Microsoft Sets Three Week Deadline for Yahoo! In Public Letter

An anonymous reader writes "In a letter sent today, Microsoft writes to Yahoo's board of directors to tell them that they would like to 'negotiate a definitive agreement on a combination of our companies.' Their message is a combination of friend and foe: 'If we have not concluded an agreement within the next three weeks, we will be compelled to take our case directly to your shareholders.'"

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Vista is Slower, But XP Is Still Dying

An anonymous reader writes "Though the Redmond software giant may be extending the lifetime of XP on low-end laptops, the end is nigh for the aging OS. That extension makes perfect sense, as recent studies have shown XP is far faster than Vista across a number of platforms. Still, Microsoft is 'sticking to its guns' when it comes to drop-dates for most other uses of the XP operating system. 'There are several dates that apply, but the one you're probably thinking of is the June 30 deadline that Dix referred to. That's the last day when large computer makers -- the Dells, HPs and Lenovos of the world -- will be allowed to preinstall Windows XP on new PCs. It also marks the official end of XP as a retail product.'"

How Microsoft Can Fix Their "Stodgy" Image

Recently, brandchannel.com asked about 2,000 people a set of questions regarding popular brands. Questions like "What brand do you think is truly 'green'?" and "What brand can you not live without?" Presented on their Web page are the top five answers for each question, with percentages and some choice quotes. Apple came out on top in many of the categories, with many lavish quotes about how wonderful the company and its products are. Microsoft didn't fare so well, "winning" only those questions that have a negative connotation, such as "If you could rebrand any brand, what brand would it be?"

Of course, this is about as poorly constructed a poll as you can get. It's an online survey of site readers with a relatively small sample group, which means fans (or employees) of any company could easily flood the system and skew results. Still, it holds some merit. If Apple fans flooded the online polling, the results might not be accurate, but it then begs the question: Why doesn't Microsoft (or Ford, or Coca-Cola) have the kinds of fans that will flood online surveys in its favor? In truth, I think Microsoft's brand power certainly has languished in recent years, and the trend is probably continuing to sour as its competitors in multiple areas (Apple, Firefox, Sony, etc.) continue to pressure the company with market-share gains.

All hope is not lost, though. Microsoft is a powerful brand that is certainly known by a huge percentage of the populace, and making sure the brand conjures good thoughts and feelings can have a big payoff. Here are five ways Microsoft can turn their brand around.

Five Ways to Fix Microsoft's Brand Image

1. Cooler advertising: Microsoft shows all the time with their internal corporate videos that they have a sense of humor. Their ads in magazines and on TV are the very definition of boring, though. I can just see a room full of marketing executives analyzing ads, making sure there's nothing that would offend anyone even a little, scouring ads to make sure every ethnic and racial group is represented, going over a "bullet point list" of product features that need to be mentioned, etc.

There are too many cooks in the kitchen. Let one creative type make an "image" ad that doesn't discuss any product features, with a single goal in mind: Make people smile (or even laugh) and associate that feeling with a Microsoft product usually not tied to such feelings like Office or Vista. Here's a hint for the marketing people: Showing other people smiling and laughing in your commercial is not the same thing

.

2. Put the old guys away: Never trot out Steve Ballmer or Ray Ozzie at a press conference, convention keynote, or product demo where there are going to be lots of users and press in attendance. Save those guys for the corporate meetings and business briefings. I know they're high-ups in the company, but they're not great public presenters for an age where thousands of potential customers are going to watch streaming video online of their pitch. The company has more dynamic, youthful execs (lower-level execs). Train them to be good presenters and have a little fun on stage. Conference presentations are no longer seen by just the few hundred people in the room, they're seen by your customers. You'd think a company that keeps trying to launch a YouTube competitor would get that.

3. Xbox marks the spot: Hey, the Xbox brand is great. People love their Xbox 360s. People all over the country camped out overnight in the November cold to get 'em—how many other Microsoft products got that kind of reception? Not Vista, that's for sure. The Xbox brand resonates better with its customers than the Microsoft brand not only because it's an entertainment device, but because the experience is totally different from other Microsoft products.

4. Open the Kimono: Isn't it odd that Apple, one of the most closed, hostile, and secretive computer companies around, is so well-loved? How do you combat that? By going the other way! Actually, Microsoft has opened up a lot in the last several years, letting its employees blog about what they like (within reason) and demoing cool new technologies like Worldwide Telescope. But Microsoft works on a ton of cool things that it never shows anyone. And it works on them too long, letting more nimble companies beat them to the punch.

