Windows Archive

Wal-Mart Hated Windows Vista Home Basic

David Adams 2008-03-08 Windows 5 Comments

Another interesting tidbit to surface from the Microsoft internal emails made public as part of the "Vista Capable" lawsuit is the revelation that Wal-Mart and other large retailers were very unhappy upon being briefed about the Windows Vista Capable program. These retailers, Wal-Mart in particular, did not like Vista Home Basic, seeing it as a crippled product that would confuse and dissatisfy customers. A Computerworld article has more details.

Windows ‘Workstation’ 2008: Vista Done Right?

Submitted by Research Staff 2008-03-05 Windows 44 Comments

"If you've been paying attention to the various industry news outlets you've no doubt come across the story about the Microsoft engineer advocating Windows Server 2008 as a 'workstation' OS. According to him, if you make the right tweaks - installing the Desktop Experience feature, adding a few missing utilities, tuning the scheduler - you can turn Server 2008 into a fairly convincing Vista knock-off, one that's faster and more scalable than the original. Curious, we decided to see for ourselves just how well Server 2008 stacks-up to Vista with SP1." In addition, ExtremeTech has an article on Vista SP1 performance.

Windows Vista Ultimate SP1 Delayed

Thom Holwerda 2008-03-04 Windows 13 Comments

Microsoft has admitted that SP1 for its Ultimate edition of Windows Vista will not be made available to everyone in mid-March as originally planned, because of a delay with 31 of its language packs. Vista product manager Nick White said in a blog post yesterday that Microsoft will now ship Vista Ultimate SP1 in two 'waves', with the second one coming 'later in 2008'. Customers running the 'premium' version of the operating system on their computers in English, French, German, Japanese and Spanish will be able to get the service pack shortly, according to White. But the remaining Vista Ultimate computers around the world will not receive the long-awaited update until the 31 language packs, that the software giant is presumably tweaking, are supported in SP1.

Submitted by WillM 2008-03-02 Windows 19 Comments

Microsoft's Sam Ramji explains how open source influenced Windows Server 2008. "Overall, we've learned and continue to learn from open source development principles. These are making their way into the mindset, development practices, and ultimately into the products we bring to market."

Microsoft e-Mails Detail Vista Woes

Thom Holwerda 2008-02-28 Windows 19 Comments

As happens every year or so, some juicy Microsoft e-mails have surfaced as part of litigation that the software maker is party to. In this case, Microsoft is being sued over a program in 2006 that labeled some PCs as Windows Vista Capable ahead of the operating system's mainstream release in January 2007. As part of the discovery process, a number of e-mails have emerged with Microsoft executives discussing various problems with Vista as it came to market.

Windows Server 2008 Arrives with High Hopes, Great Fanfare

Thom Holwerda 2008-02-27 Windows 35 Comments

"Windows Server 2008, which was released earlier this month, was officially launched today. Windows Server 2008 brings many eagerly anticipated admin-pleasing features such as a stripped-down mode called "Server Core" that does away with many unnecessary features that are normally installed, and a new virtualization platform - 'Hyper-V' - that should increase Microsoft's foothold in this increasingly important market sector. Windows Server 2008 wasn't the only product to be launched today either; Visual Studio 2008 also saw its official launch, even though it has been finished and available since November, and some fanfare was made about SQL Server 2008, though that won't be finished until later in the year."

Submitted by irbis 2008-02-27 Windows 11 Comments

AnandTech takes a very thorough look at Vista SP1, and they conclude: "As far as the Vista user experience is concerned, users shouldn’t expect any significant changes with SP1. In this respect Vista SP1 is much like any other Windows service pack, rather than being another XP SP2. To that extent if you threw a pre-SP1 system and a post-SP1 system in front of us, we’d need to do some low-level benchmarking to identify which one was using SP1. In day-to-day use, the difference is not obvious outside of the specific improvements we’ve talked about."

Exploring Windows Server’s Vista Ties

Thom Holwerda 2008-02-26 Windows 13 Comments

"Microsoft is getting ready for what it calls its biggest IT launch in history. I'm not sure everyone will agree with that notion, but the launch of Windows Server 2008 and the next version of Visual Studio is clearly an important one for Microsoft, given that the server and tools unit has been one of Microsoft's fastest-growing businesses in terms of sales and profits (Microsoft is also 'launching' SQL Server 2008 at the event, but the product itself won't actually be ready until the second half of this year). Ahead of Wednesday's launch, I had a chance to talk with Server and Tools boss Bob Muglia. Here are some of the highlights from our interview."

Submitted by CIozzio 2008-02-22 Windows 22 Comments

"A little over a year after the first appearance of Vista, Service Pack 1 is nearly ready for download. SP1 is a useful but not crucial update to the OS, and one that won't greatly affect your computing day, at least not outwardly. The bulk of the development effort has gone toward upgrading security subsystems - elements that enterprise clients find appealing but consumers and small-business users won't really notice (although they'll feel better knowing about them). The bottom line is that there's absolutely no reason not to download SP1 (which you'll receive automatically if you have AutoUpdate turned on), so it's almost a given that it will become the standard in the very near future."

Microsoft Decides Vista SP1 x64 Is Ready for Release

Thom Holwerda 2008-02-21 Windows 8 Comments

Despite expectations for a March 18 release, reports all over the Internet have surfaced that Vista SP1 x64 RTM has been released via Windows Update. Not everyone seems to have access to it (yet, keep hitting that 'Check for Updates' button): it has only appeared for certain individuals at the moment. The update is of course optional; users need to manually choose to download it even if they have their Windows Update set to retrieve updates automatically.

