WinOsCentral sent words on DX 8.1!

Just so you all know I just got word that MS is planning to release DX 8.1 VERY soon. I know I had a quick link to the download here a minute ago BUT that was to the beta site and of course unless you have a password you can't get in so I took it down BUT normally after I get these updates the program is normally released to everyone within 24 hours off the Windows Update site.

For more info hit the read more button

Hey it's HERE Win2k SP 3 at last! lol

Well our good friend's from entcity have found a working download link of the new Windows 2000 Service Pack 3 Beta Build 3.051 for u guy's

Update: entcity Now have a local mirror

As promised in late August, Microsoft has begun offering Addition Licenses for Windows XP, though only at a slight discount over the normal retail price. The company decided shortly before XP was released to manufacturing to begin offering families a way to upgrade to additional copies of XP through a new licensing program, originally called Additional Family Licenses. This license allows consumers to use their existing XP retail CD-ROM to install XP on a second machine by providing a new Product Key.

When you play Quake3A in Windows XP, Quake may quit abnormally. Well Microsoft now has a supported fix.

Update: here's the Microsoft page for this fix Article ID: Q308361

Well, it's only good for 30 day's but hey it still delay's you having to buy it for 30 day's plus you can see if you actually like it or not.

To experience Microsoft Windows XP and Office XP for yourself, request your free business evaluation packs today. They include:

Ibelite have an EXCLUSIVE!

Welcome to the Windows 2000 Service Pack 3 Beta Program! Thank you for your interest and willingness to test Service Pack 3. Before you continue, it is important to understand that the beta release of any product will not display the stability of a shipped Microsoft product. You may encounter problems with this beta release, which could possibly result in a loss or destruction of data. This release is not appropriate for production use, and we suggest that you back up your existing data before you install and run this software.

Who runs SAP solutions faster? Oracle? IBM? The answer: Microsoft. New world record results show that a 32-processor Unisys server running Microsoft Windows® 2000 Datacenter Server and SQL Server 2000 Enterprise Edition delivers the best performance ever for the highly-coveted three-tier SAP Standard Sales and Distribution (SD) Application Benchmark¹. No hardware/software combination previously offered to SAP customers has delivered better performance than this system.

Having a bit of trouble with XP? Well, so far MS has identified quite a list of problems with XP which MS plans to address in SP1 but since we all know you can't wait that long for a fix Yashiro assembled a pre-XP SP1 page listing all the problems MS is currently working on along with the KB article number so you can look up your problem and get the fix (if any).

WINOSCENTRAL Pre-XP SP1 Fixes

Loool I am just received an email from our buddies over @ 3dWin: I discovered a problem with the product activation. Some honest customers, who had bought Windows XP, wanted to activate their product after installing on the PC. But the activation procedure by internet failed. So they contacted Microsoft by phone for activation. The surprise: the original copies are already activated several times up to 31x and more. The reason: many copies have the same serial!! The fact: different dealers are affected by it. Microsoft is informed, but has no idea, why the problem consists. Perhaps there consists an error in the production or something else... We (or perhaps Microsoft) will inform you, if there are more new news. Stay tuned! This news are confirmed by Heise Online To read the article in german, head over to 3dWin by using the above link! Update: Saw just this comment over @ NeoWin:I've heard they've already decided to allow 'unlimited' activations using one key. Only keys that have been grossly abused will be de-activated.
But this isn´t confirmed at the moment.

A Nottingham-based security company claims Chinese crackers had disabled Windows XP's anti-piracy system within a few hours of the product's launch.

BitArts Labs' chief technology officer, John Safa, said that crackers have developed illegal installation files that bypass the registration process for Microsoft's new operating system.

"These files can now be downloaded from websites in the Far East and cracked copies of Windows XP, with the protection mechanism stripped out, can be downloaded from Warez sites across the internet," Safa said.

vnunet.com

I've just logged in to MSN Messenger version 4.5 and found out that Microsoft has tweaked the interface again. Now you in the interface you can group your contacts under certain categories. Co-workers Family Friends Other Contacts Sent In by Louis Green

NeoWin have found an article regarding a memory leak which occurs with SoundBlaster Live! device driver.

