It's December 5, 2008 and - as promised - Microsoft has made the Vista SP2 beta publicly available. Early adopters can install it now and take advantage of improvements like 10% better power saving, reduced resource consumption in sidebar gadgets, Windows Search 4, and a long list of security and bug fixes.

According to Wired's post, you should be aware that you'll have to uninstall the beta in order to install SP2 final once it's released. Currently Microsoft is anticipating doing that some time in April 2009.

If you're looking for more details before grabbing the file, check out PC World's article Vista SP2: Six Things You Need to Know.

Downloads for both 32 and 64-bit users are available at the Microsoft Download Center. Instructions are also available here for users wanting to install SP2 through Windows Update.

So far, I'm glad I ran the update. Overall my x64 Ultimate install seems a bit more responsive than before, and I've yet to encounter any annoyances. If you've upgraded, share your thoughts in the comments!

[ via Wired ]

While most people probably don't care what Microsoft does to patch or improve Windows Vista any more, Service Pack 2 is now available to Technet and MSDN subscribers and is slated for public release on December 4th.

Could SP2 actually take care of some of the irritations that have plagued other Vista users? Perhaps more importantly, does anyone really care? Vista has been taking such a beating in the media that it seems as though no one will. Prevailing sentiment seems to be that Vista should be ignored and left to die while development on Windows 7 continues.

While enhancements like Windows Search 4.0, native Blu-Ray media burning, improved wireless, and Bluetooth 2.1 support are great, I've yet to see any perception-altering features mentioned.

Personally, I've never hated Vista, and I've been able to work through or disable any of the annoyances I've encoutered (like UAC). I recently installed Ultimate x64 and I've been enjoying quite a bit. Photoshop CS4 runs like a dream, and Eset recently released a beta of my favorite internet security suite.

My Vista install is running just fine right now, but if SP2 can tweak my system's performance or squeeze a few more minutes of battery life out of my laptop, then I'm all for it.

What are your thoughts? Do you think Vista SP2 will do anything to really improve the OS, or does it stink of a last-ditch effort to "salvage" the experiment?

While Vista has now been available for almost two years now, there are a lot of people that are happily sticking with XP, myself included. And while there aren't enough flashy features to tempt me to switch to Vista, one that I do like the look of is the Vista sidebar. Happily, deviantart user joshoon has posted a package that allows you to install the real Vista sidebar on your Windows XP computer.

Installing the sidebar consists of installing three packages: Alky for Applications, Windows Sidebar Installer, and Gadget Extractor. Alky for Applications is where the magic happens allowing Vista-specific software to run under XP. An interesting side-effect of installing the Windows Sidebar Installer is that the Vista-specific fonts are added to your XP installation.

Because this is an XP-compatible version of the actual Vista sidebar rather than a copy, all of the widgets that you could install in Vista will work on XP.

[via Lifehacker]

It looks like the rumors were true. Microsoft is hoping to roll out Windows Vista SP2 before Windows 7 is publicly available. How soon? We don't know for sure. But the company is delivering the first beta version of Vista SP2 to a handful of Technology Adoption Program customers on Wednesday, October 29th. Depending on how things go, we could see the beta or a final version rolled out within a few months. Or maybe it'll take longer to work out the kinks.

You won't notice any major changes to the Windows Vista interface in SP2. But there are a few under the hood changes, including integration with Windows Search 4.0, a Bluetooth 2.1 Feature Pack, native support for burning Blu-Ray discs, and support for UTC timestamps in the exFAT file system which helps synchronize files across time zones. There's also a new utility called Windows Connect Now that should simply WiFi configuration.

The same service pack will also be available for Windows Server 2008.

One of the most reviled components of Windows Vista is the User Account Control menu. It pops up when you're trying to install software, configure system changes, or make other changes. Sometimes it feels like it pops up if you move your mouse the wrong way. But there's hope. No, not for Windows Vista users, but for anyone interested in the next version of Windows. Microsoft plans to roll out a new and improved version of UAC for Windows 7.

One thing to note is that UAC isn't intrinsically a bad idea. It's designed to prevent users from accidentally granting software access to protected parts of their systems. In other words, it can prevent security breaches, viruses and all sorts of other malware from infecting your Windows machine. But it's heavy handed, and according to anonymous usage statistics, Microsoft says that the UAC prompts showed up during 50% of all user sessions within the first few months after Vista was released. What's more, over 775,000 unique applications caused the UAC prompt to come up because of the way they were written. That number is now down to about 168,000, as software developers have learned to adjust their applications.

But there are still a few major issues to address. First, nobody can understand what the heck the prompts are saying. Microsoft conducted a study and found that just 13% of participants could figure out why they were seeing a prompt. Windows 7 will feature easier to understand warning messages, which should help users figure out whether or not it's really safe to click the Continue button. Right now, most people do click it most of the time, whether they really know it's safe to do so or not.

