windows

Major PC maker Hewlett-Packard (better known as HP) is reportedly working on a number of tablet computers and hybrid devices based on the upcoming Windows 8 operating system (OS) from Microsoft. A recent presentation by the company's chief executive ... officer (CEO) suggests such gadgets could be available by the 2012 holiday season, or even sooner. During a recent earnings conference call, HP CEO Meg Whitman made reference to her company's plans to soon unveil Windows 8 tablets and related devices. The following day, she elaborated on this point, adding that HP would most likely use both the ... (view more)

Microsoft has finally unveiled the first publicly available edition of its upcoming Windows 8 operating system (OS). While this version of the new OS is far from complete, it does give users a solid idea of what Microsoft has done to update its ... flagship product for use with mobile devices, like tablets and smartphones. "It's an even better Windows than Windows 7," Microsoft Windows director Steven Sinofsky said at a recent demonstration of the new OS, which took place at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain. "It's incredibly fast and fluid to just navigate this UI (user interface ... (view more)

Update: Save up to 60%. Offer ends on January 14th. Proceeds support our website and staff of writers. You can click here to go straight to the offer . Otherwise, continue reading below. With every new edition of Microsoft Windows comes new tweaks, ... new menus, and oftentimes no one seems to know where the old features went, which makes optimizing the operating system for a particular PC very difficult. Let's take Windows 7, for example. It's vastly different than Windows XP and offers new visualization features and background tasks (services) that literally rob a PC of its processing power, ... (view more)

Microsoft's popular cloud computing service, SkyDrive, is reported to be getting a major overhaul soon. Included in the upgrade will be a number of visual improvements, the addition of a drag-and-drop feature, and a new tool that allows users to ... access files stored on their home computers from anywhere, securely, via the SkyDrive site. With about 17 million customers, Microsoft's SkyDrive service is one of the more popular cloud storage applications. However, that popularity hasn't discouraged Microsoft from giving the platform a major upgrade that it hopes will help drive the service to the ... (view more)

Microsoft says that it will patch more than twenty security problems this Valentine's Day (February 14), coinciding with its regular "Patch Tuesday." Microsoft will be offering fixes for a wide range of flaws affecting the company's Internet ... Explorer (IE) web browser, every version of its Windows operating system (OS), as well as Microsoft Office. The total of 21 fixes will be spread across nine different security bulletins, four of which Microsoft has labeled "critical," which is the company's highest security warning. The rest of the bulletins are all marked "important," which is ... (view more)

Microsoft has announced that a special "Consumer Preview" edition of Windows 8 will be available from February 29, 2012. It's believed that this version of the upcoming operating system (OS) will boast more features designed for mobile devices. ... Though Microsoft isn't using this term, the release appears to be a beta edition , a version of in-development software that is complete, but not considered ready for final release and still open to revisions. The next stage after that, likely coming in the summer, is a Release Candidate , which is where the developer considers the product finished and ... (view more)

A new report reveals that only a tiny portion of all people with a tablet computer right now are using one that runs the Windows 7 operating system (OS). According to statistics from research firm Strategy Analytics, Microsoft's operating system ... provides the software basis for just 1.5 per cent of tablets sold during the fourth quarter of 2011. The report reveals that 27 million tablet computers sold in the fourth quarter of 2011, a big increase from the fourth quarter a year ago. "Global tablet shipments reached an all-time high of 26.8 million units in Q4 2011, surging 150 percent from 10.7 ... (view more)

Microsoft has now revealed the minimum hardware requirements for tablet computers to run Windows 8, another sign the company wants to extend its operating system (OS) to a wider range of devices. Windows 8 is the first Windows operating system ... designed to work on everything from desktop PCs to tablets. Aside from the classic desktop design, it boasts a user interface called 'Metro' that's intended for small touch-screens. Some critics fear Windows 8 might be so focused on tablet compatibility that it offers very little improvement to users of notebook and desktop PCs. Windows 8 Tablet: ... (view more)

Microsoft has just revealed that Windows was not its leading money-maker during the last three months of 2011. While this is shocking news to many, it may be only a short-term quirk, and, generally speaking, Microsoft continues to rake in the cash. ... For the three months ending December 31, the company took in a total of $20.89 billion, up five per cent over the same period in 2010. Once costs were deducted, Microsoft was left with just under $8 billion in profit for the quarter, down about two per cent, year-over-year. Both figures were very close to the consensus of predictions by stock ... (view more)

A new app for Apple's iPad will allow users to run Windows applications, including Microsoft Office. The Windows applications are available via OnLive, an online digital media distribution service. The Windows environment and applications don't run ... on the user's own iPad; instead, they are available through streaming services from OnLive's cloud computing platform , which is a form of centralized computing . Though the iPad user doesn't have a physical keyboard and mouse, they are able to use genuine Windows 7 controls specially designed by Microsoft for tablet computers accessing the Windows ... (view more)