ars technica

Week in gaming: Ubisoft DRM, PlayStation Move, and God of War IIIThose playing Assassin's Creed 2 on the PC got a rude reminder of DRM's pitfalls when the servers that authenticate the game went down. Many complained on the company's official forum, and tempers ran hot.At GDC, Sony showed off its new PlayStation Move controller, along with a number of games. The audience response was positive, but the demos shown seemed both inspired and informed by what the Wii has done before. We got a quick hands-on with the controller followed by a bit more time playing SOCOM 4 with it. Read the comments on this post
» 13 Mar 2010, 7:00 am

Valve's Gabe Newell shares his thoughts on DRMAt this year's Game Developer's Choice Awards, Vavle's Gabe Newell won the Pioneer Award, and he used the opportunity to share a slide show with the crowd of developers, press, and business people. His message? DRM is not good for business. He spoke about DRM adding negative worth to products, and his remarks were greeted by loud and enthusiastic applause. "One thing that you hear [Valve] talk a lot about is entertainment as a service, it's an attitude that says 'what have I done for my customers today?'" he said. "It informs all the decisions we make, and once you get into that mindset it helps you avoid things like some of the Digital Rights Management problems that actually make your entertainment products worth less by wrapping thos
» 12 Mar 2010, 3:30 pm

Surprise: iPhone app use heaviest at night and on weekendsApple has made inroads into the professional market with the iPhone—the company has noted that some Fortune 500 companies have deployed them alongside or even replacing BlackBerrys. Despite this, analysis of app usage suggests that it remains a mostly personal device. Mobile analytic firm Localytics examined logs of use of third-party apps and found that app use during the week typically begins to ramp up around 5am and slowly increases to a peak around 9pm. Weekdays also tend to have a little bump in use right around lunch time. On weekends, however, use starts picking up around 6am, reaching a steady peak around noon until 11pm. App usage sharply ramps down after 11, but slightly slower than it does on a typical week day. This usage
» 12 Mar 2010, 1:58 pm

Netflix settles privacy lawsuit, ditches $1 million contestNetflix has canceled its $1 million contest aimed at finding a better recommendation engine in the wake of a privacy lawsuit settlement. The company informed its users today via the company blog, noting that it had "reached an understanding" with the Federal Trade Commission, leading it to ditch the Netflix Prize contest. Netflix first announced the contest—actually the sequel to its original contest—in August of 2009. The goal was to crowdsource its active user base to write a more intelligent recommendation engine based on users' past rentals. This is something Netflix already does, of course, but there's always room for improvement; the company wanted to find the Next Big Thing™ by offering $1 million to the person with the best a
» 12 Mar 2010, 1:04 pm

New Zealand relies on BGP router protocol to filter the 'NetNew Zealand's government-run Internet filtering system is now running, and two ISPs are already using the system. Seven thousand websites are on the list, most dealing with child sexual abuse, bestiality, and other illegal content, as classified by the country's official censors (you too can be a censor for a day). Such material has been illegal offline in New Zealand for years, so the expansion of the program to the Internet isn't a big surprise. But will it work? The government runs the filter, but ISP participation remains voluntary. Currently, Maxnet and Watchdog are confirmed to be using the filter, though other ISPs are said to be interested. Maxnet CEO John Hanna explained his company's position to Computerworld New Zealand: "Filte
» 12 Mar 2010, 12:00 pm

China and Google playing game of Chicken over censorshipChinese authorities are pounding their desks over compliance with the law as Google's C-Day approaches. The "C" is for Censorship, of course, which Google plans to lift in China sometime in the near future. The company has been in talks with China ever since the highly publicized hack earlier this year, and although the two may not be in agreement over what to censor, it seems likely that Google will keep at least some of its business in China. "Google has made its case, both publicly and privately," China's Minister of Industry and Information Technology Li Yizhong told the press on Friday when questioned about censorship, according to Reuters. "If you don't respect Chinese laws, you are unfriendly and irresponsible, and the consequences
» 12 Mar 2010, 10:40 am

Science journo quits writing to fight chiropractic libel suitThe UK's libel laws, which place the burden of proof onto those who have published inflammatory statements, have had a chilling effect on journalism in that nation, and have led to a closet industry in "libel tourism." As such, there have been repeated efforts to reform the laws, often led by professional organizations of writers and journalists. A 2008 case, however, brought a new community into the fight: science communicators, drawn in when the British Chiropractic Association sued a journalist for calling some of its medical claims "bogus." Although the legal fight has continued, the journalist in question, Simon Singh, has now been forced to quit his job at The Guardian in order to defend himself. Many of our readers who follow sci
» 12 Mar 2010, 9:23 am

Bed readers rejoice: iPad gains last-minute rotation lockWhen Apple first introduced the iPad in late January, we noted with much disappointment that the device had no way to lock the screen orientation. This is apparently no longer the case, however—according to an updated iPad specs page, there is now a screen-rotation-lock switch on the right-hand side of the device, seemingly replacing the mute switch that was there when the media first played with it. In January, Ars confirmed the lack of a screen-lock option with an Apple representative at the iPad event. At that time, the Apple rep reminded us that individual apps give users the option to lock the screen into portrait or landscape mode (which is already the case on a number of third-party iPhone apps), but that the iPad itself had no u
» 12 Mar 2010, 8:48 am

Firefox 3.6 sees 100M downloads, now pushing notificationsFirefox 3.6—the latest version of the popular open source Web browser—was officially released in January, but there are still many users who have not yet updated. In an effort to increase awareness about the availability of version 3.6, Mozilla announced today that it will start rolling out upgrade notifications to its users through the browser's built-in update system. According to Mozilla's statistics, the new version has already been downloaded over 100 million times since its release in January. That doesn't include the significant number of existing users who have already migrated to 3.6 by using the browser's built-in upgrade system without being prompted to do so. Firefox is arguably one of the most successful open source soft
» 12 Mar 2010, 8:20 am

Five insights into the behaviors of social media usersWe do a decent amount of social media coverage here at Ars, but not everything that happens with Facebook, Twitter, and the like is worth its own story. Sometimes, though, we happen across things that make us say "huh, that's interesting." It turns out there are a lot of things we thought we knew about social media users, but not all of them are true. Here are a few tidbits we gathered that may surprise some of you. Read the comments on this post
» 12 Mar 2010, 7:42 am

New WMAP data can't erase "dark flow"About 18 months ago, we discussed a mysterious "dark flow" that was seen in early releases of the data from the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe data. At that time, we remarked that it was little more than a cosmic curiosity and possibly a statistical blip. New research from the same group, using the more complete five-year data set from the WMAP cosmic microwave background imager and X-ray luminosity data, reveals that the dark flow is still there, and that it runs deeper than previously thought. In a paper published in the March 20th issue of The Astrophysical Journal Letters, the authors report that they have followed the dark flow—which appears to involve matter streaming either into or out of the constellation Centaurus/Hydra—t
» 12 Mar 2010, 7:00 am

Bink.nu

GAL Photos in Exchange 2010 and Outlook 2010Over the years, displaying recipient photographs in the Global Address List (GAL) has been a frequently-requested feature, high on the wish lists of many Exchange folks. Particularly in large organizations or geographically dispersed teams, it's great to be able to put a face to a name for people you've never met or don't frequently have face time with. Employees are commonly photographed when issuing badges/IDs, and many organizations publish the photos on intranets. There have been questions about workarounds or third-party add-ins for Outlook, and you can also find some sample code on MSDN and elsewhere. A few years ago, an IT person wrote ASP code to make employee photos show up on the intranet based on the Employee ID attribute in Act
» 12 Mar 2010, 7:42 am

Active Directory Explorer v1.3Active Directory Explorer (AD Explorer) is an advanced Active Directory (AD) viewer and editor. You can use AD Explorer to easily navigate an AD database, define favorite locations, view object properties and attributes without having to open dialog boxes, edit permissions, view an object's schema, and execute sophisticated searches that you can save and re-execute. AD Explorer also includes the ability to save snapshots of an AD database for off-line viewing and comparisons. When you load a saved snapshot, you can navigate and explorer it as you would a live database. If you have two snapshots of an AD database you can use AD Explorer's comparison functionality to see what objects, attributes and security permissions changed between them.
» 10 Mar 2010, 2:25 pm

Microsoft Forefront Identity Manager 2010 RTMsForefront Identity Manager 2010 (FIM 2010), the next generation release of Identity Lifecycle Manager, delivers an integrated identity management solution with powerful self-service capabilities for Office end-users, rich administrative tools and enhanced automation for IT professionals and .NET and WS-* based extensibility for developers. FIM 2010 provides organizations with unique workflow driven solutions to manage user accounts, passwords, groups and distribution lists as well as certificate-based credentials such as smart cards, using identity-based policies that can span across Windows and heterogeneous environments. Download the latest evaluation software and you're automatically registered to access valuable resources assembled in
» 10 Mar 2010, 2:10 pm

MSN Homepage Launch Begins TodayToday is an exciting milestone for MSN. We are beginning the launch of our new homepage to our customers in the U.S. The new MSN homepage cuts through the clutter with a clean, new design and offers search, news, local and social networking – all in one place. We encourage you to try the new homepage today and learn more about the many cool features. Since the preview of our new homepage began in November, we’ve been very busy gathering over 70,000 pieces of customer feedback and introducing over 30 updates in our quest to deliver the best homepage to stay in the know.     Check it out here: http://www.msn.com/preview.aspx  Source: http://msnblog.msn.com/blogpost.aspx?post=1686726 Send via e-mail | Submit to Digg |
» 9 Mar 2010, 2:14 pm

TechNet Magazine March 2010Editor's Note: TechNet Magazine Readers Speak, We Listen We asked TechNet Magazine readers for their input, and you delivered in spades. Read on to find out what new services we're providing based on reader feedback. by Jeff James Virtualization: Shimming Applications for App-V4.6 Chris Jackson explains how to make your applications compatible with Windows 7 in a virtualized environment using Microsoft Application Virtualization (App-V). by Chris Jackson Tip of the day Get a Free Set of PowerShell Commands for Managing Hyper-V R2 Windows PowerShell doesn’t include this library of functions. But with them, managing Hyper-V directly from the shell is much simpler. Featured Articles Privacy in the Cloud Computing E
» 9 Mar 2010, 7:21 am

Office 2010 Beta Resource Kit Technical Library in Compiled Help formatDownloadable CHM version of Office 2010 Beta Resource Kit content on TechNet. This downloadable CHM is a copy of content in the Office 2010 Beta Resource Kit technical library. The CHM is current as of the date above. For the latest information, see the technical library on the Web. Download At Source Send via e-mail | Submit to Digg | Add to Live Favorites
» 9 Mar 2010, 7:19 am

