Welcome to the Windows Hardware Engineering Conference 2005. We've got opening keynote and day one coverage hot off the press.

AnandTech

Thank you for your interest in evaluating Windows XP Professional x64 Edition. This trial software allows you to evaluate the product for 120 days. Register to order a CD.

WinHEC (Windows Hardware Engineering Conference) 2005 has now begun and Microsoft have given the Longhorn preview build to attendees today. Build 5048 sports the new "Aero" theme and new search features.

Neowin.net - WinBeta.org

The Windows XP Professional x64 Edition Technology Advancement Program enables customers who have purchased Windows XP Professional (32-bit) to exchange it for Windows XP Professional x64 Edition. You will need to have an x64 processor (the AMD Athlon 64, AMD Opteron, Intel Pentium 4 with EM64T, or Intel Xeon with EM64T) to run the new software.

We?ve heard some great feedback on what web developers would like to see in IE7, both from the responses to my last post and from the resources I referred to. The rest of the team was cranking away while I was away on parental leave, and I wanted to share a few details about what they were doing: The first couple of things they?ve done are:

A new internal Build of MSN Messenger 7 - 7.0.0814 has just leaked. Main Improvements made in this build seem to be speed/performance improvements.

Microsoft has just released a new beta version of their .NET Framework. Released 04/17/2005. ATI Catalyst CCC users should upgrade, as this new beta features improvments over the official 1.1 and original beta 1 package.

This article describes the updates for the following issues that may occur in Microsoft Windows Media Player 9 Series and in Windows Media Player 10:

Microsoft has released another Community Technology Preview of their SQL Server 2005 Express Edition.

SQL Server 2005 Express Edition (SQL Server Express) is the next version of MSDE 2000. It is a free, easy-to-use, lightweight version of Microsoft SQL Server 2005. To obtain additional information about SQL Server Express, visit SQL Server Express on MSDN.

A free database management tool for SQL Server 2005 Express Edition is also available.

The security updates for April 2005 include several high-priority updates for Microsoft Windows and Microsoft Internet Explorer, a component of Windows. If you have any of the software listed on this page installed on your computer, you should install the related update

The Microsoft Office Downloads site hosts free* updates that you can download to increase the security, stability, and performance of your Office products. The following new updates are now available:

Discover an awesome collection of free new tools for the Tablet PC in my Experience Pack for Tablet PC review!

Paul Thurrott Windows SuperSite

In my review of MSN Messenger 7.0, I examine new features like full-screen video conversations, Winks, Nudges, and Contact Cards!

Paul Thurrott Windows SuperSite

Paul Thurrot reviews the new Microsoft Experience Pack for Tablet PC, with a lot of new cool apps like Ink Desktop, Ink Art, Media Transfer, etc. Here's the full MS Experience Pack review.

When I pointed my browser to Windows Update I expected to see trusty ol' V5 (Windows Update Version 5) but was presented with V6 instead. It's important to note that I haven't done anything fancy with my computer and I confirmed this with another Neowin reporter before writing this, and the same happened to him. He got V6.

NeoWin.net

Well, I had the pleasure this weekend of getting a copy of Windows XP 64 bit and giving it a run. For those of you who do not know, MS has taken WinXP Pro to the next level releasing Windows XP 64 bit last week. In this article, I'm going to take a first look at what it brings to the table and what you can expect to see once you get your hands on a copy.

WinXPcentral

Thanks to Softpedia.com for the Heads up!

Microsoft has never released a service pack for Windows98 SE. But I made a Service Pack for Windows98 SE users. It contains all Windows98 SE updates from WindowsUpdate site and more.

Microsoft has released a few updates recently. We collected it all and posted a Roundup for you.

NGOHQ.com

The Microsoft Application Compatibility Toolkit (ACT) version 4.0 for Windows XP, including Service Pack 2, and Windows Server 2003 contains the tools and documentation you need to evaluate and mitigate application compatibility issues before deploying on these platforms. Tools include the latest versions of the Microsoft Application Analyzer that simplifies application inventory and compatibility reporting, the Internet Explorer Compatibility Evaluator that assists testers in locating compatibility issues with Internet Explorer on Windows XP Service Pack 2, and the Compatibility Administrator that provides access to the necessary compatibility fixes to support legacy applications in Windows.

The April 2005 Update of the Microsoft DirectX SDK is finally here.