The PC Informant » Microsoft

Future Windows

Vic Laurie — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 18:46:58 +0000

Microsoft just held its annual Professional Developers Conference. As usual some hints about future developments in Windows were given.

You may not yet be using Windows 7 but there is already talk about Windows 8. As I mentioned last month, there is even a site about Windows 8. (It’s not an official Microsoft site, however.) Microsoft has now released a roadmap that has been interpreted to indicate 2012 as the year for the release of Windows 8.

Much more concrete information is available about the next version of Internet Explorer, IE9. A Microsoft blog talks about improvements in performance and scripting. A very interesting addition may be graphics hardware acceleration. It is not clear exactly how this is to be implemented or how generally applicable it will be but using hardware acceleration could be quite an advance for IE. Note that it requires Windows features that Windows XP doesn’t have.

Free Microsoft programs

Vic Laurie — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 10:21:57 +0000

Microsoft may charge a lot for Windows but it also has quite a lot of free software. At TechRadar Aditya Chandrasekhar has put together a list of 24 applications from Microsoft that he thinks are the best. (Actually, not all the applications on the list are from Microsoft.)

To take a look at what’s available from Microsoft in general, go the Microsoft Download Center.

Left-handed mouse pointers for Windows

Vic Laurie — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 10:44:13 +0000

I’m not left-handed but, from teaching, I know that the standard mouse setup can be inconvenient for those who are. Changing the buttons on a mouse is a standard Windows adjustment but Microsoft has also supplied a set of mouse pointers (AKA cursors) for left-handers. They can be downloaded at this Microsoft link. The download site includes a Word DOCX file with instructions on how to install the files.

Cursor files have the extension .CUR and are usually in the \Windows\Cursor\ folder. Download the desired cursor files and place them in this folder. Or, if you desire, you can create a sub-folder to hold all left-handed cursor files. If the PC has several users, you may want to create a separate left-handed pointer scheme to make switching back and forth easier.

The quickest way to access the Cursor folder is to enter “cursor” in the Run line in XP or the Start Search line in Vista. (In Windows 7, I haven’t found a quick way unless the Run line is enabled.) Note that you may be prompted about administrator privileges.

Once the cursor files are where you want them, the mouse can be configured as explained at my education page or in the Microsoft Word document mentioned above. Mouse settings are available through the Control Panel.

Did Apple blow a golden opportunity?

Vic Laurie — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 10:49:12 +0000

When Microsoft was struggling with the poor reception for Vista, poor search market share, security holes, and other problems, Apple made some inroads on Windows. However, several observers have written that Apple failed to really take advantage when Microsoft was in a hole. Now with Windows 7 revitalizing Microsoft, they say the chance to make substantial gains on Microsoft has passed.

Jim Jubak is a stock market commentator and at his investment blog, he asks, Has Apple blown it? Did the company squander the competitive chance of a lifetime? He makes a pretty good analysis:

But it still looks to me that Apple has missed its chance. It had a limited window of opportunity when competitors such as Microsoft couldn’t do anything right and it didn’t turn that opening into a big enough share of the personal computer market. It was first to market with a game-changing smart phone but the company has pursued a high-end niche strategy with the iPhone that has left the door wide open for Google to grab for the mass market.

If this is as good as it gets for Apple, the company has no one to blame, finally, but itself. The opportunity was there and Apple didn’t exploit it as ruthlessly and as relentlessly as it needed to.

Here’s my basic problem with Apple’s strategy and execution: The company didn’t kick ‘em hard enough when they were down.

In his blog, Bill Pytlovany, Windows expert and the author of WinPatrol, writes:

The market has been ripe for Apple to pick up a sizable portion of the computer share but it has failed. According to market researchers IDC and Gartner, Macintosh sales are up but their share is still way below 10%. That compares to PC sales by Acer and Toshiba. Why doesn’t the Mac have a larger market share?

Apple Inc has a polished image, high customer satisfaction and its brand identity couldn’t be much better. People who chose Macs have been very happy with their purchase. The only portable music play anyone wants is an iPod. The iPhone has set the bar so high for cell phones that companies are struggling to keep up. The stock value of AAPL is double what it was a year ago and is still climbing.

So, why are people still forking over their hard earned money for Windows 7 machines and not Macs? It doesn’t make sense. Did Apple drop the ball while Steve Jobs was on sick leave? In their efforts to target the cool people did they missed an opportunity to attract the main stream market disappointed with Windows Vista?

Personally, I think Apple has decided that the PC is not its main business. After all, it’s the consumer electronics like the iPod and the iPhone that have been blockbuster successes. In PCs, Apple has a strong niche position in the upscale market but apparently doesn’t see any point in going up against an entrenched Windows in the mass PC market.

What do you think? Did Apple miss a big chance to increase its share of the PC market? Or is it really a consumer electronics and entertainment company?

