Adios Windows 2000 and XP (SP2), It Was Fun While It Lasted

Today marks the end of support for Windows XP with Service Pack 2 and Windows 2000 (all versions), which means if you’re running one of these editions of Windows, be sure to update to a later version.

Weekly Wrap-Up #5 (July 4-10, 2010)

I was away this week so I wasn’t able to update the blog over the past week. As I’m now back to my normal schedule, I should be updating it more regularly. In any event, enjoy this weeks Weekly Wrap-Up. (P.S. Devs may be getting WP7 devices next week!)

Microsoft Security Essentials Up-Close

Microsoft Security Essentials is Microsoft’s free alternative to Norton Utilities, or McAfee anti-virus. Along with that, it serves as true competition for other competing free AV programs already available,

Microsoft rolling out Hotmail Updates

Yesterday, along with the consumer release of Office 2010, Microsoft also announced that it would start rolling out the much anticipated Hotmail Updates. The new service, which I am thoroughly excited about, will incorporate better ways in which we interact with our e-mail.

Weekly Wrap-Up #2 (June 6-12, 2010)

I wasn’t able to make a Wrap-Up last week, but it’s arrived this week for the second time. A lot has happened this past week, what with TechEd and Apple’s WWDC going on, there’s enough to write about to last me for quite some time.

Tinkering with Windows: Weekly Wrap-up

I decided to create a new series on the blog dedicated to short little news stories of what’s going on in the Microsoft World and also what I’m currently doing with the site and my PCs. I hope to convey short little snippets of news stories that I either found interesting or relevant over the past week, along with different ideas of what I’m currently doing and what I plan to do in the coming weeks.

Download Windows 7 Documentation (i.e. Manual) from Microsoft

Some of you may already know this, but for those who don’t, you can download the Windows 7 Documentation via Microsoft’s Download Center. The documentation spans 140 pages and is available either as a PDF or XPS document format.

My Top 10 Reasons why Microsoft is now doing a great job (Not that they weren’t before)

Yesterday, Ed Bott posted a great article over at ZDNet (It’s official: Microsoft is out of the Vista doghouse) about how Microsoft has lately been reclaiming its customer satisfaction that it may have lost from Vista.

Linking Hotmail/MSN/Live accounts together

If you’re an avid user of Microsoft’s Hotmail services and subscribe to multiple Hotmail/MSN/Live accounts, you may have wondered how or if you could connect these two accounts together.

Setting Bing as Default Search Engine in Firefox

One of my gripes with Mozilla Firefox is that users cannot set Bing as their default search engine without installing an add-on to Firefox. Firefox offers several different search engines options from the get-go, including Google, Yahoo!, Amazon.com, Answers.com, Creative Commons, eBay, and Wikipedia.

Windows Live Update requires shutting down 25 programs?

Really? I went to update my Windows Live Essentials Suite and as is usual it required me to close down IE8 and Outlook. Okay, no problem, but wait, that wasn’t it. For some bizarre reason it required me to close down 22 other programs before the install could continue.

End of Support for Windows 2000, XP SP2, and Vista RTM

Microsoft is ending support for some of its operating systems this year. Microsoft already ended support for Vista RTM on April 13, 2010. For those still using Windows Vista without SP1 or later will not be able to get further updates on their computer. To continue getting updates via Windows Update, users should simply download Service Pack 2 for Windows Vista.

Windows Home Server “Vail” Beta Now Available from Microsoft

If you’re interested in trying out the next version of Microsoft Windows Home Server (Codenamed “Vail”) you can hop on over to the Microsoft Connect web site to sign up to test it. Here’s more from the official Windows Blog:

Windows 7 Home Premium Uses Only 6.40GB

As I’m currently tinkering with the service pack 1 pre-beta for Windows 7, I installed Windows 7 Home Premium into a Virtual Machine. After installing it, I looked at the size that Windows 7 actually took up, interestingly Windows 7 Home Premium only uses 6.40GB of hard drive space to install. Amazing? Sort of. This just goes to show that Windows 7 is truly the big improvement that we’ve all come to realize over time. So, without further ado, here’s a screenshot as proof:

 

 

I’ve noticed this before, but wanted to document this to everyone to show how efficient Windows 7 really is. How much space does Windows XP take up? Well, it depends. The RTM for Windows XP, which shipped in 2001, was about 1.5GB. Given the biggest hard drives back then were around 80 GB. Doing the match, Windows XP took up around 1.875% of the biggest hard drives in 2001. Step forward nine years and you find that Windows 7, after doing the math, only takes up 0.625%. Not too shabby for nine years of time.

