Four months after its official, belated release, figuring out how Windows Vista is doing in the market involves as much decoding as a Dan Brown mystery. Microsoft may trumpet impressive, McDonald’s-esque stats — 40 million copies shipped in 100 days, twice as fast as XP! — but it politely ducks and weaves when the professionally curious seek many of the details behind those numbers.

And these numbers are important from a creative point-of-view. From deciding which OS to equip your studio with, to what systems your digital viewers will be using to interact with your content, how Vista does is vital.

Instead, there’s so much spin — from Microsoft, from rivals such as Apple, from market analysts pushing research and more research — it would even leave Sasha Cohen dizzy. Here’s our attempt to unravel this puzzle-shrinkwrapped-in-a-mystery.

1. Why does Microsoft talk about having shipped 40 million copies of Vista when everyone knows that doesn’t equal the actual number of users?

To give Microsoft the benefit of the doubt, 40 million is the only number it can verify, and it’s the one Wall Street cares about in any case.

To arrive at that 40 million figure, according to Kevin Kutz, a director in the Windows client division, Microsoft tallied four numbers:

a) all licenses sold to PC makers for pre-installing Vista on their computers;

b) full and upgrade versions of Vista to be sold either as boxed product on retail shelves or at e-tail Web sites;

c) pay-per-downloads, via a new Web site called Windows MarketPlace, which it runs in partnership with retailers such as Circuit City; and

d) customers who redeemed coupons issued for free or discounted Vista upgrades if they bought PCs installed with XP between Oct. 26, 2006, and March 15, 2007.

Apart from d) and its direct sales to businesses (both of which we’ll get to later), Microsoft relies heavily on its ecosystem of channel partners to sell its software. That’s in contrast to firms such as Oracle Corp., which sells most of its software direct. But as a result, Microsoft counts shipments into the channel — because they’re easier to track, and because its partners are the ones actually paying Microsoft.

Microsoft’s Kutz acknowledges that because of the time it takes for Vista to wend its way through the channel into customers’ hands — about one month, according to IDC analyst David Daoud — its 40 million figure was higher than the actual number of users after 100 days.

2. Hey, doesn’t Microsoft also sell Vista directly to some big customers, too?

Yes, indeed. Microsoft does sell a lot of software straight to large enterprises and governments, though it declines to reveal how much. Moreover, those customers were actually allowed to start buying Vista on Nov. 30, two months before its official launch.

However, Microsoft is actually excluding all of those sales from its ongoing Vista license count. Why? Because despite announced reforms to its volume license policies, Microsoft has been slow to roll out some of the corresponding back-end technology. As a result, it still can’t get an accurate count of volume licenses. In any case, enterprise adoption of Vista appears to be slow among enterprises and governments.

Big organizations are generally slow to upgrade to new versions of Windows because of software compatibility problems, retraining and other management headaches. Of the six million PCs sold to large U.S. enterprises in the first quarter, only a million came with Vista, says IDC’s Daoud. And a huge percentage of those million PCs were immediately wiped clean of Vista and re-installed with XP. The pricey contracts these customers hold with Microsoft allow them to re-install Vista later, when they are ready to upgrade.

3. But what about the Vista Express Upgrade program? Didn’t that essentially give Microsoft a three-month head start on selling Vista? And doesn’t that undermine Microsoft’s claim to be doubling XP’s shipment rate?

Yes and no. On the head start issue, Microsoft’s excuses boil down to two: first, that customers couldn’t receive their copies of Vista until after the official launch date (with many complaining that they had to wait much longer after that); second, that the total number of customers that actually redeemed the upgrade coupons was small.

How many redeemed the coupons? Kutz won’t say. But according to Microsoft’s earnings statements, Microsoft deferred about US$1.2 billion in revenue from its fiscal Q2 (Oct-Dec ‘06) to its Q3 to account for two things: shipping Vista to hardware makers or retailers in late 2006, so they could install it on PCs or stock their shelves in time for the Jan. 30 launch; and “technology guarantees” to consumers, aka the Vista Express Upgrade program.

Microsoft insists that the portion of the $1.2 billion that came from Vista Express upgrades was tiny, though, in lieu of an actual number, we’ll have take Redmond’s word for it.

As for whether the upgrade program negates an apples-to-apples comparison with XP, it actually turns out that Microsoft did also grant upgrade coupons to buyers of PCs in the months immediately before XP’s late 2001 release, to appease partners worried that PC sales would plummet.

4. Still, how meaningful is it for Microsoft to boast about Vista shipping twice as fast as XP if the PC market is also nearly twice the size?

On one hand, Microsoft is clearly shipping more operating systems this time around. That translates to higher sales and profits. Microsoft’s operating system revenue between October 2006 and the end of March this year — the quarter when it began shipping Vista and pre-selling it to consumers, and the quarter of its official release — was $7.86 billion. That is 72 percent higher than its revenue in the same quarters around XP’s launch, $4.57 billion.

Microsoft’s profit from selling operating systems the last two quarters was also staggering: $6.1 billion, or nearly 80 cents for every dollar earned (Microsoft did not break out profit figures by product line in 2001).

On the other hand, as observers have pointed out, Vista should be shipping faster than XP. The PC market is about 72 percent larger than during XP’s launch (58.9 million PCs shipped worldwide in Q1 2007, versus 34.2 million PCs shipped in Q4 2001).

