As expected, Microsoft on Wednesday released its Windows Live software suite, including the global betas of several of its desktop products.
Among the applications included are Windows Live Photo Gallery, Mail, Messenger, Writer, OneCare Family Safety, and Toolbar. The unified installer for the product also acts as a central location to download updates to any program once it is installed.
Evidence that Microsoft was preparing to make a major push with its Windows Live services first appeared on Tuesday, with the New York Times reporting that the unified application was close to reality.
Microsoft had promised to make some major announcements surrounding its Live platform during the summer, however they never materialized. The Redmond company is still playing catchup to other Internet giants like Google and Yahoo, which so far have been the standard-bearers for the so-called Web 2.0 movement.
"These applications bridge the gap between the Windows Vista PC and the Windows Live web services," Brandon LeBlanc wrote for the official Windows Vista blog. "Overall, the Windows Live suite is designed to extend your Windows experience by tapping into Windows Live. Of course choice comes with the Windows Live Suite as well."
Windows Live Mail users can check any POP or IMAP account, LeBlanc added, along with using Windows Live Writer for a variety of blogging services.
The release of the unified installer also marks the first time the Windows Live Photo Gallery application is made available to the public. Users can share pictures and videos on Spaces and Soapbox; and the application automatically arranges photos by events, much like the new version of Apple's iPhoto.
Other features include automatic stitching of panoramic photos, improved photo editing tools, and the ability to view Quicktime files in the Gallery viewer.
The Windows Live Mail beta builds on previous versions by adding new formatting abilities, and tweaks to performance. Performance is also improved in Messenger, along with family safety integration and security enhancements.
Windows Live Writer is seeing the most changes, with an expansion to 32 languages, and 55 countries. The new version makes it easy to upload video from a host of video services into an entry, as well as new formatting options. Image upload to Blogger has also been added.
"Together with our web services, we have a complete suite that combines the best of the Web and the best of Windows, and works the way you want," Windows Live Team vice president Chris Jones said in a Web log post.
The unified installer is available for download from the Windows Live Web site.
Taken from BetaNews
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Saturday, September 8, 2007
Microsoft Releases Suite of Windows Live Software
Silverlight 1.0 Released, Linux Version Coming
Wednesday marked the final 1.0 release of Microsoft's new Silverlight platform for building interactive Web experiences à la Flash, but the big news is that Redmond will extend official support to Novell's Linux port of Silverlight.
Silverlight was first unveiled earlier this year, promising to make it easier for developers to build rich Web applications without delving into the complexities behind AJAX or suffering its limitations. This space is growing increasingly crowded with Adobe's new AIR runtime and Sun's JavaFX.
Like Flash, Silverlight is a managed plug-in for distributing scalable graphics, that's also capable of delivering video. As you might expect, that video will utilize Microsoft's VC-1 codec, which has received much acclaim and which is among the standard codecs in both HD DVD's and Blu-ray's portfolios.
Now that Microsoft has delivered version 1.0 of Silverlight, it is working hard to encourage its adoption by helping customers take advantage of the technology and establishing a partner program for third-parties to offer Silverlight-oriented services.
CBS and Paramount have deployed a Silverlight experience on ETOnline for the Emmy Awards, with plans to do the same for the Golden Globes and Oscars. Home Shopping Network and WWE are also putting Silverlight on their Web sites. Break.com includes a special Silverlight-built search feature for video navigation, which Microsoft says "pushes the envelope for video on the Web."
The final 1.0 build includes bug fixes and incorporates feedback from the Silverlight release candidate, but no new features, Microsoft Group Product Manager Parimal Deshpande told BetaNews. Microsoft itself is deploying Silverlight in a few areas, such as its Podium 2008 Web site for information on elections, and to stream Halo 3 videos.
But Deshpande says Silverlight "is not just about the software, it's about the backend services." In turn, Microsoft will be providing free video hosting to Silverlight customers. The company also announced 35 partners to help with design, content deliver and more for providing Silverlight experiences on the Web.
