Windows installer gains .Net authoring
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Wise Solutions has released Wise for Windows Installer 6.0, featuring .Net support and enhanced tools for creating installations for data-driven Web applications.
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Blog: The software maker has a testy back and forth with a software maker that has created a utility that interacts with the free version of Visual Studio.
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The software giant&#39;s much anticipated security-laden upgrade for the Windows XP operating system is finally available for installation.
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Microsoft exec announces new tool designed to make patching simpler.
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A Croatian college student has created a utility that installs a seriously stripped-down Windows Vista, saying the heft of Microsoft's biggest desktop operating system is just too big to believe."Who can justify a 15GB operating system?" asked Dino Nuhagic, a fifth-year student from Split, a Croatian city on the Adriatic. Not Nuhagic, or the uncounted users who have turned to his creation, vLite.The free program lets users pick and choose which Vista components, hot fixes, drivers, and even language packs are installed, then builds a disk image that can be burned to a DVD for unattended installation of the operating system."Why did I do it? Well, it's performance and work environment," Nuhagic said when asked why he came up with vLite. "Performance, that's easy to explain. The less things running, the more responsive the OS. But the environment part is where it gets down to personal preference."Those preferences include options for leaving out virtually every component of Windows Vista, from the minor -- such as the bundled screensavers -- to the major, such as the firewall or Universal Plug and Play.Some vLite users, in fact, have made it a contest of sorts to come up with the puniest-possible installation package for the operating system. While Microsoft recommends that users set aside 15GB of hard-disk space to install its pride and joy, Nuhagic's fans boast of squeezing it into an image file as small as 515MB that takes up just 1.4GB on the hard drive.One user reported condensing Windows Vista Home Basic into a 526MB .iso file and installing it in a virtual machine that used just 1.3GB of drive space. "It worked well inside the virtual machine and since I have 1GB of RAM on the host I guess the little Vista would work well," said amocanu.Nuhagic didn't come right out and say it, but he hinted that he -- like more critical users and pundits -- thought Vista was bloated and could use some reducing. "To be frank, I don't need 90 percent of Windows. But that 10 percent, which guarantees that you can run [the] majority of games out there, is what is worth isolating."Crafting vLite wasn't easy, he said. But the time Nuhagic spent on its predecessor, nLite, which similarly squeezes Windows 2000 and Windows XP, paid off in spades. "Since I had four years of experience with tampering [with] older Windows, it was a lot easier than nLite," Nuhagic said of the development of vLite. "Also, it was easier than in XP because Vista does not have the old-style installation. It doesn't install components one by one, but simply extracts the image. Where XP would fail during install because a certain file was missing, that issue is not present in Vista."Even though vLite features a simple graphical interface that lets users remove a component with a click, Nuhagic warned that the utility isn't designed for the average user: "Because of certain possible compatibility issues with the programs out there [that] expect full Windows, I'd recommend [it] only to users [that] want exactly that kind of tool. In other words, I would not recommend it to someone who installs their OS once every few years. But if you do it every few months, then it's a must."Nuhagic couldn't say how many people use vLite, or even the number of times it's been downloaded from his Web site. "I don't have counters installed because the FTP mirrors were donated, and I would have to upgrade my hosting for some extra script processing," he said of his shoestring operation. It shouldn't be a surprise, however, that nLite, the Windows XP miniaturizer, remains four to five times more popular than vLite, based on the number of visitors to the different nLite and vLite Web sites.Microsoft knows of the tools -- Nuhagic said the company has contacted him in the past about possible employment -- but it's done little to quash the condensing. When asked whether it had any thoughts on vLite, a company spokeswoman e-mailed a lukewarm warning."Microsoft does not recommend using any tool to strip out applications from Windows Vista prior to installing it on your system, as it may affect your ability to download future Windows Updates and Service Packs, and may cause your system to become unstable," she said.But vLite's users praised Nuhagic's efforts with blunter language. "Thanks for spending your time making our OS less bloated," said one.VLite 1.1 can be downloaded from Nuhagic's Web site.
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Microsoft said this week that it is now allowing developers to examine source code for .Net Framework libraries as a way to help developers build better software. But developers first will need to upgrade to the newly released Visual Studio 2008 software development platform.Through the .Net Reference Source project, developers will be able to view and debug the source code with the .Net Framework Reference license in a read-only format. Among the software projects covered by the arrangement are: The .Net Base Class Libraries, including System, System.CodeDom and System.ComponentModel; ASP.Net, including System.Web.Extensions; Windows Forms; and Windows Presentation Foundation. Also offered are ADO.Net and XML.The plan first was revealed last October."We think that enabling source code access and debugger integration of the .Net Framework libraries is going to be really valuable for .Net developers," said Scott Guthrie, general manager of the Microsoft developer division, in his blog. "Being able to step through and review the source should provide much better insight into how the .Net Framework libraries are implemented and in turn enable you to build better applications and make even better use of them."Additional framework libraries are to be added in coming weeks and months, including LINQ (Language Integrated Query) and Windows Communication Foundation. Instructions on accessing the code can be found in a blog entry by Shawn Burke, a director in the Microsoft developer division.Access to the code originally was expected to happen by last month. But Microsoft decided to keep taking feedback from developers and postponed the release until this month, a Microsoft representative said. When Microsoft first revealed its code access plans, it was characterized by analyst Greg DeMichillie, of Directions on Microsoft, as not an earth-shattering move now that open source is so prevalent.?Visual Studio 2008 became available at the end of November. Microsoft did not yet have current figures on shipment volumes for the platform this week.