Similarly, the total installed base of PCs today is also 47 percent bigger (1 billion versus 680 million, according to IDC). By those measures, Vista needs to ship between 50-75 percent faster than XP just to match the latter’s ‘penetration rate,’ argue some.

Moreover, while Windows XP is now widely considered to be Microsoft’s most successful OS ever, it actually started off as one of its weakest. Launched in October 2001, when many countries were still recovering from the dot-com crash, XP didn’t provide a lift to PC sales. U.S. PC sales actually fell 10 percent year-over-year for the quarter in which XP was launched. Customers were also fatigued: Windows ME was released just a year earlier, in September 2000, and Windows 2000 launched in February of that year.

Jupiter Research’s Michael Gartenberg says he’s far from blown away by Vista’s uptake rate. “What we’re seeing is normal demand,” he said.

Still, absent a better alternative, Microsoft’s comparison is a “reasonable” one, Gartenberg said. After all, “When people list the highest-grossing motion pictures of all time, do they take into account the fact that ticket prices are much higher today?”

5. Is there any evidence that Microsoft is using less legitimate means to boost shipments of Vista?

You mean like channel stuffing? The practice of arm-twisting partners into taking more products than they need or can sell is as old as the manufacturer-distributor relationship itself. While it can create a short-term boost in shipments, true channel stuffing usually ends up hurting all partners, with lower profits, management headaches and plummeting stock prices for all.

At least one blogger argues that Microsoft is doing this — but with its Xbox 360 console, not Vista. Microsoft’s Kutz strongly denies any such hanky-panky with Vista, though he declined to elaborate.

“One thing we never talk about is our relationship with OEMs. That gets to remain confidential,” he said.

That leaves conspiracy theorists and anti-Softies some ammo. But analysts say they haven’t seen anything to indicate this. “It’s not even worthy of discussion,” said Gartenberg.

“I just haven’t heard of any special deals,” said Ian Lao, an analyst with In-Stat. Lao says that his research — which includes checking inventory levels at firms in different levels of the supply chain — has not turned up any unusual buildup of Vista software or licenses among distributors or PC manufacturers.

He points out there are strong financial reasons discouraging OEMs and distributors from buying up Vista licenses and “hoarding” them for future shipments. Besides playing havoc with their cash flow, it could also expose those firms to taxes for any long-held inventory.

“It’s like buying an extra 100,000 hard drives and having them sit around in your warehouse for a long time,” Lao said. “It’s very bad for your accounting.”

6. So is there any way to figure out how many people are really using Vista today?

Nobody has officially stepped up to the plate, so we decided to do some fiddling on Excel. Take IDC’s estimate of 1 billion PCs in use worldwide today, and multiply that with research from Net Applications Inc. showing that 3.74 percent of PCs connecting to the Internet run Vista. That’s based on a sample of 600,000 Web sites and is the most up-to-date number available, according to analyst Vince Vizzacarro.

The rough result? About 37.4 million Vista users worldwide after about 120 days — not far off Microsoft’s figure of 40 million shipments in 100 days.

And how scientifically valid is that number? In-Stat’s Lao says while it “may make some statisticians cringe, it is not a bad starting point.” IDC’s Daoud goes further, saying this back-of-the-napkin calculation “points to Microsoft’s numbers being legitimate.”

7. OK, but is Vista going to help PC sales in the long run?

It’s unclear. IDC analyst Loren Loverde, citing Q1 ‘07 PC sales that were up 10.9 percent year-over-year, has said he believes Vista will be a major factor in helping the PC market continue growing at double-digit rates for the next two years.

But Lao believes the lift is the result of pent-up consumer demand for Vista, and as a result will last only until the middle of the summer. Vista might be a “nice new operating system with good features,” he said, but overall it is not proving to be a “demand creator” for PC buyers.

8. Is Vista being threatened by Mac OS X or Linux?

Yes and no. The most recent figures by Gartner Inc. show Mac sales in the first quarter up 30 percent year-over-year, outpacing all other vendors. Macs accounted for 5 percent of the PCs sold in the United States.

Macs also make up about 6 percent of U.S. computers connected to the Internet, according to WebSideStory Inc. “Mac has almost doubled,” a WebSideStory analyst told Computerworld in early May, “so you know they’re selling a butt load.”

Linux is also gaining mindshare on the desktop, after Novell’s high-profile launch of Suse Linux Enterprise Desktop (SLED) last year. And Dell Inc. has recently started to sell Ubuntu Linux PCs. At the same time, Linux’s worldwide share of installed PCs remains about 2 percent, with IDC’s Al Gillen expecting it to reach just 2.8 percent by 2009.

Similarly, while analysts expect the October release of “Leopard” to continue boosting the Mac OS X platform, even the most bullish predictions only have the Mac grabbing about 5 percent of the worldwide PC market by 2010.

Though many consumers are conspicuously choosing Mac or Linux over Windows, the bulk of PCs are purchased invisibly, by businesses. The more PCs they buy, the more likely they are to be Windows loyalists. And while leading voices such as Gartner argue that the rapid “consumerization of IT” is making enterprises buy more like consumers, even Gartner is not predicting that Macs will sweep into enterprises anytime soon.

9. So where is Vista’s fate most uncertain? What’s Microsoft’s next move?

Microsoft almost certainly employs a team of economists whose sole task is to create complex models of Redmond’s revenues and profits. But the answer to the question’s really not that complicated.

