Microsoft now has made available to the public the latest beta build of Vista Service Pack 1. Although still not a final version of Vista SP1, the latest release is said to be on track with the estimated first quarter 2008 release date for the final first service pack for vista.
There are two ways to install the service pack, first, as a pop-up notification that the service pack is ready to be installed (this is the method in which most users will install the service pack) and using multiple manual installations from Windows Update. The first method is the simplest, but may take up to four days for the Windows Update Automatic Update feature to deliver each of the 3 prerequisites and the service pack.
Detailed instructions from Microsoft are available here for the update.
This update requires previous versions of SP1 to be uninstalled first, and there are several updates you’ll need to apply to your existing Vista install which can’t be removed later should you want to downgrade to a stable version of Vista.
Microsoft officials said the Vista SP1 RC includes changes that streamline setup and installation. It also includes all previously released updates since RTM, performance and reliability improvements such as file copy, network browsing and improved response time to resume from sleep, and change to administration features, including changes to BitLocker that allow encryption for multiple volumes.
Written by PCWizKid on January 14th, 2008 with comments disabled.
Read more articles on Microsoft Windows Vista and fix pack and powertoys and service pack and sp1.
I stumbled accross the Shipping Seven blog today… Its a blog from someone on the Windows 7 team who isn’t afraid to make their true feelings about Microsoft and Windows and general heard (all be it annomously 
)
 Check out this interesting post off the Shipping Seven blog:Â
In almost every Windows OS release so far, we’ve changed something major in the OS subsystems, to improve the Windows infrastructure. And that generally screws up application or driver compatibility:
Windows 95
Long file names - Application developers had to fix their applications to support long file names. (A good thing, though: What is in 1NTINPRS.AVI?)
Windows NT
Driver developers had to write drivers for a new driver framework because of the hardware abstraction layer. Actually, most of them just stayed away, and supported Win9x only.
Windows 2000
A major annoyance for driver developers, who could ignore the NT driver models up to this point. Win2k ran on NTFS, and had locked-down permissions - developers couldn’t install their application’s files in \windows\system anymore.
We were telling corporations to set up their users as non-admins on their machines, and for the first time, corporate users in were logging in without admin rights, breaking all sorts of enterprise apps.
Consumers just sailed past, on to:
Windows XP
Installed on NTFS on default - breaking lots of applications that were used to the wide-open, unsecured world of FAT32.
We were telling the dads (or moms) of the world to run as administrator, and set up non-administrator accounts for everybody else in the household. Pretty much nobody did that - they all just logged on as Administrator. A situation that almost every bit of spyware exploited.
Which brings us to the OS everybody loves to hate (that isn’t actually that bad) - the fustercluck known as:
Â
Windows Vista
This time round, punch-drunk from all our security issues, the Windows team said: F*** it, let’s just lock it all down:
AUC: All your applications will run as non-administrator, even if you have an administrator account. No excuses. We’ve been telling you that you should do this since 1999.
A new graphics driver infrastructure: We had to protect the system from video driver crashes, as graphics card companies care only about performance, not stability.
Session 0 Isolation: No system service can directly create a UI. Lots of drivers and antivirus apps broke, but we fixed up a major security design flaw in Windows.
Written by Patrick S on January 14th, 2008 with comments disabled.
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Netflix Now Offers Subscribers Unlimited Streaming of Movies and TV Shows on Their PCs for Same Monthly FeeSeveral months ago, Netflix started offering to their customers free their "Watch Now" service. With the "Watch Now" services, customers could watch streaming video on their PC's. The selection was limited to older and B-rated movies and T.V. shows. Nevertheless, it was a wonderful addition to Netflix online DVD rental service. At the time, customers received a limited number of hours for the streaming video service based on their online DVD rental plan they were enrolled in. For example, customers on Netflix's unlimited 3 DVD at a time plan, which costs $16.99, received 17 hours of free streaming video. That was then.
Now, Netflix is offering unlimited access to their video streaming service to all their customers enrolled in their unlimited DVD rental plan. Translation, customers can watch as many hours as they like for free. Customers belonging to Netflix's limited 1 DVD at a time with 2 DVD maximum per month plan are not eligible for this offer. The one thing which would make this offer even sweeter is if Netflix offer a greater selection of content. I expect Netflix to do so soon.
Written by Winston on January 14th, 2008 with comments disabled.
Read more articles on free and news headline and online and video.
