Microsoft releases Windows Phone Mango to manufacturers

Microsoft has signed-off on the Release to Manufacturers build of the brand new Mango update for the Windows Phone operating system 70-640 Training.

That means the software giant has completed work on the OS and it’s now up to the manufacturers to implement it on forthcoming handsets.

The first Mango phones are set to arrive in the autumn, although the first handset to boast the update and an official timescale for release have yet to be revealed.

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Preparing

Corporate Vice President of Windows Phone Engineering Terry Myserson explains: “This marks the point in the development process where we hand code to our handset and mobile operator partners to optimise Mango for their specific phone and network configurations.

“Here on the Windows Phone team, we now turn to preparing for the update process.

“The Mango update for current Windows Phone handsets will be ready this fall, and of course will come pre-installed on new Windows Phones.”

250 new features

The Windows Phone Mango update brings 250 new features to the operating system, including Internet Explorer 9 integration and app multi-tasking.

The upgrade was announced in May, so by the time the autumn comes around Mango will be around 6 months in the making. Get a move on, guys!

Microsoft Excel world champion is British, of course

Analyse that raw data

A 15-year-old school girl from Cambridgeshire has been crowned world Microsoft Excel champion, beating 228,000 other spreadsheet-loving hopefuls to the prize.

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Yes, such a thing as the Excel World Championship does exist and of course the winner is British, what with our love of order and all.

The contest takes place every year with regional heats providing ten finalists to take part in the Californian showdown.
Spreadsheet club

Rebecca Rickwood, who attends a specialist maths and computing school, performed timed tests using Excel 2007 without putting a foot wrong, earning her a score of 100 per cent.

"I heard my name read out in first place and I just couldn't believe it. I'm ecstatic," she said. "I just can't believe I won and now I'm world champion."

She was awarded the $5,000 prize money at a ceremony in San Diego; no doubt a glowing career in statistical analysis lies ahead.

From the BBC

Expect Microsoft to sue Amazon over its upcoming tablet

Amazon is pinning great hopes on its Android-based tablets, the first of which is due this fall. Expect Microsoft to set its lawyers loose on the company not long after the first tablet's release, because Microsoft has been suing most major makers of Android devices, and the Amazon tablet is expected to be a big seller.

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The Amazon tablet will likely be the first Android-based tablet to hit big sales numbers. Forrest expects that Amazon will sell a whopping 3 to 5 million of them in the final quarter of 2011.

Microsoft has been suing makers of Android smartphones and tablets, in the hopes of hurting that smartphone operating system and giving a better chance to Windows Phone 7 devices, as well as the upcoming Windows 8 tablets when they're finally released.

Microsoft has sued a variety of manufacturers of Android devices for alleged patent violations, including Motorola, Barnes and Noble, and others. A variety of other manufacturers have agreed to pay Microsoft for every Android device they sell, including HTC, Velocity Micro, and many others. Today, Microsoft announced that Acer has also agreed to pay Microsoft for every device sold using Android.

These payments help Microsoft in several ways. First, they make Android devices more expensive. HTC, for example, is believed to pay Microsoft $5 for every Android device it sells. Microsoft is said to be asking for payments of between $7.50 and $12.50 for each unit sold from other makers of Android devices.

Secondly, the payments are a revenue source. Some reports say that Microsoft gets more revenue from licensing fees from Android devices than it gets from sales of Windows Phone 7 devices.

Given all that, the Amazon tablet should be a big target for Microsoft. If Microsoft can get Amazon to pay up, it will make Amazon tablets more expensive, and make it easier for Windows 8 to compete against them. And given the big sales expected from Amazon tablets, it could be a significant revenue source. If Microsoft gets $10 per tablet, that translates into between $30 million and $50 million in the final quarter of 2011 alone.

So you can expect that consumers aren't the only people waiting for the release of Amazon tablets --- Microsoft lawyers are probably chomping at the bit as well.

Microsoft’s 5 biggest weaknesses

Search, mobile devices, the Web and even the desktop represent challenges for Redmond

For all its success as the world’s biggest maker of PC operating systems and office programs, Microsoft’s position as the dominant provider of software to consumers is at risk.



While Windows still powers the vast majority of desktops and laptops, the emergence of mobile devices and increasing reliance on the Internet have shown consumers and businesses alike that much of what we call personal computing can be done without touching a single Microsoft product.

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COMPETITION: Microsoft’s top 12 rivals

Microsoft is still a giant, with $70 billion in annual revenue and an amazing 11 products that earn at least $1 billion a year. But it faces challenges in search, Web browsing, mobile devices, Web server software, and even the desktop operating system market.

In this article, we will examine what we think are Microsoft’s five biggest weaknesses, a list we came up with in conjunction with the analyst firm Directions on Microsoft. We provided the list and supporting facts to Microsoft’s public relations firm on Aug. 15. Microsoft declined to make executives available for interviews, but provided responses to some of our questions via email. We’ll include Microsoft responses at the end of each section.
1. Search

Let’s start with the easy one. If you use the word “Google” as a verb, you know how far Microsoft’s own Bing search engine has to travel before it can be called a success. Microsoft’s earnings reports break the business down into five product divisions, and the Online Services Division powered by Bing and MSN is the only one that consistently loses money, including $2.6 billion lost over the past 12 months.

Bing, which also powers Yahoo and offers a fancy iPad app, often gets high marks in studies that rate the effectiveness of search engines, yet Google captures about two-thirds of U.S. market share and more than 80% of the global market.

Microsoft rarely masks its hatred of all things Google, which makes most of its money on search advertising while investing in other products that eat into Microsoft market share, like Chrome and Android.

But with Bing, “They’re so far behind, it’s a long slog,” says Wes Miller, a former Microsoft Windows program manager who is now research vice president at Directions on Microsoft. “People innately think of Google for search. How do you replace Kleenex? They’re going to have to keep burning money for the foreseeable future until they can come up with something that out-Googles Google.”

Microsoft cares about search because of advertising revenue, and also because Google has become synonymous with the Internet in almost the same way Microsoft became synonymous with personal computers.

Microsoft’s response: “This is a long-term game for Bing,” Microsoft said via email. “Bing continues to be focused on creating a great consumer experience, solid execution and steady market share growth. The most recent comScore market share report shows that Bing is continuing to make gains in the U.S., reaching 14.4 percent explicit core search share in June. Overall, Bing increased market share by more than 50 percent since launch.”

Age bias in IT: The reality behind the rumors

Is high tech really that tough on older workers? Or are they simply not pulling their weight in an industry that never stops innovating?

Computerworld – Age bias: Some consider it IT’s dirty little secret, or even IT’s big open secretMicrosoft 70-640 Training .”

In the category of “computer and mathematical occupations,” the overall unemployment rate for people 55 and over jumped from 6% to 8.4% from 2009 to 2010, according to the data. For those 25 to 54 years old in that job category, the unemployment rate fell from 5.1% in 2009 to 4.5% in 2010.

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Those figures are particularly striking when compared to the overall population, where 55-plus workers had lower unemployment rates (7%) than the 25-to-54-year olds (8.5%) in 2010.

