Vista SP1, and then Windows 7, Windows 8 and Non-Windows Midori
2008 saw the release of Windows Vista Service Pack 1, Windows XP Service Pack 3 and Windows Server 2008, but Microsoft's journey on the Windows path is far from over.
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5.8.2008 Windows 7 RC Brings Windows XP Mode Beta and Windows Virtual PC Beta
The Release Candidate of Windows 7 will bring with it the first Beta development milestones for Windows XP Mode and Windows Virtual PC.
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29.4.2009 Windows Reactivator 2.0 - Backup & Restore Activation Status of Windows XP with Windows Reactivator
Every time you reinstall your windows XP you need to reactivate it online using your product key & worst if you lost your Windows XP product key.
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3.6.2009 Windows Vista SP1 vs. Windows Vista RTM vs. Windows XP SP2
Feb 26th, 2008. Principled Technologies has released two Microsoft commissioned reports on Windows Vista SP1 performance. In these tests, Principled Technologies measured responsiveness of Windows Vista SP1 vs. Windows Vista RTM vs. Windows XP SP2 when performing a set of common business and home tasks.
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28.2.2008 Windows 7, Windows 8, Windows 9 1 Billion and Counting
Is Windows dead? Or, at least, is this the beginning of the end for Microsoft's proprietary operating system?
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15.9.2008 Week in Microsoft: Windows 7, Windows 8, Windows 9
This week in Microsoft, we covered 128-bit support possibly coming to Windows 8 and Windows 9, Windows 7, Windows Mobile 6.5, Bill Gates, Office 2010 Starter, Microsoft MVP status, Windows Live Hotmail, the EU, and Microsoft Security Essentials.
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10.10.2009 Windows Vista Build 5231 and Windows Media Player 11 Leaks!
Windows Vista Build 5231 has leaked to the web. The new build is said to include Windows Media Player 11 included. View the screenshots below! This is a Main branch build that was released on September 12th, 2005 at 8:20PM.
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Windows Vista SP1 and Windows XP SP3: Official Release Dates
A French website, PC Inpact, has posted the official Microsoft product change request forms for Vista SP1 and Windows XP SP3.
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6.2.2008 Download Free Windows Vista and Windows XP SP2 Straight from Microsoft
Via the Internet Explorer Application Compatibility VPC Image. That's right! Microsoft is offering access to free downloads of Windows Vista and Windows XP SP2.
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6.3.2008 Windows Vista SP1 outperforms Windows XP SP2 in file copy
"Its interesting that people seem to think that Vista under performs in every area of the system which is quite an incorrect perception.
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27.5.2008 Windows Fiji Has RTMd as Windows Media Center TV Pack 2008
Microsoft officially confirmed that Windows Fiji has been released to manufacturing.
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18.7.2008 Windows 7 Beta Doesn't Play Nice with Windows Azure Cloud OS Tools
The promise for Windows 7 is that it will deliver an evolution when it will come down to stretching into the Cloud compared to its precursor, Windows Vista.
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16.1.2009 Internet Explorer 8 MUI packs for Windows XP, Windows Server 03
As detailed in our previous blog post, the following Internet Explorer MUI packs shipped today.
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17.5.2009 Windows Home Server Power Pack 3 Beta adds Windows 7 support
Microsoft announced the release of Windows Home Server Power Pack 3 Beta, along with news that it will feature Windows 7 support.
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20.7.2009 Check for RAM Error or Defect in Windows 7 and Vista with Windows Memory Diagnostic
Memory or RAM is one of the most important electronic hardware component on a computer systems, not only in term of speed or clock frequency and size, but also the reliability of hardware ecosystem of the RAM sticks or memory modules and its subsystem.
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1.10.2009 The Microsoft Windows NT 4.0 and Windows 98 Threat Mitigation Guide
Well, Microsoft still puts effort in old Windows versions...
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31.3.2006 Windows Vista comes with 19,500 drivers on DVD more on Windows Update
Ever needed to find a driver for a product and wished Windows would either just have the driver in it, or that their Windows Update service could provide it? With Vista, it can and new features and updates will be forthcoming too. Its about time!
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20.11.2006 Windows XP Home No Longer Qualifies for Windows Vista Upgrades
Windows XP Home Edition no longer qualifies for Windows Vista Business Upgrade or Upgrade + SA through Volume Licensing.
