Articles about Windows

Windows X has released updates for its skinning tools, Windows 8 UX Pack 7.0 (for Windows 7) and Windows 8 Transformation Pack 7.0 (for Windows XP, Vista and 7). The programs bring much of the look and feel of Windows 8 to earlier desktops.

One notable change this time around is the inclusion of WinMetro as an alternative Start Screen for both packs. Windows X says the program is stable and not resource hungry, which perhaps is why they’ve made it the “Immersive UI” alternative, but if you prefer the older Newgen, just the charms bar, or nothing at all, then all those options are still available.

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Microsoft's ongoing process to improve the company's cloud platform, Windows Azure, has reached a new phase. The software giant has, yet again, introduced a number of new features for Windows Azure, including the HDInsight service for Hadoop clusters, support for Dropbox deployment and Mercurial repositories, as well as enhancements to Mobile Services.

Windows Azure Mobile Services can now be used as a backend by "pure" HTML5/JavaScript clients, Apache Cordova/PhoneGap apps and Windows Phone 7.5 clients. The feature complements the previously-introduced Android Client SDK (Software Development Kit) and support for iOS, Windows 8 and Windows Phone 8.

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For those people who haven't moved on to Windows 8, don't worry -- you will still get something new. Microsoft has announced that Service Pack 1 for Windows 7 will automatically push through the Windows Update tomorrow.

This is not entirely new, though. In fact, Service Pack 1 released way back on Feb. 9, 2011, but has remained optional. Users could previously install SP1 from Windows Update, but the task required manually adding it to the installation list. The difference now is that Microsoft will no longer give users a choice in this matter. That is not a bad thing, because SP1 rolls together a number of security updates for your computer.

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Yesterday at the Engadget Expand conference Microsoft's Bob Heddle, the director of Kinect for Windows, announced a new software developer kit is coming very soon -- tomorrow, in fact. Version 1.7 will be made available March 18, and Heddle promised it will be the "most significant update to the SDK since we released the first version a little over a year ago".

Version 1.7 promises new interaction, including push-to-press buttons, grip-to-pan capabilities, and support for smart ways to accommodate multiple users and two-person interactions. Heddle explains that "we wanted to save businesses and developers hours of development time while making it easier for them to create gesture-based experiences that are highly consistent from application to application and utterly simple for end users".

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I suppose we sort of already knew this. Ever since Microsoft turned on the firewall by default back in XP SP1, Windows is safer to use and improves with each new version. Perfect? Far from it, but the imperfections are more about what you add than what Microsoft provides. Secunia reports that the vast majority of problems experienced by Windows users these days are caused by third-party software.

In a new report Secunia tells us: "In 2012, 86 percent of the vulnerabilities affecting the Top-50 programs in the representative portfolio, infected third-party programs. This means that only 14 percent of vulnerabilities present in the Top-50 programs on the computers of the PSI users stem from Operating Systems and Microsoft programs. The 86 percent is a substantial increase from the previous year -- 2011 -- when vulnerabilities in third-party software represented 78 percent". The number of third-party vulnerabilities is up from 57 percent six years ago.

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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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