Microsoft has just launched Microsoft Student Experience beta.
This site has a lot of features and useful information which is predominantly targeted at students. Â
The site contains information from Microsoft internships, getting discounted software ( e.g. obtaining Microsoft Office 2007 Ultimate for just $600) to a set of How-To’s.
So if you are a student or just interested in the site-Check it out…Â
… its a silverlight enabled site-although is still able to be browsed without it
Written by Patrick S on January 14th, 2008 with comments disabled.
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Now that CES 2008 has officially ended, I wanted to take a moment to do a round-up and wrap up post on CES coverage both here and from others.
Featured Community members did some coverage on their sites of CES this year. Josh Phillips from Windows Connected has Day 1 and Day 2 write-ups of his experience online. The folks from Neowin shot some excellent videos of Microsoft Surface. And Jason Dunn has a post up on his experience riding the Media Center Express CES Bus from San Francisco to Las Vegas as well as CES in general. It was also great meeting up with John Obeto, Michael Reyes from HardwareGeeks, Ash Nallwalla and Brad Wardell from Stardock. And special thanks to Robert McLaws from Windows-Now for spending a great deal of time on the Media Center Express CES Bus setting up a fantastic Windows Media Center experience.
Speaking of the Media Center Express CES Bus, blogger Robert Scoble shot a piece for Donny Duetsch's show on CNBC on the bus with a group of other bloggers. Here is a video of some of the bloggers on the bus introducing themselves (including me!). Scoble questioned Bug Labs CEO Peter Semmelhack. You can read about Scoble's experience shooting the segment here. Bug Labs won CNET's "Best of CES" Award this year for Emerging Technologies. Check out the list of "Best of CES" awards for specific categories. You'll also take notice that one of the "Fashion PCs" being showcased by Microsoft at CES this year - the Lenovo IdeaPad U110 - won CNET's "Best of CES" award for Computers and Hardware. The Lenovo IdeaPad U110 is a pretty slick laptop.
For information on the announcements made from Microsoft at CES this year head on over to Microsoft's CES Virtual Pressroom.
Channel 10 did extensive video coverage this year of CES. You can check out all their CES coverage here. Channel 10's Nic Fillingham shot a tour of the Microsoft Product Pavilion. JP Wollersheim, Senior Product Manager for Windows Live, demoed some digital photo features in Windows Live. Awesome stuff.
I've uploaded the final photos from CES I shot to Flickr using Windows Live Photo Gallery. You can check out my photo set here. I've got some great shots up from the Microsoft Product Pavilion. Here are a few of my favorites:
Lots more pictures here!
I posted about the Fashion PCs being showcased at CES earlier last week asking which of these PCs you would like to hear more about. I don't know about you but I really like that HP Blackbird ;-)
While the CES excitement is over... we've got some pretty exciting things coming up post-CES I think you will enjoy. Stay tuned!
Written by Brandon LeBlanc on January 14th, 2008 with comments disabled.
Read more articles on CES and CES 2008 and Channel 10 and Fashion PCs and Featured Community and Featured News and IdeaPad and Media Center Express Bus and Microsoft Product Pavilion and Windows Media Center and Windows Vista and lenovo.
Now that CES 2008 has officially ended, I wanted to take a moment to do a round-up and wrap up post on CES coverage both here and from others. Featured Community members did some coverage on their sites of CES this year. Josh Phillips from Windows Connected Read More......(
read more)
Written by Windows Vista Team Blog on January 14th, 2008 with comments disabled.
Read more articles on CES and CES 2008 and Channel 10 and Fashion PCs and Featured Community and Featured News and IdeaPad and Media Center Express Bus and Microsoft Product Pavilion and Windows Media Center and Windows Vista and lenovo.
Try Avira's Antivir Personal Edition Antivirus Premium Free Through Dennis Publication SpecialAntivir Antivirus Personal Edition, which is free for personal non-commercial use, is one of my favorite antivirus applications - AVG and Avast Antivirus are the other 2. Antivir has a powerful scanning engine which scans for viruses, worms,Trojan Horses and rootkits. It also scans outgoing e-mail but not incoming e-mail. In addition, the free edition does not scan for spyware or adware. These features are only found in the premium paid version. In addition, the paid version uses a dedicate server for updates while the free edition uses a shared server which downloads updates at a snail pace. I use a fast DSL broadband connection and downloading via the free edition feels like downloading using a 56kps dial up connection. And, as an additional annoyance, after every update, Antivir displays an obnoxious splash screen urging users to upgrade to the paid version.