Infrastructure Planning and Design Guide for Dynamic Data Center—Join the Beta Now!The Solution Accelerator team is working on a new guide: Dynamic Data Center. The design process in the free Infrastructure Planning and Design Guide for Dynamic Data Center allows your organization to strategically plan a Dynamic Data Center infrastructure that is designed for ease of manageability. Key benefits of the guide include: · The infrastructure is designed using best practices to reduce the administrative burden of managing the Dynamic Data Center. · A single set of requirements is tracked throughout the entire design process and then transferred to the appropriate supporting Infrastructure Planning and Design guides. · The infrastructure design of the virtualization hardware and the management software includes dete
» 9 Mar 2010, 7:18 am

Microsoft sends flowers to Internet Explorer 6 funeralIn Seattle, "IE6" was a trending topic on Twitter thanks to a CNN story on Aten Design Group's funeral for Internet Explorer 6. The tongue-in-cheek memorial is happening this evening in Denver. Those mourning the antiquated Web browser, but unable to attend, were asked to send flowers. So, guess who sent flowers…. Microsoft. In the twitpic photo, a funeral guest is showing off the card that arrived with Microsoft's bouquet. It's a little hard to read, so I asked Microsoft to confirm the text. (Microsoft also confirmed it indeed sent the flowers). The card reads: Thanks for the good times IE6, see you all @ MIX when we show a little piece of IE Heaven. The Internet Explorer Team @ Microsoft SeattlePI Send via e-mail | Submit
» 8 Mar 2010, 11:39 am

Windows Essential Business Server (EBS) DiscontinuesMicrosoft announced the decision to streamline their server product portfolio and will discontinue future development of EBS, effective June 30th, 2010. Since the launch of EBS, several changes have occurred that drove our decision to streamline our server product portfolio. First, midsize businesses are rapidly turning to technologies such as management, virtualization and cloud computing as a means to cut costs, improve efficiency, and increase competitiveness. Those capabilities are already available through other offerings, including Windows Server 2008 R2, Microsoft System Center and the Microsoft Business Productivity Online Suite (BPOS). Secondly, Microsoft remains fully committed to small and medium-sized businesses. We recognize
» 7 Mar 2010, 11:27 am

MS COO Kevin Turner: CeBIT KeynoteCeBIT Global Conference Remarks by Microsoft Chief Operating Officer Kevin Turner Hannover, Germany March 4, 2010 Kevin Turner CeBIT Keynote Transcript Send via e-mail | Submit to Digg | Add to Live Favorites
» 4 Mar 2010, 12:05 pm

I-O Data Signs Linux Software Patent Agreement With MicrosoftI-O Data customers will receive patent covenants for their use of devices running Linux and related open source software. Microsoft Corp. and I-O Data Device Inc. have entered into an agreement that will provide I-O Data’s customers with patent coverage for their use of I-O Data’s products running Linux and other related open source software. Specifically, the patent covenants apply to I-O Data’s network-attached storage devices and its routers, which run Linux. Although the details of the agreement have not been disclosed, the parties indicated that Microsoft is being compensated by I-O Data. “We’re pleased to reach this agreement with I-O Data,” said David Kaefer, general manager of Intellectual Property Licensing at Micros
» 4 Mar 2010, 12:01 pm

Ed Bott - Windows Expertise

Man’s best (Facebook) friendI laughed until I cried at the latest Wondermark:
» 12 Mar 2010, 12:20 pm

Who’s looking for a Tablet/multi-touch PC?I’ve got a Dell Latitude XT, purchased in November 2008 that’s looking for a home. Very thin, very light (3.5 pounds). Convertible form factor, with 12-inch 1280×800 screen. Core 2 Duo 1330 CPU, 3GB RAM, 80GB hard drive, Windows 7 Professional, all the latest drivers, very lightly used (I’ve replaced with a Latitude XT2). Under [...]
» 11 Mar 2010, 11:25 am

Daylight Saving Time alertAre you ready to spring forward? In the U.S., at least, Daylight Saving Time begins this weekend. I know because Windows told me so: Gosh, it seems like only yesterday that we were falling back. It’s hard to get used to this earlier start for DST.
» 8 Mar 2010, 1:52 pm

How does IE8 keep tabs isolated?Andy Ziegler, a Program Manager on the IE8 team, just published an interesting post on the IE Blog going into some technical details about how Internet Explorer keeps tabs separate from one another. The subject of tab isolation is fascinating, in a geeky way, and extremely relevant even to non-geeks, for two reasons. First, tab [...]
» 4 Mar 2010, 4:03 pm

Microsoft re-releases update MS10-015Remember last month when some Windows customers complained that their systems were crashing after installing a round of patches from Windows Update? It turned out the problem wasn’t the MS10-015 update after all. Instead, the systems were infected with a nasty piece of malware that was actually the root cause of the crashes. Now, roughly three [...]
» 3 Mar 2010, 2:08 pm

My life as a Windows 7 pirateEver wonder how Windows 7 pirates work? So did I. So I did some research and tried a couple of interesting tools commonly used in the hacking community. The results were eye-opening. Details in my new post at ZDNet: Confessions of a Windows 7 pirate Questions? Comments? Feel free to leave them here if you don’t want to endure [...]
» 3 Mar 2010, 7:28 am

Are you concerned about the latest Windows Activation update?This week, Microsoft’s latest update to its Windows Activation technologies started appearing on Windows 7 machines via Windows Update. I’ve written about it at ZDNet: Does that new Windows Activation update really ‘phone home’? I completely understand why people don’t like activation. It can be a nuisance, although in practice it is a non-issue for most people. [...]
» 26 Feb 2010, 7:09 am

New Media Center update releasedThis just showed up overnight via Windows Update: February 2010 Windows Media Center Cumulative Update for Windows 7 Microsoft has released the February 2010 Cumulative Update for Windows Media Center for Windows 7. This update rollup is intended for computers that are running Windows Media Center on Microsoft Windows 7. Issues that this cumulative update package fixes The February [...]
» 24 Feb 2010, 8:53 am

Become a Windows Search ninja with Advanced Query SyntaxMicrosoft has been evolving Windows Search for a long time, starting with an MSN-based add-on to Windows XP about five years ago. The version in Windows 7 has a whole bunch of surprising (in a good way) and useful stuff under the hood (like a GREP search engine that is able to handle some types [...]
» 12 Feb 2010, 5:16 pm

Have you been a victim of counterfeit software?I’m looking for people who have purchased Windows (or Office or PhotoShop or other high-ticket software packages) online or in a swap meet or retail store and later discovered that the copy they were sold was counterfeit. If that’s you, leave a comment below. Be sure to include a real e-mail address on the form (it [...]
» 11 Feb 2010, 4:13 pm

I’m backDid I forget to mention I would be on vacation for the past two weeks? Oops, sorry about that. Our annual mid-winter trip out of the snow and into the warm tropics was pretty perfectly timed this year, achieving the desired re-energizing. Well, except for the bleariness after a redeye back from Honolulu with a two-hour [...]
» 11 Feb 2010, 10:38 am

eWeek Microsoft Watch

Windows Smartphone Market Share Tumbled After Mobile 6.5 ReleaseOn March 10, analytics company ComScore published its latest statistics on smartphone operating systems in the United States. Its report, which covered the three-month period between October and January, contained some good news for three companies: Research In Motion (makers of the BlackBerry), which rose 1.7 percent to take 43 percent market share; Apple, which rose 0.3 percent for 25.1 percent market share; and Google, which rose 4.3 percent for 7.1 percent of the pie. By contrast, two companies posted miserable figures. Palm fell during that period by 2.1 percent, thudding down to an overall 5.7 percent market share. And Microsoft tumbled 4 percent, dipping from a 19.7 percent market share in October 2009 to 15.7 percent by January. W
» 12 Mar 2010, 11:36 am

Bill Gates No Longer World's Richest Man, Says ForbesBill Gates is no longer the world's richest man, according to the 2010 Forbes list of the world's billionaires. That position now belongs to Carols Slim Helu, who's worth $53.5 billion thanks to owning what seems to be virtually every segment of Mexico's telecommunications infrastructure, not to mention grocery stores and a hefty chunk of The New York Times Company. Gates is now worth $53 billion, up thanks to an uptick in Microsoft shares over the past year. His personal site, The Gates Notes, features a list of "Things I'm Thinking About" that includes "Urgent Need for Help in Haiti" and "Why Vaccines Matter," which makes me think that the former Microsoft CEO isn't exactly crying himself to sleep tonight on a bed of $100 bills over his
» 11 Mar 2010, 1:43 pm

Microsoft's Slow but Steady Bing March ContinuesMicrosoft's Bing search engine continued its story of incremental gains into 2010, according to new data from analytics company ComScore, which said Bing had climbed from 11.3 percent of the U.S. search market in January to 11.5 percent in February. Google also gained slightly during that time period, from 65.4 percent to 65.5 percent, and Yahoo dipped from 17 percent to 16.8 percent. This cute little guy just ate a couple of Yahoo's toes. Extrapolating further on the whole "Bing gains, Yahoo falls" trend, Jefferies & Co. analyst Youssef Squali indicated in a March 10 research note that Bing has enjoyed 350 basis points of growth since June 2009, even as Yahoo declined by 330 basis points since May 2009. I had to look up the actual defini
» 10 Mar 2010, 2:09 pm

Microsoft Technical Fellow Honored with A.M. Turing AwardA Microsoft Research technical fellow, Charles Thacker, was named the winner of the 2009 A.M. Turing Award for his work in designing the Alto, the first modern personal computer. The award comes with a cool $250,000, which Thacker will likely contribute to the University of California, Berkeley, where he earned a bachelor's degree in physics in 1967 and stumbled upon the field of computer engineering.The Alto, developed at Xerox PARC (Palo Alto Research Center) in 1973, incorporated a bitmap display and a graphical user interface (GUI). Although never marketed commercially, the Alto nonetheless became an early computing staple in research labs, and its influence extends to modern PCs. Thacker was also honored for his work in developing the
» 10 Mar 2010, 12:12 pm

Microsoft's Courier Tablet Depends on iPad, HP for SuccessSome additional images and video of Courier, Microsoft's tablet PC that may or may not be the purest vaporware, leaked late last week--Engadget started it off with some nifty photos of what's purported to be the user interface, along with a prediction from an unnamed source that the tablet will launch in either the third or fourth quarter of this year. Other online reports have suggested, through their sources, that a possible release date will be 2011 or even later. If Courier is indeed on a development track, I suppose that Microsoft executives are waiting to see how the tablet PC market fares overall--not only in terms of Apple's iPad, which is due to hit stores on April 3, but also products such as HP's tablet that CEO Steve Ballmer sh
» 8 Mar 2010, 2:11 pm

