Still haven't made up your mind about Internet Explorer 7? No problem, you can always uninstall it and revert to the Internet Explorer 6 web browser that came with your operating system. Unless you've upgraded to Windows XP SP3, that is. Because Microsoft is telling computer users that if they install IE7 before XP SP3, there's no going back.
Basically, when you install IE7, your IE6 files are saved in an uninstall directory that includes the original IE6 installation files and any security updates you've added over the years. But SP3 includes a different set of security updates. So if IE7 is already installed when you load SP3, the uninstall directory that was created when you were using SP2 is no longer valid.
If that's all a bit confusing, here's what you should take away: If you don't plan to use IE7, don't install it. Period. If you do plan to install it, but want to be able to uninstall it, then you should load Windows XP SP3 before upgrading from IE6 to IE7. If you upgraded Internet Explorer before installing XP SP3, the only way to uninstall it would be to uninstall the entire service pack, which is really far more trouble than its worth.
If you've got Windows XP SP2, you might want to check the good ole Windows Update page today. A week after delaying the launch of Windows XP SP3, Microsoft today released the update through Windows Update. That means even if you don't go out of your way to download it, there's a good chance you'll wind up downloading the service pack in the next few days if your computer is configured to install automatic updates.
The reason Microsoft pushed back the launch for a week was because the company found an incompatibility with its Dynamics Retail Management System. If you're a business owner using that software, Microsoft has added a filter that will keep your system from automatically downloading SP3.
Most of the changes in SP3 are under the hood, meaning you may or may not really notice any changes once SP3 is installed. But along with a few new features like Network Access Protection and Black Hole router detection, the service pack includes pretty much every important security update and hotfix since SP2, so we'd highly recommend installing it. If you want all the gritty details, you can check out Microsoft's overview of all the major updates included in SP3.
Puppy Linux is one of the most popular thumb drive Linux distributions. What that means is the entire operating system weighs in at less than 100MB, and can be run on any computer just by plugging in a USB flash drive. But unlike some thumb drive distros, Puppy Linux provides such a robust desktop experience that you could seriously make a case for running Puppy as your primary operating system, at least on older machines with slow processors and small hard drives.
Puppy Linux 4.0 Dingo is the latest version of Puppy, and it packs all the usual goodies like the SeaMonkey internet suite (which is a Mozilla product with a Firefox-like web browser), AbiWord word processor, and Gnumeric spreadsheet application. But there are also a bunch of improvements over Puppy 3, including:
Support for scanners and digital cameras
Audio recording, editing, and conversion software
New GTK2 applications including ePDFView, Pschedule, Pcdripper, Pburn, and Pnethood
Automatic selection of native screen resolutions for LCD monitors
A new theme and background
Puppy 4.0 uses the same 2.6.21.7 kernel as Puppy 3, which was released 6 months ago. But there's an optional version of Puppy 4.0 that uses the 2.6.25 kernel for bleeding edge types. Some Puppy features have been reported not to work as well with the newer kernel.
For the last week or two we've been telling you that Microsoft planned to release Windows XP Service Pack 3 through Windows Update today, meaning most Windows XP users would download and install it automatically. But then Microsoft decided to go and make liars of us, by holding off on the release.
ZDNet's Mary Jo Foley reports that Microsoft discovered a compatibility problem that the company wants to solve before pushing out the update to all users. The problem is with Microsoft Dynamics Retail Management System, and affects Windows XP SP3 and Windows Vista SP1. And we can't for the life of us figure out why Microsoft would delay pushing out SP3 to all of its retail customers for a compatibility issue that will only affect customers who use a niche business oriented application from Microsoft.
If you're tired of waiting, you could always just download Windows XP SP3 the old fashioned way, by finding a link someone dug up and posted on a web site. If it makes you feel any better, the download link points to a Microsoft server.
Microsoft is set to release Windows XP SP3 through Windows Update tomorrow. But if you just can't wait to get your hands on the latest and greatest OS update from Microsoft (not that Vista isn't great...), it looks like a number of folks have found the download links that will let you grab the update from Microsoft's servers.
Microsoft released SP3 to manufacturers last week, and shortly after that, you could find the service pack on a variety of BitTorrent sites. But we've always been a bit wary of downloading something as important as an operating system update from BitTorrent. There's always a chance you're really downloading a trojan packed up to look like a service pack installer.
Note that the full installer weighs in at just over 300MB. If you wait to get SP3 through Windows update, there's a good chance your download will be significantly smaller since you probably already have some of the updates included in SP3 on your PC. The service pack includes a number of features and hotfixes that Microsoft has already released to SP2 customers.
The link above provides a download link for the English version of SP3. If you're looking for Chinese, German, French, Russian, or Japanese download links, GHacks has you covered.
In related news, Microsoft says it absolutely, positively has no plans to keep selling Windows XP after June 30th, despite recent comments from Steve Ballmer that seemed to indicate the company might reconsider. Meanwhile, Dell plans to continue offering Windows XP for a few more years by selling customers Windows Vista licenses and then giving them the option to downgrade to XP.
