Microsoft

Microsoft has revealed some of the changes in the forthcoming release of its SQL 2005 database, scheduled for later in the year.

The offering will include code checking tools dubbed Prefix and Prefast, which were developed by Microsoft laboratories to check automatically for common flaws like buffer overruns. Prefix examines code before the database is built and Prefast after compilation.

"This is all part of a strategy to educate platform developers about security," Detlef Echert, chief security advisor for Microsoft in Europe, told vnunet.com.

Microsoft has confirmed that there will be no equivalents of its Windows XP Service Pack 2 to boost security on earlier operating systems.

The announcement leaves the 50 per cent of Microsoft customers not currently using XP with the choice of upgrading or relying on platforms that will become increasingly less secure.

While fault patching will continue in line with pre-existing support cycles, there will be no more operating system service packs other than for XP.

Microsoft Corp. plans to severely curtail the ways in which people running pirated copies of its dominant Windows operating system can receive software updates, including security fixes.

The new authentication system, announced Tuesday and due to arrive by midyear, will still allow people with pirated copies of Windows to obtain security fixes, but their options will be limited. The move allows Microsoft to use one of its sharpest weapons -- access to security patches that can prevent viruses, worms and other crippling attacks -- to thwart a costly and meddlesome piracy problem.

To paraphrase a famous 17th century playwright: Alas, poor Windows NT, I knew it, Bill: An OS of many blue screens, of most excellent fancy: It hath borne me on its network a million times; and now, how abhorred in our collective memory it is!

After an exclusive story here at Neowin.net regarding future Windows Mobile Technologies, Microsoft Bloggers across the world syndicated the news and each received legal threats to take down the material.

Bloggers who follow Microsoft technologies are calling on Robert Scoble as a way of contacting Microsoft and are questioning Microsoft's legal threats.

The posting in question was syndicated by Engadget news shortly after Neowin was forced to pull the post. Smartphone site Modaco also received a similar threat after syndicating the news.

A trial version of Microsoft software designed to rid Windows PCs of spyware is provoking complaints about false alerts. Microsoft said it is working with other vendors to resolve teething troubles with its Microsoft Windows AntiSpyware application, released to the public as a beta earlier this month.

With the era of high-definition television drawing closer, Microsoft's bid to provide one of the market's core video technology standards is having trouble getting into orbit.

In recent weeks, announcements have come from major satellite television companies including DirecTV that they will be using a rival technology, developed through traditional standards organizations, instead of Microsoft's competing video format, for their upcoming high-definition services.

Microsoft said on Thursday that it has cut 62 testers from its Windows core operating-system unit. The job cuts come as Microsoft is moving some work from manual to automated testing.

Workers were notified of the cuts last week and were given the option of looking for other jobs at Microsoft, according to a representative. Last September, Microsoft cut some tester positions in its Windows Server unit.

Microsoft will patch its Windows Media Player after all.

Microsoft Corp. created the world's most popular operating system — one that's also heartily embraced by hackers and virus writers. And it begat the world's top Web browser, which makes it all too easy to mistakenly download and install spyware, adware and other garbage. You'd think the world's largest software company, which presumably knows its own Windows and Internet Explorer code, would have long ago come up with something to repair PCs possessed by malicious programs.

Think again.