Today we are sharing our plan to automatically upgrade Windows customers to the latest version of Internet Explorer available for their PC. This is an important step in helping to move the Web forward. We will start in January for customers in Australia and Brazil who have turned on automatic updating via Windows Update. Similar to our release of IE9 earlier this year, we will take a measured approach, scaling up over time. As always, when upgrading from one version of Internet Explorer to the

Installing Windows is a complex operation that provides an incredibly unique capability—the ability to run a new version of Windows on a vast array of hardware configurations and combinations that were designed with no knowledge of a future Windows, even a version with substantial re-architecture of the Kernel. While most people do not experience the full code path of setup/upgrade (because they buy new PCs and choose to get a new version of Windows that way), even orchestrating the new PC “out

Before the Internet, updates such as service packs and "patches" were impossibly hard to come by. You ordered upgrade "media" or maybe bought a magazine with a CD in it. Of course, the Internet changed all that. In fact, when ftp.microsoft.com was first set up, among the first services was the ability to get updates for MS-DOS and Windows. With the introduction of Windows Update, we invested heavily in building not just a software delivery service, but a commitment to delivering high quality upd

The flexible Windows 8 start screen     The Windows Developer Preview has been out for a month, and I've had a chance to look more closely at its features. Here's an overview of details, small and large, many of which you haven't seen before. One feature I like about the new Start screen design is that it scales for different screen sizes. Here, for example, is a 1920 x 1080 24-inch display. It offers five rows of tiles instead of the three rows on a 1366 x 768 screen.     The Magnifi

Businesses have dragged their feet on upgrading from the ten-year-old Windows XP to newer versions of Microsoft’s operating system. First, they skipped Windows Vista en masse after the OS was the target of scorn from critics and IT analysts. Now, they are making the upgrade to Windows 7, but analysts at Gartner are worried some XP-using businesses will consider skipping Windows 7 in anticipation of next year’s release of Windows 8.     This would not be wise, Gartner and other analyst firms

Summary: This morning, Microsoft officially took the wraps off of Windows 8, unveiling its radically revised new operating system in front af an audience of software developers. I had a chance to get my hands on the new system (literally) last night. Here’s what you can look forward to. If you think you know what to expect from Windows 8, just wait till you get your hands on it. I stayed up far too late last night, experimenting with the developer preview build that Microsoft will show off to

Summary: Windows 8 client — and not just server — will include Microsoft’s Hyper-V hypervisor in some still unspecified SKU/SKUs, Microsoft officials publicly acknowledged in a new “Building Windows 8″ blog post. As those dissecting leaked Windows 8 leaked builds discovered months ago, Microsoft’s hypervisor is part of Windows 8 client, and not just server. On September 7, Microsoft acknowledged this fact officially in a new post to the “Building Windows 8″ blog. As the new Microsoft post on H

Are you the sort of person who prefers to shut your PC down at the end of the day rather than hibernate it or put it to sleep, but do you still want the system to start up fast? Windows 8 has a new feature that will be of great interest to you. The feature is called ‘fast startup mode’ and it is a hybrid between a standard cold boot and restoring your PC from a hibernated state. How does it work? Gabe Aul, director of program management in Windows, explains over on the Building Windows 8 blog: