OK. I am back! After having to pass my first Oracle certification. Anyway, back to the topic today. It’s Vista time again.
Windows Vista has less than 1% of the market share according to a market research report released on Thursday. Aliso Viejo-based Net Applications Inc, the company tracking the operating system market share, gives the figures below for each OS in the market for the month of February.
- Windows XP: 84.33%
- Windows 2000: 4.75%
- Mac OS X - PowerPC: 4.29%
- Mac OS X - Intel: 2.09%
- Windows 98: 1.50%
- Windows Vista: 0.93%
- Linux: 0.42%
Windows Vista 0.93% market share is a vast improvement over January’s 0.18%. Despite Microsoft’s intention to spend half a billion dollars marketing Vista, conversions from XP won’t be the norm until 2009. The primary reason to stay in Windows XP is the lack of needs. Most killer applications reside on the Internet these days.
Continue reading ‘Reality Check: How Is Windows Vista Doing?’
Microsoft marketing power is once again proven phenomena. The video shows you what a Vista ad looks like when presented on five 40″ LCD displays in JFK airport. The ads is undeniably “clear” and gives tons of “Wow”.
If you do not have enough “Wow”, Microsoft has much more - 100 of them to make you speechless. The top five:
- It makes using your PC a breeze
- Because all of your music is just a remote control click away
- It’s the safest version of Windows ever
- See your world in a whole new light
- It can find your stuff
PC World recently gave 15 reasons to go ahead upgrading to Vista and only 6 reasons to wait. I have to say there are valid reasons to stay despite only six against fifteen.
If you are still clueless about the question, you need not worry after the introduction of Windows Anytime Upgrade. With the customer upgrade system for Vista in place, switching between Vista editions is just a change of activation key plus maybe a small download.
As of today, there will be five versions of Vista - Starter, Home Basic, Home Premium, Business and Ultimate. If you look at the differences between the editions, it is obvious that most of the features in the higher editions aren’t needed in everyday computing. Microsoft is noble to let us start off with a basic version and then gradually upgrade as needed.
How does it work? One way it will work is the DVD or the PC that you buy comes with a complete set of Vista OS files. Features from higher editions will be automatically disabled by the OS upon checking the activation key. This approach exposes Vista to cracker’s attacks.
The other way, most probably Microsoft preferred way, is the upgrade software only get authorized by Microsoft server to download additional OS files unique to the edition you purchase.
Microsoft Windows Vista is not as secure as what Microsoft claims. According to a report in New York Times on Christmas day, a number of flaws have been discovered on the brand new OS.
On Dec. 15, a Russian programmer posted a description (in Russian) of a flaw that makes it possible to increase a user’s privileges on all of the company’s recent operating systems, including Vista. The flaw affects csrss.exe, which is the main executable for the Microsoft Client/Server Runtime Server.
Furthermore, computer security company Determina notified Microsoft on Dec. 20 of five more vulnerabilities it had identified — four affecting Vista and earlier versions of Windows, and one affecting Microsoft’s Exchange e-mail server.
Jim Allchin’s email to Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer showed that Windows Vista development was in a bad shape three years ago. “I see lots of random features and some great vision, but that does not translate into great products.”
The fact is that, not much has changed until today, Jim. You should still consider buying a Mac today. Windows Vista today does not have a character.
The UI changes bring nothing revolutionary except potentially more training to all level of users. Microsoft have missed the whole point. You should start getting a usage survey of what are the frequently clicked areas rather than burying more and more useful functionalities deep inside.
Reorganizing the way of using Windows is NOT an innovation. The user wants a better experience - do things quicker, smarter, more elegant etc - and not experiencing unnecessary change to what they are already used to.
Microsoft security guru Michael Howard put the sign (the title) on his door on commemorating the completion of Windows Vista. Last week, Microsoft’s shares closed above $29 for the first time since November 2004. The market looks ready to embrace the day for Vista - Jan 30, 2007.
Vista has improved reliability and security, protected mode IE, Aero glass UI and media centricity together with gratuitous UI changes, degraded performance on older machines, new compatibility issues and high cost of migration. Despite mixed views from market watchers, Microsoft remains bullish about its latest operating system.
“Our market is so much larger now than five years ago when we introduced Windows XP. We expect Vista to be the fastest-adopted OS in our history,” said Mike Sievert, Corporate Vice-president for Windows Client Marketing.
Continue reading ‘eXPired: This office is certified XP-free’
Update: Microsoft has launched Express Vista Upgrade voucher scheme in an attempt to minimize the impacts of Vista delay. Major PC vendors including Dell, HP and Lenovo are offering various deals related to the scheme. However, if you do not want the hassle of dealing with OS upgrade yourself, stay tune and wait.
A new PC that carries the Windows Vista Capable PC logo can run Windows Vista. To get the best Vista experience you will need a Windows Vista Premium Ready PC. Such a PC includes at least:
- 1 GHz 32-bit (x86) or 64-bit (x64) processor.
- 1 GB of system memory.
- Support for DirectX 9 graphics with a WDDM driver, 128 MB of graphics memory (minimum), Pixel Shader 2.0 and 32 bits per pixel.
- 40 GB of hard drive capacity with 15 GB free space.
- DVD-ROM Drive.
- Audio output capability.
- Internet access capability.
However, Dell CEO Kevin Rollins suggested otherwise on Thursday, 26 Oct at a speech at Shanghai’s Jiaotong University. “I think they tell you maybe 1 gig of memory is OK. No, two gigs of memory would be great.”
The latest Windows Vista RC2 has improved tremendously but you may want to keep using Windows XP until it has gone through a few cycles of security & bug fixes after its official release. Are you aware of the features that are missing if you continue to use Windows XP? Or even worse what limitations Microsoft has imposed on the so-called Windows XP “down-level” features to discourage you from using the older Windows?
Internet Explorer 7
Internet Explorer 7 running on Windows XP will not run in Protected Mode or support Parental Controls.
Update: The setup will prompt you for product key. You cannot find any way to get it on the download page. You need to obtain it at Windows Vista GetReady. If you registered for the Customer Preview Program with the release of Windows Vista Beta 2 in June, you do not need to register again. Just use the product key for Beta 2.
So, you are eager to download and try out the Windows Vista RC2 over the weekend? After getting through the time to download the 2.49GB ISO image, you need a tool to open it if you want to take a look at what is included inside. A search in Wikipedia quickly reveals the ways to handle ISO image.
Most operating systems (including Mac OS, BSD, Linux, and Windows with Microsoft Virtual CD-ROM panel) allow these images to be mounted as if they were physical disks, making them somewhat useful as a universal archive format. For Windows user, you can just download Microsoft Virtual CD-ROM Panel to do the job. Yes, you don’t need a shareware or open-source utility. It is free without asking the authenticity of your Windows XP copy.
Ian Hellen and Vishal Kumar, both security PM at Secure Windows Initiative (SWI) have put up some presentation slides for the recent Hack In the Box Security Conference in KL, Malaysia. The slides give an overview of the major security initiatives that fundamentally change the engineering process of Windows Vista compared to Windows XP.
“Stop playing catch up! - Find & fix before ship!” is the guideline for the initiatives. Windows Vista security approach starts with the engineering process. There are 4 key areas Microsoft has identified to address in Windows Vista.
- Apply least privilege throughout the architecture: Harden services, applications, browser