Microsoft Windows Forum

Keeping pace with Microsoft's latest releases, Xenocode this week unveiled Virtual Application Studio 2010, an update to its virtualization engine that supports Windows 7, simplifies app-publishing to the Web, and permits deployment to multiple platforms using a single executable, the company said. Microsoft this week began shipping Windows 7, and …

With the price of Windows 7 topping out at US$320, Microsoft will be handing shoppers less cash at the end of its [url=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6UzmsUtoo4Q&feature=player_embedded]"I'm a PC" commercials[/url]. Price advantages of Windows-laptops over those from Apple evaporated further today as Microsoft's latest operating system hit store shelves and OEM factories. In typical …

With the release of any new OS release, the question facing developers is whether or not to port existing applications. Often the answer hinges on two major factors: Will the operating system be widely adopted and what's downside of doing nothing? In the enterprise the decision is often made for …

[ATTACH]12206[/ATTACH] [I]I've lived long enough to have learned The closer you get to the fire the more you get burned But that won't happen to us 'Cause it's always been a matter of trust ~Billy Joel, Matter of Trust[/I] When word got out last week about the [URL="http://www.daniweb.com/news/story229934.html"]Sidekick data loss …

Odd isn't it, how Microsoft kicked up a fuss when Google announced the Chrome plugin for Internet Explorer on the grounds that it could make the browser more insecure. Indeed, it went as far as to suggest that it doubled the potential surface area for malware and scripted attacks. Yet, …

Remember when a web browser was so much more than just a web browser? It seems that the days of the all-you-can-eat Internet suite are back as the SeaMonkey 2.0 [URL="http://www.seamonkey-project.org/releases/2.0rc1"]release code[/URL] is made available to download. There was a time when Netscape ruled the online world, but you have …

Windows 7 is coming next month. That's hardly news to any of you, I'm sure, but have you considered that this major OS release could be the catalyst to end the recession? I'm guessing not many of you have come to that conclusion, but consider this: Many, many companies steered …

Like many I'm sure, I'd heard a little of the Free Software Foundation - their petitions to the US Govt recently (and a public march if I remember correctly), brought a bit of a laugh. But I recently stumbled upon a new campaign being run by the FSF, entitled the …

In a strange part of what was otherwise and interesting and insightful [URL="http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/09/24/microsoft-ballmer-interview-exclusive-techcrunch-bing-mobile-azur/"]interview with TechCrunch[/URL] this week, [URL="http://www.microsoft.com/Presspass/exec/steve/"]Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer[/URL] went out of his way to avoid naming Google, instead referring to them repeatedly as "the incumbent." This seemed to be a deliberate strategy and left me shaking my …

Microsoft and Palm today separately advanced web sites designed for developers to post and sell (or give away) applications for their respective mobile platforms, playing catch-up with Apple, whose [url=http://www.apple.com/iphone/apps-for-iphone/]App Store[/url] celebrated its one-year anniversary in July. Redmond also unveiled a series of new phones this week based on Windows …

[ATTACH=right]11664[/ATTACH]I confess I'm not always kind to Microsoft. They stumble and bumble and often make bad decisions, and as such make a great target for a blogger like me, but looking back at the announcements they've made over the last couple of weeks, when you add it all up, they …

What the heck is happening in Redmond? Is Microsoft really giving away antivirus software? Yes, friends, it appears that they [URL="http://www.microsoft.com/security_essentials/"]are[/URL]. Come on Microsoft, we really want to hate you. I've carried this Microsoft voodoo doll* around with me for years--stabbing it every time I have to pay money for …

There ain't no such thing as a free Windows 7 upgrade. At least that's what it is starting to look like for the majority of people, despite the 'free upgrade' vouchers that are being handed out with new computers as part of the Windows 7 Upgrade Option scheme. A scheme …

The Microsoft Windows embedded product portfolio has just been given a hefty push into the limelight with the official release of Windows 7 technologies over to what Microsoft refers to as manufacturers of specialized devices. During an industry address at the Embedded Systems Conference in Boston yesterday, Microsoft announced the …