That trend seems to be reflected in the level of anxiety among older IT workers who still have jobs. According to the latest Computerworld salary survey, the number of IT people feeling somewhat or very insecure rises steadily as they age.
Older workers feel less secure
Age 18-24 24-34 35-44 45-54 55+
Very secure or secure 69% 69.5% 59.3% 51.9% 55%
Somewhat secure 26.2% 23.8% 29.8% 34.3% 29.1%
Not very secure/not at all secure 4.8% 6.7% 10.9% 13.9% 15.9%
How secure high tech workers feel in their current position, by age (percentage of total respondents). Source: Computerworld 2011 Salary Survey of 4,852 high-tech workers employed full or part time.

As to the flat-lining of wages that’s rumored to sometimes happen in the second half of a high-tech career, Computerworld’s survey didn’t turn up evidence of age bias in actual salaries, but employees aged 55 and older were the most likely to report that they had generally “lost ground financially” in the past two years.

An academic study of IT salaries published in 2008 did show interesting disparities in IT salary by age in three specific industry segments — finance, IT and medical. Although the report is now out of date — it was based on data from 2001 — at least one of the original researchers believes its findings still hold true.

“The slow economic recovery and the stubborn high unemployment rate we have right now only make age discrimination even more pronounced,” says Jing Quan, an associate professor at Salisbury University in Salisbury, Md. “IT companies are more likely to value IT workers who have the most updated skill sets and can get the job done,” he says. “And those are more likely younger IT workers.”

Keep up or keep out

The hyper-accelerated pace of change in high technology makes it a particularly challenging field to keep up with. Put bluntly: “The special characteristics of the IT industry — highly competitive, fast-paced, short skill update cycle — do not favor older workers,” says Quan.

Julie McMullin, a professor at Canada’s University of Western Ontario, elaborates. “Perceptions of older, in this particular industry, have a lot to do with competing demands,” says McMullin, who leads an international project called Workforce Aging in the New Economy (WANE) that studies aging and workforce restructuring in the IT industry.

“If you’re an unencumbered worker” — that is, single with lots of time to work extra hours and attend training to update your skills — “then you’re ‘young,’” she says.

By those standards, Ronda Henning could pass for a spring chicken. In real-life years, she’s 53, but by her own estimate has logged enough extra hours and obtained enough degrees to give younger workers a run for their money.

A senior scientist specializing in security at Harris Corp., a communications and IT company based in Melbourne, Fla., Henning has earned several graduate degrees to supplement her undergraduate degree (a B.A. in English writing nonfiction and political science from the University of Pittsburgh). She holds an MBA from the Florida Institute of Technology and an M.S. in computer science from Johns Hopkins University, and she’s currently working toward a Ph.D. in information systems.

Beyond that, Henning has taken care to invest in her career on her own time — publishing and presenting papers at conferences and identifying and pursuing new business initiatives within her organization. “Often that has to happen on your own time, in addition to your standard assignments,” she warns Microsoft Free MCTS Training and MCTS Online Training.

And then there’s the constant influx of the new, and the challenge of separating signal from noise. “I make a conscious effort to stay current, but these days, it’s very hard to absorb everything and figure out what’s truly important,” Henning acknowledges. “It can become a 24-hour-a-day job to try and do that.”

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VMware CEO: Cloud to end computer desktop era

VMware CEO Paul Maritz urged customers to make the move from virtualization to cloud infrastructure

VMware CEO Paul Maritz urged customers to think beyond the desktop computer. It is a dead metaphor, he insisted, one ill-suited for today's workforce 70-640 Training.

"PCs are not the only animal in the zoo anymore. Increasingly, users are holding other devices in their hands," he said, speaking at the kick-off of the VMworld 2011, being held this week in Las Vegas.

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See products shown at VMworld

Within five years, less than 20 percent of computing clients will be running Microsoft Windows, he predicted. The job of providing applications and data "can no longer belong to any one device, or any one operating system. So we have to float away from that aspect of the desktop," he said.

While VMware has made its mark by providing software for virtualizing servers, the company is rapidly building up a stack of software for organizations to use to run private and hybrid clouds, based around its vSphere software for managing virtual resources.

In his presentation before many of the conference's 19,000 attendees, Maritz said customers should move from virtualization to a full-fledged cloud infrastructure. Fifty percent of the world's infrastructure runs on virtualization, he noted. The cloud is the next logical step, he reasoned.

A cloud infrastructure will be necessary, he noted, to accommodate the needs of a more dynamic workforce. It will enable administrators to deliver applications and information to people, rather than devices.

Some organizations seem to be moving in this direction. Maritz said that there are now over 800,000 vSphere administrators, including 68,000 certified in handling the technology.

"I spent my whole life working on the PC," admitted Maritz, who is 56. The metaphor of the desktop came from Xerox Parc research lab in the 1970s, which at the time, was exploring "how to automate the life of the white collar worker, circa 1975," he said. This meant the researchers made computer based approximations of the tools of the office worker--file cabinets, typewriters, files, folder, inboxes and outboxes.

"We got a great a desktop environment," he said. "The problem is the people under the age of 35 don't sit behind desks, and they don't spend all of their time lovingly tending to documents. They will be dealing with streams of information that will be coming at them in much smaller chunks and much larger numbers. We're moving into a new post-document era, and we will need different solutions."

Maritz then explained how VMware's products can provide a foundation for this new type of operation. VMware's vFabric provides a set of tools for developers to build applications that can run natively in the cloud. CloudFoundry provides a Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) that customers can use to run their own applications on external hardware Free MCTS Training and MCTS Online Training. VMware View VDI (Virtual Desktop Infrastructure) software allows users to access their data and applications across a wide range of clients. And the recently released VMware Horizon provides an enterprise portal for users to easily access new applications.

Mobile device management

Managing mobile devices entails a level of complexity unheard of in the traditional enterprise world of Windows desktops. MDM software needs to control devices from multiple manufacturers, running different versions of as many as five operating systems, tied to carrier networks with their own particular constraints.

This makes mobile device management a tough battle, but one that IT execs need to take on because mobile device users can lose important company data, potentially increase personal and organizational liability, and compromise systems security at levels that will frighten even the most jaded of IT administrators.

We set up a comprehensive test that included eight mobile devices, four operating systems, two service providers and five mobile management vendors (see How We Did It).

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New book: I. M. Wright’s “Hard Code”: A Decade of Hard-Won Lessons from Microsoft, Second Edition

We’re very happen to announce that the second, newly expanded edition of I. M. Wright’s “Hard Code”: A Decade of Hard-Won Lessons from Microsoft, by Eric Brechner is available for purchase. (Print ISBN 9780735661707; Page Count 448).

Here is an excerpt from Chapter 5, “Software Quality—More Than a Dream”.

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Chapter 5
Software Quality—More Than a Dream

image

Some people mock software development, saying if buildings were built like
software, the first woodpecker would destroy civilization. That’s quite funny, or
disturbing, but regardless it’s misguided. Early buildings lacked foundations. Early
cars broke down incessantly. Early TVs required constant fiddling to work properly.
Software is no different.


At first, Microsoft wrote software for early adopters, people comfortable replacing
PC boards. Back then, time to market won over quality, because early adopters
could work around issues, but they couldn’t slow the clock. Shipping fastest meant
coding quickly and then fixing just enough to make it work.