Microsoft Releases Latest XP SP3 Build

Thom Holwerda 2008-02-20 Windows 21 Comments

Microsoft has flung open the door for anyone interested in getting their mitts on release candidate 2 of Windows XP SP3. The software giant had made RC2 of the final service pack of XP already available to several thousand beta testers a few weeks ago. Now, it feels brave enough to pump it out to the masses.

Review: Vista SP1

Thom Holwerda 2008-02-14 Windows 39 Comments

eWeek takes a look at Vista's first service pack. "On the whole, Vista Service Pack 1, which becomes generally available in mid-March, is a fairly staid update with very little in the way of new features or cosmetic changes. SP1 consists of a rollup of Vista's first year of security and bug fixes, new support for a handful of emerging hardware and software standards, and an update to Vista's kernel and core systems that brings the operating system in line with Windows Server 2008, which was also recently released to manufacturing. SP1 also features a handful of performance improvements around file copy operations, which I was able to confirm during my tests in our lab." Concerning the file copy operations, Mark Russinovich has a detailed post about that one.

Microsoft Ships New XP SP3 Code to Testers

Thom Holwerda 2008-02-10 Windows 20 Comments

Following the announcement earlier this week that Vista Service Pack 1 had been shipped to manufacturing, Microsoft today confirmed that it seeded another build of Windows XP SP3 to a closed set of testers. "Yesterday, we released Windows XP SP3 RC 2 to private beta testers," a Microsoft spokeswoman said in an e-mail. "This release catches the build up on previously released hot fixes and responds to critical feedback from previous betas."

Microsoft Acknowledges Vista SP1 RTM Is SP1 RC Refresh 2

Thom Holwerda 2008-02-08 Windows 7 Comments

"Which build of Vista SP1 became the release to manufacturing edition? This was definitely a topic of high speculation in the last few weeks, even before SP1 hit the RTM milestone. Many were adamant that SP1 RTM was, or would be, different from the final release candidate, while those on the other side grasped at straws to prove their suspicions. The Microsoft Watcher, also known as Mary Jo Foley, has finally received confirmation from Microsoft that the Vista SP1 RTM build (6001-18000) is none other than Vista SP1 RC Refresh 2."

Microsoft Upbeat About Windows on the OLPC’s XO

Thom Holwerda 2008-02-07 Windows 17 Comments

Microsoft is conducting field trials to ensure that a modified version of Windows XP SP2 will be able to run well on the One Laptop Per Child’s XO machine and that it will be able to support customers with a good experience on that hardware. "We are encouraged by what we have seen of Windows on the XO machine so far, and field trials started at the end of January involving about 200 XO machines running a customized version of Windows XP SP2 with a reduced footprint image," Orlando Ayala, senior vice president of Microsoft's Unlimited Potential Group, told eWEEK.

Microsoft Responds to ‘Save XP’ Petition

Submitted by DaMassive 2008-02-07 Windows 28 Comments

Computerworld Australia is running a story with a response from Microsoft to Infoworld's 'Save XP' petition web site, which has gathered over 75,000 signatures so far. Apparently Microsoft is aware of the petition, but says it is "listening first and foremost to feedback we hear from partners and customers about what makes sense based on their needs, that's what informed our decision to extend the availability of XP initially, and what will continue to guide us."

Submitted by PlatformAgnostic 2008-02-06 Windows 27 Comments

Windows Vista SP1 includes a number of enhancements over the original Vista release in the areas of application compatibility, device support, power management, security and reliability. You can see a detailed list of the changes in the Notable Changes in Windows Vista Service Pack 1 whitepaper. One of the improvements highlighted in the document is the increased performance of file copying for multiple scenarios, including local copies on the same disk, copying files from remote non-Windows Vista systems, and copying files between SP1 systems. How were these gains achieved? The answer is a complex one and lies in the changes to the file copy engine between Windows XP and Vista and further changes in SP1.

NEC Launches Vista Downgrade Product

Thom Holwerda 2008-02-05 Windows 27 Comments

The Japanese computer supplier NEC has officially launched a product to let network administrators downgrade machines running Windows Vista to XP. The OEM first made the product, NEC FlexLoad, available to customers on 25 January. However, the product was officially launched on Tuesday. Customers with a Vista licence can purchase the two-DVD pack for GBP 7, according to David Newbould, NEC UK's product marketing manager. The first DVD sets up a partition on the hard drive and installs core XP files and drivers, while the second DVD installs the remaining XP files in the partition, said Newbould. NEC recommends that customers burn a Vista recovery CD before installing the XP partition.

Microsoft Junks and Replaces Vista Kernel in SP1

Submitted by Dan Warne 2008-02-05 Windows 30 Comments

"One of the 'big' features discussed in early speculation of Windows Vista SP1 was the kernel upgrade, which was supposed to bring the operating system into line with the Longhorn kernel used in Windows Server 2008. And yet with Vista SP1 going RTM, there hasn't been so much as a peep from Microsoft about the mooted kernel update. Has it happened? Well the answer is yes it has, and presumably the main reason for Microsoft's silence on the subject is that as they're keen to promote the improvements and enhancements to Vista, rather than placing emphasis on a kernel upgrade, which some people might see as a risk of newly-introduced instability."

Windows Server 2008, Vista SP1 RTM Today

Thom Holwerda 2008-02-04 Windows 13 Comments

"Microsoft has reached a major milestone today for its Windows Server and Client products. Windows Server 2008 and Windows Vista Service pack 1 have been released to manufacturing today which means they will soon be available to IT customers and consumers." Computerworld already has a review up, and claims there is much to like in Server 2008; eWeek is positive in their review too.