M-Dollar

Microsoft today began rolling out its new MSN homepage, but not everyone will be getting it at once: the update will trickle out over the next few weeks to the site's 100 million US customers. The software giant is touting the new version as "its most ...

The Energizer DUO, a USB-powered battery recharger, contains malware that can compromise your Windows PC. ...

Microsoft is advising its customers to install the 32-bit version of Office 2010 over the 64-bit version due to poor add-in support. ...

Microsoft is planning to launch a $2 billion three-month TV ad campaign for Bing in the UK. ...

Apache for Windows has an exploitable flaw in its ISAPI module. Upgrade to 2.2.15 to avoid privileged arbitrary code execution. ...

Microsoft has replaced the browser ballot randomization algorithm to fix the non-random shuffling. ...

Microsoft's mid-market server bundle, Essential Business Server, is being discontinued, with no further development after June 30. EBS shipped in November 2008, aimed at organizations with up to 250-300 desktops. The bundle includes a range of Microsoft server products, including Windows Server 2008, Exchange Server 2007, ...

Let's look back at the week that was in Microsoft news. Here were the top stories: Coding error leads to uneven EU browser ballot distribution: The distribution of browser choices on the EU browser ballot ...

The Technology Guarantee program lets you buy Office 2007 till September 30 and then download Office 2010 for free. Also, the business launch for the 2010 set of products is May 12. ...

More on Microsoft's Pink phones: Reuters says they will arrive in late spring or early summer and Twitter user Conflipper has more juicy details. ...

Microsoft has launched a new Cloud Services website in conjunction with Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer's announcement that he is "betting our company" on the cloud. ...

Microsoft sent flowers to yesterday's funeral for Internet Explorer 6. How touching. ...

Microsoft has unveiled some important elements for the Windows Phone 7 Series development platform. Most importantly, the software giant has confirmed what we've been expecting the company to announce for a while now. "For Microsoft, the cost of going from good to great is a clean ...

More images of Microsoft's Courier tablet/"digital journal" device have leaked. Read ...

With Microsoft's EU-appeasing browser ballot rolling out across Europe over the next three months, dissatisfaction is growing with its implementation. Last week, flaws in its randomization emerged—a result of ineptitude rather than malice. Today, ...

According to the Microsoft Security Response Center, Microsoft will issue two Security Bulletins addressing eight vulnerabilities on Tuesday, and it will host a webcast to address customer questions about the bulletins the following day (March 10 at 11:00 am PST, if you're interested). Both of the ...

Pink, the long rumored Microsoft-branded (but not Microsoft-manufactured) phone(s) that features premium mobile services (think Zune) and has also been referred to as Zune phone, is all but officially confirmed now, thanks to leaked third-party marketing materials obtained by Gizmodo. Microsoft did not announce anything regarding ...

Microsoft Tag is now available for Google Android: search for it on the Android Market. ...

Geosense for Windows 7 provides Google Location geolocation to the Windows Location API. ...

Microsoft explains how IE8 determines what Document Mode to use for rendering websites. The Compatibility View List is down by over 1,000 websites, from over 3,100 to over 2,000. ...

Microsoft has rereleased MS10-015, the security update that caused a BSOD on Windows PCs with a virus (instead, the update will now give a Windows Update error if an infection is detected). ...

More and more personal, private information is being used and stored online than ever before, and at the same time, attacks on that information are increasing in frequency and sophistication. Phishing is a growth ...

Microsoft's Chief Financial Officer Peter Klein today announced that Windows 7 has sold 90 million licenses to-date. ...

The lobbying group European Committee for Interoperable Systems (ECIS) today called on antitrust regulators worldwide to follow the European Commission and pressure Redmond into offering a browser ballot, similar to what the company began serving yesterday to European customers via Windows Update, everywhere. The ballot is ...

Microsoft's healthcare platform will be gaining a SharePoint-based offering called HealthVault Community Connect. It enables hospitals to give patients and physicians access to personal health data in a digital format. ...

It's long been known that Microsoft would have much tighter hardware requirements for Windows Mobile 7 than any previous version of its mobile operating system. Therefore, the general expectation for upgrades to the new version have not been hopeful: if you want Windows Phone 7 Series device, the ...

The Zune HD Facebook app is now available (might take a bit to trickle down the pipes). ...

The Windows Browser Ballot, the browser selection screen that is being offered to Windows users in Europe starting this month, is already coming under fire. Slovakian IT news site DSL.sk decided to test the ballot ...

Microsoft has confirmed its involvement in the Google antitrust investigation by the EU. ...

Microsoft has released Beta 2 of Windows Server AppFabric, a set of integrated technologies for building, scaling, and managing Web and composite applications that run on IIS. ...

Firefox is on a decline. It may not be as steady as Internet Explorer's death spiral, and it certainly has not been going on for as long, but if the last three months are ...

