Tag: Microsoft
February 08, 2010 by
Jason
Microsoft has made available for download new resources associated with the underlining graphics technology in its Windows operating system, including the latest version of the operating system. Windows 7 brought to the table DirectX 11, a technology which was also backported to Windows Vista SP2 via the Platform Update for Windows Vista. No less than three downloads were made available at the end of the past week by the Redmond company: the DirectX End-User Runtime Web Installer, the DirectX End-User Runtimes (February 2010), and DirectX Software Development Kit.
All three DirectX resources have been updated for the first time in 2010. “The Microsoft DirectX End-User Runtime provides updates to 9.0c and previous versions of DirectX — the core Windows technology that drives high-speed multimedia and games on the PC,” Microsoft stated. DirectX End-User Runtimes (February 2010) is “the DirectX end-user multi-languaged redistributable that developers can include with their product. This package is localized into Chinese (Simplified), Chinese (Traditional), Czech, Dutch, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Polish, Portuguese (Brazil), Russian, Swedish, and English,” the company added.
The core of the DirectX February 2010 update is without a doubt the software development kit Microsoft is offering developers to streamline the building of DirectX compliant applications. The SDK package contains tools, utilities, samples, documentation, as well as the runtime debug files for 64-bit (x64) and (32-bit) x86 Windows. Read More»
Posted in Software, Windows 7 | No Comments »
February 04, 2010 by
Jason Want to know what your Windows EULA looks like? Windows XP’s EULA is stored in a file located here:
C:\Windows\System32\eula.txt
XP also has a help file associated with the EULA. The help file is located at:
C:\Windows\Help\license.chm
In Vista and Windows 7, one version of the EULA is stored in the following location:
C:\Windows\System32\license.rtf
But Vista and Win7 also store other EULAs on the system. For example, Win7’s license library for the US-English version of the software is at this location:
C:\Windows\System32\en-US\Licenses
In fact, my test PC has 54 separate Win7 EULAs in that folder! Read More»
Posted in Computer, Windows 7, Windows Vista, Windows XP | No Comments »
February 03, 2010 by
Jason Microsoft is making it easy for third-party developers to bulletproof their software using the same security assurance process that the company applied when building products such as Windows 7 and Windows Vista. In this sense, the software giant continues on a path it set on a few years back when it started sharing resources and guides associated with the Microsoft Security Development Lifecycle with the developer community. Devs looking to secure their software leveraging the same range of security activities used by Microsoft in developing solutions starting with Vista can take advantage of such resources as the Simplified Implementation of the Microsoft SDL white paper, which can be grabbed from the Microsoft Download Center.
“Because Microsoft created the SDL, some people think they have to have Microsoft-like resources to be able to implement it,” revealed David Ladd, principal security program manager of Microsoft’s SDL Team. “It’s true that we do invest a lot in the SDL, but that’s largely because we have so many products that go through it. This paper sets out how any development team — even teams of eight to 10 developers — can implement the SDL.” Read More»
Posted in Windows 7 | No Comments »
February 03, 2010 by
Jason Microsoft is extremely close to wrapping up the successor of Office 2007. The Redmond company has confirmed officially that the next iteration of its productivity suite has reached the final stage before being released to manufacturing. In this regard, Office 2010 graduated from Beta to Release Candidate, which, according to the software giant, will be the first and only RC Build offered ahead of RTM. Members of a select pool of testers have already received the Office 2010 RC bits and have started test driving the release.
There is a reason why Microsoft is not announcing the Release Candidate development milestone of Office 2010 with any fanfare. The Redmond company has planned just limited availability for Office 2010 RC. This means that
only a small group of testers close to Microsoft will receive the actual bits, at least through the company’s official channels.
“Microsoft made a release candidate available to members in the technology adoption program (TAP). This is one of Microsoft’s planned milestones in the engineering process; however they do not have plans to make this new code set available broadly,” a company spokesperson stated. Read More»
Posted in Office, Software | No Comments »
February 01, 2010 by
Jason
Microsoft offers a plethora of software that users can download and install without paying a single cent to the company. However, the software giant hasn’t centralized all its free offerings into a single location, a move which would streamline access to the resources it is delivering. That’s why I included below a list with a consistent collection of free software products which can be grabbed free of charge, with the vast majority available through the Microsoft Download Center.
As far as I’m concerned the list needed to start with Windows client and server operating systems. In one way or another, packaged as ISO or VHD images, Microsoft is offering customers the chance to test drive, and even use, feature-complete versions of its platforms, again, completely free. In some cases, Microsoft is making it easier for customers to test drive a Windows release before buying, while in others it is actually offering the OS on top of an existing license.
