Microsoft can't kick the OS-for-money habit
Old habits die hard.
Old habits die hard.
Thinking out loud about Microsoft making Windows an open source project is a great way to get your friends and colleagues wondering seriously about your mental health. It's an idea strange enough to sound practically paradoxical, like "hot ice" or "short Pink Floyd songs."
With Microsoft saying that Windows 10 "is the last version of Windows", the company may have a naming problem.
Microsoft's upcoming Spartan browser is set to be the first big new release in the desktop browser market for quite some time, upsetting a tentative equilibrium that has existed for roughly the past two years.
<em>This vendor-written tech primer has been edited by Network World to eliminate product promotion, but readers should note it will likely favor the submitter's approach.</em>
Last night at about 12:30 a.m. EDT, Microsoft <a href="https://status.live.com/detail/outlook">issued a bulletin</a> warning of widespread outages for Windows 8 and 8.1 Metro Mail, Windows Live Mail, and Windows Phone 8.1 mail. The bulletin stated:
Over the weekend, Russian leaker(s) WZor once again proved their mettle by posting a new leaked Windows 10 build, the 64-bit only 10051, on the mail.ru website. Others rapidly took the leaked WIM file (stuffed in a RAR!) and turned it into an ISO for general consumption.
Microsoft's strategic shift to creating apps and services for rival operating systems was born from the hard realization that Windows' share of the total device market was in the middle of a three-year slump, according to new forecasts Thursday by research firm Gartner.
<em>Network World's</em> analysis of publicly listed sponsors of 36 prominent open-source non-profits and foundations reveals that the lion's share of financial support for open-source groups comes from a familiar set of names.
One of Microsoft's biggest decisions this year will be whom to charge for Windows 10, and the dollar figure on the price sticker.
Microsoft will unveil a browser not named Internet Explorer (IE) alongside Windows 10, according to an online report.
Microsoft faces not only its 40th anniversary in 2015, but a host of challenges that will define it for years to come, analysts said today.
The causes of the problem remain cloudy, but the symptoms are quite clear. Starting on Nov. 18, some Server 2003, Windows Home Server 2003, and Windows XP SP3 machines suddenly refused to connect to Microsoft Update. As best I can tell, Microsoft has not responded to the problem, not documented a workaround, and is basically doing nothing visible to fix it.
This month's Black Tuesday crop of patches held <a href="http://www.infoworld.com/article/2834535/security/four-more-botched-black-tuesday-patches-kb-3000061-kb-2984972-kb-2949927-and-kb-2995388.html">more than a few surprises</a>. True to form, my choice for the "most likely to splat," the <a href="https://support2.microsoft.com/kb/3000061">KB 3000061</a> kernel mode driver patch, repeatedly fails to install on many machines. Although the Knowledge Base article hasn't been updated, Microsoft support engineer joscon confirmed a workaround for the problem on Thursday afternoon.
Yesterday Microsoft released <a href="https://support2.microsoft.com/kb/3005628">patch KB 3005628</a> for Windows 8, 8.1, Server 2012, and Server 2012 R2. It's a trivial, non-security patch. The fact that it wasn't kept and issued in the normal cadence (patches usually arrive on Update Tuesday, which is next Tuesday) points to either an accidental release to the Automatic Update chute -- which we've seen before -- or an unwelcome switch in Microsoft's patching strategy. Either possibility is troubling.