Microsoft investigates IE/Windows Help vulnerability. No patch or in-the-wild exploit yet. ...

US District Court Judge Marsha Pechman has dismissed a year-old lawsuit against Microsoft over alleged antitrust violations for the downgrade rules it set for Windows Vista and XP. Pechman said the plaintiff had not proved Microsoft benefited from the downgrade practices that it created and that ...

Microsoft's Aaron Woodman unveiled the first Windows Phone 7 Series device the world has seen on The Engadget Show: a pre-production prototype QWERTY slider from LG. ...

Let's look back at the week that was in Microsoft news. Here were the top stories: Leaked: WinPhone 7 Series dev to use almost all managed code: More details are emerging about the application development ...

Windows Mobile 6.5 will be renamed Windows Phone Starter Edition. Read ...

Microsoft is warning users of the first rogue antivirus product with a name similar to the legitimate Microsoft Security Essentials software. MSE detects the fake "Security Essentials 2010" as Win32/Fakeinit. ...

More than fifty million netbooks have been sold since the phenomenon's beginnings in late 2007, and of those, only a small fraction run Windows 7. With cheap licenses available in family packs and ...

Botnets—large networks of malware-infected PCs remotely controlled by criminals—are a serious problem on the Internet. The spam, phishing attacks, and malware that these networks send accounts for a massive proportion, in excess of 80 percent, of e-mail traffic. One such network, known as Waledac, has ...

Adobe will only offer Flash on Windows Mobile 7 and up: the company says Windows Mobile 6.5 does not support some of the critical APIs it needs. ...

Microsoft is again warning users that support for Windows Vista RTM ends on April 13 and on July 13, as does support for all versions of Windows 2000 and Windows XP SP2. ...

It's no secret that online service providers cooperate with law enforcement agencies and will hand over personal information of various kinds when subpoenaed, subject to court order, or compelled by search warrant. What is ...

Microsoft has released a slew of nonsecurity updates on Windows Update and the Microsoft Download Center, the majority of which are for the latest versions of the client and server operating systems. Compatibility The first release is for a game, application, or firmware that is either installed ...

Windows MultiPoint Server 2010, an education product that allows users to simultaneously share one computer with multiple screens, is now available. ...

Adobe has released Flash Player 10.1b3, which offers hardware video acceleration for Intel GMA 500 machines. ...

Microsoft has applied for a neat patent for a smart inductive charger (via Being Manan). Inductive charging, used, for example, in the Palm Pre's Touchstone, allows for contactless charging of devices in close proximity. The charger couples inductive charging with an LCD screen that can be used to ...

A recent patent application (via WMPowerUser.com) describes a system devised by Microsoft to enable automatic pairing of devices over short-range wireless connections such as Bluetooth and Wireless USB. After an initial manual pairing, say between a phone and a PC, the system would allow those devices to ...

Remember that rumor from over a year ago that said there wouldn't be a Microsoft phone and instead claimed the software giant would push forward a chassis specification? Well, apparently there won't just be one chassis spec that phone makers have to match (or surpass) to ...

Pay your last respects to Internet Explorer 6 at funeral service on March 4. Hit the link for the full obit. ...

TechCrunch has an analysis of how random the JavaScript code on www.browserchoice.eu responsible for the browser selection for Windows users in the EU actually is. ...

Over six months ago, Google announced it would start phasing out support for Internet Explorer 6 on Orkut and YouTube, and started pushing its users to modern browsers. The search giant has now given a specific kill date for old browser support on the video website ...

Microsoft and Amazon.com have signed a wide-ranging patent cross-licensing agreement that provides each company with access to the other's patent portfolio. Specific terms of the agreement were not disclosed, but it was made clear that Amazon will be paying Microsoft an undisclosed amount of money as ...

Microsoft has released the .PST file format spec that allows developers to tap into a .PST file without having to launch Outlook or build an add-in. ...

Gizmodo takes a look at how Windows Phone 7 Series changes the landscape for phone manufacturers and ends Windows Mobile's era of openness. ...

A few days ago I wrote about the claims that Windows 7 was a memory hog, and that Windows 7 systems tended to be short on memory. The claims were made by "Craig Barth," ...

MDOP 2010 is now available and includes App-V 4.6, supporting Windows Server 2008 R2 64-bit for RDS and Office 2010, as well as MED-V 1.0 SP1 Release Candidate (RTM in April). ...

New leaked screenshots of Windows Live Messenger Wave 4 show a classic Contact List view, Twitter and WordPress integration, possible Video Messages, geo-tagging in Windows Live Photos, and a Friends view. ...

When Apple announced the iPad, hundreds of software companies began to wonder whether they should start porting their applications to the device. Microsoft, the world's largest software maker and the second largest Mac developer in the world (Apple being the first), refused to comment on the ...

