Microsoft Windows Forum

Firefox 3.0 Beta 4 has been released and brings with it more than 900 additional enhancements [URL="http://developer.mozilla.org/devnews/index.php/2008/03/10/firefox-3-beta-4-now-available-for-download/"]according to Mozilla[/URL]. These are said to include improvements to stability and performance, memory usage and general usability. The latter including stuff like full page zooming and a new downloads manager.

Well, it looks like the latest installment of Microsoft's browser, IE8, is now [url=http://www.microsoft.com/windows/products/winfamily/ie/ie8/readiness/Install.htm]available for download[/url] in beta status. While I'm not daring enough to give it a go myself, word on the street is that, while Microsoft boasts it passes the ACID2 test, it renders most sites rather awkwardly, …

Well, not as rich as you might think. Well, not as rich as Warren Buffet anyway. In fact, not even as rich as Carlos Slim Helu. The Boy God, co-founder of Microsoft, has lost the richest man on the planet crown, a position he held for the last 13 years …

Microsoft has today announced the immediate public availability of the beta version of [URL="http://workspace.officelive.com"]Microsoft Office Live Workspace[/URL] which allows users to access their Office documents from anywhere via a web-based interface, and share them with others the same way. This is part of the Microsoft strategy to provide a 'software …

Nobody has ever accused Microsoft of not knowing how to play hardball. From its history of monopolistic practices, of elbowing competitors out of the marketplace (hello, Netscape!), or lifting ideas it likes from adversaries like Apple without shame, Microsoft is more than ready to throw the first punch. With that …

An update on the Microsoft & Yahoo merger comes today in the form of an email from a member of the Yahoo board of directors to shareholders. The email, which was published on Todd Bishop's Microsoft Blog earlier this morning, gives a good inside account of why Yahoo shareholders may …

Oh the irony. Windows Vista Service Pack 1 is, quite rightly, being pushed hard on the merits of the numerous security improvements over the original release. However, despite the fact that Vista SP1 will not be made available to end users until March, because it has just been released to …

Microsoft’s CEO has a message to Google: watch out. In a wide-ranging phone meeting with analysts and business journalists this morning, Steve Balmer, Bill Gates’ right-hand man and the chief executive officer at Microsoft says that the company’s recently-announced deal with Yahoo would foster stronger competition with industry leader Google. …

The Business Software Alliance has long been on the case of U.S. companies who use, inadvertently or not, unlicensed software for their business operations. Make no mistake, the BSA has aggressively gone after and imposed heavy fines on companies who are caught in the act using pirated software. It's not …

Many years ago, during a press visit to Microsoft HQ in Seattle, I was given relative freedom to wander around the Redmond campus. Of course, there were some areas that were strictly out of bounds. Areas like the one which was entered via the 'Cryogenics Lab' door for example. At …

[URL="http://www.opera.com"]Opera Software ASA[/URL], the company behind what used to be the alternative web browser of choice until Firefox came along and changed all that, has urged Microsoft to give consumers a genuine choice of standards-compliant browser clients. It has filed an official complaint with the European Commission which describes at …

Microsoft has today announced the availability of Service Pack 1 for the 2007 Office system product range, and you don't have to wait the 3-6 months which Microsoft says it will take to appear in the automatic updates either. In actual fact you can download it right now from [URL="http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/downloads"]OfficeOnline[/URL]. …

[URL="http://john.jubjubs.net/2007/11/27/mozilla-firefox-market-share/"]According to John Lilly[/URL], the Firefox web browser has 126 million unique monthly users. A figure extrapolated from an Active Daily Users number of 48 million, itself a massive increase on the 23 million ADU figure from this time last year. So who is John Lilly and why should we …

As a programmer who until [B]very[/B] quite recently chose C#.NET as his main language, WPF was thrust upon me like an anvil in your favorite 90s cartoon. There was no avoiding it... And for that, I'm glad -- mostly. The Windows Presentation Foundation is a UI subsystem of the Microsoft …

Firefox ticks many boxes, but the one big cross it has had to bear over the years is the memory leakage problem that many users have experienced. Here's how it works: user has Firefox browser open and visits websites, Firefox slurps up some system resources, user continues to keep Firefox …

Ahead of its unveiling and hands-on demonstration at the TechEd: IT Forum in Barcelona, Spain next week, Microsoft has announced that Centro will be officially known as the Windows Essential Business Server. With something in the region of 1.4 million mid-sized businesses around the globe, it does not take a …

Microsoft is announcing the availability of its new [URL="http://www.microsoft.com/windowshomeserver"]Windows Home Server[/URL] product today. The WHS solution is targeted directly at a family audience, helping them to protect, connect and share digital media and documents. The stay-at-home server delivers the same type of benefits that the corporate and academic server technology …

According to figures relating to the audited financial statements and tax form for 2006, [URL="http://weblogs.mozillazine.org/mitchell/archives/2007/10/beyond_sustainability.html"]posted at Mozillazine[/URL] by Mozilla CEO Mitchell Baker, the project is doing pretty well with revenue up and outpacing rising expenses. "Mozilla remains financially healthy: we're able to hire more people, build more products, help other …

