Windows Archive

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.

Earlier this year, Microsoft announced its upcoming Windows Home Server product; a sort of beefed up NAS based on Windows Server 2003 SP2. A few days ago, Microsoft released the first release candidate for Windows Home Server, and since I was admitted into the beta program, I downloaded this release and transformed my trusty desktop x86 into a Home Server.

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.

"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."

"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."

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."

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."

"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."

"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."

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.

Months go, I reviewed Windows Vista, and concluded: "All in all, I am impressed by Windows Vista . Windows Vista is better than XP, and definitely more than just an improved look as many say." After 5 months of usage, it is time to put that statement into perspective.

"I have been using Mac OS X as my primary OS for almost a year now, but last night I switched back. What spurred it is that my Mac OS X partition crashed and it wouldn't boot back into the OS - I used rescue tools and drive scanners but it appears that the partition just disappeared. I booted into a much smaller NTFS partition and put the Vista install disk in."

"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?"

"We'll walk you through Vista's many neat features and more than 50 tips on installing Vista optimally, configuring it for you and your family, improving system speed, and turning up its coolness. When we're through, you'll have made the new OS uniquely yours."