This week at Mobile World Congress, Microsoft showed off its new phone platform for the first time. Everything that we knew and loathed about Windows Mobile is gone. Even the name is different. It's ...

After protracted legal wrangling with the EU, the Microsoft browser ballot is at last heading towards roll-out. The EU's complaint was that Microsoft's bundling of Internet Explorer made the browser market less competitive to the detriment of consumers. Wary of substantial fines and endless legal costs, ...

One of the many unanswered questions about Windows Phone 7 Series is what the application development situation will be like. A few details have started to emerge; through both official and unofficial channels (via ...

It was claimed yesterday that Windows 7 machines are "alarmingly low" on memory, with 86 percent of Windows 7 machines using 90-95 percent of their physical memory. Craig Barth, CTO of Devil Mountain Software, ...

After announcing the search deal in July 2009, Yahoo and Microsoft have finally received regulatory clearance from both the US Department of Justice and the EU. Under the agreement between the two companies, Yahoo will use Microsoft's search platform to power its search results and paid ...

As expected, the EU has signed off on the Microsoft-Yahoo search deal. ...

Earlier in the week, Microsoft showed off its attractive new mobile platform. The new operating system, Windows Phone 7 Series, promises a radical change in the world of Microsoft-powered phones, but one thing that remains the same, the company confirmed, is that phone manufacturers will still ...

The recent Google hack has brought security to the top of every IT admin's mind, if it wasn't there already. But securing a network is a huge investment of time and ...

A statement issued by Microsoft revealed that the company is looking into reports that some users of its Hotmail service were accidentally shown other users' inboxes when attempting to access their mail through their mobile phone. The Windows Live sign-in service was down for an hour ...

More will be revealed about IE9 at next month's MIX10 in a keynote presentation by IE General Manager Dean Hachamovitch. ...

The Windows Live ID service was down between 9am and 10am PST this morning resulting in users unable to log in to many Microsoft websites; a failed server is to blame. ...

Windows Mobile 6.5 will live on, rebranded as Windows Phones Classic. ...

Microsoft is planning a 3Q 2010 release for SQL Server 2008 SP2 with SQL Server 2005 SP4 coming in the fourth quarter. The next major release is codenamed Denali. ...

The last three years has seen an explosion in new smartphone operating systems. Apple's iPhone OS, Google's Android, Palm's webOS, and Nokia's Maemo all offer rich, touch-driven platforms for a new generation of fast, ...

Microsoft has been secretive about the Windows Mobile 7 interface, but it appears all over the banners at MWC Barcelona. ...

The EU appears poised to approve the Microsoft-Yahoo search deal this week. ...

Let's look back at the week that was in Microsoft news. Here were the top stories: Windows 7 stability fix breaks stability, puzzles Microsoft: A stability and reliability update for Windows 7 and Windows Server ...

Microsoft has rolled out a new Bing Maps Streetside Photos application, currently in a tech preview phase, that pulls photos from Flickr and overlays them on Bing Maps Streetside photos. ...

Microsoft has been tracking some odd issues that occur on Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2. These bugs are not typically fixed via Windows Update, because these hotfixes should only be applied to systems that are experiencing specific problems. So if you are not severely ...

Microsoft Security Essentials build 1.0.1959.0 was sent out to beta testers with UI improvements, updates to the genuine check process, and performance enhancements. ...

Microsoft is giving away an HTC HD2 to a UK resident with a Twitter account, who follows @windowsphoneUK, and can answer "What would you do for an HD2?" with the #iwantawindowsphone hashtag. ...

Microsoft will be releasing "Windows Activation Technologies (WAT) Update for Windows 7" which, as its name implies, is an update for WAT, the set of built-in activation and validation components, in Windows 7. The update will detect "more than 70 known and potentially dangerous activation exploits" ...

Bill Gates unsurprisingly doesn't find the iPad particularly appealing and believes that a netbook will get you more bang for your buck. ...

One of the updates from this month's giant Patch Tuesday is wreaking havoc on some users Windows PCs by giving them the Blue Screen of Death (BSOD), according to a thread on Microsoft Answers, the company's support forum. Based on what users have found, the update ...

Microsoft will release a beta version of Office Communicator 2010 two weeks after March 10, 2010, according to a UC Expo seminar page. ...

Microsoft has a post up detailing how it looks at usage data to understand how Office is being used in the real world and how this feedback shapes the next version of Office. ...

Earlier this week, Microsoft gave MSDN subscribers Release Candidate downloads of Visual Studio 2010 and .NET Framework 4.0. As promised, the releases are now available to the general public via the Microsoft Download Center. For reference, you may also want to check out the Visual Studio ...