 

A couple notes here, the 6.40 GB size does not include SP1 pre-beta, it’s just the RTM of Windows 7 Home Premium. Also, I installed 32-bit Windows 7, as I’m still certain that VMWare does not support 64-bit Operating Systems. If I’m mistaken on that one, you can let me know…

 

To make a short story even shorter, it’s just great that Windows 7 takes up so little hard drive space, I think. This gives users the ability to, of course, install more “stuff” onto their computer. Doesn’t Windows 7 just make everyone’s life easier? :)

 

del.icio.us Tags: Windows 7 Home Premium,Windows 7,Microsoft,Tinkering With Windows,Windows,Service Pack,Small,Tech,Blog

Microsoft Security Updates: April 2010

Every month I’d like to publish a post in which describes the security bulletins, to some degree, that Microsoft has released for that specific month. It’s funny, though, that this month, the first month I start, Microsoft issues several security bulletins…11 to be exact. If you want to read more about them, feel free to check out the official site for the security bulletins. Click on the Executive Summary to see a brief overview of each bulletin.

 

 

First, you may notice that if you’re using Windows 7 as your operating system, only 2 out of the 11 security bulletins are actually critical while one other is considered to be moderate. This just shows that keeping an up-to-date system, you should be able to avoid certain security vulnerabilities, in this case eight vulnerabilities. (By the way, if you’re still on ole trusty XP, you’ll have to deal with 10 out of 11 updates, in which four are critical, three are important and one is moderate.)

 

Here’s a quick overview of the exploits:

 

Bulletin	Title	Severity Rating
MS10-019	Vulnerabilities in Windows Could Allow Remote Code Execution (98210)	Critical Remote Code Execution
MS10-020	Vulnerabilities in SMB Client Could Allow Remote Code Execution (980232)	Critical Remote Code Execution
MS10-025	Vulnerability in Microsoft Windows Media Services Could Allow Remote Code Execution (980858)	Critical Remote Code Execution
MS10-026	Vulnerability in Microsoft MPEG Layer-3 Codecs Could Allow Remote Code Execution (977816)	Critical Remote Code Execution
MS10-027	Vulnerability in Windows Media Player Could Allow Remote Code Execution (979402)	Critical Remote Code Execution
MS10-021	Vulnerabilities in Windows Kernel Could Allow Elevation of Privilege (979683)	Important Elevation of Privilege
MS10-022	Vulnerability in VBScript Could Allow Remote Code Execution (981169)	Important Remote Code Execution
MS10-023	Vulnerability in Microsoft Office Publisher Could Allow Remote Code Execution (981160)	Important Remote Code Execution
MS10-024	Vulnerabilities in Microsoft Exchange and Windows SMTP Service Could Allow Denial of Service (981832)	Important Denial of Service
MS10-028	Vulnerabilities in Microsoft Visio Could Allow Remote Code Execution (980094)	Important Remote Code Execution
MS10-029	Vulnerabilities in Windows ISATAP Component Could Allow Spoofing (978338)	Moderate Spoofing

 

As always, you should make sure to have automatic updates enabled for Windows. Once again, I’d like to point out that although this month looks bad, if you have a recent version of Windows, such as Windows 7, you will not be as affected as an older version, such as Windows XP. Hence, one of the reasons to upgrade to Windows 7.

 

If anyone has any comments or suggestions feel free to send them to me at tinkeringwithwindows at live dot com.

 

del.icio.us Tags: Microsoft Windows,Windows 7,Windows XP,Windows Update,Security Bulletins,Security,Office,Maintenance,Update

Windows Phone Dev Tools Not Compatable With Final Release of Visual Studio 2010 – but they will be soon

Mary Jo Foley offers an interesting tidbit of information for those who eagerly downloaded the final bits of Visual Studio 2010 yesterday (as I did), they’re not compatible yet with the preview version of the Windows Phone Development Tools.

If you’re using the preview version of the recently announced Windows Phone Developer Tools and are chomping at the bit to get the final Visual Studio 2010 bits, you might want to hold off for a few more weeks.

It turns out the final VS 2010 product is incompatible with the Windows Phone Developer Tools Community Technology Preview (CTP), as Microsoft officials acknowledged in a blog posting on April 12.

