Class Action Lawsuit Claims 'Vista Capable' is Misleading
A lady in Washington state who apparently purchased a computer in late 2006 bearing the "Vista Capable" sticker, and who only later discovered it was only capable of running Vista Home Basic, has filed a class action lawsuit against Microsoft in her home state, seeking in excess of $5 million.
The lawsuit alleges Microsoft misrepresented the capacity of computers to run all of Vista's purported features, directly citing Acer senior vice president Jim Wong's comments last October that "Premium is the real Vista" as indication that at least one PC maker believed Basic was not the real Vista.
Vista to Become More Virtualization-Friendly
Microsoft has tweaked the licensing for Windows Vista slightly to allow users of the Enterprise version of its software to use the operating system in non-traditional environments, such as diskless PCs.
The changes were announced at Microsoft's Management Summit 2007, an annual event held for IT management professionals in Redmond. The company says its customers had been requesting the licensing changes so that IT administrators could experiment with new management architectures.
Microsoft to Fix Critical Vista Flaw Early
Microsoft confirmed Sunday that it would not wait until April's "Patch Tuesday" to release a fix correcting a critical flaw in Windows Animated Cursor Handling, which affects most supported versions of the company's operating systems. Instead, an update is coming Tuesday.
The exploit, which results in a crash-restart-crash loop, is triggered by a buffer overflow in an animated cursor file. A similar flaw was discovered in early 2005, but did not apparently affect Windows XP Service Pack 2. The new issue, discovered by McAfee's Avert labs does impact XP SP2 and Windows Vista, as well as Windows 2000 SP4 and Windows Server 2003.
Vista Can Be Taken Down by an Animated Cursor
In what could be the most embarrassing exploit to impact Windows Vista since its commercial launch in January, security engineers at McAfee's Avert Labs confirmed today - and posted the video to prove - that the operating system can be caused to enter an interminable crash-restart-crash loop, by means of a buffer overflow triggered by nothing more than a malformed animated cursor file.
It isn't even a new exploit, as researchers with eEye discovered in January 2005. At that time, Microsoft acknowledged it affected versions of the operating system from the first edition of Windows 98 through to early releases of Windows XP, though it stated at the time XP SP1 was unaffected.
Apple Adds Vista Support to Boot Camp
Apple on Wednesday pushed an update to its Boot Camp dual booting feature, providing support for the 32-bit version of Windows Vista, as well as updated drivers for various hardware included with Intel Macs.
While Windows Vista could be installed on Intel Macs even before the update, some of the drivers provided by Apple for Windows XP would not work with Microsoft's latest operating system.
AIM Now for Vista, AOL Web Mail
AOL on Wednesday released the final version of AIM 6.1, which primarily brings support for Windows Vista, as well as announcing a new beta of AOL Web Mail that integrates AIM. Users will be able to conduct AIM conversations directly from their Web-based AOL Mail interface.
AIM 6.1 has been in beta testing for a number of months and is fully compatible with Vista, which launched at the end of January. Other new features in the update include the ability to send an offline IM or SMS message when a buddy signs off AIM, and new Buddy List docking and color picker options.
Microsoft Fixes iPod Issues in Vista
Microsoft is working hard to ensure users of Apple's iPod music player do not experience difficulty when trying to use the device with Windows Vista. Among several patches released for the new operating system was one designed to address iPod issues that have appeared. Users had complained that their iPods were becoming corrupted after using the "Safely Remove Hardware" option to eject the player.
While Apple itself had addressed several of the problems with Vista in the iTunes 7.1 release earlier this month, it warned that the hardware removal issue was a Microsoft problem and advised users not to access the option. Even with the fix, however, 64-bit versions of Windows XP and Vista still remain incompatible with iTunes.
Buy More Vista Licenses, Save 10%
Microsoft has launched the appropriately named Windows Vista Additional License program, which will enable customers to save a bit of money if they want to install Windows Vista on multiple computers. Before, users had to purchase a completely new copy of Vista; now, they can just buy a license key online and save 10 percent.