Microsoft needs to do two basic things. First, the company has to persuade both consumers and businesses to upgrade to Vista from XP as soon as possible. That makes it easier for Microsoft to sell them related products such as Office 2007, Exchange 2007, Longhorn Server and so on.

Once that’s accomplished, Microsoft needs to get consumers and small businesses to upgrade to more expensive ‘premium’ versions of Vista — preferably Vista Ultimate, though Vista Home Premium and Vista Business (for small businesses) are also good (big businesses are steered to the equally pricey Vista Enterprise edition).

As to the first task, Gartenberg isn’t sure that’s going to happen. Not only is Microsoft not doing enough to market Vista to buyers, it’s not doing enough to woo its ecosystem, either.

“There’s no real set of compelling Vista-only apps yet. And the Vista hardware is not really differentiated from XP,” he said.

On the second task, early reports are more promising. According to Chris Swenson, an analyst with NPD Group Inc., demand for pricier versions of Vista is strong, especially among those buying copies of Vista in stores. That means higher average selling prices compared with XP — and meatier profit margins for Microsoft.

“The challenge going forward, of course, is to convince OEMs that they can succeed at selling higher-priced PCs using a higher-end version of Vista to more affluent customers,” he said.

But unlike with XP, where a customer is locked into the version — either Home or Professional — that he originally purchased, Microsoft is letting customers upgrade their version of Vista anytime via the Internet with a click of a button. Those upgrades — which range from $79 to $199 — mean that even if most consumers opt for new PCs installed with the lowest-end Vista Home Basic version, Microsoft still has many more chances to upsell them, sales that would be pure profit for Redmond.

Title: How is Vista really doing?
Author: Eric Lai
Date: 31 May 2007
Source: Digital Arts

Starting today, humans, elves, dwarves and trolls can join the cross-platform revolution with Shadowrun at the estimated retail price of $59.99 (U.S.) for Xbox 360 and $49.99 (U.S.) for Windows Vista. Shadowrun is rated M for Mature by the Entertainment Software Ratings Board (ESRB). Shadowrun is also part of the Games for Windows initiative, offering reliability, compatibility and enhanced experiences on Windows Vista.

Additionally, Xbox 360 gamers can get in on the action with the official “Shadowrun” demo on June 6. The demo will be available for download via Xbox LIVE Marketplace.

The innovative first-person shooter (FPS) gameplay of “Shadowrun,” developed by FASA Studio, thrusts gamers into strategic battles that utilize magic and technology. Players must vie for supremacy, playing as a human, elf, dwarf or troll. Cleverness, cunning and split-second improvisation are rewarded through a unique combination of modern weapons, ancient magic and advanced technology. As the first game to support Microsoft’s Games for Windows – LIVE service, “Shadowrun” gives players on both Xbox 360 and Windows Vista a chance to compete, cooperate and communicate across both platforms with an Xbox LIVE Gold or Games for Windows - LIVE Gold account.

“Shadowrun” will ship with nine unique maps and an additional three map variations, showcasing dynamic environments set in a futuristic Santos, Brazil, and its neighboring ancient Ziggurat. “Shadowrun” includes six training chapters, letting gamers fine-tune their strategy and lethal combinations against the intuitively smart and talented A.I. bots. Gamers can also play with bots at four levels of difficulty on every map and with every game type.

Title: Shadowrun for Windows Vista & Xbox 360 Hits North America Today
Author: Xbox Solution
Date: 30 May 2007
Source: Xbox Solution

Title: VistaMizer 1.1.6
Author: Manuel Hoefs
Comments:

Do you like the look and feel of Windows Vista, but like the functionality of Windows XP? Most of us like what we’re used to and do not like change, although many of us would like to improve the visual appearance of our operating system, whether we change the desktop background, our Start Menu or our entire interface.

Some business users are going further, not wanting to upgrade to Vista until Service Pack 1 has been released and Vista has been on the market for some time and has reached maturity. This is the same for many new operating systems – business users are often the last segment to upgrade.

VistaMizer is a customisation tool that ships with a host of functions to change the look and feel of your Windows XP installation, so it appears to represent Vista. It’s based around an installer, so you don’t get much choice over what you want to install or not install. It simply installs everything, changes the entire look and feel of Windows XP, reboots and you have a completely different visual theme.

Note that VistaMizer is not a replacement for Windows Vista. It does not include any of the new and additional security or functionality offered by Windows Vista. It purely offers some of the visual themes offered by Vista and no more.

Download VistaMizer 1.1.6

For those of you out there who, for unknown reasons, either do not have a copy of Windows Vista™ in your test labs, or are using a so-to-expire beta copy, Microsoft is making a virtual machine of Windows Vista™ Enterprise edition available for you to use in your tests.

Link is here

Got any tips or tricks? List them here or drop me a line at john.obeto@absolutevista.com .

Can’t get enough Microsoft information? Visit Microsoft Subnet for more opinions and news.

http://www.networkworld.com/subnets/microsoft/

Title: 30-day Windows Vista Enterprise VM available for download
Author: John Obeto
Date: 30 May 2007
Source: Network World

Microsoft promised that Windows Vista would usher in a new era for PC gaming as a part of “The WOW Starts Now” marketing campaign. After spending several weeks with a complimentary copy of Microsoft’s new operating system (Ultimate version), we say: “WOW, what was Microsoft thinking?”