Opera Debuts Browser Optimized for Windows MobileOpera Software launched the Opera Mini 5 beta for Windows Mobile 5.x and 6.x smartphones March 4. The new browser doesn't need Java, apparently, which makes it optimized for Windows Mobile devices. In addition, the company claims that Opera Mini compresses data traffic by up to 90 percent, which in turn translates into reduced costs in the event that a phone roams or is locked into a pay-per-usage plan. "Windows Mobile deserves a mobile browser that looks better, handles better and delivers better than the default browser," Dag Olav Norem, Opera's vice president of products and evidently not someone to mince words, wrote in a March 4 statement. "We are pleased to offer the world's most popular mobile Web browser as a native Windows Mobile
» 4 Mar 2010, 12:48 pm

Microsoft Shouldn't Think About a Twitter AcquisitionMicrosoft CEO Steve Ballmer left the door open to a possible acquisition of Twitter during an onstage discussion at the Search Marketing Expo (also known as SMX West) in Santa Clara, Calif., March 2. Check out video from the event here, then compare Ballmer in that clip to images of him that I shot at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Vegas back in January: The man really must love that red sweater.Anyway, sartorial issues aside, it was Ballmer's comments on Twitter that started the online community buzzing. "I would hate to not have that partnership," Ballmer said, referring to Bing's incorporation of Twitter feeds. "Whether we need to own the company or not I think is far less clear."Should Microsoft attempt to acquire Twitter?I say
» 3 Mar 2010, 1:50 pm

Microsoft Exec Offers First Look at Windows Phone 7 Series DeviceMicrosoft showed off the prototype for its first Windows Phone 7 Series device, manufactured by LG and featuring a sliding physical keyboard, at The Engadget Show on Feb. 27. The phone apparently includes a 5-megapixel camera with flash, a headphone jack and the requisite three mechanical buttons (Search, Home and Back). This image of the device, which was unveiled by Aaron Woodman, Microsoft's director of Mobile Communications Business for its Consumer Experiences Product Management team, comes from Engadget:My first thought: Droid. But whereas the Motorola Droid was built to be the telecommunications equivalent of a brick, this LG device seems smaller and sleeker. The choice of form factor seems tailor-made to appeal to the broadest possi
» 1 Mar 2010, 10:22 am

Talking Windows Phone 7 Series on Fox NewsOn Feb. 26, I sat down with a group of fellow technology journalists on Clayton Morris' "Gadgets and Games" (Fox News, 3-4 p.m. EST) to talk about a number of topics, including Windows Phone 7 Series. The video is at the link above, and embedded below:Watch the latest news video at video.foxnews.comThe general consensus seems to be that Microsoft is making a very solid attempt in the mobile space with its newest smartphone OS, although the length of time between Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer's unveiling announcement (on Feb. 15, during Barcelona's Mobile World Congress) and the actual release of devices (at some undefined point near the end of the year) could give its competitors something of an advantage in terms of trying to assemble a resp
» 27 Feb 2010, 10:49 am

Microsoft 'Spy Guide' Is Worth a ReadFor a while there, it looked like watchdog site Cryptome was no more, finally sunk by a takedown request from Microsoft after publishing one of the company's internal documents. Now that it's been revived (with the whole e-mail thread between the site's administrators and Microsoft's legal counsel reprinted on its home page), you can take a look at the offending document in question, labeled the "spy guide" by many of my colleagues in the media. Saddled with the hefty title, "Microsoft Online Services Global Criminal Compliance Handbook," and dated March 2008, the document contains information for law enforcement on just what sorts of personal data Microsoft stores as part of its online services. Specific services covered include Microsoft
» 25 Feb 2010, 1:48 pm

Microsoft's Windows Phone 7 Series Could Come in Three FlavorsDuring the Windows Phone 7 Series unveiling on Feb. 15--and afterward, in discussions with Microsoft executives--it became very clear that Microsoft intended to work with its hardware partners to streamline the number of devices running the new smartphone operating system.This seems the logical move, given that an operating system centered on touch screens will work on a more limited number of form factors. Also, as demonstrated by Microsoft's booth at January's Consumer Electronics Show, Windows Mobile runs on enough (wildly) different models of phone to make it a hair-tearing nightmare for any marketing guru attempting to establish a consistent brand "look" in the manner of BlackBerry or Apple. (Google Android is on the verge of experienc
» 24 Feb 2010, 1:34 pm

I Started Something

Metro-inspired apps to come courtesy of SilverlightFans of the “Metro” user experience which made its debut on Windows Phone 7 Series will be pleased to know desktop applications featuring large fonts and simple shapes too are coming soon to a PC and Mac near you. Ahead of the MIX10 event next week, Tim Heuer of the Silverlight team let out a [...]
» 11 Mar 2010, 10:58 pm

Office Web Apps to be updated like, well, a web appAs the release date for the Office 2010 suite trickled out last week without much fanfare, news about its younger sibling, Office Web Apps, was nowhere to be seen. This was rather odd in context of Microsoft’s announcement in the same week that it’s “all in” for cloud computing In a briefing with Microsoft representatives this [...]
» 11 Mar 2010, 7:15 pm

Microsoft’s abandoned “Sputnik” wireless webcamA promotional video shown to Microsoft sales staff has revealed a Microsoft wireless webcam codename “Sputnik” – a nod to the Sputnik 1, the first artificial satellite in space. Unlike its spacefaring counterpart however, it appears this product never quite made it off the ground. Elements of the video including Windows XP, Windows Live Messenger 8 [...]
» 9 Mar 2010, 1:12 am

Microsoft MIX10 “We’re all in” Group Liveblog: mark your calendarsOnce in a while, what happens in Vegas gets liveblogged to the rest of the world. To bring you the thrill and spills of Microsoft’s MIX10 conference next week join Ed Bott, Mary Jo Foley, Kip Kniskern, Benjamin Rubenstein, Paul Thurrott and myself as we’re all in to group liveblog both keynotes where they’re expected [...]
» 8 Mar 2010, 6:23 am

Alternate WP7S start screen concept spottedThe first layer of wrapping on the giftbox that is the Windows Phone 7 Series development platform is being teared down today as Charlie Kindel on the Windows Phone team revealed some ever-slight details on what developers might be able to do on WP7S and how. One detail that caught my eye was a picture attached [...]
» 4 Mar 2010, 6:16 pm

Geosense for Windows: location, location, locationUnless you’ve been living under a rock without any GPS reception, you might have heard of location-based applications. From the fun to the useful, letting software know where you are in the world is a powerful way to make information more relevant, but why should smartphones have all the fun? Half a year ago, Firefox 3.5 [...]
» 28 Feb 2010, 10:38 pm

Windows Phone 7 Series & Classic to co-existWhilst the exciting announcement of Windows Phone 7 Series yesterday raises many questions itself, a lot of existing Windows Phone, specifically Windows Mobile 6.5 users are also left pondering what will happen to the current platform and more importantly the devices we have today. During an interview with Microsoft today, I found out the short [...]
» 16 Feb 2010, 2:18 am

Windows Phone 7 Series promo video[See post to watch Flash video] Here is the Windows Phone 7 Series promotional video which Microsoft showed during their Mobile World Congress 2010 press conference today for your viewing or re-viewing pleasure. In a video clearly positioned against the Apple iPhone, Microsoft insists the industry has “become a sea of sameness and a focus on [...]
» 15 Feb 2010, 2:15 pm

Windows Phone 7 Series to have unified marketplace for apps, games and musicAlthough Microsoft is not talking about third party applications or the marketplace on the Windows Phone 7 Series here this week at Mobile World Congress 2010, a promotional interactive banner at the event is indicating that there will be one unified “Marketplace” for applications, games and music. With the inclusion of music in this marketplace [...]
» 15 Feb 2010, 9:38 am

Windows Phone 7 Series live demonstrationTom Warren and I just got out of a short but sweet private demonstration of Windows Phone 7 Series in a series of dungeon-like rooms here at Mobile World Congress 2010. Suffice to say the Zune HD-like user experience looks even better upfront and personal. Here’s a bunch of closeup photos of the phone, user [...]
» 15 Feb 2010, 9:06 am

James.Random()

Farewell Technet!I'm moving home to a new blog at www.jamessenior.com!  This move also represents a rebrand for both myself and my content but more explained in my first post: Welcome from Microsoft's Social Web Guy! It has been an emotional three years on the TechNet platform and I want to say thank you for all the loyal readers out there that have put up with all my ramblings for long enough.  See you on the other side, and have fun! :-) All the best, James
» 18 May 2009, 8:46 pm

Code using Live Search APIs and win $10kThe Live Search team have just launched a cool competition in partnership with the Gnomedex conference where developers can win $10,000 and other cash prizes that have in impact on the economy or earth’s ecology.  The only caveat is that submitted applications must use Live Search APIs! You can create apps on whatever platform or language you prefer and you can also use any other APIs that you want from other service providers. Why not take this opportunity to check out the other APIs provided by Live Services so you can build them in too! http://dev.live.com IDEA: An app that incorporates search and Messenger would be pretty cool for sharing interesting search results with your friends. More information on the competition here
» 20 Apr 2009, 4:44 pm

Client or the Cloud?Paisano writes a punchy post about the death of desktop apps that I commented on and I wanted to share a bit more insight into where we’re taking the concept of Mesh in order to solve some of the problems that he identified. Whilst the browser is great for some types of apps like collaboration, sharing, broadcasting it’s far from perfect.  The number one problem is speed.  A browser is slow.  Why do you think Google have been trying so hard to speed up their JavaScript engine? No matter how much tweaking they do they’ll always be slower though.  Client apps, i.e. ones that can harness the power of the device they are running on are much quicker, have richer experiences and can do things the browser simply can’t, utilize multi-c
» 10 Apr 2009, 3:47 pm

Brazil rocking Windows 1.01Well their website for their IT Pro/Developer event is anyway! Check it out here!  Way retro! Nice work guys. http://www.puertadeenlace.net/run09/ Oh and check out the Silverlight version of Windows 7 too…
» 24 Mar 2009, 8:55 pm

Announcing the Live Framework Explorer for Visual StudioAt PDC back in October we launched the Live Framework into CTP and with that we provided a cool tool called the Live Framework Resource Model Browser which you could use to explore the data that you stored in the Mesh.  The tool was good but limited.  It was difficult to navigate the data, find what you were looking for and also make changes to the data itself.  Furthermore, it was a separate tool so I had to jump out of Visual Studio to navigate the data in Mesh. We worked with Wygwam to build a cool tool for Visual Studio 2008 that allows you to tap into the Mesh and browse the data in your Live Framework apps.  Here’s what you can do with the Live Framework Explorer: Integrates seamlessly with Visual Studio 2008 Read, Edit,
» 19 Mar 2009, 3:02 pm

Windows Live Messenger Web ToolkitJust announced this at Mix09. Here’s what you need to know.  Here’s where you need to go for more information: http://dev.live.com/messenger
» 18 Mar 2009, 6:34 pm

