Tag: Microsoft
According to Microsoft, a total of two computers are more than sufficient to qualify a customer for Volume Licensing, Software Assurance and the adjacent benefits. Eric Ligman, Global Partner Experience lead Microsoft Worldwide Partner Group, revealed that, despite the common belief for some that a minimum of five PCs was necessary for Volume Licensing, the fact of the matter was that two machines were more than enough.
The misconception comes from the fact that Microsoft sets a minimum number of five licenses that need to be purchased by business customers as a part of their Volume Licensing agreement. However, the Redmond company doesn’t specify in what manner users will deploy the software they licensed.
“Both the Open License and Open Value licensing programs require a minimum order of five (5); however, it is not 5 computers, it is 5 Licenses (for Open License) or 5 Licenses+Software Assurance or Software Assurance alone (for Open Value),” Ligman stated, offering “an example of how a two computer company could easily qualify for Open License.” According to Ligman, a customer could install Windows and Office on a PC and Windows and Office plus Streets and Trips on a second machine in order to qualify for a Volume License agreement. Read More»
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With Service Pack 1 still in the distance, customers need to turn to Windows Update for refreshes designed to improve their experience with the latest Windows client and server platforms. Although Microsoft is not emphasizing the relevancy of WU over that of major service pack upgrades for Windows 7 to the same level it did for Windows Vista, the company is indeed relying on its update mechanism for the evolution of the operating system ahead of the delivery of the first service pack. Since the RTM of Windows 7, the software giant has made two stability and reliability updates available, via WU and as standalone packages on the Microsoft Download Center. Refreshed versions of both were offered to customers on March 8.
Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 users are free to download revised versions of “The January 2010 stability and reliability update for Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 is available” and the “The October 2009 stability and reliability update for Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 is available.” This is the third time that the company tweaked the two updates and offered them to users running the successors of Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008 R2.
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According to Microsoft, there are no less than two main categories of functionality when it comes down to integration with the next version of the Office System. Instant messaging (IM) applications can hook into Office 2010 only at a basic level, or go deeper and deliver presence integration. Microsoft has made available for download a document which outlines “Presence Integration between IM Applications and Microsoft Office 2010.” The resource is offered for free via the Microsoft Download Center, along with another document titled: Office Communicator 2007: Presence Integration Between IM Applications and 2007 Microsoft Office System.
“With basic IM and Presence integration, a third party can use IM applications to leverage Presence and integrate IM functionality in Office applications within the following: Outlook 2010, SharePoint Server 2010, Word 2010, Microsoft Excel 2010 and Microsoft Powerpoint 2010,” the company explained.
Of course, at the same time, third-party developers can go deeper than just basic IM and Presence Integration. In this regard, instant messaging applications can integrate with Office 2010 components for search, contacts and even conferencing features. Read More»
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While there is more than enough room to grow by simply eroding Internet Explorer’s share on the browser market, the growth of a specific player impacts the others as well. Case in point: Google Chrome’s increase in usage share in January and February 2010. Chrome is managing to hurt not only Microsoft’s IE but also Mozilla’s Firefox. According to statistics from Net Applications, Google Chrome was the only major browser to gain market share in January 2010.
“The Google Chrome browser gained .4% of global usage share in January. All other major browsers showed a month-to-month decline,” the Internet metrics company stated. This is, of course, nothing new for Internet Explorer, as Microsoft has been continuously seeing its browser market share erode. However, it is news for Mozilla, which has become used to a steady pace of growth, especially in the detriment of IE.
What’s even more interesting is that the first two months of 2010 could very well end up being the beginning of a new trend. At the start of the past month, Net Applications revealed that “the Google Chrome browser gained .6% of global usage share in January. Both Firefox and Internet Explorer dropped share during the last month.” Read More»
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February 28, 2010 by
Jason There are several ways to launch apps quickly, using either mouse or keyboard.
Direct method: You can assign keystrokes to launch any shortcut. Right-click the shortcut and choose Properties. On the Shortcut tab, click in the Shortcut key box and then press the keys you want to use to launch the shortcut. Click OK.
A word of warning: Be careful not to reassign other useful keyboard shortcuts you may have already assigned. Also, you can assign keyboard shortcuts only to icon shortcuts — not the actual icon of a document or application.
Search method: In Vista and Win 7, press the Windows key to open the Start menu. Then type a few letters until the search tool finds the program you want to launch; press Enter. The catch — if you have several programs starting with the same characters, you end up taking more time typing than if you simply mouse-clicked the application’s icon.
Menu method: For me, the “classic” Start menu provides a better solution. If you organize shortcuts into a hierarchy of menus, each starting with a unique character, you can navigate the menus quickly and launch most programs with only 3 or 4 keystrokes. Read More»
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February 25, 2010 by
Jason Application Virtualization (App-V) 4.6 is one of the key components of the Microsoft Desktop Optimization Pack 2010, a release which is tailored specifically to Windows 7, Windows Server 2008 R2 and Office 2010. Microsoft Software Assurance customers can access App-V 4.6 immediately via MDOP 2010. In addition, the Redmond company has made available the solution accelerator to MDOP customers via MDOP 2010 which is available for download via the Microsoft Volume Licensing Site (MVLS). In addition, customers that only want to evaluate MDOP 2010, can grab the bits from MSDN and TechNet.