Not one to sit back and reflect quietly upon its moments of glory, Microsoft has been making quite a fuss over the record breaking [URL="http://www.halo3.com"]Halo 3[/URL] launch. It is, Microsoft insists, the "biggest entertainment launch in history." Sales in the first 24 hours, in the US alone, topped $170 million. …

[URL="http://www.mozilla.org"]Mozilla[/URL] has hit the 400 million downloads mark for the Firefox web browser client since it was officially launched in November 2004, a rise of 56 percent in the last 12 months alone. Of course, updates, reinstalls and trials are all included in download figures which have little real world …

In one of the most incredible cases of I did not do it syndrome, eBay owned VoIP supremo Skype has denied that it was at fault over the system outage which started on Thursday 16th August and prevented the vast majority of its users from being able to login to …

At first glance you might not immediately connect the Symbian loving Nokia with Microsoft in any way, shape or form. However, Nokia does know its market and so has already been collaborating with Microsoft on the Windows Media entertainment side of the fence. That collaboration is now to be boosted …

There has been much online speculation about how Microsoft is going to head off the Google Apps free office software attack, much of it focusing on an advertising supported version of Microsoft Office. While this may, at some point, feature in the Microsoft strategy it is not going to appear …

According to a [URL="http://www.gartner.com/DisplayDocument?doc_cd=150624&ref=g_homelink"]statement[/URL] from IT research company [URL="http://www.gartner.com"]Gartner[/URL] Windows 7 is just three short years away from fruition. In response to an enquiry following a CNET News story reporting a sales meeting of the Seattle software giants where the three year figure was supposedly mentioned, Gartner cites a Microsoft …

The first interesting missive to arrive in my inbox came courtesy of the words of Microsoft COO, Kevin Turner, speaking at the July 26th Microsoft Financial Analyst Meeting 2007. Turner decided to focus his attention on Vista security, rolling out the usual 'most secure Windows operating system ever' company line …

Mozilla CEO Mitchell Baker has [URL="http://weblogs.mozillazine.org/mitchell/archives/2007/07/email_futures.html"]admitted[/URL] that Thunderbird is to be booted out of the Mozilla camp in order to allow “the Thunderbird community to determine its own destiny” apparently. Put through my patented BS translator this produced “Thunderbird brings us no revenue, gets a bad press whether compared to …

Word has it that the long awaited Service Pack 1 for Windows Vista, also known as what Vista would have been if it were released when actually fully tested and ready, could be with us sooner than expected. While most industry commentators have been sticking to the official ‘sometime in …

Were you one of the many, and the chances are that being a reader of Inside Edge dumps you squarely into the informed geek category (and there really is no offense meant in that remark, says a fellow informed geek), who mourned the passing of promised core parts of Longhorn …

While there is no doubting that virtualization is not only a technology to watch, but one that will move into the mainstream real soon now, there remains a question of just how soon that will actually be. A new survey by [URL="http://www.emedia.co.uk"]emedia[/URL] suggests that the timescale for making that move, …

According to the [URL="http://www.viewsoniceurope.com/UK/Press/PressReleases.htm"]ViewSonic @Work @Risk Report[/URL] millions of workers are suffering from chronic poor ‘desk health’ as part of a wider sick office syndrome epidemic. The survey, which looked specifically at British office workers, reveals that there is a clear link between poor ergonomics knowledge and an increase in …

Yeah, yeah, yeah – how can an operating system be environmentally unfriendly I hear you ask? User friendly, security friendly, productivity friendly even, but environmentally unfriendly? Well that is exactly the claim that I am prepared to make considering reports from the likes of [URL="http://news.zdnet.com/2100-1040_22-6181366.html?part=rss&tag=feed&subj=zdnn"]ZDNet[/URL] regarding the sorry state of …

Microsoft has released the first public Beta version of Windows Server ‘Longhorn’ Beta 3 which can be downloaded from [URL="http://www.microsoft.com/getbeta3"]here[/URL]. This is part of what Microsoft is referring to as the ‘Second Wave of Innovation’ to be delivered during the next 12 months. It started with Vista and Office 2007, …

Yesterday, [URL="http://www.openoffice.org/servlets/ReadMsg?list=dev&msgNo=19660"]an email was sent[/URL] to the OpenOffice developers that proclaimed the development of a new version of OpenOffice -- one that's going to be available via the web. Using a technology that's been in development for 3 years already, Gravity Zoo Framework, a special programming library aimed at online …

Just a week after Mozilla made the Release Candidate 1 version of the Firefox-alike open source email client available for download, comes the news that the final version is now [URL="http://www.getthunderbird.com"]here[/URL]. Mozilla Thunderbird 2 brings lots of new features to the table, most notably: [LIST] [*]Message Tagging - Organize emails …

