Windows Messenger is the instant messaging client of choice for businesses in managed environments with connectivity to Exchange IM servers and SIP (Session Initiation Protocol) based IM servers, along with connectivity to the MSN Messenger service.

In a surprising turn of events, Microsoft has pushed back the release date for the second Windows XP service pack to the third quarter of 2004. SP2 was long expected to debut before the end of 2003, a year after SP1 made the rounds.

The change in plans came to light by way of Microsoft's Product Lifecycle Web site, which details future support timelines for the company's products.

Internet.de: Der Software-Konzern Microsoft hat einen Bericht dementiert, nach dem die Einstellung der Entwicklung des E-Mail- und Newsclients Outlook Express geplant ist. Wie de.internet.com heute von einer Unternehmenssprecherin erfahren hat, seien entsprechende Medienberichte falsch.
[...]Die Entwicklung von Outlook Express geht weiter," heißt es in einem E-Mail von Microsoft USA an unsere de.internet.com. Der Outlook Express-Client ist als Teil der Standardinstallation des Betriebssystems Windows weit verbreitet.

Microsoft says support for its stripped-down e-mail client will continue, but as part of future Windows clients. Outlook Express, Microsoft Corp.'s free, stripped-down version of Outlook, is not on its last legs, contrary to reports published reports this week, Microsoft said. But exactly how Microsoft will continue to support OE remains a bit murky. OE currently ships as part of Internet Explorer. And Microsoft has admitted begrudgingly that it has no plans to continue to support a standalone version of IE going forward. The current and seemingly final version of IE for Windows is Service Pack 1 for IE 6. Future IE releases will be bundled into future versions of Windows only. It seems the same is true of OE, although Microsoft isn't stating the situation as plainly as that. "The word is that Microsoft will continue to ship Outlook Express code in Windows and will support it as needs of customers arise," according to a company spokeswoman, asked for comment on a published report on OE's demise.

Just spotted this bit of Info at the BatCave WinOsCentral .... Office pricing the Microsoft way! Leak the info and let them get used to it (this avoids sticker shock).

Prices for Microsoft Office 2003, together with a range of other upcoming products from the company, have been released on online retailer Amazon.com's UK site. See prices @ ZDNet

ZdNet Australien berichtet, das Microsoft zukünftig die Entwicklung von Outlook Express einstellen wird. Microsoft hat dieses bestätigt.
"Die Technik bleibt wie sie ist, sie wird aber nicht mehr weiterentwickelt," so Microsoft Sprecher Dan Leach.
Microsoft will seine Resourcen zukünftig in Hotmail oder MSN Angebote stecken, um dort die Entwicklung voranzutreiben.

Outlook Express ist bisher der populärste Emailclient für Endanwender, Microsoft hofft allerdings, das die User auf kostenpflichtige Outlook Version umsteigen werden. Die neue 2003er Outlook Version soll deutlich schlanker und Resourcenschonender sein, um den Umstieg attraktiver zu machen.
"Viele Leute haben sich gescheut Outlook einzusetzen,weil sie die LAN-Fähigkeit von Outlook nicht benötigt haben und es einfach zu umfangreich für den Anwender war," so Steve Conn, Exchange Server Produkt Manager.

Just saw the information over @ NeoWin that ZdNet reports, that Microsoft stops developing / publishing Outlook Express.

"Outlook Express just sits where it is," said Dan Leach, lead product manager for Microsoft's information worker product management group. "The technology doesn't go away, but no new work is being done. It is consumer e-mail in an early iteration, and our investment in the consumer space is now focused around Hotmail and MSN. That's where we're putting the emphasis in terms of new investment and new development work."

Just spotted this bit of news at OSNews.com.

Here is some information about Windows XP 64bit. It has some features not found on any 32bit Windows version, but it is missing some other features not ported/tested yet.

According to Paul Thurrott at WinInformant, Microsoft is working to end the patch management nightmare by creating a new, centralized patch-management architecture that it will use for all its products; this infrastructure will be used by a new generation of services, such as Microsoft Update, and tools, like the company's installer programs. This week, the company issued its first beta of Microsoft Installer 3.0, one of two installer programs Microsoft will support under the new patch management scheme. "Customers told us to reduce the vulnerabilities in our products before they ship, and to get fixes out before vulnerabilities are exploited," a Microsoft representative told Thurrott. "It's not easy delivering timely, high quality patches under our current system. So we need to simplify patch management, and create tools to do this effectively and consistently." Microsoft Installer 3.0should ship in early 2004, Thurrott says.

For all the people who were victims of the W32.Blaster.Worm ( we reported), Symantec has released a tool to remove the worm. What the tool does is described in the followinf list: Terminates the W32.Blaster.Worm viral processes. Deletes the W32.Blaster.Worm files. Deletes the dropped files. Deletes the registry values that the worm added Download the tool over here and make shure to secure your system by downloading the Microsoft Hotfix.

