SuperSite Blog : x64

Microsoft Security Essentials Update

pthurrott — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 00:03:11 GMT

Microsoft previously reported that its new Security Essentials anti-malware solution (see my review) had garnered 1.5 million downloads in its first week of availability. Well, the numbers keep going up: After two weeks, the download total stood at 2.6 million. Also, the company tells me that Microsoft Security Essentials has achieved ICSA Labs Anti-Virus Certification on Vista Ultimate 32-bit and Vista Ultimate 64-bit in the Desktop/Server AV Detection & Cleaning Testing criteria. This certification builds on its October certification from West Coast Labs.

Microsoft Security Essentials Beta updated

pthurrott — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 14:42:19 GMT

If you're using the Microsoft Security Essentials Beta, you'll notice an update in Windows Update this morning. It's unclear what's changed under the hood (the referenced KB article below doesn't yet exist), but there's a new tray icon at least. Here are some before and after shots...

Don't forget: Today's the day for Morro

pthurrott — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 14:10:41 GMT

If you're looking to snag the initial beta version of Microsoft Security Essentials from the source, here are a few things to be aware of:

US, Israel, and Brazil only (China in 30 days)
Public downloads will be capped at 75,000
Download will be made available around 9 am PDT/12 pm EDT
Requires Windows XP (32-bit only), Windows Vista or Windows 7

For more info, please check out my overview of the public beta.

Please, no emails or posts about the torrent versions. Obviously, it's out there. Obviously, downloading a security product via torrent is ... well, dumb.

Early Morro shots leak

pthurrott — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 18:36:52 GMT

Neowin has posted a couple of shots of an older Morro build. Again, I can't really comment except to note that this build is already out of date.

Microsoft will soon unveil free virus software

pthurrott — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 19:17:35 GMT

So this puts me in an awkward spot. I can't really discuss this too much further at the moment, but since Reuters dropped the ball…

* Microsoft getting ready to unveil free anti-virus service

* Software maker says will soon put beta version on website

* Company employees testing it internally

Microsoft Corp is getting ready to unveil a long-anticipated free anti-virus service for PCs that will compete with products sold by Symantec Corp and McAfee Inc.

A Microsoft spokesman said on Wednesday that the world's biggest software maker is now testing an early version of the product with its own employees and that it will "soon" make a trial version available via its website.

Microsoft has said that it will only include basic features for fighting viruses, which would likely make it comparable to the least-expensive products sold by Symantec and McAfee.

So, one might reasonably expect me to be on top of this and ready to publish shots/info whenever Microsoft goes public with it. Let's just say it wasn't supposed to be today. And still isn't, until I hear otherwise. More info when possible...

IE 8 RC1 is imminent

pthurrott — Thu, 22 Jan 2009 23:38:32 GMT

In a post to the IE Blog yesterday, Microsoft confirmed that it is about to release the curious long-in-the-coming Release Candidate version of Internet Explorer 8 (IE 8)...

The version of IE8 in Windows 7 Beta is somewhat older than the Internet Explorer 8 Release Candidate (IE8 RC1) that we're about to release for Windows Vista and Windows XP.

Over the past months, our compatibility team has been hard at work, finding and fixing bugs that cause site rendering issues. Due to the different release schedules for Windows 7 Beta and IE8 RC1, some of these bug fixes didn't make it into Windows 7 Beta (aka Build 7000). So, if you want to use the latest version of IE8 – you’ll want to install IE8 RC1 for Windows Vista or Windows XP.

Just like we did for IE8 Beta 2, we would love to get your feedback on IE8 RC1 rendering. Soon after we release IE8 RC1, we will blog again about using the Report a Webpage Problem Add-On to report site rendering issues. The data that you have uploaded with this tool in the past has been very useful in our efforts to find and fix rendering issues - thank you very much for helping us out.

Put another way, Windows 7 Beta users won't be getting the IE 8 RC1 release.

Thanks to Theodore B. for the tip.

Compatibility View Improvements to come in IE8

pthurrott — Mon, 08 Dec 2008 15:14:17 GMT

No word yet on whether the default rendering mode will be improved as well, but Microsoft program manager Scott Dickens provides some details about the final IE 8 beta on the IE Blog:

The next public update of IE8 includes improvements to Compatibility View that help end-users when they visit web sites that are not yet ready for IE8’s new, more standards-compliant defaults. This blog post describes the technical background and how this new functionality works.

Despite all the outreach to sites, we saw from the telemetry data that IE8 Beta 2 users still have to use Compatibility View a lot. Looking at our instrumentation, there were high-volume sites like facebook.com, myspace.com, bbc.co.uk, and cnn.com with pages that weren’t working for end-users with IE’s new standards compliant default. We could also see from our instrumentation that not all IE8 visitors to those sites were clicking the Compatibility View button. So, large groups of people were having a less than great experience because they weren’t aware of the manual steps required to make certain sites work.

