WinInsider

On Tuesday, Microsoft revealed that it will merge its Caller ID for Email technology with a competing scheme for email authentication, dubbed Sender Policy Framework (SPF), which was created by Meng Wong, the co-founder and CTO of Pobox.com. The combined technology proposals will be merged into a single proposal that will soon be submitted to the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) standards body for consideration as an Internet standard. Previously, Microsoft had planned to propose its Caller ID for Email as a standard, but had noted that the technology was complementary to other similar proposals.

Has the Kool-Aid at Microsoft gone bad?

Employees are incensed over cuts in benefits announced last week, according to an internal survey posted on one worker's Web site. When asked to post comments on the cuts Monday, many of workers railed against the company, its management and its policies.

"Microsoft's benefits used to somewhat make up for what is a difficult place to work," wrote one poster. "Are we now going in the direction that it will be both difficult and unrewarding?"

The real story out of Microsoft Tech Ed wasn't on highlighted on stage but wreaked havoc on attendees nonetheless.

Reporters first noted an inability to link into VPNs from the show's press room on Monday, opening day of Tech Ed 2004 in San Diego. They were able to connect over wire connections to the 'Net, but access to VPNs was precluded and many could not access instant messaging either. Microsoft network support technicians eventually admitted that relevant ports were shut down to prevent hackers who were targeting the show.

A Microsoft executive later said that hackers had put out bounties--she mentioned $50,000--to disrupt the show network. She did not specify further.

Microsoft Tuesday introduced what it called the Windows Server System Common Engineering Roadmap, an effort intended to create consistent server capabilities across the entire Windows Server System product line.

"This is analogous to the time when word processors and spreadsheets didn't look or work alike," said Andy Lees, Microsoft corporate vice president of server and tools business, during the Tuesday keynote of Microsoft's Tech Ed conference in San Diego. "Word and Excel and, later, Office changed that. The common engineering roadmap is our strategy for doing the same thing on the server."

Microsoft is in the process of bringing all of its server offerings into one system, complete with unified tools for development, management and security, Microsoft vice president Andrew Lees said Tuesday.

Management remains a top priority for Microsoft's Server System, according to Lees. He spoke to some 11,000 customers and partners on the second day of Tech-Ed, Microsoft's conference for developers and IT professionals held this week in San Diego.

Microsoft has deep-sixed plans for Kodiak, a huge planned upgrade to Exchange Server 2003. Now the plan is to parse out promised capabilities, better security, spam control, etc., in a more incremental release next year called Exchange Edge Services, company executives said Tuesday.

The Kodiak game plan had been bruited about for years now, and the cornerstone was to be a relational store based on SQL Server technology. Cracks started to appear in that game plan last year, as reported by CRN. Delays to the WinFS file system and Kodiak's dependency on that were an issue, sources said.

Microsoft on Tuesday formally extended support for all of its business software by a minimum of three years, clarifying the company's support plans as ship dates for major Microsoft infrastructure products have slipped by several years. "We will move from seven years to a minimum of 10 years support for all of our business software," Andrew Lees, corporate vice president for servers and tools, said to applause in a speech at Microsoft's TechEd 2004 conference on Tuesday.

By announcing the extension, Microsoft is giving customers a way to predict what Microsoft had been doing in a haphazard way in recent years.

Ditto, our Microsoft beta insider has just sent me this Windows XP SP2 RC1 info...  Microsoft is urging all SP2 beta testers to install this latest build of the SP2 and to conduct thorough evaluation.

We are pleased to announce the availability of Release Candidate 1 of Windows XP Service Pack 2. This build contains a significant number of fixes and improvements since the initial beta release. We ask that you please take some time to download, install and evaluate this build for any issues. Please see below for CD shipment information.

Installation Information Collection
During installation you will be prompted to send installation data to us. We would appreciate very much if you would click "Send" on this dialog. The information we collect will allow us to better ascertain the kind of installation coverage we're getting when a build is released. This helps us determine if we have the right mix of Home and Pro, Update vs Slipstream, etc during the beta. If you are concerned about the information we send you can view the list at http://windowsbeta.microsoft.com/filecollector. The data we collect is completely anonymous.

Bugs, Problem Reports & Support
We prefer that you download and install the Microsoft Beta Client for bug reporting. Doing so assures that proper system configuration data is gathered and uploaded with your bug report. This speeds processing time and makes it more likely that your issue can be understood and fixed. Please visit http://windowsbeta.microsoft.com/IssueReports/default.aspx to download and install the MBC. It's important to note that the earlier a bug is filed, the more likely it will be fixed. Please don't delay filing issues that you encounter. You are encouraged to discuss these and other issues in the private beta newsgroups. See http://windowsbeta.microsoft.com/support/default.aspx for details on accessing the newsgroups.

Install Survey
Please visit http://windowsbeta.microsoft.com/survey/installsurvey.aspx and complete an installation survey as soon as you can. This data is important for us to track and we rely on our beta sites to help us out by telling us about their install experience. This is something you only have to do once per build and it doesn't take too long, please help us out here.

Availability
The build is available for download immediately at http://windowsbeta.microsoft.com/download/dl3.asp. CD's will be mailed to those sites that requested them at signup. Those CD's should arrive in approximately 2 weeks.

RC1 will be available as Update and Web Express (English) immediately, other versions will follow shortly.

Specifically, the following will be available for RC1:

• Professional Integrated aka "Slipstream" (English, German & Japanese)
• Home Edition Integrated aka "Slipstream" (English, German & Japanese)
• Service Pack CD (English, German & Japanese)
• Professional Checked (For developers)
• Symbols and Deployment tools will also be available

Please Note: There is a 48 hour processing time before the WindowsBeta website will be available to new testers. Please allow 48 hours before attempting to access the website.

Technical beta testers of the Windows XP SP2 beta program are not issued WPC_ or MPC_ IDs.

If, when entering the WindowsBeta website, you are asked if you have an MPC or WPC ID that has been issued to you, please select the option "No" then click "next" on the bottom of your page.

Tablet PC Support
Updating Windows XP Tablet PC Edition is supported. Applying the service pack will update Windows XP Tablet PC Edition to 'Lonestar'.

Support for Media Center Edition

Updating Windows XP Media Center Edition is supported

Thank you for you your help in making SP2 the most secure Windows yet.

Microsoft Windows Product Group

A second release candidate for Microsoft's Windows XP Service Pack 2 (XP SP2) could make its debut here as early as Wednesday if developers could work out a nasty bug that affects gaming on 64-bit hardware.

According to people familiar with the matter, beta testers running games on 64-bit systems reported problems with the hardware-enforced data execute protection (also known as NX, or no execute) which is built into SP2 to thwart buffer overflow attack scenarios.

Microsoft will display on Tuesday software that lets customers sign in to a Web site and then take their identity with them as they browse the Web to other federated sites, a representative said.

The technology, which won't be available until the software giant releases Windows Server 2003 R2 in the second half of 2005, will interoperate with other companies' identity management software, said Michael Stephenson, lead program manager for Windows Server 2003.

"Federated identity lets companies securely extend their applications to suppliers and external users," he said. Though the software the company plans to show off won't be available anytime soon, Stephenson wanted to underscore that Microsoft is playing well with others: "We have been working closely with others in the industry on interoperability."