Microsoft is planning to improve the UAC, which stands for user account control, in the next Windows operating system.

“UAC was created with the intention of putting you in control of your system, reducing cost of ownership over time and improving the software ecosystem. What we’ve learned is that we only got part of the way there in Vista and some folks think we accomplished the opposite,” according to a post from Ben Fathi who is the corporate vice president of development for Microsoft’s Windows Core Operating System Division.

According to Network World, in Vista, the UAC can prevent authorized users to access applications on a network although they should have access to it.

Source: Network World

The details of the patches that will be released this month by Microsoft has been released.

Various sites posted that there will be 11 security patches and four of them were given a rating of ‘critical’.

The softwares that will be patched include Windows Active Directory, Microsoft’s web browser Internet Explorer, and their spreadsheet program Excel.

Six out of the eleven patches are rated as ‘important’ while the other one is ‘moderate’. The moderate patch is for Office. These patches are scheduled to be released on Tuesday at 10:00 a.m. Pacific time.

Source: Network World

Apcmag.com reports that the next Windows operating system will fix two minor features in Vista. They are the overcrowded taskbar and the shut-down menu.

Chaitanya Sareen of Microsoft wrote, “We did encounter some challenges with the power options in Vista’s Start Menu. The goal was to bubble-up and advertise the sleep option so that customers enjoy a faster resume. However, we now know despite our good intentions, customers are opening that fly-out menu and selecting other options. We’re looking into improving this experience.”

There are three things that are planned for the taskbar area which are:
1. Getting rid of pop-up notifications.
2. Tidying up the taskbar.
3. Changing the way of how the Desktop Toolbars work.

Source: Apcmag.com

The alpha version of Windows 7 will ship on October 27, about a month away from today. The date is based on the report that was posted at nbr.co.nz.

“There is a feeling in the industry that Microsoft has lost ground against our competitors. We’ve been taking a few punches recently without fighting back,” said Scott Wylie of Microsoft. He is local development lead for that company.

The October 27 date will coincide with their conference in LA. It will be the first major event of the post-Bill Gates era for Microsoft and Ray Ozzie, inventor of Lotus Notes will take the lead role.

Source: The National Business Review

Four updates are scheduled to be released during the Patch Tuesday of this month according to The Register. This batch will include fixes for Windows Media Player, Media Encoder, Office, and for various Windows operating systems including Vista.

The malicious software removal tool will also be updated. The fix for Media Player was supposed to be released last month but there were last minute quality issues.

Microsoft will post more details about these patches when they released it on Tuesday, Septermber 9. This batch is much smaller than last month’s updates since there were 11 updates that were released last month.

Source: The Register

Computerworld has reported that Microsoft made an announcement regarding the compatibility of Windows Live Mail with Internet Explorer version 8 beta 2. The company said it made a mistake when they labeled their email software as incompatible with the latest beta version of their web browser.

“This was actually an inaccuracy on our end that has since been fixed. Live Mail will work just fine for IE8 Beta 2 users,” said a spokeswoman for Microsoft.

The other incompatibility warnings are correct including problems with Hotmail, Netflix, and Skype. The article at Computerworld describes what will happen when these programs are used with IE8 beta 2.

Source: COMPUTERWORLD

There is a bug in Internet Explorer version 8 beta 2 that affects Windows XP SP3 users. The bug occurs when the user make the following procedure:
1. Install IE8 Beta 1
2. Install Windows XP SP3
3. Install IE8 Beta 2

When a user follow these instructions, he or she cannot uninstall either Windows XP SP3 or IE8 at a later time according to the article at TG Daily.

Jane Maliouta of Microsoft said, “If you chose to continue, Windows XP SP3 and IE8 Beta2 will become permanent.”

“You will still be able to upgrade to later IE8 builds as they become available, but you won’t be able to uninstall them,” she added.

Source: TG Daily

The second beta version of Internet Explorer version 8 has been released earlier today.

One of the new features in IE8 is “smart address bar” which can be used by users to search for sites that they visited previously by typing in phrases or words in the bar.

James Pratt who is part of the browser’s development team demonstrated the new functionality by searching items in Amazon.com. Not only did the search show item results, it also showed artwork and prices.

Both consumers and business users are encouraged to download this new beta version. The browser can be downloaded on the Download Center of Microsoft’s website.

Source: COMPUTERWORLD

An updated software that checks whether the user’s copy of Windows XP Pro is a genuine product. Alex Kochis who is the Microsoft director of product marketing and management said in a blog post that the change only affects XP Pro since it is “the product edition that is most often stolen.”

The article at PC World notes the two features in this update. First, the desktop screen background will be black the next time the user logs on his or her system if his or her copy is found to be pirated. The other feature is that it will display a banner which says that his or her operating system is not genuine.

Source: PC World

Microsoft released a total of 11 updates today which includes fixes for Microsoft Excel, PowerPoint, and Internet Explorer. Channel Web reports that six of these updates repair critical vulnerabilities that let attackers use remote code execution.

The updates include a fix for an ActiveX flaw, an Image Color Management system flaw, and vulnerabilities in image files.

One of the updates was designed to fix a flaw that exists in Windows Messenger, IPsec Processing Policy, and Outlook Express which allow an attacker to acquire passwords and view encrypted network traffic.

Security experts recommend that users should install this batch as soon as possible.

Source: Channel Web