As an everyday operating system, Microsoft has a winner. The stunning new look and the Aero interface (while functionality worthless) screams “Sci-Fi movie.” The integrated sidebar allows for an assortment of useful (and not so useful) widgets and the OS simplifies many of the more laborious computing tasks (like hooking into a home network). The first few weeks were sketchy, with numerous appearances by the “Blue Screen of Death,” oddball crashes, and an abnormal assortment of bizarre glitches, but things have improved dramatically over the last few weeks, making for a much more stable environment.

Promoted as a renaissance gaming platform, and so far, our experience with Vista falls so far short of a “gaming platform” it’s laughable. In its current state Vista requires far too many manual tweaks to get games, hardware and peripherals to function properly. Sure XP was riddled with flaws in the early days, but XP wasn’t touted as the savior of PC gaming.

Games like S.T.A.L.K.E.R. and City of Heroes/Villains (pictured) force gamers to do some investigating and tweaking in order to get them running properly on a Vista machine.

Take, for instance, Cryptic Studio’s City of… games. Gamers must manually alter the executable start file to get the in-game cursor to work properly. Worse, this “fix” can only be found in the game’s official forums. S.T.A.L.K.E.R. also forces gamers to wade through unreliable Internet forums to find a fix that will get this fantastic hybrid shooter to work. Even after spending the better part of a day attempting to get it to run for longer than five minutes, we gave up in sheer exasperation. City of Heroes has been out since 2004. S.T.A.L.K.E.R. has been in development for several years. Both of these games should run flawlessly on Vista, and they don’t.

During recent testing of Halo 2, a game developed by Microsoft and built exclusively for Vista, several issues were found. Vista’s User Account Control (UAC), a security feature intended to make the OS safe, has become the number one most hated new feature. As the UAC tries to verify every program, in some cases numerous times, with an endless barrage of highly annoying “Do you want to install/run this program” windows. Virtually every power user and gamer deactivates the UAC within 5 minutes after installing Vista.. Sadly, it requires the UAC be enabled in order for Halo 2 to operate. Furthermore, the game will not run until one completes the registration for a Games for Windows - Live! account (more on this later). Simply bypassing the process causes the game to shut down. Lastly, it wasn’t completely compatible with a top of the line GeForce 8800 card. The underlying wireframe kept flashing through the texture maps. While a “known issue,” it remains inexcusable considering how long Vista and Halo 2 (for Vista) have been in development. Apparently Microsoft noticed the glitches since the game’s release date was pushed back from May 8 to May 22.

Tweaks weren’t required for games like Steam’s Half-Life family, The Ship. Others like UT2K4 and Quake 4 seem unaffected, but users simply won’t know what games work or require additional modification until they install them, despite Microsoft’s Chris Donahue, Games for Windows group manager saying “We’ve hand-tested over 1,000 individual Windows XP games on Windows Vista to help ensure that everything runs smoothly for end users.” Which games were “hand-tested?” Endless gaming sites have acknowledged (including the highly respected ExtremeTech.com) through their own independent testing that games run slower on Vista than they do on XP. All of these factoids combine to show that, at best, playing games on Vista can be a crapshoot.

At least not everything about Vista’s game interaction reeks. The first time NetDevil’s post apocalyptic massive multiplayer game, Auto Assault, was fired up it crashed with a “Missing Critical Component” error. That component turned out to be a Microsoft 4.0 XML Parser. As soon as the error message was cleared Vista looked for, found and installed the missing component automatically. This feature works with hardware and software, and thus becomes a favorite new addition to the Microsoft OS.

F.E.A.R. is one example of a game takes a bit of tinkering to get sound working in Vista when it should really be fucntioning out of the box.

Incredibly, neither NVIDIA nor ATI have fully baked Vista drivers yet. Referring back to the City of… games, even after installing the latest drivers from NVIDIA’s website, the game still read them as outdated. Graphic drivers aren’t the only problem. Vista no longer supports hardware DirectSound acceleration, meaning hardware and (older) games that rely on it will not function properly, or in some cases at all. Creative’s line of X-Fi sound cards avoid this problem by utilizing an open-source application sponsored by Creative Labs called “ALchemy”, but this requires gamers to go out of their way to do something that should have already been solved. (Note: F.E.A.R. (a newer game) needs ALchemy to work correctly.)

Vista’s network stack (the stuff behind the curtains that makes a PC network card connect to the Internet) seems more bloated and cumbersome then XPs. Why? No clue. But we found this to be the case while recently testing Bigfoot Network’s Killer NIC (network interface card).

Issues also plague hardware and keyboards. Razer, makers of the Habu gaming mouse and Recluse gaming keyboard (both Microsoft branded) will not install automatically. When first connected, the customary “New Hardware Found” message flashes, but the OS fails to locate the drivers. Yes, the Razer installation software corrects the problem, but these are Microsoft products being installed on a Microsoft OS. There shouldn’t be ANY problems.

Then there’s Games for Windows Live! This application (which comes in Silver and Gold versions ala Xbox Live) allows Xbox and PC users to chat and play against each other. Silver lets players use voice and text chat free of charge, while Gold brings cross-platform competition, multiplayer achievements and advanced matchmaking. Sadly, the devil resides in the details and the way Microsoft plans to handle (or in this case mishandle) this system. First, Live only works with games designed to use it. Secondly, unlike the Xbox Live experience, where gamers do all sorts of cool things and still receive an invite or message from a buddy, the PC Live experience requires a Live enabled game to work. These requirements disqualify Live from being a stand-alone program like Xfire, thus defeating its purpose. Furthermore, several third party chat clients on the market (Xfire, Comrade, etc.) include a slew of features that Live does not, and they do it for free. PC gamers have been playing online longer then console players, and they’ve been doing it for free. Microsoft charges Xbox users $59.99 a year to play online, and now it wants to charge PC users for the same luxury. In the end, it appears that Microsoft wants gamers to pay more to get less.

