Windows Connected

A suggestion for J Allard as Chief Experience Officer

Matt Freestone — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 17:26:25 GMT

From Mary-Jo Foley’s blog……

http://blogs.zdnet.com/microsoft/?p=1463

So, since Windows 7 is in development as MS has said, now is the time to offer ideas/suggestions.

Hi J.... I realize of course that he'll never see this message but I hope perhaps the concept reaches him at some point. If you really want to make a compelling argument for Win7 and secure dominance of the MS platform against competitors, here's a suggestion.

Provide a seamless and unified experience with all Microsoft's primary devices. What devices am I referring to? Win7 (PC), Xbox 360, and the Zune. What do I mean by this? I mean that my Windows 7 PC (whether it be my Home Server (which should be a Win7 SKU if you ask me) my primary desktop, my laptop, etc) will talk to my Xbox 360 over the network in ways never before seen. For example, any codecs I have installed on my Win7 Media Center are 'offered' to the Xbox 360 (through a framework that MS designs) so I can play (inside of Media Center, or in the dashboard) any of my video files across any of my devices. This same framework would 'offer' the codecs to my other Win7 PCs as well, as well as my Zune. This way I only have to install the codecs on a single machine, once. (Since MS controls the OS for all these devices this shouldn’t be that difficult a feat with codecs designed to work in the new framework.) All my media, accessible from any of my devices, over the network. Seems like a simple enough concept. I know, there are quite a bit of logistics to work out but honestly? Not really that much. Create this framework and make it an open source project so that it is adopted quickly and easily. (I'm typically against giving away code but since this is a project would want the entire community to be a part of it’s necessary.) Honestly, how incredible would this simple, brand new compelling feature be? You would have everyone who does any kind of media or owns any of the other devices upgrading to Win7 en mass.

Next, as part of Win7 Media Center, offer the Media Center Server option. Even include it as part of the Home Server SKU (which I think it should be.) This way I have my primary media server, and then I can watch TV shows or even live TV via my PCs as well as my Xbox 360's and even a simple feed transport on my Zune via wifi. My point is that each of these devices/skus (Vista Premium, Home Server, Xbox 360 (dashboard and extender), Zune), all have this completely different (and none of them feature complete) interfaces that require me to switch from one to another to another to get everything I want. It's insane. Why???? Honestly, WHY?? If you could provide a completely unified front-end (which, I hate to admit Apple is quite well at doing) you can provide a huge reason for Win7 and secure Microsoft's OS dominance. Trust me, I have a ton more ideas/concepts for this 'unified experience' but I don't want this to be 10 pages long.

Just a thought.

One additional note. Instead of the insane SKU’s that really are irrelevant, let’s have Win7 SKUs that do have a purpose. Here are my proposed Win7 SKUs - (Windows 7 Home (includes standard Media Center, essentially Home Premium), Windows 7 Home Server (This includes all Home Server options plus some additional features such as Folder Redirection and other enterprise tools, and this is the SKU that contains Media Center Server), Windows 7 Business, Windows 7 Ultimate (that has all features of every SKU.)

So, what do you think? What features or concepts would you like in Win7? Now’s the time to be heard while development is still happening. Once the beta starts, I doubt they’ll listen to any feature requests.

Was TechEd 2008 a Fail?

Josh Phillips — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 11:09:55 GMT

I am curious to hear from those of you out there if you liked the format of the this years teched and if you think they should continue to host the event this way? Did you get the same or more value than you had previous years from this event?

I skipped this year because I didn't think there was going to be enough new content to warrant the trip and the fact that the split would in my mind diminish some of the value.

So what are your thoughts on TechEd this year?

Potential WSUS 3 Issues

Jeff — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 15:13:00 GMT

This morning I received notice from Microsoft about a potential issue with WSUS 3.0 - specifically installations that serve updates to clients running Office 2003. If you are running Office XP or Office 2007 this issue *should not* impact you. I say *should not* since this is a new issue, and also because sometimes you'll have Office 2003 binaries on your system thanks to 3rd party software dependencies, in upgrade scenarios, etc. Also, I have not experienced this issue myself - even though I have a handful of test machines running Office 2003.

