Vista SP 1 Ships in 2008, the First Beta Drops in 2 Weeks!
After a long period of Windows Omerta, in which Microsoft gagged all details related to the future development plans for the Windows platform, the company has come out and confirmed the availability dates for the first beta of Windows Vista SP1, as well as for the final release of the refresh.
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29.8.2007 How to Clear & Stop Displaying Windows Media Player 12 Frequent List in Windows 7
Windows 7 Start Menu is almost similar to Windows Vista however Windows 7 Taskbar aka superbar is way different from Vista & XP Taskbar. In Windows 7 Taskbar you have access to jump list and recently opened document list of Office word and for Windows Media Player you will get frequently played video list.
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20.7.2009 Microsoft Hands out XP SP3 beta – Final SP for XP
In an email sent to selected testers telling them they have been accepted to begin testing XP SP3, Microsoft has also informed them that this will be the final Service Pack for the now aging OS.
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5.10.2007 Reports: IE 7 Crashes While Accessing Windows Updates
Some users of Internet Explorer 7's beta are reporting problems accessing crucial update sites, but Microsoft denies any system-wide glitch.
Some users of Internet Explorer 7's beta are reporting problems accessing the crucial Windows Update and Microsoft Update sites, but Microsoft denied any system-wide glitch.
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20.2.2006 New Zero-Day Bug Crashes Internet Explorer
Because the vulnerability can be exploited by a single malicious HTML tag, IE could be brought to its knees if its user simply surfed to a nasty Web site.
Microsoft's Internet Explorer browser crashes when attacked through a new unpatched vulnerability, security companies warned Friday.
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18.3.2006 Resurrect Windows Vista After It Crashes and Burns
Right... Windows Vista crashing and burning is the worst case scenario, but a scenario nonetheless, and even more than that, a viable possibility.
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11.8.2007 New attack code crashes Windows XP & Vista
Security researchers have released attack code that will crash Windows XP and Vista PCs that are susceptible to a recently patched bug in the operating system.
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19.1.2008 Chinese Windows 2000 attack crashes PCs
Security researchers have spotted malicious code that triggers a critical vulnerability in the Chinese version of Windows 2000, and warned non-Chinese users to expect attacks.
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16.4.2008 Windows Movie Maker Crashes on XP SP3 with Over 100 Video Transitions or Effects
A range of fixes from Microsoft aimed for Windows XP Service Pack 3 are illustrative of the fact that you can indeed have too much of a good thing.
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5.7.2009 Word for blondes
A word with you, please, Microsoft
If Microsoft's 1976 was all about "hobbyists" and "Altair," then its buzzwords for 2006 were things such as "connected entertainment," "interoperability," "Zune," and "Windows Vista."
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2.1.2007 New Report of A Word Zero Day
We are investigating reports of another new vulnerability in Microsoft Word – initial investigation has shown that this is a different issue to that reported in Microsoft Security Advisory 929433.
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11.12.2006 Why is Microsoft afraid to use the L word?
In discussing the motivation behind its newly launched Windows Server 2008 Foudation product, there’s one word the folks from Microsoft were loathe to mention: Linux.
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1.4.2009 MS investigates Word zero-day
Microsoft has issued a Security Advisory that warns of exploits for a previously unknown (zero day) hole in various versions of Microsoft Word.
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6.12.2006 Firefox 3.0 goes Alpha but little word yet on IE8
Firefox 2 only launched six weeks ago, but there appear to be no plans for a Firefox 2.5 with the alpha, developer version of Firefox 3.0 just made available on Friday.
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10.12.2006 Microsoft warns of new Word attacks
Microsoft has issued yet another security advisory in the wake of new attacks targeting Word.
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10.7.2008 Word 2007 to Feature Built-in Blogging
Joe Friend has posted a rather interesting entry on his site, covering Microsoft's Office 12 Blog feature:
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13.5.2006 Experts Warn of Critical Word Vulnerability
Security experts are warning of a critical vulnerability affecting users of Microsoft Word XP and Word 2003.
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22.5.2006 Google Opens Online Word Processor
Google late Thursday re-opened its Writely beta online word processing application, which the search engine acquired in March. Because the service was being transitioned to Google's servers, it was not accepting new accounts until today.
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19.8.2006 Microsoft to release ODF translator for Word
A Microsoft-sponsored open-source project is expected on Friday to release a translator that will convert file formats between Microsoft Office and rival standard OpenDocument, or ODF.