A lawsuit that accused Microsoft of misleading consumers to download and install an update for Windows Genuine Advantage (WGA) under the guise that it was critical security update has been tossed out. Last month, a federal judge refused to certify the lawsuit as a class action, ...

When Microsoft top tier executives first heard about iTunes in 2003, Bill Gates said that Microsoft was "a bit flat footed again" by Steve Jobs while Jim Allchin concluded: "We were smoked." ...

An AD RMS update that completely removes the "application manifest expiry" feature is available. AD RMS customers using IE should install it immediately since the RMA certificate expires on February 22, 2010. ...

Microsoft has issued Security Advisory (977377) to address a publicly disclosed vulnerability in the Transport Layer Security (TLS) and Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) protocols. The TLS and SSL protocols are implemented in several Microsoft products, both client and server. Currently Microsoft has concluded that it affects ...

A major European campaign, Safer Internet Day (SID), kicked off today, with the intent of teaching children aged five and up the importance of protecting their online identity and not talking to strangers. Microsoft's ...

We already know that Windows 7 is growing faster than Vista was when it was released, but how fast are gamers adopting it? Pretty darn quickly, according to January 2010 data from Steam, the leader of the digital distribution market. Last month, the percentage of users ...

Microsoft has posted the Release Candidate builds of Visual Studio 2010 and .NET Framework 4.0 on MSDN. The RC builds will be available to the public on Wednesday. ...

A quarter of Russian software outlets sell pirated Microsoft software, according to the results of a survey conducted by the software giant. ...

Last week, Microsoft said it was investigating issues in Windows 7 that affect batteries on certain notebooks after hundreds of users reported they thought the OS was to blame. Steven Sinofsky, president of the Windows and Windows Live Division, has posted a lengthy response on the ...

Let's look back at the week that was in Microsoft news. Here were the top stories: Google to send Internet Explorer 6 users packing come March: Google is phasing out support on Google Docs and Google Sites for all browser versions older than IE7, Firefox 3.0, Chrome ...

Last week, Microsoft posted a slew of non-security updates for Windows 7, one of which was titled as follows: "An update is available to improve the stability and the reliability of Windows 7 and ...

Microsoft will be dropping Linux and Unix support in the next release of its FAST enterprise search products. ...

Microsoft this week slashed $20 off both versions of the Zune HD, as first spotted by Gdgt. It seems this is the source of a mini price war that customers have been noticing over the past couple of days. When the device first debuted, the 16GB ...

Microsoft has responded to the op-ed by former Microsoft VP Dick Brass, posted at The New York Times, by saying that it measures its work by its broad impact. ...

The Microsoft Surface is being terrorized by a monster: a technical demo shows how real-life objects can be incorporated into the tabletop computer's applications. ...

According to the Microsoft Security Response Center, Microsoft will issue 13 Security Bulletins addressing 26 vulnerabilities on Tuesday, and it will host a webcast to address customer questions about the bulletins the following day (February 10 at 11:00am PST, if you're interested). Five of the vulnerabilities ...

Microsoft today released Office 2010 Release Candidate to technical beta participants: client (build 4734.1000) and server (build 4730.1010) have been posted in both 32-bit and 64-bit flavors. ...

Microsoft has accidentally posted details about a promotion it will be running for those who buy Office 2007 a few months before and after the release of Office 2010 in June 2010. It is ...

Microsoft has issued Security Advisory (980088) to address a publicly disclosed vulnerability in Internet Explorer that may allow information disclosure for Windows XP users or for users who have disabled Internet Explorer Protected Mode. The advisory explains that content can be forced to render incorrectly from ...

A former Microsoft VP tells the story of creative destruction at the software giant in an op-ed in the New York Times. ...

Want to get someone off IE6? Put these 11 characters into the address bar and hit enter: ms-its:%F0:. The browser will instantly crash. Better yet, set it as their homepage. ...

Late last week, Google announced it will phase out old browser support next month on Google Docs and Google Sites. The search giant also sent out an e-mail to Google Apps administrators to warn them of the date, as well as tell them something it did ...

Windows Mobile is steadily losing market share as consumers look to more frequently updated devices with a larger availability of apps. Despite the launch of Windows Marketplace for Mobile with 246 apps, and the ...

The next version of Windows Small Business Server (SBS), codenamed Aurora, reportedly bundles together Windows Server, Exchange, IIS Web server, Windows SharePoint Service, and Outlook. ...

Microsoft has killed off Community Clips, a concept test of a community centered around Microsoft Office how-to videos. It was started over a year ago and received a 74 percent satisfaction rate. ...

Redmond has provided a Release Candidate build of Microsoft Office 2010 to a select group of testers. "Microsoft made a release candidate available to members in the Technology Adoption Program (TAP)," a Microsoft spokesperson confirmed with Ars. "This is one of Microsoft's planned milestones in the ...

