Microsoft

I’ve been hearing from a lot of Windows 7 beta testers as to how they are feeling unappreciated. Some feel they didn’t get their hands on enough code to play with, while others feel that beta testers should get a complimentary copy of Windows 7 for their efforts.

Well, if you are in the latter category, Microsoft has good news for you - All beta testers invited into the Windows 7 beta program will be offered a free copy of Windows 7 Ultimate.

Microsoft only just released final code for Windows 7 to manufacturers and the company is already facing a security risk. The Windows Genuine Advantage antipiracy system in the Windows 7 Ultimate release to manufacturers (RTM) has reportedly been compromised by some Chinese hackers, according to a variety of Chinese forums, and first reported by Neowin.com.This means the user can fully activate the software offline without connecting to Microsoft's activation server.

Microsoft released a security patch on Tuesday aimed at preventing hackers from exploiting a vulnerability in its Web browser, Internet Explorer.

The US software giant said that the security update would be automatically installed for Internet Explorer users who have automatic updating enabled on their computers but would need to be installed manually by other users.

Much of the IT world is busy preparing for Windows 7's debut in October. But don't look now, because Windows Vista is making something of a comeback.

A new survey shows that the nearly three-year-old Vista -- roundly criticized for being a sluggish, overpriced resource hog that initially had poor driver support and lack of application compatibility -- grew 4 percentage points between July 2008 and March 2009. As a result, Vista has been installed in 11.9 percent of IT shops, according to the report.

Windows 7 has now been released to manufacturing, and the much-anticipated next version of Windows will be available for TechNet subscribers and enterprise Software Assurance customers to download within weeks. With this in mind, V3.co.uk has come up with a list of the top 10 reasons for upgrading to Windows 7.

At Black Hat today, Microsoft made several announcements intended to reassure its users that it was being as transparent as humanly possible regarding security vulnerabilities. These announcements came during a month when Microsoft was forced to defend itself and its security processes like a little leaguer in a 90 miles-per-hour batting cage.

Microsoft has announced plans to introduce sandboxing technology with the next version of its Office suite.

Office 2010 will incorporate sandboxing technology so that when users want to simply read Office documents, these files will have no access to other files or information. "Even if the file is malicious, it can’t get out of the sandbox and do harm to your computer or data," explains Brad Albrecht, a Microsoft security specialist on the Office 2010 blog.

Although, for the sake of your eyesight, this article hasn't been written in red ink, financial types might want to just go ahead and imagine it that way. The earnings report Microsoft released this afternoon contained all sorts of bad news.

The second sentence of the official release pretty well summed things up: "Operating income, net income and diluted earnings per share for the quarter were $3.99 billion, $3.05 billion and $0.34 per share, which represented declines of 30%, 29% and 26%, respectively, when compared with the prior year period."

Microsoft's plan to "sandbox" Office documents in the next version of its application suite is an admission that the company can't keep hackers from exploiting file format bugs, a security analyst said today.

"What's been happening is that Office has lots of vulnerabilities," said John Pescatore, Gartner's primary security analyst. "For the past 18 months, hackers have been fuzzing Office file formats," he said, referring to the practice of "fuzzing," a tactic that relies on automated tools that drop random data into applications to see if, and where, breakdowns occur.

Microsoft may soon be taking the unusual step of issuing an out-of-band security update to address multiple weaknesses that stem from a Windows security flaw that the software giant tried to fix earlier this month, Security Fix has learned.