microsoft

What's the problem with introducing a new operating system? When it comes to Microsoft, the upgrade makes your last operating system pretty much obsolete, even if it took almost ten years to construct and a lot of hassle to promote. A recent survey ... from industry analysts Gartner found that about 30 per cent of large businesses were seriously considering skipping Windows Vista altogether, a significant blow to Microsoft which has spent the last year and a half trying to convince home and corporate users alike that the operating system is worth the software and training costs associated with ... (view more)

Time's up for users hoping to test run the Windows 7 beta , as today Microsoft blocked the ability to download the preview edition. "Sorry," the website has been telling users since midnight, February 9, "Windows 7 Beta downloads are no longer ... available." Anyone with interrupted downloads will be able to complete them, and those with a copy will still be able to access their product keys. No new downloads will be possible at this time. The beta edition, which had been open for download by the general public since January this year, will no longer be on Microsoft's website ... (view more)

A hole allowing hackers to take control of Microsoft Exchange was just one "critical" issue the Redmond-based company promises it has fixed with a patch correcting a total of eight vulnerabilities in its programs, including the Internet Explorer ... browser, Office, and its SQL Server . Three of the eight vulnerabilities patched yesterday were marked "critical". The most concerning is an issue with Exchange that would allow attackers to take over an Exchange server by simply forwarding a carefully crafted message to a corporate mail server. Microsoft has admitted that the vulnerability can be ... (view more)

The makers of the Firefox browser have officially joined the legal battle being waged by European regulators against Microsoft's tactics over Internet Explorer. But the man behind the latest Firefox edition says there's no need to include rival ... browsers in Windows. The European Commission has formally accepted a request from Mozilla to submit documents to its investigation over Microsoft's potential antitrust violations in bundling Internet Explorer with Windows. The move comes at a very late stage: the Commission has already made a ruling in principle against Microsoft and is currently ... (view more)

Microsoft has again changed its position on the User Account Control (UAC) interface for Windows 7. However, the company might be due some credit for the decision, given that they're being made in direct response to protests from common beta ... participants. More details are beginning to emerge about the proposed UAC, which has been at the center of significant controversy for several weeks. Earlier last week, rumors swirled that Microsoft had decided to ditch the UAC altogether. Users of Vista know UAC as the prompt that demands confirmation of just about any action in the operating system, ... (view more)

Microsoft has agreed to tweak the User Account Control (UAC) system in Windows 7 to avoid an inherent security risk . During the production of Windows 7 , Microsoft decided to change the default UAC so that it no longer asks for confirmation when a ... user adjusts his or her Windows settings. Security experts suggest that these settings include UAC itself, meaning rogue software could turn this protection off completely without the user knowing. Microsoft argued that this was not a true vulnerability because one can only take advantage by getting the victim to run the rogue software; for example ... (view more)

As noted by the New York Times, new technologies have become so powerful that protecting individual privacy may no longer be the only issue. With the Internet, wireless sensors, and the capability to analyze an avalanche of data, a person's profile ... can be drawn without monitoring him or her directly. (Source: nytimes.com ) Every time you use your credit card to make a purchase, you give up your privacy. When you use your credit or debit card, a record of that transaction is logged into a database of information collected by your credit card issuer. (Source: creditcards.com ) Tracking systems ... (view more)

A new analysis claims that over 90% of the Windows security vulnerabilities reported last year were made worse by users logged in with administrative privileges -- an issue Microsoft has been hotly debating recently. BeyondTrust Corp. (BTC), a ... software development company specializing in enterprise rights management, has indicated that the act of giving users administrative rights may leave systems more open to risk. The report issued by BTC was prepared by assessing security vulnerability bulletins released by Microsoft in 2008, and identifying specific "mitigating factors" (those that could ... (view more)

Microsoft recently commissioned research in two cities to try to understand how different types of consumer, from teens to professionals to baby boomers, think about privacy. During the recently held Data Privacy Day in San Francisco, Microsoft ... participated in a panel discussion with privacy experts from the California Office of Privacy Protection, the Center for Democracy and Technology, Intel and MySpace. According to Microsoft's Chief privacy strategist Peter Cullen, breaches impact consumer trust and is causing increased concern. (Source: google.com) Microsoft and other organizations ... (view more)

Government antitrust attorneys are reportedly still receiving complaints from hardware makers and other companies about Microsoft business practices, even as the software giant has stepped up its efforts to cooperate with those state and federal ... authorities overseeing its antitrust consent decree. In a recent court filing, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) and numerous other states said complaints were received from several companies that manufacture and sell a variety of products that work with Windows. The department has been enforcing the consent decree for more than six years. (Source ... (view more)