Tag: Software
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 06, 2010 by
Jason Some customers that will attempt to view media files using default Windows 7 components such as Internet Explorer 8 and Windows media Player, will find, that in certain scenarios they will be unable to do so. Microsoft explained that the improper configuration of IE8 and Windows Media Player could prevent end users from viewing media via hyperlinks. Microsoft has already resolved the issue via a stability and reliability update for the latest iteration of Windows 7 released earlier this week, however, the company has also documented the problem in a standalone Knowledge Base article.
“Using Internet Explorer 8.0 running on Windows 7, you navigate to a web page that contains a link to a media file. You click on the link to open the media file in Media Player. Instead of seeing the media open and run in Media Player, you are presented with an error message similar to the following: “Internet Explorer cannot display the webpage”, ” Microsoft reported.
According to the Redmond company the issue described above affects only the playback of specific media files in Windows Media Player, although the software giant did not say which ones. At the same time, the playback issue only occurs when Windows Media Player is launched by end users clicking on a link in Internet Explorer 8 in Windows 7. Read More»
Posted in Software, 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 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 22, 2010 by
Jason Uninstalling and reinstalling inbox audio driver repeatedly on Windows 7 or Windows Vista might not be the best thing to do, as Microsoft has warned that users could leave their platforms incapable of playing audio. The Redmond company does not specify the exact number uninstalls/reinstalls needed for some DirectSound output to be rendered unable to play audio, but apparently, just several such actions are sufficient.
Here is the scenario described by the software giant: “You use software to render/play audio via the DirectSound API (for example: DDK tool Graph Edit). On Vista or Windows 7, via a driver testing tool (or manually) you uninstall and then reinstall audio drivers such as “High Definition Audio Device” (HDAudio) several times. You attempt to render/play the audio stream again to a non-default DirectSound device (for example – DirectSound:Speakers as opposed to Default DirectSound device).”
Provided that users managed to reproduce the situation exemplified above, Microsoft indicates that no audio will be produced as a result of the stream leveraging a non-default DirectSound device for rendering. In addition, Vista and Windows 7 customers will receive the following error message: “These filters cannot agree on a connection. Verify type compatibility of input pin and output pin. Cannot play back the audio stream: no audio hardware is available, or the hardware is not responding. (Return code:0×80040256).” Read More»
Posted in Windows 7 | No Comments »
January 12, 2010 by
Jason Customers that have upgraded their Windows Vista Service Pack 1 computers to Service Pack 2 only to subsequently be plagued by frequent crashes can access a solution from Microsoft. The Redmond company notes that it is well aware of the issue. According to the software giant, some customers that made the jump from Vista SP1 to Vista SP2 have experienced repetitive crashes and have also come across the following stop error message “Stop 0×000000FE BUGCODE_USB_DRIVER”. Microsoft also mentions that the same problems affect customers that upgraded from Windows Server 2008 to Windows Server 2008 SP2.
“After you upgrade from Windows Vista Service Pack 1 (SP1) to Windows Vista SP2 or from Windows Server 2008 to Windows Server 2008 SP2, your computer crashes frequently and you receive the following stop error message: Stop 0×000000FE (parameter1, parameter2, parameter3, parameter4) BUGCODE_USB_DRIVER,” the company stated.
While an update is not available from Microsoft, nor likely, except with the release of Vista SP3, a hotfix can be grabbed from Microsoft Support. The software giant notes that the hotfix is the same as a resolve designed to take care of another problem impacting Vista and Windows Server 2008. However, in the specific case of Vista SP1 to SP2 upgrades, the issue “usually occurs on computers that have NVIDIA chipsets. Read More»
Posted in Software, Windows Vista | 2 Comments »
January 12, 2010 by
Jason Microsoft has informed users of the latest iteration of its Windows client that they might come across issues when running VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) applications on their computers. According to the Redmond company, audio playback and capture applications can hang when used in combination with Windows 7. The software giant revealed that applications performing audio playback and audio capture simultaneously were typically VoIP software. Windows 7 customers running VoIP solutions can often experience hands, Microsoft stated.
“WaveOut API on Windows 7 sometimes fails to process audio samples correctly when response of your audio device is slow,” the company explained. “There is a problem on how WaveOut API handles audio playback requests and audio capture requests submitted by your application.”
While the software giant has confirmed the issue and even identified the source of the problem, an update is not yet available to resolve the issue. At the same time, Microsoft is most likely not to release an update, but to allow affected customers to resolve the problems by applying a hotfix, rather than serving a refresh to all Windows 7 users. Read More»
Posted in Software, Windows 7 | 1 Comment »
January 09, 2010 by
Jason
Microsoft Network Monitor
Microsoft Network Monitor is a network protocol analyzer that lets you capture, view, and analyze network traffic. Version 3.3 of Network Monitor is available in 32- and 64-bit versions. Download it now.
Microsoft Baseline Security Analyzer
The Microsoft Baseline Security Analyzer (MBSA) is an easy-to-use tool designed to help administrators of small and medium-sized businesses ensure that their Windows-based computers are secure. You can use MBSA to determine the security state of your computers in accordance with Microsoft security recommendations. MBSA also offers specific remedia¬tion guidance for security problems it detects, such as misconfigurations and missing security updates.
At the time of writing this, the current version was MBSA 2.1. This version is available in 32- and 64-bit versions, but it does not install on Windows 7. A new version that supports Windows 7 is due to be released sometime in the future. You can download the current version and get information regarding the a version for Windows 7 at microsoft.com/mbsa/.
Read More»
Posted in Computer | No Comments »
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