Touting its support for open source efforts, Microsoft is additionally working with Novell to bring Silverlight to Linux, after receiving numerous customer requests for such capability. Novell was already working on its own port of the software called Moonlight, and Microsoft now expects Novell to deliver a Linux version of Silverlight 6 months from today.
With 1.0 out the door, the focus is on Silverlight 1.1, which was already available in preview form and adds full .NET support. While Silverlight 1.0 applications can be programmed with XAML and JavaScript, the integration of the .NET Framework means developers can utilize ASP.NET, Visual Basic, C#, Python and even Ruby.
Deshpande said no launch date has been set for Silverlight 1.1, but it expects Novell to ship a Linux version of that release 9 months after its debut. A September CTP of Silverlight 1.1 will be available for download soon.
Taken from BetaNews
Monday, September 3, 2007
'AutoPatcher' Service for Windows Ordered Shut Down by Microsoft
A service designed to help Windows users download Microsoft's updates and install them in a faster manner was ordered shut down by Microsoft, in a cease and desist letter to the service's proprietors.
For the past few years the AutoPatcher service had been giving users what was believed to be a simpler and more intuitive front end and a monthly digest for downloading and installing updates. But it was redistributing Windows code - or, at the very least, distributing a new way to get to Windows code - and was an alternative to Microsoft Update, and as such, the company had no remaining patience for letting it stand.
AutoPatcher's Antonis Kaladis posted the disappointing news on his company's front page this morning: "Today we received an e-mail from Microsoft, requesting the immediate take-down of the download page, which of course means that AutoPatcher is probably history. As much as we disagree, we can do very little, and although the download page is merely a collection of mirrors, we took the download page down."
By early evening today, the entire company's Web site appeared to be offline.
The Windows news site Neowin was a co-sponsor of AutoPatcher, and it too received a cease-and-desist notice from Microsoft. As the site's Steven Parker reported this morning, "I have no explanation for why Microsoft allowed it to continue unchecked for four years before making this decision."
Though Neowin was also forced to remove the support forum it had been hosting for AutoPatcher, it received 171 comments by early evening today. Nearly all expressed regret at the decision, though some took Neowin to task for appearing to bend to Microsoft's will too early, and for not making a federal case out of this...quite literally.
But there was also this: "All the kiddies need to stop complaining and start thinking about why Neowin did this. Microsoft lawyers have billions at their disposal. Neowin has ad revenue. Geez, I wonder who would win?"
Taken from Betanews
Sadly we must lose Autopatcher.
But I never downloaded any update from Autopatcher before. I don't know if there is a service that very useful like this. But if it's back, I will download it.
Microsoft Will Release Windows Vista SP1 Early 2008
Performance, compatibility, and reliability have been among the biggest complaints of Windows Vista users, and the service pack will focus on those three major trouble areas.
After dancing around the subject for months, Microsoft finally opened up Wednesday and said it will release the first Service Pack for Windows Vista in the first quarter of 2008 with a wider beta version coming in "a few weeks." The announcement confirms Microsoft comments in a Department of Justice filing in June that the company would have a test version of SP1 out before the end of the year.
"We're feeling good about Windows Vista," said David Zipkin, a Microsoft senior product manager for Windows Client, in an interview. He pointed out that among other metrics, Windows Vista had 12 security issues in its first six months compared with Windows XP's 36 during its first six months. "At the same time, we are getting notes back that some people are having not so great experiences."
Microsoft has seen a number of setbacks with Windows Vista thus far. Earlier this year, Dell decided that it would again sell Windows XP systems due to high customer demand and then announced it would be selling computers pre-installed with Linux. Many businesses, meanwhile, have opted to hold off on installing Vista indefinitely until Microsoft works out compatibility problems and other kinks. Last month, Microsoft CFO Chris Liddell changed an earlier prediction for an 85% to 15% split between sales of Vista and XP in 2008 to a 78% to 22% split.
