While Mac users bob and gasp in the wake of the release of Apple’s new operating system, Snow Leopard, Windows users are gloating (a bit preemptively). As Microsoft gears up to unleash its long-awaited operating system, Windows 7, friends and foes alike are hailing its amazing security. One industry publication declares that “the new version of Windows is stacking up to be the most secure to date.”

That’s a high and mighty claim for an operating system that has historically had more bugs, viruses, glitches, malfunctions, spyware, malware, and problems than all the other operating systems combined. Ok, that sounds a little harsh, but when you’re a household name in computing and founded by the erstwhile richest man in the world, people will throw rocks at you. Those rocks came in the form of a veritable torrent of hack-happy engineers unleashing their twistedness to deconstruct Windows versions from the system BIOS up. It’s been going on for a long time.
Read the rest

Popularity: 9% [?]

Upon first sight, Vista Premium looks like a dazzling graphical interface. If you compare the translucent windows and animated icons to how windows 98 used to look, clearly the design has come a long way – though at a price. Even with a higher end spec machine – lots of RAM, high-speed dual core processor – performance differences are generally noticed. Is this a small price to pay for gaining a beautiful desktop?

If you recently bought Vista Premium, Business, Ultimate or Enterprise, you may have decided to stick with the new desktop visual experience. It’s called Windows Aero, and unlike its predecessor called Luna, it carries some graphical delights at the expense of some processing power. The word Aero is an acronym derived from Authentic, Energetic, Reflective and Open. Many windows users (which are most of us) will love the smooth look and feel now adopted.

Aero is also present in the new Windows 7 OS system no doubt to further push Microsoft’s attempt to clasp the market on user interfaces by offering an aesthetic mix of color and content. There are a large number of graphical changes with Aero. There are live thumbnails, and improved display boxes attached offering better information regarding the purpose of a particular button or menu item.
Read the rest

Popularity: 8% [?]

Windows Marketplace for Mobile is getting ready to launch. With the blastoff date less than two weeks away, Microsoft provided an enthusiasm-building announcement to prepare for the launch.

Todd Brix is (get ready for this title) The Senior Director for Mobile Platform Services Product Management at Microsoft. His report on Tuesday provided a we’re-on-schedule update and promised a great new slate of applications to be available on Windows Marketplace for Mobile. In addition to the expected, he announced that users of the old mobile platform (Windows Mobile 6.0 and 6.1) would have access to the online store as well as users of the yet-to-be-released Windows Mobile 6.5, which is scheduled for availability this fall.
Read the rest

Popularity: 100% [?]

Anti-piracy technology is important—even if it can be annoying. For Microsoft, it has always been known as Windows Genuine Advantage—WGA. Its bad rap in the past is not due to the fact that it foils piracy. We would all agree piracy-busting is a good thing.

The bad thing is that it has often foiled honest users, too. In fact, 500,000 Windows users in early 2007 were understandably enraged when the oh-so-protective WGA software mistakenly identified their copies as pirated. Later in 2007, the over-eager WGA coughed again, once more enraging legitimate users who were consigned to use a humbler version of their Windows software for the duration of the glitch.

Microsoft is trying to dismiss all of that as a bad dream.
Read the rest

Popularity: 4% [?]