It seems that Microsoft is now so threatened by Google that they have allegedly hired a high powered Washington lobbying firm to smear Google to government regulators. What's so interesting isn't that this approach is so petty and childish--although it is that--it's that Microsoft, rather than relying on the quality …

Years ago [URL="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_medium_is_the_message"]Marshall McLuhan[/URL] uttered the famous phrase, "The medium is the message." He said this long before the World Wide Web. If he were alive today, he might have said something else: "He who controls the distribution method, controls the money." When you look at the Web's influence on …

If you've used Facebook for more than, oh, five minutes, you've seen a Facebook quiz. "What Greek dance are you?" "Which NFL coach are you?" "Which Diplomacy country should you play?" and so on. (I forget every quiz I see, and I'm up to more than 250 by now.) But …

It's always fun to stand and watch as two big names slug it out, and they don't come much bigger than Microsoft. Sophos, it has to be said, is no small fry either when it comes to the world of IT Security. So when a Sophos [URL="http://www.sophos.com/blogs/gc/g/2009/07/17/guest-blog-xp-mode-demonstrating-security-microsofts-priority/"]blog posting[/URL] from it's …

Skype might stop next year. The service's owner, eBay, has said that it is in dispute with the VoIP system's founders (see a report [URL="http://www.revolutionmagazine.com/news/rss/924222/Skypes-future-shaky-warns-eBay/"]here[/URL] but it doesn't say much more than I'm going to repeat here) and that if the new owners can't get the underlying technology from the …

It is either a clever bit of strategy or a shambolic u-turn depending upon your view of the company, but Microsoft has now formally abandoned plans to sell the controversial Windows 7 E edition in Europe. Windows 7 E was going to be the special edition, for [URL="http://www.daniweb.com/blogs/entry1655.html"]European customers[/URL] only, …

How transparent is too transparent? In an attempt to make it easier for ordinary people to see what their governments are spending their money on, more entities -- from city to federal -- are putting this information online, noting that it's a public record. But some government workers are uncomfortable …

I'm having a rather traumatic experience with certain [URL="http://www.microsoft.com"]Microsoft[/URL] products lately. My problem is that I'm trying to "get to know" Microsoft's Hyper-V for my virtualization column over at [URL="http://www.linux-mag.com"]Linux Magazine[/URL]. The problem is, that to manage a true Hyper-V system remotely, you must have a Windows Vista or Windows …

[URL="http://www.google.com"]Google[/URL] has confirmed that it is working on an operating system called [URL="http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2009/07/introducing-google-chrome-os.html"]Chrome[/URL]. It will be a rival to [URL="http://www.microsoft.com"]Microsoft[/URL] Windows, a zillion flavours of [URL="http://www.distrowatch.com"]Linux[/URL], the [URL="http://www.apple.com/macosx/"]Apple[/URL] operating system and any other minority systems of which you might be aware. A lot has been said across the web about …

OK, so Firefox 3.5 is out and looking good but why should Opera care? After all, the alternative web browser from years back has long since lost that title to Firefox, at least as far as the desktop is concerned. But what about in the mobile market? Opera has been …

My colleague Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols waxed nostalgically on Monday in his [URL="http://blogs.computerworld.com/so_long_compuserve_nice_to_have_known_you"]Computerworld Cyber Cynic[/URL] blog about CompuServe, the long-time service that shut down recently, and which Vaughan-Nichols says he's going to miss. As much as I like [URL="http://twitter.com/sjvn"]SJVN[/URL], I have to say good riddance to old technology. It long outlived …

[I]How come I can't let go? I'm between two worlds ~Tom Petty, Between Two Worlds[/I] As I watched vendors navigate the changing software world last week at [URL="http://www.e2conf.com/"]Enterprise 2.0 in Boston[/URL], it struck me that the old companies are trying desperately to hold onto to the markets they have dominated …