5. Make Windows 7 the First Non-Windows OS: Your marketing execs will never let this fly, but you shouldn't listen to them. The next Windows after Vista should not be called "Microsoft Windows ______." Drop the Windows moniker from your next OS. Seriously! Sure, your marketing guys will jump up and argue about all the "brand equity" in Windows. Bullcrap. A past history of zillions of sales does not automatically equal future success.

What "equity" there is in the Windows brand is not positive, it's baggage. The expectation is that a "Windows" OS is not secure (even though that's not entirely true), hard to use (again not true), buggy (okay, sort of), crashes a lot (that can certainly happen), and so on. Yes, everyone knows "Windows." And they hate it. It's time to re-brand the most valuable part of your business. Nothing will tell the public, and corporations, that Microsoft is "moving on to something better" and that "maybe this time will be different" more than moving to what would be the company's first non-Windows OS since the days of DOS.

It gives you an automatic excuse for any incompatibilities that pop up, and you get to claim "compatible with most of your Windows applications!" like it's some sort of novel thing. It gives you license (and imperative) to drop decade-old Windows UI conventions in favor of something better. But most importantly, it gives every potential customer in the world hope. Hope that the next operating system won't do any of the bad things they don't like about their current one. It's going to be ten times harder to convince people of that if the next OS, regardless of what it is, carries the Windows name.

Microsoft's OOXML Win: Just the First Step to Adoption

Analysis: ISO has ratified OOXML as a standard, but the spec needs "scrubbing" before it can even be put to use.

The International Organization for Standardization's approval of Microsoft's OOXML as an international standard is just the beginning of what could be a lengthy process before the file format can be widely and successfully implemented for exchanging documents, according to critics and supporters of OOXML.

For some, who have criticized Microsoft's now-successful attempt to fast-track Office Open XML as an ISO standard from the start, it seemed appropriate that the company confirmed OOXML's ratification on April Fools' Day.

But to others -- including Microsoft -- the approval of OOXML was a win for giving software developers and business users, particularly those in government agencies, choice about which standard file format they want to use for exchanging electronic documents.

Though official results about the vote from the ISO were announced today, Microsoft and a number of other sources confirmed Tuesday that 86 percent of the countries voting on OOXML had said "yes."

Validation and Controversy

To Tom Robertson, general manager of Microsoft interoperability and standards, this proves that "the global community has now embraced Open XML." He said the approval means that OOXML "will be widely used for years to come in every country in the world" as a standard for document exchange.

To some others, however, including open-standards advocates and supporters of Open Document Format for XML (ODF), a rival document format that preceded OOXML to ISO approval, the global community is still not ready to envelop OOXML in a warm and fuzzy hug. The final vote had barely been tallied before there were reports of irregularities and the possibility of national bodies changing "yes" votes due to protests from committee members unhappy with the outcome.

Protests over the ISO voting process and outcomes are not uncommon, said Jan van den Beld, ISO-process consultant for CompTIA and former secretary general of Ecma, who encouraged Microsoft to fast-track OOXML through Ecma to the ISO. This is particularly true because the ISO does not oversee each country's individual standards body and lets the national standards agencies set their own rules for voting on standards. "There's no general set of rules that each country is using," he said.

Still, even by standards voting, the OOXML vote has been particularly contentious, with both sides slinging mud for the better part of two years over first the Ecma, and then the ISO processes.

For example, not even two days after the final voting ended over the weekend, members of the Norwegian committee, which officially changed a previous "no, with comments" vote to "yes," asked that country's Ministry of Trade and Industry to investigate the voting process, claiming that 80 percent of committee members were opposed to a "yes" vote. For the record, the Norwegian standards body Standard Norge defended its vote online Tuesday, a defense Microsoft translated to English and posted at an employee blog.

Next: Implementation

No matter which side you're on or whom you believe, OOXML is now on par with ODF as an international standard. The practical question for business, government and consumer users of Office and other productivity suites remains: What comes next, and how will they be affected?

Proper implementation of the standard in Office 2007 seems to be a likely next step. Office 2007 is the suite that sparked the war when Microsoft decided to create its own XML-based document format for it and not include the existing ODF technology as a native file format.

Robertson said now that the format has been ratified, Microsoft will begin working on a road map for implementation, although he could not say when that would happen. That's probably because the ISO, which will oversee the standard going forward, still has work to do before the first OOXML specification will be finalized, which most expect will happen sometime before the end of the year.

Some, both privately and publicly, said the standards group will have its work cut out because the spec as it is now cannot legitimately be implemented, and there will need to be serious revision -- a thorough "scrubbing," as one critic put it -- before that can happen broadly.