Microsoft says it is investigating reports of notebooks with poor battery life with Windows 7, as first reported by users on Microsoft TechNet. These users claim their batteries were working just fine under Windows ...

Windows 7's release has increased customer satisfaction with Microsoft to 73 percent at the end of 2009 (the highest recorded since 2007), passing Apple's customer satisfaction (71 percent). ...

Following the announcement of the general availability of the Windows Azure platform, Microsoft has released the February 2010 SDK and tools for Visual Studio. ...

Data source: Net Applications Chrome is on a roll. It's the fastest-growing browser in terms of market share we've seen in a long time. And its rapid growth corresponds with Internet Explorer's steady decline. Keeping ...

Citing security issues and outdated technology, a new petition is asking the UK government to stop using IE6. ...

Microsoft Tag, whose slogan is "Linking real life with the digital world," is another stab at digital scanners that aim to connect printed materials with online content. The advantage of Microsoft Tag, which first began as a Microsoft Research project and was unveiled at CES 2009, ...

As expected, Microsoft has announced the general availability of the Azure platform (Windows Azure, SQL Azure, and AppFabric) in 21 countries. Starting today, Microsoft customers and partners in those regions will be able to launch their Azure production applications and services with the support of ...

Microsoft Hardware has announced the SideWinder X4 Keyboard, with advanced anti-ghosting technology, macro recording, mode and profile switching, and adjustable backlighting. It arrives in March for $60. ...

Microsoft has a great blog post detailing the new APIs from the Sensor platform that Windows 7 provides developers for creating unique applications. ...

Let's look back at the week that was in Microsoft news. Here were the top stories: Windows 7 leads the way to record quarter for Microsoft: Sales of Windows 7 and a recovering economy helped ...

Want to relive some of your Windows 3.1 memories? Michael Vincent lets you do so in your browser (Firefox 3, IE8, IE7, or IE6 will do). Yes, Minesweeper works. ...

Microsoft and the anti-piracy outfit LANVA are suing the alleged operator of Lithuanian's largest BitTorrent site for $43 million over illegal distribution of Office 2003 and Office 2007. ...

My.live.com, the personalize Live.com homepage is being killed off on March 15, 2010. Microsoft is redirecting users to MyMSN.com and Bing.com. Settings, feeds, and gadgets will not be migrated. ...

At the close of trading Thursday, Microsoft announced the results for its second quarter of fiscal year 2010, which ended December 31, 2009. Revenue of $19.02 billion, a 14 percent increase from the same period of the prior year, set a new a record for the ...

Our liveblog of Microsoft's second quarter FY 2010 earnings call will begin at 5:30pm Eastern Time (see it in your timezone), so stick around to read the comments from Microsoft execs live. ...

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer explains that Redmond has done business in China for more than 20 years and plans on continuing to do so by respecting the country's laws. ...

Windows Now Windows Home Server, codename Vail (also referred to as WHS version 2), has been in private testing for a few months, but only now are we learning more about it, thanks to the first leak of the operating system, as first reported by Mary Jo ...

Two days ago, Microsoft took down all the Zune services for a "maintenance update" that seems to have in it a little bit more than just bug fixes. While the downtime was supposed to ...

Microsoft says it won't be able to deliver the Facebook for Zune HD app by the end of January, as previously promised. The company doesn't disclose a new deadline either. ...

Microsoft has released a Silverlight 4 developer preview application for Facebook that shows off its capabilities for out-of-browser applications. It's very fast. ...

The bespoke line-of-business application is a common feature of the corporate world, and a thing that has been instrumental in cementing Windows as the corporate desktop OS standard. These applications—I've worked on a few ...

HP last night posted a (rather boring) five-minute video (even the interviewer seems to forget where she is at some points) giving further details about the HP Slate that Steve Ballmer showed off during his keynote at CES 2010. It was first posted on the hpcomputers ...

Next week, Channel 9 is broadcasting a pilot episode of "Help Desk," a show where the viewer calls in with tech support questions and experts attempt to troubleshoot them live. ...

Monday night, Microsoft released a slew of updates for Windows, the majority of which were targeted for the latest versions of the client and server operating systems. None of these are security updates: this wasn't Patch Tuesday and Microsoft is not yet ready to address the ...

Microsoft MVP Alexander Kent discusses Remote Access challenges on the Windows Home Server platform. UPnP and Double NAT scenarios are both explained in depth. ...

A day after releasing an out-of-band security bulletin for a vulnerability in Internet Explorer notably exploited in the recent series of Chinese-based attacks against Google and 30 other tech companies, new flaws have been discovered in Microsoft's browser. Boston-based research firm Core Security Technologies has outlined ...

Windows Live Hotmail Wave 4 will add a Conversation view, flagged messages, and quick views for filtering e-mails. The Hotmail Today page will be killed off, in favor of Windows Live Home. ...

