Windows Archive

As scheduled, Wine has officially entered the beta stage today. "This is release 0.9 of Wine, a free implementation of Windows on Unix. After 12 years of development, this release marks the beginning of the beta testing phase." In related news, CrossOver Office 5 has been released, with support for Office 2003 and 'bottles' (multiple Windows environments).

Ars Technica has posted a lengthy article on the new promising Microsoft Command Shell. It looks at MSH from the point of view of both coders and Windows admins.

After roughly 12 years of work, the Wine Project is about to take its widely used Windows translation layer to a place it has not been in all that time: beta. Wine Project leader Alexandre Julliard, who has worked on the software nearly since its beginning in 1993 and maintained it since 1994, said in an interview yesterday that the beta release is "a matter of days away." He has since updated that forecast and said it would be released on Tuesday, October 25th.

Steve Ballmer wants you to know one thing: He never throws chairs. Elsewhere, here is a mini-review of the Windows Vista Build 5231, discussing interface, WMP, tabbed browsing and more.

In its first update to a new community-based preview program, Microsoft is showing off a number of new features for Windows Vista, including efforts to improve the web browser and make the operating system more resilient.

Microsoft has confirmed plans to bundle anti-spyware protection into Windows Vista, a move that is sure to raise eyebrows among competitors and possibly antitrust regulators. "The core Windows AntiSpyware functionality gets built in," said Greg Sullivan, lead Windows product manager. "For unmanaged environments, home and small business users, we want to provide base-level security services."

Microsoft on Monday came closer to the final release of Windows Server 2003 R2, expected before the year's end, by making Release Candidate 1 available for download. The release of the RC1 code, which is available here, follows the release of RC0, in late August.

While Build 5232 was released today to testers, WinSuperSite continues its review of build 5231. "Windows Vista Build 5231 could have been horrible and I'd still be happy about it, because we're finally getting regular Windows Vista builds. That build 5231 is not horrible, and includes a number of exciting new features, is just the frosting on the cake. After a rough beginning and a particularly bad 2004-2005, Windows Vista is finally on track."

"Today just so happens to mark the third birthday of Microsoft's Media Center Edition of Windows XP, which is likely why the company is rolling out a major update to the MCE product. Dubbed Rollup 2, the update is available to current WMC customers via Windows Update. Will you want it?"

Microsoft is poised to release to testers the second Community Technology Preview release of Vista, paving the way for a second full-fledged beta, which is now expected in December. Among the new features which could find their way into the updated build are a number of IE 7.0 enhancements; the resurrected "Sidebar" task pane; Windows Media Player 11.0; and new networking functionality.

"A feature mimicking Apple's 'widgets' scheduled to appear in Microsoft's Windows Vista will also show in the current Windows XP operating system, a Vista product manager said. According to Sean Alexander, a group product manager with Microsoft, the so-called 'gadgets' in Vista will be produced for Windows XP as well." In related news, here are some new screenshots of the latest Office 12 build.

Microsoft is about to give Media Center PCs a new point of view. The software giant is expected to unveil on Friday an update for its Windows XP Media Center Edition operating system that will boost the computers' abilities to tap online entertainment such as movies, access e-mail and even let users go shopping via the special user interface, designed to allow easy access to multimedia.

"Vista Beta 2 is scheduled to launch sometime in November. While that might be a fair bit ahead in time, there are a number of new features that have already been added to Windows Vista since the Beta 1 build. In this article, we will briefly discuss the integration in Windows Vista and where Microsoft is headed in its journey towards releasing its much-delayed OS." In the meantime, a new Vista build has been leaked to the internet. Screenshots included.

Simple passwords aren't good enough any more, as the flood of stories about phishing, fraud, and compromised accounts by the millions demonstrate. The Next Big Thing in computer security is two-factor authentication and, like it or not, you're probably going to be dealing with it in the next year or so. But two-factor authentication is a concept, not a product, and how it's implemented is critical to its success.