Windows Archive

Paul Thurrot: "Tipped off by a reader, I checked my System log in Event Viewer today and what did I find but a stack of pending updates for all of the core apps in Windows 8. I'm not 100 percent sure this is what I think it is. But if we're right, it looks like 18 of the core apps in Windows 8 are about to get updated. Or, almost all of them." Foley confirms it. By far Windows 8's weakest link, so I'm hoping this is true. Especially the Mail application is dreadful.

"Microsoft today announced via its website the general availability of the Windows Embedded 8 family of operating systems. Extending Windows 8 technologies to a spectrum of edge devices, Windows Embedded 8 helps enterprises capitalize on the Internet of Things with the platform to capture, analyze and act on valuable data across IT infrastructures." So, this is NT-based, and not CE-based, right? Even though I'm currently researching and writing about Psion and Symbian, I'm dreading the day I have to sort through the mess that is Microsoft's mobile and embedded systems. Just check the page for Windows Embedded 8, and look at those names. The heck?

Microsoft rolled out a bunch of patches today for Windows 8, and the most important one is that Flash in IE10 now works with a blacklist instead of a whitelist. "Well, the biggest news is that Microsoft has enabled Flash to work now in Internet Explorer 10 for RT. If you recall, Microsoft only allowed a few, specific websites with Flash to work on Internet Explorer 10 citing performance and battery life reasons. There was even a neat little work around that you could do yourself to bypass this. Now, Microsoft have reversed that decision, which they say is due to more sites becoming IE10 compatible." There's a firmware update for Surface RT as well, and I have to admit my Surface RT feels a little faster and smoother - especially typing. Could be reboot-induced, though.

"A senior Samsung Electronics executive said Friday the launch of Windows 8 has failed to bolster demand for PCs and he does not expect the PC industry to rebound soon." Of course, Samsung and other OEMs could've, you know, built better computers. Just a suggestion.

After ditching its Windows RT tablets from the US market, Samsung has now also confirmed to Heise.de it's going to stop selling them in Germany and several other European countries. The company cites lack of interest from consumers and confusion over what Windows RT is. Combined with the massive discounts Microsoft is now giving to OEMs, the writing is on the wall here: Windows 8 - specifically on tablets but also in general - is turning into a failure.

Gabe, one of the two guys behind Penny Arcade, has reviewed the Surface Pro - as an artist. He's in love with it. "Sketching with the Stylus in Sketchbook was awesome. It's important to note that you CAN lay your hand on the screen while you draw without messing up your work. There was no brush lag at all and the pressure sensitivity worked perfectly. The stylus itself felt exactly like drawing on my Cintiq except that the Surface screen is smooth whereas the Cintiq screen has a bit of texture to it." I'm no artist, so I got a Surface RT, but I'm loving it too. The tablet/laptop combination just works. My ZenBook and Nexus 7 have been off and in storage since the day I got the RT.

"Imagine a phone that could run real Remote Desktop. Real PowerShell. Anything that can run on your desktop PC. Imagine 'phablet' form factors, similar to today's Samsung Galaxy Note 2, which could dock to a desktop setup and utilize an external display, keyboard, mouse, and other peripherals. Imagine a single set of APIs that work everywhere. Imagine that Phone isn't a whole separate platform, but an app. An app that runs on Windows. Real Windows. The Windows Phone team could never make that happen. But the Windows client team? You betcha. Make it happen, Microsoft. It's time to take the phone seriously." I have never agreed with Thurrot as much as I do right now.

"The 16-bit Windows kernel was actually three kernels. One if you were using an 8086 processor, another if you were using an 80286 processor, and a third if you were using an 80386 processor. The 8086 kernel was a completely separate beast, but the 80286 and 80386 kernels shared a lot of code in common." As always, Raymond Chen delivers. If you don't yet follow his blog, you should. Right now. Click that bookmark or RSS button.

A few days ago, Microsoft released the long-awaited Windows Phone 7.8 update for all those users who will be stuck on Windows Phone 7 forever because there's no upgrade path to Windows Phone 8 other than buying a new phone. Now that it's here, what, exactly, does WP7.8 to the table?

So, just as Windows Phone 7.8 has finally started rolling out to devices, Microsoft and Google kiss and make up about the whole dropping of EAS thing. Google has extended its EAS support for Windows Phone users for six months, and Microsoft will add CardDAV and CalDAV support to Windows Phone (but not Windows 8/RT, so those users are still screwed by Microsoft's incompetence).

Microsoft has announced the launch date of the Surface Pro, as well as widened availability of the Surface RT. The Surface Pro will launch in the US and Canada only, 9 February, for a starting price of $899. Surface RT's market availability, in the meantime, will expand to Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Sweden and Switzerland, also 9 February. Considering I was planning on ordering one from Germany, they're just in time so I can order from The Netherlands.

The Verge has a learned a few interesting things about Google deprecating EAS and how this will affect Windows Phone users. As it turns out, Google informed Microsoft it was planning to remove EAS in the summer of last year, but without giving a firm date. Microsoft has been trying to get a six-month extension from Google, but so far with no luck. In the meantime, Microsoft is also working on adding CardDAV and CalDAV support to Windows Phone - so yay open standards.

DOS 4.0, Zune, and Windows 8 are but a few of the landmarks among 25 years of failures Redmond-style, writes InfoWorld's Woody Leonhard in a round-up of Microsoft's 13 worst missteps of all time. 'Over the years, Microsoft's made some incredibly good moves, even if they felt like mistakes at the time: mashing Word and Excel into Office; offering Sabeer Bhatia and cohorts $400 million for a year-old startup; blending Windows 98 and NT to form Windows 2000; sticking a weird Israeli motion sensor on a game box; buying Skype for an unconscionable amount of money. (The jury's still out on the last one.) Along the way, Microsoft has had more than its fair share of bad mistakes; 2012 alone was among the most tumultuous years in Microsoft history I can recall. This year you can bet that Redmond will do everything in its power to prove 2012 naysayers wrong. To do so, Microsoft must learn from the following dirty baker's dozen of its most dreck-laden decisions, the ones that have had the very worst consequences, from a customer's point of view.'

Tom Warren: "While Intel is trying to keep the Windows tree healthy, Microsoft is hoping that the leaves don't start to drop off before its own family of Surface devices are fully ready. Redmond isn't 'priming the pump' here, it's planting seeds for the future. If Microsoft is successful then it could be the world's biggest Windows OEM in just a few years. The future is Surface." You just have to look at the difference in build quality and supplied software between OEM devices and Surface even though Surface is cheaper to realise that the age of Windows OEMs is coming to an end. The writing's on the wall, and the OEMs know it: there's no future for them in Windows.