warning. If you right-click the installer and select "Run as Administrator" first, then it won't take nearly as long to extract the files. Otherwise, it takes almost 15 minutes just to fail thrugh the copy the first time, until you finally get the UAC dialog.

Also, be aware that, while it says it can take up to 30 minutes, it's closer to an hour, and it will restart 3 or 4 times in the process (checking the box at the beginning is definitely advised). I've been running SP1 on my main machine for a few hours now, and it seems to be pretty stable. I'll have more on this later.

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Mac Office 2008 prices, packages announced

2007-09-25T12:25:00.000+05:30

Microsoft tonight is announcing pricing for its upcoming Office 2008 for Mac editions, and a purchase promotion to help make up for the product's delay.

The company says it will charge $399.95 for the basic Mac Office 2008 edition, which includes Word, Excel PowerPoint and the Entourage e-mail and scheduling program. The Home and Student Edition will cost $149.95, coming with the same programs but unable to connect to Microsoft's Exchange Server for e-mail.

And Microsoft announced a price of $499.95 for a Mac Special Media Edition version of Office for Mac, which includes the Microsoft Expression Media digital asset management system.

Each of the three prices is 95 cents higher than the price of the comparable version of the current Mac Office 2004.

In addition, Microsoft said it would offer Mac Office 2008 upgrades for the cost of shipping, handling and taxes to people who buy comparable versions of Mac Office 2004 between now and March 15. Mac Office 2008 had originally been scheduled for release by the end of the year, but it was previously delayed until Jan. 15.

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Windows Server 2008 RC0 Now Available

2007-09-25T12:21:00.000+05:30

The following downloads of Server 2008 RC0 just popped up at the Microsoft Download Center:

Note: The download links for the various versions of Server 2008 RC0 contain both the 32-Bit and 64-Bit downloads. The Viridian hypervisor is included in the 64-Bit editions of Server 2008.

Windows Server 2008 RC0 Download Links

2007-09-25T09:18:00.000+05:30

Microsoft has reached another milestone with the initial Release Candidate (RC0) of the highly anticipated Windows Server 2008 operating system, now available for download. Now customers and partners can download and test-drive the latest development version of Windows Server 2008 for themselves.

Sysinternals Updates: ZoomIt v1.7, Process Monitor v1.23, PsExec v1.86

2007-09-25T09:17:00.001+05:30

ZoomIt v1.7: Coming fast on the heels of v1.6, v1.7 of this small and powerful screen zooming and annotation tool adds better straight-line support with auto-snapping and the ability to draw arrows.

Process Monitor v1.23: This update adds a new option, /WaitForIdle, to better support scripted execution. It also adds the /HookRegistry switch for forcing Process Monitor to use Registry hooking on Vista, which enables Process Monitor to see SoftGrid virtual Registry operations.

PsExec v1.86: This update supports launching processes in “nt authority\network service” and “nt authority\local service” accounts.

Build a Windows Vista Home Theater PC

2007-09-25T09:12:00.000+05:30

It's been far too long since I last built a home theater PC that I would want to put into the rack with the rest of my home theater system. Last December's build used Windows Media Center 2005 Edition. Now, Media Center comes integrated into Windows Vista Home Premium and Ultimate Edition.

High-definition playback has evolved since then as well. While the format war between Blu-ray and HD DVD continues without any clear winner, the cost to entry has dropped. A greater variety of over-the-air digital tuners for PCs have become more readily available.

However, this time around I'm going to avoid a "one size fits all" approach. Rather, we'll start with a core set of components, then discuss viable alternatives that can hit different budget points. Let's dive in, shall we?

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Microsoft Passes OpenAjax Alliance Interop Tests

2007-09-25T09:07:00.000+05:30

Microsoft has passed the OpenAjax Alliance's suite of interoperability tests to prove that its software can interoperate with other parts of the OpenAjax ecosystem.

On the eve of the AJAX World Conference and Expo 2007 West taking place Sept. 23-26 in Santa Clara, Calif., Microsoft officials said the Redmond, Wash., company's software passed the OpenAjax InteropFest 1.0 tests and is interoperable with other AJAX (Asynchronous JavaScript and XML) components in the OpenAjax ecosystem through the OpenAjax Hub.

The OpenAjax Hub is a set of standard JavaScript functionalities defined by the OpenAjax Alliance, with strong focus on being small and fast.

Brad Abrams, a project manager for Microsoft's ASP.Net Atlas, wrote in his blog Sept. 23 that Microsoft passed the OpenAjax InteropFest test. Bertand Le Roy, a Microsoft engineer who prepared the Microsoft entry for the OpenAjax test, also blogged about the entry and the testing process itself.

Virgin drops Windows Media-based music download service

2007-09-25T09:06:00.000+05:30

Virgin Group Ltd. will shut down its online music subscription and download service in the U.S. and U.K. next month, leaving one less competitor for Apple Inc.'s iTunes Music Store.