The global search market grew a sizeable 46 percent between December 2008 and December 2009, from 89.7 billion to 131.4 billion searches conducted by people age 15 or older from home and work locations. These searches include the top properties where search activity is observed, not ...

At 10pm PST tonight, all Zune services (Zune Marketplace, Zune.net, Zune Pass, Zune Video on Xbox) will be down 24 hours for general maintenance. Software and/or firmware updates will follow, but nothing major. ...

The Chinese government may have been caught flat-footed by the big Google anti-censorship announcement and the US speech on Internet freedom, but the country's leaders are making up for lost time. The US has ...

Microsoft has provided the final details for Microsoft Office 2010's system requirements. If your current computer can run Office 2007, or if you just bought a new desktop/laptop, it will be able to run Office 2010 (CPU and RAM requirements for Office 2010 are the same ...

Microsoft has posted the Windows Mobile 6.5.3 SDK. Inside you'll find documentation, sample code, header and library files, emulator images, and tools you can use with Visual Studio to build mobile applications. ...

What happens when you ask Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer to sign your MacBook? He actually does it, right over the Apple logo, adding the words "Need a new one?" above his signature. ...

Let's look back at the week that was in Microsoft news. Here were the top stories: After Google hack, Microsoft asks users to abandon IE6, XP: Microsoft is recommending that Windows XP and IE6 users ...

Microsoft will have to follow Yahoo's policy of keeping search data for three months if the Microhoo 10-year partnership goes through later this year. That means the Microsoft will have to delete any personal data it gets from the Yahoo after three months. Earlier this week, Microsoft ...

When Microsoft released the highly-publicized patch for Internet Explorer yesterday, the software giant admitted that it was aware of the flaw for quite some time. "As part of that investigation, we also determined that ...

In recent years, scientists may have inadvertently given up on a key component of the scientific method: reproducibility. That's an argument that's being advanced by a number of people who have been ...

Over at the Windows Mobile Developer Center, a few Windows Mobile developers are up in arms for not getting paid. Some claim they are owed thousands of dollars after selling their apps through Windows Marketplace for Mobile. At the end of the month, Microsoft totals all ...

The Windows Experience Pack has been released. It lets you create a customized avatar in a specific destination that becomes a part of a Windows Live Messenger and Windows 7 theme. ...

A lawsuit that accused Microsoft of misleading consumers to download and install an update for Windows Genuine Advantage (WGA) under the guise that it was critical security update will go forward, but not as a class action. A federal judge has refused to certify the lawsuit ...

Microsoft has released an out-of-band patch for Internet Explorer remedying the so-called "Google hack." ...

Windows Live Home Wave 4 screenshots have leaked: Web Messenger integration, just like Windows Live Hotmail, accessible from the header. Will it be available from every Windows Live header? ...

Data source: Net Applications Windows 7 sold well during the 2009 holiday season, and the results are showing up, not only in sheer revenue, but in the OS market share numbers as well. Nevertheless, in ...

Bing's autosuggest feature tries to guess words or phrases that match the first few keystrokes of your search. It now includes breaking news and hot trending queries, updated every 15 minutes. ...

Microsoft has signed a patent cross-licensing agreement with Funai, a manufacturer of LCD TVs sold in the US. Microsoft is being compensated by Funai, and Extended File Allocation Table (exFAT) patents are included. ...

Apple is reportedly in negotiations with Microsoft to replace the default search engine in mobile Safari on the iPhone with Bing. Those negotiations may even result in Bing being added as one of the ...

Microsoft has issued an Advanced Notification for the out-of-band security bulletin it is releasing tomorrow for Internet Explorer at approximately 10 am PST. The patch will fix vulnerabilities in IE6, IE7, and IE8 on supported editions of Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows Server 2003, Windows Vista, ...

Microsoft is suing TiVo, alleging patent infringement for displaying programmable information and over a secure method for buying videos. Microsoft says it is open to resolving the situation through an intellectual-property licensing agreement. ...

Reports have surfaced about a new security hole that has been in Windows since the release of Windows NT 3.1 on July 27, 1993. The vulnerability is present in all 32-bit versions of Windows released since then, including all supported versions: Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows ...

The Australian government has ramped up warnings about Internet Explorer, due to the recent Chinese attacks against Google, though it did not say to use another browser (as did France and Germany). ...

Microsoft has taken the beta tag off its the Silverlight version of the Bing Maps service, which it launched seven weeks ago, and has now set it as the default. Redmond says the Silverlight version and related changes (performance improvements, bug fixes, and small UI changes) ...

Bill Gates has officially joined Twitter: @BillGates is now a Verified Account. Unsurprisingly, his follower count is growing at a very rapid rate. ...

