Vista Fails VB100 Tests, Out of 37 Tests 17 Failed

VB100

A new test of anti-malware products running on the Visat has found that many don’t work as well as they should.

The latest independent Virus Bulletin tests looked at 37 different Vista-based security programs to see which could manage to reach the level of threat detection required for ‘VB100’ Certification. Out of 37 tested, 17 failed the tests, including big name products from McAfee, Sophos, and Trend Micro.

Before users rush to de-install Vista products from those companies, the VB100 sets an incredibly high detection bar of 100 percent of a subset of malware defined by a malware collection known as the ‘WildList.’ Programs must also, using default settings, avoid false positives – false flagging files as malware infected when they are in fact innocent.

While McAfee, Sophos and Trend detected 99.99 percent of the WildList, other programs fell some way short of this ‘almost’ status. Doctor Web reached only 95.21 percent, and Security Coverage PC Live managed a hopeless 84.35 percent. Microsoft’s own oft-criticized Windows Live OneCare and Forefront Client Security both hit the VB100 100 percent mark.

Thus far, Vista’s defense has been the relative trickiness of programming malware for it and the fact of its slow uptake. Neither factor will protect it indefinitely.

source:read

Photoshop CS4 to Favor Vista 64bit Not to MAC

Adob CS4

Adobe is prepairing a new version of its Creative Suite, the software bundle that includes Photoshop, Illustrator, Dreamweaver, and other applications for print and Web design. Only this time there’s a twist: The new version of Photoshop will support 64-bit memory addressing for the first time — but only if you’re running Windows.

Simply put, more bits means you can access more memory, which means you can work with bigger files. By taking advantage of 64-bit CPUs, Adobe is making it possible for designers and photo manipulators to work with really, really big images at high resolutions. Think posters, advertising displays, or even billboards.

As it turns out, Photoshop for Mac OS is written using older APIs that don’t allow access to all the latest Mac OS X features. To bring the software up to speed will require a total rewrite, a time-consuming process that could leave Mac users in the cold for some time.

Will the extra power of Photoshop CS4 for Windows cause designers to jump ship? It seems unlikely. Only a very tiny segment of Photoshop users works with files big enough to warrant 64-bit capability — and designers still like their Macs.

source:read

Genuine Crack For Windows Vista Has Just Been Released

Vista

Unlike cracks which have been floating around since Vista RTM was released in late November, this crack doesn’t simply get around product activation with beta activation files or timestop cracks – it actually makes use of the activation process. It seems that Microsoft has allowed large OEMs like ASUS to ship their products with a pre-installed version of Vista that doesn’t require product activation – apparently because end users would find it too inconvenient.

As the crack is tied to specific product keys, it remains to be seen whether Microsoft will be able to do anything about shutting out machines activated using this method. But their work will be made much more difficult now that such machines have completely bypassed the online activation process, and are connecting as legitimate copies of Windows.

read more in  apcmag

VISTA Takes This Long In Creation “Why There Is Such a Shortage Of Drivers!!?”

Vista

More and more controversy on Vista!! According to online reports, Microsoft dropped the hardware specs for its Vista platform just to raise Intel profits.

One e-mail states that the software giant lowered Windows Vista’s minimum hardware requirements to ridiculous levels just because Intel needed to sell more graphics chipsets.

Intel has since told The Wall Street Journal that the comment about its earnings was simply not true and pointed out that Kalkman “is not qualified in any shape or form to have knowledge about Intel’s internal financial forecasts related to chipsets, motherboards or any other product”.

The email has been released as part of the mounting evidence against Microsoft in a case in which it has been accused of misleading the public with the “Windows Vista Capable” logos it put on new PCs in the run-up to the operating system’s debut.

The logos appeared on system more than nine month before Vista did, but consumers have complained that their PCs were only Vista Home Basic capable and didn’t run the full version.

Microsoft seems to be denying all by informing the paper that it included the Intel 915 chipset in the Windows Vista Capable program “based on successful testing of beta versions of Windows Vista on the chip set and the broad availability of the chip set in the market.”

And the emails? These simply showed how its execs “were trying to make the marketing program better for Microsoft partners and consumers”.

But an impotent thing:

In another email which has been presented in court, a Microsoft board member tells Steve Ballmer he’s decided against “upgrading” one of his machines to Vista. “I cannot understand with a product this long in creation why there is such a shortage of drivers,” he says.

source:pocket-lint

Vista prices reduces

 Vista

Microsoft has announced that it is going to reduce the price of several standalone versions of Windows Vista.

The release has been published stateside and we don’t yet have confirmation as to whether prices are going to drop in all contres.