Performance, compatibility, and reliability have been among the biggest complaints of Windows Vista users. Many of the Windows Update fixes for Vista to date have addressed problems related to these three major trouble areas. Microsoft appears to have listened, focusing most of Vista SP1 on under-the-cover features. As is typical for Windows service packs, many of the patches, fixes, and updates thus far released through Windows Update will be included in SP1, as well as some other fixes and adds. However, Vista SP1 will not include new drivers, as they would weigh down the service pack because they are computer-specific. Those will continue being released by the driver vendor or via Windows Update.
One of the main goals of SP1 will be to improve performance. Among the performance enhancements will be a package released Tuesday via Windows Update that fixes problems related to poor memory management, long calculation times for estimating the time it will take to move or copy files, screen saver memory leaks, and delays returning from hibernation or stand-by mode. Vista SP1 will also include some tweaks to make Internet Explorer 7 speedier.
Other focuses for Vista SP1 will be reliability and administration. Several recent patches issued on Windows Update, including one Tuesday, have addressed reliability concerns. In the administrative arena, BitLocker Drive Encryption will now support encryption of any drive volume, rather than just the Vista drive. Vista SP1 also will make it easier to connect and print to a local printer within Terminal Server sessions, add network diagnostics for file sharing problems, provide more options for Windows' disk defragmenter, and include the a remote access VPN tunneling protocol called the Secure Sockets Tunnel Protocol.
There will be some minor feature upgrades in Vista SP1, the most significant of which will be an ability for users to choose which program they want to handle desktop search by default, rather than making Microsoft's own search capabilities the only default. Google complaints brought on the announcement of those changes earlier this year. Other changes include a new encryption generator, improved security algorithms, support for the ExFAT file format used in new consumer devices, better performance for SD Card data transfer, and common security APIs for security partners.
Users might think of service packs as heavy fixes because of the massive overhaul of the operating system in Windows XP SP2, but Vista SP1 will not include any major user interface changes. That means no new version of Windows Media Center, for example. "This is not a feature delivery vehicle," Zipkin said. "It's not about breaking applications."
The download for Vista SP1 will be smaller than that of XP SP2, weighing in at about 50 Mbytes to XP SP2's 120 Mbytes. Vista SP1 also will be available through Windows Server Update Services, as a standalone one-gigabyte software package (larger because it includes full software components instead of only incrementally changed file portions), and through computer manufacturers once the final version is released.
Zipkin said Microsoft delayed discussion of Vista SP1 this long because it needed to find a balance between giving customers the right amount of time to react to the announcement and Microsoft the right amount of time to formulate and test the updates.
Also on Wednesday, Microsoft announced that Windows XP SP3 will be available in the first half of next year. Microsoft standard practice is to issue a service pack that includes all recent hot fixes and patches as a product reaches the end of its career. The only new feature in XP SP3 will be support for Network Access Protection, a security mechanism included in Windows Server 2008 and in Vista.
Microsoft began testing early pre-beta versions of Vista SP1 and XP SP3 earlier this month with approximately 100 testers, but copies of both quickly began appearing online to the chagrin of Zipkin. Some fixes in the leaks will not appear in the final versions of the updates. "I think it's unfortunate that they were leaked," he said. "At this point in the game, that kind of information can give misdirection and misinformation to our customers."
Taken from Information Week
A List of What's New in Vista SP1
Now that Microsoft has set a release date for both the beta and final versions of Windows Vista Service Pack 1, the company is also offering a detailed look at what's being fixed and changed. One thing customers will not see is major changes to User Account Control, although Microsoft says it will reduce some pop-ups.
Perhaps the most notable change will not be for customers, but rather Microsoft partners. The company is including an API that third-party developers can tap into in order to work with kernel patch protection on x64 editions of Vista. This patch protection has proven to be a problem to antivirus and other security vendors.
Microsoft has classified the updates in Vista SP1 into three categories: quality improvements, including reliability, security and performance; improvements to the administration experience, including BitLocker; and support for emerging technologies and standards like EFI and exFAT.