And let’s not forget Gmail and many other Google sites.

When users install Windows 7 Beta or the next IE8 update, they get a choice about opting-in to a list of sites that should be displayed in Compatibility View. Sites are on this list based on feedback from other IE8 customers: specifically, for what high-volume sites did other users click the Compatibility View button? This list updates automatically, and helps users who aren’t web-savvy have a better experience with web sites that aren’t yet IE8-ready.

OK. I guess this makes sense.

And for those who are curious, the dialogs discussed in this blog post are available in the Windows 7 builds I’ve seen, but the option titled “Include updated website lists from Microsoft” is grayed out.

Now that’s a computer

pthurrott — Tue, 14 Oct 2008 14:02:40 GMT

That Lenovo has been on a roll lately is an understatement of epic proportions, but their latest computer, the ThinkPad W Series mobile workstation is … I mean, wow.

Yeah, it’s a big boy. It’s got a 17-inch screen and a power adapter that would have a hard time fitting in the back of my VW. But it’s got a quad-core processor, 4 GB of RAM, and is running the 64-bit version of Windows Vista Ultimate. And check out this WEI score:

Oh my. I think I’ve found my PDC system. :) Assuming I want a workout as well, I guess.

Norton Takes on Vista's User Account Control

pthurrott — Fri, 10 Oct 2008 13:57:02 GMT

So this is interesting. I can’t stand Norton, for whatever that’s worth, but they’ve shipped a User Account Control tool that seeks to replace the one that’s in Windows Vista (!). Yikes.

User Account Control (UAC) is a new security feature in Microsoft Windows Vista that changes the architecture of the access token creation process and prevents users from logging on with full administrative rights.

While the intent of this feature may have been enhanced security, all too often users need administrative rights for tasks like installing/updating programs, and many software applications need access to run properly.

The User Account Control tool has been designed to replace the Vista UAC, to simultaneously make your system more secure while significantly improving user-friendliness.

By default, any application launched by an administrator is running with a filtered, standard user access token. When the administrator attempts to perform a task, the UAC prompts the user to approve the action. This can lead to poor user experiences because the prompts can be slow to display, and appear frequently and without warning. What’s more, because the UAC may give a false sense of security since other processes can still access the desktop, it actually raises security concerns.

The net effect is that many users find the UAC security clearance and prompting process annoying, especially those who are a computer’s only user and have all the latest Norton Internet Security software installed and updated.

The User Account Control tool will collect user input as well as information on applications causing prompts. The data will be processed to improve the comprehensiveness and robustness of the white list, which will be updatable while running the tool online.

So I will have to overcome my deep-set disgust with Norton and just try this. It’s too crazy not to.

Thanks to Adam and Josh for the tip.

MDOP 2008 R2 now available

pthurrott — Mon, 06 Oct 2008 14:44:49 GMT

Microsoft’s centralized desktop management tool has been updated to R2 and is now available to SA customers:

Just a week after my colleague Shanen Boettcher wrote about virtualization and its role in the Optimized Desktop, specifically announcing the RTM of Microsoft Application Virtualization 4.5, commonly called “App-V”, I’m proud to let you know that the entire MDOP 2008 R2 suite of products has officially reached RTM status! New and existing customers can get App-V 4.5 starting TODAY, and will be able to get the other MDOP 2008 R2 components the first week of October!

As Shanen noted in his blog post,” the Optimized Desktop eliminates the “tug-of-war” that exists between IT and end-user needs in a traditional desktop infrastructure.” We know that this is where IT is going, and today’s news plays a critical role in fulfilling that vision. In an Optimized Desktop, a partnership is established in which IT can constructively maintain control over the desktop infrastructure, without getting in the way of the users they’re supporting. With MDOP 2008 R2 and Windows Vista, you get a solution that’s greater than the sum of its parts…a “1+1=3” scenario where IT is controlled and managed, users are empowered and productive, and the pace of business accelerates.

There are a lot of new and very useful upgrades and improvements in MDOP 2008 R2 in addition to last week’s upgrade to App-V 4.5: Localisation, Asset Inventory Service 1.5, and Advanced Group Policy Management 3.0.

It’s important to note that this isn’t the end of our development cycle. Rather, it’s another milestone on our continuing mission to make 1 plus 1 always equal 3 (or more!) standard math when it comes to Desktops. Next, in the first half of 2009, we’re planning to release Microsoft Enterprise Desktop Virtualization (MED-V). MED-V, which will be the first Microsoft-branded release of the recently acquiredKidaro technology, will be a key addition to MDOP; it provides a secure, fast, manageable, local hardware virtualization solution that complements App-V, and will serve to further strengthen our “desktop to datacenter” virtualization story.

