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.
PreviewConfig is a utility that gives Vista users the power to add file type support to the Explorer preview pane, which can be activated via "Organize." Though the preview pane can be an interesting and useful feature of the OS, it really lacks in file support. It's possible to add support for more without a 3rd party program, but that requires some risky and time-consuming registry tweaking.
But fear not lazy and/or less-advanced Vista users! PreviewConfig makes it easy to add support for more file types. Simply open the application, choose the file type on the left and select how to preview it on the right. In the photo above, you can see the results of adding support for a multimedia file -- in this case an MP3 -- which is previewed through Windows Media Player.
Though it was easy to add support for MP3 files, adding more would require the user to go through the process again. This isn't a big deal if you're looking to add a few more, but adding support for 20, 30, or more file types could prove to be extra boring. Then again, it beats doing the registry hack over and over again.
We're grown ups, we know there's offensive content to be found on the internet. But there offensive, and then there's offensive. Consider yourself warned: the content of the video referenced in this post is the second kind.
Most large companies do it, and it's never very good. Secreted away in some production studio, they pour ridiculous amounts of money into it, and end up disappointed with the result.
What are we talking about? Internal motivational videos.
It's probably not all that surprising that if ever there was going to be a worst-of-breed internal motivational sales video, it would come from software juggernaut, Microsoft.
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.
Sure, Windows tweaking applications are a dime a dozen. Cheaper really, since you can pick up a few excellent ones for free. But we're always a fan of any application that lets you customize your operating system without mucking around in the Windows registry manually. Nothing ruins your day as much as changing a few registry settings only to realize that you can't remember how to restore them when things go horribly wrong.
That's why we're pretty impressed with TweakNow, a Windows tweaking tool that gives you control over a ton of hard to find Windows settings. Probably the coolest feature of TweakNow is that the free program automatically backs up any changes you've made. So you can undo changes you've made by clicking the "Restore Now" button. The restore function isn't quite as robust as we'd like. And the program's help file helpfully includes installation instructions and a changelog. That's about it.
But TweakNow does let you do some pretty cool things like change the title bar text on Internet Explorer, show or hide Control Panel modules, hide programs from the Add/Remove Programs dialog, disable the Windows registry editor, disable prefetching, and hide drives from Windows Explorer.
TweakNow is free for home use and works with Windows XP and Vista.
Experts such as Brian Livingston, editorial director of the Windows Secrets newsletter, say Microsoft is intentionally allowing a loop-hole to exist, which enables more advanced users of Microsoft's operating systems to upgrade to Vista SP1 without having the necessary previous versions of Windows.
The loop-hole exists in the Vista SP1 Upgrade Edition, which requires a previous install of Windows 2000, XP, or Vista but the upgrade edition will install even if they're absent. The Vista SP1 Upgrade Edition retails for about $110 less than the full version of Vista SP1, which means users can save money on upgrading to Vista by purchasing the cheaper upgrade box.
Livingston believes Microsoft supports the hole since the upgrade edition installs over itself in Vista SP1. Although it may seem absurd at first, Microsoft may benefit from such software pirates -- if they can be called that anymore.
The theory behind this is already at play and has been at play for many years. As more and more users install some version of Windows, others will see it as "the standard", and then they will buy it -- or they'll pirate it and indirectly influence others to buy it.
Been busy spending the past week telling the press about your extramarital affairs, history of drug use, and misuse of campaign funds? Here are a few stories you might have been too busy to read. Adobe Photoshop Express Beta launches
After months of hype, the big day finally arrived. Adobe launched a free, online version of Photoshop, the industry standard in image editing. You won't find all the bells and whistles that come with the desktop version of Photoshop. After all, Adobe does still want to sell you software. But Photoshop Express will definitely give existing online image editors like Picnik and FotoFlexer a run for their money. 8 steps to a more professional Blogspot blog
Look, we know that most folks think it's blasphemy to use the words "professional" and "blogspot" in the same sentence. But hear us out. Google's blogging service offers free web hosting, unlimited bandwidth, and a surprisingly tweakable template. We've gathered 8 or so of our favorite tips for making your Blogspot site look as good as good as any WordPress blog.
If you were an early adopter of Windows Vista, there's a pretty good chance you became familiar with one of Vista's coolest new features: an automatic crash reporting utility that will recommend solutions if and when they become available. Or to put it another way, if you tried running Windows Vista on many machines, there was a good chance your computer crashed. A lot. Even if the manufacturer had slapped a shiny new label proclaiming the computer to be "Vista Capable."
There's a class action suit working its way through the courts to determine whether Microsoft changed the definition of "capable" to help Intel sell computers chips. But some of the documents released in the case (PDF link) are interesting in their own right. For example, Microsoft has a chart that lists identified causes of Windows Vista crashes during an unspecified period in 2007.
The folks at Ars Technica took it upon themselves to convert that data into the pretty chart you see above. The number one culprit graphics chip maker NVIDIA, a company that had a difficult time updating its graphics drivers for the new operating system. Next up is Microsoft itself, and really there's no good excuse for that, is there?
While most Download Squad readers who took part in our informal poll say that Windows Vista SP1 has either improved their Vista performance, or at least hasn't broken their PCs, some folks are bound to have issues with any upgrade. And over 100 of you told us that Vista SP1 has caused some problems for you. Fortunately, it looks like Microsoft is offering some help.