I am probably showing my age here, but I can recall when relationships started as a result of face to face meetings. If those relationships came to an end, they ended the same way as a rule. OK, a few cowardly types might have resorted to a 'Dear John' letter …

There's a new campaign on [URL="http://twitter.com"]Twitter[/URL] about fixing [URL="http://www.microsoft.com"]Microsoft[/URL]'s flagship email program, Outlook. Outlook 2010 will be coming out next year (just say if I'm going too quickly) and it renders emails oddly if they're in HTML. There are details [URL="http://fixoutlook.org/"]here[/URL]. Let's ignore the fact that the Fixoutlook page is …

Now here's a thing. The web browser [URL="http://www.opera.com"]Opera[/URL] is coming out in a new version, Opera Unite, and it's going to let you host all the music, photos and social media you want. On your own computer. Here's the [URL="http://uk.reuters.com/article/technologyNews/idUKTRE55F1EI20090616?feedType=nl&feedName=uktechnology"]Reuters report[/URL]. Initially I can see this will look like a …

[URL="http://blogs.forrester.com/information_management/2009/05/microsoft-office-still-owns-the-desktop.html"]Sherri McLeish from Forrester[/URL] reports that 80 percent of enterprise customers still use Microsoft Office. While this is down significantly from the 95 percent reported in this [URL="http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/06_27/b3991412.htm"]2006 BusinessWeek article[/URL], it still makes me wonder why so many companies would continue to use Microsoft Office given the current economy and …

Ah, Microsoft, that crazy company from Redmond, WA is at again. This time they want to rename the Netbook unilaterally to the...drum roll please..."low cost small notebook PC." As first reported in the [URL="http://www.digitimes.com/news/a20090602PD221.html"]Digitimes[/URL] last week, Microsoft decided on their own that the name was not appropriate and they were …

Isn't it amazing just how attached so many people are to Windows XP given that it is relatively old and [URL="http://www.itwire.com/content/view/25484/53/"]relatively insecure[/URL]? I will even admit to having a netbook which runs very nicely on XP thank you very much, and have no plans to 'upgrade' this to Vista or …

"Opera Retakes Leadership from iPhone in Mobile Browser Market" reads the press release that arrived in my email this week. "Opera is the world's number one mobile browser, overtaking iPhone in May according to data from StatCounter Global Stats" it continues, which certainly peaked my interest. Not least because, according …

[URL="http://www.intel.com"]Intel[/URL] acquired [URL="http://www.windriver.com"]Wind River[/URL] for $884 million to boost Linux adoption in the Intel Atom market. Obviously Intel sees Wind River's embedded Linux market as new opportunity for its Atom processor family. There's also buzz about multi-core processor offerings from the two in the near future. I see this as …

The latest [URL="http://www.opera.com/smw/"]State of the Mobile Web[/URL] report, published by mobile web browser client developers [URL="http://www.daniweb.com/blogs/entry3617.html"]Opera[/URL], reveals that mobile web usage in the UK has grown by nearly 50 percent over the last year. The report also tries to make sense of other global trends as they impact upon mobile …

Strange but true, usually the best of enemies it would seem that [URL="http://www.daniweb.com/blogs/entry4331.html"]Microsoft[/URL] and the [URL="http://www.daniweb.com/blogs/entry4219.html"]Linux Foundation[/URL] are in full agreement over something for a change. What is more, they are working together in order to find a solution as well. According to Horacio Gutierrez, the Microsoft Corporate Vice President …

I've never been a big fan of American Idol or reality TV in general, but the tit for tat going on between Microsoft and Apple ads reminds me a bit of a reality TV competition with bloggers acting as Simon and Paula and the gang. We watch. Sometimes we laugh. …

While The Telegraph has been enjoying all the media attention this last week, at least here in the UK, thanks to exposing the scandal of British MP expense claims and breaking new details first online every day, it is not the most popular online UK newspaper according to [URL="http://www.comscore.com/Press_Events/Press_Releases/2009/5/U.K._Newspaper_Sites_Aattract_Visitors_from_Around_the_World"]newly published[/URL] …