Now our market is consumers and the enterprise, who value quality over the
hassles of experimentation. The market change was gradual, so Microsoft’s initial
response was simply to fix more bugs. Soon bug fixing was taking longer than
coding, an incredibly slow process. The fastest way to ship high quality is to trap
errors early, coding it right the first time and minimizing rework. Microsoft has
been shifting to this quality upstream approach over the time I’ve been writing
these columns. The first major jolt that drove the company-wide change was a
series of Internet virus attacks in late 2001.


In this chapter, I. M. Wright preaches quality to the engineering masses. The first
column evaluates security issues. The second analyzes why quality is essential and
how you get it. The third column explains an engineering approach to software that
dramatically reduces defects. The fourth talks about design and code inspections.
The fifth describes metrics that can predict quality issues before customers experience them.
The sixth focuses on techniques to make software resilient. And
the chapter aptly finishes by emphasizing the five basics of software quality.
While all these columns provide an interesting perspective, the second one,
“Where’s the beef? Why we need quality” stands out as an important turning point.
When I wrote it few inside or outside Microsoft believed we were serious about
quality. Years later, many of the concepts are taken for granted. It took far more
than an opinion piece to drive that change, but it’s nice to call for action and have
people respond.
May 1, 2008: “Crash dummies: Resilience”

imageI heard a remark the other day that seemed stupid on the surface,
but when I really thought about it I realized it was completely idiotic
and irresponsible. The remark was that it’s better to crash and let
Watson report the error than it is to catch the exception and try to
correct it.



image

From a technical perspective, there is some sense to the strategy of allowing the crash to
complete and get reported. It’s like the logic behind asserts—the moment you realize you
are in a bad state, capture that state and abort. That way, when you are debugging later
you’ll be as close as possible to the cause of the problem. If you don’t abort immediately, it’s
often impossible to reconstruct the state and identify what went wrong. That’s why asserts
are good, right? So, crashing is sensible, right?

image

Oh please. Asserts and crashing are so 1990s. If you’re still thinking that way, you need to
shut off your Walkman and join the twenty-first century, unless you write software just for
yourself and your old-school buddies. These days, software isn’t expected to run only until its
programmer got tired. It’s expected to run and keep running. Period.


Struggle against reality


Hold on, an old-school developer, I’ll call him Axl Rose, wants to inject “reality” into the
discussion. “Look,” says Axl, “you can’t just wish bad machine states away, and you can’t fix
every bug no matter how late you party.” You’re right, Axl. While we need to design, test,
and code our products and services to be as error free as possible, there will always be bugs.
What we in the new century have realized is that for many issues it’s not the bugs that are
the problem—it’s how we respond to those bugs that matters.


Axl Rose responds to bugs by capturing data about them in hopes of identifying the cause.
Enlightened engineers respond to bugs by expecting them, logging them, and making their
software resilient to failure. Sure, we still want to fix the bugs we log because failures are
costly to performance and impact the customer experience. However, cars, TVs, and networking
fail all the time. They are just designed to be resilient to those failures so that crashes
are rare.

image
Perhaps be less assertive


“But asserts are still good, right? Everyone says so,” says Axl. No. Asserts as they are implemented
today are evil. They are evil. I mean it, evil. They cause programs to be fragile instead
of resilient. They perpetuate the mindset that you respond to failure by giving up instead of
rolling back and starting over.


We need to change how asserts act. Instead of aborting, asserts should log problems and
then trigger a recovery. I repeat—keep the asserts, but change how they act. You still want
asserts to detect failures early. What’s even more important is how you respond to those failures, including the ones that slip through Free MCTS Training – MCTS Online Training .
If at first you don’t succeed

So, how do you respond appropriately to failure? Well, how do you? I mean, in real life, how
do you respond to failure? Do you give up and walk away? I doubt you made it through the
Microsoft interview process if that was your attitude.


When you experience failure, you start over and try again. Ideally, you take notes about what
went wrong and analyze them to improve, but usually that comes later. In the moment, you
simply dust yourself off and give it another go.


For web services, the approach is called the five Rs—retry, restart, reboot, reimage, and
replace. Let’s break them down:
■ Retry First off, you try the failed action again. Often something just goofed the first
time and will work the second time.
■ Restart If retrying doesn’t work, restarting often does. For services, this often means
rolling back and restarting a transaction or unloading a DLL, reloading it, and performing
the action again the way Internet Information Server (IIS) does.
■ Reboot If restarting doesn’t work, do what a user would do, and reboot the machine.
■ Reimage If rebooting doesn’t work, do what support would do, and reimage the
application or entire box.
■ Replace If reimaging doesn’t do the trick, it’s time to get a new device.
Welcome to the jungle



Much of our software doesn’t run as a service in a datacenter, and contrary to what Google
might have you believe, customers don’t want all software to depend on a service. For client
software, the five Rs might seem irrelevant to you. Ah, to be so naïve and dismissive.


The five Rs apply just as well to client and application software on a PC or a phone. The key
most engineers miss is defining the action, the scope of what gets retried or restarted.
On the web it’s easier to identify—the action is usually a transaction to a database or a GET
or POST to a page. For client and application software, you need to think more about what
action the user or subsystem is attempting.


Well-designed software will have custom error handling at the end of each action, just like
I talked about in my column “A tragedy of error handling” (which appears in Chapter 6).
Having custom error handling after actions makes applying the five Rs much simpler.
Unfortunately, lots of throwback engineers, like Axl Rose, use a Routine for Error Central
Handling (RECH) instead, as I described in the same column. If your code looks like Axl’s,
you’ve got some work to do to separate out the actions, but it’s worth it if a few actions harbor
most crashes and you aren’t able to fix the root cause.


Just like starting over


Let’s check out some examples of applying the five Rs to client and application software:
■ Retry PCs and devices are a bit more predictable than web services, so failed operations
will likely fail again. However, retrying works for issues that fail sporadically, like
network connectivity or data contention. So, when saving a file, rather than blocking
for what seems like an eternity and then failing, try blocking for a short timeout and
then trying again—a better result for the same time or less. Doing so asynchronously
unblocks the user entirely and is even better, but it might be tricky.
■ Restart What can you restart at the client level? How about device drivers, database
connections, OLE objects, DLL loads, network connections, worker threads, dialogs, services,
and resource handles. Of course, blindly restarting the components you depend
upon is silly. You have to consider the kind of failure, and you need to restart the full
action to ensure that you don’t confuse state. Yes, it’s not trivial. What kills me is that as
a sophisticated user, restarting components is exactly what I do to fix half the problems
I encounter. Why can’t the code do the same? Why is the code so inept? Wait for it, the
answer will come to you.
■ Reboot If restarting components doesn’t work or isn’t possible because of a serious
failure, you need to restart the client or application itself—a reboot. Most of the
Office applications do this automatically now. They even recover most of their state as a
bonus. There are some phone and game applications that purposely freeze the screen
and reboot the application or device in order to recover (works only for fast reboots).
■ Reimage If rebooting the application doesn’t work, what does product support
tell you to do? Reinstall the software. Yes, this is an extreme measure, but these days
installs and repairs are entirely programmable for most applications, often at a component
level. You’ll likely need to involve the user and might even have to check online for
a fix. But if you’re expecting the user to do it, then you should do it.
■ Replace This is where we lose. If our software fails to correct the problem, the customer
has few choices left. These days, with competitors aching

System Center Orchestrator 2012 - what's changing?