In the release, Brad Brooks, corporate vice president for Windows Consumer Product Marketing at Microsoft, explained that the reductions are just going to be on standalone versions of the package sold through retailers.

“In emerging markets, we are combining full and upgrade Home Basic and Home Premium versions into full versions of these editions and instituting price changes to meet the demand we see among first-time Windows customers who want more functionality than is available in current Windows XP editions.”

He added that Microsoft is also lowering pricing on Windows Vista Ultimate in emerging markets.

The price changes will come in at the same time as the retail release of Windows Vista Service Pack 1 later this year.

source:pocket-lint 

A New Critical Hole In Windows Vista

Vista

Just in time for spring, Microsoft has been busy tending to a new swarm of bugs, including a critical hole in Windows Vista and XP that could expose you to an early-season bite without your doing anything other than being online.

In an attack, a cracker could broadcast rogue TCP/IP packets to a range of addresses on the Internet, possibly including your PC’s. Sounds all too common, right? These rogue packets, however, are designed to trick their way past Windows’ security and hijack your PC, making your machine part of a botnet for sending out spam–or worse, a self-copying worm.

So far, no attacks have occurred. But proof-of-concept code is floating around, so don’t put off applying the patch. If you’ve enabled automatic updates, Microsoft will push the patch to you. Otherwise, you can grab it from Microsoft and install it yourself (Download).

 

source:pcworld 

Microsoft moved up the Vista SP1 Release for Tech Users

SP1

It was the second time in three days that Microsoft changed the release of the release-to-manufacturing (RTM) version of Vista SP1 for the IT professionals and developers who pay hundreds of dollars annually for the right to download and test software before it’s offered to the general public.

Microsoft Corp. has moved up the availability of Windows Vista Service Pack 1 (SP1) for TechNet and Microsoft Developer Network subscribers, saying they will be able to download the update by Friday at the latest.

Saying “We heard you,” an unidentified Microsoft employee posting to the MSDN Subscriptions blog spelled out the new timetable: “Windows Vista SP1 anticipated to be available to MSDN Subscribers by end of week,” the blogger wrote.

On the TechNet Plus blog, where subscribers had denounced Microsoft’s decision to delay the final code until early next month — and then in a change announced Monday to a vague “later this month” — another Microsoft blogger confirmed that SP1 would also be available to TechNet subscribers on the same day. “It will become available for both programs at once,” said Kathy Dixon of Microsoft.

Dixon was responding to a user who noted the availability change for MSDN subscribers.

Although Microsoft did not specify the day, Friday is the most likely candidate; earlier this week, the company said it would let Volume Licensing customers download the bits on Friday.

Although Microsoft did not specify the day, Friday is the most likely candidate; earlier this week, the company said it would let Volume Licensing customers download the bits on Friday

source:pcworld

Vista SP1 Prerequisites Rolled up in Patch

Vistas1

Microsoft included a set of nonsecurity updates that prepare customers to install Windows Vista Service Pack 1 as part of its monthly “Patch Tuesday” security fixes.

Two of three prerequisite updates needed to install SP1 are hitting Microsoft’s Windows Update for the first time today, along with the usual batch of security updates it releases every month.

KB937287 is an update to Vista’s servicing stack, and KB938371 is a multicomponent update, according to the blog post attributed to Nick White, a product manager on the Vista team. Both must be installed before a machine can successfully be updated to Windows Vista SP1.

The technologies — called KB937287 and KB938371 — are marked “Important” and will install automatically if a Windows user has Windows Update set to the recommended configuration, according to a post on the Windows Vista team blog.

The third prerequisite to installing SP1, KB935509, also is being released through Windows Update Tuesday. However, that technology is an update of a previously released technology, not a brand new release.

source:pcworld 

Vista SP1: Is It mean Slow Pack 1?

vista sp1

Some in the media have received the final SP1 code too, as evidenced by reviews online, with an article at PC World showing mixed performance results with SP1, with ‘file copy performance notably improved’, yet with some tests showing Vista pre-SP1 actually faster than SP1 itself.

The Vista SP1 debacle continues, with TechNet and MSDN subscribers unable to download the final RTM code of SP1, despite around 15,000 SP1 beta testers having been confirmed by Computerworld as having received the final SP1 code, weeks before the general public.

Another article at Computerworld shows Vista SP1 to be 20% slower at copying files than pre-SP1, while the ‘old’ Windows XP beats both Vista pre-SP1 and SP1 at copying files by a wide margin.

This has forced Microsoft to delay SP1’s release to the general public to give themselves and hardware manufacturers some additional time to iron out the driver bugs, something that, ironically, was Vista’s original problem, something that was meant to be fixed with the release of SP1 itself.

