Windows Archive

Allchin Suggests Vista Won’t Need Antivirus

Windows 99 Comments
During a telephone conference with reporters yesterday, outgoing Microsoft co-president Jim Allchin, while touting the new security features of Windows Vista, which was released to manufacturing yesterday, told a reporter that the system's new lockdown features are so capable and thorough that he was comfortable with his own seven-year-old son using Vista without antivirus software installed. Elsewhere, bigg boss Bill Gates says that antitrust authorities did not make Microsoft remove any features from Vista, but he expressed anger with competitors who embarked on noisy public campaigns to 'castrate' the operating system.
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Review: Windows Vista

Windows 85 Comments
Paul Thurrott takes a long look at Vista. "It's hard to put Windows Vista in perspective. On the one hand, the product has been in development for over five years, which means that Vista had one of the longest development cycles in the 20+ year history of Windows. Paradoxically, Windows Vista is both revolutionary and evolutionary. While it includes modern OS features, such as a new hardware-based graphical user interface, Vista will also feel like familiar territory, for the most part, to anyone that's already familiar with Windows XP. And Mac advocates can claim, truthfully, that many of Vista's best features appeared first on Mac OS X, sometimes years ago."
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Vista’s Last Mile

Windows 55 Comments
Each day, members of the Windows team gather inside the 'shiproom' to go over the bugs that remain, and to debate which of these can still be fixed in the days left until Vista is declared finished, a milestone that is expected any time now. The intense 'end game', as these final weeks are known, is a well-worn tradition inside the shiproom, which is on the third floor of the Windows development building. The small room, with its dated, dark wood conference table has been the war room for every Windows release since Windows 2000. In the meantime, Ars takes a look at running Vista on older hardware.
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Every Vista PC To Get a Domain Name

  Submitted by danwarne Windows 71 Comments
Want to be able to access your machine anytime, anywhere? Can't be bothered purchasing a domain name and configuring Dynamic DNS? Microsoft has a solution: the 'Windows Internet Computer Name' - a unique domain name for your computer. There is one small catch though: you have to be using the next-generation networking protocol IPv6 which, although thoroughly integrated into Windows Vista, isn't supported by most home routers yet.
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Killer Windows Media Center Plug-ins

Windows 26 Comments
"Just as extensions make Firefox better, so do plug-ins add extra goodness to Windows XP Media Center Edition. For the uninitiated, MCE provides DVR and other multimedia features wrapped in an attractive 10-foot interface. Armed with a couch and a remote, you can record TV shows, pause live TV, view photo slideshows, listen to your music collection, tune in FM radio stations, and so on. I am unabashedly in love with MCE. It's the one Microsoft product I consider just about perfect, which is why it's the heart of my home entertainment system. With these eight plugs-ins, most of which are free, you can trick out your MCE PC like never before."
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Microsoft Removes Transfer Limitations From Vista

  Submitted by anonymous Windows 19 Comments
Responding to the myriad complaints over ambiguities and outright uncool (that's a technical term) licensing terms, Microsoft has revised the Vista retail license to remove some of the most major causes of complaint. A previous version of the Windows Vista retail license restricted the number of times you may transfer Vista from one device to another. The license read: "The first user of the software may reassign the license to another device one time. If you reassign the license, that other device becomes the 'licensed device'." The new license has removed this language relating to device transfers.
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Surprises Inside Microsoft Vista’s EULA

  Submitted by tux68 Windows 122 Comments
"The next version of Windows is just around the corner, so the next time we discuss software licensing in my course, the EULA for Vista will be front and center. You can read the Microsoft Vista EULA yourself by going to the official Software License page from Microsoft page and searching for Vista. I know many of you have never bothered to read the EULA - who really wants to, after all? - but take a few minutes and get yourself a copy and read it. I'll wait. Back? It's bad, ain't it? Real bad. I mean, previous EULAs weren't anything great - but the Vista EULA is horrendous."
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Windows XP SP3 Suffers Uncertain Future

  Submitted by decuser Windows 34 Comments
Microsoft last week said that it is pushing back the next major service pack for Windows XP until the first half of 2008. The news came just ahead of reports that Vista’s RTM is being pushed back once again, from late October to early November, complicating matters for PC makers. The latest delay has some wondering whether the upgrade will ever see the light of day. "The fear is Service Pack 3 will just get killed off," said Jeff Centimano, an IT consultant at Levi, Ray & Shoup.
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PC Maker Fumes at Vista Price Hike

  Submitted by Tyr. Windows 103 Comments
"Leading PC manufacturer Acer has accused Microsoft of ratcheting up the cost of Windows by effectively forcing consumers to opt for the Premium version of Vista. Acer claims that the Vista Home Basic - the new entry-level Windows - is so poorly featured that consumers will simply reject it. "The new experience you hear of, if you get Basic, you won't feel it at all," said Jim Wong, senior corporate vice president at Acer. "There's no graphics, no Media Center, no remote control."
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Security Vendor Bypasses Microsoft’s Vista PatchGuard

  Submitted by netpython Windows 31 Comments
The company maintains that it has built a version of its Authentium ESP Enterprise Platform that can bypass PatchGuard without setting off the desktop alarms produced by the security feature when the Vista kernel is compromised. ESP Enterprise, an SDK sold by Authentium to telecommunications carriers and so-called managed services providers, offers virus protection, anti-spyware, data recovery, firewall and transaction security capabilities.
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