Redmond
magazine's online news editor Kurt Mackie and I just
talked to Mike Nash
, corporate vice president for Windows product management, about IE 8.
I had my own opinion of IE 8 based on over 50 Redmond Report readers who wrote me. My take based on your take is that the beta and release candidate are far from primetime and that many of the new features were pioneered by other browsers, but if stability issues are resolved, it could be a solid enterprise browser.
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Posted by Doug Barney on March 11, 20090 comments
Steve Ballmer has far more nice things to say about the economy in one speech than Barack Obama has in a dozen. While the president's teleprompter has doom and gloom down to a science, Ballmer sees the tech sector
continuing to innovate
. Ballmer argues that innovation from startups and large concerns will continue, and that Microsoft will still pour billions into R&D.
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Posted by Doug Barney on March 11, 20090 comments
Readers share their thoughts on Vista, including how
SP2
stacks up and what it might mean for Windows 7:
Ladies and gentlemen, Windows 7 is Vista SP3. It's OK, breathe.
If Vista SP2 rocks, imagine it on Red Bull and Mountain Dew after just winning the lottery!
-Rob
I have been using the RC version of Vista SP2 for four days now and it makes a big difference for me. All of my programs load quicker and boot times are faster. Being the avid gamer that I am, I generally notice performance, compatibility and stability changes faster than the average user. Anyone still having issues with Vista needs to have their computer checked by someone who knows what they are doing as there is a good chance that person's issues are self-inflicted.
Vista is not a good choice for the average user as it tends not to be user-friendly. After installing Vista, there are a few system services that need to be turned off as it helps with resource usage and speeds up the OS considerably (UAC, System Restore, SuperFetch, ReadyBoost and Volume Shadow Copy). Turning off these functions freed up 40 percent of my RAM and slowed my initial processor and hard drive usage by more than 75 percent -- not to mention I freed up several gigs of hard drive space.
-Anonymous
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Posted by Doug Barney on March 11, 20090 comments
Yesterday was a light Patch Tuesday with only three fixes, but Excel users may have preferred four. It seems that a publicly disclosed Excel RCE hole is
still wide open
.
This is particularly troubling, argued BeyondTrust CEO John Moyer, because Excel is in high use due to the tax season. So far, the attacks are limited. Let's hope they stay that way.
Posted by Doug Barney on March 11, 20090 comments
Forrester Research now claims that the majority of large and SME shops
now use or plan to use
some form of server virtualization. Of those that already virtualize, a bit over half use VMware. Hyper-V comes in between 18 and 22 percent. Not bad for a nearly new product.
This is just the beginning. As the economy tightens and power costs soar, virtualization and even cloud services will take hold. The good news is these virtual tools are getting better all the time and putting important apps on them is less risky.
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Posted by Doug Barney on March 09, 20090 comments
Microsoft got in a whole heap of trouble with the U.S. Justice Department (which died down during the last administration) and the European Union. The beef was over the bundling of IE and other tools with Windows.
Microsoft's counter was that the integration was critical and that IE was so intertwined, it couldn't be extracted from the OS. We've looked at the issue and concluded that pulling IE from XP is possible, but it takes quite a bit of effort.
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Posted by Doug Barney on March 09, 20090 comments
Tomorrow, Microsoft will release a meager
three patches
. Two address spoofing attacks and the third goes after remote code execution.
While it seems like a like minor Patch Tuesday, remember it only takes one unfixed hole to swallow your network.
Posted by Doug Barney on March 09, 20090 comments
Vista SP2 (what Doug calls a "late beta") is
now out
. Here are your impressions so far:
For those of us in the trenches, Vista SP1 was fine (though I'm not surprised that your Dad had trouble considering how much CRAPWARE is pre-installed these days.) Cleanly installed, Vista SP1 is a great choice. SP1 brought with it much stability -- but little else.
I've been testing SP2 (first beta, then RC-Escrow, and now the full RC code). Vista SP2 does feel faster but it is still not nearly as fast as Windows 7 (which I am also beta testing). SP2 is rock-solid stable and I am using it in my own production environment without problems. What this means for me is that I will recommend SP2 to my father-in-law (who is running Vista SP1 now) as soon as it goes RTM, but for me, I am going to move all my systems to Windows 7 as soon as it goes RTM. Until then, I will run SP2 in whatever flavor I can get it.
-Marc
Maybe Vista SP2 will have the goodness of Win 7.
-Philip
I haven't experimented yet with the Vista SP2 "late beta." But, think it's safe to hope that the forthcoming Vista SP2 will actually upgrade Vista to a stable pre-release Windows 7? And bring some sort of fax app back into availability?
-Fred
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Posted by Doug Barney on March 06, 20090 comments
The Microsoft Windows 7 hype machine
took aim at enterprise customers
as executives touted its high-end features. A couple of features require Windows Server 2008 R2. The ability for remote Win 7 clients to securely connect to servers without a dedicated VPN only comes with the Windows 2008/Win 7 combo. A technology that speeds up WAN connections, BranchCache, also requires the latest and greatest Windows Server 2008.
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Posted by Doug Barney on March 06, 20090 comments
This story
has been making the rounds. I first saw it on Digg, which got it from Gizmodo. Then a while later, it showed up on Drudge, which probably got it from Digg, which got it from Gizmodo. Now everyone probably knows about it.
Apparently, Vogue interviewed Melinda Gates and she disclosed that Bill won't allow family members to use iPods or iPhones. That leaves the Gates young'uns walking around with Zunes. Totally uncool!
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Posted by Doug Barney on March 06, 20090 comments
Bruce thinks he knows the reason why
server sales are slumping
:
I'll tell you what the issue is: Companies are FINALLY realizing you don't have to buy new servers again and again and again, and are also starting to reuse licenses. Wait until people start seriously buying machines made with AMD chips where you can get better performance just by swapping CPU chips. Then there won't be a need to buy a new machine for some time.
-Bruce
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Posted by Doug Barney on March 04, 20090 comments
I'm always excited when a Windows guru builds a new product. What's a Windows guru? It's just an idea of mine where I chose 12 technical leaders from Microsoft third parties and tried to figure out
what made them tick
.
One guru is Troy Werelius, CEO of Lucid8. Troy's latest baby is
Recovery Advantage
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Posted by Doug Barney on March 04, 20090 comments