by Becky Nagel
18 March 2008
Microsoft today announced the availability of Windows Vista SP1 via Windows Update. The company has also posted the upgrade to its download site here.
"Today, you can now download Windows Vista SP1 via Windows Update," Microsoft Product Manager Nick White wrote on the company's Vista blog Tuesday morning. "For those of you eager to receive the benefits of Windows Vista SP1 -- you can now do so!"
The release was not unexpected; text on Amazon.com discovered this weekend implied the download would be available March 18, with the retail product being released March 19, although the mention of the download has since been removed from the shopping site.
Microsoft has released Vista SP1 for five languages: English, Spanish, German, French and Japanese. Updates for other languages are expected to start rolling out in April.
SP1 releases are typical milestones for Microsoft products as many IT shops wait until the first update before deploying. Vista's update comes a little more than a year after its initial release.
According to Microsoft, the SP1 update is designed to improve Vista's reliability and application compatibility, among other changes.
In his post, White also commented on the driver issue that initially delayed the early release of SP1 to IT professionals. "We've completed our analysis and are happy to report that many of these issues were fixed between the release candidate (RC) and the final version," he wrote. "We identified a small number of device drivers that may be problematic after an update from Windows Vista to Windows Vista SP1."
A list of drivers that may still cause problems with the upgrade is available here (scroll down). White also recommends reading Knowledge Base article 948187 before installing the upgrade.
For now, Vista SP1 is an optional download; it will become a forced upgrade starting in "mid-April" on any computers that have Windows Update set to automatic download.
Mass-market interest prompts about-face from original plan to keep touch-screen, tabletop computer commercial.
By Paul McDougall
Feb. 5, 2008
Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer said Monday that the company is looking to create a version of its Surface tabletop computer for consumers.
"We've had more pushback to get a consumer version of the Surface than you can shake a stick at," Ballmer said at a meeting with financial analysts. "We will follow our noses in terms of consumer interest and make a set of investments to try to take some steps toward making Surface a consumer product."
Microsoft last year introduced Surface -- a coffee table-sized computer with a horizontal, 30-inch touch screen -- as a platform that businesses could use to create interactive kiosks and entertainment devices for customers. "We talked about how we were going to bring it to market for commercial customers," Ballmer noted.
But Ballmer said a high level of consumer interest in Surface has prompted the company to invest in creating a mass-market version. He did not provide a timeframe. Surface is expected to be widely available for businesses in the spring.
Some companies in the hospitality industry already are testing the tabletop, which is powered by the Windows Vista operating system and is compatible with numerous Windows applications.
Harrah's Entertainment is contemplating using Surface at its Las Vegas casinos, including Caesars Palace, to create a "virtual concierge" through which guests can reserve concert tickets, view menus at restaurants, or book spa treatments.
Other companies that have show in interest in Surface include Starwood Hotels and Restaurants and T-Mobile USA, according to Microsoft.
While consumers could use Surface as an interactive home appliance, price could scare off many potential customers from buying the device. Microsoft has not disclosed pricing, but large touch-screen displays are typically expensive.
source: informationweek.com
by: Gregg Keizer
January 31, 2008 (Computerworld) Microsoft Corp. has added new security-related APIs to upcoming service packs for Windows Vista and XP to expand the use of the anti-exploit technology dubbed Data Execution Prevention (DEP).
The new APIs will be included with Vista Service Pack 1, Windows XP Service Pack 3 and the brand-new Windows 2008 when those operating systems ship this quarter and next, said Michael Howard, a principal security program manager in Microsoft's security engineering and communications group.
According to Howard -- one of Microsoft's resident security gurus, who is probably best known for co-authoring Writing Secure Code -- the new APIs will allow more developers, particularly those still using older versions of ATL (Active Template Library), to call DEP in their apps.
DEP, which also goes by NX -- for No eXecute -- was introduced by Microsoft in Windows XP SP2 and expanded in Vista and Server 2008. It's designed to stop some kinds of exploits -- buffer overflow attacks, primarily -- by blocking code from executing in memory that's supposed to contain only data.
The new APIs can be used by developers working with the older ATL to enable DEP at runtime, or when the application actually launches. Previously, those programmers were forced to decide ahead of time whether their software would try to protect itself using DEP.
By John Dunbar
The great majority of consumers -- anyone whose television is hooked up to a cable or satellite service or owns a digital set -- will not be affected. Anyone who owns an older television that gets its signal via antenna, however, will need a converter box, which the government will help pay for.
Much of what consumers are learning about the looming shift to digital broadcasting is just plain wrong and could end up costing them money, according to a survey.
Some people think they need to buy new equipment when they don't, according to a Consumers Union survey, and others say they don't plan on taking any steps to deal with the change when they should.
"Confusion about the digital television transition will cost consumers a lot of money for equipment they may not want or need," Joel Kelsey, policy analyst for the Consumers Union, said Wednesday.
Microsoft's Ballmer Discusses Yahoo, Google, Integration Challenges
Posted by Rhyz Labels: Industry NewsCEO Steve Ballmer said Microsoft and Yahoo would work together to create a single online advertising platform.
By J. Nicholas Hoover, InformationWeek -->
Feb. 1, 2008
Microsoft's $44.6 billion acquisition bid for Yahoo, one of the largest ever in the technology industry, would position Microsoft as a strong competitor to Google in the advertising and consumer online services market. But it also poses significant integration challenges for Microsoft and Yahoo.
"Any large integration process has risks associated with it," Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer said Friday morning on a conference call with investors to discuss the bid. "I know we've all thought about it. We could have hired more engineers, but the market continues to grow and the leader continues to consolidate position. There's nothing like the chance to put together two large engineering organizations. A good integration actually should be quite an accelerant to progress."
Ballmer, Microsoft chief software architect Ray Ozzie, and other top executives said Microsoft and Yahoo would work together to create a single ad platform. It's unclear how the companies' portals and other services would be integrated, but Ozzie said a combined Microsoft-Yahoo would be able to create a "social platform" that could become a new entry point to the Web. "The combination of these two teams would enable us to jointly deliver a broad range of new experiences to customers that neither of us would have achieved on our own," he said.
The bid for Yahoo, at a 62% premium over the company's stock price at the end of the day Thursday, is one of the most open signs yet that Microsoft is desperate for ways to compete against Google in the world of online advertising, a market Microsoft estimates will double from $40 billion in 2007 to $80 billion by 2011. "Today this market is increasingly dominated by one player," Microsoft said in a press release. "Together, Microsoft and Yahoo can offer a competitive choice while better fulfilling the needs of customers and partners."
Kevin Johnson, president of Microsoft's platforms and services division, said on the conference call that Microsoft has already received unsolicited positive feedback on the bid from online advertisers and publishers. more
source:http://www.informationweek.com/