In the U.K., Virgin Digital stopped selling tracks last Friday, and is no longer accepting new customers. As of Friday, only existing customers will be able to access the service, and the site will shut down for good on Oct. 19.

The U.K. version of the site said users with more than one month of outstanding subscriptions will get a refund, but unused credits for song downloads should be used and won't be refunded. U.S. users of Virgin Digital will be able to use their credit on Napster LLC's music download service.

The pending demise of Virgin Digital marks another casualty among online music stores, which have generally received lukewarm reception from consumers with the exception of Apple's market-leading iTunes service.

Windows Vista 3D graphics performance

2007-09-25T09:03:00.000+05:30

A couple of weeks ago, we investigated how ATI's high-end DirectX 10 part is performing comparatively in Windows Vista against Windows XP Professional, and overall we were very much pleased with what we saw, with little in the way of major driver issues or performance problems causing us any trouble under Microsoft's new Operating System. In other words, things were pretty much exactly as they should be.

So, for the final part of our investigation into Windows Vista's 3D graphics performance, we reach NVIDIA's DirectX 10 level boards, and in particular the hugely popular GeForce 8800 GTS 640MB. NVIDIA have been given a rough ride with regard to their Windows Vista driver development from both the media and enthusiasts since the new Operating System launched, but much of this criticism has been answered with a slew of driver releases, claiming to fix vast numbers of bugs. So, with almost eight months under their belts, how are things looking as we enter an autumn packed with more high-profile game titles than you can shake a whole tree at, never mind a stick? Let's find out.

[ Part 4 - NVIDIA (DirectX 10) | Part 3 ATI (DirectX 10) | Part 2 - NVIDIA (DirectX 9) | Part 1 - ATI (DirectX 9) ]

Windows Server 2008 Rc0 Released

2007-09-25T08:56:00.000+05:30

Release Candidate (RC0) for Windows Server 2008 will be available for download within the next 24 hours.

Microsoft are pleased to announce the availability of Windows Server 2008 Release Candidate 0, and with it...the very first public release of Windows Server virtualization (codenamed Viridian).

You can download the bits today as part of our customer technology preview (CTP)program.

Not only does this milestone indicate that Windows Server 2008 is ready to march down the path to RTM....but it also is the first time WsV will be part of the code base and available to everyone. Now is the time for organizations to start testing with key virtuzliation scenarios...such as server consolidation....as well as getting ready for many of the other key features of Windows Server 2008.

With Windows Server virtualization CTP, customers will now be able leverage the scalability of hypervisor-based platform and features, including multi-processor guests, large memory allocation (more than 32 gigabytes per machine) and integrated virtual switch support that enables IT organizations to virtualize most workloads.

In addition to the RC0 news there are a couple of other things going on today that are of interest:

Microsoft and Zend have been working together on a technical collaboration with the PHP community to significantly enhance the reliability and performance of PHP on Windows Server 2003 and Windows Server 2008. As part of this collaboration, the IIS product group has been working on a new component for IIS6 and IIS7 called FastCGI Extension which will enable IIS to much more effectively host PHP applications. You can get the FastCGI extension ( a free download) as part of the Go Live release of Microsoft FastCGI Extension for IIS 5.1/6.0 (FastCGI Extension) from the IIS community site, www.iis.net
Windows Vista SP1 - Windows Vista SP1 beta will be released to approximately 12,000+ private beta testers.

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Vista SP1 Beta release available today

2007-09-25T08:55:00.000+05:30

Today we released the Beta of windows Vista Service Pack 1 (SP1) to a private group of Beta testers via connect.microsoft.com. Brandon over on the Windows Experience blog has installed and regularly uses SP1 on all of his machines (as do I) and discusses the more notable elements of it. We'll review some of the changes made in SP1 later this week on the blog; what’s more, our VP of Product Management, Mike Nash, answers questions about Windows Vista and SP1 in a video on Channel9. Meanwhile, I invite you to read the SP1 white paper we published last month.

We also released today five reliability packages via connect.microsoft.com for testing by selected members of the community. These packages consist of numerous improvements to Windows Vista based on user feedback, and while they will also ultimately be part of SP1, we're working to make them available before the final version of SP1 is released so that your Windows Vista experience is the best we can make it. But for now, they're still undergoing testing and will come your way once they're ready for prime time.

The same goes for SP1: keep your eyes peeled and stick with us here on the blog, as we'll let you know how SP1 is progressing.

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Windows Media Services 2008 for Windows Server 2008 RC0

2007-09-25T08:53:00.000+05:30

This software is an optional supplement to Microsoft Windows Server 2008. In Windows Server 2008 RC0, the Streaming Media Services role (which includes the latest version of Windows Media Services) and remote administration tools are not included in Server Manager. To get the new features and tools available in Windows Media Services for Windows Server 2008 RC0, such as the built-in WMS Cache/Proxy plug-in, you must obtain and run the appropriate Streaming Media Services role installer file on the updated platform.