Hey, did you hear that there's a new version of Ubuntu out today? Yeah, we know, we're shocked too. But seriously, Canonical comes out with a new version of its popular Linux distribution every six months, so we're starting to feel like the product launch isn't particularly big news. And of course, we've been installing and trying test builds for the last few months. The truth is, we imagine that many Download Squad readers have been running Ubuntu 8.04 Hardy Heron for at least a few weeks if not months already.
That said, Hardy Heron is a pretty significant release, because it's considered an LTS or Long Term Support release. That means Canonical will offer 5 years of support instead of its usual 18 months, making Hardy Heron a good choice for enterprise users.
Here are a handful of things that set Hardy Heron apart from Ubuntu 7.10 Gutsy Gibbon, which is so last week:
Firefox 3 beta is the default web browser
Install Ubuntu from within Windows using Wubi
Updated Linux kernel and new versions of Gnome and KDE desktops, with the option of using KDE 3.5 or KDE 4 as the default desktop for Kubuntu
New BitTorrent Client
New VNC client
Virtualization software built into the kernel
f you've never tried Linux before, Ubuntu comes as a LiveCD. That means you can check out the operating system without harming your current OS and file system by burning the disc image to a DVD and booting your computer from the disc. It's a perfect try before you buy sales pitch, except there's nothing to buy. If you like what you see you can install it for free.
Are you running Hardy Heron yet? What do you think so far? What did Canonical get right, and what still needs some work?
Microsoft has released two new Windows Vista Ultimate Extras. Windows Vista has been out for over a year, and so far Microsoft has released remarkably few Extras. The company initially promised that Extras would be special applications available to Vista Ultimate users that would help set the premium version of the operating system apart from cheaper versions. But Microsoft has been rather slow to deliver.
Today, users can download a new content pack for DreamScene, an animated desktop background application. There are also two new sound schemes called Glass and Pearl. Reading their descriptions is a bit like reading the description of a fine wine, so if you want to know what they sound like, you'll probably just have to download the packs yourself. Or you can listen to an audio demo created by Long Zheng of istartedsomething.
In other news, Microsoft has also released 18 updated language packs for Windows Vista, which should show up via Windows Update.
When we last left our favorite evil geniuses at Ulteo, they were diligently plugging away at making OpenOffice.org applications accessible through a browser. Now, they've taken their plans for global domination one step further with Ulteo Application System Beta 1 (codename "Sirius"). For those of you wondering what exactly an "Application System" is: Think operating system.
Yes, Ulteo's Sirius is a Linux distro designed to integrate nicely with the online applications they provide. For instance, saving a document to a specific folder "auto-syncs" with the Ulteo servers online. It's then accessible from other computers through your Ulteo web account.
Of course, that isn't all of Ulteo's new tricks. Allegedly all upgrades, patches and bugfixes for installed applications will be automatically downloaded and installed on your system. You know, without any human intervention. We'll be the first to admit that it's our all-too-human intervention that mucks up a lot of our software, but not always. Somehow, we're just a little uneasy not knowing exactly what our machine is plotting against us with each new update.
Still, this isn't necessarily a bad thing, especially for people who use their computers for dedicated office work fewer than twenty-seven hours a day and don't want to bother learning Linux (or Windows, or Mac, for that matter). It'll be nice to see this project unfold and emerge from beta.
Microsoft has released Windows XP SP3 to manufacturers, which means it should start making its way to OEM and enterprise customers. What that means for you the consumer is that pretty soon you'll be able to purchase computers running Windows XP SP3 instead of SP2. That is, if Microsoft lets companies continue selling machines running Windows XP after the original June cutoff date. As expected, the final version of Windows XP SP3 will also be available to existing customers through Windows Update on April 29th. The company will also update all of its Windows XP online documentation at that point.
If you can't wait that long, you can go ahead and download the latest release candidate of SP3, which has been available for almost a month now. We've been running it for a while now and it seems pretty stable.
Once upon a time when you mentioned Linux to non-Linux users, the first thing they thought of was Red Hat. That's because the company was one of the first and most successful to get its desktop Linux onto retail shelves. But in a blog post today, the Red Hat team notes that they will not be working on a consumer version of their Linux product in the foreseeable future, instead focusing on enterprise software.
In a nutshell, the company has concluded that while Linux has come to be popular as an operating system for servers, it's hard to build a business model around Linux desktop software. If you look at the desktop OS field, Linux is starting to make mild gains on Windows and OS X, but desktop Linux users are still few and far between when compared with users of the two more dominant platforms. And most of the popular Linux desktop operating systems are not just open source, they're free as in beer.
The Fedora desktop Linux operating system is based on Red Hat and will continue to be developed. But all of Red Hat's commercial software will now be designed to compliment the company's server and middleware software.
Neowin claims today that they've managed to get their hands on an "internal schedule" for the release of Windows XP service pack 3, with the official date of release pegged as April 29th.
On that date, XP service pack 3 will be sent to Microsoft Update, Windows Update, and the Microsoft downloads center. The automatic update to XP service pack 3 will not be pushed to the user until June 10th, presumably in case they find any distressing and cataclysmic hardware incompatibilities in the soft opening.
News of the impending Service Pack release comes along with the fact that XP users are fighting for the survival of Windows XP itself.
