Microsoft

Today I saw what could be on of the first features of Internet Explorer 8 to emerge.

It's one of dozens of fascinating research projects Microsoft is working on.

However, for every dozen unpolished concepts on show at this week's TechFest, there's at least one application which is much closer on the horizon.

That looks to be the case for Web Assistant, a browser enhancement which applies a sense of context to content in order to make searching for related information faster and more accurate.

Although users can tell Windows XP to ignore updates to Microsoft's antipiracy technology, Windows Genuine Advantage (WGA) Notifications will be offered again the next time the component is upgraded, the company said today.

With nine outstanding software bugs, Microsoft announced on Thursday afternoon that it won't be releasing any patches this month. It's the first time the company hasn't gone through with its monthly Patch Tuesday release since September 2005. The security update was scheduled to be released Tuesday, March 13.

An intense programme to give the police computer sufficient savvy to stem the tide of software piracy was concluded today (Tuesday) at the Gaborone Sun. The workshop follows days after the launch of Windows Vista in the country. Microsoft sources say the training will help the Botswana Police Service in identifying pirated software products, a growing 'white-collar' activity in Botswana and the rest of southern Africa.

Microsoft quietly fixed an Xbox 360 bug that allowed a user to bypass security and run their own applications or operating systems on the console.

Researchers have found a flaw in Xbox 360 that enables users to run their own applications or other operating systems on the gaming console.

The good news it that Microsoft quietly fixed the flaw with a patch that came out in January.

I'll admit I was a little excited when I heard the news that someone had created a brute force hack to tackle Vista's licensing. I have legitimate licenses for all of my copies of Windows, but I chafe sometimes under the draconian licensing schemes and assumption that I'm a pirate by default. I feel a slight sense of satisfaction when I hear the licensing was cracked, especially by something as simple as trying different combinations of letters and numbers until you find one that works. It would have been quite a condemnation of Microsoft's licensing schema if true.

An anonymous hacker claims to have uncovered a critical security flaw in the software that runs Microsoft's Xbox 360 that could allow an attacker to take control of the system.

Microsoft has acknowledged the vulnerability and issued a patch on 9 January. The hacker demonstrated the vulnerability in December, but has only now provided details on how to exploit the flaw on the Full Disclosure security email list.

Researchers have found a way to trick Windows Vista into ?upgrading itself?, potentially saving users the cost of buying a new install version of the operating system. On Friday, Microsoft confirmed reports circulating on the Internet since the beginning of the month that customers can successfully install an upgrade version of Vista on a computer without Windows XP or 2000 already on it, through a bit of installation ledgerdemain.

Here's how the "clean install" trick works according to ars technica:

Microsoft has released the latest version of its Virtual PC desktop virtualisation software as a free download.

Virtual PC 2007 is the first Microsoft virtualisation offering to support the hardware-based virtualisation technology that AMD and Intel have built into their processors. AMD's Pacifica and Intel's VT technology boost performance for virtual systems.

The software is also the first to run on 64-bit versions of Windows XP and Vista, but does not support 64-bit guest operating systems.

One of the major bundled applications with any version of Windows on the server is Internet Information Services. And what a long road it's been since IIS 4, the first version of IIS, which came with Windows NT Server 4.0. The product has been redesigned for Longhorn with security in mind, can now run server-side applications with the help of Microsoft's .Net programming languages.
It has transitioned from a boutique-style Internet server into a world-class set of code that can run even the most intense Internet-facing applications.