Microsoft has made a double whammy of Windows 7 update announcements. The first concerns a hotfix for a bug that could "cause some application failures on the English version of Windows 7 Release Candidate 32-bit Ultimate" while the second brings news of the arrival of as many as 10 'fake' …

With the Windows 7 release code out there and [URL="http://www.daniweb.com/blogs/entry4283.html"]available for download[/URL] right now, and [URL="http://www.daniweb.com/blogs/entry4317.html"]free to use until 2010[/URL] for good measure, the last thing Microsoft will want to hear is bad news about potential security risks for users of the new flagship OS. But that's exactly what researchers …

Last week we heard about the first Android-powered Netbook (which I wrote about in [URL="http://www.daniweb.com/blogs/entry4290.html"]First Android Netbook Nothing to Write Home About[/URL]). Then on Friday, analyst [URL="http://gartenblog.net/"]Michael Gartenberg[/URL], who is VP of Strategy at Interpret, and who writes frequently about consumer technology sent the following Tweet: [I]Is Android's future in …

There has [URL="http://www.daniweb.com/blogs/entry4259.html"]certainly been enough speculation[/URL] about when the Windows 7 Release Candidate code would actually be made available. Right here on DaniWeb [URL="http://www.daniweb.com/blogs/entry4182.html"]we confidently predicted[/URL] that the big day would be May 5th following a slip up, or more probably a deliberate leak for marketing purposes, on the Microsoft …

[URL="http://www.apple.com"]Apple[/URL] users are the most dedicated and fervent operating system fans with undying loyalty to their operating system, hardware and peripherals. And they're just as loyal now to the new Unix-based OS X as they were to the old proprietary Mac OS. However, when given the option of a Linux-based …

For American readers this is probably a bit of an ordinary day - you go about your business and there's every chance that when you wake up tomorrow things will be much the same as they were when you woke up today. In the UK that's not the case. In …

May 5th should prove to be an interesting day for tech fans, as it would appear that both the much hyped Windows 7 operating system and the HTC Magic Android mobile phone will be launched to the waiting public. Neowin [URL="http://www.neowin.net/news/main/09/04/18/windows-7-rc-coming-to-msdntechnet-soon-public-may-5"]spotted[/URL] that a Microsoft Partners [URL="https://partner.microsoft.com/US/40084742"]web page[/URL] (now replaced with …

Microsoft today released the first public beta of MS Exchange Server 2010 which forms part of the Microsoft unified communications family. As the first of many products (Microsoft Office 2010, Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010, Microsoft Visio 2010 and Microsoft Project 2010 all to follow) which will form part of the …

So much for a “glimmer of hope”. Wall Street is looking more skeptically at claims from Washington that the economy is getting better. The stock market is down about 45 points in late morning trading, after more layoffs were announced by U.S. companies (Yahoo (YHOO) being one of them – …

Will you be moving to Windows 7 during the next year, or will Vista disappointment, economic doom and gloom or compatibility concerns keep you away like 84 percent of business folks surveyed have said? The [URL="http://www.itwire.com/content/view/23795/53/"]Windows 7 Release Candidate[/URL] is nearly with us, complete with plenty of [URL="http://www.itwire.com/content/view/23084/1231/"]reported security problems[/URL], …

Google's [URL="http://www.androidlinux.com"]Android[/URL] operating system for cell phones, GPS devices and a host of other gadgets yet to be is the topic of much controversy and discussion. Why? [URL="http://www.microsoft.com/windowsembedded/en-us/products/windowsce/default.mspx"]Windows CE[/URL], Embedded Linux, Android...who cares? When you shop for a phone, or any modern gadget, do you ask which operating system it's …

President Obama – who only weeks ago warned of the greatest financial meltdown since the Great Depression if his $1.1 trillion stimulus package wasn’t passed by Congress - now says that he sees a “glimmer of hope” that the financial trauma is ending and that things could be stabilizing. Call …