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3.2.2007 Attackers seize on new zero-day flaw in Word
Just hours after a Microsoft security manager said that the week's updates had patched all in-the-wild threats against Office applications, the company late yesterday acknowledged that another bug in Word is being used by hackers to commandeer computers.
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16.2.2007 Microsoft confirms Windows-Word attacks
Microsoft Corp. yesterday warned of a critical vulnerability that affects users of Word running on Windows 2000, XP and Server 2003 SP1 -- several weeks after one security company first reported an exploit and a day after a second vendor confirmed ongoing attacks.
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24.3.2008 Microsoft permitted to continue Word sales for now
Microsoft Word fans across the world can rejoice and breathe a sigh of relief today as Microsoft has won a temporary stay, allowing Word sales to continue.
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4.9.2009 XP SP3 and Vista SP1 Are in the Clear, Word Is Still Out on Windows 7
While Windows XP SP3 and Windows Vista are in the clear, word is still out on Windows 7, when it comes down to antitrust issues.
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13.3.2008 Microsoft Confirms Windows 7 for 2010 – No Word on Windows 7 M2
Microsoft has confirmed that Windows 7 is right on track for release in 2010. Concomitantly with the leaked details associated with Windows 7 Milestone 1 dropped by the Redmond company to select partners in January 2008, a potential timetable for the availability of the successor of Windows Vista was also made public.
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12.3.2008Microsoft warns of new Word attacks
Microsoft has issued yet another security advisory in the wake of attacks targeting Word. The company said in the advisory that it has received
reports of attackers targeting a flaw in the handling of .doc files. The attacks are not currently believed to be widespread, and the initial exploit
attempts have been in specially targeted attacks.
The vulnerability lies in the way Word 2002 Service Pack 3 handles .doc files. An
attacker could use a specially-crafted document to cause a memory overflow error and application crash. The error would then leave the system
vulnerable and allow the attacker to remotely execute code on the target system. Microsoft said that the vulnerability only appears to exist in Office
Word 2002 Service Pack 3. No other versions of Word or Office appear to be at risk for attack.
In addition to basic security practices such
as enabling a firewall and antivirus software, Microsoft recommends that users exercise caution in loading mail attachments and avoid suspicious .doc
files.
neowin.net -
10.07.2008Microsoft Confirms Another Word Zero-Day Flaw
The latest flaw comes just
days after the software maker
issued a security advisory to
warn customers against opening
Word documents from untrusted
sources. The two
vulnerabilities are entirely
unrelated.
Microsoft has not yet issued
a formal prepatch advisory
but, in a blog entry, Security
Program Manager Scott Deacon
listed affected software
versions as Word 2000, Word
2002, Word 2003 and the Word
Viewer 2003. Microsoft Word
2007 is not affected by the
second vulnerability.
Microsoft suggests that
users "do not open or save
Word files," even those that
arrive unexpectedly from
trusted sources.
"From the initial reports
and investigation we can
confirm that the vulnerability
is being exploited on a very,
very limited and targeted
basis," Deacon added.
According to a US-CERT
advisory, the latest bug is a
memory corruption issue that
occurs when a Word file is
rigged with malformed data
structures.
jcxp.net -
13.12.2006MS investigates Word zero-day
Microsoft has issued a Security
Advisory that warns of
exploits for a previously
unknown (zero day) hole in
various versions of Microsoft
Word.
According to
an e-mail statement from the
company's public relations
firm, Microsoft has knowledge
of "limited 'zero-day'
attacks using a vulnerability
in Microsoft Word 2000,
Microsoft Word 2002, Microsoft
Office Word 2003, Microsoft
Word Viewer 2003, Microsoft
Word 2004 for Mac, and
Microsoft Word 2004 v. X for
Mac, as well as Microsoft
Works 2004, 2005, and 2006.
The company's
published advisory doesn't
have much more information
than that, except to say that
victims would have to open a
malicious Word file with "a
malformed string," that could
then "corrupt system memory
in such a way that an attacker
could execute arbitrary
code."
neowin.net - 06.12.2006
Microsoft Security Advisory (950627)
Microsoft is investigating new public reports of very limited, targeted attacks using a vulnerability in the Microsoft Jet Database Engine that can be
exploited through Microsoft Word.
