After 5 long years Vista RTM's Now what?
After 5 long years Vista RTM's Now what?
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9.11.2006 How long will Microsoft support XP and Vista?
In the Talkback section to another post, a reader asks a question about when Microsoft plans to drop support for Windows Vista. I hear variations on this one all the time, so I figured its worth covering here.
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22.9.2008 Forget Vista. Long live Longhorn client!
Should old, abandonned operating systems just fade away? Or is there some way to breathe new life into them without running afoul of the copyright police?
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27.10.2006 Gates still has a long to-do list
For years, the Microsoft chairman has been a fiery advocate, inside the company and out, for the notion that computers should be controlled, not just by mouse and keyboard, but also by more natural means, such as voice, touch and digital ink.
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19.10.2007 Microsoft-Novell: What a long, strange year its been
In whats been a controversial (to say the least) partnership, the Microsoft-Novell technology partnership and patent-protection arrangement has reached its one-year anniversary.
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8.11.2007 Microsoft's MSN Search restored after hours-long outage
Microsoft Corp.'s MSN search engine stopped working for about four hours Thursday.
Microsoft spokesman Justin Osmer said in an e-mail that the company was still trying to determine what went wrong.
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7.4.2006 DreamScene RTM dated July 19, Microsoft: what took so long?
As reported by a bunch of shops, Duke Nukem Forever Dreamscene was finally delivered to consumers who shelled out mega bucks for the ultimate operating system offered by Microsoft.
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26.9.2007 How to Install Vista Language Packs MUI on all versions of Vista + video tutorial
Microsoft Windows Vista Home Basic, Vista Home Premium, and Vista Business versions of the Microsoft licensing restrictions can only preserve a language!
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23.9.2008 The Vista Built-in Super Administrator Account Has Survived in Vista SP1
Windows Vista Service Pack 1 is designed to evolve the RTM version of the latest Windows client from Microsoft, made available in November 2006 to business customers, and in January 2007 to the general consumers.
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15.2.2008 Vista SP1 Is Out, XP SP3 Old News, the Pink Edition of Vista Is In
Windows Vista Service Pack 1 is now nothing more than water under the bridge, now that the service pack was released to manufacturing on February 4, 2008, shipping to general users on March 18.
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27.3.2008 Tell Hasta la Vista to XP - Time to Upgrade to Vista SP1
Like it or not, this is the right time not only to upgrade to Windows Vista Service Pack 1 but also to tell hasta la vista to Windows XP.
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30.6.2008 Instant Change Vista Product ID with Vista ProductID Changer
In past we have reviewed number of application to recover product key like Product Key Finder, WinGuggle, Windows product Key Finder.
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1.11.2009 Vista SP1 RC1 Flies Past Vista RTM and Windows XP SP2
Despite the fact that Microsoft has expressed its official position regarding testing Windows Vista Service Pack 1 ahead of its finalization, there is simply too much of a hunger for the service pack.
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27.12.2007 Vista SP1 Won't Resolve the 4 GB RAM Limitation of 32-bit Windows Vista
32-bit Windows operating systems, and Windows Vista makes no exception whatsoever to this rule, are limited in terms of the amount of system memory that can be addressed to no more than 4 GB.
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4.1.2008 Vista Loader 2.1.3 - Windows Vista Activator 2008 Support SP1 with No Boot String
Vista Loader is one of the most successful Vista activation crack available to date, second only to physical modify (hardmod) the BIOS to include SLIC table to make BIOS Vista activation-compliant.
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15.5.2008 x64 Vista SP2 JPG Rendering Performance Inferior to x86 Vista SP2's
The JPG rendering process on 64-bit flavors of Windows Vista Service Pack 2 is inferior to that on the 32-bit variants of the operating system.
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10.6.2009 Microsoft to Kill the Grace Timer and OEM BIOS Windows Vista Cracks with Vista SP1
With the advent of Windows Vista, cracks also became available being designed to bypass the activation process of the operating system.
