Windows Archive

"Although a relatively new platform, Tablet PC continues to revitalize and broaden its appeal to developers. By expanding existing features, adding new investments, and simplifying deployments, developing for Tablet PC becomes even more alluring with Windows Vista. There are some interesting PDFs available on what Windows Vista has in store for the Tablet PC."

More from Paul Thurrot today, as he reviews the N editions of Windows: "If you're wondering what the XP N Editions are like, wonder no more. I got my hands on both XP Home N and XP Pro N this week and gave them both a spin. The results were pretty uneventful. I can't recommend the XP N Editions per se, but I can report that you shouldn't be afraid of using these products at all. They're not crippled or broken in any way I can see."

Windows Mobile 5 sports many new features and enhancements making it a very worthwhile upgrade. Perhaps the most important feature that everyone will love is persistent memory. Your data won't be lost if the battery runs completely dry; a new concept for Pocket PCs, and an old one for MS Smartphones and some Palm brand PDAs such as the LifeDrive and Treo 650 (and the Tungsten E2). Read more for an in-depth look at this new Windows version.

Here is a very long and comprehensive comparison of archiving tools for Microsoft Windows. Three awards are rewarded for best commercial, best freeware, and best open-source archiver.

Just weeks after releasing Windows Vista Beta 1, Microsoft has shifted our paradigms again, unveiling a preview of beta 2 at the TechEd 2005 developer conference. Also, "hardware vendors are going to love the news that Windows Vista is going to need very beefy hardware to run well. At Microsoft's TechEd conference, Dan Warne finally managed to squeeze blood from a stone - or rather, answers about Longhorn's hardware requirements from Microsoft."

Microsoft plans to build more Unix features into future versions of its Windows Server operating system and cease work on its separate Services For Unix product. Microsoft plans to include some of those features in Windows Server 2003 R2, an update to the server OS due at the end of this year. At the same time, the company said it is not planning any further releases of the standalone Services For Unix product. DiStasio, a director in the Windows Server unit, said the plan is to build Unix tools into releases beyond R2 as well, but he did not rule out that there might be some tools offered separate from the OS.

A sentence of roughly one to three years' jail is expected for a man who sold source code for Windows NT 4.0 and Windows 2000. A Connecticut man has pleaded guilty in a US federal court to selling Microsoft source code over the Internet.

Microsoft has released the first beta of Windows Server 2003 R2. "Windows Server 2003 R2 release candidate software is available to download for evaluation in both x64 and x86 versions. Windows Server 2003 R2 RC0 software cannot be installed on anything other than software versions of Windows Server 2003 with Service Pack 1." More information can be found here.

The WinFS rumors were true: Microsoft has posted for download by its Microsoft Developer Network subscribers a first beta of its next-generation WinFS file system. While many developers were not expecting Microsoft to release a Beta 1 build of the technology until late 2006, Microsoft officials said on Monday that getting early bits to testers before Windows Vista shipped was actually the plan of record since last year. Update: Channel9 has a video of WinFS (WMV).

When Microsoft announced a year ago that it had decided to rip the next-generation Windows File System from Longhorn, many company watchers wrote off the feature as little more than vaporware. But it seems Microsoft didn't simply shelve WinFS. According to sources close to the company, Microsoft just last week put the finishing touches on the first beta release of WinFS. And the company is moving ahead with plans to back-port the WinFS technology to Windows XP.

Microsoft's Professional Developers Conference is expected to be a coming out party of sorts for the next version of Visual Studio, code-named Orcas. Primary among the new features in and new direction for Orcas will be advances in how the toolset handles data, sources said. Data becomes "cool" in Orcas, said a source familiar with Microsoft's strategy for Orcas.

It would seem that the upcoming release of Microsoft's Windows Vista does not seem like a good thing for the desktop Linux community. After all, this update to Windows XP is going to focus on two attributes which have pushed users to Linux for years- security and stability. Upon closer inspection though, the move to Vista may be the perfect time for the Linux community to make headway on the desktop and increase its user base dramatically. The number of features which Microsoft has cast aside since Longhorn and the hardware requirements of Vista have set the stage for a large scale move to desktop Linux.

Microsoft officials have admitted one of their biggest challenges in continuing to grow the company's Windows business is the impression among some of its installed base that older Windows versions are good enough. The users of Windows 95, which turns ten years old on Wednesday, are a case in point. Elsewhere, here is a story about the launch of Windows 95 exactly 10 years ago.

"Welcome to the Microsoft Windows Software Development Kit for Microsoft Windows Vista Beta 1. This edition provides documentation, samples, header files, libraries, and tools designed to help you develop applications and libraries that target Windows Vista Beta 1."