"No one can actually implement this standard. Not even Microsoft," said Pamela Jones, author of the popular Groklaw blog and an outspoken critic of the OOXML process. "But even if they did, only Microsoft can really do so, because the format references proprietary stuff from the past. Stuff that is patented, no doubt, but mainly just unknown and unknowable, at least at the level Microsoft knows it."

Robertson said that the work being done in the ISO to finalize OOXML should rectify any problems of complexity, and the spec as it is now is far less complex than it was upon submission.

Moreover, CompTIA's van den Beld said it's "not true" that the OOXML spec can't be implemented, because companies such as IBM and others already have done so.

However, IBM said that it has not actually implemented OOXML, but its productivity applications merely "recognize" OOXML as a file format.

"It's kind of like when you encounter a "read-only" file on your computer, where it knows enough to give you a sense of what the file is and its characteristics," said IBM spokesman Ari Fishkind. "But it won't allow you to actually work with the file. So, it's misleading to suggest that a vendor has adopted, embraced or implemented that particular file format."

Issues Remain

All of this quibbling proves there are still issues to resolve over how OOXML will be implemented in real-world scenarios.

It also does not solve the problem Office 2007 users still have: while files that are written in previous versions of Office can be opened as OOXML .docx files in Office 2007, files saved to the .docx file format can't be read by people using older versions of Office unless they have installed an OOXML converter.

While one is available online from Microsoft -- and according to Robertson, is one of the company's most popular downloads-- it's still an extra step users have to go through to read .docx documents, so many still choose to save Office 2007 documents in the old .doc file format, or Word 97-2003, instead of OOXML as it's been implemented in Office 2007.

Another issue at hand is whether Microsoft will ever include native support for ODF in Office 2007 now that the company expects the world to adopt OOXML as a file format. To date, the company has no plans to do so, and is encouraging people to use the OOXML converter for using ODF files in Office.

Microsoft Set to Announce Next-Gen Security Software

Microsoft is unveiling next-generation security software, code-named Stirling, at the huge RSA Conference next week.

The world's largest security conference will kick off next week in San Francisco with the public unveiling of Microsoft's next-generation of security software, code-named Stirling.

Over the past few months, Microsoft has quietly shown the software to a select group of users, but sources familiar with the company's plans said that it will release a beta version of the code to users during the RSA Conference next Tuesday. Microsoft will allow attendees to "see new technologies," including Stirling and the company's next-generation Windows Server 2008 software, according to the conference agenda.

Microsoft's Forefront product line has been playing with more established security products over the past few years, but with Stirling the company will finally be able to offer administrators a single product that manages all of its security offerings.

"Stirling will touch many different areas of network protection, server protection and client protection," said Ronald Beekelaar, an independent IT consultant based in Amsterdam, who is familiar with the Forefront products. "So Microsoft has to coordinate that between different products. But that also means that beta testers should really look at Stirling at all those levels, and not just test the client protection, or only the firewall protection," he wrote in an e-mail interview.

Stirling's management and reporting capabilities, and its tight integration with Microsoft's other products will give enterprise users new tools for tracking malware and staying on top of the "health" of the computers on their network, he added.

After running the product through beta testing phase, Microsoft expects to ship Stirling by the end of June 2009.

Although Microsoft's security announcements are always closely watched, it will not be the only company making news at the conference. IBM plans to introduce new security projects, software and services products, and storage vendor EMC is expected to shed some more light on how it plans to tie together recent acquisitions such as Tablus, Network Intelligence and Documentum.

"EMC is determined to show its value in the information lifecycle," said Nick Selby, research director with the 451 Group, an industry analyst firm.

Symantec CEO John Thompson will keynote at the show Tuesday, the same day his company is set to release its semi-annual Internet Security Threat Report.

Hard drive vendor Seagate Technology will provide an update on the data center hard-drive encryption products it is developing in conjunction with IBM and storage component maker LSI. The companies have been working since last year to bring Seagate's Full Disk Encryption (FDE) technology to enterprise-class storage systems.

Show attendees who find the vendor pitches a bit much can walk down Howard Street at lunchtime Wednesday to catch open-source security vendor Untangle's DeepThroat Fight Club, which will pit rival Web filtering products against each other to see how well they do at blocking pornographic Web sites. The gloves come off at 12:15 at the Thirsty Bear Restaurant and Brewery.

Although RSA got its start as a small-scale conference for cryptographers, it's now the largest security event in the world, with an expanding agenda to match.

For the first time ever, the show will have talks from security researchers, who have traditionally stayed away from RSA in favor of the Black Hat conference, which is held each August in Las Vegas. In all, there will be more than 220 sessions at RSA this year, covering tracks such as legal issues, technical features, and, of course, cryptography.