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4.12.2007 New Vista OEM Activation Hack - Vista Boot by gkend
Thanks to Steve Jobs for this article on his blog and to our forum members to clecha, Nighthief and fitterphil120 for most of the findings. One again the Chinese come up with a new method to trick out the Vista Activation. We have seen Softmode and VistaLoader, however Vista Boot by gkend does promise even more.
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21.5.2007 Windows Vista on Super Nintendo, As Real As Vista on PSP
We're puzzled and confused... How can a console that's at least ten times less powerful than the acclaimed PSP cope with Windows Vista's requirements?
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15.8.2007 Vista RTM vs. Vista SP1 - Office 2007 benchmarking
Enough with benchmarking the OS - lets see if Office 2007 is any faster on Vista SP1.
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26.2.2008 Microsoft Says Vista SP1 Needs to Speak the Same Language as Vista RTM
Microsoft says that Windows Vista Service Pack 1 needs to speak the same language as the RTM version of the latest Windows client. Otherwise there's no game.
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2.4.2008 Vista SP1 to Cure the Vista RTM Wow Hangover
When Windows Vista was unleashed in January 31, 2008, Microsoft was promising performance, security, innovation, all wrapped up under an umbrella of a Wow user experience.
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11.4.2008 Vista-For-Free coupon with Vista ready PC's
Microsoft and the world's leading PC vendors have reached an agreement to promote the long-awaited Vista OS by offering PC buyers worldwide a free upgrade coupon, as a way of encouraging them to buy a Vista-capable PC as early as possible, according to market sources, citing information leaked from Taiwan-based PC makers.
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11.10.2006 Can Vista SP1 help polish Vistas tarnished image?
Call it complaining. Call it whining. The end result is the same: Windows Vistas image is tarnished. And its corroding more and more rapidly as the weeks are going on. Thanks to pacpis for this news.
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21.8.2007 Vista SP1 Features the Same Sins as Windows Vista
Windows Vista Service Pack 1 comes with the same sins as Windows Vista. The service pack is not even out the door, and is already putting users at risk.
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16.1.2008 Will Vista SP1 Go Where Vista Never Went? Even with XP SP3 and Windows 7?
Throughout 2007, it became painfully clear to Microsoft that the main competitor for Windows Vista was not Apple's Mac OS X or even the open source Linux operating system but Windows XP, and, in fact, specifically XP SP2.
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1.3.2008 New Vista AutoPatcher - Vista update toolkit Alpha
Vista Update Toolkit Alpha (Windows Vista Updates Downloader) is a FREE program which downloads updates directly from Microsoft. All files are very useful with vLite!
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26.9.2008 Vista SP1 Microsoft Could Not Have Given Less Vista SP2 Anyone?
Microsoft had the chance to position the first service pack for Windows Vista as a panacea for the operating system, giving the platform nothing less than a fresh start and another take at the Wow.
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3.10.2007 Vista SP1 Rolling Over for Vista SP2
Vista SP1 did not do the trick for your RTM copy of the operating system? While such a scenario is highly unlikely, Microsoft is getting closer and closer to taking Windows Vista to the next level, again.
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7.12.2008 Vista SP1: Indictment of Vista 1.0?
Microsofts announcement that it is preparing a Vista Service Pack 1 beta in two weeks is curious on many levels. Although Microsoft delivers improvements via service packs I cant help but consider Vista SP1 a do-over.
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30.8.2007Yahoo Messenger for Vista finally launches
Long Zheng: Better late than never is overstated, what took so long?
A preview version of exclusive
Yahoo Messenger for Windows Vista is finally available today after almost 12 months of radio
silence. This application was
announced all the way back in January at CES 2007.
During the same amount of time, Microsoft has delivered five versions (3 beta, 2 final) of Windows Live Messenger.
However above
all, the new Yahoo Messenger is possibly the first real mainstream application to take advantage of Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF) and a number
of Vista APIs for which I salute them for adopting new technology.
