In Microsoft's ongoing effort to alleviate users' discomfort with Windows Vista's security nags, the company may be re-introducing a potential powder keg of new problems, as researchers continue to discover.

In his continuing investigation of the UAC bypasses being tested for Windows 7, developer Rafael Rivera points out another potentially serious problem: As developer Leo Davidson noted in a recent blog post, some binaries in Windows 7 are given the ability to present XML-based manifests of themselves that give themselves a privilege called autoelevate.

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A number of key details surrounding Microsoft's announcement yesterday on Windows 7 versions were left up in the air, and now spokespersons are working to bring them down to earth.

A Microsoft spokesperson confirmed to Betanews this afternoon that Windows 7 Home Basic -- the version of the operating system that would have reduced "experience" features, comparable to Vista Home Basic -- will not be available to retail customers in the US, Canada, and Western Europe. But Win7 Starter Edition -- which was at one time touted as the company's emerging markets version -- will be available through retail channels.

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There will be a client version of Windows 7 geared for everyday consumers, and another client version for businesses other than those that would normally purchase volume licenses. The reasons why are growing fewer in number.

The official explanation for Microsoft's choice of product SKUs for Windows 7 later this year -- which follows an almost identical pattern to the current breakdown for Windows Vista -- could be more befuddling than the existing explanation for Vista. Yesterday's prepared Q&A with Windows General Manager Mike Ybarra states in great detail that his company's choices give consumers a broad array of choices, while at the same time acknowledging that there's only one choice they should make anyway.

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In what appears to be a deadly serious effort to expedite the rollout of its next operating systems, Microsoft has opened some of its developer support tools to a broader audience of partners.

One of the major shortcomings of Windows Vista that Microsoft has quietly, though plainly, acknowledged in recent months concerned the company's relative inability to engage partners in the development process. With a respectably long development cycle, there were too many third parties that complained that they couldn't get their drivers to work right, well after the operating system had already launched.

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Though the fellows sounding the warning today are the best in the business, it didn't take a lot of know-how to develop a proof-of-concept that the new User Access Control panel can be disabled by VBScript.

Windows 7 is still in the public beta process, and will be for some months to come. The purpose of true beta testing is to isolate and identify serious problems (we should know). So it's to any researcher's credit that a potentially threatening problem be brought into the open prior to Microsoft finalizing the code for everyday use.

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Download Windows 7 Beta from Fileforum now (or at least try).

Huge public turnout online for a beta package that flirts with the 3 GB mark, forced Microsoft Friday afternoon to suspend distribution of its Windows 7 beta.

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At a press conference at CES 2009 Tuesday evening, Asus introduced the Eee 131, its first netbook with a built-in 512 GB hard drive. Asus has been working closely with Microsoft, so that the new Eee will run Windows 7.

5:59 pm PT: Both of Asus' new convertible netbooks will use Intel's Atom processors, though different versions. The 10-inch Eee will use Intel Z270 processor, which is what most netbooks use today. But the 8.9-inch model will use the Atom Z520, which provides 20% greater energy conservation.

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As Microsoft's annual MSDN Developers' Conference nationwide tour begins next week, attendees will be among the first to receive a DVD of Windows 7 Beta 1, according to an online invitation the company posted yesterday.

Every year, Microsoft sends a handful of its most popular conference presenters on a nationwide tour, at special MSDN events that are usually held in small conference arenas or hotels, or sometimes rented movie theaters. Attendance is $99 for the one-day event, and with this tour, attendees are promised a big giveaway package that includes Windows 7 Beta 1.

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With the debut of Windows 7, Office 14 and its Web counterpart, along with a completely new Windows "operating system" for the cloud called Azure, PDC 2008 was a week that didn't let up. For those who didn't catch all of the news, here's a quick recap of our coverage.

Microsoft welcomes a new member to the Windows family: Azure

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At the early morning session on the final day of PDC 2008, architect Jeffrey Snover officially confirmed that Windows 7 and the R2 edition of Windows Server 2008 will both get version 2 of PowerShell as standard installation options.

In addition, Snover said, thanks to the ability for an upcoming version of the .NET Framework to run in systems without graphical overhead, PowerShell v2 will also be supported in Server Core, the streamlined, command-line-only installation option for Windows Server introduced with the 2008 edition. Server Core is typically meant for systems that do not need to be administered directly, and can instead use remote management tools.

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Color, a Microsoft design team discovered with the aid of a focus group, is quintessential to a positive user experience. In advising developers to add delight to their apps, a team leader made a revelation about Windows 7's mission.

LOS ANGELES - During a mid-day session on best practices for designing applications to take advantage of Windows 7, Microsoft's principal design manager Samuel Moreau told attendees that his team was charged with the task of building new visual elements into the new user interface specifically to make users feel better about the operating system.

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Will users feel better about Windows 7 when they have the option of turning off one of Vista's least understood features? Or will they instead make the attempt to understand it? That's the problem which Microsoft's Mike Nash is now facing.

LOS ANGELES - Since the original RTM version of Windows Vista, a Registry-based switch has existed for changing the running state of User Account Control -- the feature that stops processes from performing tasks that haven't been launched by human users. So even today, it's feasible, albeit not easy, to turn up the volume and have UAC prompt for passwords (as was originally planned in the early betas), or turn it off.

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Yesterday we asked you to tell us what you wanted to know about Windows 7. We posed many of these questions to Mike Nash, corporate vice president of Windows Product Management. Read on for the answers.

Note: Not all of the questions were answered, so we will post a follow-up later this week with more details on icons, SSD drives, security, file copy speed, Aero and more.

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At PDC 2008, Microsoft took the wraps off Windows 7 and showcased its new dock-like Taskbar. But the revamped Taskbar isn't in the pre-beta build distributed to attendees, so we went hunting for more details on Windows 7's most prominent new feature.

First up, Quick Launch is officially dead. Microsoft will be leaving the Quick Launch folder in Windows 7 for backwards compatibility, but any shortcuts stored there will never show up. Deskbands (like an address bar in the Taskbar) still exist in Windows 7, but must also support rendering on the transparent Glass UI.

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If you're a Windows Media Center user, you don't want to miss an in-depth look at what changes are coming with Windows 7. Microsoft's Charlie Owen, who works on Media Center, goes through every new feature along with screenshots.

The new Media Center is available in the M3 build of Windows 7 that is being distributed at PDC. Some of the additions include: an on-screen keyboard, H.264 playback, bigger video thumbnails, Turbo Scroll for those with large libraries, and revamped photo capabilities.

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