Microsoft is attempting to kill the “Blue Edition” of Windows XP. In mid-2008 the Redmond company discontinued the availability of retail and OEM licenses of Windows XP, with the exception of copies of the operating system going onto ultra-low-cost laptops and desktops. However, XP “Blue Edition” is by no means a part of Microsoft's efforts to focus consumers and partners on Windows Vista and beyond. Killing XP “Blue Edition” is an illustrative example of the company's actions to stop the software counterfeiting phenomenon affecting its products.
According to Microsoft, “Blue Edition” is nothing more than a fabricated marketing program used to market and sell pirated copies of Windows XP. In this regard, the software giant informed that it had debuted legal actions against multiple online auctioneers worldwide, which were allegedly responsible for selling pirated copies of XP “Blue Edition” and not only via various global marketing schemes.
“Dishonest auctioneers are too often using these online auction sites to sell counterfeit and illegal copies of Microsoft software, taking advantage of unsuspecting customers around the world,” revealed David Finn, associate general counsel for Worldwide Anti-Piracy and Anti-Counterfeiting at Microsoft. “These dealers are peddling bogus products that can put customers and their personal information at serious risk.”
Microsoft has indicated that auctioneers in 12 countries around the world are now facing lawsuits for selling counterfeit software on online auction sites. A total of 63 legal actions involve lawsuits in the US (16), in Germany (12), in France (12), and in the UK (7). In addition, the software giant is also going after software counterfeiters in Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Colombia, the Dominican Republic, Japan, Mexico and New Zealand.
“By taking legal action against these and other alleged counterfeiters, Microsoft is helping ensure that consumers around the world are protected from those who sell counterfeit software over the Internet,” Finn added. “We are also continuing to arm our customers with the information they need to keep from falling victim to counterfeit software. Consumers should be aware that the so-called ‘Blue Edition’ software is nothing more than low-quality counterfeit software burned onto a CD.”
Source: http://microsoftarticles.blogspot.com
Microsoft to Kill Windows XP 'Blue Edition' - In the fight against pirated software
Sysinternals Update: Process Monitor 2.01 for Vista and XP
Sysinternals Update: Process Monitor 2.01 for Vista and XP But also DebugView 4.76, AccessChk 4.21, Autoruns 9.35. Microsoft Technical Fellow Mark Russinovich and Bryce Cogswell, software architects in the Core Operating Systems Division, introduced the 2.0 major update to Process Monitor at the end of September 2008. Now, the tool has been taken one step further to version 2.01, this time just a minor refresh designed mainly to deal with a few issues associated with v2.0. The Process Monitor 2.01 release is an integral part of a larger update of the Sysinternals suite involving other three applications: Autoruns 9.35, DebugView 4.76, and AccessChk 4.21.
“Process Monitor v2.01 - this release fixes several bugs, including compatibility with Windows 2000, excessive exit delays, and adds the new networking events to the filter dialog's operations list,” explained Curtis Metz, Program Manager, Microsoft Sysinternals. Back in September, version 2.0 of Process Monitor brought real-time TCP and UDP monitoring.
Delivering network tracing capabilities to Process Monitor was Russinovich's next step in the evolution of the utility. Taking Process Monitor from version 1.0 to 2.0 involved adding new low-level capabilities, such as a stronger focus on system memory usage in addition to network tracing.
“Autoruns 9.35 - this Autoruns update adds additional autostart locations, including lsastart, s0initialization, savedumpstart, and servicecontrollerstart, and fixes several bugs,” Metz added. “DebugView 4.76 - debugview no longer truncates the last character of each line of a log file when it loads one back into the display. AccessChk 4.21 - this fixes a bug in the code that checks for malformed security descriptors that could cause spurious warnings.”
The new versions of the four updated utilities have also caused the entire Sysinternals Suite to be refreshed. As of October 16, Microsoft is serving a new release of the Sysinternals Suite now complete with all the touched-up utilities: Process Monitor 2.01, DebugView 4.76, AccessChk 4.21, Autoruns 9.35.
Process Monitor 2.01 is available for download here.
The Sysinternals Suite is available for download here.
Source: news.softpedia.com
Download Process Monitor 2.0 for Vista and XP
At the start of September 2008, Microsoft Technical Fellow Mark Russinovich revealed that he was cooking a major update for Process Monitor, one of the components of the Sysinternals suite. As of September 30, version 2.0 of Process Monitor became available for download. The description of the tool authored by Mark Russinovich and Bryce Cogswell reveals that Process Monitor 2.0 is designed to integrate seamlessly with both the 32-bit and 64-bit versions of Windows 2000 SP4 with Update Rollup 1, Windows XP SP2, Windows Server 2003 SP1, and Windows Vista.
“Process Monitor v2.0: this major update to Process Monitor adds real-time TCP and UDP monitoring to its existing process, thread, DLL, file system and registry monitoring. You can now see the TCP and UDP activity processes performed, including the operation (e.g. connect, send, receive), local and remote IP addresses and DNS names, and operation transfer lengths. On Windows Vista, Process Monitor also collects thread stacks for network operations,” revealed Curtis Metz, Program Manager, Microsoft Sysinternals.
