Some of you probably noticed a new download showed up today:   The Windows® Automated Installation Kit (AIK) for Windows® 7 SP1 http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/en/details.aspx?FamilyID=696dd665-9f76-4177-a811-39c26d3b3b34   Be sure to read the “readme” that goes along with this at:   Windows Automated Installation Kit for Windows 7 Readme http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd349350(WS.10).aspx   A quick Q&A that I assembled from information in this readme and our own MDT

After an already long development path, Microsoft has just released the release candidate for Internet Explorer 9, their attempt at turning the tide. They've looked at an impressive 17000 pieces of feedback for the release candidate, and they made lots of changes.   There are a lot of changes under the hood. The release candidate adds support for CSS3 2D Transforms, HTML5 Geolocation, a set of HTML5 semantic elements, and the HTML5 canvas global­Composite­Operation property. They also improved

Yesterday, Microsoft officially handed off the final release (RTM) of Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 Service Pack 1 (SP1) to their OEM partners. On February 16th Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 will be available for MSDN and TechNet Subscribers as well as Volume License customers. On February 22nd, Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 will become generally available for folks to download via the Microsoft Download Center and available on Windows Update.   For Windows 7, SP1

Net Applications reported that Internet Explorer 9 Beta continued its worldwide growth in January. IE9 has been downloaded over 23 million times, and now accounts for 0.5% of all users worldwide while still a beta product. We are pleased to see users continue to leverage Windows 7 capabilities together with IE9 for a more beautiful web experience. On Windows 7, Internet Explorer 9 already accounts for 1.82% of users worldwide.     Internet Explorer 8 also continued its rise in Januar

Microsoft has warned of a vulnerability found across the range of desktop and server Windows offerings that could potentially allow an attacker to run malicious scripts through a web page.   The vulnerability, which was first reported on Friday by the Redmond-based software giant, impacts all "supported" editions of Windows, including Windows XP, Windows Vista, Windows 7 and Windows Server 2003 and 2008.   Microsoft says the exploit is a result of a bug in Windows' MHTML handler, which the s

Redmond, Wash. – Jan. 27, 2011 – Microsoft Corp. announced record second-quarter revenue of $19.95 billion for the quarter ended Dec. 31, 2010. Operating income, net income and diluted earnings per share for the quarter were $8.17 billion, $6.63 billion and $0.77 per share, respectively.   Prior year results reflect the recognition of $1.71 billion of deferred revenue relating to the Windows 7 Upgrade Option program and sales of Windows 7 before general availability in October 2009. Second-qua

An Internet Explorer 9 Release Candidate build has leaked onto the Internet ahead of its public debut.     Internet Explorer 9 RC build 9.0.8073.6003 appeared on a number of file sharing sites on Friday, shortly before Microsoft is expected to unveil its latest public preview. The build is an escrow version of Internet Explorer 9 RC and is not expected to represent the final shipping build version of Internet Explorer 9 RC. Screenshots of a more recent escrow build surfaced on Friday, versi

Solid-state drives are wicked fast. SSDs start and shut down fast, and they perform read operations (especially random reads) at speeds that blow the doors off conventional hard drives. In the first installment of this series, I gathered the numbers to show just how much faster you can expect an SSD to perform in the real world.   But you might need to jump through some setup hoops to get top performance out of an SSD-equipped PC running Windows 7. That’s because Windows has evolved over many