Following Success of Windows on Netbooks, Microsoft Extends Windows Offering to Nettop Devices

Today at Computex, Microsoft Corp. announced that following the success of Windows on netbooks, the Windows offering is being extended to include nettop devices. Netbooks are commonly referred to as ultralow-cost PCs (ULCPCs) and were originally intended for students and other first-time PC customers in emerging markets. Nettop refers to desktops that are ultralow-cost.

In April, Microsoft announced the worldwide extension of the availability of Windows for this emerging class of devices that are primarily used for e-mail, accessing the Internet and instant messaging, and the company is seeing much demand among industry partners who want to ensure that customers can have the benefits of Windows on both new and existing devices.

View Full Article: Microsoft PressPass

Messenger 9.0 Beta to close by end of month

Mess.be: Today we, and probably everyone else who is an official BETA tester for the 9.0 client, has received an e-mail from Microsoft about the recent BETA program. According to the e-mail, over 1000 bugs and suggestions have been posted, and well over 5000 messages on the newsgroups! The e-mail continues to explain the long (unusual) silence over the past few months:

“For the past several months we’ve been gathering feedback from not only you, but also from past beta testers’ comments, other external Windows Live Messenger customers, and Microsoft employees. We’ve compiled a thorough list of feedback, and it’s now time to shift our focus to building the new version of Windows Live Messenger. Therefore, on June 24, we will close the official beta testing program.”.

The Messenger team looks dedicated to taking a look at all the bugs and suggestions which have been posted so far, promising to have process them all by the end of the week.

View Full Article: Mess.be

Windows Installer 4.5 Redistributable

The Microsoft Windows Installer (MSI) is the application installation and configuration service for Windows. Version 4.5 of the Windows Installer has several new features, including:

Multiple Package Transaction: In a multiple package transaction, you can create a single transaction from multiple packages. In a multiple package transaction, a chainer is used to dynamically include packages in the transaction. If any of the packages do not install as expected, you can roll back the installation.

Embedded UI Handler: You can embed a custom user interface (UI) handler in the Windows Installer package. This makes a custom UI easier to integrate. You can also invoke an embedded UI handler from the Add or Remove item in Control Panel. Or, you can invoke an embedded UI handler during a Windows Installer repair process.

Download: Windows Installer 4.5 Redistributable

Newest Windows Installer will enable multiple package installs

Managing a massive Windows installation has already been likened to administering a colossal database. Today, Microsoft added new functions to its Installer for setup packages, that really does start treating Windows like one.

Windows Live Writer CTP Released

On the Windows Live Writer Blog today, they announced the availability of the Windows Live Writer CTP. With this new build comes a lot of new features, which I will discuss in this blog post. So why is this a CTP and not just a normal beta? Well the main reason is that it features a new set of plugin APIs (version 1.1) and the whole Technical Preview is more intended for developers rather than consumers. Nonetheless, there are still some nice new additions for consumers.

Download: Windows Live Writer CTP
View Full Article: LiveSide

Live Search to become the latest to try 404 redirects

In its scramble to avoid sliding to as low as fifth on the scale of search engine providers this year, Microsoft today has begun grabbing misspelled URLs pointing to its own hosted domains, and redirecting those users to Live Search.

‘You Already Have MinWin’

We have learnt quite a lot about Windows 7 this week, and one of the things was that Windows 7 would not get a new kernel. The call for a new kernel has been made a few times on the internet, but anyone with a bit more insight into Windows’ kernel knows that there is absolutely no need to write a new kernel for Windows - the problems with Windows lie in userland, not kernelland. While the authenticity of the Shipping Seven blog is not undisputed, the blogger makes some very excellent points regarding the kernel matter.

View Full Article: OSNews