Update 1: Microsoft has an official blog post regarding this issue on the WSUS Product Team Blog. I've removed the details from my earlier post since you can find them at the source. I'll continue updating this post with my own findings and those of the community. Feel free to post in the comments section if you have first-hand experience with this issue.

Update 2: I looked at the Office 2003 SP1 revisions on my WSUS server and found something odd. Take a look at the date of the 2 most recent revisions:

I'm not saying this is the root cause... but it sure seems strange to me. Stay tuned for more info.

Update 3: Just heard from Cecilia Cole (WSUS Program Manager). Apparently the date typo in my update revisions screen shot isn't an issue since the update is expired. Cecilia and team are also working on an updated blog post and KB article to address the scenario(s) where you might run into this failed detection issue. Let's just say it looks fairly rare and should not be keeping you up at night.

Windows Mobile Smackdown

Aubrey — Mon, 16 Jun 2008 22:58:42 GMT

I've been following Jason Langridge's blog for some time now, and it was great to get to finally meet him at TechEd this year. I went to a few of the sessions he was conducting, one being "Windows Mobile Smackdown", which is a public version of the event that they have internally at Microsoft.

Jason has been kind enough to post up the list of things he demo'd in that session, such as:

Celio Redfly - http://celiocorp.com - A cool PDA Extender

Windows Mobile 6.1 - http://www.microsoft.com/windowsmobile/6-1

Zumobi - http://www.zumobi.com - a great new interface for Windows Mobile

Check out his post for the full list. And check out the video too. You've likely heard that Microsoft is big on eating their own dogfood, well, in that video, some of them do, literally, to win Windows Mobile swag.

IE 8 Getting Slipstream Support

Josh Phillips — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 15:01:39 GMT

At Teched yesterday the IE team revealed a little more about IE8 for IT Pro's. They are planning to make IE8 slipstreamable into images. Meaning updating your image to include IE8 will take 10-15 minutes versus the time it might take to wake it up and then re-sysprep.

To slipstream IE8 only takes 10-15 minute per image. You’ll also be able to slipstream IE8 cumulative updates so that you are shipping the most up to date and secure image.

Look out for a forthcoming post to learn more about Slipstreaming IE8.

Additional info shared about IE 8:

adding new events to the Application Compatibility Toolkit (ACT) that help you detect and resolve potential issues between IE8
providing Group Policy settings that help you control, with great granularity, those settings that most impact compatibility.
IEAK8 will support custom IE8 builds for new platforms: Vista and Windows Server 2008 and new IE8 features like Activities and Web Slices
We plan to include all of the above mentioned features in our Beta 2 release which is planned for August 2008.

Netmon 3.2 Beta Begins

Josh Phillips — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 14:40:54 GMT

If you make regular use of Netmon you will probably want to know that Microsoft has released a beta of Netmon 3.2 to connect.

Netmon Connect Site

Here is what is new according to the site:

Process Tracking: View all the processes on your machine generating network traffic (process name and PID). Use the conversation tree to view frames associated with each process.

§ Find conversations: Quickly isolate frames in the same network conversation. Isolate TCP streams, HTTP flows etc.

§ PCAP capture file support*
§ Capture engine re-architecture to improve capture rate in high-speed networks. Network Monitor 3.2 drops significantly fewer frames that NM 3.1
§ Extensive parser set: Parsers for over 300 protocols! Parsers for the protocols covered by the Windows Open Protocol Specifications (see http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc216517.aspx).
§ NM API: Create your own applications that capture, parser and analyze network traffic!
§ Better parser management: By default only a subset of parsers are loaded. You can load the full parser set by changing the parser search order in Tools>Options>Parser
§ Support for frame truncation. Go to Tools>Options and limit the number of bytes captured per frame to improve performance.
§ More extensive documentation of the NPL which includes documentation on the new NMAPI. Access the documentation from Help > NPL and API Documentation
§ Enhanced filtering on items within NPL while loops or arrays. You can specify an index into the array or while loop to filter on
§ IA64 version now available.
§ ContainsBin Plug-in: Search frames for arbitrary byte sequences or strings. For example, ContainsBin(FrameData, ASCII, “msn”).
§ More UI indications of conversation status, dropped frames and the number of frames in the capture buffer.