OIS 6.3 is repackaged and given a facelift but remains fundamentally the same.

By Kerrie Meyler and Pete Zerger. Now that System Center Orchestrator 2012 is available in beta, you may be wondering if it is worthwhile to continue creating policies with Opalis Integration Server (OIS) 6.3. Will you have to rewrite all your OIS policies for the next release?

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This is a valid question, as Opalis Software's first release of OIS was not compatible with its previous OpalisRobot offering. However, Robot had a different code base than OIS. This is not the case going from OIS 6.3 to Orchestrator 2012, as the underlying engine is not changing, and Microsoft has announced that policies built in OIS (unless they use Legacy objects), along with their data, are usable in Orchestrator. Of course, some things ARE changing; here is a quick look:

New Operator Console. The OIS console is based on Java, requires numerous downloads, and has a fairly painful installation. With Orchestrator, Microsoft has rewritten the console in Silverlight, and it now ships with the core product and uses typical Microsoft installation technology.

New Web Service. The Java-based Opalis web service is replaced by an OData web service. Invoking runbooks through this web service doesn't seem to be documented yet.

Renaming. Here are some of the terminology changes with Orchestrator 2012:

Foundation objects become standard activities (and objects are now known as activities). These objects have updated, as have the icons for these objects.
Policies renamed to runbooks
Action server renamed to runbook server
Policy Testing Console becomes the Runbook Tester
Operator Console now the Orchestration Console

Changes in Foundation objects (now Standard activities).

Workflow Control category now called Runbook Control
Custom Start now Invoke Data
Publish Policy Data now Return Data
Trigger Policy now Invoke Runbooks
Notification Category - Send Page activity gone
System Category - Purge Event Log activity gone

WSDL gone. System Center Orchestrator 2012 uses a ReST-based Web Service so there is no WSDL. The web service supports OData, enabling easy management of the runtime environment.

Security. Updated cryptography and security model based on Microsoft best practices, allowing for centralized security management.

Operating environment for system components. Orchestrator must be installed on Windows 2008 R2 (SP1 is supported), and requires Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2 for its database engine

No Oracle backend support. This should not be much of a surprise, given that Microsoft does not have a history of using Oracle for a database engine. System Center Opalis Integration Server 6.3 Unleashed warns that this was not anticipated to be a supported platform in the next release. And from what we've heard, the people who had to support it are happy it's gone!

Although there is no longer support for Legacy objects - and their use was not recommended even in OIS 6.3 - the engine is still 32-bit and has not been re-architected. Other than some terminology changes, improved installation experience, and new consoles, the product remains fundamentally the same. This means that your policies will continue to work after you export them out of the Opalis environment and into the Orchestrator environment (presuming there are no legacy objects in the policies).

At the moment, Operations Manager 2012 and Orchestrator SCO 2012 work together, although most of the System Center 2012 beta products do not, and will not until MS produces updated IPs for them.

Figure 1 shows the new Orchestrator console, Figure 2 displays the .Net Orchestration Console and Web Service in IIS Manager.

Inspector Gadgets: Windows 7 Gadgets for Monitoring Your PC

It's been nearly two years since Windows 7 was released, and yet there are still some features that Windows 7 users may not be taking full advantage of -- such as desktop gadgets. Similar to the Mac's Dashboard Widgets, Windows desktop gadgets are mini-applications that reside on your desktop and can display live data, perform simple functions like search or password generation, or give you a sneak peek inside the inner workings of your PC.

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Brand-specific gadgets

While the focus of this story is on gadgets that everyone can use to get some insight into how their system is working, I've also included two great gadgets that require specific hardware or software to work: the gadget that's included with Symantec's (SYMC) Norton Internet Security software and the Intel Core Series gadget for looking at certain Intel (INTC) processors.

Norton Internet Security gadget

Symantec's Norton gadget is among the most colorful. When the software is up to date and Internet bad guys are kept at bay, there's a prominent green banner across the top of the gadget that says "Secure." You'll immediately know that something is amiss if, for instance, your version of the software is out of date, because the banner turns red and says "At Risk."

Below the banner are icons that lead to the four major elements of the security suite. You can see details about the system's current security status, discover what other members of your family have been doing online (the software keeps tabs on other computers on your network that share your Norton Internet Security license), check if your backups are up to date and find out if a website is safe before clicking to it.

There's no download link for the Norton gadget: The only way to get it is to buy Norton Internet Security (regularly $70; now on sale for $50).

Intel Core Series

By contrast, the Core Series gadget is available online and can tell you a lot about your system's processor -- but only if it's a recent Intel CPU.

The gadget wasn't written by Intel, but it does a great job of interrogating Intel processors. (AMD (AMD) has a similar system monitoring program, but it's a full Windows 7 application, not a gadget.)

Like System Control A1, the Core Series gadget monitors up to eight processing threads (rather than cores, as it says), but it's valuable information nonetheless. It adds a handy overall CPU Usage rating and a graph below. If you add the WinRing0 software, which Core Series can download for you, the gadget can display the chip's actual clock speed as well.

You can choose a color scheme for the gadget and tell it what to include in the graph along the bottom: individual threads, all the operating threads, core temperature, or temperature and threads together. You can't resize it, though, which is a problem because the graph is rather crowded.

Exam 70-620: Configuring Vista Client

My exam was taken this morning - I was seriously unimpressed with the 70-620. It covers configuring Vista - or at least the new features, UAC, the Wireless connectivity, presentation settings etc etc.

If this is your very first Microsoft exam then its an easy introduction - if you have any significant history with Microsoft exams you will find it very easy - too easy.

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The questions are about which menu option do you choose or which button do you click. Very little, if any, understanding of the underlying concepts is required to pass this exam.

I thought the NT exams were fairly easy. Things started to get more challenging with the Windows 2000 and Windows 2003 exams. This is a complete reversal.

I hope this isn't setting the standard for exams to come in the Windows 2008 wave of products.

Default Groups

Windows Server 2003 has four categories of default groups: groups in the Builtin folder, groups in the Users folder, special identity groups, and default local groups. All of the default groups are security groups and have been assigned common sets of rights and permissions that you might want to assign to the users and groups that you place into the default groups.

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Groups in the Builtin Folder

Windows Server 2003 creates default security groups with a domain local scope in the Builtin folder in the Active Directory Users And Computers console. The groups in the Builtin folder are primarily used to assign default sets of permissions to users who have administrative responsibilities in the domain. Table 8-2 describes the default groups in the Builtin folder.

This group exists only on domain controllers. By default, the group has no members. By default, members can create, modify, and delete accounts for users, groups, and computers in all containers and OUs of Active Directory except the Builtin folder and the Domain Controllers OU. Members do not have permission to modify the Administrators and Domain Admins groups, nor do they have permission to modify the accounts for members of those groups.

