Tagged: windows

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Tailoring Windows 7 to Solid-State Drives

Microsoft is tailoring Windows 7 to solid-state drives. Mum’s the word on the matter as far as the Redmond giant is concerned, but this will no longer be the case come November 2008. Starting with the Windows 7 road show scheduled to debut with PDC2008, Microsoft promised to unveil the successor of Windows Vista to the world. Between November 5 and 7, at the...

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Microsoft to sue scareware security vendors

Microsoft and Washington state are cracking down on scareware scammers who bombard computer users with fake warning messages in hopes of selling them useless software. The state’s attorney general and lawyers from Microsoft’s Internet Safety Enforcement team are expected to announce today several lawsuits against so-called ‘scareware’ vendors, who are being charged under Washington state’s Computer Spyware Act. The vendors targeted by the lawsuits...

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Microsoft chief dreams of “world of no reboots”

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer has admitted the company intentionally accepted some early compatibility problems to make sure Vista was as secure as possible. But he claims customer complaint figures show Vista is better than previous editions of Windows. Ballmer spoke at an event hosted by the Churchill Club, which bills itself as “Silicon Valley’s premier business and technology forum”. Asked by a “long-time Windows...

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Windows 7 promises fixes for Vista taskbar screw-ups

As Microsoft readies for the first widespread distribution of Windows 7 at two key conferences later this year, details of planned changes to the software continue to emerge. And while the issue of how much Windows 7 needs to be differentiated from Vista remains in the air, Microsoft has committed to making some interface changes that will firmly differentiate the new Windows from its...

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Microsoft posts 21 more versions of IE8, holds off updating Vista

Microsoft Corp. yesterday released 21 additional versions of its Internet Explorer 8 (IE8) Beta 2, including editions in Czech, Italian, Norwegian, Russian, Spanish and other languages. The company, however, declined to set a date for when it will automatically update Windows Vista systems that have a copy of IE8 Beta 1 already installed. According to Microsoft, the 21 new, fully-localized versions can be downloaded...

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Upcoming update to Windows Update

I’d like to let you know that, beginning at the end of this month and continuing over the next few months, we’ll be rolling out an infrastructure update to the Windows Update agent (client).  I wanted to take this opportunity to provide some background on the update and discuss the value these updates bring to you. How Windows Update Keeps Itself Up-to-Date Occasionally, we...

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Microsoft Pledges Windows XP Support Through 2014

Microsoft may have little choice but to support XP for an extended period since most of its business customers have not upgraded to Windows Vista. In an unprecedented move, Microsoft has committed to providing support services for its soon to be retired Windows XP through 2014 — a full 13 years after the operating system was originally released. In a letter sent to customers...

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Microsoft Windows Installer 4.5

Microsoft Windows Installer is an installation and configuration service that ships as part of the Microsoft Windows 2000 operating system, and is provided as a redistributable product for Microsoft Windows 9x/Me/NT. Enables software users to efficiently install and configure products and applications. The installer can also provide software products with new capabilities to advertise features without installing them, to install products on demand, and...

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Windows 7 kernel will be refined, not new

Typically when Microsoft ships a new OS (like Windows Vista), we immediately start talking about the next version-which begs two questions: 1) is Microsoft working on a new version of Windows, and if so, 2) why aren’t you talking about it? I thought I would spend a minute giving you an update on where we are. First, yes, we are working on a new...

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Vista’s UAC protects against rootkits

Love or hate its nagging prompts, Vista’s Account Control feature (UAC) has a security feature that marks it out from any other type of Windows security programme — it can spot rootkits before they install. This is one finding buried in a report published in two German computer magazines some months ago after testing by the respected AV-Test.org, which set out to find out...