Bander ALSHARFI

Every time I install Vista, I keep on woundering, where did that sweet Aurora goes after you finish configuring your desktop for the first run! I know it's the screen saver dah.. but how do you get the chance to run it in the background in the first place??!! Guess what? and since talking is much easier than doing, Long Zheng got it all, check out what I got from his blog:

Source: http://www.wininsider.com/news/?9331

The publication Thursday of Windows Vista's minimum hardware specs is only the last in a long series of requirement postings by Microsoft. To show some perspective, TechWeb compiled the Redmond, Wash. developer's stated reqs for each major Windows release since 1990's Windows 3.0.

Caveat: Microsoft is notorious for understating system requirements to pitch Windows to the greatest number, even when that minimum hardware has difficulty actually running the OS. JupiterResearch analyst Joe Wilcox characterized the habit this way on his blog. "You could run Windows on the minimum requirements, but you wouldn't want to."

As an additional comparison, average prices for desktop computer -- monitor included -- and portable PCs have been noted for all releases except Windows 3.0. (Data provided by IDC.)

While these "average" prices don't spec out systems identical to Microsoft's minimum requirements, they are a good indicator of what users paid for machines to run each OS.

It's easy to notice that as Windows' requirements got steeper, prices plummeted. A desktop able to run Windows XP (and probably at least parts of Vista), for example, costs only 42 percent of the price of a computer likely running Windows 95 eleven years ago. (Today's average notebook costs 45 percent of 1995's.) And that's not even factoring in the rate of inflation.

Here are the major releases for Windows, their release dates, and system requirements. Many of the trivia tidbits were gleaned from Wikipedia.

Windows 3.0 // May 1990

286 or faster processor

640K conventional memory (additional 256K extended memory recommended)

Hard disk drive

Hercules, CGA, EGA, VGA, or 8514/A graphics card (EGA or higher resolution recommended)

MS-DOS 3.1 or later

Mouse optional

[Tidbit: First Windows to be pre-installed on PC hard drives, by Zenith Data Systems and Dell.]

Windows 95 // August 1995

386DX or faster processor (486 recommended)

4MB memory (8MB recommended)

35-55MB hard disk space

3.5-inch high-density floppy disk drive

VGA or higher resolution (256-color SVGA recommended)

Average desktop PC price: $1,926

Average notebook price: $2,819

[Tidbits: 3.5-inch floppy version came on 13 disks; Brian Eno composed the Windows 95 start-up sound.]

Windows NT 4.0 // August 1996

Pentium or faster processor

16MB of memory (32 MB recommended)

110MB hard disk space

CD-ROM drive

VGA or higher-resolution display adapter

Microsoft Mouse or compatible pointing device

Average desktop PC price: $1,988

Average notebook price: $2,997

[Tidbit: Holds the record for most service packs -- 6, plus a post-SP "Roll-up" -- delivered for a Windows OS.]

Windows 98 // June 1998

486DX 66MHz or faster processor (Pentium recommended)

16MB memory (24MB recommended)

120-355MB hard disk space

3.5-inch high-density floppy disk drive

VGA or higher resolution (16-bit or 24-bit color SVGA recommended)

Average desktop PC price: $1,619

Average notebook price: $2,395

[Tidbit: Crashed catastrophically -- complete with infamous "Blue Screen of Death" -- during April 1998 COMDEX presentation by Bill Gates

Windows 2000 // February 2000

133MHz or faster Pentium-compatible

64MB of memory

650MB free hard disk space

CD-ROM or DVD drive

VGA or higher resolution monitor

Keyboard required

Average desktop PC price: $1,306

Average notebook price: $2,167

[Tidbit: First Microsoft OS to make it through development and release without a code name.

Windows Millennium // September 2000

Pentium 150MHz processor or better

32MB memory

320MB free hard disk space

CD-ROM or DVD-ROM drive

3.5-inch high-density floppy disk drive

Video adapter and monitor that support VGA or higher resolution

Microsoft Mouse or compatible pointing device

Sound card

Speakers or headphones

Average desktop PC price: $1,306

Average notebook price: $2,167

[Tidbit: Usually considered the "dog" of Windows, Millennium's moniker of ME was said to stand for "Moron Edition," "Migraine Edition," "Malfeasance Edition," and "Many Errors."]

