Microsoft's Apple "Get a Mac" killer is live as of September 4, 2008. The new $300 million Windows campaign put together by advertising agency Crispin, Porter + Bogusky, has debuted with the first video ad featuring none other than Microsoft part-time Chairman Bill Gates and comedian Jerry Seinfeld. Gates shopping for discount shoes with a trusty and voluntary Seinfeld sidekick is bound to put Apple out of business, but even if the Cupertino-based hardware company's "Get a Mac" ads catalyzed a reaction from Microsoft, the new Windows marketing campaign is, at least as far as the start-off is concerned, ignoring the noisy competito... [read more >>] If Windows Vista has taught Microsoft anything, and it did, it is that poor performance or even the perception of poor performance from a user experience perspective can kill a product just as much as lack of driver support and software and hardware incompatibilities. This is why with Windows 7 Microsoft is preparing to tackle head on the first UX killer on the performance front, as far as end users are concerned, namely pre-loaded OEM software. The Redmond company indicated that 15-second startup times for Windows systems are "very good" boot performance results, but only in the lab. In the real world things are a tad different. In th... [read more >>] A 15-second boot time is the target Microsoft is aiming for with the evolution of Windows 7's startup performance. The software giant in fact spared no resources for the next major iteration of the Windows client, and has an entire team focusing exclusively on the performance associated with the startup process. However the effort is much larger than just a single team, spanning across the entire Windows project and to the Redmond company's hardware and software partners. "Startup can be one of three experiences; boot, resume from sleep, or resume from hibernate. Although resume from sleep is the default, and often 2 to 5 sec... [read more >>] Microsoft is making available for download one copy of Windows Vista RTM and three copies of Windows XP (one with Service Pack 2 and two with Service Pack 3) for free. In this context, the free downloads continue a tradition started back in 2007 by the Redmond company. Made available on August 28, 2008, the bits that went live on the Microsoft download center can weigh as little as 421.7 MB for the smallest release, and a total of 3333.6 MB, for all the components. All the operating systems have been activated and optimized by the Redmond giant in order to play nice as guest operating systems designed to run inside virtual machines. Th... [read more >>] It's nothing short of a veritable Windows fiesta over in Redmond. Following the launches of Windows Vista Service Pack 1 and Windows XP Service Pack 3 earlier this year, Windows 7 Client and Windows 7 Server/Windows Server 2008 R2 are now taking center stage. But at the same time Microsoft has not given up on Windows Vista. Not only is the company pouring a reported $300 million to catalyze a face lift for Windows, but in addition to the marketing acrobatics planned for debut in early September 2008, the Redmond giant also introduced the Windows Codename Mojave. As of August 26, Microsoft is yet again focusing the limelight on Mojave,... [read more >>] Windows is one product that is not lacking in Nemesis candidates. From Apple's Mac OS X to the open source Linux, to RIA cloud-based operating systems, potential Microsoft Windows killers are advertised in a variety of scenarios incongruent with reality. Microsoft's own non-Windows platforms Singularity and Midori are the latest additions to the list of items designed to supersede Windows as the Redmond company's current flagship product becomes antiquated, obsolete and inferior. However, Microsoft Technical Fellow Mark Russinovich indicated that a Windows killer, especially Midori, is nothing but a pipe dream. An evolution o... [read more >>] The first Beta of Windows 7 is on the horizon, and in this context it's right about time to look beyond Windows XP Service Pack 3 and Windows Vista Service Pack 1. The next iteration of the Windows client has been a palpable presence only through the Milestone 1 build dropped at the end of 2007, with the Redmond company gagging all details on the operating system and its development process. At the same time, with the evolution of Vista's successor toward the first Beta stage, Microsoft is increasingly focusing on Windows 7. This week, and all month for that matter, the next version of Windows has started to increasingly take shap... [read more >>] Former Windows chief Jim Allchin, co-president, Platforms & Services Division, considered Windows XP SP2 the equivalent of a fully fledged Windows release, but certainly much more than a service pack. Allchin retired from Microsoft just as Windows Vista hit the shelves in January 2007, and there are no doubts that the current Windows client is a major release. However, word is still out on the next iteration of Windows. Ward Ralston, group product manager Windows Server, already confirmed that Windows 7 Server/Windows Server 2008 R2 will be a minor release of Windows Server. But as far as the successor of Windows Vista is concerned, Ralston... [read more >>] Even with Microsoft increasingly opening up on Windows Vista's successor, the hunger for Windows 7 details is far from being satiated. This because the Redmond giant, through Steven Sinofsky, senior vice president, Windows and Windows Live Engineering Group, continues to be firmly in control of all the information made public. Sill the Windows 7 feast could not be without its crumbs, and the latest example points to Microsoft gearing up for Windows 7 downloads, namely updates for the next iteration of the Windows client, via WSUS, but not only. According to the screenshot included toward the bottom of this article (courtesy of Yannis),... [read more >>] Starting with the availability of Windows Vista Service Pack 1 and Windows Sever 2008 RTM/SP1, Microsoft has virtually joined its Windows client and server operating systems at the hip, and well beyond that in fact. Vista SP1 and the gold version of Windows Server 2008 share the same codebase and in this context also the same core (made up of the kernel plus a set of critical central components sitting directly on top of the code nucleus of the platform). The Redmond company signaled in this respect a move from the divergent releases that were Windows XP and Windows Server 2003, and the start of new new tradition in which future Windows cli... [read more >>] | 
RSS
