Microsoft announced Friday night that computer enthusiasts will have a while longer to get their hands on the beta version of Windows 7.
In a blog posting, Microsoft said that the test version of the operating system will be available for download through Feb. 10. Previously, Microsoft had said that the OS would only be open through late this month.
The betta tsh, the unofficial mascot of the Windows 7 beta.
"We are at a point where we have more than enough beta testers and feedback coming in to meet our engineering needs, so we are beginning to plan the end of general availability for Windows 7 Beta," Microsoft's Brandon LeBlanc said in the blog posting.
Microsoft paid the federal government $3.1 billion between July and September of last year to settle a tax debt that was discovered during an Internal Revenue Service audit, the company disclosed in a regulatory filing.
As a result of the payment, Microsoft's cash flow from operations for the first half of its current fiscal year declined 1.2% compared with the first six months of its fiscal year 2008, to $9.2 billion, the company said in its second-quarter report.
Microsoft released tools last week for its Windows 7 Beta that let system administrators perform remote management of Windows servers from their desktop PCs. The Windows 7 Remote Server Administration Tools, currently available as a beta, support "Windows Server 2008 R2, Windows Server 2008 or Windows Server 2003," according to a description at the Microsoft Download Center page.
The tools let IT professionals configure roles and features remotely. They support both x86 and x64 hardware, but need to run with particular versions of Windows 7. Microsoft describes those versions as the Business Edition, Enterprise Edition and Ultimate Edition of Windows 7, which haven't been released yet. Windows 7 is currently available only as a beta, but it's similar to the Ultimate Edition, according to Microsoft.
Microsoft on Thursday released a beta of Microsoft Enterprise Desktop Virtualization (MED-V), a solution that lets users run older operating systems and applications on newer Windows-based systems. The MED-V 1.0 Beta is Microsoft's first release incorporating technology from Kidaro, a company Microsoft acquired in May.
One of the main uses for MED-V is to give companies a bit more time to use so-called "legacy" software applications even while they upgrade Windows across the network. Microsoft's scenario is an IT shop's migration to Windows Vista.
ZDNet blogger Mary Jo Foley was the first to report that Microsoft plans to merge its Windows Live and Office Live services as part of a coming "Wave 4" release of its online services. (Wave 3 is just about completed with the recent release of Windows Live Essentials and Windows Live services Wave 3.) This combined set of services (hopefully just called Microsoft LIVE or similar) will happen around the same time as Office 14, which is currently slated for a late 2008/early 2009 release. And yes, Microsoft has confirmed it: "To simplify and improve the customer experience around its Live services, Microsoft made the decision to converge Windows Live and Office Live into an integrated set of services at one single destination," the company notes. Sounds like a plan.
If you were among the millions of people watching yesterday's historical presidential inauguration on CNN, you will recall the network's repeated promises to provide an immerse way to see the event up-close and in 3D. As it turns out, CNN didn't strike an exclusive deal with some little-known technology vendor. Instead, it turned to a publicly-available Microsoft Live Labs project called Photosynth to provide this unique look at the inauguration.
Photosynth "stitches" together multiple photos that are taken in an area and creates a virtual 3D environment. This is a far more impressive effect than a simple panoramic stitch, which creates widescreen images from side-by-side photographs.
Microsoft is offering a free download manager, Web Platform Installer 1.0, intended to make it simpler to install Microsoft
Web developer technologies ranging from .Net Framework 3.5 to ASP.Net to Silverlight and more, the company said this week.
The tool installs Microsoft's entire Web Platform, including Internet Information Server, Visual Web Developer 2008 Express Edition and SQL Server 2008
Express Edition. With the installer interface, developers can install either specific products or the entire Web Platform.
Microsoft has delayed Windows Vista SP2 by at least a month, and will now ship it to manufacturing sometime
in May or June, according to a Web site that has accurately predicted Windows release dates in the past.
Elsewhere, TechARP also said that computer makers will not be required to use Vista SP2 on new hardware, as is usually the case when the Microsoft wraps up a major update, such as a service pack.
"OEMs will not be compelled to ship their systems with the new builds, which would have required extensive work [such as]
tests, implementation and logistics," said TechARP.
The European Commission said this week that its "preliminary view" was that Microsoft violated European antitrust law by bundling its Internet Explorer browser with its Windows operating system.
The statement reawakens a controversy that has riled Microsoft for years. The bundling of Internet Explorer and Windows was a central issue in Microsoft's U.S. antitrust case.
In December 2007, Oslo, Norway-based Opera Software, which makes the Opera browser, filed a complaint against Microsoft in Europe, accusing the company of abusing the dominance of Windows to give Internet Explorer an unfair edge there.
Slammed by a decline in sales of its core Windows PC operating system and a weak global economy, Microsoft on Thursday reported one of the worst quarters in its history in a surprise, pre-market disclosure. The company also said it would ax 5,000 jobs as part of a broader effort to control costs.
Total sales at the software maker were up a marginal 1.6% year over year in the second quarter, to $16.63 billion, but Microsoft's net income slumped 11% during the period, to $4.17 billion. Earnings per share fell 6% to 47 cents. Analysts surveyed by Thomson Reuters were, on average, expecting the company to post EPS of 49 cents.