§ … and more. See our Release Notes in the NM3.2 installation directory for a complete list of new features and known issues with the Beta.
Enjoy!
The Network Monitor Team

Some thoughts on HP's new lineup

Josh Phillips — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 13:30:28 GMT

The other day HP had me out to campus to look at the new notebook lineup they would be launching this week in Berlin. This lineup includes 16 new models of notebooks.

The HP Consumer line will updated its Pavilion lineup as seen below with a new new design and a "Magic Chrome" touch bar. The best way to describe this is that it is sort of mirrored and only visible when lit.

Ergonomic folks will enjoy the new docking station as it will allow you to adjust the height of the laptop screen relative to the dock. However, if you want to use dual external displays with your notebook this isn't for you.

The HP Elitebook is shooting to be the new, sexy, desirable laptop on the scene. So while the brushed anodized aluminum and the magnesium alloy of the chassis are great looking in my opinion it misses the mark for the people it is trying attract.

Mobile professional are making a move to smaller more portable notebooks and always looking for more battery life. So my guess is why this looks great and might do ok as mid-range notebook for HP they really needs starting things of using some of this technology to design a true competitor to the Lenovo X, the Toshiba protege, and even the Macbook air.

If you drop the weight to sub 3lbs and make it thinner, this look could be a much bigger seller.

New Exchange Troubleshooting Tool

Aubrey — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 06:00:26 GMT

For those of you wanting to test out a new Microsoft tool for Exchange issue diagnosis, go to https://testexchangeconnectivity.com. As the presenter emphatically emphasized at TechEd today, this tool is a prototype and has not been run through the normal battery of security tests. If you want to use this tool, create an account and mailbox specifically for testing purposes, and delete it once you have completed testing. DO NOT use your own Exchange mailbox or any other "production" mailbox with this tool. That being said, check it out, it looks pretty cool.

TechEd Exchange Backup Announcement

Aubrey — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 20:39:02 GMT

Those of you who have deployed Exchange 2007 on Windows Server 2008 may be aware of an issue involving the backup software that Microsoft includes with Windows Server 2008 where it no longer supports streaming ESE backups. So unless you're using a 3rd party product, you're not able to back up your Exchange servers. Microsoft today announced that they are working on an Exchange-provided VSS-based plugin to Windows Server Backup that will enable the ability to back up your Exchange servers.

If this problem affects you, or you're holding off deploying until a fix is ready, Microsoft says it will be available some time this summer.

WSUS and Vista SP1 Heads-Up

Jeff — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 18:25:49 GMT

Here's a quick non-TechEd news item for you. As Cecilia points out on the WSUS blog, Vista SP1 is coming to WSUS any day now. If you are synchronizing Vista updates be sure to read Cecilia's post and the linked support articles. Bottom line - if you are running WSUS on Windows 2003 (probably the majority of WSUS installations) please download the patch referenced in KB938759 to prevent issues. Interestingly enough, this patch is necessary due to the size of Vista SP1... and *not* due to anything inside the SP1 file itself. If you are running WSUS on Windows Server 2008 then the patch above isn't required.

Note: If you're running the R2 flavor of Windows Server 2003 you still need to patch for this issue. After all, it's still Windows 2003 at the core ;)

Oh, and one more thing while I'm thinking about it. A new WSUS blog popped up last month. The WSUS Support Team Blog is off to a great start with info on common errors, and other helpful troubleshooting tips. If you run WSUS make sure to add this blog to your RSS feeds.

HTC Diamond On Display Starting Tomorrow

Aubrey — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 20:19:14 GMT

For those of you at TechEd who are into Windows Mobile, Microsoft is having a few HTC Diamonds Fed Ex'd in for tomorrow. There will be one on display at the WinMo showcase and at least one for use during Theater sessions in the Yellow areas. Of course, that's if the info I received from the WinMo guys is correct.

UPDATE: Stopped by and saw the Diamond. The TouchFlo scrolling was REALLY slow, and I wasn't the only one who noticed.

