Windows Archive

Well, well, well. We all know Apple's App Store policies are incompatible with the GPL, and as such, software using this license can't be distributed in the App Store. So, what about Microsoft's Windows Phone 7 Marketplace? Well, whereas the App Store doesn't specifically mention the GPL (Apple's terms are simply incompatible), Microsoft drops the pretence and simply bans GPL and GPL-esque licenses outright.

"Microsoft's Windows Phone 7 operating system has lured an increasing number of application developers since the software maker announced a partnership with Nokia. In the four days after the Feb. 11 deal, 4 percent of new app projects started were for Windows Phone, compared with 1 percent in the previous four days."

"Microsoft has informed close partners that SP1 has hit the Release to Manufacturing milestone. MSDN and TechNet customers will receive the bits on February 16, followed by a general web release on February 22. According to sources close to the matter, Microsoft sent out internal announcements to mark the RTM of Windows 7 SP1 in January. Russian site Wzor confirmed the RTM too and has leaked several versions of Windows 7 SP1 for various languages."

"Windows Home Server 'Vail' Release Candidate goes to testers. For those Windows Home Server loyalists hoping against hope that Microsoft might reconsider its decision to cut Drive Extender from the coming 'Vail' release, your prayers have not been answered. Microsoft is delivering the Release Candidate test build of Vail - Windows Home Server 2011 - on February 3, and there is no Drive Extender included."

Right, it's good to be back. This is news from last week, but heck, it's relevant for me since I just got my HTC HD7 Windows Phone 7 device. Anyway, if you're running a very large company in the business of selling phones, gadgets, and so on, there are several ways to deal with jailbreakers. It seems like Microsoft is one of the few companies who knows what it needs to do.

"A class action lawsuit against Microsoft has been filed in Italy by a group claiming that it's too difficult to procure a refund for the copies of Windows that come bundled in new PCs."

According to BBC News Microsoft is investigating a problem with Windows Phone 7 phones sending and receiving "phantom" data. "We are investigating this issue to determine the root cause and will update with information and guidance as it becomes available," said a Microsoft spokesperson.

Since the big Windows news last week was the announcement that the next version of Windows will run on ARM, this one kind of slipped in under the radar. It's a rumour, but confirmed by different people: there will be a new application model in Windows 8, currently named Jupiter, while thee will also be a tile-based interface for tablets. It seems like the pieces of the puzzle are all falling into place: Windows NT everywhere, Silverlight/.Net everywhere.

Apple, Roku, Google, Boxee.... They're not the only ones gunning for your big screen. Microsoft was arguably the first major company to focus on bringing digital content to your TV with Windows Media Centre, which the Redmond company launched all the way back in 2002. It never caught on, but now, the Seattle Times is reporting that Microsoft is going to make another attempt - by putting Windows Media Centre on a set-top box.

The rumours about Windows possibly being ported to ARM has left a lot of people bewildered; why would you port Windows NT when Windows CE 6.0 is a perfectly capable operating system? Putting all the pieces together, it's actually quite clear why you would want Windows NT on ARM: servers.

While Microsoft's Security Essentials has been very well received because of its small footprint and unobtrusive nature, it didn't always rank among the very top when it came to its detection rates. Overall, I'd still say it's one of the best antivirus tools. Now, with version 2.0, Microsoft has improved the detection mechanisms, but of course, it'll take some tests before we can see how effective they are.

"In addition to talking up Windows tablets and slates at the January Consumer Electronics Show, Microsoft execs also are expected to use the conference to give another push to Windows Phone 7. But the first 'major' update to the WP7 platform may not hit until August or September of 2011, my sources claim."

If you haven't looked at the Windows utilities landscape lately, you're in for a big surprise. Many of the old favorites have changed, bringing new features to Windows 7, as well as XP. Others have fallen by the wayside, replaced by upstarts that deliver meaningful functionality that once cost big bucks. With that reality in mind, Woody Leonhard has picked the 15 free Windows utilities everyone should have.

NTFS is the file system used by Windows. It is a powerful and complicated file system. There are few file systems that provide as many features and to fully cover them all would require a book. And in fact there is a book detailing NTFS, and it's already out of date. The purpose of this article is not to cover all of the features of NTFS, nor will it exhaustively cover NTFS features in detail. Instead we will cover its basic structure and then describe some of its more advanced features and provide use examples where possible. We will focus more on what it does, rather than how it does it. Trying to walk the line between informative and detailed is difficult and so this article contains a lot of references for people who hunger for more detail.