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Windows Archive

Windows Vista: Under the Hood

"In "Windows Vista: more than just a pretty face," we began our extensive assessment of Windows Vista with a focus on the changes to the graphical framework of Windows. We also talked about improvements to the general Windows API, the media foundation, and improvements in sound. In what follows, we look at three remaining areas of major improvement for Vista: security, networking, and storage. At the end, we present the first round of our criticisms of the new OS. In the coming weeks, we will unveil our performance-oriented examination of the OS."

Future Versions of Windows To Be ‘Fundamentally Redesigned’

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."

Top 10 New Features in Windows Server 2008

"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."

Secrets of the Application Compatibility Database

Alex Ionescu, one of the lead developers behind the ReactOS project, has published a detailed article on the XP/Vista application compatibility system. "For the last few days, I've been intimately becoming aquainted with a piece of technology in Windows XP and Vista that rarely gets the attention it deserves. It has raised my esteem and admiration towards Microsoft ten fold, and I feel it would be wise to share it, publicize it, and then of course, find (positive) ways to exploit it to turn it into a powerful backend for various purposes."

Enthusiasts Progress with Plans to Resurrect Windows ‘Longhorn’

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.

Windows Server 2008 Features Address Linux Challenge

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."

Only Windows Server To Be 64Bit Only

"Bill Laing, a General Manager in the Microsoft Windows Server Division, has been quoted as saying that Windows Server 2008 will be the last 32-bit operating system. Bill is a server guy and indeed Windows Server 2008 is the last 32-bit server operating system - all future operating systems for server hardware from Microsoft beyond Windows Server 2008 will be 64-bit. A few folks took Bill's comments on Windows Server and applied them to Windows Client deriving that Windows Vista would be the last 32-bit operating system. That is an incorrect extension. While Windows Vista includes both 32-bit and 64-bit and there is a growing community of drivers for 64-bit Windows Vista we have not decided when Windows Client will follow Windows Server and become 64-bit only."

Microsoft Announces New Vista SKU Specifically for Virtual Deployment

In a completely unanticipated announcement made quietly during a virtualization talk here at WinHEC 2008, Microsoft announced a completely new SKU of Windows Vista, to be entitled Vista Enterprise Centralized Desktop. Its purpose will be to enable Vista to run within an enterprise exclusively as virtual machines, managed centrally using System Center Virtual Machine Manager.

Vista To Be Last 32 Bit Version of Windows

"It's the end of the line for 32-bit operating systems, Microsoft has proclaimed at its annual Windows Hardware Engineering conference After the software giant has gotten over its hangover from partying like it's 1999 with the release of Windows Server 2008, it will have one last 32-bit hurrah with a 'release 2' update to Windows Server 2008, and that'll be it. 32 bit CPU: if you have one, learn to love Vista - you're stuck with it.There will be no more versions of Windows - on desktop or server - that will work on 32-bit CPUs like Pentium 4 or Core Duo."

Gates: 40 Million Vista Copies Sold

Nearly 40 million copies of Windows Vista have been sold in the first 100 days following its release, more than twice the sales of Windows XP over the same time period, Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates said in his opening keynote here at the 15th annual WinHEC. "We have been amazed by the response to Vista and what has happened in the last 100 days. So, in the first five weeks of shipping Vista, we have matched the installed base of any other operating system provider," Gates told several hundred attendees in an address entitled 'Platform Innovations for Today and Tomorrow'. In addition, Microsoft said that the follow-on to its Windows Server 2008 operating system will be an interim release due to arrive in 2009.

Review: Windows Vista

SoftwareInReview reviews Windows Vista, and concludes: "I took down my Mandriva workstation and replaced it with my Vista test machine and tried to work normally for a day. I found it difficult to get good desktop software applications for affordable prices, I had trouble getting my Microsoft mouse to work properly, the unintuitive and strangely rearranged interface drove me crazy, and the system's poor performance was intolerable." Elsewhere, El Reg has more on the file deletion problems in Vista.

Review: Windows Vista

ITtoolbox reviews Windows Vista, and they conclude: "If you value innovation, new technology and you can afford it, Vista is a great buy and I seriously doubt you'd regret it. If you're a business user, the justification for the additional cost just isn't there quite yet (with a few exceptions). I was pleasantly surprised how nicely it has come together (at least at this point)." My take: Soon, I will write an article about how I feel about Vista after having used it for a much longer time than was the case in my previous review. I will also have something to say on using Vista on some lower-end hardware (it ain't pretty).

Vista: Benchmarking or Benchmarketing?

"There is a lot of variety in the hardware market: hundreds of types of processors, motherboards, hard drives, graphics cards and other components to choose from. And although consolidation has been going on for several years, leaving only AMD/ATI, Intel and Nvidia as the main players, along with a few motherboard makers and storage giants, finding the right products still can be an exhausting task. This is where benchmarking comes into play, because it helps to measure qualities and characteristics by applying a certain metric. Windows Vista now provides a built-in benchmarking solution to assess component and system performance, but does the so-called Experience Index correspond to what Tom's Hardware and other tech publications find on the test bench?"

Screenshots: Windows Home Server Beta 2, Longhorn Server Beta 3

"At APC we've been running the Beta 2 edition of Windows Home Server for the past two months and it's acquitted itself surprisingly well - no doubt a reflection on the time this 'server for the rest of us' spent in the Redmond skunkworks. There's still some 'fit and finish' to appear before it hits the Release Candidate milestone around Q3, prior to the platform's debut towards the end of this year - but from what we've seen so far, we'd rate Windows Home Server as one of Microsoft's most polished and most impressive 1.0 releases to date. Here's a walkthrough gallery of screenshots from the Beta 2 build of Windows Home Server." There's also a screenshot gallery for Longhorn Server Beta 3.

Microsoft: ‘Malware Will Thrive, Even with Vista’s UAC’

Despite all the anti-malware roadblocks built into Windows Vista, a senior Microsoft official is lowering the security expectations, warning that viruses, password-stealing Trojans and rootkits will continue to thrive as malware authors adapt to the new operating system. "There is no guarantee that malware can't hijack the elevation process or compromise an elevated application," Russinovich said after providing a blow-by-blow description of how UAC works in tandem with Internet Explorer (with Protected Mode) to limit the damage from malicious files. Even in a standard user world, he stressed that malware can still read all the user's data; can still hide with user-mode rootkits; and can still control which applications (anti-virus scanners) the user can access.

Windows Longhorn Server Beta 3 Public Download

NeoSmart has the goods on the release of Windows Longhorn Server Beta 3, and the availability of public ISO images for x86, x64, and Itanium versions of the English, German, and Japanese localizations of the various Windows Server flavors. According to NeoSmart, it's the same as the April CTP, but with some bug fixes and compiler optimizations.

Preview: Windows Home Server April CTP

Paul Thurrott reviews the latest CTP of Windows Home Server. "I remain excited about WHS and while one might easily come up with a number of features they'd like to see added to the product - a server-based version of Media Center comes to mind - know this: This is the initial version of WHS, Microsoft plans to keep improving it over time, and they're listening to your suggestions and ideas. As with the first version of Media Center, the technology is in a nascent stage but is already quite compelling. If this first version of WHS is so good, I can only imagine what the future holds."