LiveBlogging The TechEd IT Pro Keynote

Aubrey — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 12:34:38 GMT

8: 35 Right now, African-style drums and dancing. Audience not as enthusiastic about shaking their maracas as the girl on stage would like. Glad I'm sitting in the press room.

8:40 Bob Muglia takes the stage

No more time stamps during this post, too distracting

Discussion of how Microsoft software (Groove and SharePoint) helped out with Katrina relief efforts

Dynamic IT - Employing new solutions and technologies to boost the agility and speed of their IT Systems

Identity Lifecycle Management Beta 3 Demo - I haven't used it, but it looks pretty nice, automation of creating new users, setting up mailbox, add to groups, etc.

Web Services - Demo of SOA Interoperability with .NET 3.5

Virtualization is a transformational technology for IT. When properly deployed and managed, virtualization creates IT systems that are highly efficient and cost-effective

Hyper-V on schedule to release within 180 days of Windows Server 2008 RTM, Muglia says it benchmarks well against VMWare ESX and in some cases out performs it

Moving on to application virtualization and modeling, demo of Hyper-V and System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2008, built on top of PowerShell. Moving a VM from one host to another really simple, took about 10 seconds, can also do VMotion moves of VMWare VMs

Moving on to application virtualization and SoftGrid. I've used SoftGrid, it's pretty sweet. Version 4.5 coming this summer.

Demo of Kidaro, which will be included in MDOP

Demo of Microsoft Online Services - Enterprise apps hosted by Microsoft like Exchange

Demo of SQL Server 2008 data compression and policy-based management

Keynote over - not bad, Muglia did a pretty good job keeping it going

TechEd 2008 NA IT Pro Keynote - Bob Muglia 8:30AM EST

Josh Phillips — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 09:10:50 GMT

Today Kicks off week two of TechEd 2008 North America with a keynote by Bob Muglia Sr. V.P. of Server and Tools. This week of TechEd is devoted to IT Professionals and if you are up early enough you can watch the keynote streamed live starting at 8:30am EST.

Join us as we blast forward "into the future" through the vision of the IT industry in the years to come.
High | Medium | Low

HP Launches New Lineup

Josh Phillips — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 09:02:56 GMT

Today in Germany at "Connecting your world Berlin" HP has launched over 17 new models of notebooks, a new HP TouchSmart all in one PC, and a new display technology that boast over a billion colors called the HP DreamColor Display.

Here is a look at just some the newly launched systems

Voodoo Omen

Voodoo Envy 133

HP Consumer Notebook Lineup

HP Business Notebook Line

HP TouchSmart

HP Elitebook

Living next to the HP headquarters has its perks so a little later today I will talk about my impressions of some of these newly launched systems since I got to take a look close up a few days ago under NDA.

Windows Home Server Power Pack 1 Public Beta Available

Josh Phillips — Mon, 09 Jun 2008 21:40:51 GMT

The Windows Home Server Blog just announced that the Power Pack 1 Public Beta is available for download at connect.

This beta should fix the data corruption bug as well as offering the following new features.

Support for PCs running Windows Vista x64 editions
Backup of home server Shared Folders
Easier, enhanced remote access capabilities
Better energy efficiency
Improved performance
Chinese and Japanese versions

PDC 2008, Sinofsky's First Real Test

Josh Phillips — Mon, 09 Jun 2008 21:07:17 GMT

Apple again proved that it is great at generating buzz today at the WWDC. The amount of discussion and positive PR they are able generate is a game Microsoft really needs to learn to play better. Since the inception of a policy of translucency under Steven Sinofsky we have failed to have a significant measure of success for this policy. The WWDC just set the bar for coverage buzz, and as I see things that is the single biggest metric we can use to measure against for this new policy.

The PDC 2008 or Professional Developers Conference happens this October and is the Microsoft analogous to Apple's WWDC. The PDC is also going to be the first time that people will see in depth information in regards to Windows 7 and Windows Live. It will be Microsoft one big event to help share its larger vision on Windows and Windows Live with platform developers. There one opportunity to generate the kind of excitement and buzz that apple has been generating around its platform.