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17.10.2007 Microsoft Offers a Complex Windows Vista vs. Windows XP Perspective
A new standard of security is an integer aspect of the evolution puzzle represented by the move from Windows XP to Windows Vista.
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3.11.2007 Windows XP SP3 to Drop Concomitantly with Windows Vista SP1?
Yes, it's time for every Windows user's favorite obsession: Windows XP Service Pack 3. The third and final service pack for Windows XP has been quite elusive for the past three years.
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25.11.2007 Windows Vista vs. Windows 9x/Me, NT Server, 2000 and XP
If at just a couple of weeks short of the first anniversary since Windows Vista hit the shelves you are still looking for reasons to upgrade to the latest Windows client, then Biplab Paul, Partner Technical Consultant with Microsoft India, has an impressive, and exhaustive list of features that are bound to tilt the balance in Vista's favor.
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14.1.2008 Free Windows Vista Business and Windows XP SP2 on Parade
Free Windows... Not a concept you would expect from Microsoft. With a business strategy focused on proprietary software, the Redmond company is by all means at the opposite technology spectrum from open source and free software.
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9.3.2008 Microsoft Presents the Lost Comparison: Windows Vista vs. Windows XP
With both Windows XP and Windows Vista being available concomitantly on the market, Microsoft is doing nothing more than inviting the consumers to compare the two operating systems.
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20.4.2008 Windows Server 2008 = Windows Vista SP1 Minus the Pain
Windows Server 2008, formerly codenamed Longhorn, is essentially intimately connected with Windows Vista Service Pack 1, to the level in which the RTM version of Microsoft's latest server operating system features the
SP1 label
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6.5.2008 Windows Embedded NavReady 2009 - Latest Windows Platform from Microsoft
The latest Windows operating system is available for download as of June 16, 2008. And no, it's not a new release of Windows 7, nor the first taste of Windows 7 Server.
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16.6.2008 Free Windows for Supercomputers Available for Download - Windows HPC Server 2008
Microsoft made the latest iteration of its Windows operating system for supercomputers available as a free download.
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23.9.2008 How to Install Windows 7 or Windows Vista on Physical Machine Without DVD Media
A lot of Windows Vista and Windows 7 license has been sold media-less nowadays, where buyers only receive a piece of authenticated certificate with a genuine and legitimate product key printed on it.
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23.12.2008 Windows 7 beta testers find critical Windows Installer Bug
Mary Jo reports that a number of Windows 7 Beta testers have come across a bug that crashes the system randomly whenever they try to start a Windows Update or install anything using Microsoft's MSI installer.
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19.1.2009 AeroBar: Show Titlebar Text in Explorer Windows Under Windows Vista
Have you ever wondered why Explorer Windows don't show titles in Windows Vista?
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13.2.2009 Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008 SP2 reaches RTM
Microsoft has finally finished and compiled the RTM version of Windows Vista SP2 and Windows Server 2008. The full version string being 6.0.6006.18005, which company officials have confirmed is the final RTM version of SP2.
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28.4.200922% of Windows Installs Non-Genuine
Microsoft disclosed Monday
that over one in five Windows
installations were deemed
non-genuine through the
company's Windows Genuine
Advantage program, which
requires users to validate
their operating system before
downloading updates from the
company...
betanews.com -
23.01.2007Netflix, eBay help trigger a further NASDAQ plunge
Sometimes when investors get the feeling in advance that it's going to be a bad day in the markets, it doesn't take too much bad news to validate
their fears. This morning, some relatively minor bad news had a magnified market impact...
betanews.com -
07.10.2008Pirating Windows? No free Security Essentials for you!
Microsoft has confirmed via its Genuine Windows Blog that only those Windows users running genuine, validated copies will be able to download and
install the new Microsoft Security Essentials software. The Director of Microsoft's Genuine Windows team, Alex Kochis, stated in his post that,
"During installation, you'll be asked to validate Windows running on your PC to make sure that it's genuine." Windows validation is by no
means a new technology, and has been implemented in many of Microsoft's software packages with a few notable exceptions: Internet Explorer 8, for
example, and Windows Update which allows users running pirated copies of Windows to download essential security patches without validation.
