NeoWin It looks like our good old friend Steve Gibson has decided to get into the mix, with the recent UPnP fiasco for Windows XP (and below) by releasing a program "UnPlug n'Pray", which as steve plainly puts it, "Instantly and Easily Control Windows' Insecure, Exploit-Prone and Probably Unnecessary Universal Plug and Play Network Support".

Microsoft sends out these kind words to their customers:
"Our holiday gift to customers is an unprecedented range of no-charge services and support tools that make it fast and easy for them to get up and running right away over the holidays with their cool new Microsoft products," says Matt Fingerhut, marketing director for Microsoft Product Support Services. "Most customers will install and use their new Microsoft products without the need for support -- but we know that for those who do need some assistance, trying to get that help over the holidays can seem intimidating. Our new range of no-charge support services, including unlimited set-up and installation support for Windows XP and Office XP, should help ensure a very merry holiday."

In what in many analysts views as a severe setback, Lindows, an operating system designed to merge the better aspects of both Windows and Linux Operating Systems has been dealt a severe setback by Microsoft. Microsoft asked a court on Thursday to stop a Linux start-up from using a name the software giant contends infringes on the Windows trademark. At the core of Lindows.com is a new operating system called LindowsOSTM, a modern, affordable, easy-to-use operating system with the ability to run both Windows and Linux software. Lindows was started by Michael Robertson, founder and former CEO of the once controversial MP3.com.

An Internet Time utility built into Windows XP Home and Professional editions that is supposed to ensure correct system time instead suffers from intermittent bouts of tardiness, PC World has learned. Microsoft intends the utility to synchronize your PC's internal clock via the Internet with the atomic clock maintained by the National Institute of Standards and Technology. The atomic clock is considered the Holy Grail of timekeeping. It is referenced daily by millions, from the military to stock market traders and researchers, by means other than Microsoft's Internet Time utility. Read More for more details.

Windows XP Security Patch: Visual Studio 6.0 C Runtime Denial of Service Fix Microsoft has released a patch that eliminates a denial of service vulnerability in the C Runtime for Microsoft Windows NT 4.0, 2000 and XP. If SQL Server were running on the system and an attacker had the ability to load and execute queries on it, the vulnerability could enable the attacker to cause the SQL Server service to fail. Download now to protect your system against this vulnerability. More information: Security Bulletin M$01-60 Download

NeoWin has news on the latest Service Pack for Internet Explorer 6.0. they sent 2 screens and a file weighing in at 11mb! (shame neowin have no-where to host it, yet). There is little to talk about on this release, its being done on the quiet, has not leaked like previous IE6 builds did and the readme.txt is the same as the one for IE6 final

Big Thx to Intensse Ghetto

Updated: they Now have a download link or by Mirc

NeoWin Don't know if this is common knowledge at this point or not, but apparently some security researchers discovered that Windows XP's universal plug and play features contain a huge security flaw:

Windows XP - SPCheck Tool to Determine the Service Pack Level . You can use the SPCheck to determine the service pack level of installed components on your computers . The SPCheck tool generates a report that lists the origin of each file for each installed component.

PageTools Version 2 is a set of tools designed to work with Microsoft® FrontPage® 2002 and FrontPage 2000.

PageTools Version 2 contains the following:

* Template Copier - Create one HTML template file using your favorite theme, or CSS styles, graphics, and JavaScript.

* Theme Copier - Build your theme and take it with you on floppy to install in another system.

* Export Utility - Allows you to select multiple files and export them to your local PC, in the folder of your choice. Can preserve Folder Structure of your web. ASP, PHP, and other scripted documents can now be exported.

Download PageTools Version 2 for Windows 95 & 98, NT 4.0 & 2000, Windows Me, Win XP

Media Manager allows you to insert several popular multimedia players from within Microsoft® FrontPage® 2002 and Microsoft® FrontPage® 2000.

Download Media Manager for Windows 95 & 98 & 2000, Windows Me, Win XP

I was just over at Microsoft FTP looking at the Windows XP SP1 folder and Microsoft have added a lot more bugfixes to the Windows XP SP1 folder! :D

So if u want to see whats been added or give any of the fixes a go:

Windows XP SP1 FTP folder

And just in case u missed the Windows 2000 SP3 FTP folder here it is.

And not forgetting Windows NT4.0 SP7 FTP folder

Windows NT Terminal Server 4.0 SP7 FTP folder Rancho*: Question is when will it be released? And unfortunately these are password protected again.

This document provides a brief overview of the Microsoft Reference Architecture for Commerce, which consists of code and documentation designed to accelerate the development of e-commerce solutions for medium to large businesses. The Reference Architecture for Commerce includes a Developer's Guide divided into 4 parts, targeted by audience.

Microsoft in this episode of The .NET Show, we will be talking with Jim Miller and Jim Hogg, who have been working for many years at fine-tuning the features of the Common Language Runtime (CLR) and making sure that it provides a great foundation for developing applications. In addition to covering some of the basics of the CLR, and what it can do for you, we will also be diving into some very simple code and illustrating how the CLR interprets and executes this code within the context of the .NET Framework.

NeoWin A flaw in XP's hot keys could allow non-administrative users to execute Administrator owned applications which are not usually accessible to them.

Microsoft has released a patch that updates Riprep.exe to allow the creation/deployment of Windows XP images across a Windows 2000 RIS server.

FrontLook FX contains three sub-products, Page Effects, Cursor Effects and Splash Pages that work together to create full-page animated environments. Also included are animation templates so you can create your own Page and Cursor effects. Same Easy-To-Use, No Programming, FrontLook User Interface.

This package contains updated detection files for the Office Update Inventory Tool. The Office Update Inventory Tool allows administrators to inventory the state of updates across all of their Office installations and generate reports on the information.

Well, this tools are a little bit older and I don´t know if we posted it allready, but I think it could be useful and some people don´t know about them. You all noticed that you are only able to install WinXP on your computer, when you have a bootable CD-ROM. If not or you have problems to boot from the CD and you try to start the install setup from DOS mode, you get the message that the setup needs Microsoft Windows. I found a bootdiskmaker which allows you to install Windows XP without booting from XP. Read More

Nearly a month ago this console has been released in the US and apparently M$ has made it look alot like a pc. It looks like it can even be hacked to improve performances... Read More

This update eliminates all known security vulnerabilities affecting Internet Explorer 5.5 Service Pack 2 (SP2) and Internet Explorer 6, and addresses the "Incorrect Content-Disposition Handling Can Cause IE to Execute Code Automatically" security vulnerabilities in Internet Explorer 5.5 SP2 and 6, and is discussed in Microsoft Security Bulletin MS01-058. Download now to protect your computer from all previously discussed security vulnerabilities affecting Internet Explorer 5.5 SP2 and 6, as well as three newly discovered vulnerabilities: the File Execution vulnerability, a variant of the Frame Domain Verification vulnerability, and the File Name Spoofing vulnerabilty.