Here is an the initial list of changes the company has provided for the beta release:
Security Improvements
Reliability Fixes
Performance Improvements
Administration Experience Changes
Support for Emerging Hardware and Standards
Taken from BetaNews
Sunday, September 2, 2007
Windows Vista SP1 Will Uninstall Group Policy Management
Probably in response to a few users' bewilderment over the seemingly unrestricted accessibility of what had actually been one of Windows Vista's most requested new security tools, Group Policy Management Console, Microsoft announced today that the act of installing Vista Service Pack 1 will simply delete the tool altogether.
"Administrators requested features in Group Policy that simplify policy management," reads a white paper released by Microsoft this afternoon. "To do this, the service pack will uninstall the Group Policy Management Console (GPMC) and GPEdit.msc will edit local Group Policy by default."
Last November, I chronicled the addition of GPMC to Vista in a Reference Guide page for InformIT. There, in reference to Microsoft having not yet edited its own documentation from the XP era, I made a comment that I will now have to edit for a future revision: "GPMC is definitely on your Vista machine; you don't have to download it."
Although the white paper did not say so explicitly, GPMC will probably continue to be available for free download from Microsoft, and that will likely remain true when GPMC is revised. (The new version of GPMC is being tested now along with Beta 3 of Windows Server 2008.) UPDATE: WS2K8's release was delayed until the first quarter of next year, Microsoft announced this morning.
But as we learned all through the testing period for Monad - later "Microsoft Command Shell," later PowerShell - whether a component is shipped with the operating system or instead made freely available "offline" makes all the difference with respect to what a consultant is required to know in order to receive certification. It also impacts the extent to which published documentation, both by Microsoft and others, includes references to a topic. Throughout the XP era, many Professional Edition users were wondering when group policies would be added to the basic operating system, only to be astonished to learn from the Internet someplace that they were already there to begin with.
As independent developer Derek Melber wrote for Redmond Channel Partner magazine back when Vista was released last January, Microsoft's choice to include GPMC in the shipping versions of Vista was supposed to have been a dream come true for admins, especially those who had to put up with "offline" availability only.
"Most of you reading this article likely use the GPMC every day when you work with GPOs," Melber wrote. "However, there are plenty of administrators that have been reluctant to embrace the GPMC. Many complaints surrounding the GPMC stem from it not being included with the operating system. Consequently, many have the mindset that it must not be important or reliable. But because the GPMC actually is one of the most important tools you need to administer your GPOs, Microsoft decided to put it in every installation of Vista. The company also plans to put it in Longhorn Server when that product becomes available."
Since Vista's release, there have reportedly been some complaints about Microsoft having included something as powerful as GPMC in relatively full reach of the everyday user, who could conceivably learn how to override policies set by the admin. There were, however, obvious solutions to that problem, one of which included using GPMC to create a default GPO that prohibits GPMC's use by non-authorized accounts. Another involves serious account policing, and a third compels admins to actually pay attention to their logs, where an override of a GPO would undoubtedly be recorded in detail.
Inevitably, there may come complaints from others who will fault GPMC's absence from Vista SP1 as being partly responsible for some security vulnerabilities, as its presence may be key to patching some obvious holes. Security engineer Jesper Johansson wrote about one such GPMC use last September, specifically with regard to an acknowledged vulnerability that enabled Windows Shell to execute non-authorized code remotely.
Johansson advised that users and admins could stop the problem immediately, in advance of a patch from Microsoft, by using GPMC to change the permissions for ActiveX controls so that they could not execute certain code remotely.
GPMC's removal from Vista will not mean group policies will not run there, only that they're expected to be administered from Windows Server. But today, Microsoft's stance on the removal is that you asked for it.
"The goal of Windows Vista SP1 is to address key feedback Microsoft has received from its customers without regressing application compatibility," its white paper reads. "Windows Vista SP1 will deliver improvements and enhancements to existing features that significantly impact customers, but it does not deliver substantial new operating system features." In fact, it will certainly deliver at least one less feature than it did before.
Taken from BetaNews
Microsoft Responds to Re-discovery of Vista Network Slowdowns
A curious network performance reduction noticed by many Windows Vista users of the 2CPU forum that became the talk of Slashdot last week has been identified as having been caused not by DRM, as Slashdot users expected, but by a curious prioritization "feature" of Vista that's intentionally biased toward Media Player at the expense of network and system resources.