Microsoft Office Labs has released Ribbon Hero, a free prototype add-in for Office 2007/2010 that uses gaming to challenge you and your friends (over Facebook) with using new features. ...

Microsoft is using a new URL shortening service called binged.it. The company tells us that this is in partnership with Bit.ly, and is currently only available on the internal Microsoft network. ...

Jefferies & Company analyst Katherine Egbert told her clients last night that Redmond is getting ready to launch a phone based on Windows Mobile 7. "Our recent industry checks indicate Microsoft will be debuting its own phone sometime in the next two months," Egbert said. "We ...

Marko Calasan of Macedonia got his first systems administrator credential from Microsoft at age six and, last month, he became perhaps the youngest Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer at age nine. ...

Wzor.net says an escrow version of Windows 7 SP1 Beta will appear in March 2010, publicly the following month, and RTM in November 2010. SP2 development will start in October 2010. ...

Microsoft has confirmed that public exploit code has been published for the Internet Explorer vulnerability used in the Chinese attacks on Google. The company is seeing targeted/limited attacks affecting only IE6. ...

Let's look back at the week that was in Microsoft news. Here were the top stories: Microsoft warns of IE bug used in Chinese attacks on Google: While investigating the recent attacks disclosed by Google ...

The German government is warning citizens to stop using Internet Explorer in the wake of the China hack attack. ...

Microsoft has posted a Silverlight 4 Training Course that includes hands-on-labs, a video, and a whitepaper designed to help developers learn about the new features in Silverlight 4. ...

The Canadian City of Edmonton has become the first North American city to use Microsoft's Open Government Data Initiative (OGDI) solution, which uses open source components along with Windows Azure. ...

IT Evangelist Yung Chou explains Microsoft Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI), a centralized desktop delivery solution for storing and running desktop workloads. ...

Microsoft has issued Security Advisory (979352) after its own investigations into the highly-organized hacking attack in late December, the one that Google earlier this week insinuated came from China, led the software giant to conclude that a Remote Code Execution (RCE) vulnerability in Internet Explorer was ...

US software retail sales declined by just over one percent for the 2009 holiday season, but still totaled about $278 million, according to market research firm NPD Group. Nevertheless, Microsoft had good reason to be happy: Windows 7 and Office 2007 managed to sell extremely well. ...

With the launch of Windows Azure, Microsoft Silverlight Streaming by Windows Live (SLS) is going away. Microsoft tells you how to move your SLS content to Windows Azure. ...

Microsoft has posted a free IIS Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Toolkit, aimed at improving a site's relevance in search results. It works with Google, Yahoo, and Bing. ...

Visual Studio 2010 and .NET Framework 4 arrive on April 12, 2010. Last month, Microsoft delayed the release (RC set for February 2010) but did not say till when. ...

Microsoft and Hewlett-Packard today announced a three-year $250 million partnership to simplify IT environments through a wide range of converged hardware, software, and professional services solutions. This is a broad agreement with many components, building on the 25-year Microsoft-HP partnership, which works toward new models for ...

Slightly more than 80 percent of enterprise PCs run Internet Explorer during the workday, according to Devil Mountain Software's community-based Exo.performance.network (Xpnet). The service makes weekly snapshots of a wide range of system and ...

IT Evangelist Yung Chou explains Microsoft Remote Desktop Services. Prior to Windows Server 2008 R2, the technology was known as Terminal Services. ...

"What's New in Windows Presentation Foundation 4" is a solid series of short how-to videos that introduces the various new features that have been added to WPF with .NET Framework 4.0. ...

Test certificates that shipped with the Windows Mobile SDK expired on December 31, 2009 so Microsoft has new ones that developers can drop in to rectify the problem. ...

Developers running Team Foundation Server are now able to download the free Visual Studio 2010 Team Foundation Server Upgrade Guide from CodePlex, Microsoft's open source repository. ...

Microsoft has had it with old versions of Adobe Flash and has issued Security Advisory (979267) to urge users to either uninstall old versions, or upgrade to the latest. More specifically, the software giant is asking users ditch Flash Player 6.0 as the multimedia player plugin ...

Support for SQL Server 2005 Service Pack 2 ended on January 12, 2010 (today). Support for SQL Server 2008 RTM (without service packs) is slated to end on April 13, 2010. ...

Bing has been updated: enhanced auto search results (price, fuel economy, user rating, and additional links) and health search results (more content from new partners and instant answers for hard-to-discover data). ...

Microsoft has released Kodu, a game developed by Microsoft Research that lets users create their own worlds while teaching them the basics of game development, as a public beta for the PC. To get started, you'll need a Windows Live ID to apply for the beta ...

David Sayed of the Silverlight team has four blog posts how to provision Windows Azure, set it up for video storage, publish Silverlight videos to it, and embed the videos. ...