However, the list doesn’t stop with Microsoft’s operating systems. The Redmond company is also providing free downloads of its “other” cash cow, the Office productivity suite, along with its development platform and tools, security solutions and additional offerings. Read More»
Posted in Windows 7, Windows Vista, Windows XP | No Comments »
January 31, 2010 by
Jason An online resource from Microsoft is designed to diagnose and repair Windows operating systems, including Windows Vista SP2 and Windows XP SP3. The Microsoft Automated Troubleshooting Services are set up to perform what the Redmond company refers to as common system maintenance tasks. Specifically, the Automated Troubleshooting Services will not only detect a range of maintenance problems, including broken desktop shortcuts, unused icons, disk volume errors, and incorrect system time display, but will also correct them automatically, requiring very little effort on behalf of the end users, beyond running the solution.
Microsoft enumerated some of the issues that the services deal with, including: “problems with desktop shortcuts and icons (shortcuts on the desktop don’t work or are broken; desktop icons are broken or have not been used in 3 months; startup items don’t work or are broken); System maintenance tasks (free up disk space by repairing disk volume errors such as bad sectors, lost clusters, cross-linked files and directory errors; free up disk space by removing error reports and troubleshooting history older than 1 month; set the correct system time and synchronize system clock with the time server) and the following errors: Windows update error 0×80072F8F and the item that this shortcut refers to has been deleted.” Read More»
Posted in Windows Vista, Windows XP | No Comments »
January 28, 2010 by
Jason By all accounts, thanks to the boot performance of Windows 7, customers should be using the operating system in a matter of seconds since they fire up their computers. However, Microsoft itself has documented scenarios in which the startup of Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 is unexpectedly slow. According to the Redmond-based company, at fault is the dpi display setting of the monitor.
“Consider the following scenario: you have a computer that is running Windows 7 or Windows Server 2008 R2. This computer is connected to a high resolution monitor. On this computer, the default dpi display setting is set to a value other than 96 dpi. In this scenario, the computer has an unexpectedly slow startup time,” Microsoft explained.
The software giant does not specify what “unexpectedly slow startup times” actually mean. Microsoft only noted that the dpi display setting is the cause of slow boot times, and that the problem is persistent. “This issue may occur when the default dpi display setting in Windows 7 or in Windows Server 2008 R2 is set to a value other than 96 dpi for a high resolution monitor. In this scenario, the computer has an unexpectedly slow startup time after a change is made to the default dpi display setting. Then, the computer has an unexpectedly slow startup time every other time that the computer is started,” the company said. Read More»
Posted in Windows 7 | No Comments »
January 28, 2010 by
Jason Microsoft is gearing up to wrap up the final development milestone of Office 2010. The next iteration of the Office System is currently in RTM Escrow stage according to Russian website Wzor. According to information leaked in the wild, the development process of Office 2010 has reached the last stage before release to manufacturing (RTM). The latest Office 2010 interim version compiled in Redmond is Build 14.0.4734.1000, which means that it supersedes the Build 14.0.4730.1007 which was leaked in the wild and made available for download from various third-party sources, including torrent trackers and warez websites at the start of January.
Build 14.0.4730.1007 was labeled RTM in the End User License Agreement (EULA), but apparently the release was only pre-RTM Escrow. In this regard, Office 2010 14.0.4734.1000 is the RTM Escrow Build of the productivity suite. Escrow generally designates a stage in the development process of Microsoft software in which all changes are frozen, with testers looking for any regression issues. Provided that no problems be identified with Office 2010 Build 14.0.4734.1000, the product will move into RTM. Read More»
Posted in Office | No Comments »
January 28, 2010 by
Jason
Microsoft has made available for download a reliability refresh designed to resolve issues affecting Windows Vista, including platforms upgraded to Service Pack 2, in Bluetooth pairing scenarios. According to the Redmond company, Bluetooth pairing issues affect only Windows Vista, and not customers running Windows XP or the latest version of the Windows client, Windows 7. Customers can now grab an update from the Microsoft Download Center, set up to resolve reliability issues associated with Windows Portable Devices (WPD).
“You try to pair a Bluetooth device with a computer that is running Windows Vista. When you initiate Bluetooth pairing from the Bluetooth device, the Bluetooth services on the Bluetooth device are not enabled automatically. You have to manually enable the services,” the software giant explained. “This issue does not occur when you initiate Bluetooth pairing from the computer. In this situation, the Bluetooth device’s services are turned on automatically.”
Microsoft is offering the Vista SP2 Bluetooth pairing reliability update for both the 32-bit (x86) and the 64-bit (x64) versions of the operating system. “To apply this update, you must have hotfix 971514 installed on a computer that is running Windows Vista Service Pack 2,” the company informed. Read More»
Posted in Windows Vista | No Comments »
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