Live Framework SDK and Tools April CTPWhat is the Live Framework? – see my video on Channel 9 Bit late to the press with this one, but that’s because I’ve been working on some way cool stuff for next week at Mix :-) The Live Framework SDK and Tools April CTP has just been launched!  Not really sure why they launched mid-March and called it an April CTP – but hey, I’m not complaining when you get: All-in-one installer (like a multivitamin – lots of goodness in one capsule) Support for Win7 and IE8 (satisfies even the most demanding dogfooder) Side-by-side installation of Live Framework CTP and Live Mesh Beta (now be a consumer and dev – all at the same time!) Performance Improvements (we’re super slick, just like Win7) and more For the ful
» 14 Mar 2009, 8:36 pm

Live Messenger: our network is your networkI was doing some background reading on Live Messenger today via Wikipedia and it said that the first version of messenger (then MSN Messenger) came out in 1999! wow that seems so long ago, and look how much has changed since then! Above – Messenger then and now. Since then, we’ve had many new versions culminating in the latest, a part of Windows Live Essentials and there have been some very cool features along the way.  It’s crazy to think we had voice call (voip) in 2000 (Skype wasn’t in beta until 2003) and then video calls followed in version 5 in 2002! What’s perhaps more impressive is the back end infrastructure that Live Messenger runs on in the cloud.  With over 320 million users worldwide and being the world’s #1
» 11 Mar 2009, 3:49 pm

LiveWIM using customized sign-in pages for Live IDI blogged last week about the new documentation available for customizing the registration and sigin-in pages for Live ID and we’re already starting to see some examples in the wild. LiveWIM, a site for tracking your whereabouts and letting your friends know, have gone and implemented and the results are pretty cool.  The thing I like, as well as the familiarity of the LiveWIM logo is that I get a list of remembered Live IDs so I don’t have to type in my credentials.  If I’ve actually asked Live ID to remember my password then I can just click the Live ID and it signs me in no hassle – also a cool feature.
» 9 Mar 2009, 11:43 am

Customize Live ID Sign in and Registration experienceOne of the biggest bits of feedback from customers that use Live ID on their website is that the Live ID sign-in and registration experiences should be customizable so that instead of a Windows Live brand and look and feel, the user gets a look and feel consistent with your website so they aren’t confused as to why the brand has changed. Old Sign-in Experience New Sign-in Experience We’ve just launched the ability to customize the sign-in experience so that you can now achieve something that looks like this: New Sign-in Experience Customization Areas You can customize everything in orange: The technical documentation is here: Overview on Customizing the Sign-in Experience  Customizing the Sign-in page
» 6 Mar 2009, 5:34 pm

Imagine a killer Live Services app – win a pass to Mix09This year I’m in the privileged position of being involved in possibly the greatest conference the world has ever seen.  Yes, I’m talking about Mix09 – Microsoft’s annual web conference held at the Venetian in Las Vegas.  This year’s conference is being held 18-20th Match and promises to be a stunning affair with jar dropping keynotes, industry leading speakers and inspiring sessions all set amongst the best place to party! :-) For your chance to win a free pass (worth $1400) to this year’s event all you have to do is: Dream up a killer app that uses services from Live Services and/or Live Framework and record a one minute video of yourself presenting it via Soapbox or YouTube. As part of your pass you get full access to t
» 17 Feb 2009, 5:37 pm

LiveSide

Embed Bing Maps Twitter Maps in your websiteChris Pendleton announced that you can now embed Bing maps Twitter Maps on your site: We've just released an update to the Twitter Maps application in the Bing Maps Application Gallery. NOW, you can embed our Twitter Maps functionality into your own web site. This means you can be cool by having a Bing Map on your web site, blog, favorite social networking site with the Tweets you care about. And, WOW, it’s super easy. Easy eh, let’s give it a go! 1. First off we go to Bing maps and get to the location we want. With MIX10 coming up, let’s go for Los Angeles! 2. Next we load the twitter map app: click Map Apps, then on the Twitter Map App   3. We will want tweets from MIX to turn up so in the search filter we put “MIX” (without
» 13 Mar 2010, 6:46 am

What to expect (and what not to) from MixMix 10 starts on Monday morning (at 9am Pacific Daylight Time (GMT-7), as Daylight Savings Time starts in the US on Sunday March 14), and we’ll be there to liveblog the event (we’ll have a post up on Monday with the live blog embedded).  We want to say right off the top, that while we would love to hear lots of Wave 4 news at Mix, we’re not holding our breath.  This Mix is about Windows Phone and Silverlight 4 and Internet Explorer 9, and Microsoft isn’t about to dilute the message beyond that.  We would love to bring you lots of unexpected Wave 4 news (and we’ll be patrolling the hallways and the back rooms seeing what we can dig up), but if you voted for a Wave 4 beta at Mix, you may be disappointed. So what will we see?  O
» 12 Mar 2010, 10:53 am

No Wave 4 (yet), but a new sign in page, Yay!We’re all chomping at the bit for new Windows Live toys to play with, obviously,  when something as seemingly minor as a new Hotmail sign-in page generates no less than 4 tips (as always we really appreciate it)! Sometime today (our first tip was at 3pm), the Hotmail sign in page was updated, nothing really new in terms of features, but the furniture has been moved around a bit, and things seem a bit snappier: The new page doesn’t feature any of the “single sign-on” features we spotted back in January, but it could very well be in preparation for them.  Of course it could also be that someone in Redmond is as anxious for new bits as us, and couldn’t wait to go live with …something.  Anyway, thanks for the heads up to Julian
» 11 Mar 2010, 11:16 pm

Bing on Motorola Android phonesMotorola announced a global alliance with Microsoft yesterday. They will deploy Bing services on their Android powered devices. This new offering beholds a pre-loaded Bing bookmark on their mobile phone browser and an enhanced search widget with Bing integration. "We believe that consumer choice is one of the most critical components to ensuring a rich and seamless client experience," said Christy Wyatt, corporate vice president of software and services, Motorola Mobile Devices. Search and Maps capabilities through Microsoft will initially be available in China, starting in Q1 2010, through either pre-load or over-the-air updates for devices already in market. Source: engadget
» 11 Mar 2010, 3:42 am

UK TV ad for Bing airsThe first of 3 TV ads for Bing in the UK will air from Wednesday 10th of March across ITV, Channel 4, Five and their portfolio of TV services as well as Sky Media and IDS digital channels including Bravo, Dave, GOLD, Living TV and Good Food.  (Please visit the site to view this media) It is the one mentioned earlier in which a woman appears overwhelmed by information when asking for “directions to Euston Station.” Hat tip to Steve Clayton
» 10 Mar 2010, 8:26 am

New MSN homepage rolling outMicrosoft is rolling out the new MSN homepage to its US users over the next few weeks. The new MSN homepage cuts through the clutter with a clean, new design and offers search, news, local and social networking – all in one place. The team gathered 70,000 pieces of customer feedback was and issued over 30 updates since preview! One of the changes is a touch of blue highlighting the top of the page. The team heard from some MSN loyalists that they missed the traditional blue background, so they experimented with different versions of the design and ended up with this one. Some of the new features on the revamped page are: - TrendWatch Highlights the day’s top trends and movers on Twitter - Hyper-local Tweets which uses Bing to�
» 10 Mar 2010, 2:13 am

Office Web Apps to graduate with Windows Live Wave 4: gives clue to final release date?Today we noticed a tweet coming from our good friend Long Zheng who noted the following: While this is not surprising as Office Web Apps is part of Windows Live SkyDrive (or to be potentially called Windows Live Docs), it does leaves us some speculation as to when the final version of Windows Live Wave 4 will ship. When Office Web Apps was released as technical preview back in September last year, Microsoft announced that the final version of Office Web Apps would be released “in the first half of 2010”. Not only this, but the Office 2010 blog also recently announced that Office 2010 final will become available to businesses on May 12, and to general consumers by June 2010. Given that Office Web Apps is supposed to be released aroun
» 10 Mar 2010, 12:59 am

XNA Game Studio 4.0 unveiled at GDCThe big news for Windows Phone 7 Series is still to come at Mix next week, but today at the Game Developer’s Conference, Microsoft unveiled XNA Game Studio 4.0, part of a comprehensive plan to get app development for Windows Phones on a roll.  New to XNA Game Studio 4.0: Hardware accelerated 3D API’s on Windows Phone 7 Series Visual Studio 2010 integration with our toolset Added buffered audio support to the Audio API’s And much, much more! We admit to not having had much time to play with XNA, but it’s definitely on our list.  You can learn more about XNA at the XNA Creator’s Club site (edit: added link, oops), and once the details of the Visual Studio integration etc. come to life at Mix, you’ll be able to start devel
» 9 Mar 2010, 10:03 am

Bing Earth Day homepage contest, students (US) only!The next Bing homepage contest got announced at NCCE Seattle. This time the Bing team asks students in the United States to submit photos to help celebrate the 40th anniversary of Earth Day. The contest kicks off on March 29 and the winning photo will be displayed on the Bing homepage on Earth Day itself, April 22nd! Not only will the winning photo be displayed on the Bing homepage, there are also prizes for individual winners and their schools: · 1st place: Individuals receive an HP Pavilion desktop and monitor and a “Digital Photo Lab” for their school. · 2nd place: Individuals receive an HP Pavilion desktop and monitor and a “Digital Photo Kit” for their school. · 3rd place: Individuals receive an HP Pavilion
» 9 Mar 2010, 4:41 am

Introducing the new Windows Live Solution Center – now expanded beyond Hotmail supportBack in 2008, Microsoft introduced the Windows Live Solution Center (WLSC), originally intended to focus on problems and solutions specifically for Hotmail. Today upon visiting the website, it seems like Microsoft recently updated Solution Center to support all Windows Live services. Not only this, but Microsoft is making WLSC the “evolution of consumer support for all Windows Live products”. What this means is that Microsoft no longer offers Windows Live email support to its users, and instead the Windows Live support team (those tagged with “Windows Live” or “MSFT” in their username in the Solution Center) will provide 24/7 support to its customers using the forums on Solution Center. Do note that email support is still availa
» 9 Mar 2010, 2:48 am

More Wave 4 screenshots on LiveSino.net, only this time they’re blocked in China!This morning our friend Picturepan2, as he likes to be called, posted a couple more Wave 4 screenshots, which to be honest are pretty much just more of the same (although the Windows Live Photo Gallery image manipulation is starting to look very cool) – we’re getting to the point where screenshots aren’t quite cutting it, we need bits!  Here’s the shots: (still lots of placeholders in the Ribbon, but we could use that “blemish remover”!) What is a bit more interesting, however, is that Picturepan2 is reporting that this post is apparently now blocked in China by the “Great Firewall”.  This seems awfully strange, since LiveSino.net has only been blocked once before (for a post on how to get live.com addresses, and tha
» 8 Mar 2010, 9:51 pm

Microsoft PressPass

Microsoft Wants SXSW Festival Attendees to Play TagAttendees of the South by Southwest (SXSW) music, film and interactive festival can share information with each other – and possibly win a cash prize – by using Microsoft Tag technology.
» 12 Mar 2010, 8:00 am