Windows 7 borrowed from the Mac?

Vic Laurie — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 16:52:43 +0000

A small ruckus broke out when Simon Aldous, partner group manager at Microsoft, acknowledged that the design of Windows 7 had drawn on some inspiration from the Mac. In an interview at PCR, Aldous said:

One of the things that people say an awful lot about the Apple Mac is that the OS is fantastic, that it’s very graphical and easy to use. What we’ve tried to do with Windows 7 – whether it’s traditional format or in a touch format – is create a Mac look and feel in terms of graphics.

Redmond was not pleased. Aldous was quickly slapped down by a Microsoft repudiation of his remarks. Brandon LeBlanc, a company spokesman wrote:

An inaccurate quote has been floating around the Internet today about the design origins of Windows 7 and whether its look and feel was “borrowed” from Mac OS X. Unfortunately this came from a Microsoft employee who was not involved in any aspect of designing Windows 7. I hate to say this about one of our own, but his comments were inaccurate and uninformed.

I admire Aldous’s candor, but I think his career path at Microsoft just took a new direction.

Bing updated

Vic Laurie — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 19:14:24 +0000

As posted yesterday, Google is updating its search engine. Not to be outdone, Microsoft isn’t sitting still and will be bringing out a new version of Bing. Mary Jo Foley has some details at her ZDNet blog.

The malware industry

Vic Laurie — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 11:28:42 +0000

I’ve posted before about how cybercrime has become an organized industry but here’s some more on the subject; it’s a Microsoft report entitled, “Microsoft Security Intelligence Report Volume 7″. PC World comments:

Malware makers – the criminals responsible for viruses and worms – have become increasingly organized and sophisticated, according to a Microsoft security report that was released today. Gamers, the gullible, USB drive users, and people who don’t patch their PCs are their biggest targets.

Cybercriminals are organized like corporations, and follow regular software release cycles, said Jeff Williams, principal group program manager for the Microsoft Malware Protection Center: “They are working for monetary gain.”

Microsoft updates MSN.com

Vic Laurie — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 17:38:41 +0000

Microsoft is giving a new look to its Web portal MSN.com. Computerworld reports:

Microsoft plans to start rolling out a redesigned MSN.com on Wednesday in the U.S., the first major update for the page in more than 10 years.

Frequent visitors to the site will immediately notice one major change: The new page has only half the number of links as the old one. That’s a sharp departure from the previous design, which featured around 40 links on just the top third of the page. The site has also dropped the trademark blue background for a simpler white page.

Microsoft re-patching

Vic Laurie — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 18:38:26 +0000

Gregg Keizer reports at ComputerWorld:

Microsoft yesterday re-patched Internet Explorer, the third time it’s been forced to repair one of the updates from its largest-ever bug fix, which was delivered on Oct. 13.

Monday’s fix targeted MS09-054, the update that patched four vulnerabilities, all “critical,” in Internet Explorer (IE). According to Christopher Budd, a spokesman for the Microsoft Security Response Center (MSRC), the follow-up hotfix patches Web page display problems introduced by the update. Budd downplayed the severity of the problems, saying that the number of users affected was “limited.”

Is Windows 7 the last major release?

Vic Laurie — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 11:34:18 +0000

Windows 7 is currently the focus of attention and will likely dominate the PC for a few years. But what about the future? At PCMag, technology industry analyst Tim Bajarin speculates about what comes after Windows 7:

So, Windows 7 does, in fact, matter. But for how long? At the moment, we live in a client/server world, so the operating system will likely matter on the enterprise level for some time. On the consumer level, the availability of thousands of Windows apps for PCs may well help this dominant OS live on as well. But as always, the world of technology is changing, and as such, it’s possible that this may be the last major version of Windows to come out.

He goes on to say:

With these factors in play, Win 7 may end up being the last major Windows release. Next time out, the OS may be much more focused on the cloud. Like Google’s Chrome, such a release would likely be free. Over the next few yeasr, Microsoft will have to figure out how to make money from cloud-based services, rather than from selling the operating system outright. In order to do this, the company will have to reinvent itself—something that will have to happen if Microsoft is going to survive and thrive in the future.

Another observer who wonders about the future of Windows is Christopher Dawson. Dawson provides IT for a school district and he writes an education blog at ZDNet. He compares Google and Microsoft:

I had a couple of very enlightening conversations with representatives from Microsoft and Google back-to-back on Friday. While our conversations were focused on their educational initiatives, some of which I’ll be featuring tomorrow on ZDNet Education, the more interesting aspects of the interviews actually related to their entirely different approaches to the Web, the cloud, and computing in general. These approaches, and the history behind them, beg the question, is it time for Microsoft to reinvent itself if it wants to avoid becoming the computing equivalent of fossil fuels?