Common sense dictates that a true “all encompassing game platform” should at the very least support the most recent high profile games, hardware and features without ANY issues. After all, unifying game development under the “Games for Windows” initiative was one of Vista’s main selling points. We wholeheartedly agree with that concept, and at some point in the future (when the first service pack drops at the end of the year perhaps) Vista will live up to the hype. As of right now, it has a long way to go.

The fact that so many of these problems still exist, months after release, borders on sheer negligence. Combine this with the recent announcement by Microsoft that XP will no longer be available on new PCs by the end of January 2008 (nine months from now) and it looks like a wanton attempt to force all Windows users to migrate to Vista. Let’s hope things improve.

Title: New Vistas: Problems with Windows Vista
Author: Eli Shayotovich
Date: 31 May 2007
Source: Game Daily

Quick! Come up with three good reasons to switch to a 64-bit desktop OS. I bet that overcoming the 4GB memory limit (or, more accurately, the 4GB addressable space limit) is one of the reasons you stated (if not, I’d like to hear what three reasons you came up with).

Windows Vista has changed the ballpark that OEMs have to work to. Not only does the new OS like a decent graphics card (if you want to run Aero at any rate) but it also needs considerably more RAM than XP. In fact, even though Microsoft says that a Vista Capable PC only needs 512MB of RAM, personally I think that anyone who who tries to work with Vista on a machine with 512MB of RAM is pushing their luck. Spend your money on the hardware before the software.

Personal note : I really did think Vista would mean the end to OEMs being able to sell cheap, underpowered, mediocre PCs (CHUMPs) but it hasn’t, although they are easy to spot because these are the systems running Vista Home Basic.

However, now that 1GB is at the bottom end, that means that 2GB of RAM (an amount that would have seemed lavish not long ago) is middle of the road territory. This means that the 4GB limit imposed by 32-bit operating systems isn’t all that far away. In fact, memory is so cheap that not loading a PC up with 4GB seems crazy, especially if you’re willing to spend money on Vista. After all, you can load up on 4GB of DD2 677 for $150.

But … if you’re running a 32-bit OS you’re not going to see 4GB even if you do spend the money. After everything else has taken its share you don’t end up with 4GB, you end up with only 3GB. The OS swindles you out of 1GB. The fix? Jump to 64-bit.

And this is how I see the migration to 64-bit OS happening. Sure, it’ll be a slow migration, but as far as I can see breaking the 4GB RAM barrier is the main reason to make the switch. It’ll probably start with the gamers and those who like to dabble with photo and video editing because these are the folks who’ll need the extra power. Slowly others will follow. And remember, while 4GB of RAM will set you back $150 now, in a year you can expect that price to drop substantially.

Microsoft hasn’t made any decisions as to whether the next version of Windows will be 64-bit only, but personally I doubt that Windows 7 will be, especially if Microsoft expect to ship it in a couple of years. I just don’t see the market as being ready for the shift. But by the time Windows 8 is ready to make an appearance, we might be ready to abandon 32-bit computing.

Title: Vista will drive users to 4GB RAM, and the 4GB limit will driver users to 64-bit
Author: Adrian Kingsley-Hughes
Date: 30 May 2007
Source: ZD Net

After a week of extensive testing, the CRN Test Center found that users of Windows Vista and Windows XP are equally at risk to viruses and exploits and that overall Vista brings only marginal security advantages over XP.

One of Microsoft’s big promises with Vista was a more secure operating system. But when stripped to the bare bones and thrown into the wild, wild Web, Vista’s security failed to impress Test Center engineers.

Slide Show: Security Smackdown: Vista Vs. XP

Vista remains riddled with holes, despite its multilayer security architecture and embedded security tools. Besides providing no improvement in virus protection vs. XP, Vista brings little or no security gains over its predecessor against such threats as RDS exploits, script exploits, image exploits, VML exploits, malformed Web pages and known malicious URLs, the Test Center found.

Armed with two notebooks — an HP Compaq 6515b notebook running Windows Vista Business 32-bit Edition with the 256-bit encryption version of Internet Explorer 7 and an HP Compaq nc6400 running Windows XP with the 128-bit encryption version of Internet Explorer 6 — Test Center engineers probed both OSes with some of the most dangerous exploits known today.

To even the playing field, all of the HP ProtectTools Security Manager tools on both notebooks were shut down. None of the encryption tools and the password-protect options were initialized. In addition, HP’s ProtectTools Application Protection Service was not activated. Only the default security features and settings on both OSes were kept.

The Test Center selected Finjan’s RUSafe appliance to analyze all HTTP traffic going to both notebooks. RUSafe is more than just a sniffer; it can analyze code behavior and identify malicious files. Engineers used RUSafe’s report engine to compare the OSes and, with the help of Finjan and other experts, visited several known hacker sites.