Customers running Windows Server 2003 Service Pack 2, Windows Vista, and Windows Vista Service
Pack 1 are not vulnerable to the buffer overrun being attacked, as they include a version of the Microsoft Jet Database Engine that is not vulnerable
to this issue.
Customers using Microsoft Word 2000 Service Pack 3, Microsoft Word 2002 Service Pack 3, Microsoft Word 2003
Service Pack 2, Microsoft Word 2003 Service Pack 3, Microsoft Word 2007, and Microsoft Word 2007 Service Pack 1 on Microsoft Windows 2000, Windows XP,
or Windows Server 2003 Service Pack 1 are vulnerable to these attacks.
winbeta.org - 22.03.2008
Vulnerability in Microsoft Word Could Allow Remote Code Execution
Microsoft is investigating new public reports of a possible vulnerability in Microsoft Office Word 2002 Service Pack 3. Our initial investigation
indicates that customers who use all other supported versions of Microsoft Office Word, Microsoft Office Word Viewer, Microsoft Office Compatibility
Pack for Word, Excel, and PowerPoint 2007 File Formats, and Microsoft Office for Mac are not affected.
At this time, Microsoft is
aware of limited, targeted attacks that attempt to use this vulnerability. While Microsoft Office Word 2000 does not appear vulnerable to this issue,
Word 2000 may unexpectedly exit when opening a specially crafted .doc file that the attacker is using in an attempt to exploit the vulnerability.
Microsoft is investigating the public reports and customer impact. Upon completion of this investigation, Microsoft will take the
appropriate action to help protect our customers. This may include providing a security update through our monthly release process or providing an
out-of-cycle security update, depending on customer needs.
winbeta.org - 09.07.2008
Gritty Nits - Fix Internet Explorer 7 Crashes in Vista
A lot of you may have seen Internet Explorer crash "Internet Explorer has stopped working" when closing the browser in Windows Vista. It happens all
too often and while it no longer takes the operating system out with it, it is still annoying.
There are a lot of reasons why Internet
Explorer will do this, but one we have found that really stands out is Adobe's Flash Player plug-in and ActiveX control. Seven (7) of
ten (10) IE 7 crashes I have personally seen, are related to the Flash Player plug-in.
Read full story.....
neowin.net - 30.01.2008
Hackers Attack Using Second Microsoft Word Flaw
With its monthly security
updates due out tomorrow,
Microsoft has a new problem to
worry about: Word flaws.
The software vendor
yesterday confirmed a report
that criminals are e-mailing
maliciously crafted Word
attachments to victims. While
these attacks are not
widespread, they are dangerous
because the attacker could run
unauthorized software on the
victim's computer if the
attachment is opened.
This is the second such
Word attack to be confirmed by
Microsoft in the past week.
Last Tuesday, Microsoft warned
of a similar Word flaw, saying
that it was aware of "limited
attacks attempting to use the
vulnerability."
jcxp.net - 12.12.2006
Word 2007 Crashes Are a Feature, Not a Bug
The Word 2007 bugs pegged as
security vulnerabilities by an
Israeli researcher are nothing
of the sort, Microsoft Corp.
said Thursday. Instead, the
application crashes reported
as flaws are actually by
design.
The researcher who posted
details earlier this week of
the bugs reacted by offering
screenshots of the Word
crashes and wondering why
Microsoft disputed his
findings.
On Monday, Mati Aharoni of
Offensive Security warned of
three new flaws in Word 2007
on the Milw0rm and
SecurityVulns.com security
sites, and posted malformed
Word documents as
proof-of-concepts. Microsoft,
however, seemed unconcerned.
Late
Wednesday, a company
spokeswoman repeated the
company's earlier contention
that the Microsoft Security
Response Center's (MSRC)
investigation, "found that
none of these claims
demonstrate a vulnerability in
Microsoft's Word 2007 or any
part of the Microsoft Office
System."
Click Read
More to view the rest of
this article.
jcxp.net - 14.04.2007
Web 2.0 is the millionth English word, word 999,998 is n00b
It seems like the world should have passed this mark a long time ago but as of June 10th 2009, "Web 2.0", became the official 1 millionth word to
enter the English language. It is defined as "he next generation of web products and services, coming soon to a browser near you". Other words
that almost made the claim as the one millionth word were 999,999, "Jai Ho!", which was made popular from the movie Slum Dog millionaire. Also
another notable word that is infamous in the gaming world, n00b, is officially word number 999,998. It's also the only mainstream English word
that contains two numerals.