"Remember, not properly activating Windows Vista will lead to it running in reduced functionality mode, so this new program is a handy way to avoid that situation. With it, customers can use their original Windows Vista media for installation and activate each installation using the newly purchased licenses," explained Vista product manager Nick White. The program is now available in the United States and Europe.
Microsoft: First Month Vista Sales Double XP
Responding to media reports that initial adoption of Windows Vista has been slow and news that certain government agencies are holding off on upgrading, Microsoft announced Monday that it sold more than 20 million copies of Vista in the first month - double the copies of Windows XP sold in its first month.
The figure includes Vista licenses sold to PC manufacturers, in addition to upgrades and full versions of the new operating system sold via retail outlets. Microsoft says the "strong sales" reflect positive consumer response, and put Vista on track to becoming the quickest-adopted version of Windows.
Microsoft Brings Help Back to Vista
Microsoft this week released a minor update for Windows Vista that adds support for Windows Help files, recognized by their .hlp extension. Such help files have been in use since Windows 3.1, and are still found in a number of applications.
"The Windows Help program has not had a major update for many releases and no longer meets Microsoft's standards. Therefore, starting with the release of Windows Vista, the Windows Help program will not ship as a feature of Windows," Microsoft says. Users can download the Windows Help update from FileForum.
Google Desktop Mimics Vista Sidebar
Google on Wednesday rolled out a beta version 5 of its Desktop product, which includes a desktop search, sidebar and Google Gadgets. It could be said that Google Desktop 5 has been "Vista-fied," with a new design that better blends into the background.
Other features in version 5 include a "Preview" feature in desktop search that enables users to quickly glance at documents without opening them fully. Security has also been bolstered such that Google will now warn users when they click on links from documents, e-mails or IM logs that may lead to a malicious Web site.
iTunes and Vista Still Have Issues
While the release of iTunes 7.1 does include a number of compatibility fixes that enable the software to work with most Windows Vista editions, Apple warns that users may still encounter problems. The company is working with Microsoft to resolve outstanding bugs.
Apple notes that ejecting an iPod using Windows Vista's "Safely Remove Hardware" feature could corrupt the device and require a full restore using iTunes. In addition, iTunes text and graphics may display incorrectly, and contacts may not sync properly from Windows to an iPod. For now, iTunes and iPods remain incompatible with 64-bit versions of both Windows XP and Windows Vista.
Symantec Vista White Paper Links to PatchGuard Crack
In a curious decision on the part of a security software company, a white paper released today on the Web site of Symantec - whose opinions of Microsoft's implementation of PatchGuard protection on 64-bit Windows Vista are well known - contains the address of an independent research paper which includes a demonstration of defeating PatchGuard, complete with source code, in an early Vista beta.
The address of the PDF white paper entitled "Bypassing PatchGuard on Windows x64" -- which was released in December 2005 and has since acquired a modicum of fame and respect -- is located in Symantec's 16-page analysis of Microsoft's security technologies, in a footnote to this sentence: "As demonstrated during the development process of Windows Vista and during its release, hackers can and will subvert PatchGuard."
Microsoft Manager Says It Considered Banning Vista Virtualization
In a story for the Associated Press carried on many online news services this afternoon, one of the directors of Microsoft's Windows Client Product Planning team appears to make a curious and perhaps astounding statement. Scott Woodgate is quoted as saying that a Black Hat security conference demonstration last August, where virtualization functions were exploited to plant an active rootkit onto a beta of the Windows Vista kernel, scared Microsoft to the point where the company seriously considered removing virtualization capability from Vista entirely.
Ostensibly, the AP article was about Microsoft's decision to ban Home Basic and Home Premium editions of Vista from serving as guest operating systems in virtualization engines. This was a recent discovery for Macintosh users, though it was public knowledge for Vista users since last July, when Woodgate himself made the announcement.
Microsoft Shows Off Vista Reader Apps
After much hoopla over Windows Presentation Foundation and its promise to create rich graphical user interfaces for Vista, not many of the demonstrated technologies have become reality.
Thus, the company set out this week with three media partners including Associated Newspapers, Hearst, and Forbes to leverage the power of WPF through a new digital reader application.
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