If Microsoft fails to generate a similar amount of buzz about its upcoming products given how tight lipped things have been around Windows/Live. Will this be a signal to those internally that this is a strategy that simply doesn't work for the Windows ecosystem?

Is this a fundamentally flawed metric because Apple is just seen as "cool"? is there anything that Microsoft could do to generate a similar kind of buzz for PDC?

Apple's Mobile ME where Windows Live needs to be

Josh Phillips — Mon, 09 Jun 2008 20:27:41 GMT

I watched most of the WWDC as I am sure most watchers of technology did to see what was coming up for Apple. The largely anticipated 3G iphone was discussed. The next version of OSX got a code-name (Snow Leopard). However the most interesting aspect of the event for me was the Mobile ME product.

Apple will be offering the platform agnostic Mobile Me service for $99 a year allowing you to get push mail, contacts,calendar, and more synced to your devices and maintained in the cloud.

We all know that Microsoft has been headed towards a similar service structure with its Live services as best seen in one of its latest beta's, mesh.com. This beta offers the ability to sync files between PC's and your phone easily. Mobile ME isn't something super special, as anyone can see Microsoft is headed here, but again Apple proves it is the master of PR and has come out with a more encompassing vision than Microsoft has articulated publicly.

31 Days of the Dragon Wraps Up

Josh Phillips — Mon, 09 Jun 2008 12:24:24 GMT

The last of the sites offering up an HP HDX "Dragon" wrapped up over the weekend ending 31 straight days of prize giveaways brought to you by HP and BuzzCorps. I hope you enjoyed the varying contests and exploring all of these wonderful sites. I know the rules varied greatly between sites and focus area of the site, but I hope you found most of the contest accessible. If you have any feedback on future give-a-way either here or for others that participated leave it in the comments and I will get to the appropriate party.

Congratulations to all 31 winners, lets hope most are actually going to keep the machine rather than sell it, which unfortunately is what our winner ended up doing.

AbsoluteVista.com
Ars Technica
OSNN.net
JKontherun.com
Barbs Connected World
BostonPocketPC.com
The-Gadgeteer.com
TheDigitalLifesetyle.com
DigitalHomeThoughts.com
Windows-now.com
WindowsConnected.com
Geekstogo.com
Bink.nu
MediaBlab.com
Last 100
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Notebooks.com
SlashdotReview.com
Neowin.net
Geek.com
Lockergnome.com
Planet x64.com
TheGreenButton.com
Istartedsomething.com
BleepingComputer.com
HardwareGeeks.com
GeekNewsCentral.com
Geekzone.co.nz
TheTabletPC.net
GearLive.com
GottaBeMobile.com

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Microsoft Ships Silverlight 2 Beta 2

Josh Phillips — Sat, 07 Jun 2008 12:07:02 GMT

Microsoft made good on its promise at the TechEd Keynote to deliver Silverlight 2 Beta 2 by the end of week, as noted at Ars. This release adds a number of new features, including a slew of new controls. You can read more about them at Scott Guthrie's blog.

If you are using Silverlight 2 You should also check out all the new Silverlight 2 videos at silverlight.net

For those just wanting to find the install, well here you go:

Install Silverlight 2 Beta 2

Also of note there are some updated installs to support Silverlight 2

Deep Zoom Composer (4.4MB)

Microsoft Expression Blend 2.5 June 2008 Preview (32.4MB)

Microsoft Silverlight 2 Software Development Kit (56.1MB)

Microsoft Silverlight Tools for Visual Studio 2008 (84.3 MB)

Add Qik to your Windows Mobile Phone

Josh Phillips — Fri, 06 Jun 2008 16:27:53 GMT

Today Qik announced an invitation-only alpha release of its product for Samsung BlackJacks and Motorola Q Windows Mobile devices.

Currently in alpha, Motorola Q and Samsung BlackJack users can request an invitation for the service by signing up at http://qik.com/. The company is working closely with the Windows Mobile team to get the product offering into beta in the coming months, as well as expanding to additional Windows Mobile phones.