Windows XP // October 2001

Pentium 233MHz processor or faster (300MHz is recommended)

64MB of memory (128MB recommended)

1.5GB free hard disk space

CD-ROM or DVD-ROM drive

Video adapter and monitor with Super VGA (800 x 600) or higher resolution

Keyboard and a Microsoft Mouse or some other compatible pointing device

Sound card

Speakers or headphones

Average desktop PC price: $1,163

Average notebook price: $1,876

[Tidbits: First Microsoft OS to require "activation;" metamorphosed into more variations than any other OS, including Home, Professional, Tablet PC, Media Center, N (specifically for the European market, sans Windows Media Player), Starter, and Professional x64.]

Windows Vista // ??

[Premium Ready]

1GHz 32-bit (x86) or 64-bit (x64) processor

1GB of memory

Graphics processor that runs Windows Aero

128MB of graphics memory

15GB free hard disk space

DVD-ROM drive

Audio output capability

Internet access capability

Average desktop PC price (2005 data): $801

Average notebook price (2005 data): $1,256

[Tidbits: Longest development track of any Windows OS: first announced in July 2001, prior to XP release; first Microsoft OS to be named in lawsuit before it launched.]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/cmp/20060520/tc_cmp/188100630

Summary: Explorer Destroyer launches aggressive campaign to get users to switch from IE to Firefox.

A group of self-titled "political activists" in Massachusetts has started an aggressive campaign to get browser users to switch from Microsoft's Internet Explorer to Mozilla's Firefox.

The campaign, called Explorer Destroyer, takes advantage of a new program by Google to pay users $1 for each referral to Firefox made through Google Toolbar, according to the group's Web site.

"You already want people to switch to Firefox. Now's the time to get serious about it," according to the site. "Google is paying $1 for each new Firefox user you refer. ... Now you can advance your ideals, save people from popups and spyware hell, and make some serious money."

Google did not return calls seeking comment for this story, but the search giant offers a standard $1 per user referral fee to Web sites that generate new downloads of Firefox with the Google Toolbar.

According the Explorer Destroyer Web site, the group offers Web-site owners scripting technology that will detect if a visitor is running IE. If so, an alert will appear directing them to download Firefox either to view the site better or at all. Whenever a visitor to a Web site using the group's technology switches to Firefox from IE, the owner of the Web site will get the referral fee if they have signed up for Google's AdSense program.

There are three types of alerts site owners can put on their page -- "gentle encouragement," "semi-serious" or "dead serious."

If a Web site owner chooses "gentle encouragement," visitors to a site who are using IE will see a banner across the top of the page that encourages them to download Firefox. A "semi-serious" site will put up a splash page encouraging a user to download Firefox, with a link for downloading Mozilla's browser as well as a link to the Web site.

Those who choose the "dead serious" rating actually block users with IE from viewing the page, informing them they must install Firefox to view the site. A demo of what happens when a user clicks on a site with this rating can be found here.

In addition to the Explorer Destroyer Web site, where users can download the scripts for their sites and learn more information, the group also has launched another Web site that parodies IE and provides users with reasons why they should switch to Firefox here.

One reasons for switching, according to the site? "It will make Bill Gates soooooooooo mad." "Seriously-- super, super mad," the site goes on to say. "And even more than Bill, let's think about Steve 'I'm going to ... kill Google' Ballmer for a second. If there's anyone that's going to absolutely blow a gasket when they see this Web site, it will be him."

Other reasons the site offers for switching from IE to Firefox include, "Reduce your weekly family and friends tech support load to eight hours" -- a reason that pokes fun at various problems users encounter when using IE -- and "If we knew Web designers would hurl themselves off it, we wouldn't have put the Golden Gate bridge so close to San Francisco," which cites developer difficulties in making Web sites IE-compatible.

The Explorer Destroyer group did not immediately respond to an e-mail requesting an interview Tuesday. An open letter about the campaign can be found here.

A Mozilla spokeswoman declined to comment on the group's efforts and Microsoft did not immediately return requests for comment on Tuesday.

So you did not find time to install a Beta yet? You are wondering what all the talk about the new User Experience is? How working with Windows Vista will differ from using XP today? Tony Krijnen demonstrates Vista key features from a User perspective.

Windows Vista Demo Part 1, 36 minutes
Windows Vista Demo Part 2, 24 minutes 

• Windows® SuperFetch™
• Windows® ReadyBoost™ (formerly code-named “EMD”)
• Windows® ReadyDrive™ (formerly code-named “Piton”)

Windows SuperFetch™ is a memory management innovation in Windows Vista that helps make your PC consistently responsive by tracking what applications are used most on a given machine and intelligently preloading these applications into memory.

Windows ReadyBoost™ (formerly code-named “EMD”) makes PCs running genuine Windows Vista more responsive by using flash memory on a USB drive, SD Card, Compact Flash, or other memory form factor to boost system performance.

