Microsoft’s year-old Windows Vista operating system could get a boost now that Microsoft has issued the first set of bug fixes for the product. Many users, particularly businesses and other enterprises, won’t consider installing a new Microsoft
Surprised? You shouldn’t be, considering NVIDIA drivers caused most of the crashes in Windows XP as well. It’s just Vista’s more graceful when it comes to handling said failures. When Vista and DirectX 10 were announced all those years ago, it wasn’t the graphics that had my giblets tingling. No, it was integration. Vista promised to treat your graphics card as part of the normal make-up of a PC, rather than an optional extra, by delivering GPU multi-tasking/scheduling and virtualised video memory. With these improvements, we got Aero Glass, Direct3D 10 and, of course, the Windows Display Driver Model (WDDM).
We asked, you answered, and the XP vs. Vista mud is still flying.Read our articleon the results of a recent PCW reader survey, and thenjoin the discussion. Speaking of Windows Vista, does Microsoft’srecent service packimprove the OS? Most readers say no, although some never liked Vista to begin with. What do you think?Let us know.
Microsoft Corp.’s security team today acknowledged that it knew of bugs in its Jet Database Engine as far back as 2005 but did not patch the problems because it thought it had blocked the obvious attack vectors.A researcher at Symantec Corp. said Microsoft should have fixed the flaws years ago.
The Microsoft Deployment Toolkit 2008 is designed for organizations looking to install Vista SP1 on 50 or more PCs. It’s available as a free download from the software maker’s Web site. Microsoft has released a new toolkit with an eye to making it easier for businesses to upgrade their computers to Windows Vista Service Pack1.
Microsoft Corp. is offering free support to any Windows Vista user experiencing problems with installing Service Pack 1 (SP1), according to a company spokesman. “[Anyone] needing technical support regarding your installation of Windows Vista SP1, please go to the following URL and choose the bottom option that says, ‘Windows Vista Service Pack 1 (All Languages),’” said Brandon LeBlanc, a Microsoft employee who posted several comments to the company’s Vista blog. The link LeBlanc pointed users to led to a Vista SP1-specific support site.
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Microsoft Windows Vista SP1 is available through Windows Update service and retailers. The Service Pack 1 is free to download beginning Tuesday. Online retailer Amazon is also taking pre-orders for boxed copies of Windows Vista Service Pack 1, which it said it will start shipping Wednesday.
Vista’s SP1 was officially released on Tuesday. That means people have had enough time to tinker around with it, test it out, and share their opinions. The reviews are in, and here’s what the usual suspects (plus our own most eloquent commenters) had to say.
Windows Vista SP1 Is having a tough time getting into the Ivy League.University of Pennsylvania tech staffers are advising faculty and students not to upgrade their computers to the new service pack for Microsoft’s Windows Vista operating system.The school’s Information Systems & Computing department said it will support Vista SP1 on new systems where it’s pre-installed, but added that it “strongly recommends that all other users adopt a ‘wait and see’ attitude,” according to a newly published department bulletin.
The company said users will have to wait for the updated drivers, which will be available “in the coming weeks”. The drivers in question are for Endpoint Protection and Network Access Control, two of Symantec’s flagship enterprise security products. Microsoft released Vista Service Pack 1 (SP1) to Windows Update on Tuesday. However, in the Vista team blog, Vista product manager Nick White wrote that some vendors’ drivers “may be problematic after an update from Windows Vista to Windows Vista SP1″. Symantec Endpoint Protection and Network Access Control clients were among the list of drivers affected by SP1.
The full list of hotfixes and security updates is ridiculously long and even the smaller breakdown of notable changes is still not what you might call easy reading. For the impatient then, here’s a quick summation of the most important changes and fixes - at least in this writer and Vista user’s opinion:
Dell Chairman and Chief Executive Michael Dell said Tuesday that Microsoft’s Windows Vista operating system will help boost demand for dynamic random access memory (DRAM) chips although chip manufacturers such as Samsung Electronics and Hynix Semiconductor have been losing from their memory chip business.
The long awaited service pack was released as an RTM version in February but is now available to all genuine Windows Vista users. You can directly download the service pack from the Microsoft Download Center or as an optional update through Windows Update. The company did note however that if your system has drivers “which are currently known to be incompatible with SP1″, you will not be able to install the update.
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Microsoft will release Windows Vista Service Pack 1 next week to a wider audience, according to information posted on Amazon.com and reports from a Web site that correctly called SP1’s ship date last month. Amazon currently lists Vista SP1 retail copies as available next Wednesday, March 19, while TechARP.com, the Malaysian Web site that nailed the update’s release to manufacturing (RTM) date several days early, said users would be able to download SP1 starting Tuesday, March 18.
Given the lackluster to almost hateful response to Vista, Microsoft has confirmed that it will be releasing Windows 7 before the end of 2010. These details were released when it updated information to select partners about the Windows 7 Milestone 1 build. The company says it is on schedule to have the final version of Windows 7 completed by the end of 2009. It did not mention any specific time frame for the 2010 release; just that it will be released within a three year time frame.
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