Microsoft

Hey Admins…. It’s that time again. The second Tuesday is upon us and May so far hasn’t been demanding as far as patching goes. So far …. this month Microsoft has only issued two security announcements. MS10-030 and MS10-031. Microsoft has rated both as critical – and both could result in remote code being executed. MS10-030 resolves an integer overflow in POP3 & IMAP mail responses to Outlook Express and Windows Mail…. MS10-031 addresses a stack memory corruption related to the way that “Visual Basic for Applications” searches for ActiveX components, when host applications provide specially crafted files to the Visual Basic runtime. ...

Microsoft’s upcoming Project Natal is a full-body motion controller, promising an incredibly immersive gaming experience and biting into the market first tapped by Nintendo Wii, back in 2006. Now, Project Natal was all but confirmed for October launch by Microsoft Saudi marketing manager Syed Bilal Tariq in an interview with GamertagRadio. “It is going to be somewhere in October. We will be in a position to confirm the date at E3, which is in June, but definitely it is going to be October 2010,” he said. ...

For the first time, Microsoft’s share of the browser marked has slipped below 60 percent, according to figures from Net Applications, a Aliso Viejo, Calif., web app and metrics firm . Browser market share: Microsoft — 59.95 percent Mozilla’s Firefox — 24.59 percent Google Chrome — 6.73 percent Apple’s Safari — 4.72 percent Opera — 2.30 percent. Story Here.

Dear Microsoft, We’d like you to consider developing a PDF reader for your Windows OS. Something such as Apple’s Preview would be great: “To view a PDF file, just double-click it to open it in Preview.” Mac doesn’t require a third-party application to view PDFs, so why does Windows? Heck, you don’t even need to build it into the OS. Just make it an optional download such as your Save As PDF add-in for Office. ...

Microsoft Visio 2010 Viewer allows anyone to view Visio drawings and diagrams (created with Visio 5.0 through Visio 2010) inside Internet Explorer (versions 5 through Web browser. ****The Visio 2010 Viewer has all the functionality of the previous viewers, and includes all the security fixes. Visio Viewer enables users to discover the advantages of using Visio drawings, charts, and illustrations in a Web-based environment. You can view Visio drawings files with a .vsd, .vss, .vst, .vdx, .vsx, or .vtx extension) in Windows Explorer. Internet Explorer will open, and Visio Viewer will render the drawing in the browser window. ...

The Obama administration’s Bowles-Simpson fiscal commission has been working with Microsoft’s Steve Ballmer to make a computer game about managing the United States federal budget and deficit, USA Today reports. President Obama appointed Erskine Bowles and Alan K. Simpson to lead an 18-person, bi-partisan commission to generate ideas for dealing with the nation’s rising deficit and other fiscal challenges. The game is just a footnote amid the commission’s broader objectives, of course, but it’s actually not a bad idea. ...

The first volume licensing arrangements for Microsoft Office 2010 will be made through company partners on May 1, almost two weeks earlier than expected. This news today from the company’s Office Engineering team, which released the final build of all versions of the company’s principal applications suite today. “Since the start of our public beta in November 2009, we’ve had more than 7.5 million people download the beta version — that’s more than 3 times the number of 2007 beta downloads!” reads this afternoon’s post by the Engineering team. “The feedback that we’ve received from all these programs has shaped the set of products we’re excited about, and that I’m sure will delight our customers.” ...

Microsoft’s debut of the KIN yesterday has tech pundits talking about Microsoft’s mobile strategy, about the future of Windows Phone, and about the state of the “dumbphone” in general. It’s a compelling product. And because KIN comes from Sharp and Danger’s parent company Microsoft, the KIN drew a lot of comparisons to the Sidekick straight away. Yesterday, I called KIN the “Sidekick of the 2010s,” Ars Technica called it “Sidekick’s next of KIN,” and Wired said Microsoft wants to “update the Sidekick’s M.O. for a new decade.” ...

Avid readers of the Microsoft Support Lifecycle Blog (and really, how can you not be?) know that yesterday, April 13th, marked the end of support for Windows Vista RTM, also known as Windows Vista SP0. We’d like to say that we’ll miss Vista RTM. We’d like to say that… but, well… Ctrl+Alt+Del On a related note, Windows XP Service Pack 2 (SP2) will reach its end of support this summer on July 13th. There are more positive memories of XP SP2, largely because of its emphasis on security. ...

A universe filled with kaleidoscopic colors blazes across your desktop in this theme for Windows 7, revealed by the infrared imaging of NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope. Discover more about Spitzer’s unique view of stars, nebulae, and galaxies on the Spitzer Space Telescope website. Download: NASA Hidden Universe Theme Download ...

Many patches are announced for tomorrow: The Redmond company expects to release 11 security bulletins. Of those 5 are rated critical, 5 important and 1 moderate. The patches belonging to the bulletins will close 25 security vulnerabilities in Windows, Exchange and in Office. Adobe plans to deliver security updates for critical vulnerabilities in Adobe Reader and Acrobat for all supported platforms tomorrow. Additionally, the automatic updater will be activated with the patches so in future updates get installed silent.

Microsoft has made the right decision to temporarily turn off Hotmail’s vacation (e.g., out-of-office) reply feature. Flip the switch off permanently, I say. “In our fight against spam, we sometimes have to make hard choices, and we had to make one this week. We discovered that spammers were using Hotmail’s automatic vacation reply feature to send spam from their Hotmail accounts,” Krish Vitaldevara, Windows Live Hotmail lead program manager, blogged late yesterday. I missed the post because of Apple’s iPhone OS 4 launch. I spotted the announcement first at LiveSide about an hour ago. ...

Windows Mobile was never just a consumer product; it was also a significant player in handheld terminals, in-vehicle systems, and ruggedized consoles for business and industry. But that whole branch of business-oriented Windows Mobile devices used to be overseen by Microsoft’s Mobile Communications Business group (MCB), the same group responsible for Windows Mobile-powered consumer devices, despite the fact that they were very different. Yesterday, David Wurster, senior product manager for Windows Embedded, announced that things will no longer be run that way. Now, all of the ruggedized and industry-specific device development will be the responsibility of the Windows Embedded Business group, regardless of their operating system (WinCE, WinMo.) ...

Microsoft has put the PC-using world on notice that next Tuesday there will be 11 bulletins released addressing 25 vulnerabilities in Windows, Exchange and Office. Jerry Bryant, Group Manager of Microsoft’s Response Communications, said: “I also want to point out to customers that we will be closing the following open Security Advisories with next week’s updates: — Microsoft Security Advisory 981169 – Vulnerability in VBScript could allow remote code execution. ...

In March, the Windows team announced the upcoming release of Service Pack 1 for Windows 7, and Windows Server 2008 R2, but did not set a date of availability. At the time, Microsoft’s Brandon LeBlanc said, “For Windows 7, SP1 includes only minor updates, among which are previous updates that are already delivered through Windows Update. SP1 for Windows 7 will, however, deliver an updated Remote Desktop client that takes advantage of RemoteFX introduced in the server-side with SP1 for Windows Server 2008 R2.” ...