Thankfully, there is a bit of good news. For a limited time, you can enjoy a free 6 months trial of the premium paid edition. And, all you have to do is fill out a subscription form, which require a name and a valid e-mail address - you don't even need to use your real name or e-mail address. Once you have filled out the form, Avira will send you an email with an activation code and instructions on how to install Antivir. Save the activation code on to your hard drive. Download the premium edition off of Avira's server and start the installation process. During this process, you will be asked to browse to the location of the activation code. That's it. Update the signature database and you are ready to run your first scan.
Written by Winston on January 14th, 2008 with comments disabled.
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Enqvwkp Toolbar is a bad toolbar. The Enqvwkp Toolbar usually get installed onto your PC without your permission, through Trojan, malware and virus (or you could get it by installing a fake video codec).
Download SpyHunter* Spyware Detection Utility
Manual Enqvwkp Toolbar Removal Instructions:
Unregister Enqvwkp Toolbar DLL Files:
(Learn how to do this)
byxww.dll
ssqpp.dll
ezzhjmt.dll
hggdbab.dll
toprates.dll
sprt_ads.dll
browsew.dll
ddcyvtt.dll
ctl3d3.dll
oggview32.dll
turbosearchsite.dll
Find and Delete these Trojan Win32.Murlo Files:
(Learn how to do this)
byxww.dll
ssqpp.dll
ezzhjmt.dll
hggdbab.dll
toprates.dll
sprt_ads.dll
browsew.dll
ddcyvtt.dll
ctl3d3.dll
oggview32.dll
turbosearchsite.dll
Remove Enqvwkp Toolbar Registry Values:
(Learn how to do this)
A74F3FC3-CC9A-4D4C-AFB5-B56F0CAA445D
80DFDD57-D8B8-4991-82B9-9E9D426668B0
BCBC8B3C-397C-4D98-B6BA-FF337B9671E1
17D2F953-B2D1-4D1B-BCD3-20432E09ECF1
4911E55D-9240-49DB-B878-337DE4F53E70
4090F502-6B2D-41B4-8409-B08905A3A0E6
F10587E9-0E47-4CBE-84AE-7DD20B8684BB
47EFD4AD-CB46-4549-B24B-CEE415394C56
14B65C62-1F53-4B15-9476-5D697608536F
82C8422E-86A3-41C1-9F2E-094F7BF849E2
3DAF1739-AB9E-493E-8DD7-F65CDF363BCB
Download SpyHunter* Spyware Detection Utility.
Written by Alex on January 14th, 2008 with comments disabled.
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Photo credit Steve Clayton
If you think of all the innovative, cool and realistic technologies Microsoft has shown to the public in the past year or two, Photosynth would easily top that list. That’s pretty amazing for a research group that’s only been existent in Microsoft for just two years. Anyone who follows this blog knows just how excited I am about Photosynth and Seadragon.
I got in touch with Don Lindsay, director for design at Microsoft Live Labs to find out a little about the history and what is going on behind the scenes. Don also shares a little about his interesting past and contributions to the next version of Windows.
Long: What is Microsoft Live Labs and when was it formed? How does it compare to Microsoft Research?
Don: Microsoft Live Labs is an applied research organization focused on the incubation of innovative, internet-centric technologies to accelerate the evolution of Microsoft’s internet products and services. We collaborate with other groups at Microsoft and with external industry and academic research labs to fulfill our mission. The creation of Live Labs was announced in January, 2006.
Whereas Microsoft Research primarily focuses on pure or experimental research, releasing technology previews to the community for feedback is not necessarily an end-goal of their efforts. Essentially Live Labs acts as the middle ground between Microsoft product groups and Microsoft Research.
Live Labs does collaborate with Microsoft Research on a number of levels, and we have incorporated their research into Live Labs technology previews such as Photosynth.
What do you do there? What does an ‘average’ day look like?
I direct the User Experience team for Live Labs and we’re responsible for defining the user experience and brand strategy for all Live Labs projects. Building an all-star design team from scratch continues to consume too much of each week and I’m always on the lookout for people up to the challenge.
To date, which Live Labs products have you worked on?
To date, the team been responsible for the user experience of all public Customer Technical Previews (CTPs), including; Photosynth,
Deepfish and
Listas.