What is clear is that SP1, despite having reached ‘release to manufacturing’ or RTM status, still isn’t 100% finished. What’s holding things up is Microsoft’s discovery, thanks to the beta testers, that some PC manufacturers have loaded drivers onto their machines which SP1 just doesn’t like.

Microsoft will actually delay some users getting Vista SP1 until April, as it uses the Windows Update software built into Vista to determine which machines might be affected by the SP1 driver issues.

Microsoft should never have told the world SP1 was ready when it plainly wasn’t, but as they have, the bad PR onslaught has been massive, with some TechNet and MSDN subscribers wondering if they will be re-subscribing to the services when they next come up for renewal. All in all, it’s a big mess

Read more                                       source: itwire

Users Hate Vista !!

Visat

You rarely hear about a new OS causing people to panic. But IT consultant Scott Pam says that’s exactly what his small-business clients are doing when they install Windows Vista on new PCs and run smack into compatibility or usability roadblocks.

Pam’s clients are not alone : Since InfoWorld launched its petition drive on Jan. 14 to ask Microsoft to continue selling new XP licenses indefinitely alongside its Vista licenses, more than 75,000 people have signed on. And hundreds of people have commented — many with ferocious, sometimes unprintable passion. “Right now I have a laptop with crap Vista and I’m going to downgrade to XP because Vista sucks,” reads one such comment.

Where does all the vitriol come from?

IT managers and analysts suggest a range of reasons, some based on irrational fears and others based on rational reactions to disruptive changes.

Emotional Effects

“When we first deployed Vista, people told us it sucks, that it’s not as good as XP,” recalled Sumeeth Evans, IT director at Collegiate Housing Services, an 80-person college facilities management firm.

A month later, he surveyed the staff to see if their views had changed, and they had: “They said it was very good, that they were getting used to it. We asked what was different, and they said they originally didn’t like Vista because it was a change. That’s human nature.”

Microsoft’s overzealous schedule in replacing XP with Vista has exacerbated resistance to change, said Michael Silver , a research vice president at Gartner. The company had originally planned to discontinue XP sales on Dec. 31, 2007, just 11 months after Vista was made available to consumers and 14 months after it was made available to enterprises. The date for new license sales to end is now June 30.

In practice, XP’s consumer availability ended for many users even sooner — just six months after Vista’s release — since storefront retailers Best Buy and Circuit City and most computer manufacturers’ Web sites stopped selling XP-equipped computers in July 2007. Typically, Microsoft has given customers two years to make such a transition, Silver noted.

Burton Group executive strategist Ken Anderson suggested that the strong emotional identification with XP represented a fundamental shift in how people, including IT staff, now think of operating systems. They have become a familiar extension of what we do and how we work, thus not something want to change often. “When technology becomes part of you, you don’t want people to mess with it,” he said.

Anderson likened the reaction to XP’s impending demise to what happened in the 1980s when Coca-Cola replaced its classic Coke formula with New Coke, causing massive protests by customers who had no reason to change what they drank. The protests forced the company to bring back what we now call Coke Classic. “XP has come to the point of being Coke Classic,” he said, with Vista playing the role of New Coke.

The Further the Better

The Englewood (N.J.) Hospital Medical Center switched to Vista shortly after its enterprise release, since it had been in Microsoft’s early adopter program. Most users — mainly nurses and other medical staff — didn’t really notice the upgrade and had few complaints, noted Gary Wilhelm, the business and systems financial manager (a combination of CTO and CFO) at the 2,500-employee facility. That’s because they don’t really use the OS, but instead work directly in familiar applications that load when they sign in using their ID.

Capacitor manufacturer Kemet saw a similar ho-hum reaction from most of its staff, says Jeff Padgett, the global infrastructure manager. And for the same reason: Users have little direct interaction with the OS. But the staff did push back on Office 2007, whose ribbon interface is a departure from the previous versions. They rebelled to the degree that Padgett has delayed Office 2007 deployment and may not install it at all.

Back at the Englewood hospital, Wilhelm did hear anti-Vista grumbling from people in the administration department, who work more closely with the OS itself for file management and so on. And at Kemet, another group of hands-on users complained about the switch to Vista, noted Padgett: “The people who suffered the most were engineers and IT people.”

The phenomenon of hands-on users being the most resistant explains why so many small-business users and consultants have reacted so strongly against Vista, noted Gartner’s Silver.

Conversely, those enamored of the latest technology tend to be Vista enthusiasts, said David Fritzke, IT director at the YMCA Milwaukee, which has been adding Vista to its workforce as it buys new computers. “Some users bought Vista for home and then wanted it more quickly at work than we had initially planned to deploy it,” he said. Fritzke also found that younger users adapted to Vista more easily

source:pcworld