When you use the Microsoft Windows XP device drivers for the Creative SoundBlaster Live! audio adapter, a memory leak can occur. This can cause the computer to lose system resources and run more slowly.

Microsoft has addressed some issues with the retail CD recording engine built into the OS. Affected Software: - Windows XP Home Edition
- Windows XP Professional Symptoms: When you copy files or folders to a compact disc-recordable (CD-R) or a compact disc-rewritable (CD-RW) by using a compact disc recorder, any of the following behaviors may occur: The disc recording is consistently unsuccessful.
You are unable to read the disc by using Microsoft Windows 95 or Microsoft Windows 98. You are able to read the disc in Windows XP.
You are unable to read the disc in a consumer MP3 player. You are able to read the disc in Windows XP.
You are able to read the disc in a consumer MP3 player, but not all of the files on the disc are available. However, all of the files on the disc are available when you read the disc in Windows XP.
When you add files or folders to a disc that already contains data, some files are lost. This may occur if one or both of the following conditions are true: A file is added to the disc, and the name of the file is the same as the name of a folder that was already on the disk.
-or-
A folder is added to the disc, and the name of the folder is the same as the name of a file that was already on the disk. Download the Critical CD Recording Engine Update

From Activewin

Finally Microsoft has released a new build of Windows/MSN Messenger that fixes a few bugs and glitches. Build 4.5.0125 can be download via the MSN Messenger site on the link below.

Fixes include:

Corrupt Sounds Fixes

List of actions closing bug fixed

MSN Messenger 4.5 Build Released 4.5.0125 for Windows German

MSN Messenger 4.5 Build Released 4.5.0125 for Windows English

MSN Messenger 4.5 Build Released 4.5.0125 for Windows® XP German

MSN Messenger 4.5 Build Released 4.5.0125 for Windows® XP English

Windows 98 & 98SE Security Patch: Invalid Universal Plug and Play Request can Disrupt System Operation.

Microsoft has released a patch that will eliminate a possible Vulnerability that may result because the UPnP service does not correctly handle certain types of invalid UPnP requests. On Windows 98, 98SE, and ME systems, receiving such a request could cause a variety of effects ranging from slow performance to system failure. Download now to prevent a possible system failure.

Electic have the Microsoft update to their task switching application that comes with XP (You know the alt-tab thingy). The Task Switcher Application is an augmented AltTab app that shows an application preview plus icons and title text. This download is a companion piece to the MSDN Library article: "Using Windows XP Visual Styles and PrintWindow in Windows Applications".

Download Microsoft Windows XP Task Switch Application

Update here's the Mircosoft link for the Task Switcher Application and Documentation

Microsoft Task Switcher Application

ActiveWin reports: Today, MSN Messenger 4.5 users have discovered that a new tab dubbed 'Expedia' is available from the instant messenging software. The expedia tab gives you a condensed view of the expedia info you'd normally see on the site. Plus they have also added passport which wasn't on expedia.com before.

The Microsoft Data Access Components are the key technologies that enable Universal Data Access. They include ActiveX Data Objects (ADO), Remote Data Service (RDS, formerly known as Advanced Data Connector or ADC), OLE DB, and Open Database Connectivity (ODBC). MDAC 2.7 RTM (2.70.7713.4) is available for download in English, Arabic, Chinese (Traditional and Simplified), German, Hebrew, Japanese and Korean. The RTM release is the same version of MDAC components that are installed by Microsoft Windows XP. This redistributable setup is supported on Windows 98, Windows ME, Windows NT 4.0 and Windows 2000. M$ UDA Download Site

Our good pals @ NeoWin have some screenshots of Windows Longhorn a.k.a Blackcomb and Windows .NET. These have been submitted by an anonymous source but according to Neobond the source is reliable!
Click to enlarge Check out the other nudies @ NeoWin!

NeoWin have found a tiny c program that can crash or reboot Windows XP!? LOL.

If the following code is excuted on Win2k or XP, Win2k or XP crashes or rebooted. On Windows 98, nothing happens.

#include
int main( void )
{
for( ;; ){
printf( "hung up " );
}
return 0;
}

Masaru Tsuchiyama