"It obviously has grown in terms of the number of constituencies that it tries to satisfy," said Tim Mather, chief security strategist with RSA Conferences.

RSA runs from Tuesday to Friday next week at San Francisco's Moscone Center. More than 17,000 attendees are expected.

Microsoft Surface Coming To AT&T Stores

Microsoft’s Surface computer will make its commercial debut April 17 in AT&T stores in New York City, Atlanta, San Antonio and San Francisco.

Microsoft first unveiled the Surface back in May 2007; the coffee-table like computer allows touch screen interaction with various surfaces, can recognize objects places on it and even interact with things like mobile phones.

AT&T said it planned to use the Surface to allow customers “to learn about the growing universe of mobile applications and devices.”

I had the opportunity to have a quick play with a Surface earlier this year and it’s one of the cooler things to come out of Redmond in the last 12 months, but I can’t help but wonder: isn’t putting a Surface in an AT&T store like driving an Aston Martin into a Ghetto? To be fair, interacting with a Surface at an AT&T store will be better than trying to interact with AT&T staff; not only will it be quicker (even if you queue for an hour to use it), it will actually be more polite and be able to explain the product its offering competently.

A demo video from May as follows:

http://www.youtube.com/v/FlZxuqjJDgk&hl=en

Compiled List of Windows Server 2008 and Vista SP1 MSDN/TechNet DVD ISO Images Released by Microsoft

Windows Vista Service Pack 1 (Windows Vista SP1) and Windows Server 2008 have been officially released, and Microsoft has published the complete set of DVDs for the operating systems in ISO image format to MSDN and TechNet subscribers for online download. As a reference, here’s the official filename for the DVD ISO image files for both Windows Vista SP1 and Windows Server 2008 that has been released. Both operating system has the same build version number of 6001.18000.080118-1840, and there may be more language versions available, but only English and Russian versions are listed.

Windows Vista SP1 Retail DVD Image (Retail version disk contains Ultimate, Home Basic and Home Premium editions)

32-bit (x86)


6001.18000.080118-1840_x86fre_Client_en-us-FRMCFRE_EN_DVD.iso

6001.18000.080118-1840_x86fre_Client_ru-ru-FRMCFRE_RU_DVD.iso

64-bit (x64)

6001.18000.080118-1840_amd64fre_Client_en-us-FRMCXFRE_EN_DVD.iso

6001.18000.080118-1840_amd64fre_Client_ru-ru-FRMCxFRE_RU_DVD.iso

Windows Vista SP1 Business edition for Corporate (Volume Licensing)

6001.18000.080118-1840_x86fre_Business_en-us_VL-FRMBVOL_EN_DVD.iso

6001.18000.080118-1840_x86fre_Business_ru-ru_VL-FRMBVOL_RU_DVD.iso

Windows Vista SP1 Enterprise edition for Corporate (Volume Licensing)


6001.18000.080118-1840_x86fre_Enterprise_en-us_VL-FRMEVOL_EN_DVD.iso

6001.18000.080118-1840_x86fre_Enterprise_ru-ru_VL-FRMEVOL_RU_DVD.iso

Windows Server 2008 Final (RTM)

32-bit (x86)

6001.18000.080118-1840_x86fre_Server_en-us_VL-KRMSVOL_EN_DVD.iso

6001.18000.080118-1840_x86fre_Server_ru-ru_VL-KRMSVOL_RU_DVD.iso

6001.18000.080118-1840_x86fre_ServerStorage_en-us-KRMSSTO_EN_DVD.iso

6001.18000.080118-1840_x86fre_ServerV_en-us_vl-KRMSWOHVOL_EN_DVD.iso

6001.18000.080118-1840_x86fre_ServerWeb_en-us_VL-KRMWVOL_EN_DVD.iso

64-bit (x64)

6001.18000.080118-1840_amd64fre_ServerHPC_en-us_VL-SRVHPCVL_EN_DVD.iso

6001.18000.080118-1840_amd64fre_ServerHyper_en-us-KRHVXFRE_EN_DVD.iso

6001.18000.080118-1840_amd64fre_ServerStorage_en-us-KRMSXSTO_EN_DVD.iso

6001.18000.080118-1840_amd64fre_ServerV_en-us_vl-KRMSxWOHVOL_EN_DVD.iso

6001.18000.080118-1840_amd64fre_ServerWeb_en-us_VL-KRMWXVOL_EN_DVD.iso

6001.18000.080118-1840_ia64fre_ServerEnterpriseIA64_en-us_VL-KRMIAIVOL_EN_DVD.iso