Members have complete and unrestricted access to the computer or domain controller, including the right to change their own permissions. If the Administrator account resides on the first domain controller con-figured for the domain, the Administrator account is automatically added to the Domain Admins group and complete access to the domain is granted.

By default, this group has no members. Members can back up and restore all files on a computer, regardless of the permissions that pro¬tect those files. Members can also log on to the computer and shut it down.

Members have the same privileges as members of the Users group. Members can create incoming, one-way trusts to this forest.

Members have the same default rights as members of the Users group. Members can perform all tasks related to the client side of network configuration except for installing and removing drivers and services. Members cannot configure network server services such as the Domain Name System (DNS) and Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP) server services.

Members have remote access to schedule logging of performance counters on this computer.

Members have remote access to monitor this computer.

Members have read access on all users and groups in the domain. This group is provided for backward compatibility for computers running Microsoft Windows NT 4 and earlier.

This group exists only on domain controllers. Members can manage printers and document queues.

Members can log on to a computer from a remote location.

This group supports directory replication functions and is used by the file replication service on domain controllers. By default, the group has no members. The only member should be a domain user account used to log on to the Replicator services of the domain controller. Do not add users to this group.

This group exists only on domain controllers. By default, the group has no members. Members can log on to a server interactively, create and delete network shares, start and stop services, back up and restore files, format the hard disk of the computer, and shut clown the computer.

Terminal Server License Servers

Members are prevented from making accidental or intentional system-wide changes. Members can run certified applications, use printers, shut down and start the computer, and use network shares for which they are assigned permissions. Members cannot share folders or install printers on the local computer. By default, the Domain Users group is a member.

Members have access to the computed tokenGroupsGlobalAndUniversal attribute on User objects.

Off the Record If you need to create a list of groups, you can use the Net Localgroup and Net Group commands. For example, you could open a command prompt and type net localgroup > C:\localgroups.txt to create a list of local groups in a file named C:\localgroups.txt. As another example of how the Net commands work, examine and run the batch file named Grouplistings.bat on the Supplemental CD-ROM in the \70-294\ Labs\Chapter08 folder.

Taking the 70-620 TS: Windows Vista, Configuring Exam

If you go for the MCSE or MCITP Enterprise, you will have to take an exam covering a client operating system. One exam, you can take the 70-620: Configuring Microsoft Windows Vista.
The objectives are broken down to the following main groups:

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* Installing and Upgrading Windows Vista
* Configuring and Troubleshooting Post-Installation System Settings
* Configuring Windows Security Features
* Configuring Network Connectivity
* Configuring Applications Included with Windows Vista
* Maintaining and Optimizing Systems That Run Windows Vista
* Configuring and Troubleshooting Mobile Computing

As with an operating system, you should first start with how to install Windows Vista. Besides running the normal installation DVD, you also need to be familiar with how to install Windows Vista with answer files, Windows images, ImageX, and Sysprep. You will then need to know how to upgrade from older versions of Windows to Windows Vista and from one version of Windows Vista to another version of Windows Vista. You will also need to know how to migrate data files and settings from one computer running Windows to a new computer running Windows Vista using Windows Easy Transfer (WET) and User State Migration Tool V3.0.

One of the new enhancements to the Windows Interface is Windows Aero. Therefore, you need to know the requirements for Aero to work including the color depth, the refresh rate, theme, color scheme and frame transparency.

With Windows Vista, Microsoft has enhanced some tools while introducing entirely new set of tools. For the exam, you will need to know accessibility tools and parental control. Of course, since the wide adoption of IPv6 is right around the corner, you will need to know how to configure IPv4 and IPv6. In addition, since wireless technology has become commonplace, you will need to know how to setup wireless connections.

Over the last few years, there has been a big push for security with Microsoft operating system and applications. As with any modern Windows operating system, you will need to know how to configure file system security. This will be done with NTFS permissions, Share permissions, EFS and BitLocker. BitLocker is a new technology that can encrypt an entire drive, which will protect if a computer such as a laptop is stolen. Be sure to know when it is best to use EFS for encryption and when it is best to use BitLocker. Also know the system requirements for BitLocker.

If you have used Windows Vista, you have seen and experienced User Account Control (UAC). So you will need to know how User Account Control protects your computer and you will need to know how to react to User Account Control prompts and if necessary, you will need to know how to disable UAC. Other tools that help protect your computer are Windows Defender and Windows Firewall. Therefore, you will need to know how to configure those tools.

Besides the new updated interface, Windows Vista also included Internet Explorer (IE) 7.0. Therefore, you will need to know how to configure IE. In addition, you will need to know how to configure Windows Media Player and Media Player Center including understanding regions and Codecs.

As a user, you will need to use standard applications include Wordpad, Notepad, Mail, Calendar, Fax and Scan and Meeting Space. You also need to now how to configure Windows Sidebar and its gadgets.

Lastly, you need to know the tools that are made for mobile computers. That would be including configuring Power management (power plans and hibernate, hybrid and sleep mode), Sync center, offline folders and Windows SideShow. Lastly, you need to be familiar with how to configure Tablet PCs and how to configure Flicks.

If you want to prepare for this exam, I would highly recommend the Exam Cram book 70-620 TS: Windows Vista, Configuring by Patrick Regan (Que Publishing), which will cover each of these topics and give you plenty of practice questions.

70-680 Exam Questions&Answers-Part 2

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Exam : Microsoft 70-680

Title : TS: Windows 7, Configuring

13. You have a computer named Computer1 that runs Windows Vista and a computer named Computer2 that runs Windows 7.

You plan to migrate all profiles and user files from Computer1 to Computer2.

You need to identify how much space is required to complete the migration.

What should you do?

A. On Computer1 run Loadstate c:\store /nocompress

B. On Computer1 run Scanstate c:\store /nocompress /p

C. On Computer2 run Loadstate \\computer1\store /nocompress

D. On Computer2 run Scanstate \\computer1\store /nocompress /p

Answer: B



14. You have a computer that runs Windows Vista. The computer contains a custom application.

You need to export the user state and the settings of the custom application.

What should you do?

A. Run Loadstate.exe and specify the /config parameter.

B. Run Scanstate.exe and specify the /genconfig parameter.

C. Modify the miguser.xml file. Run Loadstate.exe and specify the /ui parameter.

D. Modify the migapp.xml file. Run Scanstate.exe and specify the /i parameter.

Answer: D



15. You have a reference computer that runs Windows 7.

You plan to deploy an image of the computer.

You create an answer file named answer.xml.

You need to ensure that the installation applies the answer file after you deploy the image.

Which command should you run before you capture the image?

A. Imagex.exe /append answer.xml /check

B. Imagex.exe /mount answer.xml /verify

C. Sysprep.exe /reboot /audit /unattend:answer.xml

D. Sysprep.exe /generalize /oobe /unattend:answer.xml

Answer: D



16. You plan to deploy Windows 7 to 100 computers on your corporate network.

You install Windows 7 on a computer.

You and need to prepare the computer to be imaged.

What should you do before you create the image of the computer?