“App-V will help save money immediately by freeing up administration time from IT and enhance end-user productivity. It is an out-of-the-box platform to enable you to migrate your applications and deploy Windows 7 faster and easier. We offer much tighter integration with more products (Office 2010, SCCM, 3rd Party Distribution Systems) and we support both Windows 32/64-bit applications and x86/x64 platforms on desktops as well as Terminal Servers. App-V client deployment is easy and plugs into your existing deployment workflows,” revealed Karri Alexion-Tiernan, director of Product Management for App-V. Read More»
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February 25, 2010 by
Jason A computer on which Windows 7 has been deployed via a clean install can stop responding completely after the second restart. This issue also affects Windows Server 2008 R2, Microsoft informed, and is related to the 1394 bus driver.
According to the Redmond company, machines running Windows 7 or Windows Server 2008 R2 can also stop responding when customers enable or install a 1394 device. The IEEE 1394 is a serial bus interface standard most known by the following brands FireWire (Apple), i.LINK (Sony), and Lynx (Texas Instruments).
Microsoft even offered an example of the hardware configuration on which users have been experiencing this problem. The software giant notes that the issue affects PCs with nVidia MCP7A-GeForce 9300 rev B1 motherboard that also feature an LSI Logic FW533 or an FW643 1394 Host controller. Disabling and then enabling, as well as uninstalling and then installing the 1394 host controller will render the machine unresponsive, as will restarting the computer, or putting it to sleep and then waking it.
“This issue occurs because the 1394 bus driver in Windows 7 does not issue an Open Host Controller Interface (OHCI) Soft Reset command to the 1394 host controller when the computer enters a low power (D3) state. When the 1394 host controller later enters a high power (D0) state, it may generate an incorrect PCI-Express packet. In this situation, the motherboard chipset stops responding,” Microsoft explained.
Ahead of Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2, the 1394 bus driver in Windows platforms generated an Open Host Controller Interface (OHCI) Soft Reset command to the 1394 host controller concomitantly with the moment when the PC was entering a low power state. Microsoft doesn’t offer users an update to fix the issue.
However, the company does have a hotfix available for download via Microsoft Support. “If the 1394 host controller is an add-on card, remove the card from the system before you install Windows 7. After setup is complete, apply this hotfix, and then re-enable the 1394 host controller,” the company advised affected users.
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February 24, 2010 by
Jason Unlike Windows Vista RTM, which delivered an extremely poor application compatibility experience to end users, the evolution to Windows 7 is causing extremely few apps to break when installed or run on top of the new operating system. But with exceptions to every rule, Windows 7 does fail to play nice with a small number of programs. This is why Microsoft periodically kicks up a notch the platform, updating it in order to resolve various problems reported by customers. Case in point: the February 2010 Application Compatibility Update.
“The Windows Application Compatibility Update is a software update that improves the compatibility experience,” Microsoft explained. The company notes that the update is designed to integrate with not only Windows 7, but also Windows Vista Service Pack 2 (SP2), Windows Server 2008 Service Pack 2 (SP2), and Windows Server 2008 R2.
“When you try to install and run certain legacy games or applications in Windows Vista Service Pack 2 (SP2), in Windows Server 2008 Service Pack 2 (SP2), in Windows 7, and in Windows Server 2008 R2, you may experience one or more of the following symptoms: the game, the application, or the firmware is installed incorrectly. Read More»
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February 24, 2010 by
Jason
With the landmark alliance inked with Novell in 2006, Microsoft stepped up its game of supporting customers with heterogeneous environments in which Windows and Linux were running side by side. The Microsoft and Novell Windows and Linux interoperability and support broad collaboration agreement covered Windows Server and SUSE Linux, but since them the Redmond company has also worked to support Red Hat customers.
The Linux Integration Components for Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V R2 are designed to provide a collection of drivers designed to enable synthetic device support in Linux OS virtual machines running under the software giant’s hypervisor role in Windows Server 2008 R2.
“We are excited to announce the availability of Linux integration components for Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL 5.2, 5.3, and 5.4) which provides synthetic network and storage drivers enabling RHEL to work with the optimized devices provided by Hyper-V.
We’ve already submitted these drivers to the upstream Linux kernel in July 2009, and are looking forward to these being integrated with a future version of RHEL,” revealed Mike Sterling, Hyper-V program manager, Microsoft.
According to Sterling, Hyper-V customers that rely on virtual machines with open source platforms from both Novell and Red Hat will be able to enjoy the same level of performance for Red Hat Enterprise Linux guests, as for SUSE Linux Enterprise Server. The Integration Components need to be installed on the virtualized copy of Linux running in Hyper-V. Read More»
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