Get outspoken insights and expert advice on the products and companies that define today's tech landscape, from a source who knows these technologies inside and out.
Ed Bott is an award-winning technology writer with more than two decades' experience writing for mainstream media outlets and online publications.
If you’re a Microsoft product manager and you want to make sure that the latest version of Internet Explorer gets on as many computers as possible, how do you handle the upgrade? Why not deliver it automatically? That’s the thought process behind today’s announcement that IE7 will be offered to as a High Priority update to anyone who has Automatic Updates turned on.
I guess Microsoft has begun to take notice of the many, many complaints from Windows customers who have installed the WGA Validation tool and have been accused of running a “non-genuine
Microsoft says its WGA validation code is so accurate that it has produced only a "handful" of false positives. It's hard to take that claim seriously when one of the most widely read members of the Windows enthusiast community just got stung.
In its road shows last year and earlier this year, Microsoft promised that you'd be able to install Windows Vista in as little as 15 minutes. But current beta builds aren't even close to that milestone. Where are the bottlenecks in the Vista setup process?
According to a Microsoft manager, 60 million people have failed the Windows Genuine Advantage validation test. Microsoft claims the tool is nearly perfect at rooting out improperly licensed copies of Windows, with "only a handful of actual false positives." But the numbers don't add up.
Why can’t Microsoft describe its WGA tools in simple, direct language? They want you to install a small program that checks the product key you used to activate Windows XP – the same one you already sent them when you first installed the operating system – so they can verify that your copy of Windows is properly licensed. That’s not so hard to understand, is it? So why use these misleading and deceptive descriptions?
This is so new that I can’t even find a press release about it yet, but Microsoft Virtual PC 2004 is now free. Anyone can download the latest release, Microsoft Virtual PC 2004 Service Pack 1, which runs on Windows XP Professional, Windows 2000 Professional SP4, and Windows XP Tablet PC Edition or later.
As of yesterday, Microsoft officially retired public and technical support for Windows 98, Windows Me, and Windows XP Service Pack 1. Good.
Never underestimate the power of inertia. Windows users may grumble about security updates, password prompts, and balky hardware, but those annoyances are nothing compared to the mental effort required to switch to a completely new OS family. This longtime Windows user's experience with Ubuntu Linux tells the story.
You've been burned by a crook who sold you a counterfeit copy of Windows. Microsoft says they want to help you out. But a closer look shows the deal isn't all that generous.