Read full story.....
neowin.net - 11.06.2009
OpsMgr 2007 SP1 RC Console crashes on x64
Andrzej Lipka: When you try to open the Distributed Application Designer from a console installed on an x64 server you may see the console crashes
with .NET error in the Application Log (something of type badimageformat).
This seems to be a bug in SP1 RC. To work around it
use a console from an x86-32 (32 bit) machine to connect to the x64 server.
On OpsMgr 2007 RTM this issue does not exist.
winbeta.org - 08.11.2007
More Firefox Bloat? Say It Ain't So, Mozilla
When Firefox launched
in beta release five years
ago, it burst on the
open-source browser scene like
a young Elvis Presley -- slim,
sexy and dangerous. Since then
it has attracted millions of
users, generally set the
agenda for browser development
and unseated Microsoft's
Internet Explorer as the de
facto monopoly in the
field.
But,
with Firefox 3.0 poised for
release this summer, the "IE
killer" is in danger of
morphing into an early Fat
Elvis, if increasing numbers
of die-hard fans turned
reluctant critics are any
guide.
Anecdotal
reports of problems, from
sluggishness to slow page
loads and frequent crashes,
have begun circulating in web
forums, along with
increasingly loud calls for
Firefox to return to its
roots. The alleged culprit:
bloat, the same problem that
once plagued Mozilla, the
slow, overstuffed open-source
browser spawned by Netscape
that Firefox was originally
meant to replace...
winbeta.org - 17.05.2007
NVIDIA Drivers Crash Vista
Were you one of the many early Vista adopters who experienced crashing? Well don't go out and point your finger at Microsoft just yet. A recent study
has shown that nearly 30% of Vista crashes(28.8% to be exact) in 2007 were due to NVIDIA drivers. That is an estimated 479,326 systems crashed due to
the drivers.
Microsoft crashes came in second place with 17.9%. While NVIDIA's competitor; ATI, came in fourth in the single
digits with only 9.3%. This is really going go pressure Intel because they have to support the incompatible chipsets. Hopefully in the near future we
can see some improvement on the drivers compatibility.
jcxp.net - 29.03.2008
'Vista capable' suit sheds harsh light on Nvidia
Damon Poeter: <...> According to a list of driver crashes in Vista compiled by Microsoft that was unsealed by U.S. District Judge Marsha J. Pechman in
late February, Nvidia was responsible for nearly 29 percent of all such crashes. The timeframe for the list is hard to pin down. It's given as simply
"Period: 2007" on page 47 of the unsealed discovery.
Whether that represents all or just part of 2007 is unclear. Also somewhat ambiguous is how the crash list was generated. Sources told ChannelWeb it
was a safe bet that the numbers were gathered from users sending prompted reports to Redmond, Wash.-based Microsoft following driver-caused
application or system crashes in Vista.
winbeta.org - 25.03.2008
NVIDIA drivers responsible for nearly 30% of Vista crashes in 2007
Nearly 30% of logged Vista crashes were due to NVIDIA driver problems, according to a Microsoft data included in the bundle. That's some 479,326
hung systems, if you're keeping score at home, and it's in first place by a large margin -- Microsoft clocks in at number two at 17.9 percent,
and ATI is fourth with 9.3 percent.
The data points in the table cover an unspecified period in 2007, and Microsoft makes no attempt to
break the aggregate data down into which device drivers, specifically, returned the highest number of crashes. If the number of failures were split by
month and then graphed, we'd presumably see the number of NVIDIA driver failures per month decreasing as the company slowly brought its driver
issues under control.
The data clearly indicates that NVIDIA had a driver problem, but it's impossible to quantify the scope of that
problem given the numbers above. NVIDIA holds a greater percentage of the market than ATI, which means that there will inevitably be a higher
percentage of NVIDIA driver crashes than ATI driver crashes; however, the degree to which such market share considerations have affected the results
above is hard to determine in the absence of more data. There's also the matter of data collection; Microsoft's charts do not clarify if
multiple crashes from a single system each counted as separate events. In theory, NVIDIA's proportion of total driver crashes could be inflated by
a relatively small handful of systems with severe driver issues.
neowin.net - 28.03.2008
Word 2003 and Earlier Still Vulnerable to E-mail Attacks
The effectiveness of a patch
issued last September for a
Microsoft Word vulnerability,
where .DOC files opened in
Word 2003 and earlier versions
via Internet Explorer or
Outlook could enable remote
code execution, is being
called into question today...
