Microsoft will be offering a free anti-malware suite codenamed “Morro”, from the second half of 2009, according to a press release: This streamlined solution will … provide comprehensive protection from malware including viruses, spyware, rootkits and trojans. This new solution, to be offered at no charge to consumers, will be architected for a smaller footprint … Continue reading Microsoft plans free anti-malware
A colleague had some problems with his Windows XP laptop while I was away last week, and I promised to look at it on my return. It’s a sad story, particularly as he is doing everything Microsoft recommends (aside from upgrading to Vista). His HP laptop was fully patched with SP3, and he had a … Continue reading Anti-virus failure leaves XP broken, DNS hijacked, user frustrated
Here at PDC in Los Angeles, Microsoft’s Chief Architect Ray Ozzie and Windows VP Steven Sinofsky are introducing Windows 7. A couple of days ago, journalists were loaned Windows 7 laptops to try and I’ve been using this over the last day or so. Generally it’s been a pleasure; performance is great and it works … Continue reading Windows 7 unveiled; hands on report
Lengthy but worthwhile post on what is it like to write a technical book, from O’Reilly author Baron Schwartz. Two things that particularly interest me here. One, it is a good account of how much work is involved in writing something worthwhile. Two, the discussion of authoring tools is fascinating: bugs and inadequacies in Open … Continue reading Real-world book authoring
In the UK, HM Revenue and Customs issues an Employer CD-ROM which calculates tax and national insurance. Small businesses can use it to enter pay details through the year; then at the end of the tax year the application allows uploading of the data as the company’s formal annual submission. Very handy; but clearly it’s … Continue reading UK official tax CD caught by Vista’s virtual store
Microsoft has revised its document describing Five Misunderstood features in Windows Vista. I’m not going to analyse the revisions, as others have done that, though I will mention in passing that Adobe Acrobat’s Compare Documents feature does a nice job of showing the revisions: However, I would like to highlight this comment to Steven … Continue reading Microsoft’s Misunderstood Misunderstandings
Microsoft has posted a 9-page document on Five Misunderstood Features in Windows Vista. Apparently these “cause confusion and slow Windows Vista adoption for many folks.” Here they are: User Account Control Image Management Display Driver Model Windows Search 64 bit architecture I thought I did understand User Account Control, but now I’m not so sure. … Continue reading Misunderstanding Vista
I’ve been intrigued by reports that Server 2008, suitably configured, makes a better desktop OS than Windows Vista. In my previous post on the subject, I reported some observations by others, suggesting that Server 2008 performs better than Vista with Service Pack 1, even though it is meant to have the same core components. I … Continue reading Vista SP1 vs Server 2008 as a desktop OS: more comparisons
One of Vista’s annoyances is this dialog, which you may see shortly after installing an application: As you can see, I got this after installing CodeGear’s new JBuilder. The reason it annoys me is that it doesn’t tell you what “compatibility settings” it has applied. In this case, even if you go to JBuilder.exe in … Continue reading JBuilder 2008 and Vista’s Program Compatibility Assistant
I’ve installed Vista SP1 on several machines. Takes ages, but otherwise it’s been without incident. This does not dramatically improve Vista (in my experience); but then again, it wasn’t that bad before. It does seem to speed up Explorer and zip extraction. It tames UAC slightly – some operations that used to require several prompts … Continue reading Vista SP1 report