Multilingual Language Interface Pack (MUI) for Microsoft Windows Server 2008

x86fre


6001.18000.080118-1840_x86fre_Server_LP_1-KRMSLP1_DVD.iso

6001.18000.080118-1840_x86fre_Server_LP_2-KRMSLP2_DVD.iso

6001.18000.080118-1840_x86fre_Server_LP_3-KRMSLP3_DVD.iso

6001.18000.080118-1840_x86fre_Server_LP_4-KRMSLP4_DVD.iso

6001.18000.080118-1840_x86fre_Server_LP_5-KRMSLP5_DVD.iso

6001.18000.080118-1840_x86fre_Server_LP_6-KRMSLP6_DVD.iso

amd64fre

6001.18000.080118-1840_amd64fre_Server_LP_1-KRMSLPX1_DVD.iso

6001.18000.080118-1840_amd64fre_Server_LP_2-KRMSLPX2_DVD.iso


6001.18000.080118-1840_amd64fre_Server_LP_3-KRMSLPX3_DVD.iso

6001.18000.080118-1840_amd64fre_Server_LP_4-KRMSLPX4_DVD.iso

6001.18000.080118-1840_amd64fre_Server_LP_5-KRMSLPX5_DVD.iso

6001.18000.080118-1840_amd64fre_Server_LP_6-KRMSLPX6_DVD.iso

Note:

DVD1: de-de, en-us, es-es, fr-fr, ja-jp

DVD2: ko-kr, pt-br, zh-cn, zh-hk

DVD3: zh-tw

DVD4: it-it, nl-nl, pt-pt, ru-ru, sv-se


lDVD5: cs-cz, hu-hu, pl-pl, tr-tr

DVD6: ar-sa, bg-bg, da-dk, el-gr, et-ee, fi-fi, he-il, hr-hr, lt-lt, lv-lv, nb-no, ro-ro, sk-sk, sl-si, sr-latn-cs, th-th, uk-ua

Multilingual Language Interface Pack (MUI) for Microsoft Windows Vista SP1

x86fre

6001.18000.080118-1840_x86fre_Client_LP_1-FRMCLP1_DVD.iso

6001.18000.080118-1840_x86fre_Client_LP_2-FRMCLP2_DVD.iso

6001.18000.080118-1840_x86fre_Client_LP_3-FRMCLP3_DVD.iso

6001.18000.080118-1840_x86fre_Client_LP_4-FRMCLP4_DVD.iso

6001.18000.080118-1840_x86fre_Client_LP_5-FRMCLP5_DVD.iso


6001.18000.080118-1840_x86fre_Client_LP_6-FRMCLP6_DVD.iso

6001.18000.080118-1840_x86fre_Client_LP_7-FRMCLP7_DVD.iso

amd64fre

6001.18000.080118-1840_amd64fre_Client_LP_1-FRMCLPX1_DVD.iso

6001.18000.080118-1840_amd64fre_Client_LP_2-FRMCLPX2_DVD.iso

6001.18000.080118-1840_amd64fre_Client_LP_3-FRMCLPX3_DVD.iso

6001.18000.080118-1840_amd64fre_Client_LP_4-FRMCLPX4_DVD.iso

6001.18000.080118-1840_amd64fre_Client_LP_5-FRMCLPX5_DVD.iso

6001.18000.080118-1840_amd64fre_Client_LP_6-FRMCLPX6_DVD.iso


6001.18000.080118-1840_amd64fre_Client_LP_7-FRMCLPX7_DVD.iso

Note:

DVD1: de-de, en-us, es-es, fr-fr

DVD2: ja-jp

DVD3: zh-tw

DVD4: ko-kr

DVD5: bg-bg, cs-cz, da-dk, el-gr, et-ee, fi-fi, hu-hu, it-it, lt-lt, lv-lv, nb-no, nl-nl, pl-pl, pt-pt, ro-ro, sk-sk, sl-si, sv-se

DVD6: ar-sa, he-il, hr-hr, pt-br, sr-latn-cs, th-th, tr-tr, uk-ua, zh-cn, zh-hk

DVD7: ru-ru

Some of the ISO disc images have been leaked on P2P torrent sites. For example, Windows Vista SP1 Enterprise Edition and MUI language packs for Windows Vista SP1.

Windows 7 may come 'in the next year'

Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates on Friday indicated that Windows 7, the next major version of Windows, could come within the next year, far ahead of the development schedule previously indicated by the software maker.

