The big selling point for IE 8 (and yes, I know the software is free!) was security. The same is true for IE 9 -- a point Microsoft is taking great pains to make.
One of the biggest threats is the inadvertent downloading rogue code. IE 9 taps into a database of identified malware and warns users who may be tricked into downloading one of these little nasties. Files that are deemed safe can be used with no warning at all.
Microsoft still has roughly 60 percent or more of the browser market and loathes giving up any more share.
Have you tried to IE 9 beta? Impressions welcome at [email protected].
Posted by Doug Barney on 09/20/2010 at 1:18 PM2 comments
One reader discusses where compatibility issues stem from when using an older application on a newer OS:
The only "legacy" software I run is a shareware calculator program I purchased when I was still running Windows 95 (fifteen years ago) and it has never given me a bit of trouble on any edition of Windows. Why? Because it was well written!
People just love to demonize the OS when their old -- and often unpatched -- applications and drivers don’t work correctly but the truth is...
Like any other tool, operating systems are designed to be used in a certain way. Microsoft publishes an applications programming interface so that programmers can write code that will be reliable and stable no matter what version of Windows you are using. If software developers use the APIs provided by Microsoft, their software will run, not only on the current version of Windows but all future versions of Windows. The problem is that software vendors often bypassed XP APIs in order to extract better performance (at the expense of future compatibility). This was particularly important to ISVs in the early days when people were still trying to run Windows XP on 800MHz processors with only 128MB of slow RAM.
The bottom line …
Any application written to Windows XP certification standards will run under Windows Vista or Windows 7 -- unmodified. System level drivers are the exception to this because they interface with computer hardware. (It was legacy hardware drivers that gave Vista a bad name. That and the MS marketing team setting ridiculously optimistic expectations for Vista on lame hardware!)
Before Windows Vista, Microsoft made little attempt to enforce the programming standards defined by their APIs. Instead, they put a premium on legacy support (at all costs). This legacy support opened the doors for malware to creep in -- and caused a plethora of security problems for XP.
Microsoft tried to stem the tide by encouraging ISVs to seek Windows XP certification, but few software vendors actually sought such certification. Three years have passed since the NT 6 kernel was released. Most of the major ISVs have released up-to-date NT 6 drivers and Windows 7 is benefiting from this 'vendor catch-up.' (The NT 6 kernel is found in both Vista and Windows 7 -- and will probably be the kernel for Windows 8 as well!)
The XP-mode solution is a good one (it is a full XP SP3 implementation). However, the Microsoft Virtual-PC infrastructure makes it look sluggish. A better solution for running XP-mode is the VMware player. It will port the XP-mode code you download from Microsoft directly into the VMware player.
-Marc
Share your thoughts with the editors of this newsletter! Write to [email protected]. Letters printed in this newsletter may be edited for length and clarity, and will be credited by first name only (we do NOT print last names or e-mail addresses).
Posted by Doug Barney on 09/20/2010 at 1:18 PM0 comments
Up until now, test versions of IE 9 had no real interface, and were designed for performance and compatibility work.
Now there is a version you can actually look at and use. The just-released public beta of IE 9 is designed for added security, but also hopes to up the ante in terms of supporting standards. The new browser includes CSS 3 and HTML 5. HTML 5 is apparently rich enough that you can run video without plug-ins like Flash or Silverlight.
Microsoft is also hoping to tap in the unused power of today's graphical processing units to speed things up considerably.
Even Google had nice things to say about IE 9: "We're really welcoming the innovation and excited about more standards support [from Microsoft]," said Google exec Brian Rakowski.
Posted by Doug Barney on 09/20/2010 at 1:18 PM3 comments
Every year Interbrand surveys consumers to determine who has the hottest brand. Sugar water purveyor Coca-Cola (the company has some 3,300 different beverages) is, as usual, number one. The next three brands are all computer related, with IBM coming in second, Microsoft third, and Google a close fourth. Most surprising to me is that Apple came in seventeenth, three places behind Cisco! That sounds a bit sketchy to me.