Since the notebooks were running without any security suites, engineers were only able to visually inspect the behavior of each OS after going to a site. No code tracing techniques were used in the OSes. Instead, Finjan’s RUSafe appliance provided the records of what passed to each notebook.

Here’s what we found:

1ST TEST: VIRUSES

The Finjan RUSafe appliance detected 20 instances in which viruses were found in Web sites, suspicious file types, spoofed content on Web sites, worms and executables.

For instance, the Mal/EncPK-F virus and the W32/SillyFD-AB worm penetrated both OSes without detection.

None of the files were blocked by either OS. Both OSes failed to detect illegitimate archives and some binary objects that were not digitally signed.

2ND TEST: SPYWARE & ADWARE

Vista’s Windows Defender, which is designed to detect various malware, gives the new OS a slight edge over XP when detecting spyware and adware sites.

For instance, Vista was able to pick up one of the IEPlugin spyware. Yet not all variants of the same spyware were detected through IE 7. In fact, three passed through undetected. Vista also missed the HotBar spyware signature. XP with IE 6 missed all of the sites with spyware. Most of the spyware came from pornography and hacker sites found through Astalavista’s portal.

Surprisingly, Vista was able to detect adware built into the Zango player, which is typically used for playing porn videos. Even so, the current version of the Zango player could not run on Vista. XP did not provide any warnings about Zango.

Next: Some Deadly Trojans

3RD TEST: SOME DEADLY TROJANS

Vista’s Windows Defender successfully blocked a trojan executable called Backdoor.Win32.Hupigon.emb.

But Vista missed another trojan executable file — named Trojan-Spy.Win32.Goldun.ms and detected in September 2006, months before Vista’s release — that was flagged by the Finjan appliance.

Vista produced the usual warning message that running the file might cause problems. XP also gave similar warnings and allowed the engineer to run both trojans.

4TH TEST: REMOTE DATA SERVICES EXPLOITS

Vista with IE 7 was able to detect a bad remote data services (RDS) ActiveX control from one PHP-based Web site. However, on four other sites that use similar exploits, IE 7 failed to provide any warning messages. Hackers can use RDS exploits to paralyze a system with denial-of-service (DOS) attacks by corrupting IE’s heap and possibly go as far as evoking code remotely.

It’s not clear how IE 7 detected the bad control on the first site. It’s possible that the other four sites were not detected because the code might not have been targeting Vista. On XP, however, some of the sites were able to run client-side code.

Vista might have failed to detect the code if hackers obfuscated their applications. Code obfuscation is a programming technique often employed by hackers to scramble code structures so their programs can bypass detection. Polymorphic viruses usually hide their signatures using code obfuscation.

A newer technique is to dynamically obfuscate code during execution, making it extremely hard to detect a signature. The viruses can sometimes change function names using different encryption keys. This technique is now spreading to Web scripting languages as well.

Windows XP with IE 6 failed to detect all of the sites with RDS exploits. In addition, XP with IE 6 failed to detect all of the sites that used obfuscated RDS exploits. Vista, too, failed to detect this code. These sites were able to pass malicious code embedded in JavaScript.

According to Finjan, some of the sites that were used for testing contained a new PHP application called MPack to run code remotely. The MPack tool is used by hackers on PHP sites to pass code to unsuspecting users’ PCs. Exploits using the MPack tool became known late last year.

MPack poses a serious threat because the code is typically passed through a malformed home page. When left undetected, hackers can use MPack to pass trojans or just about any code they wish. In addition, two sites were tested that had the Neosploit malware tool, which carries several distinct exploits. Both OSes failed to detect the MPack and Neosploit signatures on all the malicious sites that had it.

5TH TEST: FINDING FLAWS WITH IMAGE FILES, SPOOFING & SCRIPTING

Both OSes failed to block spoofed content and vector-based images that had embedded scripts.

Vector Markup Language (VML) and other vector-based images pose a significant threat because they allow hackers to execute remote code. Hackers use simple redirects to pull in users into sites riddled with malware and bots. Past and current Windows architectures are still unable to accurately detect embedded scripts in images.

Finjan reported 19 scripting violations, many of which came from astalavista.com Web sites. Two scripts had spyware embedded in them, and some of the scripts used code obfuscation to hide their signatures. Since Finjan looks for behavior, the scripts were detected by the appliance. However, Vista and XP failed to flag them.

Next: How Vista & XP Security Stack Up

6TH TEST: OBSERVING SIGNATURES & VISTA’S PHISHING FILTER

Vista provides an extra layer of protection for users when they go to Web sites with self-signed certificates. Users had to click on a red link to access those sites. XP produced a single pop-up warning message.

Engineers did not use phishing techniques to test security, but it’s worth noting that IE 7’s phishing filter failed to connect several times to Microsoft’s security site to identify fraudulent Web sites.

Moreover, many of the bots introduced by various malware kept trying to access remote hacking sites. Vista didn’t stop this activity.

THE BOTTOM LINE

Based on the Test Center’s findings, businesses that migrate their Windows PCs from XP to Vista will get a slightly more secure OS. But as the Finjan reports showed, Vista’s security remains wafer thin.

In the end, both the Vista and the XP test notebooks were almost equally damaged by viruses, trojans and other malware. And because most of the Web sites in the test were able to exploit Vista’s weaknesses, Internet users are just about equally vulnerable with both OSes.

VARs can still cite improved security as a selling point for Vista upgrades. Yet to avoid giving customers a false sense of safety, solution providers should stress that third-party security suites also will be needed to provide systems with ample protection.