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(InfoWorld) - Microsoft is using the same tactic for its online services that made its Internet Explorer browser ubiquitous among Internet users. With new beta technology it's releasing Wednesday, Microsoft is tying its Windows Live services directly to its Windows OS. A new unified installer for Windows Live services will help users download Wednesday's updates of photo-sharing, mail, instant messaging, online safety, and other services, the company said on its Windows Live Wire blog. The new installer also will automatically update those services on Windows Vista and XP going forward. "This new suite of applications is a new way that we can make connecting, communicating, and sharing anywhere a terrific experience on your Windows PC," according to a blog post by Chris Jones, vice president of the Windows Live team at Microsoft. "Together with our Web services, we have a complete suite that combines the best of the Web and the best of Windows and works the way you want." As Microsoft tries to catch up to rivals Google and Yahoo in building out a portfolio of online services so it can sell more advertising, it's no surprise the company is tying those services to what remains its most popular product, Windows. Most people probably don't need more than one set of free online services just as they don't need more than one browser, and the strength of tying IE to Windows was that people used the browser over Netscape just because it was there. But what worked for IE may not work so well in the world of Web 2.0, where things move much faster than they did 10 years ago. When Microsoft cut the frequency of IE upgrades and enhancements, customers became restless for a better product; enter the Mozilla Firefox browser two years ago, which now has a nice niche for itself. Microsoft also is fighting two well-respected and entrenched competitors that started their businesses on the Web and have loyal followings in their own right. Creating user-friendly Web-based clients for everyday applications also is more complicated than creating a browser --Â and not so easily commoditized, said Matt Rosoff, analyst with Directions on Microsoft. "With Internet services, there is a lot more differentiation possible," he said. Using the Windows Live unified installer also is still an option -- not a requirement -- of the OS, so the services are not as tightly linked to Windows as IE was, Rosoff said. While he would not be surprised if Microsoft eventually made integration between the OS and Windows Live services even tighter, the company must be wary of inciting the antitrust gods with such a move. "They have to be careful with that sort of thing," Rosoff said. In addition to tying Windows Live to Windows, Microsoft also added new features to specific services in Wednesday's beta refreshes. Windows Live Photo Gallery now allows users to share photos directly on its Windows Live Spaces social networking site and its Soapbox on MSN Video video-sharing service, the company said. It also enables people to import photos from digital cameras and have them automatically organized into events based on date and time within the service. In other enhancements, Windows Live Messenger 8.5 includes additions to security and performance, while the Windows Live OneCare Family Safety update extends support to its Mail, Messenger, and Spaces services. More information about the updates and the ability to download them is available on Microsoft's Windows Live services Web site.
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A tool has been posted online that can apparently crack Vista's activation process by applying brute force -- and lots of time -- to come up with valid product keys. But the author is now telling users it's wrong to use it.
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Pre-release builds offered for download via BitTorrent
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An IT professional discovers a way of getting a full version of Vista for the cost of a simple upgrade.
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NetEase gets a timely upgrade after early success with a new title.
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Workshop Windows virus cleanup primer
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(InfoWorld) - At its partner conference this week MicrosoftÂ released new tools to help partners navigate two of the company's more complicated offerings: product licensing and the Windows Vista client OS. The licensing tool, called Microsoft LicenseWise, builds upon a previously released tool for Microsoft customers, Product License Advisor. Product License Advisor helps customers configure an IT environment and generate a report online that would tell them what licenses they would need and the cost, Mike Oldham, general manager for Microsoft's worldwide licensing and pricing, said in an interview at the Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference in Denver. LicenseWise picks up for Microsoft's business partners where that tool leaves off, he said. It allows a partner to access a quote a customer generated in Product License Advisor, build its own pricing into it, and then generate a proposal back to the customer for how much it would cost to license those products through the partner. Microsoft's complicated licensing schemes have long been a headache for partners and customers, but the company has made a concerted effort in the past several years to simplify the process, Oldham said. For instance, just two years ago, Microsoft had 74 licensing models customers could choose from; now they have nine, he said. More information about LicenseWise can be found on Microsoft's partner Web site. The new Vista tool also is an extension of software that is already available, called Windows Vista Hardware Assessment, said Mike Sievert, corporate vice president of the Windows business group. That application helps business users see how much effort it will take to migrate desktops in a company to Vista by testing the hardware and device-driver capability of PCs against the OS and issuing reports about those results The new tool, Windows Vista Business Value Assessment, allows partners to sit down with customers to not only assess how Vista will impact their network, but also figure out how to improve the TCO (total cost of ownership) of the installation, Sievert said. TCO is "front and center on the minds of our customers" when it comes to Vista, he said. Sievert acknowledged that business customers are still in the early stages of deploying the OS, which was released to business customers last November, so it's important Microsoft articulate how to upgrade to Vista in the most cost-effective way possible.