In response to a question about Windows Vista, Gates, speaking before the Inter-American Development Bank here, said: "Sometime in the next year or so we will have a new version." Referring to Windows 7, the code name for the next full release of Windows client software, Gates said: "I'm super-enthused about what it will do in lots of ways."

Compiled List of Windows Server 2008 and Vista SP1 MSDN/TechNet DVD ISO Images Released by Microsoft

Windows Vista Service Pack 1 (Windows Vista SP1) and Windows Server 2008 have been officially released, and Microsoft has published the complete set of DVDs for the operating systems in ISO image format to MSDN and TechNet subscribers for online download. As a reference, here’s the official filename for the DVD ISO image files for both Windows Vista SP1 and Windows Server 2008 that has been released. Both operating system has the same build version number of 6001.18000.080118-1840, and there may be more language versions available, but only English and Russian versions are listed.

Windows Vista SP1 Retail DVD Image (Retail version disk contains Ultimate, Home Basic and Home Premium editions)

32-bit (x86)


6001.18000.080118-1840_x86fre_Client_en-us-FRMCFRE_EN_DVD.iso

6001.18000.080118-1840_x86fre_Client_ru-ru-FRMCFRE_RU_DVD.iso

64-bit (x64)

6001.18000.080118-1840_amd64fre_Client_en-us-FRMCXFRE_EN_DVD.iso

6001.18000.080118-1840_amd64fre_Client_ru-ru-FRMCxFRE_RU_DVD.iso

Windows Vista SP1 Business edition for Corporate (Volume Licensing)

6001.18000.080118-1840_x86fre_Business_en-us_VL-FRMBVOL_EN_DVD.iso

6001.18000.080118-1840_x86fre_Business_ru-ru_VL-FRMBVOL_RU_DVD.iso

Windows Vista SP1 Enterprise edition for Corporate (Volume Licensing)


6001.18000.080118-1840_x86fre_Enterprise_en-us_VL-FRMEVOL_EN_DVD.iso

6001.18000.080118-1840_x86fre_Enterprise_ru-ru_VL-FRMEVOL_RU_DVD.iso

Windows Server 2008 Final (RTM)

32-bit (x86)

6001.18000.080118-1840_x86fre_Server_en-us_VL-KRMSVOL_EN_DVD.iso

6001.18000.080118-1840_x86fre_Server_ru-ru_VL-KRMSVOL_RU_DVD.iso

6001.18000.080118-1840_x86fre_ServerStorage_en-us-KRMSSTO_EN_DVD.iso

6001.18000.080118-1840_x86fre_ServerV_en-us_vl-KRMSWOHVOL_EN_DVD.iso

6001.18000.080118-1840_x86fre_ServerWeb_en-us_VL-KRMWVOL_EN_DVD.iso

64-bit (x64)

6001.18000.080118-1840_amd64fre_ServerHPC_en-us_VL-SRVHPCVL_EN_DVD.iso

6001.18000.080118-1840_amd64fre_ServerHyper_en-us-KRHVXFRE_EN_DVD.iso

6001.18000.080118-1840_amd64fre_ServerStorage_en-us-KRMSXSTO_EN_DVD.iso

6001.18000.080118-1840_amd64fre_ServerV_en-us_vl-KRMSxWOHVOL_EN_DVD.iso

6001.18000.080118-1840_amd64fre_ServerWeb_en-us_VL-KRMWXVOL_EN_DVD.iso

6001.18000.080118-1840_ia64fre_ServerEnterpriseIA64_en-us_VL-KRMIAIVOL_EN_DVD.iso

Multilingual Language Interface Pack (MUI) for Microsoft Windows Server 2008

x86fre


6001.18000.080118-1840_x86fre_Server_LP_1-KRMSLP1_DVD.iso

6001.18000.080118-1840_x86fre_Server_LP_2-KRMSLP2_DVD.iso

6001.18000.080118-1840_x86fre_Server_LP_3-KRMSLP3_DVD.iso

6001.18000.080118-1840_x86fre_Server_LP_4-KRMSLP4_DVD.iso

6001.18000.080118-1840_x86fre_Server_LP_5-KRMSLP5_DVD.iso

6001.18000.080118-1840_x86fre_Server_LP_6-KRMSLP6_DVD.iso

amd64fre

6001.18000.080118-1840_amd64fre_Server_LP_1-KRMSLPX1_DVD.iso

6001.18000.080118-1840_amd64fre_Server_LP_2-KRMSLPX2_DVD.iso


6001.18000.080118-1840_amd64fre_Server_LP_3-KRMSLPX3_DVD.iso

6001.18000.080118-1840_amd64fre_Server_LP_4-KRMSLPX4_DVD.iso

6001.18000.080118-1840_amd64fre_Server_LP_5-KRMSLPX5_DVD.iso

6001.18000.080118-1840_amd64fre_Server_LP_6-KRMSLPX6_DVD.iso

Note:

