Windows Archive

"Today at the Worldwide Partner Conference in San Francisco, Microsoft's chief operating officer, Kevin Turner, announced that Windows Server 2008 (previously known as Longhorn), Microsoft SQL Server 2008, and Visual Studio 2008 will be officially launched on February 27, 2008. This may come as a surprise to those following the Windows 2008 Server news closely, since most sources at Microsoft have been insisting that the next version of its server operating system will released at the very end of 2007. Apparently in Redmond there is a difference between releasing the OS and the extravagant product launches, which are more of a pep rally for the product then a technical presentation."

"When we launched Windows Vista in January 2007, we identified Windows Ultimate Extras as a unique series of add-ons that would be available to Windows Vista Ultimate customers. To date, we have released four sets of Extras - Windows Hold'Em, 16 Language Packs for the Windows multi-language user interface, Secure Online Key Backup, and Windows BitLocker Drive Preparation Tool. We want to let our Windows Vista Ultimate customers know that we are actively working to deliver the remaining Extras that we identified in January."

Microsoft is simplifying the processes via which its PC-maker partners will be able to provide 'downgrade' rights from Windows Vista to Windows XP for their customers. Microsoft will implement the first of the policy changes for its Gold Certified (top-tier) OEM partners within the next couple of weeks. The company will streamline downgrade-rights policies and procedures for the broader channel somewhat later, said John Ball, general manager of Microsoft's US Systems Group.

As was to be expected, the Longhorn Reloaded team has been shut down by Microsoft. "It is with sad news that I have to inform you that today due to a cesit and decist letter we recived from Microsoft we are no longer able to provide you with a download link to Longhorn Reloaded. It deeply saddens me that although Microsoft hknew about this project for many months they only issued us with this notice a few days after we started to distribute the iso via torrents and ftp server."

ITWire: "Linux users can, at times, be the worst kind of ingrates, whining and complaining about what they perceive as missing features in a free operating system. My advice to all such whingers: spend 10 days using the latest version of Windows and you'll realise that you are living in a world of relative bliss."

Microsoft is using the multi-touch technology that they implemented into their Surface Table and porting it to normal computers. Check out the video of a demo of a Vista laptop modified to use multi-touch.

"I have to admit that when I first heard about the Windows Home Server I didn't really think that much of the concept. After all, it's pretty simple to take an existing Windows server and turn it into a home storage and backup system. Also, there are plenty of easy-to-deploy Linux appliances that can quickly turn any system into an effective network-attached storage device, and never mind the many inexpensive network hard drives available at many stores. And all of this is still true. But after testing the release candidate of Windows Home Server that was made available last week at connect.microsoft.com, I must say that I am very impressed with its implementation, simplicity and functionality."

Microsoft agreed Tuesday to make changes to the desktop search feature in Windows Vista in an effort to assuage Google and head off a further antitrust battle with U.S. regulators. Under the agreement, Microsoft will create a mechanism whereby both computer makers and individuals will be able to choose a default desktop search program, much as they can choose a rival browser or media player, even though those technologies are built into Windows.

According to Microsoft's beta tester site for Windows Home Server, they "will be notifying all applicants this week that they can now access the Windows Home Server RC build in order to download the software." Folks in the beta program can already access the latest release but others may join by completing this participation survey. Ars has more.

Early adopters of Microsoft’s new Vista operating system are reporting problems with its implementation of IPv6, a long-anticipated upgrade to the Internet’s primary protocol. "Vista is showing some serious deficiencies around IPv6 and IPv4 insofar as their compliance or the transparency of their compliance around IP behaviors," says Loki Jorgenson, chief scientist for Apparent Networks, a provider of network assessment and optimization tools.

Microsoft executive Ty Carlson spoke about the future of Windows recently during a panel discussion at the Future in Review 2007 conference held in San Diego, California. Carlson said that future versions of Windows would have to be 'fundamentally different' in order to take full advantage of future CPUs that will contain many processing cores. "You're going to see in excess of eight, 16, 64 and beyond processors on your client computer," said Carlson, whose job title is director of technical strategy at Microsoft. Windows Vista, he said, was "designed to run on one, two, maybe four processors."

"There are a myriad of both subtle and fundamental differences in the basic architecture of Windows Server 2008, which could dramatically change not only the way it's used in the enterprise, but also the logical and physical structure of networks where it's the dominant OS. The abilities to consolidate servers, to manage hardware more effectively, to remotely manage hardware without the graphical traffic, and to radically alter the system security model, could present a more compelling argument for customers to plan their WS2K8 migrations now, than the arguments for moving from Windows 2000 to Server 2003."

Seven months after announcing plans to take up where Microsoft left off with its Windows Longhorn client development, a group of members of the Joejoe.org site have built a working prototype of what they’re calling 'Longhorn Reloaded'. Earlier this week, the Longhorn Reloaded developers and testers posted for download Milestone 1 of Longhorn Reloaded. "Longhorn Reloaded is a Project dedicated to the revival of the Operating System known as Code Name 'Longhorn'. To put the projects aims simply, we aim to finish off what Microsoft started before the operating system was canceled. It is a modification of Windows 6.0.4074, which was originally released during the 2004 Windows Hardware Engineers Conference," explained the Longhorn Reloaded team on the Joejoe Web site.

Some of the changes in the upcoming release of Windows Server 2008 are a response to features and performance advantages that have made Linux an attractive option to Microsoft customers. One of these is the fact that Linux has less of a surface area, which led customers to believe that Linux is inherently more secure, Bill Laing, the general manager for Microsoft's Windows Server division, told eWEEK. "Having less surface area does reduce the servicing and the amount of code you have running and exposed, so we have done a lot of work in 2008 to make the system more modular. There are more than 30 components not installed by default, which is a huge change," Laing said. "We also have server core, which doesn't have the GUI, so I would say that is a response to the options people had with Linux that they didn't have with Windows."