Windows Archive

"The delay of Windows Vista means that computers sold this holiday season will predominantly be running Windows XP. Microsoft hopes that Vista won't be far from the minds of new computer buyers, however, as they are pushing a new 'stickering' campaign aimed at informing customers that most of these machines are capable of handling Vista. The basics of the announcement were covered last week by Matt on M-Dollar, so I won't repeat them here. Instead, I'd like to address a couple of concerns with the program, and highlight some little known facts about the new OS." Update: A new CTP release of Vista is on its way.

Microsoft will support customers who chose to run Linux with Microsoft's Virtual Server 2005 R2, software for running multiple operating systems on one machine.

The European Commission said on Wednesday it told Microsoft that it had competition worries about the firm's new operating system, Vista, another antitrust concern that the software giant must answer in Europe. "We are concerned about the possibility that the next Vista operating system will include various elements which are currently available separately from Microsoft or other companies," Commission spokesman Jonathan Todd said. More here. My take: Enough already. Seriously.

Microsoft has released an interim build of Windows Vista, Build 5342, today to a select group of testers. This is the first build to come with the 'real' Aero Glass: fully scalable vector based transparencies that take advantage of pixel shading. The previous builds contained Aero Express and Aero Express with transparancy, not the real Aero Glass. Other notable improvements: a complete firewall, support for Pocket PC 2000, 2002, and 2003 synchronization, and more. Flexbeta has screenshots, but Flexbeta seems pretty down to me at the moment.

Microsoft appears to be in a state of panic, ordering 60 per cent of its new operating system to be re-written amidst a major shake-up of its troubled Windows division. According to a Volish denizen speaking to smarthouse.com, orders have come down from on high to rewrite more than 60 per cent of the consumer version of Vista in a bid to get it ready for the 2007 CES show in Las Vegas.

"Just days after announcing a delay in when Windows Vista will ship, Microsoft has significantly restructured its Platforms & Services Division and appointed Steve Sinofsky, who headed the Office team until now, to head the Windows and Windows Live groups, giving him broad responsibility for planning future versions of Windows. While the company is saying the reorganization is designed to better align the existing Windows and MSN assets with Microsoft's overall Live strategy, some sources tell eWEEK that the delay in the release of Windows Vista was the catalyst for the move." Microsoft employees want heads rolling.

Microsoft will bring some of the graphics destined for Windows Vista to the Macintosh, phones and older versions of Windows next year through a user interface toolkit. Company executives at the Mix '06 Web developer conference on Monday provided anticipated dates for delivery of Windows Presentation Foundation Everywhere, or WPF/E, a user interface design software for operating systems other than Windows Vista.

Microsoft has officially announced to ActiveWin (over a conference call) the release date of Windows Vista. Windows Vista will be made officially to consumers in January 2007, while making Windows Vista available to businesses only in November 2006. In addition, there will be a feature complete Beta 2 CTP released in the next quarter.

News has leaked that Microsoft has enabled support for OpenGL to work with the Vista compositing desktop, as of the most recent preview build. Previously Microsoft's plan had been to force OpenGL to be translated to Direct3D, reducing performance by 50% and locking the OpenGL version to 1.4 only.

There's a software product coming that has the potential to demote spyware from a security priority to an afterthought: Windows Vista. Spyware has become a serious security problem for users of Microsoft's operating system over the past years, giving rise to a host of third-party tools to fight the insidious software. But perhaps the best defensive program has yet to ship, some analysts believe.

The director of platform strategy at Microsoft, Bill Hilf has lead the Linux and open source software technology group at Redmond for the past two years and formerly headed the global Linux technical strategy of IBM. He says reliability and predicability are the key factors which give Microsoft’s software the edge over Linux and open source alternatives.

"This is the year... The year that Microsoft releases the newest version of Windows. We are targeting to make Windows Vista generally available in the second half of this year, and the exact delivery date will ultimately be determined by the quality of the product. So what is so compelling that our customers would want to spend money upgrading to the Vista operating system? Let’s take a quick look at all that Vista offers a small business."

Microsoft revealed today that it will not support EFI booting for Windows Vista on its launch. The news will be a shock for owners of Intel Macs who had hoped they would be able to dual-boot between Windows Vista and OS X. Intel Macs only support booting via EFI.

However old, Windows 3.x is still being used. Calmira XP 4.0 beta gives the Windows 3.x desktop the WinXP look-and-feel. In this new version an XP taskbar has been added, and even experimental support for long file names. Other things Calmira includes is the XP login screen, and more. And here it is, boys and girls, the obligatory screenshot.