Note: there may be a waitlist according to this blog

The alpha of the Qik runtime for Windows Mobile phones is available in a closed alpha form. Email winmo@qik.com to request an invite (currently restricted to the first 50 requests, others will be added to a waitlist).

Official Press Release

About Qik (pronounced 'quick')

Qik enables you to share moments of your life with your friends, family and the world - directly from your cell phone!

Keep your world in the know, share a laugh, tell engaging stories. Just point your cell phone and stream video live to your your friends on Twitter, Facebook, Blogs, etc. OR use your cell phone like a camcorder and stream hours and hours of video without worrying about storage on your cell phone.

Microsoft Producer for PowerPoint 2007 Beta Available

Josh Phillips — Fri, 06 Jun 2008 15:17:00 GMT

Microsoft just kicked off a short beta of Producer for PowerPoint 2007. After initially refusing to put out an updated version, it would seem there has been sufficient feedback that nothing filed the gap left by Producer that they have decided to do a quick update to the 2003 version. They didn't spend a whole lot of time updating the application as you can tell from the User Interface inserted below.

What is Producer?

Microsoft Producer 2007 for Microsoft Office PowerPoint 2007 makes it easy to capture and synchronize audio, video, slides and images—creating engaging rich media presentations. Capture, synchronize, and publish audio, video, slides, and images to create rich media presentations viewable in a browser.

What has changed between Producer 2003 and Producer 2007?

The features and functionality of Producer 2007 are essentially the same as Producer 2003. Producer 2007 is compatible with Office PowerPoint 2007, Internet Explorer 7.0, and Windows Vista.

How can I access the Producer 2007 beta site on Connect?

To access the beta site on Connect, follow these instructions:

Click here to jump to the Connect site or type http://www.connect.microsoft.com in your web browser.
Click Sign In. Enter your Windows Live ID and password, and click Sign In again.
- If you don’t have a Windows Live ID, click here to sign up for one.

If you have not used the Connect site before, a registration screen will display. Click any of the Register links and enter the requested details.

Choose one of these options and follow the steps:
- If this is your first time accessing the Connect site:

Click the Connection Directory tab, and then click Office in the Categories list in the left-hand navigation pane.

Scroll through the list of available Connections and locate the Producer for PowerPoint 2007 Beta. You may want to change the Sort By criteria to list by Connection Name (A-Z) to locate it more quickly.

When you have found the link for the Producer beta, click the Apply Now link on the right. Clicking this link will jump to the Producer 2007 beta site.

· If you are returning to the Connect site:

Click the Your Dashboard tab, locate the link for the Producer for PowerPoint 2007 Beta site, and click it.

When will this beta of Producer 2007 end?

This beta ends on June 30, 2008. After June 30, this beta version will not be available for download.

Producer 2007 Beta Download

Title - Producer 2007 Beta Installer
Release Date - 6/5/2008
Size - 48.67 MB
Version - 3002
Category - Build

Security Bulletin Advance Notification for June 2008

Josh Phillips — Fri, 06 Jun 2008 00:34:18 GMT

There will be a total of 7 security updates next week. Three Critical, Three Important, One Moderate. Details below:

Bulletin Identifier - Bluetooth Bulletin

Maximum Severity Rating - Critical
Impact of Vulnerability - Remote Code Execution
Affected Software - Microsoft Windows. For more information, see the Affected Software section.

Bulletin Identifier - Internet Explorer Bulletin

Maximum Severity Rating - Critical
Impact of Vulnerability - Remote Code Execution
Affected Software - Microsoft Windows, Internet Explorer. For more information, see the Affected Software section.

Bulletin Identifier - DirectX Bulletin

Maximum Severity Rating - Critical
Impact of Vulnerability - Remote Code Execution
Affected Software - Microsoft Windows. For more information, see the Affected Software section.

Bulletin Identifier - WINS Bulletin

Maximum Severity Rating - Important
Impact of Vulnerability - Elevation of Privilege
Affected Software - Microsoft Windows. For more information, see the Affected Software section.

Bulletin Identifier - Active Directory Bulletin

Maximum Severity Rating - Important
Impact of Vulnerability - Denial of Service
Affected Software - Microsoft Windows. For more information, see the Affected Software section.