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06.12.2007Beautiful Windows Vista icons a double-edged sword
I admit it. I'm an iconphile. Back in the Windows 3.0 days, I used to go and change all my Windows icons by hand. I thought this was pretty
impressive. Admittedly, it didn't help me pick up women for some reason.
Since then, icons have come a very long way. A VERY long way.
With Windows Vista, the end-user icon experience out of the box is beautiful. But from an icon creator's point of view, the lack of backward
compatibility and effort to support has gone up tremendously. As a result, we've seen a lot fewer custom icons made for Windows Vista than one might
have expected.
Microsoft made three decisions with Windows Vista that will forever affect the way we look at icon making on Windows.
Read full story.....
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24.08.2007SP2 for Vista, WS2K8 to enter beta Wednesday, will support Blu-ray
With Microsoft picking up the pace in both the development and marketing of Windows 7, it's also finding itself moving ahead with the next amendment
package for Vista not too long after the release of SP1...
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25.10.2008Windows Vista X Update
We Are Sorry For the Long
Delay On Updating Our Site As
You May Know We Are Designing
A New Program For Windows
Vista And We not Had Much Time
We Are Pleased To Say Beta 1
Almost Done And Ready To Go
Public And We Are Opening Our
New Web-Hosting Site So We Are
Still Here. Thanks..
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26.10.2006Vista file copying showdown: RTM vs SP1
Long Zheng: Copying files is the Achilles heel of Windows Vista, calculating time remaining the blue screen of death equivalent. If anyone tells
you Windows Vista isnt slow at copying files, then they obviously havent downloaded any DVDrips and tried to move it onto another computer. It was
anticipated Windows Vista Service Pack 1 would fix this problem amongst other things.
As announced this week, the first beta
build of SP1 (6001.16659) has been released on Microsoft Connect. The initial reaction from most tester has been largely positive noting improvements
in file operations such as moving, copying and deleting files. However I havent seen anyone post any benchmarks or evidence to prove it is indeed
faster.
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28.09.2007Vista: Whats the hurry?
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01.12.2007Recover "Create a recovery disc" on Vista SP1 RTM
Long Zheng: During the betas, one of the few new functionality Windows Vista Service Pack 1 added was the ability to
create a Windows recovery CD with an easy-to-use GUI interface. Up and
until then, it was slightly harder but still possible to do so through a command line.
Whilst all Vista install DVDs include the
recovery functionality natively, it’s probably useful to burn yourself a spare copy to take with you. You can also
download an ISO from NeoSmart.net but you might not have bandwidth to
spare...
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24.03.2008Vista Inches Closer to Release
with RC1
Microsoft's long, strange
trip with Windows Vista came
closer to an end Friday as the
company released the first
release candidate of its
next-generation operating
system. Jim Allchin made the
announcement in an e-mail to
TechNet subscribers...
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02.09.2006Microsoft takes Vista advertising to YouTube
Long Zheng: If youve been wondering where all the advertising for Windows Vista has disappeared to, look no further YouTube. Starting from last week,
Microsoft has begun
uploading a series of original short
videos showcasing a combination of Windows Vista, Windows Live and Office 2007 experiences.
Unlike the
$500 million heart-warming Wow
campaign at the start of the year, this campaign focuses much more on functionality with realistic end-user scenarios and clear benefits on how
using Windows Vista, Windows Live and Office can help get the job done. Perhaps this marks the beginning of the
$300 million more Microsofts throwing into the Vista advertising pool.
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30.12.2007PDF Faithful: Whither Vista?
Wonky OS puts the PDF community in a pickle, as few customers upgrade and others cling for dear life to ye olde XP/NT/2003.
One
doesn't rely on CompUSA clerks to dispense wisdom regarding many dilemmas in life, but at the store in my town, Darren (his job security depends on
me using a fake name) summarized my Vista experience perfectly.
"It's great, as long as you're willing to start over with all
new hardware that's known to run on it," he said, while I slumped deeper into one of their comfy armchairs used to induce customers to buy HDTVs.