Example: Windows ReadyBoost™ is an easy way to make my computer feel faster. I just put in a USB key and follow the instructions on the screen.

Windows ReadyDrive™ (formerly code-named “Piton”) enables Windows Vista PCs equipped with a hybrid hard drive to boot up faster, resume from hibernate in less time, and preserve battery power. Hybrid hard drives are a new type of hard disk that integrates non-volatile flash memory with a traditional hard drive.

Source: http://www.neowin.net/index.php?act=view&id=32740

by James R. Stoup
Apr 21, 2006

I don’t think Microsoft will ship another Operating System after Vista launches. I believe that a combination of technical difficulties and changing markets will prevent it from creating a product that is relevant in the market. Consider this, if the latest shipping dates are to be believed, it will have taken Microsoft over six years to get Windows Vista out the door and to its consumers. And based on past events, it is safe to assume that Vista will require at least one service pack before it is truly ready for use. Of course, factoring in the normal Microsoft delays for producing patches, such a comprehensive service pack will probably take another year before it can be released to users. That would mean that it will have taken Microsoft 7+ years to make a usable operating system.

Now consider how long it could take Microsoft to produce Vista’s successor. If the added complexity of this new OS increases the development time by only 25% (not an unreasonable figure) of what it took to make Vista, then it will have been in development for almost 8 years. That means if Vista comes out in 2007, it won’t be replaced until 2015. To put that into perspective, if Apple continues on with its release cycle of OS X (and factoring in increases in development time) they could, counting Leopard, release 4 to 5 new operating systems by the time Microsoft releases one.

But keeping up with Apple won’t be Microsoft’s biggest concern. What will prevent Microsoft from releasing another OS is the changing market. For Vista’s successor to have a hope of selling, the company has to assume that no fundamental shifts in technology will occur for almost a decade! That seems, overly optimistic at best. With Google threatening to release a web-based OS, and Apple potentially using virtualization to run all Windows applications, Microsoft might find that by the time it can cobble something together, it no longer has a market interested in its product.

Microsoft will find itself in this position (or one like it) all too soon, and it has no one but itself to blame. Here are the two biggest factors that are slowly killing Microsoft from within.

Code base
The amount of code that makes up Windows has simply become too large to work with. Now, you can blame this on anything you want (backwards compatibiliy would be high on my list), but ultimately the cause doesn’t matter. What matters is that building new features has become impossible, and debugging this mess has become impossible + 1. This was most clearly witnessed when Bill Gates got up onstage and informed his eager audience that the codebase for Vista had become so large and tangled that they simply had to throw it all away and start over from a point they knew was stable. Guess what? That problem isn’t going to go away by throwing another service pack at it. With each version of Windows released the amount of code grows and the strain gets greater. However, the amount of code isn’t the only problem here. The structure of the OS itself is fundamentally flawed. There are too many antiquated ideas (drive letters, the registry, etc.) and constraining bounds (NTFS) to allow for anymore growth. A drastic rewrite is the only way to solve this problem. The only real question Microsoft needs to ask is how much should we rewrite?

Management
The last few years has seen a flurry of restructuring at Microsoft. Key people have left (most noticably for Google) and even loyal employees who still believe the hype have begun to criticize management and air their grievances on personal blogs. The leadership of Microsoft has failed miserably and Vista is only the beginning in what looks to be an impressive series of embarrassments. It is time for a change. If Microsoft still hopes to be in the OS market a decade from now then those changes can’t come soon enough.

http://www.applematters.com/index.php/section/comments/wi...

WARNING: This tweak may cause a blue screen loop or constant flicker depending on your video card. Use with extreme caution.

• From the Start menu, click All Programs and then expand Accessories.
  Right click on “Command Prompt” and click “Run as Administrator”.
• Click on “Allow” from the Windows Security dialog.
• In the Command Prompt window, type “regedit” (without the quotes) and press Enter.
• Navigate to HKEY_CURRENT_USERSoftwareMicrosoftWindowsDWM (if this key doesn’t exist, create it)
• Create a new DWORD (32-bit value) of UseMachineCheck, and set its value to 0.

1. Click Start, All Programs, Accessories, right click on “Command Prompt”, and click “Run as administrator”.
2. If asked for permission to run Windows Command Processor, click on Allow.
3. At the command prompt, type in “bcdedit.exe /set {current} nx AlwaysOff”.
4. You should receive a message saying “Operation Completed Successfully”.
5. Restart the computer, DEP / No Execute should now be disabled.