Bulletin Identifier - PGM Bulletin

Maximum Severity Rating - Important
Impact of Vulnerability - Denial of Service
Affected Software - Microsoft Windows. For more information, see the Affected Software section.

Bulletin Identifier - Kill Bit Bulletin

Maximum Severity Rating - Moderate
Impact of Vulnerability - Remote Code Execution
Affected Software - Microsoft Windows. For more information, see the Affected Software section

Windows Installer 4.5 is available

Josh Phillips — Wed, 04 Jun 2008 13:41:00 GMT

Windows Installer 4.5 is now available. The following new and improved features for 4.5.

Multiple package transaction
Embedded UI handler
Embedded chainer
Update supersedence resiliency
Shared component patching resiliency during uninstall
Custom action execution on update uninstall

Download the Windows Installer 4.5 Redistributable package now.

Issues that are addressed in Windows Installer 4.5

The issues present in earlier versions of Windows Installer that are addressed in Windows Installer 4.5 are:

The SeBackupPrivilege user right was missing in the Windows Installer service. This lack hindered any custom actions that needed this user right.
Some case-sensitive service-name comparisons in the InstallValidate action resulted in an unnecessary "files in use" message in Windows Vista.
When you uninstalled an update that added a new component, the component was also uninstalled. This occurred even if the component was shared by other products.

AMD Launches Next-Gen Notebook Platform "Puma"

Josh Phillips — Wed, 04 Jun 2008 09:53:00 GMT

Last night at Computex AMD launched its next generation Notebook platform combining the power of the AMD Turion X2 Ultra processor and the ATI Radeon HD 3000 series graphics. This combination is designed to bring the best mobile experience and true HD performance.

Features:

Full HD¹ Experience: Get the ultimate in HD visual performance with ATI Avivo™ HD² Technology for full 1080p³ playback of Blu-ray⁴ and other HD content.
Superior Technologies: Optimized technologies for improved graphics performance, fast wireless and long battery life.
Greater Value: Secure, integrated, smart designs that bring everything together to give you more now and looking ahead.

Learn More

www.amd.com/believeit

You can also now follow AMD's every move

AMD Facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/pages/AMD-Unprocessed/15452699102

Pat Moorhead blog: http://blogs.amd.com/patmoorhead

AMD Twitter feed: http://twitter.com/AMD_Unprocessed

Update: Our friends at notebooks.com shot this video with AMD that we thought you might also enjoy.

Windows Search 4.0 Now Available

Josh Phillips — Wed, 04 Jun 2008 01:45:11 GMT

Today Microsoft shipped an update to Windows Search. Windows Search 4.0 includes the following improvements:

Support for indexing encrypted documents of local file systems
Reduced affect on Microsoft Exchange when you index e-mail in online mode, and there is no local cache (.ost)
Support for indexing online delegate mailboxes
Support for client-to-client remote query to shared indexed locations
Improved indexing performance
Faster previewer updates for Windows XP
Per-user Group Policy settings
Windows software updates for Watson errors

Available for download from the Microsoft Download Center:
Download the 32-bit Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008 package now.
Download the 64-bit Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008 package now.
Download the 32-bit Windows XP package now.
Download the x64-based Windows XP package now.
Download the 32-bit Windows Server 2003 and Windows Home Server package now.
Download the x64-based Windows Server 2003 package now.

The Windows Search 4.0 installation process automatically upgrades Windows Desktop Search (WDS) 2.6 and later versions of WDS. If you are running a version of WDS that is earlier than WDS 2.6, use the Add or Remove Programs tool to remove the earlier version before you install Windows Search 4.0.

Windows Search 4.0 Administrator's Guide
http://technet2.microsoft.com/windowsserver2008/en/library/f98696ed-6e3e-47b7-ab38-511439bce7ae1033.mspx?mfr=true

Windows Search 4.0 Troubleshooting Guide
http://technet2.microsoft.com/windowsserver2008/en/library/84c1c305-baaa-4352-b55a-45daaebf18df1033.mspx?mfr=true