However, if you’re still using the RC of Visual Studio 2010, you should have no problem using the Windows Phone Development Tools. Apparently Microsoft will have a fix for this in a couple of weeks according to the report.

 

My take on this? Either stick with the RC or leave Visual Studio 2008 on your computer until the problem is fixed. I’m currently just leaving the RC on my computer, as I am diligently working with these tools and trying to learn as much as I can about the Windows Phone Development before it actually releases. You can also sign up to have Microsoft notify you when there is a patch/update for this.

 

Thanks goes out to Mary Jo Foley over at ZDNet for this tip. You can read her All About Microsoft Blog here, which offers very interesting news and information regarding Microsoft and its competitors. Very interesting stuff.

 

del.icio.us Tags: Visual Studio 2010,Mary Jo Foley,ZDNet,Windows Phone Development Tools,Tinkering with Windows,All About Microsoft,Windows,Microsoft

My Take On Microsoft Pink – Before the Announcement

Today Microsoft will be announcing and releasing it’s first Microsoft Pink device. The device, targeted towards teens and those in their early twenties, will allow for better social communication (i.e. Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, etc.). Microsoft has already partnered with Verizon Wireless--my ultimate favorite wireless provider--to sell the device. The announcement will be held at 1:00PM EST today.

 

What’s the point?

I don’t mean to sound condescending here with this question. But, really, what is the point of Microsoft Pink? Microsoft first began working on Pink somewhere around 2008 when it acquired Danger, Inc. There is currently a lot of speculation as to what this device will enable for most users, especially when one of its main competitors is the iPhone and the Android. Further down the road this year, I could see Windows Phone becoming yet another competitor towards Microsoft Pink. So, what really is the big deal here? I mean, why would Microsoft create two mobile platforms (Windows Phone and now Pink) to compete with each other in the market. After-all, the iPhone has only one platform and personally I think that that is one of its advantages.

So, what is Pink’s advantage? Well, its target market for one. Although many teens and young adults enjoy and rave over the iPhone, there is still a lot that can be improved with the iPhone. In some regards, they may want something that’s simpler, or connects with their friends better. That, I believe, will be Pink’s greatest advantage. It will perform the basic tasks and keep its user connected to the world (i.e. social networking). In fact, it almost sounds too good to be true, for a kid anyways.

 

The device’s main goal, I think, is to provide a new and better way to communicate with friends and family. Of course, you can always do this with many other phones, especially the iPhone, but why not make it simpler than that. Microsoft has also always tried to make platforms for businesses and home users. Microsoft Pink isn’t necessarily designed specifically for the average home user, but it will leave out many of the enterprise features that Windows Phone will include. However, it will probably keep, and perhaps add on to, the many multimedia features that are present in Zune.

 

The Device’s Platform – My Thoughts

With the Pink platform launching nearly 5 months before Windows Phone leaves many users to wonder what type of platform this device will run. I personally believe, and some would agree with me, that Microsoft Pink will be somewhat based off of the Zune HD + components of Windows Phone. In other words, it won’t be able to capture all of the Windows Phone elements, for one, because it seems like it’s a slimmed down version of Windows Phone and it comes out way before Windows Phone OS is even ready.

 

I also believe that this device is not meant to be the next big thing--that will be Windows Phone come five months from now—instead it will more than likely be a device that takes the best of both worlds approach. A nice overall UI (Zune + Windows Phone) along with the multimedia capabilities of Zune and finally, the ability to increase social networking and connecting with friends and family.

 

Keep in mind that when I discuss the phones capability of connecting with friends and family easier than previous phones, I do not mean that it will be easier to text or send messages. Any phone can do that. This phone will instead be able to connect via social sites online and get to specific information quickly and reliably. I think one feature that will hopefully be in Microsoft Pink will be the “Hubs” that are introduced in Windows Phone, or at least some variation of them. Something, for example, that allows a user aggregate all of their social information into one main, upfront location. In other words, when the user turns on their phone they will be able to see their latest Tweets, Facebook comments, Foursquare updates, etc. all in one-place, such as the welcome screen. Aggregation is the future, which is why Windows Phone is going this route and why I believe Microsoft Pink will follow suit as well.

 

Further Thoughts

I don’t personally believe this will be a huge game changer, especially with Windows Phone coming up the heels of Pink, but this device, I believe, is still fairly interesting. I won’t be buying one of these as my primary phone, I just don’t see the point in having a device that further allows me to connect with people whom I may not want to talk to. Plus, who really wants a device that’s targeted towards teens.