A. At the command prompt, run the Dism command.

B. At the command prompt, run the Sysprep command.

C. Start the computer from the Windows Preinstallation Environment (Windows PE) and then run the Imagex command.

D. Start the computer from the Windows Preinstallation Environment (Windows PE) and then run the Wpeutil command.

Answer: B



17. You have a computer that runs Windows 7.

You need to configure the computer to meet the following requirements:

Generate a new security ID (SID) when the computer starts.

Ensure that the Welcome screen appears when the computer starts.

What should you do?

A. Run Sysprep.exe /oobe /generalize.

B. Run Sysprep.exe /audit /generalize.

C. Run Msconfig.exe and select Selective startup.

D. Run Msconfig.exe and select Diagnostic startup.

Answer: A



18. You have a reference computer that runs Windows 7.

You plan to create an image of the computer and then deploy the image to 100 computers.

You need to prepare the reference computer for imaging.

What should you do before you create the image?

A. Run Package Manager.

B. Run the System Preparation tool.

C. Install the User State Migration Tool.

D. Install Windows Automated Installation Kit.

Answer: B



19. You start a computer by using Windows Preinstallation Environment (Windows PE).

You need to dynamically load a network adapter device driver in Windows PE.

What should you do?

A. Run Peimg.exe and specify the device driver path.

B. Run Drvload.exe and specify the device driver path.

C. Run Winpeshl.exe and specify a custom Winpeshl.ini file.

D. Run Wpeutil.exe and specify the InitializeNetwork command.

Answer: B



20. You plan to install Windows 7 by using a Windows 7 DVD.

You need to perform an automated installation of Windows 7.

What should you do?

A. Create an answer file named oobe.xml. Copy the file to a network share.

B. Create an answer file named winnt.sif. Place the file on a removable drive.

C. Create an answer file named sysprep.inf. Copy the file to a network share.

D. Create an answer file named autounattend.xml. Place the file on a removable drive.

Answer: D



21. You have a Virtual Hard Disk (VHD) and a computer that runs Windows 7. The VHD has Windows 7 installed.

You need to start the computer from the VHD.

What should you do?

A. From Diskpart.exe, run Select vdisk.

B. From Disk Management, modify the active partition.

C. Run Bootcfg.exe and specify the /default parameter.

D. Run Bcdedit.exe and modify the Windows Boot Manager settings.

Answer: D



22. You have a new computer that does not have an operating system installed.

You have a virtual hard disk (VHD) that contains an installation of Windows 7.

You start the computer from the Windows Preinstallation Environment (Windows PE). You create a partition on the computer and copy the VHD to the partition.

You need to configure the computer to start from the VHD.

Which tools should you use?

A. Diskpart.exe and Bcdboot.exe

B. Imagex.exe and Bcdedit.exe

C. Scanstate.exe and Loadstate.exe

D. Wpeutil.exe and Dism.exe

Answer: A



23. Your have a computer that runs Windows 7.

You need to confirm that all device drivers installed on the computer are digitally signed.

What should you do?

A. At a command prompt, run Verify.

B. At a command prompt, run Sigverif.exe.

C. From Device Manager, click Scan for hardware changes.

D. From Device Manager, select the Devices by connection view.

Answer: B



24. You have a computer that runs Windows 7.

Multiple users log on to the computer.

You need to deny one user access to removable devices on the computer. All other users must have access to the removable drives.

What should you do?

A. From the local Group Policy, modify an application control policy.

B. From Control Panel, modify the BitLocker Drive Encryption settings.

C. From Device Manager, modify the settings of all removable devices.

D. From the local Group Policy, modify a removable storage access policy.

Answer: D



25. You have a computer that runs Windows 7.

You need to modify the file extensions that are associated to Internet Explorer.

What should you do?

A. From Internet Explorer, click Tools and then click Manage Add-ons.

B. From Control Panel, open Default Programs and then click Set Associations.

C. From the local Group Policy, expand Computer Configuration and then click Software Settings.

D. From Window Explorer, right-click %programfiles%\Internet Explorer\iexplore.exe and then click Properties.

Answer: B



26. Your network contains 100 computers that run Windows XP.

You need to identify which applications installed on all of the computers can run on Windows 7.

You must achieve this goal by using the minimum amount of administrative effort.

What should you install?

A. Microsoft Application Compatibility Toolkit (ACT)

B. Microsoft Assessment and Planning (MAP) Toolkit

C. Microsoft Deployment Toolkit (MDT)

D. Windows Automated Installation Kit (AIK)

Answer: A



27. You have a stand-alone computer named Computer1 that runs Windows 7. Several users share Computer1.

You need to prevent all users who are members of a group named Group1 from running Windows Media Player. All other users must be allowed to run Windows Media Player. You must achieve this goal by using the least amount of administrative effort.

What should you do?

A. From Software Restriction Policies, create a path rule.

B. From Software Restriction Policies, create a hash rule.

C. From Application Control Policies, create the default rules.

D. From Application Control Policies, create an executable rule.

Answer: D



28. You have a computer that runs Windows 7.

Your company has three custom applications named app1.exe, app2.exe, and app3.exe. The applications have been digitally signed by the company.

You need to create a policy that allows only applications that have been digitally-signed by the company to run.

What should you create?

A. an AppLocker executable rule

B. an AppLocker Windows Installer rule

C. a software restriction policy and a certificate rule

D. a software restriction policy and a hash rule

Answer: A

29. You have a computer that runs Windows 7.

You need to prevent Internet Explorer from saving any data during a browsing session.

What should you do?

A. Disable the BranchCache service.

B. Modify the InPrivate Blocking list.

C. Open an InPrivate Browsing session.

D. Modify the security settings for the Internet zone.

Answer: C



30. Your company has an Active Directory domain. All computers are members of the domain.

Your network contains an internal Web site that uses Integrated Windows Authentication.

From a computer that runs Windows 7, you attempt to connect to the Web site and are prompted for authentication.

You verify that your user account has permission to access the Web site.

You need to ensure that you are automatically authenticated when you connect to the Web site.

What should you do?

A. Create a complex password for your user account.

B. Open Credential Manager and modify your credentials.

C. Add the URL of the Web site to the Trusted sites zone.

D. Add the URL of the Web site to the Local intranet zone.

Answer: D

31. Your network consists of a single IPv4 subnet. The subnet contains 20 computers that run Windows 7.

You add a new computer named Computer1 to the subnet.

You discover that Computer1 has an IP address of 169.254.34.12.

You cannot connect to other computers on the network. Other computers on the network can connect to each other.

You need to ensure that you can connect to all computers on the network.

What should you do?

A. Turn off Windows Firewall.

B. Run Ipconfig.exe /renew.

C. Configure a static TCP/IP address.

D. Run Netsh.exe interface ipv4 install.

Answer: C



32. You have a computer that runs Windows 7.

The IPv6 address of the computer is configured automatically.

You need to identify the IPV6 address of the computer.

What should you do?

A. At the command prompt, run Netstat.

B. At the command prompt run Net config.

C. From the network connection status, click Details.

D. From network connection properties, select Internet Protocol Version 6 (TCP/IPv6) and click Properties.

Answer: C



33. Your network consists of an Active Directory domain named contoso.com. You have a computer named computer1.contoso.com.

Your network is configured to use only IPv6.