Concomitantly with the new release of Process Monitor 2.0, the entire Sysinternals suite was update and is also available for download. Russinovich refreshed two additional utilitoes on top of Process Monitor 2.0, namely Sigcheck and Contig. “Sigcheck v1.54: this Sigcheck release fixes a bug in CSV output formatting. Contig v1.55: Contig now supports the -accepteula command-line switch,” Metz added.
Via Process Monitor 2.0, users will be able to monitor in real time the file system of the Windows operating system along with the platform's registry and process/thread activity. Back in early September, Russinovich promised that Process Monitor would indeed evolve with the addition of new low-level capabilities, including a more intimate focus on memory usage, while at the same time delivering network tracing to the utility.
Process Monitor 2.0 is available for download here.
The Sysinternals Suite is available for download here.
Source: news.softpedia.com
Insight on Network Monitor 3.2 RTM
Version 3.2 of Network Monitor is being offered as an update to v3.1, but in this regard, the utility is also nothing like the 2.x releases. Tawanda Sibanda, the lead program manager for Network Monitor indicated that Network Monitor 3.2 was produced through a consistent effort of the Netmon team that worked to integrate into the product all the feedback it had received from customers. At the same time, Netmon 3.2 delivers the inherent bug fixes as well as a necessary boost in stability. Network Monitor 3.2 is designed to support Windows Vista, Windows XP, Windows Server 2003 and Windows Server 2008.
“So What’s New in Network Monitor 3.2? Process Tracking: Now you can identify rogue applications sending network data! View all the processes on your machine generating network traffic (process name and PID). Use the conversation tree to view frames associated with each process. Capture engine re-architecture to improve capture rate in high-speed networks. Network Monitor 3.2 drops significantly fewer frames that Network Monitor 3.1,” revealed Sibanda.
At the explicit request of its users, Microsoft implemented the “Find conversations” capabilities. With version 3.2, frames can be easily isolated in the same network conversation, Sibanda explained. The new iteration of Netmon is capable of parsing over 300 protocols, with Microsoft ensuring a high degree of customization when it comes down to the parsers. In this context, Networtk Monitor 3.2 also offers improved parser management, as users are permitted to expand the default parsers to the full set.
In addition, “in the upcoming months, we plan to place all our Windows parsers on the Microsoft open-source CodePlex site and allow the community to modify and contribute parsers. This version of Network Monitor seamlessly integrates new parser packages. [Network Monitor 3.2 also delivers] Network Monitor API: Create your own applications that capture, parse and analyze network traffic! More extensive documentation of the API and NPL. Access the documentation from Help > NPL and API Documentation. IA64 builds. PCAP capture file support. ContainsBin Plug-in: Search frames for arbitrary byte sequences or strings,” Sibanda added.
Microsoft Network Monitor 3.2 RTM is available for download here.
By: Marius Oiaga
Download Internet Explorer 8 (IE8) Beta 2 for Vista SP1 and XP SP3
The wait is over. At almost six months since the introduction of Internet Explorer Beta 1 in early March at MIX08, Microsoft unveiled the second Beta for the next iteration of its proprietary browser. In this context, the Redmond company lived up to its promise to deliver the second development milestone of IE8 by the end of this month, with the Beta 2 bits going live on August 27. According to Microsoft, Internet Explorer 8 Beta 2 is available for download for 32-bit Windows XP, and both 32-bit and 64-bit versions of Windows Vista, Windows Server 2003 and Windows Server 2008. The Redmond giant indicated that the browser would integrate with the latest versions of the Windows client and server platforms, including Windows XP Service Pack 3 (SP3) and Windows Vista Service Pack 1(SP1).
"We’re excited to release IE8 Beta 2 for public download," stated Dean Hachamovitch, IE General Manager. "In addition to English, IE8 Beta 2 is available in Japanese, Chinese (Simplified), and German. Additional languages will be available soon. While Beta 1 was for developers, we think that anyone who browses or works on the web will enjoy IE8 Beta 2. We focused our work around three themes: everyday browsing (the things that real people do all the time), safety (the term most people use for what we’ve called ‘trustworthy’ in previous posts), and the platform (the focus of Beta 1, how developers around the world will build the next billion web pages and the next waves of great services)."
Since the beginning of this week Microsoft has been building up the anticipation for the delivery of IE8 Beta 2. Although the company never confirmed the August 27 deadline, the release date had been already leaked. At this point in time the Redmond giant is reportedly gearing up for a November launch of the gold bits of IE8. In this context, Beta 2 is the last development milestone before IE8's Release to Web (RTW).
IE8 Beta 2 sports a number of new features such as InPrivate Browsing, InPrivate Blocking, InPrivate Subscriptions, but also Compatibility View, Search Suggestions, SmartScreen Filter Web Slices and Accelerators.
"If you are currently using IE8 Beta 1 on Windows XP or Windows Server 2003 with Automatic Updates turned on, you will receive IE8 Beta 2 through Windows Update. Download IE8 Beta 2, use it – the browser itself, the developer tools, writing an Accelerator, marking part of your page as a Web Slice – and let us know what you think," Hachamovitch added.
Internet Explorer 8 (IE8) Beta 2 is available for download here.
By: Marius Oiaga
