Vista SP2, which also includes SP2 for Windows Server 2008 due to the fact that both the desktop and server OS share the same codebase, requires that SP1 is already installed on your PC.

But SP2 doesn’t play well with vLite, the put-Vista-on-a-diet software which many to trim the OS back to size by removing unwanted components.

Microsoft’s even posted a specific warning on this hurdle, which during the SP2 install tosses up the error message that “One or more system components that the service pack requires are missing”.

“This problem occurs because system components that are required to install Windows Vista SP2 are not present on your computer” Microsoft explains. “A common reason for this problem is that the vLite software was used to customise the Windows Vista installation and some required system components were removed.”

Ah, but there’s a solution. “To resolve this problem, use genuine Microsoft software media to reinstall Windows Vista with Service Pack 1 and then install Windows Vista SP2.” Of course – that makes everything so easy!

You can grab the 32-bit edition of SP2 (a 348MB download) from here, or click here for the 64-bit (577MB) version.

Source : APCMag.com

The company claims that under its own test suite, IE8 is capable of loading web pages three times faster than Firefox, and one third quicker than Chrome.

Microsoft has hit some rough spots since the release of Vista, and its once unassailable browser market share has been on a perpetual downward trajectory. In an attempt to win back both developers and users who have begun to stop focusing their development efforts on Internet Explorer users, the company has even produced a 14-page report and video to prove their claim.

Lab tests are great, however typically their results are very difficult to reproduce in real life. In this particular test, conducted in January 2008, Microsoft loaded the 25 largest websites, at faster rates than other browsers.

The company also kept add-ons to a minimum: by running tests with no browser plugins, add-ons or third party toolbars, and a minimum of three in some instances, the browser was able to load faster. Under normal, everyday use this would be next to impossible.

The page load times were measured using “visual cues” or a combination of visual cues and the page interaction to be sure the page had actually loaded. The company felt relying on the done notification would have provided results that were inconsistent on some sites, such as those which contain AJAX.

Under normal circumstances this information really wouldn’t be news unless you were a developer, however in this instance the use of the browser has tanked dramatically, and Microsoft is grappling in effort to get the attention of both the industry and its customers.

Source :APCMag.com

Microsoft on Tuesday announced a change in its licensing policy to make it easier for businesses that want the ability to shift server software that is running in a virtual machine from one physical machine to another.

The licensing shift, which had been expected, lifts a cap that had limited the ability to switch software from one physical machine to another within a server farm. Under the prior rules, such shifts could me made only once every 90 days. That’s a problem because software from VMware and others aims to allow such transfers to be made dynamically in response to changing demand.

“Businesses are taking steps to make their IT operations more dynamic and are delving into virtualization as a cornerstone strategy,” Microsoft Senior Director Zane Adam said in a statement. “Microsoft recognizes this and is innovating its licensing policies, product support, and a wide range of IT solutions to help customers get virtual now.”

The change applies to 41 server titles, Microsoft said, including the enterprise version of SQL Server 2008, the standard and enterprise versions of Exchange Server 2007, as well as the Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 and Microsoft System Center products.

Microsoft also plans to offer better support for businesses that are running its software inside other companies’ virtualization engines. Under the changes, Microsoft will support its software running inside virtual machines from VMware, Cisco Systems, Citrix, Novell, Sun Microsystems, and Virtual Iron as if it were being run in nonvirtual environments.

In the past, many customers with problems running Microsoft software in VMware, for example, had to reproduce the problem outside of VMware in order to get technical support from Microsoft.

For some time now, Microsoft has been trying to shift its pricing policies to reflect a new world in which server software often runs inside virtual machines.

Microsoft is going to have more to say on the virtualization front at a September 8 event in the Seattle area.

Source: CNET News.com ]]> http://techportal.freehostia.com/2008/08/19/microsoft-relaxes-virtual-machine-rules/feed/ 0 http://techportal.freehostia.com/2008/07/23/microsoft-adopts-divx-for-latest-media-players/ http://techportal.freehostia.com/2008/07/23/microsoft-adopts-divx-for-latest-media-players/#comments Wed, 23 Jul 2008 16:57:18 +0000 admin http://techportal.freehostia.com/?p=163 In its latest push to dominate the home entertainment space, Microsoft has quietly announced support for the popular DivX and Xvid video formats. The company plans to include these formats in a range of media extender hardware devices being readied for launch later this year.

The thinking in Redmond is that releasing a bunch of new extenders with support for the codecs will lead to more people adopting Windows Media Centre as the hub of their digital home entertainment systems.

Currently, if you want to operate your Media Centre PC remotely and stream video to a television you need an Xbox. The new devices, being built by the likes of Linksys and D-Link, will give consumers some more options.

It’s a little unusual for Microsoft to pre-announce such products but the move shows just how fiercely competitive the home entertainment sector is becoming. No firm date has yet been given for when the new devices will hit the shelves.