Study: Remote-Work Programs Benefit Employers TooPolicies, technology and good management are key to making employees successful at home, say experts.
» 11 Mar 2010, 6:00 am

Virtual Senior Center Enhances Lives of Homebound SeniorsMicrosoft, the City of New York, and Selfhelp Community Services use technology to create an interactive experience between homebound seniors and local senior centers.
» 10 Mar 2010, 10:30 am

Microsoft’s Elevate America Initiative Launches in State of CaliforniaCalifornia Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger announces 166,500 technology training vouchers as part of an initiative to prepare people for 21st-century jobs.
» 10 Mar 2010, 10:15 am

Chuck Thacker Attains Computing’s PeakChuck Thacker, a pioneer in computer science and a technical fellow with Microsoft Research, has been named winner of the 2009 A.M. Turing Award, the most prestigious honor in computing.
» 9 Mar 2010, 6:00 am

Technology Skills Training Initiative Aims to Elevate America’s VeteransMicrosoft today launched the Elevate America’s Veterans Initiative to provide technology skills and other resources to veterans and their spouses.
» 8 Mar 2010, 9:00 am

New Tool Creates Arabic Script From Roman Alphabet KeyboardsMicrosoft Maren helps Arabic speakers communicate using a completely different writing system.
» 5 Mar 2010, 6:00 am

Computing, NaturallyChief Research and Strategy Officer Craig Mundie sees technologies converging to transform how humans and computers work together.
» 2 Mar 2010, 12:00 pm

Connected Healthcare on Display at HIMSS10Microsoft and industry partners will showcase solutions that help providers and patients simplify care, integrate vital data and visualize treatment options.
» 1 Mar 2010, 4:00 am

Microsoft Virtualization

RT: Opalis Software Availability and Roadmap NewsLouise Johns blogged about software availability and roadmap news for the Opalis software we acquired in December. Since all of you care about systems management as much as virtualization, I wanted to make sure you saw Louise's post. Here's some excerpts: We have started the process of sending notifications of the grant of Opalis software to all customers who are licensed for SMSE/SMSD. The key licensing contact in your organization will be receiving an email on how you can download the software and start to automate your IT processes. Any SMSE or SMSD customer with active Software Assurance on or after December 10 2009 will receive the Opalis grant. As announced previously, the prices of SMSE/SMSD will go up on July 1, 2010 so purchase or
» 11 Mar 2010, 5:45 pm

Virtualization for Server Workloads: Avanade Case Study, NetApp WhitepaperOur customers often deploy Microsoft server workloads, such as SQL Server, SharePoint and Exchange, on Microsoft Hyper-V and System Center, and want to know how other customers have deployed these workloads and if there are deployment guidelines from specific solution partners that can help optimize for scale and business continuity. A case in point is our customer Avanade. Avanade wanted to reduce their datacenter costs and turned to Microsoft Virtualization, even for their most demanding workloads. Avanade designed a series of tests to evaluate virtualization of SQL Server in production environments. In one test, Avanade was impressed to see Hyper-V support 6,000 Microsoft Dynamics CRM users on the SQL Server 2005 cluster. “We felt extr
» 8 Mar 2010, 3:18 pm

Guest post: Intel discusses iSCSI and 1 million IOPsHi, I'm Jordan Plawner, storage networking product planner from Intel. Today I'm doing a recap of the Intel Server and Ethernet Adapters and Windows 2008 R2 1m iSCSI IOPs announcement and HyperV performance webcast.  The number of comments and ongoing discussions by end users have been impressive.  There were two themes that ran through the blog questions and comments that I want to address. 1st:   What does 1 million IOPs on a single 10GbE port performance mean?  What this performance means is that you do not have to worry about iSCSI performance.  There is no server I/O bottleneck.  If you are going with an iSCSI SAN use the native infrastructure built into the server, OS and adapter.  If you are deciding between iSCSI and FC, k
» 24 Feb 2010, 10:48 pm

Red Hat Enterprise Linux and Hyper-VHyper-V customers are running both SUSE Linux Enterprise Server and Red Hat Enterprise Linux as guests. We have provided Linux integration components for SUSE Linux Enterprise Server, but customers did not have the same level of performance with Red Hat Enterprise Linux as a guest since the IC’s were not supported for RHEL.   We are excited to announce the availability of Linux integration components for Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL 5.2, 5.3, and 5.4) which provides synthetic network and storage drivers enabling RHEL to work with the optimized devices provided by Hyper-V.  We’ve already submitted these drivers to the upstream Linux kernel in July 2009 (read here for more information) and are looking forward to these being integrate
» 23 Feb 2010, 10:08 am

MDOP 2010 Launches, with 64-bit version of App-V 4.6Earlier today we announced important updates for IT pros considering Windows 7 deployment. Specifically, we released Microsoft Desktop Optimization Pack (MDOP) 2010, which includes App-V 4.6, supporting Windows Server 2008 R2 x64 for RDS and Office 2010. The App-V support for Office 2010 means you can do a one-touch deployment and don't have to wait for Office 2010 to deploy Windows 7.   Additionally we released the MED-V 1.0 SP1 Release Candidate, which creates managed virtual machines running previous versions of Windows and Internet Explorer so users can upgrade to Windows 7. The RTM version of MED-V 1.0 service pack 1 will be available in April, but you can start today by downloading the release candidate.   For more information
» 22 Feb 2010, 9:09 pm

RT: Happy Data Privacy Day from System CenterAs many of you are using Hyper-V to host Exchange, SQL and Sharepoint, I'm sure many of you think about backup and recovery of those workloads. If you do, then you'll be interested to read Jason's blog post in honor of Data Privacy Day, which is today if you didn't already have parties planned ;-). Jason's post asks the question "how private is your backup?" and the ways System Center Data Protection Manager 2010 can help. Here's an excerpt: Is your data protected on Tape?   Are the tapes encrypted?   It seems like a simple question, and the process is straightforward.  You check the box that says “Encrypt Tapes”.  But so many folks forget or choose not to.  Sometimes, these kinds of settings are mandated at corporate, but see
» 28 Jan 2010, 10:45 am

SQL Server is a Great Workload to Consolidate on Microsoft VirtualizationYesterday, Vipul Shah, a Senior Product Manager with the Virtualization Team, guest posted on Virtualization Planet about how Windows Server 2008 R2 Hyper-V and System Center is a great platform for running SQL Server consolidated workloads. He pointed to a newly released video by Ted Kummert, Senior Vice President, Microsoft Business Platform Division that outlines how virtualization enables consolidation. This is exciting as we ran some performance tests against a complex stock trading application using a machine with Second Level Address Translation (SLAT) and saw good performance throughout the tests. We recently discussed in the Best Practices for SQL Server Virtualization webcast (click here) and in the SQL Server Consolidation Guid
» 26 Jan 2010, 5:51 am

Hyper-V Network Command Line Tool NVSPBIND Now Available ExternallyHello all,   I’m Paul Despe and I work as a program manager on the Microsoft Hyper-V team.   Until now, Hyper-V administrators using Server Core installs of Windows Server 2008 or Microsoft Hyper-V Server were unable to enable and disable protocol bindings from the parent partition due to the lack of a graphical network control panel only available in full installs of Windows Server.   I'm pleased to announce one of our developers on the Hyper-V team, Keith Mange, recently addressed this gap with the release of his (previously Microsoft internal-only) networking tool NVSPBIND.EXE publicly on. See it here.    This command line tool gives users easier granular control over network items they want enabled for their physical NICs and he
» 25 Jan 2010, 4:51 pm

Guest post: "Setting the Record Straight - 9 Reasons Why Hyper-V is a Great Choice for Enterprises"Hi, my name is Chris Steffen, architect with Kroll Factual Data. You may have read one of my prior guest posts.   Recently, I came across an InformationWeek Analytics Weblog that asserted a bunch of half truths and misinformation about Microsoft’s Hyper-V virtualization solution. Usually, I can just let it go (everyone’s entitled to their own opinion, right?), but in this case, the article was so skewed and so misleading that I felt that I needed to respond.Full disclosure – I am a Microsoft MVP for virtualization and a very happy Microsoft Hyper-V customer. Over the years, I have written about and presented many times on the topic of virtualization in general (including Hyper-V, ESX and Xen), and the benefits my company has expe
» 18 Jan 2010, 1:21 pm

Big news: Microsoft and HP team up to move IT forwardThis morning Microsoft and HP announced a three-year, $250 million agreement to jointly deliver a new infrastructure-to-application model, advance cloud computing and generally reduce the costs and complexities of IT.      The press release, executive videos and other information about the agreement are available here.   This is a big commitment on the part of both companies, representing the industry’s most comprehensive technology stack integration to date.  There are three main components to the agreement:    ·         A shared engineering roadmap to ensure strong integration between hardware and software - both on premises and in the cloud. ·         Joint solutions to optimize and simplify the deployment, ma
» 13 Jan 2010, 8:11 am

Windows Server 2008 R2 Hyper-V iSCSI Performance WebcastMy friend and teammate Jim Schwartz on our Virtualization Solutions Marketing Team has asked me to post this entry about a very exciting webcast coming up, but he can describe it much better than me...   Hi, I’m Jim Schwartz, a director of virtualization solutions marketing with Microsoft in Redmond.   Over the past year we’ve seen more customers moving from basic deployment scenarios like dev/test and consolidation into more advanced deployments that take full advantage of VM mobility for high availability and site recovery.  Deployment of critical business workloads shows how virtualization features like Live Migration are driving IT agility.  Shared storage offers significant benefits for storage consolidation including centra
» 12 Jan 2010, 7:20 pm

MSDN Blogs - Front Page

preMIX: Get together    Wieder in Vegas… die MIX (http://live.visitmix.com) steht vor der Tür. Und da wir in diesem Jahr ein Schubkarre voller Neuigkeit haben, treffen wir uns zu einem preMIX Event im Mandalay Bay.     Man sieht Sebastian Grassl (Expression Marketing) und Oliver Scheer (Mister Silverlight Evangelist, v.l.) den langen Flug noch heute Morgen an… Oliver vielleicht auch noch, dass er 9 Stunden neben mir im Flieger saß :)   Nach ca. 13 Stunden Flug (gefühlte 24 Stunden), mit jet lag und kurzer Nacht sitzen wir nun mit DPE (Developer and Platform Evangelism, meiner Homebase bei Microsoft) Kollegen aus der ganzen Welt und besprechen die anstehenden Neuigkeiten und Erfahrungen des letzen Jahres. Stay tuned, in den nächsten Tag
» 13 Mar 2010, 9:37 am