DVD1: de-de, en-us, es-es, fr-fr, ja-jp

DVD2: ko-kr, pt-br, zh-cn, zh-hk

DVD3: zh-tw

DVD4: it-it, nl-nl, pt-pt, ru-ru, sv-se


lDVD5: cs-cz, hu-hu, pl-pl, tr-tr

DVD6: ar-sa, bg-bg, da-dk, el-gr, et-ee, fi-fi, he-il, hr-hr, lt-lt, lv-lv, nb-no, ro-ro, sk-sk, sl-si, sr-latn-cs, th-th, uk-ua

Multilingual Language Interface Pack (MUI) for Microsoft Windows Vista SP1

x86fre

6001.18000.080118-1840_x86fre_Client_LP_1-FRMCLP1_DVD.iso

6001.18000.080118-1840_x86fre_Client_LP_2-FRMCLP2_DVD.iso

6001.18000.080118-1840_x86fre_Client_LP_3-FRMCLP3_DVD.iso

6001.18000.080118-1840_x86fre_Client_LP_4-FRMCLP4_DVD.iso

6001.18000.080118-1840_x86fre_Client_LP_5-FRMCLP5_DVD.iso


6001.18000.080118-1840_x86fre_Client_LP_6-FRMCLP6_DVD.iso

6001.18000.080118-1840_x86fre_Client_LP_7-FRMCLP7_DVD.iso

amd64fre

6001.18000.080118-1840_amd64fre_Client_LP_1-FRMCLPX1_DVD.iso

6001.18000.080118-1840_amd64fre_Client_LP_2-FRMCLPX2_DVD.iso

6001.18000.080118-1840_amd64fre_Client_LP_3-FRMCLPX3_DVD.iso

6001.18000.080118-1840_amd64fre_Client_LP_4-FRMCLPX4_DVD.iso

6001.18000.080118-1840_amd64fre_Client_LP_5-FRMCLPX5_DVD.iso

6001.18000.080118-1840_amd64fre_Client_LP_6-FRMCLPX6_DVD.iso


6001.18000.080118-1840_amd64fre_Client_LP_7-FRMCLPX7_DVD.iso

Note:

DVD1: de-de, en-us, es-es, fr-fr

DVD2: ja-jp

DVD3: zh-tw

DVD4: ko-kr

DVD5: bg-bg, cs-cz, da-dk, el-gr, et-ee, fi-fi, hu-hu, it-it, lt-lt, lv-lv, nb-no, nl-nl, pl-pl, pt-pt, ro-ro, sk-sk, sl-si, sv-se

DVD6: ar-sa, he-il, hr-hr, pt-br, sr-latn-cs, th-th, tr-tr, uk-ua, zh-cn, zh-hk

DVD7: ru-ru

Some of the ISO disc images have been leaked on P2P torrent sites. For example, Windows Vista SP1 Enterprise Edition and MUI language packs for Windows Vista SP1.

All About Linux 2008: Should Microsoft be afraid of Linux?

Does Microsoft fear Linux? Should it fear Linux? Does it fear Linux only in certain sectors, like Web servers, and not others, like the desktop? What exactly does “fear” mean here? Why do I still watch Lost? All important questions that deserve highly developed answers. PBS attempted to answer some of these questions, but that was in 1998. A lot has changed since then. I, for example, now wear a size 11 shoe as opposed to a 7.

I tend to view Linux as two different animals, rightly or wrongly. There’s Linux for the desktop, like Ubuntu, Gentoo, Knoppix and whatever flavor-of-the-month distro gets mentioned on this week’s Tekzilla. (I actually like Tekzilla, being a former TechTV viewer.) The average person, the man or woman who uses the computer at work to create spreadsheets or to order paper, doesn’t know Linux from Adam. At least until this past week, that is. They skip along happily, clicking “start” at the beginning of every day. Desktop Linux, supposedly, is for these folks, and certain distros, most notably Ubuntu, offer an easy-to-use environment, no command line needed. But really, with a 0.65 percent market share, do you really think Microsoft is worried about losing out to Linux? Its biggest competitor is Mac OS X, and that’s still only on 7.5 percent of all computers.

Linux on the server, however, is a whole ‘nother matter. A quick trip to microsoft.com offers a glimpse of how Redmond feels about the free as in freedom OS. There’s all sorts of charts and graphs and mentions of total costs of ownership.

But is that enough to call Microsoft “afraid” of Linux?

