windows

The death of Windows XP may have been greatly exaggerated.

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer said the company could re-evaluate its plans to phase out Windows XP by June 30, if customers demand that it stick around. So far, they have not.

"XP will hit an end-of-life. We have announced one. If customer feedback varies, we can always wake up smarter, but right now, we have a plan for end-of-life for new XP shipments," Ballmer said during a Thursday news conference in Belgium, according to Reuters.

Big-name computer makers are still scheduled to have to stop selling models with … Read more

If you're one of the few who downloaded music from MSN Music, which Microsoft shuttered shortly after launching its Zune initiative, then you have until Aug. 31 to get that music onto the five devices you're allowed to put it on. After that date, Microsoft is shuttering the DRM servers used with the service, and any further transfers will render the songs unplayable.

This is the inevitable last step in a transition that began when Microsoft killed its old PlaysForSure initiative. Why keep paying to maintain a service that's no longer offered, and runs counter to the … Read more

When it comes to software media players, computer users understandably follow what I'll call the "path of least resistance" rule of life: they use what's available on their computer out of the box. If you're a Windows user, that means Windows Media Player. Mac users have iTunes. Once Windows users take the step of adding their iPod (if that's their chosen player) into the fray, they will likely download iTunes to make it easy. But what if you don't like iTunes or Windows Media Player?

Before companies tied their portable players to their … Read more

Microsoft said on Wednesday that it is beginning automatic distribution of Windows Vista Service Pack 1, the first major update to the year-and-a-half-old operating system.

The company finalized the Vista update in February, but has held off until now pushing it directly to individuals.

Starting Wednesday, the company will start sending it to Vista users who have Windows' automatic update feature turned on. However, the company cautioned that not everyone will get SP1 immediately.

"While Microsoft is beginning automatic distribution today, it's important to note that customers might not see the update download right away since Microsoft is … Read more

By July 1st, Dell, Lenovo, HP and all the other big computer manufacturers will no longer be allowed to sell new computers with Windows XP pre-installed. So says Microsoft. Microsoft also dictated to retailers that, come July, there will be no more shrink-wrapped boxes of Windows XP on their store shelves.

But, many of us prefer XP over the Microsoft-mandated Vista. To borrow from Star Trek, some of us don't want to be assimilated (sorry, couldn't resist). What are we to do this summer?

One option is to buy a computer with a business version of Vista rather … Read more

The chairman and founder of the One Laptop Per Child initiative said in an interview Tuesday that the XO laptop may switch from using Linux to eventually running Windows XP, according to several reports.

In an interview with the Associated Press following the departure of the OLPC project's president, Nicholas Negroponte said the open-source Sugar software, developed expressly for the XO, could run on top of XP. Negroponte cited weaknesses in the XO's current open-source operating system (right now the XO can't support the latest versions of Flash animation) as well as the Linux community itself (for … Read more

SAN FRANCISCO--The launch of Live Mesh this week offers the clearest understanding yet of what Microsoft's Windows Live Platform group has been working on for the last two years.

And yet, Live Mesh is just the tip of the iceberg. It's only one of the projects that 400 or so people are working on in Microsoft's Live Platform group.

"Mesh is a big part of the platform; it is not the entire platform," David Treadwell, the vice president in charge of the group, said in an interview at the Web 2.0 Expo 2008 here. … Read more

Safari users may be subject to crashes or interactions with an attacker's malicious site, according to a warning posted on Tuesday on BugTraq .

Researcher Juan Pablo Lopez Yacubian is credited with finding multiple vulnerabilities in Apple Safari 3.1.1 for Windows. Other versions of Safari may also be affected.

Among the vulnerabilities cited are a denial-of-service (crash) vulnerability caused by a write-access violation, a denial-of-service (crash) vulnerability caused by a read-access violation, and a third vulnerability that allows attackers to spoof the content contained in the address bar. A full write up can be found here .

In a … Read more

Microsoft's appeal of class certification for the "Vista capable" lawsuit was spurned Monday, according to several media outlets.

The case revolves around customers' complaints that PCs they bought before Vista was released had been advertised as "Windows Vista capable" but turned out to be capable of running only the Home Basic version of Vista, which lacks some graphics features. Computers actually needed to be "Vista Premium Ready" to run the more-complete versions of the operating system. The court will need to determine whether Microsoft knowingly created confusion over the capabilities of PCs sold … Read more