It's Time To Spring Forward An Hour in the US and Canada: Daylight Saving Time Arrives SundayOMG… what time is it? what time is it? I have a webcast to do… Beth? Paul? Rich? Where's the post on the updates?  Oh, sorry… flashback to 2007. I'm reminded that next time you'll change your clocks for daylight saving time (aka DST) is this Sunday, March 14, 2010, as we will Spring Forward in much of the States and Canada on Sunday at 2:00AM, as noted in more than 3,100 news articles today. I can imagine that a few people at SXSW and Mix10 will remember. This year, DST in much of the US and Canada begins on March 14, several weeks earlier than in years prior to 2007. In 2007, most of the US and Canada "sprang forward" a few weeks earlier than in past years in accordance with the US Department of Energy's Energy Policy Act of 2
» 13 Mar 2010, 8:52 am

Connected Show #26 – The One About The NewsIn this episode Peter and Dmitry run solo to discuss the latest ‘buzz’ around the web, Jon Skeet jokes, marriage and other “developer” topics. Eventually the duo also covers hard news such as CodePlex updates, Visual Studio 2010 RC, Azure Platform updates, Moonlight and much more. CLICK HERE TO LISTEN! Show notes & resources Coming Soon!
» 13 Mar 2010, 8:23 am

Linear Format Version 3Unicode Nearly Plain-Text Encoding of Mathematics, Version 3 (Unicode Technical Note #28) is now posted. The differences between Version 1 and 2 of that paper are largely cosmetic, but there were enough changes in Version 2 to merit a new number. Version 2 is mostly implemented in Microsoft Word 2007, where it is referred to as the “linear format”. Typing the linear format into a Word 2007 math zone results in “formula autobuildup”, that is, automatic conversion to the built-up format of expressions as their syntax becomes unambiguous. The new features added in Version 3 are identified as such. They are mostly implemented in the Microsoft Office 2010 applications Word, PowerPoint, Excel, and OneNote. Typically the new features offer
» 13 Mar 2010, 8:06 am

SmallBasicでプログラミング （３） ファイル操作  Small Basic はゲームやアニメーションといった、ホビー系のプログラミングに特化したプログラミング言語のように見えてしまうことが多いのですが、もちろんファイル操作などの実用的なプログラムを作るための機能を持っています。  今回は、Small Basic を使ってテキストファイル操作をするための方法を紹介します。    Small Basic でファイル操作をする際に使用するクラスは Fileクラスです。  ファイルの読み込みに使用するメソッドとして以下のようなものがあります。  File.ReadContents() ・・・ファイルからその内容をすべて読み込む  File.ReadLine()  �
» 13 Mar 2010, 7:15 am

Thirteen (13) can be a lucky numberOkay, I have been promising to blog about the whole thing about 64-bit versus 32-bit builds of Language Interface Packs for a while now. I figured that means I should actually write a blog about it. This is that blog. Welcome! Now this is hardly a new issue. I first ranted about back in August of 2008 in A serious lack of overlap with 64. That was (at least on a non-Olympic tangent!) about the fact that no Vista LIPs were being released for 64-bit. And how I felt that was a mistake. Now apparently several of the people in the subsidiaries and elsewhere who are the champions, sponsors, or passionately interested parties have made the argument that these principles do not apply to the target market of specific Language Interface Packs. The
» 13 Mar 2010, 7:01 am

Geração de código a partir de um diagrama UML – Paralelismo - IntelliTraceEsta semana me deparei com alguns textos e posts relativos ao novo Visual Studio 2010 e .Net Framework 4.0 que valem a pena divulgar. UML e Geração de código com T4 Já postei aqui sobre a geração de código com o T4. A maior parte das pessoas que acompanha meus posts e comentários sabe que sou adepto da geração de código, seja pelo uso de DSL´s ou ferramentas de geração a partir de templates. Cerca de 60% do código de um aplicativo LOB é relativo a cadastros e creio que toda a parte cadastral é factível de ser gerada automaticamente a partir de um modelo (de banco de dados, uml, dsl ou outro tipo de metadado). Bem, todos sabem que o novo Visual Studio tem UML. Porém, o que poucos sabem é que no novo VS podemos estender
» 13 Mar 2010, 6:56 am

Codeline OrganizationCaveat: this post is not about branches but the content of the trunk and, as consequence, of the branches; look at Visual Studio TFS Branching Guide 2010 for more information about branching. So, what I will write about? On the organization of the various files in a version control system . Some thinks that every project is different, with special requirements, but, as librarians know, not every classification system / taxonomy, scales equally. A clear structure helps the team to know where to put...(read more)
» 13 Mar 2010, 6:15 am

WCF Data Servicesの新機能 – Feed CustomizationWCF Data Servicesの新機能4)Feed Customization をご紹介します。（2/24に実施されたTechDaysセッションのフォローアップも兼ねています） このシリーズは以下の予定で記事を更新しますが、変更になるかもしれませんので、あらかじめご了承ください。 1） WCF Data Servicesの新機能 – 射影 2） WCF Data Servicesの新機能 – カウント 3） WCF Data Servicesの新機能 – Server Driven Paging(SDP) 4） WCF Data Servicesの新機能 – Feed Customization 5） WCF Data Servicesの新機能 – データバインド 6） WCF Data Servicesの新機能 – カスタムプロバイダ 7） Open Data Protocolの実装 – Share Point Server 2010のデータを�
» 13 Mar 2010, 6:14 am

Throttling Policy Fallback LogicThe throttling framework is intended to protect Exchange resources, so if it is going to "fail", it needs to do so in a safe and predictable way. Let's say that Ken Malcolmson is assigned to non-default throttling policy XYZ. Unfortunately, an Active Directory elf climbed into your domain controller and scrambled things around a bit. So, when Exchange Web Services (EWS) (or some other process) tries to load policy XYZ, it fails. Or does it? Actually, if fails along a fallback path. If the non-default policy is corrupt or missing, it will first fall back to the default throttling policy for the organization in question. Aha! What if the default policy is corrupt? Well, then if falls back to a special policy defined in code called the "fallb
» 13 Mar 2010, 6:03 am

WordCamp Ireland 2010Just a quick post as I’ve gotten several e-mails asking for my WordCamp Ireland slides. The slides can be downloaded here: http://www.slideshare.net/martharotter/free-tools-for-wordpress-users-from-microsoft My talk was “Free Tools for WordPress Sites”, and I covered several free tools people can download to help improve their blogs and websites. A fantastic suggestion by my colleague Josh Holmes, who came down to Kilkenny after a staggering 16-day tour of Europe talking to developers, was to do short video clips of each tool.  I realized that the audience was quite broad so not everyone has the same background, and some of the tools are more complex than others. I will try to come back to this, but as I’m in Las Vegas this wee
» 13 Mar 2010, 5:53 am

SuperSite for Windows

Windows 7 Tip of the Week: Full Screen ToggleWhile some users know that they can use the F11 key to toggle full-screen mode in Internet Explorer, many don't realize that the same shortcut key also works in Windows Explorer windows and many other applications.
» 12 Mar 2010, 8:37 am

Making Windows 7 Home Premium the Ultimate OS, Part 4: Disk EncryptionIn Part 4 of this series, I take a look at some add-ons that can replace BitLocker and BitLocker To Go disk encryption.
» 11 Mar 2010, 11:22 am

R.I.P. EBS: On-Premise Servers Not So Essential After AllThis month's unexpected early retirement of Essential Business Server says more about the rise of cloud computing than it does about the complexity and cost of the product.
» 9 Mar 2010, 7:41 am

Mailbag: March 7, 2010In this week's mailbag: Save money on Office 2010 while helping the SuperSite, why there are two Program Files folders in x64 versions of Windows 7, what is the Windows.Old folder, will Windows Media Player 12 ever be ported to XP or Vista, excessive processor usage with Microsoft Security Essentials, and how to remove crapware from a new PC.
» 7 Mar 2010, 8:58 am

Making Windows 7 Home Premium the Ultimate OS, Part 3: Remote AccessIn Part 3 of this series about adding Windows 7 Professional and Ultimate features to Windows 7 Home Premium, I take a look at some add-ons that can replace the Remote Desktop Host remote access utility.
» 6 Mar 2010, 9:51 am

Windows Weekly 146: Google FatigueIn the latest episode of the Windows Weekly podcast, Leo and I discuss the amazing success of Windows 7, Microsoft's controversial initiative to make the Internet safer for everyone, the Office 2010 Technology Guarantee, Google fatigue, Apple's lawsuit against HTC, and more...
» 6 Mar 2010, 6:15 am

Windows 7 Tip of the Week: Computer ManagementComputer Management is a Microsoft Management Console (MMC)-based tool that combines a number of administrative utilities into a single UI. But you have to know it exists before you can use it.
» 5 Mar 2010, 2:37 pm

What I Use: March 2010 UpdateSome minor changes this month, including a new Media Center-based workout station, which includes an Acer AspireRevo netbook-class PC and a LifeFitness X3 Elliptical Cross-Trainer.
» 5 Mar 2010, 11:47 am

Making Windows 7 Home Premium the Ultimate OSIntroducing a new mini-series about turning Windows 7 Home Premium into a more capable product with Windows 7 Professional and Ultimate features. Parts 1 and 2 are now available.
» 4 Mar 2010, 4:33 pm

Windows 7 Deployment: Application CompatibilityAny business that is considering a Windows 7 deployment will have many issues to consider. Key among these issues is application compatibility.
» 2 Mar 2010, 1:15 pm

Mailbag: February 28, 2010In this week's mailbag: Installing and reusing Windows 7 upgrade versions on different PCs, some application compatibility updates for various Windows versions, a free PDF guide to Windows 7 search, questions about upgrading from Windows Home Server to "Vail," clean installing Windows 7 on a new computer, and Minasi Conference 2010.
» 28 Feb 2010, 1:34 pm

Toms Hardware

Inno3D's GeForce GTX 480 Boxed for ShippingThese guys have their bags packed and ready for a March 26 sale date! GeForce - Nvidia - Business - Consumer Goods and Services - Industrial Goods and Services
» 12 Mar 2010, 6:20 pm

HP Spends $40,000,000 to Show You It's AmazingHP wants to be in touch with the young and hip. HP 3000 - Operating Systems - Hardware - Health - IPod
» 12 Mar 2010, 4:40 pm

Portal's GLaDOS Shows New Blue Screen of DeathGLaDOS... Still Alive. Still Alive - Death - Crime and Justice - Death Penalty - Portal
» 12 Mar 2010, 4:00 pm

DRM Damages a Game's Value, Says Valve BossGabe Newell agrees with most PC gamers that nasty DRM makes it a less worthwhile experience. Gabe Newell - Game - Personal computer - Video game - Digital rights management
» 12 Mar 2010, 3:30 pm

Presented By:» 12 Mar 2010, 3:30 pm

New Deus Ex 3: Human Revolution Trailer at GDCBionic upgrades seem to be tossed into the mix along with nanomachines for Deus Ex 3. Deus Ex 3 - Deus Ex - History - Eidos Interactive - Eighteenth Century
» 12 Mar 2010, 3:00 pm