Read full story.....
neowin.net -
01.10.2009Engineering Windows 7: A Little Bit of Personality
Steven Sinofsky: Greetings! Based on the data were seeing we know a lot of folks on MSDN/TechNet/Connect are probably busy using the RC (Release
Candidate) for Windows 7. Thank you!!! And of course many folks are looking forward to downloading the RC and using it as we expand the
downloadswere looking forward to the participation and seeing the data that will help us validate the RC. Weve talked about making sure that you are
in control of Windows 7 and one of the ways that people are in control of their PC is to personalize the experience. With the RC youre going to see
some of the new personalization elements in Windows 7. In this post, Denise Trabona and Samuel Moreau of our product design team provide a behind
the scenes look at some of the work. Be sure to check out the links below the images as you can see a lot more work by these talented artists. Note,
these are just thumbnails for this post so be sure to enjoy the full screen images in the RC.
winbeta.org -
03.05.2009Windows XP SP3 RC2 Refresh Available
A new "Refresh" version of Windows XP Service Pack 3 Release Candidate 2 was made available Tuesday on Microsoft Update, according to Microsoft
representatives.
The primary goal of the release is for its developers to validate improvements to the Windows Update procedure, but a
couple of minor additions were also included. As with the previous RC2, you need to download and run a small program available from Microsoft Download
Center that makes a registry change on your PC in order for the update to be offered.
neowin.net -
26.03.2008Coincidence? WGA Failures Followed Windows Update 381
Is it coincidence that Microsoft's
Windows
Genuine Advantage failure started around the same time that
Windows Update
self-updated?
Based on eWEEK Labs and Windows Secrets testing and posts on various forums, Windows Update self-updated on
August 23 and 24, from version 7.0.6000.374 to 7.0.6000.381. On the evening of August 24, Windows Vista users started complaining of failed
activations/validations. Microsoft would later say that about 12,000 systems failed to activate/validate. What Microsoft didn't say is which ones.
Are these two events related, or is it merely coincidental that around the same time Microsoft disseminated a new version of Windows
Update, WGA started to invalidate thousands of Windows systems?
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24.09.2007Microsoft Outlines Pricing, Packaging and Licensing for Windows Server 2008
At Microsoft TechEd IT Forum 2007, Bob Kelly, corporate vice president of Infrastructure Server Marketing at Microsoft Corp., updated an audience of
more than 5,000 IT professionals on the development of Windows Server 2008 and a new virtualization offering.
As Microsoft nears
the final stages of Windows Server 2008 development and the Feb. 27, 2008, worldwide launch event, Kelly announced detailed packaging, pricing and
licensing information for Windows Server 2008. This includes Microsofts server virtualization technology, Hyper-V, previously code-named Viridian.
Kelly also announced the stand-alone virtualization server named Microsoft Hyper-V Server. Finally, Kelly outlined a complementary program, called the
Server Virtualization Validation Program that allows virtual machine vendors to validate their solutions with Windows Server operating systems.
winbeta.org -
12.11.2007Windows Home Server Power Pack 1 Public Beta Released
The Windows Home Server team has announced the availability of a Windows Home Server Power Pack 1 Release Candidate for public beta testing. The
update package is now available from Microsoft’s
Connect site
(Registration req.)
The most important update in the Power pack is the
data corruption issue:
“When certain programs are used to edit or transfer files that are stored on a Windows
Home Server-based computer that has more than one hard drive, the files may become corrupted”.
According to an Microsoft email sent
to beta testers this has now been fixed:
“While internal testing so far indicates that we have fixed the data corruption bug in the
beta release, the whole point of a beta test is to validate internal testing”
Read full story.....
neowin.net -
10.06.2008Microsoft and Novell Deliver Joint Virtualization Solution Through Partners
Microsoft Corp. and Novell Inc. are announcing the availability of a joint virtualization solution optimized for customers running mixed-source
environments. The joint offering includes SUSE® Linux Enterprise Server from Novell® configured and tested as an optimized guest operating system
running on Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V, and is fully supported by both companies channel partners, including Dell Inc., which will test and validate
this offering at the Microsoft and Novell joint Interoperability Lab in Cambridge, Mass. The offering provides customers with the first complete,
fully supported and optimized virtualization solution to span Windows and Linux* environments.
winbeta.org -
11.09.2008Windows Genuine Advantage suffers worldwide outage.