These Microsoft Update Standalone Package (MSU) files install either 32–bit (x86) or 64–bit (x64) versions (as noted in the file names) of:

Windows Media Services and the rest of the Streaming Media Services role in Server Manager, on “full” installations of Standard, Enterprise, Web, and Datacenter editions of Windows Server 2008 RC0.
The Streaming Media Services Server Core role, on “Server Core” installations of Standard, Enterprise, Web, and Datacenter editions of Windows Server 2008 RC0.
The Windows Media Services snap-in for Microsoft Management Console (MMC) on a computer that is running the Business, Enterprise, or Ultimate edition of the Windows Vista operating system.

[ Download ]

Ready for Windows Vista SP1 Beta?

2007-09-24T15:41:00.000+05:30

With Windows Vista SP1 beta set to be released any time now, here are some points taken from Windows Vista SP1 Beta Whitepaper: Overview of Windows Vista Service Pack1 beta released some days back. So what does Windows Vista SP1 beta contains? What are things to be noted about this release? Check out these so that one can be ready, when Windows Vista SP1 Beta is released, I am putting some of the points here:

One of the main thing to note, “Organizations do not need to wait for SP1 to deploy Windows Vista; they are encouraged to begin their Windows Vista evaluation and deployment now”.

Organizations waiting for Windows Vista SP1 should start their compatibility testing on the gold release of Windows Vista now, and then begin their evaluation and pilot programs on the release candidate of Windows Vista SP1 when it is released. Windows Vista includes architectural changes relative to Windows XP that improve security and reliability. These changes can cause some applications which work on Windows XP not to work on Windows Vista. However, these architectural changes are also part of Windows Vista SP1. For this reason, testing applications on Windows Vista today will be a very good proxy for compatibility with Windows Vista SP1.

In addition to regular Windows Vista updates, application compatibility improvements, and device driver improvements, Windows Vista Service Pack 1 (SP1) is another way Microsoft will deliver improvements to the Windows Vista customer experience.

So one must have already installed the performance and reliability updates 938194 and 938979 that were released recently.

The goal of Windows Vista SP1 is to address key feedback Microsoft Service has received from its customers without regressing application compatibility.

The updates in Windows Vista SP1 fall into three categories:

Quality improvements, including all previously released updates, which address reliability, security, and performance.
Improvements to the administration experience, including BitLocker Drive Encryption (BDE).
Support for emerging hardware and standards, such as an Extensible Firmware Interface (EFI) and an Extended File Allocation Table (exFAT).

Although Windows Vista SP1 does compare favorably to earlier service packs, specific benefits have certain costs:
Deploying Windows Vista Service Pack 1

Windows Vista SP1 will support a number of deployment scenarios and methods, which the upcoming Windows Vista Service Pack 1 Deployment Guide will describe in detail.

Windows Vista SP1 will support the following delivery methods:

Express: Requires an Internet connection but minimizes the size of the download by sending only the changes needed for a specific computer (approximately 50 MB for x86-based operating systems).
Stand-alone: Recommended for computers with limited Internet connectivity and for applying the service pack to multiple computers. The download size is larger than the express package, but customers can apply a single package to any Windows Vista version and language combination (within a platform). Distribution tools like System Center Configuration Manager 2007 use stand-alone packages to deploy Windows Vista SP1.
Slipstream: The slipstream version of Windows Vista SP1 is media that already contains the service pack, which companies can use to deploy the operating system to new computers or to upgrade existing computers. Availability will be limited. Microsoft will update Windows Vista retail media with Windows Vista SP1 slipstream media in the future. Slipstream media will also be available to Volume Licensing customers.

So these are some of the points to be noted for being ready, when Vista SP1 beta is released. This article is taken from here.

For complete details , please check the Windows Vista SP1 Beta Whitepaper: Overview of Windows Vista Service Pack1 beta

Finishing the fight: Halo 3 Reviewed

2007-09-24T15:38:00.000+05:30

After a three-year wait and the birth of a brand new console generation, Halo 3 is set to hit stores on September 25. Halo 3 marks the final part of a long-standing tradition for Microsoft's gaming platform. What started as an unassuming title for Macs has gone on to spawn not only one of the most successful franchises in all of gaming, but a generation of gamers raised by the unassuming but ever-vigilant John 117, Master Chief. Halo is Microsoft's Mario: an icon of and a benchmark for the system itself. It has become Microsoft's image in the gaming industry.

Halo 3 is a huge, feature-heavy game. For your $60, you're getting a solid story campaign that can be experienced alone or with up to four friends locally or over Xbox Live, a refined competitive multiplayer experience complete with tons of new features, a special mode called "Forge" which rewards creativity as much as carnage, and a comprehensive video editing and sharing system. It's the kind of title that will make you question how other developers can get away with the criminally underdeveloped and under-featured titles that go for the same price.

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