betanews.com - 06.12.2006
Judge orders Microsoft to stop selling Word
On Tuesday, a judge ordered Microsoft to stop selling Word, its flagship word processing software and one of the main components of the Microsoft
Office System - namely part of Word 2003 and Word 2007. This also now extends to Word 2010 which contains the same feature set. Judge Leonard Davis
of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas issued a permanent injunction that "prohibits Microsoft from selling or importing to the
United States any Microsoft Word products that have the capability of opening .XML, .DOCX or DOCM files (XML files) containing custom XML," according
to a statement released by attorneys for the plantiff, i4i, CNET reports. Microsoft stated that it planned to appeal the verdict.
Read full story.....
neowin.net - 12.08.2009
Debugging Windows crashes with minidumps? Not at Lenovo
Michael Horowitz : Like many of you, my copies of Windows XP crash with the now-classic Blue Screen of Death (BSOD). When this happened a couple
times recently to a new ThinkCentre A61 tower, I called Lenovo tech support. As the title of this posting suggests, it did not go well.
When Windows XP crashes, the default behavior is to create a Minidump, a small file (only 88K) with a summary of, hopefully, the most
important information about the failure. I wrote about Minidumps back in November (see
Dealing with software crashes, Part 2). If your copy of
Windows has crashed (a.k.a. "blue screened") in the past, you may find a Minidump describing the problem in the
C:WINDOWSMinidump folder. The format of the filename is MiniMMDDYY-99.DMP (the last two numbers are
a sequence number).
winbeta.org - 22.02.2008
Microsoft permitted to continue Word sales for now
Microsoft Word fans across the world can rejoice and breathe a sigh of relief today as Microsoft has won a temporary stay, allowing Word sales to
continue. In August 2009, a judge ordered Microsoft to stop selling Word, its flagship word processing software and one of the main components of the
Microsoft Office System. i4i sued Microsoft in March 2007 claiming that Microsoft violated its 1998 patent (No. 5,787,449) for a document system that
"eliminated the need for manually embedded formatting codes." I4i Chairman Loudon Owen said last month that he would like to see a version of Word
come out without the technology in question.
Read full story.....
neowin.net - 04.09.2009
Another Office 2003 Virus
The zero-day vulnerability
that was discovered earlier
this week is now used.
According to a recent Symantec
security bulletin,
Trojan.Mdropper.H can affect
Word 2003-equipped PCs, but
can also crash instances of
Word 2002 (Office XP) and Word
2000, without harming the
system itself.
Though, according to that
same Symantec security
bulletin: "Currently,
observed attacks are limited
to attacks against select
targets", "The Trojan begins
as a Word document email
attachment that includes an
embedded executable; when the
attachment is opened, a
backdoor application is
installed and the system is
compromised. The backdoor is
hidden with a rootkit, and the
backdoor opens a
communications channel to a
malicious Web site, for which
it waits for instructions. The
Trojan has numerous functions,
including taking and
transmitting desktop
screenshots, by which
financial data or passwords
might be stolen."
The following
operating systems may be
affected by the trojan:
Windows 2000, 95, 98, Me, NT
4.0, XP, and Windows Server
2003. Microsoft is apparently
working on a fix to this
vulnerability, and that it
should be available to
download through Microsoft
Update by June 13, the next
scheduled monthly update
shipping date. Meanwhile,
Symantec recommends to block
any Word attachment you can
get.
jcxp.net - 22.05.2006
Microsoft Office Could Hit $20
Billion In Sales
President Jeff Raikes of
Microsoft Corp.'s Business
Division says Office software
revenue could double from 2002
levels to reach $20 billion by
2010.
That
target remains "a viable
possibility," Raikes said
Tuesday night at a media
dinner at the Redmond
headquarters.
Raikes, whose group includes
the Office word processing,
spreadsheet and e-mail
software, originally disclosed
the unit's 2010 revenue
target in 2002.
By June 30, revenue for what
Microsoft now calls its
Information Worker business,
mainly comprising Office
software, will have grown 21
percent to $11.6 billion from
$9.6 billion in fiscal 2002,
based on a Microsoft forecast
of 5 percent to 6 percent
growth in sales in the current
fiscal year.
In
order to meet Raikes' goal,
Microsoft will have to add
$8.4 billion in sales over
four years, a 72 percent
increase.
jcxp.net - 11.05.2006