 

Keep in mind, however, that this entire post is based on speculation, whether or not Microsoft Pink is actually what I think it is will remain unanswered until the announcement later today. Though, I believe I am pretty close in thinking that this device will enable users to connect with friends and family much easier than any other previous devices. I’ll be looking at the announcement later today, 1:00PM EST, and will more than likely come up with a response to this article with, hopefully, more information.

 

del.icio.us Tags: tinkering with windows,microsoft pink,windows,development,windows phone,phone,verizon,cloud,social networking,facebook,twitter

Will You Be in New York on May 12?

That’s right, May 12 at New York, Microsoft will be releasing Office 2010.  I won’t be able to make it, but maybe you can.  Mary Jo Foley has a very interesting post on what to expect from this event plus more:

Microsoft officials said a few weeks back that May 12 would be a big day for Office 2010. But Microsoft also is planning to hold an actual business launch event for its next-generation productivity suite in New York City on that date to complement its worldwide virtual launch events.

Microsoft Business Division President Stephen Elop will be keynoting the event, which kicks off at 11 a.m. ET, company officials said.

As she usually does, Foley goes into depth on this topic and describes every aspect that you need to be aware of, it’s a very good read.  If you haven’t yet tried Office 2010 you can still download the beta from Microsoft (I highly recommend you give it a go).  Not only is Office 2010 just the next version of Office, but it expounds upon the great features of Office 2007, offering the Ribbon on basically every Office App available.  It also adds some very useful tools for users such as a new search navigation pane in Word and SparkLines in Excel.  Very cool stuff.

(P.S. She also discusses Windows Summitt 2010, the replacement for WinHEC)

del.icio.us Tags: Microsoft,Office 2010,ZDNet,Windows

Why Google Chrome Is Gaining Momentum – My Thoughts

While perusing Ed Bott’s Windows Expertise Blog (as I often due) I came across one of his most recent posts “Chrome takes a bite out of IE and Firefox” detailing a dramatic increase in Chrome usage:

I haven’t taken a close look at this site’s browser stats in nearly two years. The last time I looked was in mid-2008, shortly after the release of Firefox 3. At that time, Internet Explorer had a 57% share among visitors to this site and Firefox was just over 38%, with Safari and Opera fighting for scraps.

Things have changed a lot since then. Firefox is now up to version 3.6. Microsoft released Internet Explorer 8 roughly a year ago. And most important of all, Google Chrome entered the lineup. Google has a hit on its hands, and according to my stats Chrome’s success is coming at the direct expense of not just Internet Explorer but also Firefox.

When I first started reading this I thought that the findings were very interesting, almost shocking. Then I started to actually think about it for a moment. Of late, I’ve probably been using Google Chrome more than any other browser. (If you check my Wakoopa account you’ll notice that I’ve been using IE8 quite a bit lately, this is primarily due to me preparing myself to compare IE8 and IE9. Otherwise, I primarily use Google Chrome.) There are several reasons for this, but for the most part, I believe that Google Chrome is a faster and simpler browser to use. I believe many other people have found this to be the same for them. I’ll first take a look at some Chrome statistics, and then backtrack and try to explain why Chrome might be gaining popularity.

Since its inception in September of 2008, Google Chrome has grown significantly in market share. In just a mere one and a half years, Google Chrome has grown from 0% to a modest 6.08%. Below is a chart depicting browser market share from six different leading market sources:

Source	Internet Explorer	Firefox	Chrome	Safari	Opera
Clicky	49.92%	32.80%	8.09%	7.54%	1.41%
Net Applications	61.58%	24.23%	5.61%	4.45%	2.35%
Stat Counter	54.50%	31.83%	6.71%	4.08%	1.97%
StatOwl	66.99%	19.48%	3.98%	9.00%	0.24%
W3Counter	48.70%	32.10%	6.80%	5.60%	2.10%
Wikimedia	50.29%	30.96%	5.28%	5.27%	3.29%
Mean	55.33%	28.57%	6.08%	5.99%	1.89%
Median	52.40%	31.40%	6.16%	5.44%	2.04%

Ok, so Chrome fairs well against its competitors, in fact it’s the number three used browser of the top five browsers. Here’s a bit more information about Google Chrome taken from one of my more favorite stat companies, Net Applications:

