D.O.J. says Microsoft to modify Vista over complaint
74971
U.S. antitrust authorities confirmed on  Tuesday they reached an accord with Microsoft Corp. requiring  the company to modify its Vista operating system in response to  complaints its desktop search function puts Google Inc.   and other potential competitors at a disadvantage.
607781
Microsoft is fighting back against those attempting to distribute a cracked version of Windows Vista. It has issued an update to detect use of a tampered build which mixed files from test and final versions of the OS.
87581
Microsoft Corp  said on Monday  its first update to the Windows Vista operating system has been  released for manufacturing.
66624
Microsoft is pushing hard to get its next-generation Windows operating system ready for a public launch in January, but now it has a new hurdle: the European Commission has raised concerns about Vista. The Redmond company said a delay may occur if the EU demands changes to the product.
347139
Documents released today detail changes Microsoft will make to its desktop search and indexing feature in Windows Vista.
663121
Microsoft said Tuesday it will modify its new Vista operating system to address Google&#39;s charge that it is rigged to give its desktop search software an unfair edge over rivals.
573733
Responding to reports of endlessly rebooting PCs that flooded support newsgroups last week, Microsoft said on Tuesday it had pulled an&#160;update designed to prep Windows Vista for Service Pack 1.Although the update -- actually a pair of prerequisite files that modify Vista&#39;s install components -- has been temporarily pulled from Windows Update, Microsoft has not yet produced a fix for users whose machines either won&#39;t boot or reboot constantly.&quot;Immediately after receiving reports of this error, we made the decision to temporarily suspend automatic distribution of the update to avoid further customer impact while we investigate possible causes,&quot; said Nick White, a Vista program manager, in a post to the company&#39;s blog Tuesday afternoon.White downplayed the problem. &quot;So far, we&#39;ve been able to determine that this problem only affects a small number of customers in unique circumstances. We are working to identify possible solutions and will make the update available again shortly after we address the issue.&quot;According to White, Update 937287 was the cause of the problem. In a support document, Microsoft describes that update as one for Vista&#39;s installation software, &quot;the component that handles the installation and the removal of software updates, language packs, optional Windows features and service packs.&quot; Along with a companion update pushed to users starting Feb. 12 and another that was offered to machines running Vista Ultimate and Vista Business in January, the guilty update is required before Vista can be upgraded to&#160;Service Pack 1 (SP1).Shortly after the two prerequisites hit Windows Update last week, users began reporting problems on Microsoft&#39;s support newsgroups. Most said that the update hung as the message &quot;Configuring Updates Step 3 of 3 -- 0% Complete&quot; appeared on the screen. When users rebooted hoping to clear the error, their PCs went into an endless cycle of reboots. A smaller number of users said that their computers refused to boot normally.Some users have been able to regain control by booting from a Vista install DVD and selecting the &quot;Restore from a previous restore point&quot; option.What&#39;s it doing in there?It&#39;s uncertain whether Microsoft knows exactly why Update 937287 is hammering PCs. Even after White posted the company statement to the Vista blog, Darrell Gorter, a Microsoft employee, was asking users to send him system logs. &quot;I still need more log files for the investigations that we are doing,&quot; Gorter said in a message on the support newsgroup. Late last week, Gorter made a similar request on the same message board.Also unclear is the actual extent of the problem. Although White called the number &quot;small,&quot; the traffic on the Vista SP1 newsgroup is heavy. One thread had been viewed more than 35,500 times by late Tuesday.But the problem is not new. Computerworld has found messages describing the endless reboot problem dated Dec. 13, one day after it first offered a Vista SP1 release candidate to the general public. That build of SP1 also required the prerequisite updates, including 937287.Microsoft was not available for comment Tuesday night to answer questions about whether, and if so how, the snafu will impact its plans to start offering SP1 to most users next month. Currently, only beta testers, Volume Licensing customers, and subscribers to TechNet Plus and Microsoft Developer Network have been able to download legal versions of the service pack.That will change in mid-March when SP1 is set to land on Windows Update as an optional update, and again in mid-April when Microsoft said it would start installing SP1 automatically on most PCs running Vista.Computerworld is an InfoWorld affiliate.&#160;
235292
Microsoft Corp. said on Wednesday it  plans to release the first major update to its Windows Vista  operating system early next year.
23713
Won't take 'No' for an answer A week ago, a federal judge told Google it should contact the Department of Justice with any complaints about the desktop search tools built into Microsoft's new Windows Vista operating system. But Google has other ideas.â¦
600080
California Attorney General Jerry Brown said Wednesday that Microsoft Corp. has agreed to make "significant changes" in its new Vista operating system to stay in compliance with a U.S. court agreement in Microsoft's antitrust case.
255502
Microsoft MSFT.O said on Thursday it   was on track to launch its Windows Vista operating system in   Europe in January but again asked the European Commission to   detail concerns it may have with the system.