That MED-V release is really going to complete the circle. This is the future of Windows application compatibility. It’s amazing stuff.

The great virtualization experiment

pthurrott — Sat, 04 Oct 2008 15:05:42 GMT

I just purchased a Dell Optiplex 755 PC to use as a server in my home environment. This was necessitated by a few things, including the need to test Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2008 (see my recent screenshot gallery), Virtual Machine Manager 2008, Small Business Server 2008, and Essential Business Server 2008. These are complex products and they require a lot more on the hardware end than your typical software review.

The Optiplex has a 2.4 GHz quad-core processor (Intel Q6600) and 8 GB of RAM, and everything cost just over $1000 with taxes and shipping. It’s amazing how inexpensive PCs are these days. Right now it’s only got a single 250 GB hard drive, but I’m clearly going to need to increase capacity in the coming weeks. I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it. Storage, of course, is very cheap as well.

I’ve only had the system for a day, but it’s proven to be nearly silent and amazingly fast. With the addition of a decent video card, it’d make a killer Vista x64 system. In fact, maybe I’ll head in that direction some day.

To save money, I purchased the system with Vista Home Basic and 512 MB of RAM, and purchased the 8 GB upgrade from Crucial. (The system was about $835 and the RAM was $175.) So what does Vista Home Basic look like with 8 GB of RAM (note that only 3.x GB is available since it was a 32-bit version)? It looks like this:

So that’s cute and everything, but the reason I got this box was to test Microsoft’s virtualization and server products. I loaded up Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2008 first and have to say, it’s a bit of a mess. It does nothing out of the box, and you have to manage it remotely. That’s fine, except that Microsoft’s downloadable Hyper-V Management tools for Vista don’t work out of the box either. You get a “can’t connect” message, and nothing in the documentation explains what you have to do to make it work. Searching the Web, I discovered that you have to enable a feature in what I consider to be a legacy control panel for DCOM, and, sorry, but that’s both silly and something the installation program for the tool should do for you. This stuff is head-scratchingly stupid.

Anyway, once you get things configured correctly, you can of course start installing virtual machines on Hyper-V Server, and remotely. And it works as advertised. But after doing that for a while, I decided to go with the full Windows Server 2008 system instead, adding Hyper-V to that. It’s just easier to sit down in front of the thing and get work done. The headless Hyper-V Server has some serious issues from a usability standpoint. Maybe that was on purpose, come to think of it. Sometimes you do get what you pay for.

Anyhoo… I’m loading up the server with virtual machines. I’ve got SBS 2008 up and running already, and will add Essential Business Server (Centro) this weekend. I’ve added a number of Vista clients as well, for testing. Here’s a shot from last night:

It seems really solid so far. More on this setup over time...

Picking a Microsoft document sync solution

pthurrott — Sun, 14 Sep 2008 21:09:57 GMT

Obviously this is fodder for a future article, but here's a mile-high view of Microsoft's three document sync solutions. Right now, the company makes three:

For starters, they're all free.

The first two are largely identical sync platforms, except that Live Mesh includes a cloud-based Web desktop, which FolderShare is peer-to-peer (P2P, or "PC to PC") only. Both are automatic. So if you change a file in a synced folder, that file is changed, immediately and automatically, on all synced PCs (and, with Mesh, on the Web desktop as well).

That said, Live Mesh is a tech preview right now, and the folders sharing feature is proof of concept only. Once Live Mesh goes RTW, you can expect that solution to disappear. FolderShare will be moved to the Live Mesh platform in the future. So FolderShare is arguably the future of Live Mesh's folder sharing functionality.

Both Live Mesh and FolderShare work across the Internet. So PC1 could be a laptop in Seattle and PC 2 could be a desktop back home in Massachusetts. As long as both PCs are on and online, folder sync works properly (immediate, automatic) with either solution. (Live Mesh TP current offers other functionality as well, of course, including remote PC access.)

SyncToy 2.0 is P2P only and its designed for PCs that will be used on the same local network. (There are 32-bit and 64-bit versions available for Windows Vista.) So it's a good solution for backing up as well as for syncing data from PC to PC. Unlike Live Mesh and FolderShare, however, SyncToy is not automatic or immediate. It needs to be run manually or, using the Windows Task Scheduler, on a regular schedule. You may schedule sync to happen overnight, for example.

It's possible (and even desirable) to use two of these tools (Live Mesh or FolderShare) in tandem with SyncToy, depending on your needs. It does not make sense to use Live Mesh and Folder Share together.

None of these tools are currently Windows Home Server savvy. You should not try to run FolderShare or Live Mesh on WHS. If you do, you will lose data.

So...

