As a technician, occasionally you come across situations where you are not quite sure what to do. Its a fine balance of personal morals, ethics and just doing business. I have written 7 questions which are borderline and I’d love to know what you guys would do in these situations.
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The third service pack for Office 2003 has been pushed by Microsoft thought the automated update service earlier today.

“Today marks the beginning of automatic distribution to [Microsoft Update] users,” said an employee who posted on the Microsoft Update (MU) product team blog.

“We’ve heard great feedback from customers who’ve already installed SP3 and feel confident in distributing it to the many users who rely on MU to keep their PCs secure, reliable and up to date,” the employee added.

Not all users will receive the update via MU today but they can also download the service pack on Microsoft’s site.

Source: COMPUTERWORLD

The newest Server operating system of Microsoft has been released today according to xinhuanet.com

It was unveiled in an event at Los Angeles earlier today along with a new edition of Visual Studio, a package of tools for programmers which lets them create desktop and web programs.

“We’re very early in the virtualization technology cycle. Today, we launch our virtualization strategy in earnest,” said Steve Ballmer of Microsoft.

“We think with Vista SP1 and Windows Server 2008, the integrated benefits that customers see will really encourage them to start looking at deployments of Vista on the desktop as well,” said Jagan Narendran who is the director of Microsoft Asia-Pacific’s Infrastructure Server Business.

Source: Xinhuanet

Hidden Utilities XP isnt a computer repair tool in itself, but a menu to access hidden repair utilities that are built into all copies of Windows XP. System information, diagnostics, repair tools and more in both Windows and Command Line utilities are now easily opened. Hidden Utilities XP includes easy access to 53 Windows tools and 43 Command Line utilities.
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There is an outage today that affects East Coast users of Windows Live services according to various tech sites.

“We’re actively investigating the cause and are working to take the appropriate steps to remedy the situation as rapidly as possible. We sincerely apologize for any inconvenience and disruption this may be causing our customers,” said a spokesperson from Microsoft.

The outage may also exists on other parts of the world according to users who post on Huliq.com

“If I was in Microsoft’s shoes, I wouldn’t sell Live services as more reliable, but as more versatile,” said Mark Crall who is a Microsoft Small Business Specialist.

Source: CRN.com

Microsoft has announced their plans on what they will do to fight piracy of Vista SP1.

The senior product manager of Microsoft said that the company will “disable two of the most common exploits to our product activation technology.” According to Redmond Channel Partner Online, he means the OEM BIOS or Grace Timer.

“It’s important to note that this update does not disable the exploits it finds — it simply alerts customers that exploits exist. When we first release the update that enables Windows Vista to detect the exploits we will also make available a separate removal tool as a download. In the future we will integrate the removal of the exploits with the detection,” he added.

Source: RCPMAG.com

Many young technicians tend to under price themselves and some even feel guilty for charging so much for something that they enjoy and would probably do for free. The leading cause of undercharging is not knowing “the cost of doing business”. Here is a method of determining what your “cost of doing business” is which will help you set your prices and not feel guilty for it.
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The first service pack for Windows Vista has been accidentally added by Microsoft on Windows Update three days ago. It was not supposed to be offered for many more weeks.

The company pulled the update within a day after they made the mistake. “Today, a build of SP1 was posted to Windows Update, and it was inadvertently made available to a broad group. The build was intended only for our more technically advanced testers, and was meant to only be offered to those with a specific registry key set on their PC,” said a spokeswoman late thursday.

Source: COMPUTERWORLD

Computerworld has reported that a new bug has been discovered in VMWare’s software which let attackers modify or add files to the underlying “host” operating system. This does not affect Windows servers, Linux-based hosts, and also Mac-based hosts.

“On Windows hosts, if you have configured a VMware host-to-guest shared folder, it is possible for a program running in the guest to gain access to the host’s complete file system and create or modify executable files in sensitive locations,” said VMware.

VeriSign’s iDefense Labs reported a similar bug to VMware almost a year ago.

Source: COMPUTERWORLD

Microsoft has released a list about programs that needs to be updated so they can run once a user has applied Vista’s SP1 to his or her computer.

“For reliability reasons, Microsoft blocks these programs from starting after you install Windows Vista SP1,” said Microsoft.

It includes Zone Alarm Security Suite, Jiangmin KV Antivirus, and both BitDefender AV and BitDefender Internet Security.

The non-security programs that are not compatible with SP1 include the New York Time Reader which is a program that lets a user read newspaper each day.

This type of news also occurred when Microsoft released SP1 and SP2 for Windows XP.

Source: COMPUTERWORLD