Microsoft has rolled out its monthly security updates for December, patching critical flaws in Internet Explorer, Windows Media Format and the Visual Studio 2005 development software.
The seven security patches address 11 bugs, including two in the Windows Media Player software. However, no fixes were provided for two Microsoft World flaws that have been used in a small number of attacks over the past week.
Microsoft new operating system will have an immediate impact on the U.S. economy when it launches early next year, Microsoft claims. According to an IDC study, which was commissioned by Microsoft, the availability of Windows Vista will create 100,000 new jobs and generate $70 billion in sales. "Our research indicates that Windows Vista will infuse new energy into the market in its first 12 months of availability, driving important job and economic growth through new industry revenues," said John F. Gantz, chief research officer and senior vice president of IDC, and author of the study.
One of the ways to activate Windows Vista available to Microsoft volume licensing customers is Key Management Service or KMS that requires a centralized server that clients can activate against every 180 days. As such, it's the server that hosts the product keys; and not the client machines.
Thus, with KMS, a company can run a Microsoft-supplied authorization server on its own network, and activate Vista without contacting Microsoft for each copy.
Like a lot of people, when Microsoft's latest browser was released, I installed it right away. In fact, I installed it on about half a dozen machines. As the days have turned into weeks (soon to be months) since Microsoft released Internet Explorer 7, what has become clear to me and many others is that some Web sites and many Web applications just aren't ready for this new version of the browser. On my computers, that has meant a return to IE6, until the Web and Web-based applications catch up with IE7.
Microsoft plans to patch its Windows and Visual Studio products next week, but it does not have a fix in the works for a widely publicized flaw in Word, which hackers are reportedly exploiting in targeted attacks.
The company's security team is readying five sets of patches for Windows, and will also issue a single critical security update for Visual Studio, Microsoft said in an alert published Thursday.
Microsoft Corp. says it expects to sell 1 million of its new Zune music players through the first half of 2007. That figure would pale in comparison to Apple Computer Inc.'s market-leading iPod, but Microsoft contends it would be a good start.
"We think that's actually pretty awesome," said Bryan Lee, corporate vice president for Microsoft's entertainment group.
The $250 Zune, whose 30 gigabyte hard drive can hold 7,500 songs, debuted in mid-November to mixed reviews.
Microsoft has released a revamped version of its Windows Genuine Advantage tool that it hopes will reduce complaints arising from paid-up users of Windows XP caught in the dragnet of the controversial antipiracy program.
The main change in WGA Notifications is a new category of results for PCs with Windows installations of questionable validity.
Microsoft's latest operating system, Vista -- or , as hackers like to call it, "dinner" -- was released amid great fanfare to business users this week.
Microsoft (MSFT) is heralding the launch of its new operating system, Vista, as a "new day for business." It better be, say the legions of Microsoft users who remember all too well days past, when malicious code writers relentlessly, and successfully, attacked the company's popular products. They brazenly created bugs that tore through security holes in Microsoft's operating system and Internet browser, taunting Chairman Bill Gates with messages such as, "Billy Gates why do you make this possible? Stop making money and fix your software!"
While the official consumer release of Windows Vista is a little less than two months away, based on the enterprise release on November 30, the blogosphere is buzzing with comparisons between Vista and Windows XP SP2. Much of it is unflattering to the new operating system based on the lack of availability of drivers. Aside from the fact, that current versions of Vista, ranging from RC2 to the disk handed out on November 30, mysteriously labelled Vista RTM, require heaps of hardware grunt to run, it appears that you would be a fool to install it just now.
