Microsoft Windows News

R.I.P. Waledac: Undoing the damage of a botnet

Microsoft News Center: Earlier this year, we wrote in this blog about Operation b49 - the groundbreaking legal and technical efforts led by Microsoft in cooperation with academic and industry experts around the world to shut down the notorious Waledac botnet, a network of tens of thousands of computers hijacked by bot-herders to spread malware, send spam and commit other forms of cybercrime. Today, I'm pleased to announce that our legal action to permanently shut down the botnet has been successful and we have begun working with Internet Service Providers (ISPs) and CERTS to help customers remove the Waledac infection from their computers.

activewin.com Thu, 09 Sep 2010 15:34:19 +0000

Microsoft Windows XP's Long Enterprise IT Goodbye

Someday soon you won't see Microsoft's Windows XP as an option on new computers. A little less soon, and Windows XP won't even be available as a special order item. In three and a half years, all support for XP will stop. By then, everyone using Windows will presumably have moved up to Windows 7 or whatever else is next.

activewin.com Thu, 09 Sep 2010 15:34:19 +0000

New version of Windows Storage Server due by the end of September

Microsoft has just hit the near-final Release Candidate (RC) 0 milestone with Windows Storage Server 2008 R2 and is expecting to deliver the final code to its server OEMs before the end of September, according to information from private testers.

activewin.com Thu, 09 Sep 2010 15:34:19 +0000

Office for the iPad? Or are Office Web Apps good enough?

Mary Jo Foley: Microsoft execs have been consistently noncommittal when asked whether they will introduce a version of Office for the iPad, Android tablets and phones, and various other devices. I'd bet there are internal wars of words (and more) inside Redmond's hallowed halls as to whether doing so would hurt or help more, in terms of boosting Microsoft's bottom line and its customer base. I also wouldn't be surprised in the least if skunkworks teams inside Microsoft already are working on at least a few of these variants.

activewin.com Thu, 09 Sep 2010 15:34:19 +0000

Microsoft and Internet for All

The world is currently in a globalization state of mind so Microsoft thought that it would be good time to go the same way and work with governments around the world to make Internet access available to everyone. The company has launched the Shape the Future program, a program that works with national or municipal governments in public-private partnerships, to connect the billions of people that currently don't have Internet, the priority being students and their families as well as educators.

activewin.com Wed, 08 Sep 2010 08:42:32 +0000

New Internet Explorer 9 Interface Caught on Video

Microsoft plans to unveil the design of Internet Explorer 9 next week, but thanks to a new leak, we now have a pretty good idea of what the next generation of Microsoft's browser will look like. Currently, Microsoft only offers " developer preview " versions of the browser that do not feature the new user interface. The enterprising Internet Explorer 9 fans at IEBest.com , however, managed to get an early copy of the browser and captured the new interface on video.

activewin.com Wed, 08 Sep 2010 08:42:32 +0000

Microsoft: Small Business Server 7 beta now due by the end of September

The third member of Microsoft's new trio of small business servers, codenamed "Small Business Server 7? is running behind the other two, and is now set to go to public beta by the end of September. The three new products - the "Vail" Windows Home Server release, the "Aurora" hybrid-cloud small-business offering, and Small Business Server (SBS) 7 - were all expected to hit new milestones before the end of August .

activewin.com Wed, 08 Sep 2010 08:42:32 +0000

Microsoft Exchange Online users reporting more cloud access problems

Mary Jo Foley: My post late last week about unplanned downtime for Microsoft's Business Productivity Online Suite (BPOS) seemingly has opened the floodgates for more similar reports. On September 7, I began receiving notes from several customers of Microsoft's hosted Online Services - which include Exchange Online, SharePoint Online, Communications Online, Live Meeting and the BPOS bundle of these services - of yet more access problems.

activewin.com Wed, 08 Sep 2010 08:42:32 +0000

Hands-On with Windows Small Business Server "Aurora"

Windows IT Pro Paul Thurrott In many ways, Aurora is a starter server, but lurking underneath the hood is (almost) the full power of Windows Server, just waiting to be unleashed.

winnetmag.com Tue, 07 Sep 2010 16:31:45 +0000

Are routerless datacenters in Microsoft's future?

Microsoft Research is exploring a new way to connect servers directly to other servers, without the use of any switches or dedicated networking inside a datacenter container. That project, known as CamCube, is one way that Microsoft execs are attempting to rethink the datacenter. More on that in a moment.... In the nearer term, Microsoft's various development teams are making their own tweaks to the fabric powering the company's existing and future cloud services.