I.T. & Business Solutions
Following on to my post a couple of days back, Windows XP Service Pack 3 (SP3) has now been released to manufacturing (RTM). Chris Keroack, Microsoft Release Manager for Windows Service Pack 3 posted this information to the Technet forums just today.
Chris goes on to say that XP SP3 will be available via the Windows Update and Microsoft Download Center on April 29. Automatic updates will likey not get this latest release until June.
Click here for the Technet forum post that Chris wrote.
Microsoft is preparing for the release of Windows XP Service Pack 3 (SP3) to mainstream users. It should be released very soon, but no official release date statement has yet been made by the company.
Since August 2004 when SP2 was released, Microsoft has released hundreds of updates for Windows XP. Windows XP SP3 is a combination of all these previously released updates. Microsoft states that, “It also provides a limited number of new and enhanced functionalities, although it does not significantly change the Windows XP experience or bring most Windows Vista functionality to Windows XP.”
Microsoft goes on the say, “The release of Windows XP SP3 are designed to, provide a new baseline for customers still deploying Windows XP, to help them avoid the inconvenience of applying individual updates.” And to, “Fill gaps in the updates users might have missed by declining individual updates when using Automatic Updates, and to deliver updates not made available through Windows Update.”
You can download the Overview of Windows XP Service Pack 3 document from the Microsoft website.
Here is the list of security updates that Microsoft released in April 2008.
Please ensure to patch your software as required.
Here are the new security updates:
Go to the Microsoft site for further information.
To be able to install Microsoft Vista Service Pack 1 (SP1) you first need to uninstall any pre-release version of SP1.
But how? I’ve tried going to Uninstall Programs but it isn’t listed.
Here’s the answer.
Easy task to complete, but somewhat difficult to locate.
Microsoft has today released Windows Vista Service Pack 1 (SP1) for download via Windows Update or from the Microsoft download center.
If you don’t want to download and install it yourself, it will automatically be installed using Windows Update in the coming days / weeks.
Important to note. If you have installed a pre-release version of SP1 you need to uninstall it before installing Vista SP1.
To read more, please visit the Windows Vista Team Blog.
Here is the list of security updates that Microsoft released in March 2008.
Please ensure to patch your software as required.
Here are the new security updates:
Go to the Microsoft site for further information.
Here is the list of security updates that Microsoft released in February 2008.
Please ensure to patch your software as required.
Here are the new security updates:
Go to the Microsoft site for further information.
Microsoft have today released Service Pack 1 (SP1) for Windows Vista to manufacturing (RTM). They are claiming great progress in performance, compatibility and reliability.
I certainly hope this will be the customer experience. Whilst I haven’t personally had any issues with the “Gold” release of Vista, there are some performance aspects that I hope have been sorted in SP1. In particular file copying seems to be very slow in the Gold version. The comment from Microsoft is once SP1 has been installed on your system, copying or moving files should now be much faster, up to 50% faster. Let’s see if that holds true.
Microsoft says that 98 out of the top 100 software applications have versions that are Vista compatible. This along with support for more that 78,000 devices, which is up from 34,000 in November 2006 should make most people quite comfortable making the move to Vista.
Vista SP1 is scheduled for availability via Windows Update and the Microsoft download center around mid March 2008.
Microsoft has for many years been buying up smaller companies, typically software vendors. But this one’s a big fish. In what would be one of the biggest internet buyout deals, Microsoft announced that it has made a proposal to the Yahoo board of directors for US$44.6 billion. Let’s see, that’s US$44,600,000,000. That’s a lot of zeros.
Why would Microsoft be interested in buying out Yahoo. Could it be that Yahoo has had more success in the search engine business over the years? That’s one very likely reason. Microsoft would surely like to get more market share in the very lucrative online advertising space.
Should this takeover take place, it will be interesting to see how the two companies overlapping products pan out over time. Both companies offer free email, web search, paid web advertising. Will both companies biggest competitor in those markets, Google, need to change their business model? Or will they simply continue leading the pack as they currently are?
Time will tell whether Yahoo really can say no to this bid which is 62% higher than Yahoo’s current share trading price. 62%, now that’s some sort of carrot to dangle.
The Yahoo board now has to consider whether to sell to one of their rival companies or risk further falling revenues.