Microsoft has posted the January 2010 release of the Visual Studio 2010 and .NET Framework 4 Training Kit, which includes presentations, hands-on labs, and demos. ...

Windows Live for Windows phone build 10.7.0061.0500 is available. Included are minor back end bug fixes, UI tweaks, as well as a fix for the Samsung Omnia. Download from wl.windowsmobile.com or below. ...

Three weeks ago, a federal appeals court ordered Microsoft to stop selling Word with Custom XML as of today due to patent infringement, and now we see that the company has struggled to meet the deadline for its many SKUs and versions. Microsoft previously said that ...

Let's look back at the week that was in Microsoft news. Here were the top stories: Microsoft kicks off CES with a look back and glance forward: Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer used his keynote at the Consumer Electronics Show to revisit some of his company's recent successes ...

Microsoft has filed another appeal in its patent dispute with i4i. Nevertheless, the software giant still plans to comply with the injunction against Office, which goes into effect Monday. ...

Devices from Toshiba and Pharos running Windows Mobile 6.5.3 are at CES 2010. We won't see Windows Mobile 7 until the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona next month. ...

Directions on Microsoft analysts have made a rather pleasant discovery for the paid version of Microsoft Office Web Apps (browser versions of Word, PowerPoint, Excel and OneNote): you'll be able to access them from everywhere. Office Web Apps will come included with the purchase of Office ...

Microsoft has patented a DRM scheme that can be turned on to encrypt media before it is distributed over a P2P network. It is decrypted prior to playback. ...

When Microsoft revealed the retail pricing for its Office 2010 lineup earlier this week, there was one piece of information that previous Office pricing announcements have almost always included. Upgrade versions are nonexistent. This isn't ...

Earlier this week, Google unveiled the Nexus One; the search giant's first branded mobile phone. Then the company confirmed that Nexus One, and all subsequent Google phones sold via the company's online store, will be available unlocked for use on every participating carrier. Microsoft has weighed ...

Microsoft has filed a patent for a standardized remote management system of mobile devices. Thanks to RFID modules, mobile configuration information is sent from the phone as XML to the server. ...

Microsoft has posted a seven-page document on how to perform an enterprise-scale desktop deployment of Windows 7. ...

According to the Microsoft Security Response Center, Microsoft will issue a single Security Bulletin on Tuesday, and it will host a webcast to address customer questions about the bulletins the following day (January 13 at 11:00am PST, if you're interested). The vulnerability is rated "Critical" and ...

The Microsoft Office Enterprise 2007 trial is now available for download, though unless you explicitly need the Enterprise edition, we recommend you just go try out Office 2010 beta. ...

Microsoft has released an update for Office Word 2007 to comply with a patent infringement verdict over its use of custom XML. ...

Microsoft Security Essentials build 1.0.1901.0 was sent out to beta testers last night with bug fixes, improvements, and changes to the way MSE checks whether Windows is genuine. ...

The Facebook Zune HD app is arriving this month, according to the Zune Fact Sheet from CES 2010. Further, the Smart DJ feature from the PC software is coming to the device. ...

Channel 9 has a great interview covering Natural User Interface (NUI) and why it has been important to Microsoft Research for the last few years. ...

LAS VEGAS—After enduring an embarrassing power outage that delayed the start of the event for over 20 minutes, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer took the stage to kick off CES 2010. A major theme of ...

Microsoft's Patrick Dengler, a senior program manager on the Internet Explorer team, revealed this week that Microsoft is joining the W3C's Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) working group. In a post on the official IE ...

Microsoft has posted a new whitepaper titled "Using Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2: Controlling Communication with the Internet." ...

If you were watching the Microsoft CES 2010 Keynote stream and were disappointed that some of the videos were cut out, you'll be happy to know they're all available at Microsoft.com. ...

The Microsoft keynote begins at 6:30pm PT/9:30pm ET (click here to see when the event will happen in your own timezone). Read more about the tablet device that Microsoft is rumored to announce tonight ...

Microsoft has more details on its "50 percent off Up-To-Date discount" for small businesses interested in upgrading to Office 2007/2010 and Windows 7. ...

The Association for the Rights of Users and Consumers (ADUC) in Italy is mounting a class-action lawsuit to obtain compensation for customers who buy PCs with Windows preinstalled, but who prefer not to use the operating system. The Italian consumer group has made the move against ...

Microsoft has an interesting interview with Rebecca Deutsch, a senior program manager that helped develop the Jump List feature in Windows 7. ...

Microsoft is running a contest for Access Services developers. Prizes include an Xbox 360 Elite, 32GB Zune, and copies of Windows 7. ...

Microsoft UK has put together a Visual Studio and .NET Framework "Myth Busting Matrix" (Silverlight required) that compares versions 2005, 2008, and 2010. The team is asking for feedback on this RC. ...