Vista’s built-in Firewall: Dangerous to your (system’s) Health

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Vista is coming! Vista is coming!

That’s right. November 30 (of this year) for businesses, and January 30 (of the very next year) for the masses. See the article on nineMSN for details.

Support for Windows XP SP1 is ending.

Important: If you are running Windows XP Service Pack 1, or, for that matter, anything earlier than Windows XP SP2, you should upgrade immediately. Microsoft’s support for XP SP1 is ending by mid-October.

Microsoft just can’t keep patching older revs of its OS with all the security and bug fixes that are happening these days. As much as I like Windows 2000 (it’s like Win XP lite – no frilly look and feel), for example, I can no longer recommend that users run anything but Windows XP SP2, mostly for security reasons.

Here is Microsoft’s official notice.

Microsoft’s Vista OS pricing leaked to the public

Ed Bott, a blogger at ZDNet, grabbed what was only temporarily available data on Microsoft’s Canadian web site.

He translates the Canadian prices to the following (first price is for NEW; second price is for UPGRADE)

Windows Vista Ultimate $349/$199
Windows Vista Business $269/179
Windows Vista Home Premium $239/$139
Windows Vista Home Basic $199/$99

And yes, there will be (at least) four different versions from which to choose.  The Vista (view) from here becomes murkier… and more expensive.

Full article here

Windows vs. Mac Security: Reading for the hearty

Tom Yeager writes for InfoWorld.  He’s been accused at times of being biased towards Apple’s Mac platform and against Microsoft’s Windows platform.  But he’s just cut an interesting article comparing Windows and Mac security.  Some is technologically detailed, but the points are well taken.

Click here to read Tom Yeager’s article.

Microsoft’s advanced WinFS file system bites the dust

Originally slated to be included (actually, not just included, but featured) in what is now called Vista, the next release of Windows, WinFS appears to have met its end for mainstream users.  According to the WinFS development team  blog, WinFS is being relegated to a small niche in SQL Server and Microsoft's .NET platform.

 Read more about it at Microsoft's WinFS Team Blog.

Bumper crop of Microsoft patches coming this Tuesday

Microsoft plans to release over a dozen patches and security updates to Windows starting this coming Tuesday, June 13.  Make sure you have Automatic Updates turned on!

 To check, open Control Panel, and then open Security Center.  The section 'Automatic Updates' should have a green indicator light that says it's ON.  If it doesn't, click the link at the bottom of the page called 'Automatic Updates, under the title 'Manage security settings for:'.  In the dialog box, select Automatic (recommended), and then click OK.

Microsoft's patches will automatically make their way to your computer.