Windows Archive

Windows XP Users Must Update Flash Now

"Microsoft has confirmed that the version of Adobe Flash bundled with Windows XP contains multiple bugs, and urged customers to upgrade to a newer edition of the multimedia player plug-in. In a security advisory issued alongside a one-patch update for the month, Microsoft acknowledged that Flash Player 6 contains numerous vulnerabilities. Flash Player 6 is the version of Adobe's software that Microsoft includes in Windows XP, even in the copies it continues to sell to computer makers, who offer the eight-year-old operating system on netbooks, laptops and some desktop PCs."

A Possible Cure for Exploitable Heap Corruption in Windows 7

"Last November, Russinovich triumphantly introduced developers at the company's annual PDC conference in Los Angeles to a multitude of measures implemented in Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 not only to improve reliability and harden security, but to overcome the deficiencies he openly admits characterized the brief era of Windows Vista. Collectively, just the introductions to these new features by Russinovich and his partners consumed 11 hours over the first two days, all of that time with a standing-room-only crowd."

Russinovich Details MinWin, Once More

Ah, MinWin. The elusive project in the Windows team that has been misunderstood more times than I can count. Once again, Mark Russinovich, more or less the Linus of the Windows world (I win stupidest comparison of the year award), has explained what MinWin is all about, while also touching upon a number of other changes to the core of Windows. Before we start: thanks to BetaNews for once again detailing these technical talks regarding the core of Windows so well.

The Machine SID Duplication Myth

In usual form, Mark Russinovich debunks the machine SID duplication myth. " The more I thought about it, the more I became convinced that machine SID duplication – having multiple computers with the same machine SID – doesn’t pose any problem, security or otherwise. I took my conclusion to the Windows security and deployment teams and no one could come up with a scenario where two systems with the same machine SID, whether in a Workgroup or a Domain, would cause an issue."

Microsoft Kernel Engineers Talk About Windows 7’s Kernel

Microsoft's Professional Developers Conference is currently under way, and as usual, the technical fellows at Microsoft gave speeches about the deep architecture of Windows - in this case, Windows 7 of course. As it turns out, quite some seriously impressive changes have been made to the very core of Windows - all without breaking a single application. Thanks to BetaNews for summarising this technical talk so well.

Explaining Windows 7’s Secure Remote Connection

Unless you're seriously into networking (and okay, maybe you are), all the features in the new Secure Remote Connection - not to mention the pieces required to make it work - can be fairly tough to figure out. But the benefits make sense: "With this feature," writes Steven Vaughan-Nichols, "a user on any Windows 7 system can gain access to the corporate intranet's resources. In short, with the right back-end setup you can run office-only programs and get to server-based files from any Windows 7 PC." He explains it all in Accessing Office Resources from Anywhere using Secure Remote Connection.