Who is your favorite computer brand (and feel free to vote for Redmond magazine!)? E-mail your thoughts to [email protected].
Posted by Doug Barney on 09/20/2010 at 1:18 PM2 comments
While the overall U.S. unemployment rate is just a smidge under 10 percent, there is a spot of good news in the tech sector, at least according to a report from TechAmerica. While 2010 tech employment still lags 2009 highs, it is moving in the right direction.
Software services gained over 14,000 jobs in the first half of this year, and engineering packed on nearly 30,000.
There was a failure in communications services as this area dropped nearly 23,000 slots. Wonder if the growth of the cloud will make up for this shortfall?
Posted by Doug Barney on 09/17/2010 at 1:18 PM0 comments
Android may be well ahead of Windows Mobile, but that didn't stop a Windows Phone 7 exec from taking a pot shot at the rival company. According to Tivanka Ellawala, who runs the MS Mobile Group, Android may be open source but that doesn't make it free. Ellawala more than hinted that patent holders may sue over various infringements, which would cost OEMs (and, ultimately, consumers) some hard-earned cash.
Having been on both sides of patent lawsuits, Microsoft is in the know. And if I were to guess, I'd say Microsoft may be one of the leading candidates to sue!
Are these lawsuits out of hand or just proper recompense for the hard work of invention? You tell me at [email protected].
Posted by Doug Barney on 09/17/2010 at 1:18 PM2 comments
I've always like Novell. It is feisty, creative, customers love it and it survived a Microsoft onslaught that would have killed a lesser group of people.
Now, Novell may turn into two Novells, as reports surface that the company may be split up and sold in two pieces, with the core SUSE Linux business going one way and everything else, like e-mail and LAN operating systems, another.
The Wall Street Journal is reporting that the second buyer may be VMware.
Both deals are expected to happen at the same time, though Novell has not confirmed any of this.
What are your thoughts on Novell's past, present and future? Send 'em my way at [email protected].
Posted by Doug Barney on 09/17/2010 at 1:18 PM2 comments
One reader points out a compatibility issue with Windows 7, while another shares what he would like to change with Microsoft's latest OS:
I began using VirtualBox a while back and it is one of the most amazing free pieces of software I've seen. I would suggest using this on Windows 7 to virtualize any XP or other OS for legacy compatibility (or other needs). It is a great product, and did I mention it is free? In fact, I like it better than VMWare for workstation VMs (never thought I'd say that about any product, let alone a free one).
Regarding Windows 7 compatibility, I run 64-bit at home and the only app I recall having an issue with is my version of Quicken. Here's what happened to me with Quicken: All of my checkbook registers are housed in Quicken and backed up for the last seven years or so. I upgraded to Win 7 (64-bit), and my version of Quicken would not work. I had no reason to upgrade as all I use it for is a basic check register. It will not run on the new OS. Therefore, I purchased the standard version of Quicken to run on Win 7 and thought I would import my register from my old version of Quicken running on my XP box. I was not allowed to import my old register, as it was housed in the Deluxe Edition of Quicken.
So, Quicken said I would have to upgrade to Deluxe, which I don't need and will not pay for. Long story short, I still have my Quicken and old checkbook registers (for my friends at the IRS) on my old XP box that will soon be virtualized via VirtualBox on my Win 7 machine...for free! Problem solved, kind of...
Thanks for the good articles. Keep up the good work!
-Travis
I would say the two things that I REALLY hope they fix on Windows 7 is the "random" removal of pinned items, and the issue with moving/deleting folders and/or files in Windows Explorer that causes the "file is in use" error.
-Travis
Share your thoughts with the editors of this newsletter! Write to [email protected]. Letters printed in this newsletter may be edited for length and clarity, and will be credited by first name only (we do NOT print last names or e-mail addresses).
