Articles about Windows

With release of OS X 10.8.3, the latest update for Mountain Lion, Apple upgraded the Boot Camp utility, which allows users to dual-boot Windows and OS X on a supported Mac, to version 5. Boot Camp 5 allows users to install either 64-bit editions of Windows 7 or 8 alongside their copy of OS X -- by downloading Boot Camp Support Software 5, you’ll have all the drivers you need to run Windows on your Mac.

One consequence of upgrading to Boot Camp 5 is that support for 32-bit versions of Windows – including XP and Vista as well as 32-bit iterations of Windows 7 and 8 – is no longer supported.

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Getting easier access to a Windows 7 shortcut is extremely easy: right-click, select "Pin to taskbar", and an icon will pop up on your taskbar, ready for immediate use.

Right-click a file, though -- or a folder, a drive, a Control Panel applet or just about anything else -- and you’ll find no "Pin" option. There are various manual workarounds you can apply, but your life will be much simpler if you grab a copy of Taskbar Pinner, which allows you to fill the taskbar with just about anything you like.

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That's the question on my mind today, as an executive from yet another PC manufacturer disses the operating system. Yesterday, Jun Dong-soo, who heads Samsung’s memory chip operation, told Korea Times: "Windows 8 system is no better than the previous Windows Vista platform". Remember, Microsoft gave developers Samsung slates in autumn 2008 to test Windows 8. Samsung shipped touchscreen models for the previous operating system, when few other OEMs did. So the slap is no small one, and worse: "MS’s rollout of its Windows Surface tablet is seeing lackluster demand", Dong-soo asserts.

I don't agree with him, by the way. On Monday I explained: "How I came to love Windows again". Two words: Surface Pro. I find Windows 8 to be remarkably efficient and fun to use on the touchscreen tablet convertible. Modern UI really is modern, trendsetting. But I'll be first to concede that users won't get the same kind of experience using just mouse and keyboard. Touch changes everything.

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On Tuesday, Microsoft detailed another update addressed to Windows Azure, the software giant's cloud platform, aimed at fending off the attack from Amazon S3, Google Cloud Platform and other major competitors. One of the most noteworthy new features is support for developing native Android Apps in Windows Azure Mobile Services.

Microsoft has released the Android Client SDK (Software Development Kit) through GitHub, under the Apache 2.0 license. Windows Azure Mobile Services also features support for Android push notifications, which can be enabled by registering for Google Cloud Messaging, getting the API key and pasting it in the corresponding "Push" tab.

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On Wednesday, Microsoft announced a new update for Windows Azure, the company's cloud platform. Windows Azure Store now comes with expanded availability within 25 new locations across all major regions. This brings the tally up to 36 markets, a significant increase over the previous 11 from little over two months ago when the software giant announced a similar update.

The Windows Azure Store is designed to allow users to discover, purchase and manage services and data straight from the cloud platform's management portal. The feature was previously only available in Canada, Denmark, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Japan, South Korea, Spain, United Kingdom and United States.

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Yesterday Microsoft, at long last, rolled out Internet Explorer version 10 for Windows 7 -- a browser that had been available to Windows 8 users since launch back on October 26, 2012. Today the software giant followed up with language packs for that new software release.

Each language pack comes as a separate download and is, of course, completely free. There are countless ones available from Afrikaans to Marathi and all the way through to isiZulu.

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Microsoft has released the first stable version of Internet Explorer 10 for Windows 7 (32-bit) and Internet Explorer 10 for Windows 7 (64-bit). The latest version of the browser -- which comes pre-installed in Windows 8 -- promises improved performance, better privacy and supports the latest web standards, plus adds integrated spell-checking and auto-correct tools.

Internet Explorer 10 in itself isn’t new -- it was bundled with Windows 8 on its release on October 26. However, it’s only now that Windows 7 users have been able to install a stable version of the software, although a Release Preview has been available since mid-November. Just as Internet Explorer 9 dropped support for Windows XP, so IE10 drops support for Windows Vista.

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Although it's Tuesday, it's not "Patch Tuesday", which means we shouldn't expect any updates from Microsoft, but the software giant is rolling out patches none-the-less. The updates are across a broad spectrum of platforms too -- Windows 7, Windows 8, Windows Server, and even Windows RT are included in this update.

Curiously, many of the Windows updates are listed as "non-security". The company generally only pushes out-of-cycle updates when there is a major security flaw that cannot wait for the next month. In the case of today's patches, many are listed as a fix for "issues in Windows".