I now use FolderShare (instead of Live Mesh) to sync data between folders on my desktop PC and two laptops. I use SyncToy 2 to backup data from my main PC to various other machines on a regular basis, and to external drives for duplication purposes.

Apple fixes BSOD problem it caused with iTunes 8

pthurrott — Fri, 12 Sep 2008 11:19:01 GMT

I love the advice on this one: "If you installed iTunes 8 on Windows Vista and if you experienced a blue screen of death (BSOD) crash, then you may want this update. Yeah, you might. :)

Symptoms

After installing iTunes 8 for Windows, some users may see a blue screen error message when connecting iPhone or iPod to a Windows Vista computer. In some cases, the computer may immediately restart when connecting iPhone or iPod to the computer.

The quality of Apple's Windows solutions continues to amaze. And not in a good way.

In order to fix this problem, you have to literally uninstall iTunes and the Apple Mobile Device Support software and then download the new version of iTunes 8 that Apple quietly updated last night.

Unreal.

Thanks Howard D.

There's a Velociraptor in my PC

pthurrott — Sun, 31 Aug 2008 19:45:44 GMT

A Western Digital VelociRaptor, that is.

My desktop PC is almost two years old now. (I purchased it back in October 2006.) It's an HP Pavilion m7690y tower machine with a 2.4 GHz Core 2 Duo E6600 processor, so it's getting a bit long in the tooth, though it's been very reliable overall. As is so often the case with my machines, I've upgraded some components over time. I bumped the RAM from 2 GB to 4 GB immediately, which was sort of a no-brainer given the price of memory. I also upgraded the very basic video card it came with, twice, first to an ATI Radeon X1600 at purchase time and then earlier this year to an ATI Radeon HD 3850. (Both were midline 3D cards when I bought them.) I've upgraded the display a few times as well, though I suppose that's technically a separate issue.

From a storage perspective, I also purchased a 500 GB HP Personal Media Drive for the PC (it has the full-sized PMD) and have more recently begun using a second USB-based external drive as well. Both are easily removable, so I keep my documents, media files, and so on there, allowing me to wipe out the internal drive more easily for reinstalls. Until now, I've kept the 400 GB drive the system came with in the PC. But this past week I purchased a 300 GB WD VelociRaptor with the idea of extending the life of the PC a bit. I usually upgrade every two years, but I think this might put it over the top. The drive is a 10,000 RPM unit, compared to the more typical 7800 RPM drives you typically see today. So it should be pretty quick. I certainly seems so in just a few day so use. As or more important, it's completely and noticeably silent. I love silent.

So if I'm lucky, this will fend off a desktop upgrade until at least next spring.

I've also begun a new data replication strategy that works in tandem with what I'm doing with Live Mesh. I'm storing one copy of my Documents, Pictures, and Music folders in the normal place (C:\Users\Paul\*) and then replicating them to the PMD with SyncToy 2.0 nightly. (It's all backed up to WHS as well, and the most vital content is also replicated to Live Mesh.) So far so good.

Here are a few shots of the drive install...

SyncToy v2.0

pthurrott — Thu, 28 Aug 2008 20:47:01 GMT

I've been using and recommending SyncToy 2.0 Beta for a while now, but I just noticed it went final a few weeks back:

Brief Description

SyncToy helps you copy, move, rename, and delete files between folders and computers quickly and easily.

Overview

SyncToy 2.0 for Windows is available as a free download from the Microsoft Download Center. The easy to use, customizable application helps you copy, move, rename, and delete files between folders and computers.

There are files from all kinds of sources that we want to store and manage. Files are created by our digital cameras, e-mail, cell phones, portable media players, camcorders, PDAs, and laptops. Increasingly, computer users are using different folders, drives, and even different computers (such as a laptop and a desktop) to store, manage, retrieve and view files. Yet managing hundreds or thousands of files is still largely a manual operation. In some cases it is necessary to regularly get copies of files from another location to add to primary location; in other cases there is a need to keep two storage locations exactly in sync. Some users manage files manually, dragging and dropping from one place to another and keeping track of whether the locations are synchronized in their heads. Other users may use two or more applications to provide this functionality.

Now there is an easier way. SyncToy, a free PowerToy for Microsoft Windows, is an easy to use, highly customizable program that helps users to do the heavy lifting involved with the copying, moving, and synchronization of different directories. Most common operations can be performed with just a few clicks of the mouse, and additional customization is available without additional complexity. SyncToy can manage multiple sets of folders at the same time; it can combine files from two folders in one case, and mimic renames and deletes in another case. Unlike other applications, SyncToy actually keeps track of renames to files and will make sure those changes get carried over to the synchronized folder.

SyncToy 2.0 adds a huge number of new features. Check out the Web site linked above for details. This tool is awesome.