Quarter	Internet Explorer	Firefox	Chrome	Safari	Opera
2010 Q1	61.89%	24.34%	5.40%	4.49%	2.37%
2009 Q4	63.67%	24.46%	4.04%	4.41%	2.29%
2009 Q3	66.80%	23.06%	2.86%	4.13%	2.07%
2009 Q2	68.06%	23.00%	2.13%	3.67%	2.05%
2009 Q1	69.13%	22.67%	1.56%	3.58%	2.18%
2008 Q4	71.99%	20.78%	1.16%	3.11%	2.15%
2008 Q3	74.93%	19.07%	0.37%	2.73%	2.06%

Since its debut in 2008, Google Chrome has significantly gained in popularity, going from 0.37% to 5.40% market share in just under two years. Now, 5.40% may not seem like much right now, but considering that it did this in a mere one and a half years is quite mind-boggling to say the least. It looks, however, that it takes most of its market share from Internet Explorer, for whatever its worth, as Safari and Opera (why?) continue to grow in market share. The stats show another more frequently occurring trend with Firefox, which recently has been losing market share.

Why is Google Chrome becoming so popular? From what I’ve heard from other dedicated Chrome users, it’s the simple fact that it’s easier, more reliable, and faster. In fact, one dedicated reader when asked why they continued to use Google Chrome after I initially recommended it, told me that it was “much easier to use than other browsers” and that “it didn’t cause as much of a headache.” Didn’t cause a headache? Well, I would probably stick with Chrome too.

I think the majority of the population that has tried Google Chrome has probably continued to use it for these simple reasons. Why wouldn’t someone want to use a browser that is both faster and easier to use? It just makes sense.

Why is it easier to use? This poses a good question, and from personal experience I can say that it amounts to several different reasons. The best reason, I think, is its basic user interface. By having one box for both searching and entering a specific address serves as a great way of making browsing the web so much easier. With Chrome, the same text box is used either for search or for a direct address to a website. Simple, yet effective. With other browsers you have a dedicated search box and a dedicated address bar. In Google’s case, the less is more approach really works better, and I think the majority of the population somewhat agrees. Overall though, I think that the browser has a much more intuitive design, even if it does still look like a typical browser.

Why is it faster? This question is a little bit more difficult to answer. I have no proof that it’s actually faster, and even using benchmarks to test a browsers speed only does so much. Ultimately, I can only say that it seems faster when I load different pages, especially anything that deals with flash video, such as YouTube.

Getting back to Ed’s post here, the discrepancies between Net Applications statistics of 5.40% and Ed Bott’s 10.86% is also easily explained. The majority of Chrome’s market share probably comes from tech enthusiasts, which are predominantly the ones that would be stopping over at Ed Bott’s Windows Expertise Blog. Thus, a more concentration of computer geeks equals a higher market usage of Google Chrome.

Putting everything aside, Google Chrome has still made some very significant strides in the browser market. I’ll continue to use it as one of my primary browsers and highly recommend this browser to most anyone that uses the Internet on a daily basis (isn’t that everyone now days?).

On a side note, according to Ed Bott, IE6 usage share has dropped to less than 8%...that’s still pretty high, but at least more people are staying away from IE6 and moving to something else.

As always, you can contact me via Twitter (@jctierney) or leave a comment below. I’ve also started a new e-mail address for this site, tinkeringwithwindows @ live dot com. Feel free to drop me a line every now and then. I welcome anyone who has a question, comment, suggestion, etc. to feel free to e-mail me at that address.

del.icio.us Tags: windows,microsoft,cloud,internet,google,chrome

Windows Phone 7 Series Icon Pack Ready for Download

While perusing the Microsoft Blogs today I found this posted on the Windows Phone Developer Blog:

We’ve just release a package of application bar icons for developers building apps/games for Windows Phone 7 Series. This package contains a set of 64 app bar icons that you can use when developing applications for Windows Phone. In addition to the 64 icons in PNG format (32 dark and 32 light), this package also contains vector versions that can be easily imported into Microsoft Expression Blend 4 Beta when using the Microsoft Expression Blend Add-in Preview for Windows Phone. For more information on how to use these icons within your application, see How to: Add an Application Bar to Your Application on MSDN.

Grab the icon pack now! http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=187311

These are actually quite interesting.  They’re simple, yet very appealing.  You can use the link above to download all of the icons shown.  These are primarily designed for developers to be used with Windows Phone 7 Series Development Tools (the language is in C, if I’m not mistaken).

Enjoy!

del.icio.us Tags: windows,phone,7,series,icon pack,microsoft,tinkering