What does it mean to build user experience for ‘never-done-before’ technologies like Photosynth that’s accessible to everyone?
New technologies can be intimidating, so the challenge with something like Photosynth is figuring out how to best package and deliver it such that the technology effectively ‘disappears’ and users can simply dive in, be rewarded and not have to concern themselves with what is new or different. If the capabilities the technology enables are conspicuous, are valuable to the user and we don’t consciously put roadblocks in their way, then we’ve been successful.
Where do the Live Labs ideas come from? Is there a dark man behind the curtain who decides what gets developed? Or do all the ideas come from the magic 8-ball?
We largely conceive our own ideas, but unique to Live Labs is the collaboration and interchange with other product and research groups both internal to Microsoft and external industry and academic labs.
Photo: Don Lindsay speaking at Expression Around the Clock in Moscow. Obviously still showing some Apple pride.
I presume not every idea is a good idea.
We are constantly developing and evolving new concepts, technologies and full-fledged incubations. Evolution sometimes means rethinking how to best package or express a concept or underlying technology. Some evolutionary paths are dead ends.
On the contrary, how do you know when a project is ‘good enough’ for public consumption? Where do you draw the fine line between internal beta and external beta?
Consistent with any development process, there are feature and quality criteria we establish for each release milestone and while we may label our external releases ‘Previews’, we go to great lengths to ensure a positive experience for the significant majority of our audience given the test coverage we can support.
How much focus is put into commercializing these ideas? In particular, what is the future of Photosynth?
I cannot share any specific plans, but there is clearly an opportunity for a wide range of consumer and business applications that could benefit from Photosynth technology.
For example, in addition to the recent collaborations with the NASA shuttle launch and BBC TV series, we also announced in February 07 that Photosynth technology continues to evolve and now supports the Firefox browser in addition to Internet Explorer.
What will be the focus for Live Labs in the near future? Is Listas a sign of things to come - web applications?
Advancing the internet is our mission and we continue to work on several ground-breaking technologies and product concepts that might employ a variety of delivery vehicles. Expect to see more CTPs from the Live Labs in the year ahead.
I’ve heard you worked at Apple before coming to Microsoft. What did you do there?
Prior to joining Microsoft in 2003, I spent ten years at Apple where I directed the User Experience team responsible for the first four releases of Mac OS X and was responsible for pulling together the design for the original prototype that became
‘Aqua’, the user experience for Mac OS X. Apple developers might recall my Aqua introduction at the Developers Conference in 2000. I first joined Apple to work on Speech user interfaces and over the course of the ten years I contributed to every release of Mac OS from 8.0 through 10.3.
Prior to Apple, I managed a design team for the Bell-Northern Research Corporate Design Group where I first worked on touch-enabled graphical displays for phones in 1985 and designed the interface for a ‘cellular mobile phone with touch display’ in… 1992.
What did you do at Microsoft before working at Live Labs?
I joined Microsoft to focus on defining the future user experience of Windows, but I ended up spending a year assisting the MSX design team wrap up Vista. My contributions were primarily those features enabled by the Desktop Window Manager, including Alt-tab, Flip3D, Glass and Colorization, Window Animations and the AERO graphics tiering strategy (how the AERO UX downgrades gracefully on less-capable hardware or by SKU), but I also pitched in on a variety of other features.
After wrapping up work on Vista, and prior to joining Live Labs, I spent six months working with a willing developer to explore a number of new window management solutions that provided guidance for Windows 7.
Written by Long Zheng on January 14th, 2008 with comments disabled.
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On January 11th, Microsoft released another version of it’s Vista SP1 code, this one called “Windows Vista SP1 RC Refresh”. Like the other service packs, this one is primarily available through Windows Update, by changing a setting in your registry. You can download the small CMD file (and instructions) that will do this for you from
this page.
You`ll need to uninstall any other previous beta or RC SP1 code, and if you haven’t installed one before, then there are certain other updates that you`ll need first. There is a read me file in the that will guide you with the installation and then keep visiting Windows Update until everything is installed.
Written by ShaDow on January 14th, 2008 with comments disabled.
Read more articles on Vista News and Windows Vista Tips and Windows Vista Updates (KB) and vista sp1.
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Microsoft now has made available to the public the latest beta build of Vista Service Pack 1. Although still not a final version of Vista SP1, the latest release is said to be on track with the estimated first quarter 2008 release date for the final first service pack for vista.