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Microsoft has killed off a bunch of products lately, moving forward to new and "improved" platforms, even making changes to company logos. The concept isn't foreign in the tech industry -- everything changes, almost daily. Yesterday Live Mesh died, soon Messenger will follow it to the grave. Today Microsoft reminds us that Windows 7 RTM's days are numbered.

It is not that we didn't know this day was coming -- the company gives plenty of notice about these things. The irony here is that many businesses are just now moving to the platform from XP. Hopefully most had the foresight to move all the way to Windows 7 Service Pack 1, or later. That version of the operating system will enjoy much more life before being shut off. Microsoft's Stephen Rose points out "mainstream support continuing until January 13, 2015, and extended support continuing until January 14, 2020".

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Microsoft Open Technologies unveiled the VM Depot public preview early last month, and the software giant has just announced that its community-driven open-source virtual machine image catalog is now integrated into the company's cloud platform, Windows Azure.

The new feature is available through the Windows Azure management portal and is designed to ease the handling of virtual machine images from VM Depot. The cloud platform's users can take advantage of open-source stacks, "based on supported Linux distributions, made available by members of the community and directly provision the files as personal images straight from the Windows Azure portal".

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Running Android on Windows is not a new concept. It has been possible for sometime now, but it required the use of something like Virtual Box, or rival virtual machines. Now version 4.0.3, known more familiarly as Ice Cream Sandwich, has been ported to both Windows 7 and Windows 8. It runs natively, no virtual anything needed.

This is not exactly for everyone. For one thing, there is no Google Play Store, although the developers are working to add this rather important feature. For now you can side-load apps using the APK file.

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Microsoft's efforts to improve the company's cloud platform, Windows Azure, most definitely do not fly under the radar. Over the past few months the software giant brought Windows Azure Services to Windows Server 2012, introduced a plethora of new features for its cloud platform, updated the Windows Azure SDK for .NET and, on Tuesday, announced the general availability of Windows Azure Media Services.

Windows Azure Media Services is basically a Media Platform as a Service or PaaS, as Microsoft likes to call it, that allows users to implement video streaming, using various formats, to Android, HTML5, iPad, iPhone, Xbox, Windows 8 or Windows Phone, among other supported clients. Developers can control Windows Azure Media Services through REST APIs or Java SDK and .NET SDK in order to build an automated media workflow which can upload, encode and stream video.

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Three days ago, the AV-TEST Institute published its latest results for consumer security product testing, which was conducted on Windows 7 during a two month period, through November and December 2012. From the 25 security solutions analyzed in the roundup, only three products failed to receive the recognized AV-TEST certificate, one of which was Microsoft's own Security Essentials.

The software giant was prompt to respond to the latest test results, by emphasizing that "a rigorous review" is conducted in-house "whenever test results warrant it". Obviously, Microsoft does not shoot itself in the foot, as you may assume, and provides a number of internal test results in order to reassure users that Security Essentials is not as bad as the AV-TEST Institute may suggest. Question is: Why put itself on the spot in the first place?

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On Tuesday, even with all the CES 2013 madness, Microsoft introduced a host of new features addressed to the company's Windows Azure SDK for .NET. The latest version of the software development kit focuses on expanding support in roles, increasing productivity, making new tools available and delivering new and updated libraries.

The revised Windows Azure SDK for .NET allows users to run cloud service applications in Windows Server 2012, and provides access to more features in IIS 8 (Internet Information Services) and .NET 4.5 when the server operating system is selected. The updated software development kit also introduces support for Visual Studio tools, delivering improved tooling for Cache and Server Explorer for Storage and Service Bus, diminished context switching to portal as well as support for up to 25 management certificates per subscription.

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Welcome to the second Tuesday of the month, the day that has become universally known in tech circles as Patch Tuesday. It is that one day when Microsoft chooses to reach out and touch our computers in an effort to fix whatever has gone wrong or been exploited over the past month. Even during the Consumer Electronics Show we cannot escape Microsoft -- Steve Ballmer made a surprise appearance on stage last night, and now there is this.

For January 2013 there are several fixes in store for customers. There is of course the obligatory Malicious Software Removal Tool update, which appears almost every month. The tool works in the background in an effort to keep PC's safe. Most customers never know it is there because it does not appear in any app list, but if needed, you can launch it from "Run" by typing "MRT".

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