Vista Shortcut Manager is one of those little applications that doesn't really do much of anything, but what it does do, it does well. While the name may conjure up a program that gives you advanced controls over your shortcut behavior, and perhaps even a list of shortcuts on your PC, the program really just does one thing. It lets you change the default icon behavior of your shortcuts in Windows Vista.
By default, shortcuts in Vista have a big ole arrow, much like the one you see on the far left side of the screenshot above. Vista Shortcut Manager lets you change the big arrow to a lighter one, remove the arrow altogether, or choose a custom arrow. And that's pretty much it. You need to logout of your account and login for the changes to take effect.
Windows Media Center includes a decent music player for songs stored on your PC. And you can use plugins like RadioTime to listen to pretty much any streaming radio station you can find. But until recently there was no good way to listen to songs from music recommendation and streaming service Last.fm. Well, now there is.
MceFM is aplugin for Windows Vista Media Center that lets you stream music from Last.fm. All you have to do is type in the name of an artist or song and Last.fm will dig up music by that artist and then find similar songs you might like and start playing one song after another.
You'll need to sign up for a Last.fm account if you haven't already, because MceFM won't play a single note if you're not logged in. Once you're connected, all you have to do is enter an artist name and MceFM will connect to Last.fm, find your music and set up a playlist.
The plugin can also find music similar to songs and artists already on your computer. Just locate a track in your music library and then click the More button on your remote (or hit the Ctrl+D keys on your keyboard to bring up the context menu and select More), and you can search Last.fm for similar music.
Windows Me gets a bad rap. Well, to be fair, it's largely deserved. The short-lived operating system crashed like there was no tomorrow. But it was also Microsoft's first consumer-oriented operating to include many features we take for granted today. Long Zheng wrote an interesting article this week listing reasons why Windows Me deserves more respect than it gets, and we were rather surprised to find that we agree with many of his points.
For example, Windows Me was the first OS to include Winows Movie Maker, System Restore, Universal Plug and Play, automatic updates, image previews in Windows Explorer, and a generic USB mass storage driver.
The problem is that Microsoft added all of these features to the Windows 98 kernel, which wasn't the most reliable basis for an operating system. It's hard not to think of Windows Me as a highly unstable operating system with a lot of shiny bells and whistles that you didn't think you needed at the time.
Sound familiar? These days a lot of folks like to complain that Windows Vista adds a lot of eye candy, but ultimately doesn't perform as well as Windows XP. But Windows Vista also features an enhanced start menu, search features, live previews of running applications, a better network manager, and a ton of security enhancements (even if some of them are a bit heavy-handed). So maybe Windows Vista is the next Windows Me, but is that necessarily a bad thing?
It's been about a day since Microsoft officially released Windows Vista SP1. And after uninstalling the SP1 release candidate and running Windows Update a few dozen times, we've finally got it up and running on our test system. The good news is that our test PC does seem to be a bit more stable. The bad news, well, not really bad, but other news is that as we knew all along there aren't any real new bells and whistles in this release, which means that SP1 is kind of unsexy as far as service packs go.
But enough about us. What we really want to know is what your experiences with Vista SP1 have been like.
Feel free to leave more details in the comments section.
No more betas, release candidates, or other test builds for Windows Vista SP1. Microsoft is pushing the final version of Windows Vista Service Pack 1 out the door. You can download standalone installers for X86 and X64 systems from Microsoft starting today.
Microsoft has also released a series of documents detailing the changes in Service Pack 1. But we'll save you the trouble. For the most part, you won't notice any major differences. Service Pack 1 looks and operates a lot like the original version of Windows Vista. Almost all of the tweaks are under the hood, and what you will hopefully notice is that your computer is more reliable (meaning it crashes less often) and works better with all of your peripheral hardware devices and third party software. Microsoft also snuck a bunch of security updates in as well.
The standalone installers weigh in at 450 to 550MB, depending on how many languages are included in the version you download. If you upgrade using Windows Update, you'll only have to download about 65MB.
If you're running a pre-release version of Windows Vista SP1, you'll need to uninstall it before installing the newest version. In fact, if you're running Vista SP1 RC, you won't even see Vista SP1 in Windows Update until you uninstall your release candidate and then check for new updates, install the prerequisites, and reboot a few times.
There've been a thousand and one ways to get your hands on Windows Vista SP1 or various beta versions over the past few months. But Microsoft is set to post the manual installer for Vista SP1 on March 18. If you're not in a hurry, you can wait until April when the update will be available through the Windows Update service.
In other news, Microsoft has confirmed that Vista's successor, which goes by the clever codename of Windows 7, is on track for a 2010 release. We've heard a lot of dates over the last few months, ranging from 2009 to 2011. But Microsoft has consistently said Windows 7 was part of a 3 year cycle. They just didn't really make it clear when the 3 years started. Apparently the answer is, 3 years from the time Windows Vista shipped to consumers. Not the date when Vista development began, or 3 years from the date it was shipped to manufacturers.
Does that mean we'll see a public launch of Windows 7 in January of 2010? Eh, maybe. On the one hand, a lot can happen in two years. On the other hand, when you're trying to retool an operating system as widely used as Windows, you want to spend as much time as it takes getting things right, otherwise you wind up with... Windows ME. What, you thought we were going to make a dig at Vista? How little you know us.
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.
Been busy spending the past week telling the press about your extramarital affairs, history of drug use, and misuse of campaign funds? Here are a few stories you might have been too busy to read.