Title: Vista no more secure than XP
Author: Mario Morejon
Date: 29 May 2007
Source: Online EE Times

Latest version of WinRAR adds Vista compatibility and makes this leading compression software ready for Windows Vista.

Bremen, Germany (PRWEB) May 30, 2007 — win.rar GmbH, publisher for RARLAB software, are proud to announce the final version of the new WinRAR 3.70. WinRAR 3.70 has been in beta for a while now and with this latest release, win.rar GmbH plans to go live with it’s Vista compatible version today. The new version WinRAR 3.70 contains important new features, general improvements and can now be used for Windows Vista, the newest operating system.

New version includes numerous Windows Vista compatibility changes. New CHM help format. Support of UDF file format frequently used in DVD ISO images. Unicode support for CD ISO images. More space for file names in progress windows. New command line options for self-extracting modules

Highlights of the 3.70 release are:

WinRAR 3.70 was designed to offer extensive Vista compatibility. So WinRAR 3.70 will be just as easy and reliable to use as under Windows XP and Windows 95/98.

In addition, WinRAR 3.70 now supports the “Universal Disk Format” (UDF; ISO 13346). This file format is frequently used in ISO images of DVD disks. UDF enables working with larger files, larger disks and with more information about individual files and folders.

Further the display and handling of unicode characters was improved. Now non-English file names can be used in .iso files as well.

The window displaying the archiving and extraction progress was extensively redesigned. Users can now see more information about the files being processed and the compression ratio achieved.

Finally WinRAR 3.70 features improved functionality for expert users of self extracting (SFX) archives, which are also vista compatible now. New switches allow to define destination path, password, silent mode and other parameters for extraction of SFX archives from command line mode.

These are just some of the features that were added or improved. More information on all the improved items can be found here http://www.win-rar.com/whatsnew.html .

Of course, as always, the upgrade to 3.70 is absolutely FREE for all registered users! Upgrading is quick and easy. Users only need to download and install the newest version of WinRAR to continue using the best compression tool around! No complicated uninstalling of the previous version is necessary.

About WinRAR

WinRAR is a 32-bit Windows version of RAR Archiver, the powerful archiver and archive manager. RAR files can usually compress content up to 30 percent better than ZIP files. WinRAR’s main features are very strong general and multimedia compression, processing of non-RARarchives, long filename support, programmable self-extracting archives(SFX), damaged archive repair, authenticity verification, embedded file comments, and encryption. WinRAR is available in over 45 different languages and runs on Windows 95/98/NT/2000/ME/XP/Vista. The command line version RAR is available for Linux, DOS, OS/2, FreeBSD and MAC OS X. Pocket RAR, the free WinRAR version for Pocket PCs and the new WinRAR for U3 complete the compression product range. So WinRAR simply is “The Size Solution”.

About win.rar GmbH

win.rar GmbH is the official publisher for WinRAR and RARLAB products since February 2002 and handles all support, marketing and sales related to WinRAR & rarlab.com. win.rar GmbH is located in Germany and is represented globally through its local partners on 6 continents and in more than 80 countries. The company is dedicated to offering the highest level of quality support to its customers, and to constantly improving its software according to their needs and feedback. For more information about WinRAR and win.rar GmbH please visit www.win-rar.com .

Title: New WinRAR 3.70 is Now Vista Compatible
Author: eMedia Wire
Date: 30 May 2007
Source: eMedia Wire

Players can get up close and personal with Earth’s most fascinating former inhabitants as Microsoft Game Studios and Blue Fang Games LLC today announced that “Zoo Tycoon 2: Extinct Animals,” the biggest expansion pack to date for the award-winning “Zoo Tycoon 2” franchise, will be available on Windows-based PCs this fall.

Introducing 30 new animals and more than a dozen dinosaurs, ranging from the adorable dodo bird and massive American mastodon to the saber-toothed cat and T. rex, “Zoo Tycoon 2: Extinct Animals” provides new ways for players to experience the award-winning gameplay of “Zoo Tycoon 2.” Aspiring zoologists will be challenged to dig for fossils, bring animals that once roamed the earth thousands of years ago to life in the Extinct Research Lab, and wrangle rampaging dinosaurs with a tranquilizer gun.

The “Zoo Tycoon 2” franchise continues to provide the ultimate zoo experience. Since its launch in November 2004, “Zoo Tycoon 2” has continued the award-winning legacy, receiving recognition from the Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences, “Children’s Technology Review,” “Scholastic Parent & Child” and the Parents’ Choice Foundation. Other “Zoo Tycoon 2” expansion packs include “Zoo Tycoon 2: Endangered Species,” “Zoo Tycoon 2: African Adventure” and “Zoo Tycoon 2: Marine Mania.”

“Zoo Tycoon 2: Extinct Animals” is a Games for Windows title and delivers the same standard of excellence as “Zoo Tycoon 2” and other great Games for Windows titles, such as easy installation, high quality standards, and support for Game Explorer and Parental Controls in Windows Vista.

Title: Zoo Tycoon 2: Extinct Animals Announced For PC
Author: Game Info Wire
Date: 30 May 2007
Source: Game Info Wire

It’s been years in the making, but Microsoft’s next server platform is finally in the stretch run and while it doesn’t appear revolutionary, it’s looking like the final release will deliver a grab bag of goodies to users looking to ease management, network and security issues.

