Microsoft was quick, albeit more than entitled to applaud Windows 7 for being the fastest selling operating system in history, but fact is that the latest Windows client is enjoying nothing short of stellar adoption. At least in some markets; case in point: Redmond, the software giant’s home.

Redmondians must really love their Microsoft since almost half of them have already upgraded to Windows Vista’s successor, according to Internet metrics company Net Application. Statistics made public by Net Applications indicate that no less than 42% of the Internet users in Microsoft’s back yard are already running Windows 7, namely approximately 6 times as many as the global average.

Of course, the software giant has the bulk of its employees in the area, some 40,000 workers, and they’re bound to be contributing to fattening up the overall number of Windows 7 users in Redmond. “The Redmond, WA area has the highest usage share of Windows 7 in the U.S. Within the actual city of Redmond, 42% of internet users are on Windows 7,” Net Applications stated.

Read the complete story

Microsoft is latching on to the social networking game and is looking to simplify social networks through its Windows Live online service.

“The problem with social networking today is that there are simply too many options that it becomes difficult to keep track of all your friends in different social network groups,” said Microsoft head of Windows Live for Southeast Asia, Barrie Ooi.

Indeed, today’s social networking environment covers a diverse range of platforms that include Twitter, Flickr, Facebook and many more.

Also, different countries have different preferences for social networking groups such as QQ in China, CyWorld in South Korea, Mixi in Japan and MySpace in the United States.

Read the complete story

Microsoft that is considered to be the largest software company in the world developed a massive user base, unfortunately it lost its respect. Its operating system known as Windows Vista came with a range of innovations and frustrations as well, due to which the company got an icy public reception. For that reason Microsoft decided to create something unprecedented, i.e. the company would let users to try its new version of Windows, then take their advice in order to develop the product that might become the choice of most users.

Its latest version, i.e. Windows 7 was released in October last year and proved that it was able to create the operating system that met the requirements of users. Windows 7 is a forward step for the company. Microsoft reported its best quarter in its history.

Read the complete story

Microsoft has made available for download a reliability refresh designed to resolve issues affecting Windows Vista, including platforms upgraded to Service Pack 2, in Bluetooth pairing scenarios. According to the Redmond company, Bluetooth pairing issues affect only Windows Vista, and not customers running Windows XP or the latest version of the Windows client, Windows 7.

Customers can now grab an update from the Microsoft Download Center, set up to resolve reliability issues associated with Windows Portable Devices (WPD). “You try to pair a Bluetooth device with a computer that is running Windows Vista. When you initiate Bluetooth pairing from the Bluetooth device, the Bluetooth services on the Bluetooth device are not enabled automatically.

Read the complete story

Microsoft has been releasing freebies for Windows 7 users fairly regularly. However, that doesn’t mean that Microsoft has completely forgotten about users of older versions of Windows. The Windows team has released a new set of goodies for Windows Live, which are available not only for Windows 7 but also for Windows XP and Vista.

The Windows Experience Pack allows you to enjoy the beach, explore the city, go on a safari or experience the mountains without leaving your computer. It is mainly targeted towards Windows Live users and includes display pictures (static as well as dynamic), winks, emotions and messenger scenes.

Windows 7 users will also get a new set of desktop backgrounds (wallpaper) and screensavers. The desktop wallpaper is personalized and features your online avatar.The so called Windows Experience Pack is little more than a set of Windows Live goodies. If you don’t use Windows Live you won’t really find this exciting. However, one can’t really complain about something which is free.

Microsoft (NSDQ:MSFT) said it planned to release the first emergency out-of-band patch of the New Year, repairing a critical exploited vulnerability in Internet Explorer, found as the source of malicious attacks against Google earlier this month.

Microsoft fell short of mentioning when the update would be released but promised to have more information about the impending patch on Wednesday. Security researchers say that the IE vulnerability was exploited by hackers in a series of cyberattacks against Google (NSDQ:GOOG) earlier this month.

Security experts say that they have thus far seen only targeted attacks exploiting the aging IE 6. However, researchers said in a blog post Monday that there are reports of a published proof-of-concept code exploiting the same vulnerability on IE 7, as well as Windows XP and Windows Vista.

Read the complete story

Let's take the first sentence first: Researchers had claimed from the outset that porting the exploit to IE7 was just a matter of figuring out the memory layouts, which are different for IE6 and IE7. I had wondered if these would be different on XP and Vista; I assume they aren't because Dai Zovi released his exploit for both at the same time.

Dai Zovi is not a black hat and hasn't released his exploit, so don't expect this work to end up hacking innocents any time soon. But this does prove that the IE7 port isn't all that hard. The bad guy versions may be done already.

Now for the point about DEP: Microsoft defaulted IE7 not to opt in to DEP because of the compatibility problems it created for add-ins and controls. By the time IE8 came out, the security imperative had become greater and ISVs had enough time to adapt. Note that IE7 still has protected mode implemented by default, so even if an attacker can get the exploit to execute, there's not a lot he can do, because he's running in the crippled user context of protected mode.

Read the complete story

A Microsoft spokesperson contacted Betanews today requesting we clarify a story we brought you during the tail end of CES 2010. Specifically, we presented an interview with Windows Phone Senior Marketing Manager Greg Sullivan entitled, "Finally, what to expect from Windows Mobile 7 and Windows Phone."

At the time, we were under the impression that the interview was providing us with a taste of what we could expect from Mobile World Congress in February, and I suggested that Windows Mobile 7 was "only two months away," even though "Microsoft really [wasn't] talking about Windows Mobile 7 specifically."

The spokesperson asked us to reiterate that, while we were given an overview of the direction of Windows Phone, we were not speaking specifically of Windows Mobile 7. The spokesperson did not go into further detail as to which product the interview did concern.

Read the complete story

We have all heard rumors on how Windows 7 is delayed and it could only arrive sometime later this year or even in 2011.

The latest news from the industry is that the software giant could surprise us all by launching it rather soon.

Online sources indicate that Microsoft could launch Windows Mobile 7 at the upcoming Mobile World Congress in Barcelona.

Microsoft finds themselves in a similar situation with Windows Mobile… Windows Vista was labeled a dud and the company bounced back with Windows 7 which has been getting good reviews from almost everywhere.

They need to do something similar with Windows Mobile 7… This platform is currently the fourth most popular platform in the market and faces competition from everywhere.

Apple has their iPhone platform. Google has their Android. Blackberry and Symbian are already established players. Samsung is working on their Bada platform. Palm too has made a decent comeback with their webOS mobile OS.

Customers that have upgraded their Windows Vista Service Pack 1 computers to Service Pack 2 only to subsequently be plagued by frequent crashes can access a solution from Microsoft. The Redmond company notes that it is well aware of the issue.

According to the software giant, some customers that made the jump from Vista SP1 to Vista SP2 have experienced repetitive crashes and have also come across the following stop error message "Stop 0x000000FE BUGCODE_USB_DRIVER". Microsoft also mentions that the same problems affect customers that upgraded from Windows Server 2008 to Windows Server 2008 SP2.

“After you upgrade from Windows Vista Service Pack 1 (SP1) to Windows Vista SP2 or from Windows Server 2008 to Windows Server 2008 SP2, your computer crashes frequently and you receive the following stop error message: Stop 0x000000FE (parameter1, parameter2, parameter3, parameter4) BUGCODE_USB_DRIVER,” the company stated.

Read the complete story