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Microsoft is making a major push to get Windows users to embrace the security-focused overhaul to its XP computer operating system.
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Microsoft's consumer security software changes the AU (Automatic Updates) settings in Windows XP and Vista without telling users or getting their approval, a researcher said Thursday -- behavior that may explain recent reports of patches being installed and systems rebooting without permission.When Microsoft responded to new charges of silent changes last week, however, it denied that AU settings were ever altered without user approval, and it didn't mention OneCare as a possible culprit.Scott Dunn, an editor at the "Windows Secrets" newsletter, reported Thursday morning that OneCare silently changes AU settings as it installs. No matter what AU setting the user selected previously, OneCare's installer quietly changes it to the fully automatic option."Some security products have turned on AU in the past," said Dunn, who also tested several other current consumer suites, including Symantec's Norton 360 and Norton Internet Security, McAfee's Internet Security Suite, and Check Point Software's ZoneAlarm Internet Security Suite. "But OneCare was the only guilty party."OneCare's willful way with AU may be an explanation for the reports two weeks ago of machines downloading and installing the Oct. 9 set of security fixes even though their owners had explicitly instructed Windows to ignore all downloads or notify them before they were installed.Several days later, after it wrapped up an investigation, Microsoft said AU settings were never changed without user consent, and it blamed absent-minded users for making modifications and then forgetting that they had."I find this surprising and very disturbing," said Dunn. "If they're going to change [AU] settings, they should let you know."Four options, down to one In both Windows XP and Vista, users can select from four options in AU: Download and install all updates automatically; download files but do not install them without user consent; check for but neither download nor install without permission; and disable Automatic Updates entirely.OneCare, sold for $49.95 and offered as a free 90-day trial, sets AU to the first, and all-automatic, setting, said Dunn, on both operating systems. "It does that even if Automatic Updates is completely disabled," he added. If users later uninstall OneCare -- for instance, after a trial has expired -- the software does not return the machine to the earlier settings; they must be reset by the user."Worse, OneCare silently turns on [Windows] services that have been disabled by the user," Dunn said, referring to the two services that some users, frustrated at earlier incidents in which Windows retrieved and installed patches without permission, have manually turned off: Automatic Updates and Background Intelligent Transfer Service. The services can be switched off manually using the Windows services.msc utility. Normally, once disabled, they remain that way until the user manually turns them back on.ComputerWorld confirmed Dunn's account of OneCare's AU changes by installing the security suite on both Windows XP and Windows Vista.At no time during installation, said Dunn, does OneCare tell the user that the software will modify Windows' settings or provide an opt-in dialog. Nor do the various online documents -- including Microsoft's privacy statement and an addendum for OneCare -- that are offered up early during the process contain any information about the changes. "It turns out there's a brief mention of it buried deep in one of the OneCare help files," said Dunn. "But that's not the same as telling users upfront."The help file (select "What does Windows Live Update do to help manage and maintain my computer's software updates?" to view the pertinent section) acknowledges that OneCare makes changes without bothering to ask. "When you first install Windows Live OneCare, setup automatically enlists your computer in Microsoft Update and changes your computer's settings to download and install updates automatically using Automatic Updates," it reads.Who's 'forgetful' now? Although Microsoft was not immediately available for comment this morning, it made it clear last week that reports of unauthorized updates, and even PC reboots, could not be blamed on its software."I want to stress that the Windows Update client does not change AU settings without users' consent," said Nate Clinton, a program manager with the Microsoft Update team in a company blog entry a week ago. He went on to list five possible explanations; all require the user to take action or accept one option from several offered.Earlier, a Microsoft spokeswoman had been more blunt. "It may be more a case of someone clicking to change their AU settings but not realizing/remembering doing so," she said last Tuesday. She also called out OneCare's installation as one such possible moment and claimed that the security suite offered users the option of changing AU settings. It does not."This is just one more example of Microsoft having the attitude that we know better than you do, that you should just stop asking questions and let us do what we want," said Dunn.Computerworld is an InfoWorld affiliate
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On the "Blond R" blog, there's a first posting that shares some of the knowledge that the author has gained from working to get IIS7 installed with MySQL and PHP 5.   As all of us are talking about the new coming Windows Vista, I decided to dedicate my first post to guide you all on how to setup IIS 7 along with MySQL and PHP 5.   He hadn't found a tutorial that covered getting all three working well together, so decided to create his own - complete with screen shots for each step of the way. First, IIS is set up, then PHP, then, finally, the MySQL installation is completed and all three are tied together. All downloads are linked as well to make it even easier to set your system up.
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Christian Stocker has an update on his blog today that Windows users will be happy to hear:   Frank Kromann applied some patches yesterday to the PECL sources of the uploadprogress extension to make it compile under Windows (almost the same as by SteveH provided in a comment of my post yesterday). Therefore, thanks to the pecl4win site, a compiled dll is now already available. Get it here (untested by me..)   He also mentions some documentation that was asked about concerning the package (and the patches), but notes that he "can't promise anything any time soon".