"I think a lot of people are just keeping XPor buying new laptops without Vistaand hoping what comes after Vista will be better."
At that moment, I realized he was right. It took his evaluation of the situation to finally write off a months-long quest to get my Vista-wired
laptop to talk to my cell phone, camera, voice recorder, and, for that matter, a couple of Napster To Go MP3 players.
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25.10.2007Power efficiency enhancements in Vista SP1
Long Zheng: Most if not all the attention surrounding Windows Vista Service Pack 1 has been around performance, reliability and compatibility, but you
probably didnt know SP1 also makes short strides in terms of
Vistas power efficiency. And by short, I really do mean short because were talking about improvements in the magnitude of only a
couple percents. That in the context of 5 hours battery life is a mere additional 6 minutes. Having said that, some is better than none.
The first of two improvements is in the display subsystem. As you are probably aware of, the Desktop Window Manager (DWM) in Vista utilities
the 3D rendering capabilities of your graphics card to draw the desktop and windows.
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13.02.2008A short chat with a MSDN Concierge about Vista SP1
Via
Long
Zheng's Blog:
Not long
ago, Microsoft has hinted
towards the availability of
Windows Vista Service Pack 1
on MSDN if not before the
public beta. I wanted to find
out if this was the case and
who better to ask than the
MSDN
Concierge - open 24 hours,
talk about great service.
Excerpts
(MSDN Concierge replies):
- Long, as I
know the Windows Vista Service
Pack 1 will be released in
second half year of 2007 and
we have not got definitely
release date.
- You may get detail
information until TechEd 2007
in Sep 2007. The more details
about Windows Vista Service
Pack 1 will be released in
TechEd 2007
- As far as I know, SP1
have below update
*
Service Pack for Microsoft
Windows (KB936330)
*
Service Pack for Microsoft
Windows (KB937286)
*
Hotfix for Microsoft Windows
(KB937287)
* Update
for Microsoft Windows
(KB938371)
winbeta.org -
17.08.2007MS to Showcase Vista, Office 12 at PDC
Microsoft on Tuesday announced that its 2005 Professional Developers Conference, which begins September 13 in Los Angeles, has completely sold out. The four day event will give developers a long-awaited taste of Windows Vista and a look at the next release of Microsoft Office...
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17.08.2005No end in sight for Vista's Long Goodbye
Seven weeks ago, when
we
http://www.theregister.com/200
7/03/26/vista_copying_bug/>fir
st reported Vista was causing
many machines to stall
indefinitely while deleting,
copying and moving files, we
were sure the problem was
caused by a bug that would be
fixed relatively quickly.
After all, Vista is
Microsoft's flagship product.
It's also an operating
system. And everyone knows
deleting, copying and moving
files are among the most basic
tasks any operating system can
set out to do.
Now we don't know what to
think. Vista's Long Goodbye,
as we've come to call this
bizarre phenomenon, continues
unabated. No amount of
diagnosing by the untold
number of confounded sysadmins
sheds any light on the
problem's cause, and
Microsoft has yet to
acknowledge its full extent.
"I just wanted to
say...that I have tried
everything...in this
section..till yesterday (May
13 2007) and none of it
worked," a user who goes by
the name SR_1976 posted today
in a Microsoft TechNet
http://>forum discussing the
glitch. "I have tried my best
to work with Vista ....did not
work...so, gone back to
XP...and all my problems are
gone. Vista was more stable
than XP (for me...)and does
have some good features...but
enough is enough.." (The
discussion, by the way, is the
longest TechNet thread we've
ever seen.)..
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15.05.2007Microsoft set to release Vista Ultimate Extra games - free
Remember Vista Ultimate Extras? Well they are back according to Paul Thurrott, but this time they will be released for free in the form of two games,
Microsoft Tinker and Hold 'Em. Microsoft's failed Vista Ultimate Extras were a big promise from the company of "cutting-edge programs,
innovative services and unique publications." At least they were in Vista RTM, by the time Vista SP1 was rolled out nearly all references to Vista
Ultimate Extras were removed (shown below). Blogger Long Zheng called them the "ultimate con" at the time and in hindsight he was right. Microsoft
made several promises of more extras which resulted in the company launching UltimatePC.com which now redirects to the Vista home-page.