Late last night we started receiving reports from readers experiencing problems with Windows Genuine Advantage authentication. Users of both Windows
XP and Windows Vista were writing to say that they could not validate their installations using WGA, and one user even said that his installation was
invalidated by the service.
We contacted our sources at Microsoft, who told us off the record that the company is aware of a major WGA
server outage affecting users across the globe. The Windows Genuine Advantage support forum has exploded with complaints, as a result, and Phil Liu,
WGA project manager, says that he won't sleep until the problem is fixed. Windows Vista and XP are affected, 32- and 64-bit versions.
neowin.net -
26.08.2007Windows XP Service Pack 3 SP3 RC2 Refresh
Windows XP Service Pack 3 (SP3) includes all previously released updates for the operating system. This update also includes a small number of new
functionalities, which do not significantly change customers experience with the operating system.
jcxp.net -
26.03.2008Heck, I'm Son of a Software Pirate
Joe Wilcox: About a year ago,
Microsoft brandished my mom a software pirate. Now, I've been nabbed, too.
She professed her innocence, as
did I. A Microsoft support technician spent about four hours fixing mom's problem. A corrupt file trigged the piracy validation failure. I used it as
evidence that Windows Genuine Advantage does indeed generate false positives. But Microsoft disagreed, saying there was no false positive. Mom was
always legal; the system worked. Say what?
I never thought Microsoft would come after me? On Friday night, my copy of Office 2007
Ultimate failed to validate. Shoot, that makes me a pirate, too. Weeks earlier, Office 2007 activated just fine, so I was surprised by the sudden
non-genuine status. I re-ran the validation mechanism several times and once for Windows Vista. The operating system validated just fine.
winbeta.org -
17.12.2007Visual Studio Team System and Windows Live Hotmail
Ever wonder what its like to
build and test a Web site
which has to scale to over 260
million customers? This
technical case study details
how the Windows Live Hotmail
team used the testing
capabilities of Visual Studio
Team System to ensure that the
newest rollout of their site
would live up to their site
performance requirements.
Excerpts:
- The
operating environment that
hosts Windows Live Hotmail is
one of the most advanced data
centers in the world. To go
into great detail about how
this data center is
architected would be beyond
the scope of this document.
What we can say about his
environment is that it is
broadly categorized into front
door servers and
behind-the-scenes servers.
- The goal
established by the Windows
Live Development team for the
front door servers was that
each server to be able to
support 215,000 concurrent
clients. However, to validate
this goal, the team had to
understand what their baseline
was.
winbeta.org -
22.07.2007Microsoft cites human error in anti-piracy malfunction
Last week's malfunction of Microsoft's Windows Genuine Advantage anti-piracy mechanism was caused when new software code was accidentally put on the
servers running the system, before those servers had been made ready for the code, according to
a post last night by Alex Kochis, WGA senior product
manager. Kochis writes:
"Nothing more than human error started it all. Pre-production code was sent to production servers. The production servers
had not yet been upgraded with a recent change to enable stronger encryption/decryption of product keys during the activation and validation
processes. The result of this is that the production servers declined activation and validation requests that should have passed."
Kochis
explains in the post that the problem made some computers fail the anti-piracy validation and activation processes, causing them to lose advanced
Windows features and get a "This copy of Windows is not genuine" message, until the WGA system was fixed and people were able to properly activate
and validate their computers.
winbeta.org -
29.08.2007Microsoft Releases WGA Bypass Tool to OEMs
With the introduction of
Windows Genuine Advantage
(WGA), a computer must be
validated as genuine prior to
receiving security patches
from Windows Update. Windows
must first be activated for
the validation tool to run,
however most system builders
do not activate computers on
behalf of the end user. This
poses a problem for system
builders who want to sell
systems pre-patched with
updates but not enable
automatic updates.
The
System
Builder Bypass tool
(sbbypass.exe) will allow
system builders to download
and install critical updates
on new PCs without the
requirement to activate or
validate. Download the System
Builder Bypass tool. Need to
be member of OEM system
builder site.
The
System Builder Bypass tool is
to be used to assist system
builders with building a new
PC, and thus requires sysprep
to be running in factory mode.
