Did you know that roughly 400 tons of dirt, gravel, rock, and sand have to be searched to locate 1 carat of diamond? And that diamond, when located, must be cut by an expert and polished just right before being placed in a setting that complements it completely? Well, when searching for gems within an OS, it takes effort and creativity as well. Here are three Windows Vista “gems” that might make your workday a bit easier or assist you in administration.
One of the world’s dominant operating systems is Microsoft windows. When you compare some of the ideal features available in its competitors for instance Linux and Mac OS X, both XP and Vista can appear a little incomplete. There are various features that other operating systems offer by default such as 64-bit processing and business-networking tools that require a premium version license in Windows.
Apple Inc. has warned Windows PC and iPod users not to upgrade to Windows Vista yet as it does not work well yet with the iTunes software and may even corrupt their iPod. Thought iTunes may work with some Vista computers, Apple stated that they know of some computability problems and is recommending that users wait until Apple resolves issues with its iTunes software within the next few weeks.
Software giant Microsoft has claimed user “complacency” is to blame for malware infections, and denied that its Vista operating system is less secure than Windows 2000. The claim that Vista is less secure than Windows 2000 was made last week by security vendor PC Tools, which said that over the past six months Vista had suffered 639 unique threats, whereas Windows 2000 has suffered 586. PC Tools’s research was conducted by collecting data from customers using its ThreatFire behavioural detection software.
While some businesses might not be seeing much incentive to move to Vista SP1, gamers might be warming up to the idea. Past game performance tests have shown that lower frame rates, lag, and crashing are the norm for Windows Vista RTM. While some switched over and found they were having no problems, the majority held onto Windows XP SP2 for dear life. The majority of the blame for this problem was laid on lack of solid video drivers. Read the rest of this entry »
In a recent post on the Microsoft Developer Network blog, Austin Wilson, director of Windows client security product management at Microsoft, dismissed a claim made last week by security vendor PC Tools Software that Windows Vista was more vulnerable to malware than Windows 2000.
Microsoft Corp.’s Windows Vista is 37% more secure than its Windows XP ancestor, a security vendor claimed today, a rate it hinted was disappointing. Using different data collection techniques, Microsoft has recently asserted that Vista is 60% more secure than XP.
After finding a few last-minute problems with Vista Service Pack 1 and XP Service Pack 3, Microsoft delayed deployment on both of them. Now they’re both back and ready for download, either manually or through Windows Update.
Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates says sales of Windows Vista have been “rapid”, with more than 140 million copies sold worldwide. Gates, speaking in Tokyo, said the figure represented “a very rapid sales rate,” according to a Wall Street Journal on Thursday. Despite the sales figures, Microsoft has admitted to struggling with the public’s perception of Vista. Windows XP, Vista’s 7-year-old predecessor, is still popular among both businesses and consumers.
A recent Gartner report shows that businesses are installing Windows Vista at about the same or even a slightly quicker pace than they did with Windows XP.Microsoft is touting those figures as positive spin on Vista uptake. But a deeper look into the numbers shows that the two operating systems aren’t exactly competing on a level playing field. XP had Windows 2000 upgrades to contend with, and Vista has no similar competition.
A week ago, Microsoft delayed the release of Windows XP Service Pack 3 (SP3) because of a problem that could lead to data loss when running the XP update in conjunction with its Microsoft Dynamics Retail Management System (RMS) program. It also halted automatic updates to Windows Vista SP1 because of a similar issue.
When we wrote about Gateway’s spring retail PCs back in January of this year, it was quite obvious that, at least for that product cycle, Gateway had thrown out Intel’s Core 2 Quad Q6600 quad-core processor in favor of an AMD Phenom X4 chip. Back then, company representatives assured us that an Intel quad-core would return soon. It took some time (four months), but an Intel chip is back, but only for the pricey “FX” version. The more affordable “GT” versions - four of them - continue to rely on AMD and integrate triple-core and quad-core processors.
Although a “significant” number of corporations are hesitating to move to Windows Vista, businesses should bite the bullet because Microsoft Corp. is retiring Windows XP, and there’s no guarantee it will deliver a next-generation operating system on time or with compelling features, a research analyst said.
Microsoft and its hardware/software partners have done a lot in the past 16 months to make Windows Vista a better operating system. With Service Pack (SP) 1, Microsoft has addressed some of the performance and reliability problems that has made Vista the butt of so much bad press when it launched.
Several users running Windows Vista with SP1 installed who recently downloaded an audio driver for through Windows Update say the update disables their machines’ audio functionality. The update for IDT (Formerly Sigmatel)’s high definition sound and is called “IDT High Def Codec,” according to several users on a Dell customer forum, who claim that installing the update results in a “Code 10″ Error after rebooting, as well as the loss of audio.
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