Judging by what Microsoft told me yesterday, the company seems as cool as you like and doesn’t view Linux, desktop or otherwise, as any sort of legitimate threat. Hubris? Hardly.

We have always had a very healthy attitude toward competition, knowing that it is always good for customers…. and we are confident that Windows Vista is the platform to enhance the individual digital lives of people around the world…. Windows Vista is on track to be the fastest selling operating system in Microsoft’s history, also thanks to our strong partner ecosystem.

That’s what the company’s rapid response team (well, that’s the name I gave it) told me. Even controlling for PR spin, to me those don’t look like the words of someone’s who’s “afraid” of anything. And why should it? Even though Vista has been universally panned—and some of that may not be specifically Microsoft’s fault—sales of 100 million licenses indicates that, someone, somewhere still takes Microsoft and Windows seriously.

And Linux on the deskop—come on now, really? Yes, Devin’s comments in this week’s Unreasonable Stance were a little on the bombastic side, but his general skeptical tone of Linux “making it,” or however you want to phrase it, looks right to me. Fact is, most people use the OS that ships with their computer. People who bought a mid-range Dell will use Windows XP or Vista for the life of the computer. The incoming college student who got a MacBook for his high school graduation will use Leopard. Do we really think that for all our huffing and puffing about Linux being more secure, which I’m not even disputing, we’ll get the average user to switch over? Convincing your friends to use Firefox instead of IE is trivial compared to asking someone to move away from Windows. I remember when I told one of my relatives that I got a Mac (this was a few years ago) he replied with something like, “Oh what type of Windows does it have?”

The average I-use-computers-to-check-my-e-mail-and-CNN-every-morning user is content with Windows. Tell them to turn on the built-in firewall and not to click strange things and you’ve solved any number of problems right there. Education, not a knee-jerk “switch to Linux!” reaction to the security problem is the best solution.

Not that I don’t like Linux. My experience with the OS sorta mirrored Biggs’. I remember once my high school closed early because of a gas leak or something else equally unsafe. Rather than use the free day to “hang out” with my friends, I installed Red Hat 8 on some old POS Compaq we had. More recently, I’ve been playing around with gOS. If the Wi-Fi support was a little better (read: if it worked on my MacBook), I could see myself taking in-class notes using Google Docs just to stand out. But just because I enjoy screwing around with command line doesn’t mean I’m gonna turn around and tell my uncle to drop his Windows setup.

So, should Microsoft be afraid of Linux? I really doubt it. I honestly can’t see regular users switching away from Windows, pirated or otherwise, to Linux. On the server market, yes, there’s a little more competition, but that just means Microsoft will have to actually try to innovate and convince its customers that a Windows license is worth their while.

How to Get Free Support and Help from Microsoft for Installing Windows Vista SP1 Problems

Facing problems and errors while installing Windows Vista SP1? Well, help is on the way. Microsoft will provides free support and technical help for all problems and issues when installing Windows Vista SP1. The unlimited installation and compatibility support is available at no charge until March 18, 2009.
Normally, only customers who bought the retail product at higher price are eligible for free technical support and help from Microsoft. For the purpose of Windows Vista SP1 installation, all users of Windows Vista who wants to install the service pack and faces problems or errors, including users who get their copy of Windows Vista due to buying computer product from original equipment manufacturer (OEM), can get help directly from Microsoft.

The move to offer free support signifies the many errors that Windows Vista users face since the release of Windows Vista, and more recently, causing infinite and endless reboot loop on Windows Vista computer when attempts to roll out a pre-requisite update for Windows Vista SP1 via Windows Update. Not to mention more annoying application compatibility issue after upgrading to SP1.

More helps on Windows Vista SP1 can be found on Windows Vista Solution Center. All support requests on installing Windows Vista SP1 and its compatibility issues can be sent via email or online chat on Microsoft Help and Support site. E-mail support will be answered within response time of 24 hours, while individual online chat support, which only available from 5am to midnight Pacific Time on weekdays, and 6am to 6pm Pacific Time on weekends, has a waiting time of about 40 minutes.

For customers on Software Assurance Agreement, Professional Contract, TechNet Subscription, MSDN Subscription and Microsoft Partner Program (MSPP) licensing arrangement can also call (866) 234-6020 or (800) 892-5234 (TTY/TDD help requests with cost involves) from 5am to 9pm Pacific Time on weekdays and 6am to 3pm Pacific Time on weekends to get free unlimited support requests.

Microsoft said support will be handled on a case-by-case basis, and the user will always be advised if costs are involved, and whether enterprise customers will also receive support without cost will depend on their agreement.