It seems like Vista is quickly turning out to be like the new Star Wars movies, while XP represents the original trilogy. The people who weren't raised on the old trilogy didn't find the new movies all that bad. The fans that have seen and cherished the old trilogy know how good things can be, and know what an aberration the new movies are.
This Service Pack will likely be the last for XP, unless the save XP users can fight to an unlikely victory.
Please, allow me to explain. This week's FTLS was not at all what I intended it to be. For weeks now, I've been toying with idea of dual-booting a Debian based distro with a RPM based distro. Ubuntu Hardy (now reasonably mature enough for day to day use with minimal bork ups) was the obvious choice for a Debian flavor, as it already existed on my hard drive.
I am not a big fan of RPM based stuff, in general. I historically have had some real issues with installing Fedora on any piece of hardware I touch. I am intrigued to pieces by PCLinuxOS, but not intrigued enough to actually try it. SuSE, when it was just plain ol' SuSE, was the first Linux I ever tried. I liked it well enough, and it does hold a dear place in my heart. I guess it's kind of like a first crush.
The last openSUSE install I tried for any real length of time was 10.1. I installed 10.3 a month or two back to try some things, and found, though it's really usable, there wasn't anything that made me want to say, "Screw Ubuntu."
But I wanted to try openSUSE as my RPM based distro, again, because there are some nifty little apps on the horizon that seem, for now, to work best/easiest with openSUSE and/or RPM distros. I intended, wholeheartedly, to write about one of those little apps this week.
Maybe not blown away enough to stop using Ubuntu entirely... but I haven't actually booted into Hardy for some time now. And I am anxiously waiting to see what changes are in store for openSUSE 11.0, due this summer.
Recently, we reviewed Ubuntu 8.04 beta. We received several complaints for cranky people in the comments, and so we decided to take a look at some newer code. Always in search of variety, however, we decided to spice things up a little bit by trying Kubuntu instead of Ubuntu. We downloaded the nightly build of the alternate installer, and took it for a spin.
As you can see in the gallery below, there is a lot to like. The latest Ubuntu family of distros now has support for partition encryption, provided that you use the alternate install CD rather than the graphical one. Users that chose this feature are prompted for the encryption password at boot time, making the system nice and secure.
We also found the KDE system management tools to be visually appealing and useful, but the Kubuntu APT frontend was sluggish and confusing compared to Synaptic on Ubuntu. We also had X crash for no apparent reason and without warning on several occasions, but since this is a nightly build of beta software, we won't complain too much, lest a thousand nerds shoot cheetos through their braces onto their monitors in indignation.
All in all, this is a distro that is shaping up well. It's not perfect, but there is plenty of time to polish up the edges. If you want to help the community with bug testing, check out the nightly build service.
One of the first things Windows XP users will notice if and when they switch to Vista is the User Account Control, affectionately referred to as UAC or "Why the hell does this window keep popping up!" The UAC prompt is a security feature that will alert you if you are about to make changes to your computer that could technically expose it to some threats.
Some users get around this by disabling or modifying the UAC using programs like TweakUAC. Others insist that Microsoft put it there for a reason, and disabling will result in your computer bursting into a ball of flames. But if you're tired of looking at UAC prompt after UAC prompt, here's something that should give you a little comfort: Microsoft knew all along that the UAC prompt was annoying and designed it to be that way.
Microsoft product manager David Cross says the goal was to make users think twice about making changes to their system willy nilly. It's also designed so that software developers will think of ways to write programs that don't burrow too deeply into your operating system. The less system configuration changes a program makes, the less often you're going to see a UAC prompt.
Cross says that 88% of Vista users have not disabled UAC, and 66% of Windows sessions do not lead to a UAC prompt showing up. And that makes sense if you're someone who just runs the software that came with your computer and a handful of other applications. But if you're constantly looking for cool new programs to add features to your computer -- in other words, a typical Download Squad reader -- we're guessing you see the UAC prompt a lot more often than most users.
Microsoft may be rolling out an incremental upgrade to its Windows Mobile operating system for PDAs and cellphones, but it's up to device manufacturers and wireless carriers to decide whether to offer Windows Mobile 6.1 to existing customers. And it looks like HP has decided that customers who have already bought current generation iPaq devices can live without the update.
One of the things that has long set mobile operating systems apart from desktop OSes is the fact that users can't just walk into the store, but a software upgrade and apply it themselves. In the olden days, OS upgrades came on ROM chips and you literally had to update a device's hardware in order to update the OS. Now most Windows Mobile devices can be upgraded via a software-only update process. But because the OS is typically customized to run on various devices, it's up to the device makers to decide whether to release an update.
HP apparently has decided to offer Windows Mobile 6.1 on new units, but will not be offering an upgrade option for current iPaq owners. Of course, when hardware makers don't step up, we've often seen that 3rd party developers will come up with their own solutions. Will we eventually see an unofficial upgrade path for iPaq users? Only time will tell.
When we 
Please, allow me to explain. This week's FTLS was not at all what I intended it to be. For weeks now, I've been toying with idea of dual-booting a Debian based distro with a RPM based distro. 