Posted by Doug Barney on 09/17/2010 at 1:18 PM0 comments
Microsoft has an array of security tools, both free and not free. It has the Malicious Software Removal Tools and Security Essentials, both free, and the Forefront line, which is far from free.
It also has monthly patches, which are also free (you can get 'em so long as you have legit software).
For legacy apps, Microsoft has a tool that doesn't patch so much as block attacks. The Enhanced Mitigation Experience Toolkit just came out with its second rev and can help protect IE 6, XP and other older titles.
One of the new features that admins are sure to like is the GUI, which makes it more intuitive to work the product and also see the product at work.
Oddly, just like some of the legacy software it protects, EMET 2.0 is not an officially supported product -- like all the used cars I buy, it is given on an "as is" basis.
Posted by Doug Barney on 09/15/2010 at 1:18 PM0 comments
A reader points out why enterprises feeling the economic pinch may not abandon their old versions of Office for a free alternative:
I don't care what Forrester Research says, no company large enough to be called an "enterprise" is going to switch to OpenOffice to save a few bucks. Further, few small businesses who haven't already switched to OpenOffice to reduce licensing costs are going to switch in the middle of a recession (actually, a sluggish recovery from a recession) just because they can. It is cheaper to keep the MS Office they have over making their employees adjust to an alternative (free or not).
In the end, almost everybody without an enterprise license agreement with Microsoft is going to buy a new copy of Office only when they replace their computers. And when they do replace their computers, the incremental cost of Microsoft Office is relatively small compare to trying to maintain two different "Office-like" products -- at least not as long as Microsoft Office offers compatibility modes so their older products work with their newer ones.
When the economy gets tough, management will use the computers they already have (with the version of MS Office they already have). They will not dump their MS Windows 2003 in order to switch to the latest version of OpenOffice because it won't really save them anything to do so.
Now, a small business that is buying computers for the first time might opt for OpenOffice instead of MS Office, but that represents only a small portion of the businesses -- and certainly not enough of them to constitute a "squeeze" on Microsoft.
-Marc
Share your thoughts with the editors of this newsletter! Write to [email protected]. Letters printed in this newsletter may be edited for length and clarity, and will be credited by first name only (we do NOT print last names or e-mail addresses).
Posted by Doug Barney on 09/15/2010 at 1:18 PM3 comments
Many in IT still don't trust the cloud. Well, Microsoft gave a fresh reason for concern as its Business Productivity Online Services (BPOS) went dark three times in as many weeks.
While customers with SLAs should get a break on their bill, that not really the point. You buy software, whether in the cloud or on premise, to use it, not stare at a blank or frozen screen (insert all the Windows jokes you want here).
In one case, BPOS was down for two hours, which is about one hour, 59 minutes and 59 seconds too long for most IT pros.
BPOS is an online portfolio of apps -- including Exchange, SharePoint and Office Communications Server.
Do you trust the cloud? Are higher ups pushing you to consider cloud apps? Share your feelings at [email protected].
Posted by Doug Barney on 09/15/2010 at 1:18 PM2 comments
Sometimes I think half of all Microsoft employees are hired to invent new names for existing products. In the past, I've been corrected by Microsoft PR for messing up a name. Then I point out the product is on its third name, and only its fourth version!
The latest case in point is Office Communication Server, which used to be Office Communicator, and is now simply Lync Server 2010 (didn't Lync star in the Mod Squad?).
The new version is in Release Candidate stage, which means it should be released soon.
Communications Server is designed to handle core PBX functions, but is used more to add value to Office desktops, offering PC-to-PC voice, presence and conferencing. The upcoming release makes mobile devices part of the Lync family, so one can be tracked by bosses and forced to join conferences even when ducking work.
Do you want total connectivity and communication, no matter where you are, or do you need a little downtime, like when you are coaching your kid's hockey team? Spill your guts at [email protected].
Posted by Doug Barney on 09/15/2010 at 1:18 PM1 comments