Read full story.....
neowin.net -
11.11.2009Microsoft publishes detailed Vista SP1 "changelog"
Long Zheng: Leading up to next weeks public beta-test release of Windows Vista Service Pack 1 Release Candidate, Microsoft today has
published a
17-page document outlining in fine detail exactly what difference SP1 makes to Vista.
Some of the contents has been
shared in bits in
the past, but this is so far the most comprehensive changelog weve ever seen and probably will see as the final version is not expected to
differ much from the RC, with the exception of WGA modifications as described below. Ive highlighted some of the most interesting changes which you
may or may not already know...
winbeta.org -
08.12.2007Ballmer describes Vista as "work in progress"
Steve Ballmer has admitted that Vista is "a work in progress", and admitted the company has to learn lessons from its release. Speaking at the Most
Valuable Professional Global Summit in Seattle, Ballmer resisted calls for a slimmed down Windows 7: "Vista is bigger than XP and it's gonna stay
bigger than XP. We have to make sure it doesn't get bigger still."
However, Ballmer went on to admit that it had taken too long to get
Vista out the door and admitted it had caused problems: "Vista is a very important piece of work, and I think we did a lot of things right, and I
think we have a lot of things we need to learn from.
"Certainly, you never want to let five years go between releases... because it turns
out many things become problematic when you have those long release cycles. The design point, what you should be targeting, we can never let that
happen again. We had some things that we can't just set the dial back that I think people wish we could."
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18.04.2008Windows 7: Measuring the "superbar"
One of the new things that anyone would notice immediately in Windows 7 is the new Taskbar. Microsoft internally calls it 'Superbar'. The
Windows Taskbar has come a long way since Windows 95 was released. With the help of the Taskbar, it becomes easier to see what are the programs
currently running, switching between applications and also to access your favorites using the Quick Launch. Image Courtesy: Windows 7 Blog For
many, Windows 7's Superbar looks bigger than the Windows Vista's Taskbar. Long Zheng has taken steps to prove that, after all the Superbar is
not that big. Long has found that the Windows Start button is actually shrunk by about 8 pixels.
Read full story.....
neowin.net -
05.01.2009Inside CNET Labs: Windows Vista SP1 performance
The long-awaited Service Pack 1 update for Windows Vista brings with it a number of significant bug fixes and other improvements. Microsoft promises
that with it you will also see a number of noticeable performance improvements as well. In
our initial round of testing, we saw a mixed bag of results:
we saw a few notable performance improvements under some conditions as well as significant performance degradations in others. For the most part,
however, we saw little difference in performance between Vista and the Vista SP1 update.
As we dug a little deeper into
Microsoft's claims, we discovered that many of the performance improvements being touted aren't actually directly attributable to SP1. Many
of the claimed performance improvements, such as improved boot-time, are actually more a function of improved third-party drivers and applications
that are benefiting from a year's worth of programming for Vista and from the programmers getting continued feedback and guidance from Microsoft. So
as long as you have been diligent about keeping your Vista system current with the latest Windows updates and third-party drivers, you likely
already have many of the potentially performance improving enhancements.
winbeta.org -
14.02.2008More on the Vista Service Pack 1 drivers roadblock
Long Zheng: It appears the roadblock preventing
Windows Vista Service Pack
1 from being made publically available when it was released to manufacturing two days ago is a deja vu of the same but less severe problem that
also happened in 2004 with Windows XP Service Pack 2.
The problem
then affected a very particular ATI graphics driver and Dell Bluetooth driver which resulted in loss functionality after installing XP SP2.
The problem today affects an identifiable set of drivers which too results in loss functionality after installing Vista SP1. Both of
which will require driver updates prior to the service pack install.
winbeta.org -
06.02.2008