Following Google's announcement just yesterday that they are going to develop a full office suite for the web, they've just recently added a new feature to Google Spreadsheets: charts. This isn't quite your regular spreadsheet program, as it's still quite basic and was not much more than a portable way …

Suggestions for a suitable epitaph are welcome, although I suspect ‘good riddance to insecure rubbish’ will stand the test of time as well as any other when it comes to the death of Windows XP. Yes, despite the fact that Vista has hardly set the world on fire if recent …

In an effort to bring Firefox users closer together, Mozilla has released a conceptual design dubbed "Coop" that would give Firefox the ability to share "photos, news stories, links" with other users, reports [URL="http://www.computerworld.com"]Computerworld[/URL]. Mozilla of course, says that this is purely conceptual, and that this is as far as …

The latest lawsuit against Vista, so it seems, is now attacking the marketing methods that Microsoft used to sell PCs. The prosecutors claim that Microsoft mislead customers by allowing PC manufacturers to place stickers on the machine that said "Vista capable", when in fact many of the PCs sold were …

Microsoft is aiming to broaden your web surfing horizons with their new "Deepfish" software available for the next version of Windows Mobile. Among other large improvements over the previous browsers used on the PDAs, this one includes a thumbnail view, which will allow you to view content in a scaled-down …

Since Microsoft announced that they had reached the 20 million mark of Windows Vista licenses, people have been criticizing the numbers, and rumors have been swirling that the numbers are straight-out made up. Recently, [URL="http://www.pcmag.com"]PCMag[/URL] published an article stating how the numbers did not add up with Vista sales. Microsoft …

It's just been around a week since the previous threat of cracking Vista almost worked -- until we found out it was fake. Well, this time around, [URL="http://filenetworks.blogspot.com/2007/03/vista-32-bit-one-click-activator-bios.html"]a Vista crack[/URL] appears to be working this time, as numerous reports have said that it works, and the crack has already been …

Well, what a weekend that has been. Ever since the reports started emerging online of a brute force attack on the Vista activation code using a modified version of the original software license manager script file I have been, shall we say, dubious as to the authenticity of the claim. …

[URL="http://onecare.live.com"]Microsoft Windows Live OneCare[/URL] was already struggling in the credibility stakes after failing to pass the Virus Bulletin VB100 certification tests as I reported [URL="http://www.daniweb.com/blogs/entry1295.html"]here[/URL] last month. Talk about kicking a wounded animal, now the [URL="http://www.av-comparatives.org/seiten/ergebnisse_2007_02.php"]results [/URL]of the latest, and much respected, [URL="http://www.av-comparatives.org/ tests"]av-comparatives[/URL] are in, and do no make …

Probably the last thing you would expect to hear is that Microsoft is trying to restrict the machines that their new operating system can run on. After all, don't they want as many computers running Vista as possible (legally)? Well, Microsoft is actually forcing anyone who wants to emulate Vista …

An independent test of [URL="www.microsoft.com/athome/security/spyware/software/default.mspx"]Windows Defender[/URL] against third party vendors has demonstrated holes in [URL="www.microsoft.com/windows/products/windowsvista/default.mspx"]Microsoft Vista’s[/URL] spyware protection. Calls of Swiss Cheese could be heard coming from the direction of Spyware Doctor vendor [URL="http://www.pctools.com"]PC Tools[/URL] which commissioned Australian concern [URL="http://www.testlab.com.au"]Enex Testlab [/URL]to evaluate how Windows Defender compared to its own …

In something of an embarrassing development for Microsoft, four anti-virus products for Vista have failed to reach the required standard to achieve [URL="http://www.virusbtn.com/vb100/index"]VB100[/URL] certification by the highly respected independent industry body, [URL="http://www.virusbtn.com/index"]Virus Bulletin[/URL]. In something of an even more embarrassing development, Microsoft’s own anti-virus flagship product, [URL="http://onecare.live.com/site/en-us/default.htm"]Live OneCare[/URL], was amongst …

File under ‘well it would say that’ you might think, but nevertheless the fact remains that Apple has issued a [URL="http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=305042"]statement[/URL] on its support website warning iTunes users not to upgrade to Vista. This due to a number of known compatibility issues with iTunes 7.0.2 and earlier versions, although you …

Microsoft Vista has, in the few days that it has been on general release, managed to avoid the embarrassment of anyone poking major holes in its security from the perspective of protection of consumer PC integrity at least. However, everything is not so sweet when it comes to those media …

OK - I know this subject has been beated to death: Microsoft's Vista, which has been years in the making. Well, they've has finally released it, so now we all get to see how well it sells. My thoughts on it? I'll try to say some stuff which I haven't …

When asked if Vista is going to be a success, most people answer "yes" for various reasons: good interface, XP is getting old, it's going to be sold with new PCs anyway. Wait... really? Dell's new [URL="http://www.dell.com/content/topics/segtopic.aspx/e510_nseries?c=us&cs=19&l=en&s=dhs"]Dimension n-Series[/URL] might be aiming to change that a little bit. The website even …