Windows Archive

A Microsoft legal document put a late 2004 expected ship date on the next client version of Windows, code-named "Longhorn," putting in black and white what Microsoft officials have been telling partners, customers and reporters in private conversations.

Windows NT 4.0 Server, still the weapon of choice for quantities of the more truculent IT manager, has been given another 12 months to live. Microsoft today intends to announce that paid incident and security hotfix support for the product, previously scheduled to cease at the end of this year, will now run up until 31st December 2004.

Microsoft "Media2Go" is a platform for portable media players that will begin shipping from OEMs such as Viewsonic in late 2003. The Media2Go software platform is based on the next version of Windows CE .NET, code-named Macallan. Read the story at WinSuperSite.

The next update to Microsoft's Windows CE .Net OS, which has been given the code name McKendric, will ship before the middle of 2003 and include several new features, a company executive said at the Microsoft Embedded DevCon 2003 conference.

"The product name Microsoft(R) Windows(R) .NET Server 2003 will be changing to Windows Server 2003. Microsoft is making an effort to clarify the naming and branding strategy for .NET." Read the report at PocketPCThoughts.

Microsoft Corp. today announced the availability of its Windows Powered Smartphone and Pocket PC software for CDMA and broadband CDMA (1xRTT) networks. The new release delivers the same Pocket PC and Smartphone software available for GSM/GPRS networks.

"Although Microsoft Corp. doesn't anoint Windows .Net Server 2003 Release Candidate 2 as "feature-complete," this edition shows that Microsoft's next operating system revision will be a significant, incremental upgrade compared with the massive overhaul that took place going from Windows NT to Windows 2000." The article is at eWeek.

"Windows CE .NET, the newest member of the .NET family, includes a number of improvements over previous versions of Windows CE. For example, there are quite a few new APIs and enhancements to security and connectivity, the user interface, the kernel, and the emulator. In addition, DirectX support has been added and C++ in Windows CE .NET now supports C++ exceptions, STL, and runtime type information. In this article the author takes a tour of Windows CE .NET, starting with the New Platform Wizard that allows you to code for your choice of devices. A sample application is included that locates features on portable devices so the reader knows what's available before writing code." This article is from July but it should still be relevant to OS-interested readers.

According to this New York Times article, Lindows.com, Inc. is suing Microsoft over the Windows trademark. Says Lindows.com attorney Clifford Chance, "No company, no matter how powerful, no matter how much money it has spent, should be able to gain a commercial monopoly on words in the English language." Read more at nytimes.com.

Need a job? This classified posting appears to confirm that Microsoft is developing a new, original "next generation" shell to take advantage of the .NET framework for its next version of Windows. The ad says experience with "shell languages like PERL, Python and Bash" are a plus - interesting, I'd bet most of the experts in these areas are UNIX users.

Microsoft will release a Plus expansion pack for Windows XP to enhance the digital media features in its desktop operating system. At the same time it will make available the final release of its Windows Media 9 software early next year.

Fred Langa bids farewell to Win95 and Win 3x, two operating systems that literally changed the world but will no longer be supported by Microsoft.

"For the second time in a week, Microsoft acknowledged that its initial estimation of a software flaw underrated the true threat posed by the vulnerability. The Redmond, Wash., giant said Thursday it plans to change the severity of a vulnerability in software common to Internet Explorer and other Windows applications from "important" to "critical." The move was prompted by an in-depth analysis written by the security researchers who found the flaw." Read the rest at ZDNet.

PC Vendors that ship Windows-ready machine can currently offer two Windows flavors preloaded onto a hard-drive. New users can simply select the version they want, and then boot directly into that OS. But Microsoft is about to pull that option, and require PC vendors to only install a single Windows flavor on each PC they sell. Read the report at ExtremeTech here and here.