Microsoft Loses Second Word Appeal, Owes $240MMicrosoft has lost its second appeal against a ruling that called for the software giant to fork out nearly a quarter of a billion in damages for patent infringement. Microsoft - Patent infringement - Monopolies and Oligopolies - Economic - Business
» 12 Mar 2010, 2:50 pm

EVGA Shows GeForce GTX 480, 470 Boxes TooCheck out the threads (or cardboard) that the upcoming Nvidia Fermi GPUs will be wearing on retail EVGA boxes when they launch later this month. Nvidia - GeForce - EVGA Corporation - Shopping - Business
» 12 Mar 2010, 2:30 pm

Crysis 2 Gameplay Shown at GDC 2010Crysis 2 just looks awesome. Game Developer Conference - Games - Video game - Crytek - CryEngine 3
» 12 Mar 2010, 1:10 pm

How to Edit Your Comments, and Not Get BannedKidding about banning! Relax! Relax - Organizations - Television - Arts and Entertainment - Comedy
» 12 Mar 2010, 12:20 pm

Presented By:» 12 Mar 2010, 12:20 pm

WannaBeGeek

Windows 7 StarterThere has been a lot of talk recently about Windows 7 Starter, so I thought I’d dive a little deeper into what it means to have this edition of Windows 7 running on a small notebook PC (a.k.a. a netbook) Today, the Starter edition of Windows is designed for entry level PCs and available only in certain regions. We first introduced a “Starter edition” with Windows XP, and did again with Windows Vista. Starter comes with limitations, such as being able to run only 3 concurrent applications on a PC at a time (this excludes background processes such as anti-virus applications, wireless and Bluetooth, and system tools like Explorer and Control Panel). There of course will also be Windows 7 Starter edition, but based on the feedback we
» 30 May 2009, 6:18 pm

Windows 7 Will your old PC run thisIt is well known that Windows 7 is a huge step up from Vista as well as XP. It allows users with computers that could barely run Vista to run 7 much faster and more efficiently. It is relatively safe to say, that Windows 7 will be the first version of Windows, that does not constantly remind you that you need to upgrade your computer. Since the first beta was released a few months ago, I have done around 25-30 installs of Windows 7. On every type of system, from a 3 GHz quad core system, to a 1.3 GHz single core laptop. On every single one of those installs Windows 7 greatly improved performance and reliability. The install we want to highlight here is the 1.3 GHz laptop. Even by today's net book crazy market, this is an under powered
» 24 May 2009, 2:44 am

Windows 7 launch planned for October 15?Three weeks ago, Acer let slip some pretty strong hints about Windows 7's release schedule, saying it would release an all-in-one desktop based on the OS on October 23. Today, Paul Thurrott of the SuperSite for Windows has also revealed a release date while discussing another topic. Thurrott states plainly in his review of the Windows 7 release candidate, You'll be able to get the final version of Windows 7 publicly on October 15, 2009, according to the current schedule. . . . Mark your calendar. That statement leaves room for Microsoft to move things around, although coupled with the Acer slip-up, it certainly makes a mid- to late-October launch sound that much likelier. Microsoft itself hasn't been anywhere near that specific when t
» 20 May 2009, 6:20 am

Office 2010 Has Leaked!The Technical Preview of Office 2010 has officially leaked! WZor.net uploaded a torrent a few hoursago for both the x86 and x64 versions of the new Office suite. Without further ado, I present: Microsoft Office 2010 (x86) AND Microsoft Office 2010 (x64) The x64 torrent doesn't seem to be very active at the moment, but over time, as it gains more seeders, hopefully it will pick up. We were achieving speeds of up to 1000kbps during our download of the x86 version, so the torrent is going strong... That is, until the rest of the world picks up on it... Download quickly! While you eagerly await the end of your download, check out a screenshot gallery from WZor as well (the version pictured in the screenshots is the x64 ver
» 18 May 2009, 5:48 am

Windows 7 Build 7127 Is LiveWindows 7 RC's public availability might have slowed Microsoft down a tad when it comes to the development process of the next iteration of Windows 7, but the Redmond company has rapidly gained back any lost momentum In this context, Windows 7 Build 7127 is already live. Build 7127 is post-Release Candidate, namely from the RTM-branch of the operating system. Microsoft has already confirmed officially that there will be no additional development milestone between the RC and RTM. There will be, however, interim builds, as the company will focus on preparing the platform for general availability. Jon DeVaan, senior vice president, Windows Core Operating System Division, and Steven Sinofsky, senior vice president, Windows and Windows Live En
» 15 May 2009, 6:02 am

Windows 7 (RC) Release Candidate: DownloadWindows 7 is the next version of the Windows client operating system. This version incorporates hundreds of improvements based on your feedback. It works the way you want: it's responsive, reliable, and runs smoothly. It starts and shuts down faster, and is designed to make your battery last longer. Windows 7 RC will expire on June 1, 2010. Starting on March 1, 2010, your PC will begin shutting down every two hours. Windows will notify you two weeks before the bi-hourly shutdowns start. To avoid interruption, you’ll need to install a non-expired version of Windows before March 1, 2010. Both the 32- and 64-bit versions of Windows 7 RC are available in five languages: English, German, Japanese, French, and Spanish. Just choose the version
» 29 Nov 1999, 3:00 pm

Windows 7 - XP Mode and Windows Virtual PCApril 30, 2009 is not only synonymous with the broadening of the Windows 7 Release Candidate testing pool, but also with the delivery of additional features for the RC development milestone. MSDN and TechNet subscribers not only got the fully-fledged Windows 7 RC Build 7100 bits today, but also the Beta builds of Windows XP Mode and Windows Virtual PC. The two releases are designed to work in tandem, in order to provide Windows 7 customers with 100% compatibility with Windows XP-centric applications. What Microsoft is essentially offering is a virtualized XP environment running in Windows Virtual PC. “Windows XP Mode standalone is suitable for small and medium business users, who are able to set their XP applications thems
» 3 May 2009, 5:28 am

Top 10 reasons why you should upgrade to Windows 7With the Windows 7 Release Candidate already leaked to the public, and the the official bits coming May 5, there's been a lot of hype surrounding Windows 7, with generally positive reviews from the community. Windows 7 is everything Vista wasn't... and some of what it should of been. Virtual XP Mode A fast install time, faster boot up, and snappier UI Netbook support Removal of IE 8 and other Windows Components Better driver and program support Updates to programs like Calculator, Paint, and Wordpad Less Bloat Better UAC control New Aero features Problem Steps Recorder Is Windows 7 is shaping up to be the best Windows release yet! ? Full details next page
» 29 Apr 2009, 5:58 am

Windows 7 RC download page goes up early and then goes down againars technica (http://arstechnica.com/microsoft/news/2009/03/windows-7-rc-download-page-goes-up-early-coming-in-may.ars)
» 26 Apr 2009, 5:48 am

Windows 7 RC is Build 7100Sources have informed us that Microsoft has stamped the RC build of Windows 7 last night. The build is 7100 and carries the build tag 7100.0.winmain_win7rc.090421-1700. Windows 7 brings many new features, compatibility improvements and speed improvements over that of Windows Vista. Expect to see an announcement from Microsoft about the RC of Windows 7 on May 5th, with a public release somewhere around the 9th. Source: geeksmack.net
» 24 Apr 2009, 5:29 am

WinBeta

Motorola chooses Microsoft Bing for Android devices in ChinaIn what must be an embarrassing blow to Google, Motorola has chosen Microsoft's Bing as the default search engine on Android phones in China. Android, of course, is the mobile operating system from Google and China represents the world's largest mobile market. Can you imagine the new Windows 7 phones featuring Google search or the iPhone promoting a browser other than Safari? View Full Article: Todd Bishop's Microsoft Blog
»

Microsoft adds XNA Game Studio 4.0 to its Windows Phone 7 arsenalThis week, at the Game Developers Conference (GDC), Microsoft is slated to begin explaining part of its Windows Phone 7 tooling story — specifically how it plans to get more games developed for its new mobile platform. One key to that story is its XNA Game Studio tool suite. This week, the company is sharing more about version 4.0 of that suite and providing attendees of the San Francisco conference with a preview of what’s in it... View Full Article: Mary Jo Foley's Blog
»

Adobe, Microsoft "working closely" on Flash for Win Phone 7Adobe's Mike Chambers late yesterday confirmed that his company is not only developing Flash for Windows Phone 7 but has been deeply involved with Microsoft. The developer notes that Adobe has been "working closely" with Microsoft and plans to integrate Flash 10.1 directly into Internet Explorer Mobile. Chambers doesn't have an estimate of when the plugin would be done... View Full Article: Electronista
»

Does HTML5 Really Beat Flash? The Surprising Results of New TestsWith the impending launch of the Apple iPad, the Cupertino-based company's shunning of Adobe Flash technology has been brought to the forefront of technological discussions. While it was one thing to forgo Flash on a small, mobile device such as the iPhone or iPod Touch, some are questioning whether lack of Flash support is going to be a make-it-or-break it feature for the new slate devices arriving next month - devices which, if you believe Apple CEO Steve Jobs - are "better than netbooks." View Full Article: ReadWriteWeb
»

Ex-Sun chief dishes dirt on Gates, JobsDon't expect Jonathan Schwartz to go quietly. The former CEO of Sun Microsystems has taken to his personal blog, provocatively titled "What I couldn't say...," to dish some industry dirt and tell his side of the story about the demise of Sun. He has already hinted at plans to write a book, and a new post Tuesday suggests a tell-all tome could indeed be in the offing... View Full Article: Computerworld
»

