Microsoft

Graphics performance, which has long been an afterthought for most corporate PCs and many consumers, will move to the forefront with the launch of Windows Vista, Microsoft's next Windows operating system. Vista, due late next year, will offer four different themes, including the well-publicized three-dimensional Aero Glass with transparent windows.

Starting with a Classic theme, which looks like Windows XP, each will offer successively more advanced features, also call for successively more powerful graphics.

Windows is more reliable than Novell's Linux and easier to manage, according to Microsoft-funded research carried out by Security Innovation.

The research simulated two IT departments, one running Suse Linux from Novell and one running Windows Server 2000. It found the Linux system required an eye-watering 187 patches while Windows needed just 37.
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Ashim Pal, Microsoft's chief Linux basher, told the Reg: "Windows is more reliable over time and the time to provision (getting systems up and running) is 40 per cent less than Linux."

Microsoft's security tools will be updated to detect the controversial Sony BMG copy protection software installed on PCs when some audio CDs are played, the software giant said over the weekend.

The Redmond, Wash.-based developer joins other security vendors -- including some which acted a week earlier -- to label the copy protection as spyware.

It turns out that a good portion of all those Windows crashes over the years are not caused by the operating system itself, but by buggy device drivers -- low-level pieces of code that allow the operating system to communicate with external devices like the computer's keyboard, hard drive, screens and network cards.

Aiming to stir up the same kind of momentum as his Internet Tidal Wave memo of a decade earlier, Microsoft chairman Bill Gates has penned a memo outlining the challenges Microsoft faces from a host of online competitors.

"This coming 'services wave' will be very disruptive," Gates said in an Oct. 30 e-mail to top Microsoft employees. "We have competitors who will seize on these approaches and challenge us."

In the memo, Gates cites an earlier missive from Ray Ozzie, outlining the importance of tapping online advertising and services as new revenue sources.

Three image-rendering flaws in the Windows operating system could put millions of Internet-connected users at risk of PC takeover attacks, Microsoft Corp. warned on Tuesday.

The flaws could be exploited via any software that displays images, including the widely used Microsoft Outlook, Microsoft Word and Internet Explorer programs. The bugs are considered particularly dangerous because users could be at risk by merely browsing to a malicious rigged site with rigged image files, or by displaying images in the preview pane of an e-mail program.

Contrary to popular opinion, Windows isn't the only operating system in which Microsoft is investing.

Last month the MVPs (Most Valuable Professionals) were on campus (they are folks who got noticed for doing a lot to help Microsoft's customers out) and we snuck into their meeting with Larry Hryb, aka Major Nelson. Hey, that's the only way we could get a look at the new Xbox 360!

The launch is coming on November 22 here in the United States and December 2 in Europe.

Unfortunately Larry couldn't show us any of the games yet. But, trust us, they rock!

If you go back six years to Windows NT and Windows ME, and take the state of Microsoft security then and compare it to what it is now, and visualize the line of improvement you’d see what looks like a reverse hockey stick: a slow ramp at first with a near vertical ramp over the last few years.

Granted the exposures have increased as well, but arguably not as quickly, and now you can at least argue that Microsoft’s security is adequate in many ways if not exemplary.

Time to explore the inner workings of Windows Vista. Here we'll take a look at controls, application compatibility, performance, and a few under-the-hood details.
This is the second part of a two part series. Once again, this is pre-beta software. Nothing has been finalized and performance should not be taken to be at all indicative of the final release of Windows Vista.