Windows

A Google security engineer accused Microsoft of treating outside researchers with "great hostility" just days before posting details of an unpatched vulnerability in Windows that could be used to crash PCs or gain additional access rights.

Microsoft acknowledged the vulnerability late Tuesday. "We are aware of claims regarding a potential issue affecting Microsoft Windows and are investigating," said Dustin Childs, a spokesman for the company's security response group, in an email. "We will take the appropriate action to protect our customers."

Windows 8 no longer comes with Windows Media Center. To get it, you’ll need to purchase both the Pro Pack and Media Center Pack upgrades from Microsoft for a total of $110. Consider using a free, Linux-based media center system instead.

Once you have paid all this money, you’ll just have the old version of Windows Media Center without any improvements. Microsoft will probably discontinue Windows Media Center eventually, anyway, as they’re no longer focused on it.

"Windows is indeed slower than other operating systems in many scenarios, and the gap is worsening." That's one way to start an insider explanation of why Windows' performance isn't up to snuff. Written by someone who actually contributes code to the Windows NT kernel, the comment on Hacker News, later deleted but reposted with permission on Marc Bevand's blog, paints a very dreary picture of the state of Windows development. The root issue? Think of how Linux is developed, and you'll know the answer.

Microsoft will make available to anyone who has Windows 8 a preview of Windows Blue in June.

That's according to Julie Larson-Green, the head of Windows engineering, who made those remarks during the Wired Business Conference on May 7.

The timing isn't a surprise, given that Microsoft's Build 2013 developer conference is slated for the last week of June. Larson-Green said that Windows Blue will be available at the end of June to anyone with Windows 8 via the Windows Store.

More than 100 million copies of Windows 8 have been sold in its first six months on the market, according to a Q&A with Windows division Chief Marketing Officer and Chief Financial Officer Tami Reller.

The post confirms that the Windows Blue update will become available later in the year. Among other things, this serves as an opportunity for Microsoft to "respond to the customer feedback" that the company has no doubt been inundated with since Windows 8 was released.

Over the last six months, Apple earned $22 billion on revenues of over $98 billion, while selling 85 million iPhones and 42 million iPads globally. The profits Apple is now earning in mobile dwarf the best mobile profit performance records set by Nokia in 2008 by more than a factor of three. Why are Apple's competitors not beating back its advances?

Windows 8 is an OS that covers a lot of ground in the mobile space. It is typical Windows when used on desktop systems, yet it handles touch operation that is appearing on laptops, tablets, and hybrids. One such hybrid that I've been using since picking one up at a good price is the HP Envy x2.

The more I use the Envy x2, the more impressed I am with its versatility. I can use it as a full laptop with the additional benefit of a touchscreen, or I can use it as a touch tablet. It handles both duties equally well while delivering an impressive 14+ hours of battery life.

Little over three weeks after the first Windows Blue leak, another build makes its way onto the interwebs. Windows Blue build 9369 is now available (we will not tell you where, but you can easily find it). But are you really surprised? Every time there's a new version of Windows in development a leaked build somehow surfaces in the darker corners of the Internet. We can almost say that it's tradition and just a matter of time before the next one arrives.

If you've got 99 security problems, odds are Microsoft's not one—or at least it's just a minority of them. In its annual review of software vulnerabilities, security software firm Secunia found that 86 percent of vulnerabilities discovered on systems scanned by its software in the 50 most popular Windows software packages in 2012 were attributable to third-party developers and not to Microsoft's Windows operating system or applications. And for most of these vulnerabilities, a patch was already available at the time they were discovered.

Ever since it was announced, I've had skepticism about the purpose and value of Windows RT, Microsoft's version of Windows that runs on ARM computers. The upside of Windows RT—cheap devices and long battery life—was diluted by Intel finally managing to beat its Atom processor into shape. The downside—incompatibility with almost every Windows application ever written—seemed substantial.