Hard Drives' 2011 Sector Shift May Slow Windows XP UseIt's been (somewhat) common knowledge for a while now that hard drives are slowly transitioning from using 512-byte sectors to using 4KB sectors. (ExtremeTech reported on it in 2005, for example.) But, as a recent BBC story points out, Windows XP users may be in for trouble when what is currently an "advanced format" becomes the standard next year... View Full Article: ExtremeTech
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The Secret Origin of WindowsDavid Worthington: Few people understand Microsoft better than Tandy Trower, who worked at the company from 1981-2009. Trower was the product manager who ultimately shipped Windows 1.0, an endeavor that some advised him was a path toward a ruined career. Four product managers had already tried and failed to ship Windows before him, and he initially thought that he was being assigned an impossible task. In this follow-up to yesterday’s story on the future of Windows, Trower recounts the inside story of his experience in transforming Windows from vaporware into a product that has left an unmistakable imprint on the world, 25 years after it was first released... View Full Article: Technologizer
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Microsoft changes algorithm behind its browser ballotMicrosoft has tweaked the algorithm generating the browser choice screen that it is pushing out to European Union users as a result of the European Commission’s findings in an antitrust case there. Shortly after Microsoft began pushing the browser ballot to Windows users in the EC who have Internet Explorer installed as their default browser (on March 1), various parties began complaining about it... View Full Article: Mary Jo Foley's Blog
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Musings on the future of Microsoft, WindowsIna Fried: Predicting the decline of Microsoft is a favorite sport for some, and indeed, there is plenty of reason to argue that Redmond will struggle as Google and others provide cheaper alternatives to the powerfully profitable combination of Windows and Office. But efforts ranging from Surface to Windows Phone to Project Natal also provide reason to think that Microsoft might yet be able to innovate its way through some of these challenges. The future of the world's largest software maker was the topic of Friday's CNET Reporters' Roundtable, where Robert Scoble and Don Dodge joined Rafe Needleman and me to talk about the challenges facing the company... View Full Article: CNET News
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Microsoft delivers feature-rich SSL-VPNNetwork World: We tested Whale Communications' SSL VPN in 2003 and the product didn't fare very well. Microsoft bought Whale in 2006, jettisoned some of the strange idiosyncrasies of the product, dramatically simplified management, and subsequently integrated several Vista and Windows 7 technologies. The latest version of the product, now called Forefront Unified Access Gateway 2010, offers a great SSL VPN feature set, especially when integrated into an existing Microsoft Windows network and when used to provide staff access to enterprise applications... View Full Article: Network World
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Office 2010 nearly ready; upgrade offer launchedMicrosoft said on Friday that it plans to finalize the code for Office 2010 next month and, as expected, it kicked off a program enabling those who buy Office 2007 in the coming months to get a free upgrade to the new version. In a blog posting, Microsoft said that it will have a business launch for the Office 2010 products on May 12. The company has said it expects the software to be broadly available in June... View Full Article: CNET News
»

Windows Networking

Windows 7 Compatibility Testing (Part 2)This article discusses Microsoft's Application Compatibility Toolkit, and its role in the Windows 7 compatibility testing process.
» 11 Mar 2010, 2:00 am

Group Policy Object Backups (Part 1)The options available for a Group Policy backup to be completed manually.
» 8 Mar 2010, 10:00 pm

Deploying Windows 7 - Part 18: Determining the UUID of a ComputerThis series of articles on deploying Windows 7 continues examining how to create a script in order to determine the UUID of a computer.
» 2 Mar 2010, 11:00 pm

Windows 7 Compatibility Testing (Part 1)Demonstrating the need for comprehensive compatibility testing prior to a Windows 7 deployment, discussing also the various tools available to help you do so.
» 1 Mar 2010, 10:00 pm

10 Core Concepts that Every Windows Network Admin Must KnowThe 10 core concepts that every Windows network admin must know. These are the things that you not only need to know in your day to day job as a Windows Network Admin but for anyone who is interviewing as a network admin.
» 24 Feb 2010, 11:00 pm

DameWare NT Utilities - Voted WindowsNetworking.com Readers' Choice Award Winner - Remote ControlDameWare NT Utilities was selected the winner in the Remote Control category of the WindowsNetworking.com Readers' Choice Awards. VNC Enterprise Edition and Radmin 3 Remote Control Software were runner-up and second runner-up respectively.
» 24 Feb 2010, 12:00 am

Deploying Windows 7 - Part 17: Deploying Applications Based on Make and ModelHow to use the MDT database to deploy Windows 7 together with Microsoft Office 2007 based on the make and model of your target computers.
» 22 Feb 2010, 11:00 pm

Getting to Know the Windows Server 2008 R2 Name Resolution Policy Table (NRPT)Taking a look at the Name Resolution Policy Table (NRPT) in Windows Server 2008 R2.
» 17 Feb 2010, 10:00 pm

Windows Vista Team Blog

Getting a reputation: How SmartScreen looks at URLsI'd like to talk a bit about how we determine the reputation of different URLs and IPs and use this to protect against spam, phishing, and other abuse in Internet Explorer and Windows Live Hotmail. Let's start with a bit of background. When an abuser–a spammer, phisher, or malware distributer–attacks someone, they have to do two things. First, they deliver a communication (often a spam e-mail), that entices the victim. Second, they "seal the deal" by actually selling the product, stealing the personal information, or installing the malware. (The second part is sometimes referred to as "collecting the conversion.") Dick Craddock and I have talked about some of the steps we take to block abusers' initial communications in previous posts (
» 12 Mar 2010, 6:17 am

Develop for WindowsAs developers evolve, so do their applications. And, we are evolving with them. To-date, Windows 7 has sold a record-breaking 90 million licenses making it the fastest selling operating system in history. This creates an awesome opportunity for developers to create some stunning software applications for a vast audience. We’re recognizing that there is an ongoing trend today with developers creating applications that bring together the best of the Web with the best of the Windows. A great example of this is Seesmic for Windows. Seesmic has adopted the Windows Platform as its delivery mechanism today for bringing Twitter to your Windows PC. For geeks like me, Seesmic provides Seesmic for Windows. And for the more casual user, they have See
» 10 Mar 2010, 5:38 pm

Windows Home Server, HP MediaSmart & TiVo!There has been a lot of excitement over Windows Home Server, Windows Media Center and Zune all working together with Power Pack 3.  But what if you do not currently have a Windows Media Center but instead you have a Tivo?  We were thrilled to learn the other day that HP and TiVo are now working together and have created a new add-in for your Windows Home Server to allow recorded TV content to be stored on your Windows Home Server and shared to all your digital connected devices, MAC, PC or even your TV. All current HP MediaSmart users (EX series only) should be able to add this add-in through the “add software tab” within the Windows Home Server administrative console.   If you would like to learn more, please head over to the HP w
» 10 Mar 2010, 1:41 pm

Piloting Windows 7: Part 4: Installation Options and Collecting FeedbackThis is the fourth and final installment of this series from Jeremy Chapman After user targeting and planning is complete, you can start your Proof of Concept testing and begin building Windows 7 images. There are many ways to build Windows 7 images or standard builds and depending on the tools you have in place, you may want to test a couple of options. For organizations with System Center Configuration Manager 2007, you can use that to create standard Windows builds with complete automation of OS, applications, drivers, data and profile migration, etc. If you won’t have Configuration Manager available for the pilot, you can download the Microsoft Deployment Toolkit (MDT) to create standard builds with similar automation capabilities to
» 9 Mar 2010, 6:54 pm

Denon Announces A/V Receivers Compatible with Windows 7Yesterday, Denon announced that much of their current line of audio and video (A/V) receivers have earned Compatible with Windows 7 logo. The following models have received the logo: AVR-4310CI AVR-3310CI AVR-990 AVR-4810CI (recently released and shown above) ASD-51W ASD-51N Denon has also said that their new A/V receivers, scheduled to be announced in 2010, will also carry the Compatible with Windows 7 logo. As you’re building your stereo system at home or looking to update an existing stereo system, you should definitely consider A/V receivers such as Denon’s models that carry the Compatible with Windows 7 logo. That means these receivers work great and can take advantage of Windows 7. For example if
» 9 Mar 2010, 5:25 pm

New, Modern PCs Can Save Small Businesses Time and MoneyHelping small businesses not just survive but thrive is key to our global economic recovery. Together, small and midsize businesses employ the majority of the world’s workforce and as we all know, will be the key to future job creation. Cutting costs and being more productive are top of mind for all of us, including small business owners who had to hunker down over the past couple of years. As a result, many are now faced with aging hardware that doesn’t meet the demands of today’s business environment. Small business owners are ready for new PCs but are wondering if now is the right time to make that investment. Market research firm Techaisle conducted a survey with 1000 small businesses in the US, UK, China, Brazil and India, fund
» 9 Mar 2010, 12:02 pm

Dell Introduces Vostro 3000 Series Windows PCsDell today, is introducing the Vostro 3000 series of Windows PCs targeting specifically at the Small Business customer. The new thin, lightweight and durable laptop computers feature powerful processors, high-end graphics and built-in security, and are designed for small businesses; helping them stretch their budget and protect their data, and come with dedicated small business services and support to keep a small businesses moving. Vostro 3000 series consists of a 17” model (Vostro 3700), a 15” model (Vostro 3500), a 14” model (Vostro 3400), and a 13” model (Vostro 3300). And they come packing quite a “punch”. The Vostro 3000 series will come with the latest Intel Core processors, including, the optional the quad-core I
» 9 Mar 2010, 10:30 am

Windows Phone Sessions at MIX10MIX is right around the corner, and the Windows Phone 7 Series developer team (@wp7dev) is very excited to be talking about the development platform. This is a guest post by Joey deVilla, Microsoft Developer Evangelist, about our upcoming sessions at MIX. We’d love to see you at MIX, but if you can’t make it, all the sessions will be streamed over at http://live.visitmix.com/ We’ll also have content making it over to Channel9 over the course of next week. Monday, 3/15/2010   Changing Our Game: An Introduction to Windows Phone 7 Series Joe Belfiore Monday, March 15th 11:30 a.m. Major changes are coming to Windows
» 8 Mar 2010, 2:04 pm

Street Fighter IV 50% off via Games on DemandLast Friday I posted about the first of a series of hot deals that will happen at the end of every week this month. Last week it was a hot deal for Batman: Arkham Asylum. This week it’s Street Fighter IV. Starting today and running through to Monday March 8th 5:00pm Redmond time, Street Fighter IV will be available through Games on Demand at 50% off. That’s $19.99 (or 1600 Microsoft Points). Keep checking this page for hot deals for game titles available through Games on Demand. Remember, to take advantage of Games on Demand, you will need the Games for Windows – LIVE client installed. You can download it here.
» 5 Mar 2010, 5:10 pm

Internet Explorer 8 Still the Best at Staying Safe While Browsing the WebBack in August, I wrote a blog post about how Internet Explorer 8 offers the best protection against socially engineered malware threats. This week, NSS Labs released a new study that continues to show Internet Explorer 8 to be the #1 browser in blocking malware! When the first study was revealed, the Internet Explorer Team announced that Internet Explorer 8’s SmartScreen Filter had provided over 80 million blocks of malware. Almost a year after Internet Explorer 8 shipped, Internet Explorer 8’s SmartScreen Filter has provided over 560 million blocks of malware – averaging over 3 million blocks per day! Wow. The SmartScreen Filter uses a special URL Reputation Service (URS) with data centers hosted around the world and has evaluated
» 5 Mar 2010, 4:42 pm

Announcing the Windows Home Server YouTube channelWhenever I’m confused on how to do something and am looking for some help, YouTube is one of the first places I go. Without fail, I can always find some form of video that gives me the answer I need. The Windows Home Server team has also seen the benefits of YouTube, and we thought it would be helpful and fun for our customers if we started making our own videos! Now, with the new creation of our Windows Home Server videos, we have made our very own Windows Home Server channel on YouTube. On the channel, you will find variety of different videos including: Team interviews – learn about Windows Home Server’s team members and how they use the product in their day-to-day lives. Windows Home Server overviews – if you are still learnin
» 5 Mar 2010, 4:37 pm