With Windows Vista Service Pack 1 out the door, Microsoft was largely expected to release Windows XP SP3 last week or this week. It didn't, instead making public a Refresh build of SP3 Release Candidate 2.

Microsoft says it "made this release candidate available in order to receive further user feedback prior to the release of Windows XP SP3." But many users are wondering what's taking the company so long, as SP3 is largely a roll-up of existing updates and includes no major new features.

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Several tech companies along with some analyst groups have been asked by the plaintiffs to testify as part of the class-action lawsuit against Microsoft over Vista.

Seattle Post-Intelligencer reporter Todd Bishop has dug up the list of 28 companies that have received subpoenas as part of the case. Former Windows chief Jim Allchin is the only individual listed in this list that has been asked to appear.

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In a growing effort to show the world it is embracing the open source community, Microsoft announced it will work with the Eclipse Foundation to offer the Eclipse Standard Widget Toolkit that can be used with the Microsoft Windows Presentation Foundation.

The use of Eclipse technology will allow Java developers to make software applications that look native to the Windows Vista operating system. Eclipse is an open source community project that is the most popular Java development environment available to programmers.

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11:50 am March 19, 2008 - Despite Amazon's messages on Tuesday that it would be shipping commercial packages with Windows Vista SP1 starting today, those messages this morning were found to be replaced with new notices that the new boxes aren't in stock yet.

Currently, items for sale are marked with the curious message, "In stock on March 20, 2008."

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Windows Vista already includes a P2P-enabling technology known as Teredo. But for the forthcoming Windows 7, Microsoft is contemplating adding such features as metered connections, distributed hash tables, and something called 'green P2P.'

NEW YORK CITY (BetaNews) - For the Xbox 360 game Halo 3, P2P technology is "key to the whole experience," said See-Mong Tan, Microsoft's director for P2P networking. Now, Tan tells us, the company is pursuing more options that could bring new legitimacy to a technology that is still berated today for its heritage in anonymous file-sharing.

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Reports yesterday and today stating Microsoft confirmed its Windows 7 release date for 2010 appear to be very premature, as the statement those reports were based on is the same boilerplate language the company has produced for months.

An oft-repeated statement from Microsoft's spokespersons on the release timeframe for the next version of the Windows client, currently code-named "Windows 7," continues to make the case that the product remains slated for a development phase extending some three years after Windows Vista's general availability (GA) release, which was in January 2007.

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Microsoft appears to be attempting to increase Windows Vista sales by making the operating system more affordable both in the United States and abroad.

In the US, the changes will only apply to the Premium and Ultimate upgrade versions of the software. Premium will fall from $159 to $129, while the Ultimate version will now be $219, down from $299.

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As the looming court battle over the "Windows Vista capable" program draws nearer, a federal judge unsealed internal e-mails which show that Microsoft may have been aware of potential problems long before the suit was filed.

These e-mails are likely to provide the plaintiffs a good deal of evidence that the Redmond company was indeed aware that some of their certified products could not run the more advanced features of the new OS.

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Microsoft has presented a list of applications which are adversely affected by the problematic Vista Service Pack 1, some of which cease to function entirely.

The problem apps are categorized in three groups: those that are blocked from starting, those that lose functionality, and those that do not run at all following the installation of Service Pack 1.

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The reason it's called "beta testing" is to anticipate and isolate problems. But a big problem reported by some -- not all -- Vista SP1 testers is causing Microsoft to take a step back.

The regular update cycle for testers of Windows Vista Service Pack 1 was suspended yesterday afternoon, following multiple reports of downloaders discovering their automatically updating computers stuck in an endless cycle of reboots. This would mark the second time in two months that pockets of testers reported such a problem.

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Despite being released to manufacturing last week, Windows Vista Service Pack 1 is not being made available to all customers because Microsoft is trying to resolve an issue in which hardware devices may stop functioning after SP1 is installed.

Apparently, there is a problem that can occur when the operating system re-installs drivers after SP1 is loaded onto a system. Microsoft says the drivers themselves are not at fault, but ostensibly because Vista SP1 is already finalized, the company has opted to work with hardware manufacturers to implement fixes.

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The party is on for February 27th, as Microsoft confirms its star attraction, Windows Server 2008, will be released on time. Admins everywhere may now be breathing a sigh of relief.

There will be no delay from here on out in Microsoft's release of Windows Server 2008. As one of the company's "heroes" for its gala rollout party in Los Angeles in just over three weeks' time, WS2K8 will arrive neither early like its "hero" partner Visual Studio 2008, or late like SQL Server 2008, which will actually ship at least six months after it "launches."

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With a major launch event next month serving as an unmovable anchor for Microsoft at this point, the ancillary launches for Vista Service Pack 1 and XP SP3 would probably raise suspicion if they were delayed.

A group of 15,000 private beta testers received what's being called "RC Refresh 2" of the release candidate for Windows Vista Service Pack 1, Microsoft confirmed to BetaNews this morning. Numbers for the actual release candidate or the beta number, judging from Microsoft's recent correspondence with us, are no longer being used, which could lead some to believe that this may not be the final "refresh" coming down the pike.

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Microsoft on Friday made available to the public a pre-release version of Windows Vista SP1. We want to know what you think, assuming you're willing to install the beta.

Service Pack 1 -- due out this quarter -- is slated to bring a number of major improvements to Microsoft's flagship operating system, but mostly behind the scenes. Performance and reliability has been boosted, in addition to improved compatibility with applications and drivers. Vista users have been clamoring for SP1 since the OS debuted one year ago, so we want to know: does it live up to the hype? Leave a comment below with your experiences, both good and bad.

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Scott Fulton, BetaNews: One of the consumer electronics industry's biggest brands has had an ever-diminishing presence at CES, and the trend continued this year. It's Windows, which this year moved from the backseat into Microsoft's trunk, as even Bill Gates himself touted products such as Mediaroom, Silverlight, and the Surface prototype while only mentioning Windows Vista in passing.

Last year, Sharon Fisher and I noticed the trend, and here's what we said about it at the time:

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