The effects of this feature were first revealed last June, as BetaNews reported, by Microsoft security engineer Mark Russinovich.
In a blog post to SysInternals this afternoon, Russinovich once again provides a clear view of what some prominent bloggers have called a bug, but which Microsoft maintains is an intentional choice: favoring multimedia playback when the CPU is stressed, even if it means slowing down file and network transfers and even the mouse pointer.
The culprit, Russinovich writes, is the Multimedia Class Scheduler Service (MMCSS), one of the many services run within Vista's service host. When the CPU is under stress, Windows Media Player 11 places a call to MMCSS, which in turn boosts the player's own priority relative to other processes. Many Vista users found out about this through the use of Vista's Performance Monitor.
"When a multimedia application begins playback, the multimedia APIs it uses call the MMCSS service to boost the priority of the playback thread into the realtime range, which covers priorities 16-31, for up to 8 ms of every 10 ms interval of the time, depending on how much CPU the playback thread requires. Because other threads run at priorities in the dynamic priority range below 15, even very CPU intensive applications won't interfere with the playback."
At least, that's the intention. Internet traffic shouldn't be affected by this performance throttling, he continues, due to multiple connections that fragment Internet traffic even in the best conditions anyway. Conceivably, the lesser the bandwidth, the fewer the fragments.
From Mark Russinovich's demonstration at TechEd 2007 last June, this histogram from Vista's Process Explorer clearly shows the task priority for Windows Media Player 11 (the cyan-colored line) boost dramatically when his stress test is applied to the CPU.
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But the amount of throttling Microsoft engineers intentionally chose to employ was based on their assessment of 100 Mbps networks, where fragmentation is great enough that packet receive rates are high. "The hard-coded limit was short-sighted with respect to today's systems that have faster CPUs, multiple cores and Gigabit networks," Russinovich went on, "and in addition to fixing the bug that affects throttling on multi-adapter systems, the networking team is actively working with the MMCSS team on a fix that allows for not so dramatically penalizing network traffic, while still delivering a glitch-resistant experience."
That's where Mark leaves us hanging for now. He did use the word "bug" to describe the behavior of this choice on multi-adaptor systems, and he did characterize Microsoft's forthcoming solution as a "fix." That flies in the face of an official Microsoft response to ZDNet blogger Adrian Kingsley-Hughes, who had written earlier that he was going to turn most Vista sounds off until Microsoft worked out a solution.
"Please note that some of what we are seeing is expected behavior," the spokesperson told Kingsley-Hughes, "and some of it is not. In certain circumstances, Windows Vista will trade off network performance in order to improve multimedia playback." Then reviving an old Microsoft phrase that was so often used in the 1990s to officially explain away behavior that couldn't otherwise be explained, Microsoft wrote, "This is by design."
Another citation from Microsoft's response says users typically hate having to hear sputters and clicks from their speakers when their network or CPU is stressed, and it's that hatred which provoked the company to make the trade-off in the first place.
Russinovich's characterization of the throttling trigger as "hard-coded" may be an indication that the company's fix may involve giving the user a choice of which services should be pared down when crunch time comes, system services or multimedia. But with the sheer number of system services Vista now runs, crunch time may be coming too often anyway.
Taken from BetaNews for complete info and picture
Microsoft Opens 'Hackers' Web Site
It's no secret that Microsoft employs individuals that attempt to bypass the security restrictions built into its software products in order to make them safer, but the company has rarely publicized this fact. That's changing with a new Web log called hackers @ microsoft.
The Redmond company plans to utilize the blog to introduce its "white hat hackers" and show people what they do for Microsoft, although in keeping with tradition, those mentioned on the blog will likely go by their pseudonyms. "At his or her core, a true hacker is someone who is curious and wants to learn how systems work. This can and of course at Microsoft is done in an ethical, legal manner," techjunkie writes in the first posting on the site.
Taken from BetaNews
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