You need to request that a DNS record be created to enable users to connect to your computer by using the name dev.contoso.com.

Which type of record should you request?

A. A

B. AAAA

C. HINFO

D. NAPTR

Answer: B



34. Your network contains a wireless access point. You have a computer that runs Windows 7. The computer connects to the wireless access point.

You disable Service Set Identifier (SSID) broadcasts on the wireless access point.

You discover that you are now unable to connect to the wireless access point from the Windows 7 computer.

You need to ensure that the computer can connect to the wireless access point.

What should you do?

A. From Credential Manager, modify the generic credentials.

B. From Credential Manager, modify the Windows credentials.

C. From Network and Sharing Center, turn on Network discovery.

D. From Network and Sharing Center, modify the wireless network connection setting.

Answer: D



35. You have a wireless access point that is configured to use Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) security. A pre-shared key is not configured on the wireless access point.

You need to connect a computer that runs Windows 7 to the wireless access point.

Which security setting should you select for the wireless connection?

A. 802.1x

B. WPA-Personal

C. WPA2-Enterprise

D. WPA2-Personal

Answer: C



36. You have a computer named Computer1 that runs Windows 7.

You need to ensure that Computer1 can connect to File Transfer Protocol (FTP) servers only while it is connected to a private network.

What should you do?

A. From Windows Firewall with Advanced Security, create a new rule.

B. From the local Group Policy, modify the application control policies.

C. From Windows Firewall, modify the Allowed Programs and Features list.

D. From Network and Sharing Center, modify the Advanced Sharing settings.

Answer: A

Some Requirements For MCITP Certification

Before you take one exam, you should know what kind of questions it will be, which part of the knowledge of this exam that you should pay more attention to. In a word, you should know the requirements of the exam. So, today, I will tell you some requirements for MCITP Certification, just to those who still have no idea of what MCITP Certification requires.

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MCITP certification validates the comprehensive skills that are necessary for performing a particular job specialization role which includes enterprise messaging administration or database administration. MCITP certification also builds up technical proficient that are measured in the Microsoft certification informational technology professional. Hence, candidate can obtain more MCITP certifications to earn credentials in this certifications.

Successful candidates who are holding their MCITP certification will be capable of designing, deploying, building, optimizing as well as operating technologies of a particular specialized job role. Successful candidates will also design and make decisions regarding the technology in an effective way to bring successful technology implementation of projects.

MCITP Certification Examination:

In order to obtain the this certificate, candidate has to take up the examination and score a minimum scaled points. The following are the examinations for the MCITP certification.

Windows client:

1) 70-680 or enterprise desktop administration 7
2) 70-686 or enterprise desktop administration 7
3) 70-620 or consumer support technician
4) 70-623 or consumer support technician
5) 70-620 or enterprise support technician
6) 70-622 or enterprise support technician

Windows server:

1) 70-640 MCITP or enterprise administration
2) 70-642
3) 70-643
4) 70-624 or exam 70-620 and exam 70-647
5) 70-640 MCITP or server administrator
6) 70-642
7) 70-646

Microsoft Office Project Server:

1) 70-632 or enterprise project management with MS office server 2007
2) 70-633
3) 70-634

Microsoft exchange server:

1) 70-236 or enterprise messaging administration
2) 70-237
3) 238

All these above examinations are required to take part by the candidates to obtain the certification and they can be taken part in any order.

The Real MCTS/MCITP Exam 70-620 Prep Kit

This exam is designed to validate proficieny supporting Windows Vista client. This IT Exams will fulfill the Windows Vista Technology Specialist requirements of 70-620 Exam.

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The Microsoft Certified Technology Specialist (MCTS) on Windows Vista credential is intended for information technology (IT) professionals who work in the complex computing environment of medium to large companies. The MCTS candidate should have at least one year of experience in Tier 1 or Tier 2 phone support in an upper midsize organization or enterprise environment.
MCTS candidates should have experience resolving issues concerning network connectivity, desktop operating systems, security, and applications. Their experience should also include addressing logon problems, performing password resets, and resolving most issues with desktop applications.

* Designed to help study for and pass this important MCTS exam on the Vista operating system on the way to MCITP status
* Targeted to newcomers to Microsoft certification AND people who wish to upgrade their Windows 2003 MCSE/MCSA
* THE independent source of exam day tips, techniques, and warnings not available from Microsoft
* Comprehensive study guide guarantees 100% coverage of all Microsoft's exam objectives
* Interactive FastTrack e-learning modules help simplify difficult exam topics
* Two full-function ExamDay practice exams guarantee double coverage of all exam objectives
* Free download of audio FastTracks for use with iPods or other MP3 players

70-620, the required exam for the new Microsoft Certified Technology Specialist (MCTS): Windows Vista Client certification. There are 2-in-1 kit includes the official Microsoft?? study guide, plus practice tests on CD to help you assess your skills. It comes packed with the tools and features that exam candidates want most--including in-depth, self-paced training based on final exam content; rigorous, objective-by-objective review; free certification exam questions, exam-certified authors; and customizable testing options. It also provides real-world scenarios, case study examples, and troubleshooting labs for skills and expertise that you can apply to the job.

Microsoft's Kinect SDK, Patch Tuesday, Phone Scam Pushback Marked Week

Microsoft's week involved a giant Patch Tuesday, the release of Kinect for Windows SDK beta and alerts about a phone scam.

Microsoft’s relatively quiet week saw a significant Patch Tuesday and a new phase of life for its popular Kinect hands-free game controller.

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June’s Patch Tuesday tackled some 24 bugs across 16 bulletins. It wasn’t quite as big as April’s session, but certainly covered a lot of ground: in addition to patching Windows, bulletins targeted vulnerabilities in all supported versions of Internet Explorer, Microsoft Office, SQL Server, Forefront, .NET/Silverlight, Active Directory and Hyper-V.

Microsoft rated nine of those patches as “critical” and seven as “important.” In a June 14 posting on the Microsoft Security Response Center blog, the company cited four of those critical updates as particularly important: MS11-042, targeting two issues in the DFS client for all versions of Windows; MS11-050, a patch for 11 bugs in all versions of Internet Explorer; MS11-052, aimed at another Windows operating system issue; and MS11-043, meant to repair the SMB Client on Windows.

Security IT administrators should pay particular attention to fixing the Internet Explorer issues, according to Joshua Talbot, security intelligence manager for Symantec Security Response. “The slew of Internet Explorer vulnerabilities presents a significant attack surface for cyber-criminals to poke at,” he said, citing how a similar IE flaw was used in “at least one” of the recent, well-publicized data breaches.

Microsoft’s Patch Tuesday also targeted the “cookie-jacking” vulnerability in HTML5 (MS11-037), which could allow a malicious Website to swipe cookies from users. Despite the availability of proof-of-concept code, the apparent inability for direct code execution makes this particular patch “important” as opposed to “critical.”

Microsoft is also aiming to fix a denial-of-service vulnerability in Hyper-V (MS11-047) on Windows Server 2008 and 2008 R2, which could let an attacker on a guest virtual machine execute a resource exhaustion denial-of-service on the host and affect other virtual machines.

