|
|
|
Microsoft Windows and Windows Vista and most updated news, reviews and analysis of Microsoft Windows software products and operating systems for PCs and laptops, Servers, Office and business tools. eWEEK Windows coverage includes updates, news and reviews on installing, updating, maintaining, hosting and protecting, Microsoft Windows, Windows XP, Windows Vista, Windows NT, Windows Server 2000, Windows Server 2007, Microsoft Office 2007, Office SharePoint Server, Exchange Server 2007, Windows Mobile, Windows Defender and Microsoft Forefront. Also updates on Microsoft Windows Service packs, malware and virus news, downloads, patches and services.
Top Windows 7 and Vista News
Microsoft issued a large update for Patch Tuesday, plugging a total of 26 security holes in Windows and other Microsoft products.
News
Nvidia's Optimus technology aims to improve battery life and power efficiency in notebooks by re-routing the processing workload based on what applications are in use.
News
Microsoft has delivered the release candidate version of the company's Visual Studio 2010 and .NET Framework 4.0 application development suite.
News
Microsoft claims its engineers have been exploring complaints of poor battery life for some laptops running Windows 7, and that in every case the operating system is not at fault. Instead, Windows 7 had correctly evaluated via a new feature that those users’ batteries were failing, Microsoft said in a Feb. 8 blog posting. However, posts on Microsoft Watch, TechNet and other discussion forums seem to suggest that at least a percentage of users experiencing these issues also had batteries that were either new or nearly new, which in turn is raising further questions.
Opinion
AppLocker is Microsoft’s take on application whitelisting, a process by which a user can only run applications or processes that are expressly permitted by policy.
News
Microsoft's smartphone-related rollout at Mobile World Congress on Feb. 15 could be a mobile operating system with a flashy Zune-like interface and lack of Flash support, according to online rumors. PPC Geeks is reporting through unnamed sources that Microsoft's offering will include no multitask support and that Windows Mobile Device Center will no longer be used. Microsoft has kept the subject of its announcement under wraps, but executives have nonetheless suggested that it will be a major update to the company's struggling mobile operating system franchise, currently facing intense competitive pressure from the likes of Apple's iPhone and Google Android.
News
Microsoft experienced a cloud-centric week with Windows Azure, which is now generally available in 21 countries and no longer available for free. Microsoft hopes that the cloud-based platform and its application-building tools for developers will allow it to gain market share in the cloud computing arena, where it faces strong competition from the likes of Google and Amazon. In addition to Azure, Microsoft received some good news on the Windows 7 front, with a new report from Net Applications showing a rising rate of adoption for the new operating system. However, Microsoft continues to face some difficulties in mobile, with the rumor mill suggesting that the company may try to introduce a branded smartphone later this month.
News
Microsoft announced as of April 15 the company will discontinue the Xbox Live online play service for original Xbox consoles and games, including Xbox v1 games playable on Xbox 360 and Xbox Originals.
News
Microsoft and the National Science Foundation (NSF) announced a collaboration to provide NSF-supported researchers with free access to the Windows Azure cloud platform and its development tools for three years. The evident hope is that those researchers will leverage the cloud-computing capabilities of the platform to analyze massive amounts of data inherent in large projects. Microsoft made the Windows Azure platform generally available on Feb. 1 in 21 countries, requiring users to pay for the service.
News
Microsoft's new product R&D suffers from an internal culture of infighting and refusal to evolve, according to an op-ed piece by former Vice President Dick Brass published in The New York Times. As a result, Brass asserts, the Windows maker is failing even as it reports record profits. Furthermore, he says, Microsoft's attempts to develop a tablet PC nearly a decade ago were at least partially doomed by a refusal to modify popular Office applications to interface properly with such a device.
News
Microsoft is planning to fix 26 vulnerabilities for February's Patch Tuesday. Most of the vulnerabilities are related to Windows.
New Slideshow
Dell, Sony and Gateway all introduced new PCs during the first week of February, each emphasizing more personalized features, pricing respectful of IT budgets—as Dell phrased it—Microsoft's Windows 7 operating system and a boost of power from the latest Intel processors. The Dell Latitude 13 and Precision M6500, for mobile enterprise users, will arrive in the coming weeks; the Sony Vaio E Series of notebooks, in fun colors for consumers, can be preordered before their March arrival; and the new Gateways—an FX, DX and SX Series of desktops for homes, gamers and dorm rooms, are now available for purchase.
News
Microsoft releases an advisory about a new vulnerability affecting Internet Explorer that could allow an attacker to access files on a PC if the user is running Windows XP or using IE with Protected Mode disabled.
News
Microsoft confirms that it will offer the Release Candidate of Office 2010 to testers enrolled in its Technology Adoption Program ahead of the productivity suite's general release in June. Microsoft previously opened Office 2010 to general public beta testing, much as it had with Windows 7, planning to use feedback from millions of users to refine the final product. Microsoft faces a growing challenge from Google Apps and other cloud-based competitors in the productivity software space.
News
Gateway updates its FX, SX and DX desktop lines with slick designs, impressive price points, big power-saving drives, Microsoft's Windows 7 operating system, and Intel Core i5 and i3 chips.
|
|
|
 |
|
It's been almost a decade since I evaluated a PC migration solution aimed at moving installed applications from one Windows PC to another. Products such as PCmover Pro and Enterprise let you move a Windows XP installation to Windows 7, but is that the best upgrade path? I’d have to answer an unequivocal no.
After kicking the tires of Windows 7 in 2009, enterprises will be ready to adopt the new operating system in 2010. However, much-ballyhooed enterprise features may not make as big of an impact as Microsoft expected (or hoped), and IT managers will lean on trusty old technologies to aid in migration. Now that the standard has been ratified and competition is growing stiffer, the time is right for enterprise adoption of 802.11n. And you can expect to see bold moves in the mobile app space.
Some of the biggest events of 2009 served mostly to set the stage for bigger things in 2010. Poised to make a big bang in the new year are the fallout from Oracle's acquisition of Sun; Microsoft's new Azure operating system for the cloud, which will go from beta to service mode; Microsoft Office 2010, which will go from beta to full release; and two Windows alternatives, Ubuntu and Google Chrome OS.
Windows 7 was one of the biggest product stories of 2009, so why didn't Microsoft's new client OS make eWEEK Labs' Products of the Year list? A lack of true innovation and several outstanding questions are among the reasons.
In Office 2007, the Outlook mail client looked a lot like its previous iteration, lacking even a full implementation of the productivity suite's ribbon interface. With Outlook 2010, however, Microsoft has caught the mail client up with the rest of the Office suite. eWEEK Labs' tests of the Outlook 2010 beta show some significant improvements, but also some room for confusion.
|
|
|
|
| FEATURED SPONSORED MESSAGE |
|
| |
|
| FEATURED SPONSORED MESSAGE |
|
| |
|
|
|
MOST READ WINDOWS STORIES
PAST 7 DAYS
MOST READ WINDOWS STORIES
PAST 30 DAYS
|
|
| Windows Hosting
Capitalize on AT&Ts expertise and reap the rewards. Flexible options. |
|
|
|
Windows 7 and Vista 