But it isn’t all good news since Microsoft released in April the Beta 3 of Longhorn, now officially known as Windows Server 2008.

Gone from the planned final release by the end of 2007 are highly touted virtualization capabilities, designed to move users onto the next level with the white-hot technology. Virtualization was originally suppose to be baked into the server but will ship separately within 180 days of the server’s final release. On top of that, in May Microsoft cut three features from what is now called Windows Server Virtualization, including a highly anticipated live migration option.

Even though users will have to wait for those capabilities, the Longhorn Beta 3 is feature complete, according to Microsoft, and comes with enough new features that IT executives will be forced to make a list of must-haves before they begin rollouts.

Windows Server 2008 is focused on three primary areas: management, including Server Core technology; security, such as BitLocker drive encryption and Read-only Domain Controllers; and performance, including a redesigned TCP/IP stack.

It also represents the gateway into the world of 64-bit-only server operating systems from Microsoft. The R2 version of Windows Server 2008 slated to ship in 2009 won’t include a 32-bit version.

In addition, the server is the other shoe that will drop on capabilities intertwined with Vista, such as Network Access Protection (NAP) and new Terminal Services features.

For IT architects at Quixtar, the top online retailer of health and beauty products, year-end is too long to wait and the company, part of Microsoft’s Technology Adoption Program (TAP), is running Windows Server 2008 in production.

In the coming weeks, Quixtar plans to double its Windows Server 2008 deployment from four to eight servers that are running Internet Information Services (IIS) 7.0.

Quixtar handles 99 percent of its traffic through its Web servers and needs each one to be configured identically.

“IIS 7.0 allows us to define a configuration using an XML schema architecture so we know how each server is configured without a doubt,” says Steve Cole, lead system support specialist for the company. IIS 6.0 required that each server be configured independently, which meant Quixtar had to create customized checks and balances around its ISS 6.0 deployment.

“With IIS 7, there will not be human error,” Cole says.

Cole also says IIS 7.0’s Failed Request Tracking helps pinpoint errors in IIS and applications, and allows diagnosis while the software is still running. He says it has streamlined troubleshooting and dramatically reduced support calls to Microsoft.

In addition to IIS, Quixtar is focusing on Active Directory improvements around replication that help cut the time it takes the company to bring up a new directory server from eight days to less than four hours. Quixtar has nearly 3.5 million objects in its directory.

“This is our Web directory and all our authentications and authorizations and all our apps that need a log-in go through Active Directory,” says Matt Behrens, supervisor for IT infrastructure at Quixtar.

Like Quixtar, analysts say Longhorn’s list of features will force other users to focus on the handful of capabilities most relevant to them.

“There are a lot of little things, it’s a grab bag,” says John Enck, an analyst with Gartner. “There are some good incremental improvements, but I still think Longhorn will trickle out into companies. I don’t think there will be people lining up to get the software when it is released.” Enck also cautions users that Microsoft could still pull features before final release as it has routinely done in the past with other products.

But what seems solid is a core of features starting with a modular deployment architecture, called Server Core, designed to make life easier for IT right out of the gate.

Server Core is made up of the Windows kernel and a set of infrastructure “roles” that install only the components needed for any of eight specific functions: Active Directory, Active Directory Lightweight Directory Services, DHCP, DNS, File, Print, Windows Media Services and Windows Server Virtualization (when it ships).

The idea is to make deployment less complex and more secure by eliminating unneeded services and installing only the parts of the operating system needed for a specific workload.

Server Core is coupled with Server Manager, a management tool that provides a prebuilt Microsoft Management Console that includes reference to each installed role and feature, and links to tools for diagnostics, configuration and storage.

Windows Server 2008 introduces Read-Only Domain Controllers (RODC), which are designed for branch offices to speed log-ons and reduce the exposure of the directory infrastructure to hackers or from physical theft of servers.

Experts say the combination of RODCs, Server Core, the new Encrypting File System (EFS) and BitLocker combine to offer dramatic security improvements for branch office deployments.

Windows Server 2008 also features Server Message Block (SMB) 2.0, a file sharing protocol that takes advantage of the new Transactional File System feature in the server and supports over-the-wire encryption of files.

The server also aligns with Vista including NAP, which checks the health of computers before letting them on the network, and Terminal Services enhancements including RemoteApp, which makes remote applications appear as though they are running locally.

Microsoft also has improved the scheduling and memory management capabilities to address the demands of multicore processing.

“We have shifted to 64-bit in our core thinking and development,” says Bill Laing, general manager of the Windows server division.

Vista and Longhorn also both support Microsoft’s new remote access Secure Socket Tunneling Protocol (SSTP) that creates a VPN tunnel that travels over HTTPS.

Microsoft hopes SSTP will help reduce help desk support calls associated with IPSec VPNs when those connections get blocked by firewalls or routers. SSTP eliminates issues associated with VPN connections based on the Point-to-Point Tunneling Protocol or Layer 2 Tunneling Protocol that can be blocked by some Web proxies, firewalls and network-address translation routers that sit between clients and servers.

Overall, Microsoft says the server should appeal to users on many levels.

“We think the uptake will be similar to Windows Server 2003; it rolled out pretty consistently across enterprises,” Laing says. “We don’t think there are any big barriers that are going to be holding people back.”

Title: Windows Server 2008 includes a something for everyone
Author: John Fontana
Date: 30 May 2007
Source: PC World