When it came to code, though, this week wasn’t all about patching vulnerabilities: Microsoft also released its Kinect for Windows SDK beta, bringing the motion-control and voice-recognition technology to developers and researchers.

Microsoft had originally designed the Kinect controller, which was released in November 2010, as a way to play Xbox 360 games via gesture and the spoken word—hoping to appeal, in the process, to the same sort of casual gamers who had made the Nintendo Wii and its unconventional controllers such a massive hit.

Kinect turned out to be a massive hit, too, selling some 10 million units worldwide by March.

However, tech pros soon found a way to hack the Kinect’s 3D camera, which translates the movements of a user’s body to a digital avatar. Videos soon began to appear on YouTube, demonstrating the next-generation hardware at work controlling robots or allowing people to paint 3D images in mid-air.

At first, Microsoft publicly disapproved. Just as quickly, however, the company decided to pull an about-face and claim it had always intended Kinect to be open to modification.

Now the SDK beta’s arrived. Its system requirements include a Kinect for Xbox 360 sensor; a computer with a dual-core, 2.66-GHz (or faster) processor; a Windows 7-compatible graphics card with support for DirectX 9.0c capabilities, and 2GB of RAM.

Required software includes Windows 7, Visual Studio 2010 Express (or other 2010 edition), and Microsoft .NET Framework 4.0.

Microsoft itself intends to incorporate advances in 3D sensing for products beyond gaming. In late 2010, the company acquired Canesta, a maker of 3D-image sensor chips and camera modules that can be embedded in a variety of consumer products, including laptops and vehicle dashboards.

In totally unrelated news, Microsoft also issued a warning this week against fake tech-support and phone scams.

“The callers pretend to be from Microsoft and try to sell the victim something, direct them to a specific Website, asked for remote access, to install software, a credit card number, or run a bogus security scan that showed an infection,” Eric Foster, group manager for Microsoft Windows Marketing, wrote in a June 16 posting on The Windows Blog.

The scam seems to be taking place in English-speaking countries. A survey by Microsoft’s Trustworthy Computing Team found that, out of 7,000 people surveyed, some 1,000 had received calls—with 22 percent falling for the scam.

Foster’s blog post offered a series of tips for avoiding phone scams. “We want to remind you will never receive a legitimate call from Microsoft or our partners to charge you for computer fixes,” he wrote. “Please remember to question any unsolicited email or call.”

4 reasons Windows Phone 7 will beat iPhone and Android

And three reasons it won't

Microsoft has a relatively long history with mobile operating systems, stretching back to the mid-1990s and Windows CE. Developed originally for "embedded systems," Windows CE quickly found its way into PDAs and eventually phones, and while consumers never warmed to the platform, it did achieve a level of success in the enterprise.

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Most popular Windows Phone 7 apps

Watch a slideshow version of this story.

Microsoft doesn't tend to invest time and capital into market segments it can't dominate, which makes one wonder how it is still a distant fifth in the worldwide smartphone market. According to IDC, Windows Phone 7/Windows Mobile will capture roughly 4% of the worldwide smartphone market by the end of 2011.

However, IDC predicts that once the next version of Windows Phone 7 arrives in products later this year, Microsoft will be on firmer footing. In fact, IDC is so bullish on the future of Windows smartphones that it predicts Microsoft will capture more than 20% of the market by 2015, moving ahead of iOS and behind only Android.

Here are four reasons why Microsoft will be a major smartphone player in a few years.

And three reasons it won't.

1. Will: Strong partners and deep pockets

Ever since Microsoft announced its partnership with Nokia back in February, tech pundits have been buzzing about a possible acquisition. A bad earnings forecast for the second quarter of 2011 released by Nokia in early June added fuel to the fire.

Thus far, none of the rumors have amounted to anything more than talk. What shouldn't be overlooked, however, is that this partnership alone is a big deal.

"The partnership with Nokia is a stroke of genius," says Brian Reed, vice president of products for BoxTone, a provider of mobile device management services. "Nokia is fighting for its life. The company needs Microsoft, and Microsoft needs a strong mobile partner who can deliver compelling hardware."

Don't forget that, despite Nokia's recent troubles, it still has the largest installed phone base and an overall strong brand.

"One major advantage Microsoft has is that by being largest software vendor in world, they can bring together more pieces of both corporate and consumer value chains than anyone else," Winthrop says.

Compared to Google, Microsoft has a much longer legacy of selling to consumers and enterprises. They have stronger relationships. They have a stronger sales channel, and even though they lag behind Apple, Android and even BlackBerry as far as apps are concerned, there are still plenty of Windows and Windows mobile developers out there. The gap could close quickly.

2. Will: Cloud computing and the advantage of openness

When Apple announced its iCloud cloud service, they drummed up a ton of coverage for something that would make any Windows or Google Apps user say, "So what?"

Google and Microsoft were both more aggressive than Apple about rolling out cloud services, but even if iCloud is Apple playing catch-up, services like iTunes Match and Book synching will make the iPhone even stickier. Looking at smartphones through the consumer prism, why would an iPhone user abandon the platform for Windows Phone (or Android for that matter)?

Critical fixes for Windows and IE coming in big Patch Tuesday

Microsoft to release 13 patches covering 22 vulnerabilities next week

In another big Patch Tuesday, Microsoft will release 13 patches next week covering 22 vulnerabilities, including two critical patches to prevent remote code execution attacks in Windows and Internet Explorer. Three other less critical patches will close holes that would allow denial-of-service attacks on Windows, and a majority of the 13 patches will require a restart.

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Microsoft Office, .NET and Visual Studio will also be patched.

The 13 patches is a large total but short of the 16 released in June, and short of the record 17. However, nine of the 16 June patches were rated as critical, whereas only two this month merit the most severe rating. The 22 vulnerabilities to be closed this month is just a fraction of the record 64 set in April 2011.

Microsoft patching: Still painful after all these years

Only four patches were issued last month, because Microsoft alternates between big and small releases to relieve the pressure on IT administrators.

Bulletin #1 on next week's list of 13 looks to be the most serious, as it is rated critical on Windows 7, Vista and XP, Windows Server 2003 and 2008 (including R2, the most recent release), and Internet Explorer versions 6 through 9. The patch requires a restart and is designed to prevent remote code execution.

Bulletin #2 will also require a restart and prevent remote code execution, but is rated critical only on Windows Server 2008, and Windows Server 2008 R2. The patch is rated only as important on Windows Server 2003, slightly unusual because Microsoft says vulnerabilities are typically less serious in newer versions of its products. The desktop versions of Windows are not affected.

Overall, nine patches affect Windows, one affects Internet Explorer, one affects Office, and two each affect the .NET Framework and Microsoft Developer Tools. Four of the 13 patches involve preventing remote code execution, three elevation of privilege, three prevent denial-of-service attacks, and three prevent information disclosure.

In other news, Microsoft released an annual security report which incorrectly claimed that vulnerabilities allowing remote code execution - a critical problem - are declining. Microsoft has since updated the report, and it turns out remote code execution flaws are actually on the rise, and the total number of reported vulnerabilities is rising as well.

We'll be back with more on the Microsoft Subnet after the patches are released Tuesday. Microsoft will issue them around 1 p.m. Eastern Time.