A federal court in Chicago has ruled that Microsoft must pay $521 million to a Web technology company and the University of California after finding that the software giant's Internet Explorer infringed on their patents. The company, called Eolas Technologies, originally filed suit against Microsoft in 1999, alleging that the Redmond, Wash., giant infringed on its patents when enabling Internet Explorer to use plug-ins and applets in the software. The company's technology was first outlined in a patent application in the early 1990s.

Das Geschworenengericht in Chicago sah es als erwiesen an, dass Microsoft in ihrem Webbrowser Internet Explorer (IE) Technologie der Firma Eolas Technologies verwendet habe. Der Firma und der Universität von Kalifornien wurden insgesamt 520,6 Millionen Dollar zugesprochen. Damit blieb der Urteilsspruch jedoch deutlich hinter den ursprünglich geforderten 1,2 Milliarden Dollar zurück. Microsoft kündigte Einspruch gegen das Urteil an. Mehr Infos: Spiegel Online

Seit ca. 7h häufen sich die Meldungen im Netz, in Foren, Chats, auf Homepages.
Dabei handelt es sich um einen Virus, einen Wurm der sich rasend schnell im Internet verbreitet und so ziemlich jeden überrascht der keine geeigneten Schutzmassnahmen ergriffen hat und ein Microsoft-Betriebssystem benutzt. W32.Blaster.Worm is a worm that will exploit the DCOM RPC vulnerability using TCP port 135. It will attempt to download and run a file, msblast.exe. Mehr

CNet: Microsoft is taking Media Center further overseas, with plans to launch the PC entertainment software in China, Japan, Germany, France and the United Kingdom.
Media Center PCs run a specialized version of the Windows XP operating system that has an extra interface to make it easy for people to view photos, music and video on a television hooked up to a PC. More infos at Cnet, german version here

Microsoft have announced that the next .NET Framework release will include both 32- and 64-bit native support! Christopher Brown discusses how developers writing managed code today will be able to easily port and, in many cases, just copy existing applications to this new environment.

The Microsoft Speech Application SDK (SASDK) enables Web developers to create, debug and deploy speech-enabled ASP.NET Web applications designed for devices ranging from telephones to Windows Mobile?-based devices and desktop PCs. The SASDK provides a complete set of authoring tools for developing speech-enabled Web applications that run on rich clients such as a desktop PC, a Tablet PC or a Pocket PC. The tools are seamlessly integrated into Microsoft Visual Studio® .NET 2003, allowing developers to take advantage of a familiar and powerful development environment. In addition to these authoring tools, the SASDK provides a powerful set of ASP.NET Speech controls, a Speech Add-in for Microsoft Internet Explorer, a Speech Add-in for Microsoft Pocket Internet Explorer, a rich grammar library, sample and reference applications, speech debugging tools, an application event logging mechanism, and documentation.

Just got this in from Bink:Reminder over a week ago MS released a critical patch for a security issue in RPC, All NT based Windows editions are affected Windows NT4, Windows 2000, Windows XP and Windows Server 2003.
The impact of this exploit if a worm is developed makes CodeRED and SQL Slammer look like childplay, cause the security issue is on every NT based Windows. Windows NT4, Windows 2000, Windows XP and Windows2003. Code to develop a worm for this exploit are already posted on hackersforums, so a worm breakout may not be far away. Many users and system administrators dont realise the potential disaster that this worm might cause. Read More

If you use a version of Netscape Navigator that has an embedded < APPLET > tag for the Windows Media Player 9 Series OCX control, the Java Runtime may not initialize the control. You receive a "General Failure" error message. This problem occurs because the Windows Media Player 9 Series OCX control uses methods that are no longer supported by Netscape.

The Windows Memory Diagnostic tests the Random Access Memory (RAM) on your computer for errors. The diagnostic includes a comprehensive set of memory tests. If you are experiencing problems while running Windows, you can use the diagnostic to determine whether the problems are caused by failing hardware, such as RAM or the memory system of your motherboard. Windows Memory Diagnostic is designed to be easy and fast. On most configurations, you can download the diagnostic, read the documentation, run the test and complete the first test pass in less than 30 minutes. To run Windows Memory Diagnostic, you must reboot your computer with the disk or CD-ROM on which you installed Windows Memory Diagnostic in the drive. After the reboot, Windows Memory Diagnostic will load and its interface will appear. After loading, the first test pass will begin, using the default standard test suite, and continue until complete, unless Windows Memory Diagnostic is either paused or exited. Once the first test pass is complete, Windows Memory Diagnostic will begin a second test pass using the same settings as before. Windows Memory Diagnostic will continue to run test passes until you exit.

Active Directory Application Mode (ADAM) is a part of Microsoft?s fully integrated directory services available with Windows Server 2003, and is built specifically to address directory-enabled application scenarios. ADAM runs as a non-operating-system service, and, as such, it does not require deployment on a domain controller. Running as a non-operating-system service means that multiple instances of ADAM can run concurrently on a single server, and each instance can be configured independently.