An internet connection is
required to download critical
updates.
neowin.net -
18.10.2006Office 2007 Beta 1 Refresh
Available
Microsoft have just released
the Office 2007 Beta 1
Technical Refresh build to
testers. The build can be
downloaded on
BetaPlace (currently down
). Microsoft
have stated that they have two
goals for this release.
Firstly, they want
users to be able to validate
that the fixes for previously
reported Office '07 issues
meet users' organization's
needs. Secondly, Microsoft
want to provide a build of
Office 2007 that functions on
Windows Vista Feb CTP. With
this build, Microsoft will
begin accepting bug and
newsgroup submissions
regarding the 2007 Microsoft
Office Beta1TR build on
Windows Vista Feb. CTP.
jcxp.net - 14.03.2006
Are Mac users more honest than Windows users?
Details of new research on Mac OS X Leopard show that Mac users are buying family pack licenses, even though they arent forced to. On the other hand,
Microsoft goes to great lengths to validate every Windows installation. So does this mean that Apple customers are more honest than Windows users?
Take a poll on Windows-Mac user honesty at the bottom of the
story.
A Reuters story on Monday said that Leopard was Apples best-ever OS release.
When comparing the first full month of sales of Apple Mac OS 10.5
Leopard (November 2007) to the first full month of sales for Mac OS 10.4 Tiger (May 2005), dollar volume for Leopard was up 32.8 percent and unit
volume up 20.5 percent, NPD Group Inc said in a statement.
Details emerged in a Computerworld
report with an interview with NPD analyst Chris Swenson. In the article, the analyst mentioned that the Apple 5-license pack, called the Family
Pack, was helping the unit and dollar figures.
winbeta.org - 18.12.2007
Microsoft Launches Wave of Local Training, Certification Events
Today Microsoft Corp. kicked off Microsoft Skills Week, a wave of more than 175 partner-led events in North America designed to help IT professionals
and developers develop and validate their skills, network with industry leaders and achieve Microsoft Certified Professional status. Microsoft Skills
Week will run March 9-13, followed by a series of events culminating at TechEd in May. Microsoft Skills Week events will showcase more than 100
Microsoft Certified Partners for Learning Solutions and the value they deliver to individuals and organizations.
winbeta.org - 09.03.2009
Microsoft delivers yet another updated XP SP3 RC 2 test build (Updated)
Mary Jo Foley: A day after I threw in my XP SP3 date-projection towel, Microsoft has released
yet another new, public test build of its forthcoming collection of fixes and patches for Windows XP.
A company spokeswoman
e-mailed the following update on March 25:
“Windows XP SP3 RC2 Refresh was made publicly available today via Microsoft
Download Center. Weve made this release candidate available in order to receive further user feedback prior to the release of Windows XP
SP3.”
Update: As the Windows Serviceability Team announced, the "purpose of RC2 Refresh is to validate improvements
to the Windows Update experience with Service Pack 3. Therefore, this beta release will be available only on Windows Update, in English, German and
Japanese ... The application to enable download of XP SP3 RC2 Refresh is the same application as was used to distribute XP SP3 RC2. This is an
application that can be found at the Microsoft
Download Center."
winbeta.org - 26.03.2008
Microsoft blames human error for WGA glitch
Microsoft blamed human error for a Windows Genuine Advantage problem that identified legitimate Windows users as pirates last week. According to Alex
Kochis, Microsoft senior product manager for WGA, new software was accidentally loaded onto the live servers running the system. Between Friday
evening through Saturday afternoon, some users incorrectly failed the validation process, leaving them unable to use certain features. Affected users
also saw a message in the corner of their screen that said "This copy of Windows is not genuine." While Microsoft quickly noticed the problem and
rolled back the changes within a half hour, the problem continued to affect the validation service although the activation process was fixed in that
time frame, said Kochis.
The company is implementing some changes to make sure a similar incident doesn't happen again. It is improving
monitoring in order to find out sooner if there is a problem, he said. Microsoft is also adding checkpoints that should prevent accidental changes to
the servers. It's troubling that someone can accidentally load wrong code into a live environment. Kochis clarified that an existing policy will
automatically validate all users if the WGA servers are down but that in this case, the servers weren't down, so that policy didn't kick in. Maybe
Microsoft should have taken the servers down while working on the problem?
neowin.net - 30.08.2007