Microsoft says the new boxes are the first examples of its Extenders for Windows Media Centre platform and promises more devices will appear over time. Other features to be supported initially include High Definition television and wireless networking.

Media Centre has so far failed to set the world on fire, primarily because there is considerable consumer resistance to having a dedicated PC sitting in the lounge room. Extenders overcome this by allowing people to stream content from another room.

The announcement follows the recent release-to-manufacturing of Microsoft’s Home Server operating system, however the company is quick to point out that the two products complement rather than compete with each other.

In Microsoft’s vision for home entertainment nirvana, television will be recorded onto a Media Centre PC, with archived content – movies, music and photos – being stored on the home server and fed to the media centre as required. Extenders will then feed all the content to TVs around the house.

It remains to be seen whether this latest extender strategy leads to such a vision appearing in more homes any time soon.

Ironically, the DivX format was originally an underground, pirated version of a beta Microsoft MPEG-4 version 3 CODEC. It has since been rewritten and legitimised.

Source : APCMag.com

Well, you’d obviously be thinking wrong, as the company’s released its own standalone media player application, serving Flash video files to PC or Mac platforms. It’s perhaps not the most original idea, and it’s thus got the single most unoriginal name for a media player we’ve ever hit: Adobe Media Player 1.0

Leaving the obvious jokes about never adopting a 1.0 platform aside, the application itself is interesting from a technical standpoint, as it’s built on Adobe’s AIR platform, and AIR is a necessary part of the installation procedure. Adobe’s signed up a number of US content partners including CBS and MTV, as well as a large quantity of content that wouldn’t look out of place on YouTube itself. Adobe’s two big hooks for Media Player is that content can – at the provider’s discretion – be provided for offline viewing, and it can be served up in HD quality.

We installed Media Player 1.0 on a Macbook and set about exploring Adobe’s take on the media centre model. It’s nicely supported with a number of tutorials, and because it’s a full application with (regrettably) a big chunk of DRM right in the middle of it, it’s possible to download (some) programs and schedule them for RSS-style subscription as and when they become available. The home screen lets you browse for videos, or search across a wide variety of categories, from “Action & Adventure” through to “World”.

While there’s quite a bit of content available at launch – certainly a great deal more than the Beta version of ABC’s Playback service we recently examined – it’s almost entirely ad-supported, and by “ad supported”, we mean “Ad supported in the style favoured by US Prime-Time networks, with some ad breaks being longer than program breaks”. While it’s mildly amusing seeing ads for products and services that will never be available here, that novelty wears off rather quickly.

The heavy ad rotation does tie in with Adobe’s official position on the Media Player, which talks of “new ways to distribute, measure and build businesses around video content”, and “next-generation offline monetization and branding options, including viewer-centric dynamic advertising for targeted marketing campaigns.” Or, in words that non-marketing people use, lots of ads.

While DRM capabilities are built into the Media Player platform, at this stage Media Player doesn’t seem to be performing any geolocation IP-checks, as we were able to watch all of the currently available content.

Adobe Media Player 1.0 is available for download on PC and Mac here. No doubt Adobe will be pursuing market share using the same means as all other makers of popular software that introduce a new product: ride-along downloads. Think Apple installing Safari on the PCs of people who installed iTunes for Windows; Sun installing Google Toolbar when people download Java, and so on.

Source : APCMag.com

Google’s IM network is available via the downloadable Google Talk software, on the web using the Google Talk Gadget, or through any software that supports the open-source Jabber chat protocol. It’s also available via the left hand side bar in the Gmail window.

Today Google improved on Talk by adding on-the-fly language translation via ‘bots’ that you add to your Google Talk friends list.

Do you speak French? Or Arabic? Now you do with new Google language ‘bots’

Translating using iChat and Jabber

To use the translation tools you’ll need to add each individual language-to-language bot as a friend in your G Talk buddy list.

There are currently 24 supported bots and adding them is easy as long as you know the two languages you want to translate between.

You’ll also need to append ‘@bot.talk.google.com’ to the end of the two languages. I fired up Google Chat and used it to translate between English and French and English and Arabic and the response is almost instant.

For a complete list of language codes see here . If you add them and nothing happens it means that Google doesn’t support it yet.

There’s also another feature that I hadn’t noticed before called Group Chat – this lets you invite multiple people into a chat, and can be used in conjunction with the languages bots to help a translation between you and your foreign friend. However, it’s worth noting that both Group Chat and language translations are only available within G Talk and not to your AIM buddies unfortunately.

If you’re not a fan of web-based IM clients then any Jabber compatible client (iChat included) should let you sign on to G Talk and add buddies locally.

Now, the only thing Google has to do now is add language translation to the voice call side of Google Talk

Source : APCMag.com