562819
(InfoWorld) - Microsoft released documents on Wednesday that detail changes it will make to its desktop search and indexing feature in Windows Vista that will be included as part of the Vista SP1 (Service Pack 1) update. The changes are a response toÂ charges from rival Google that Microsoft built the feature in such a way that it slowed down competitive offerings from rivals. Microsoft agreed to make the changes as part of its ongoing antitrust proceedings with U.S. and state officials, and they were detailed as part of a status report filed in the case in June. To provide more information to the general public, the company posted documents online Wednesday that detail how third parties can help modify desktop search applications to work with the changes being made in SP1. Microsoft has said it will release SP1, a roll-up of updates to the Vista OS, in the first quarter of 2008. Microsoft said it made the changes so that a customer who uses a third-party desktop search product instead of Vista's built-in feature can have "easy and direct access" to those offerings through the Windows user interface. "That means that in addition to the numerous ways a user could access a third-party search solution in Windows Vista, they can now get to their preferred search results from additional entry points in the Start Menu and Explorer Windows in Windows Vista SP1," the company said. These features were at the heart of Google's claims, which appeared in a white paper to U.S. and state antitrust officials in April. Google said the desktop search feature in Vista discouraged users from installing third-party products because Vista's search boxes and bars -- available in several places in the OS, including the Start menu and in the Windows Explorer file manager -- work only with Microsoft's search and indexing tool. The company also said it is nearly impossible to turn off Vista's indexing, which means a competitor must add a second indexer that slows down a PC. To let their products use Vista options they don't have access to now, third-party vendors can register their search applications using the new search protocol in Windows Vista SP1, which is detailed online. An article explaining the search changes can be found in Microsoft's Knowledge Base.
147474
Microsoft has modified Vista for release in Europe to meet European Commission requirements.
539970
Web browser developer Opera Software ASA said Thursday it had complained to the European Commission about Microsoft Corp., calling on regulators to force the company to give users a choice of Internet software with its Windows operating system.
697164
Within its recent response to the U.S. Department of Justice that stated it would modify Windows Vista to enable end users and OEMs to change the default desktop search it uses, Microsoft for the first time discussed Service Pack 1 for the OS, saying a beta will come this year.
443754
Microsoft acknowledged Tuesday that developers looking to build applications on Windows Vista will need to upgrade to Visual Studio 2005 SP1, highlighting compatibility issues the company is dealing with as the new operating system nears release.
420940
(InfoWorld) - As Windows VistaÂ appeared in computer stores worldwide, Microsoft said Tuesday that part of the design of the new operating system is the work of the European Commission. "Following discussions with European Commission, Microsoft committed to make a number of changes to the Windows Vista operating system prior to release," the software maker said in a statement, pointing to three functions of the operating system: security, search, and fixed document formats. Windows Security Center (WSC), which looks like a dashboard, gives the user an overview of what security software is running on the system and the status of checks and upgrades of firewalls and antispyware protection. Rival security software firms and the Commission suspected this could give WSC an unfair advantage. Microsoft said it agreed to develop a new set of APIsÂ for release in the first service pack, scheduled for later this year, which can be invoked by third-party security programs to turn off the alerts presented by WSC. Similarly, PatchGuard -- software that protects against the modification of the kernel of the operating system -- has been added to Vista. Some security vendors have in the past made modifications to the kernel as part of the implementation of their security software. PatchGuard prevents such modifications in the 64-bit version. Microsoft is now working with vendors to develop new kernel-level APIs that will provide programmatic access to the kernel to address this issue, Microsoft said. The APIs will be available in Windows Vista 64 with the first service pack, scheduled for later this year. Regarding search, Microsoft has changed the way default settings are made for Internet search within both Windows Vista and Internet Explorer 7 (IE7). "These changes now ensure for users that they are able -- through a series of windows and options -- to make a clear, conscious, and open decision on their default search provider. Furthermore, users will retain at all times the ability to change this and all further defaults in the operating system at will," Microsoft said. Microsoft's own fixed document format software is known as XPS. "In response to the Commission's concerns, the company has made fundamental changes to the licensing structure of the XPS fixed-format technology and has committed to submit the technology to an international standards body for adoption as an open industry standard," Microsoft said. The XPS standard will be made available under licensing terms that do not exclude any industry or licensing model including the GPL (general public license), it said. "In response to Commissioner Kroes' letter of March 2006, Microsoft created a singleÂ API so that independent software developers can create applications to allow users to save documents in XPS or other formats, such as Adobe's PDF," Microsoft said. Microsoft said it has also disclosed through a licensing program the relevant information to enable the implementation of XPS technology on competing client and server operating systems. Microsoft has also responded to a further Commission demand to submit XPS (as well as future extensions) to a standards-setting body. Microsoft will submit XPS to the Ecma International. Microsoft said it will also enable the implementation of XPS under an open-source business model (GPL) through use of a covenant not to sue -- a model that Microsoft has applied to Web services and open XMLÂ  document formats and that has, it said, "been welcomed by the open-source community." European customers and OEMs will be able to buy a version of Vista that has Microsoft's Media Player stripped out. This unbundled version of the operating system complies with the 2004 European antitrust ruling, which ordered the company to offer two separate versions of both the home and professional versions of the operating system. "In compliance with the European Commission's decision of March 2004, home and professional editions of Windows Vista without Media Player functionality will be released in Europe on the same schedule as the Windows Vista general availability launch," Microsoft said. These are called the 'N' versions -- denoting "no media player," the company said.