Archive for March, 2007

New Windows Vista Ultimate Extras:The Ultimate Wallpapers

Microsoft released two new windows wallpapers at the Windows Ultimate website.There are two wallpapers available, one of which features a large version of the start orb, while the other features the new “flare” design as seen on the new Windows Vista packaging. Both wallpapers are available in a wide variety of sizes.

Download: Windows Vista Ultimate Wallpapers

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Windows Help program (WinHlp32.exe) for Windows Vista

Windows Help (WinHlp32.exe) is a Help program that has been included with Microsoft Windows versions starting with the Microsoft Windows 3.1 operating system. However, 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. If you want to view 32-bit .hlp files, you must download and install the program (WinHlp32.exe) from the Microsoft Download Center.

Instructions
1. Install Windows Help by clicking the Download button.
2. Click Run and then follow the instructions on the screen.

Download: Windows Help program (Freeware)

Microsoft: Make our HD Photo format a standard

Microsoft plans to submit its HD Photo image format to a standards body in order to establish a higher-quality replacement for today’s ubiquitous JPEG standard. The standardization move makes sense, given Microsoft’s ambitions, said InfoTrends analyst Ed Lee: “If Microsoft is looking for wider adoption of the format, it needs to be divorced from Microsoft itself. They’re going to have to loosen the strings on it.” Microsoft has put years of research into HD Photo and knows it has years more work to create a JPEG alternative, even more for a replacement. The company knows it has to convince partners from every corner of the industry, including camera makers and those who build photo printing kiosks. “We know for it to be successful there has to be whole ecosystem,” said Rico Malvar, a Microsoft Research director who helped develop the format.

A broader color gamut is one of the advantages Microsoft touts for HD Photo. (”HD” doesn’t actually stand for anything, but the company hopes it will connote the “high definition” advantages of HDTV.) Among other HD Photo features:

* It can store 16 or 32 bits of data for each color, compared with JPEG’s 8 bits, making it easier to discern shadow details or the subtle tonal variations of snow in sunlight.
* It compresses data twice as efficiently as JPEG, with either twice the quality at a given file size or half the file size at a given quality.
* It’s designed to work well in camera image-processing chips, and to reduce memory requirements, it encodes images chunk by chunk without having to store the complete image at one time.

News source: News.com

Microsoft takes a ‘Patch Tuesday’ break

The second Tuesday of the month, typically Microsoft’s scheduled patch release day, will not have any security bulletins. Microsoft will, however, go ahead with a release of its monthly update of Windows Malicious Software Removal Tool along with several non-security updates. Microsoft occasionally has months when it has not released security updates; the last one being in September 2005, according to the software giant. “Microsoft continues to investigate potential and existing vulnerabilities in an effort to help protect our customers. Creating security updates that effectively and comprehensively fix vulnerabilities is an extensive process involving a series of sequential steps,” said a company representative.

The patch break could be a welcome respite for IT managers still busy testing the dozen fixes Microsoft released last month and making the switch to daylight saving time, which Congress ordered to happen three weeks earlier this year. Still, the lack of security updates also means that cybercrooks have more time to exploit known security vulnerabilities. There are five known zero-day holes in Microsoft products, according to eEye Digital Security.

News source: News.com

Microsoft looks for better way to search the Net

REDMOND, Wash.–Internet searching was at the forefront of the technologies that Microsoft displayed on Tuesday at an event intended to showcase the company’s research prowess.

Despite a lack of visible progress in catching up with Google, the leader in Internet search engines, Microsoft says it still believes that it will eventually turn the tables by improving the quality of its search results and by changing the way computer users search.

It is all part of an arms race for search supremacy that has engaged top researchers at both companies.

During a morning session for more than 300 visitors at the Microsoft Conference Center, Lili Cheng, a user-interface designer for the Windows Vista operating system, showed off a new service called Mix that will allow Web surfers to organize search results and easily share them.

Cheng, a Microsoft researcher trained as an architect, has moved back and forth between research and product development positions at the company. She said Mix would be released in six to nine months.

source- news.com

Microsoft Research Unveils More Than 100 Innovations for Future of Computing

REDMOND, Wash. — March 6, 2007 — Whether it’s helping people discover distant planets online, share their favorite digital photos with relatives, or show young kids how fun it can be to program computers, Microsoft Research speeds the way to a richer computing experience. Today the doors opened to Microsoft Research TechFest 2007, the company’s annual showcase of research projects, unveiling more than 100 innovations. At TechFest, researchers and product teams form close and lasting ties to jointly advance the frontiers of computing for the industry and customers.

Speaking today at TechFest before an audience of customers, industry and government leaders and independent software vendors, Microsoft Research Senior Vice President Rick Rashid said, “TechFest is one-stop shopping to see and experience the breadth of software innovations we’re pursuing that will allow people to explore their interests more deeply and share the things they care about more easily.”

Rashid moderated demonstrations of a number of key research projects, including World-Wide Telescope, which allows people to peer deep into the heavens on their PCs; Mix: Search-Based Authoring, a new way to build and share digital content at home and work; and Boku, an innovative way of using Xbox® to teach kids how exciting and rewarding computer programming can be.

source-Microsoft Presspass

Windows Live Search Gadget

Microsoft has released a new gadget for Windows Vista sidebar which helps users to search easily without loading the search page in the browser.

Installation of this gadget is also easy like the other Sidebar gadgets.
To download the gadget visit here

OneCare places last in AV comparison

In a report released February 28 and reported by Computerworld, Austrian researcher Andreas Cleminti from AV Comparatives rated Windows Live OneCare dead last out of 17 anti-virus programs, the only program in the comparison to receive no certification from Cleminti.

The report, available online in a report or in pdf form, rated G Data Security’s AntiVirusKit (AVK) the top performing AV program, catching 99.5 percent of malicious code in the comparison tests. OneCare came in well behind all of the other products, catching only 82.4 percent of the malware.

According to Computerworld, Microsoft responded to the results, saying:

“We are looking closely at the methodology and results of the test to ensure that Windows Live OneCare performs better in future tests,” a Microsoft spokesperson said.

A quick search on AV Comparatives shows a number of anti-virus products touting their results in previous tests, from Nod32 to Kapersky, and AV Comparatives have been posting testing results since February of 2004. This appears to be the first test in which OneCare has been included.