Another thing Microsoft plans to do is make it easier for users to adjust the range of notifications they receive. While you can currently disable UAC notifications or surpress them, there's no good way to say that you want to receive certain types of notifications but not others. It sounds like Windows 7 will include that feature. Windows 7 will also have fewer duplicated system prompts. For example, right now when you download and run software from the internet using Internet Explorer you'll receive a message from IE7 asking if you really want to run the application and then you may also see a Windows UAC prompt. Eliminating that duplication is also on the agenda.

[via ZDnet]

One of the features I've always liked about Vista was the Start Menu's search box. I heard a lot of complaints about the missing run command, but who cares? Win + R still works.

Besides, once you download and install Start++ the search box will be kicking so much ass you won't believe it.

Start++ adds a number of handy functions. For a start, you can set up custom keywords to perform search operations. By default it will recognize g (Google), y (Yahoo!), l (Live Search) w (Wikipedia), and imdb ('nuf said).

Type g[space] your search text, and Start++ will display results right in the start menu. You're even able to switch views between web, news, blog, and image seamlessly. Text and links can be highlighted and copied with ctrl + c, though right clicking does not work.

You probably knew that a lot of dissatisfied WIndows Vista users had downgraded -- some might say "upgraded" -- to Windows XP. It was never clear exactly how many people took that step, but it was enough that Microsoft extended the shelf life for XP for a while. Now we have a number, thanks to a survey by Devil Mountain Software: nearly 35% of new Vista machines are being downgraded.

The survey used data from PCs that have been shipped in the last 6 months, and included machines that were downgraded by vendors before delivery or by users after the fact. The Register seems to think that Microsoft is shifting focus away from Vista, and instead increasing the marketing effort for its next major OS release, Windows 7. I hardly think these numbers spell doom for Microsoft, but they hopefully provide some incentive to look at why customers are ditching Vista and address their concerns.

Reading and writing to a Mac formatted drive from Windows couldn't be any easier than selecting the samba file sharing option in Leopard. This works great if you have 2 physical computers but what if you only have a Mac running Boot Camp? Since Leopard isn't running getting to that document on the Mac partition from Windows would be difficult unless you installed MacDrive.

Once installed, Windows Explorer is able to mount the Mac drives right along side your standard Windows formatted drives. You are free to access them like any other drive.

If you're worried that you may accidentally delete files off your Mac partition just tick the option to mount the drives in "read only" mode, thus preventing any accidents. MacDrive's options can be access by double clicking it's icon in the system tray. But once you have tailored it to your work flow you'll rarely have a need to access the options.

In our testing we found no noticeable performance drops while accessing standard office documents and music files. And even if there were any drops in performance, the benefit of being able to access files created on the Mac partition from within Windows more than makes up for it.

So if you have your Mac set to dual boot you may want to consider MacDrive in order to swap your documents back and forth.

Need to reinstall Windows but you misplaced your driver disks? Not sure you have everything you need? DriverMax has you covered. Backing up and reinstalling your drivers couldn't be easier.

After installing DriverMax, go into Driver Operations and click on Export drivers. A list of all your installed drivers will be displayed and you can pick and choose which ones to export, or simply export the whole lot in one go. Once you've reinstalled Windows, go back into Driver Operations, click on Import drivers, and point to the folder containing your saved drivers. The import can take a while, but in comparison to manually installing each driver individually, this is a walk in the park.

DriverMax is also useful even if you don't need to perform a complete reinstall - you can use the program just to make sure that your drivers are up to date or export a list of your installed drivers as an html or text file.

DriverMax is compatible with Windows 2003, XP and Vista and you have to supply your email address in order to receive a registration code.

July 1 will go down in history as the day that major PC manufactures can no longer sell Windows XP preinstalled. This news hasn't gone unnoticed; InfoWorld created a petition to save the aging OS.

The question is why?

Truth of the matter is that there are millions of reasons why one would want to stay with XP just like there are good reasons to upgrade to Vista. Each of them have their merits and it would be pointless to try to disprove any one of them.

But what's going to happen when its time to get another computer and the only option is Vista? Is the lack of an XP option enough to sway you to Ubuntu or OS X? According to Microsoft sales of Vista have reached 140 million copies world wide so it doesn't appear that most computer buyers mind upgrading to Vista.

But for those die hard XP users out there what are you going to do? The Grim Reaper has come for your OS.

So you're thinking, "Hey, I want to be totally irresponsible with my computer and load it up with crapware!" Really, isn't everyone getting tired of having to be so stinking responsible on the Internet all the time? We certainly are. We're ready for system protection that isn't afraid of our reckless browsing, indiscriminate downloading, and general apathy towards good computer usage habits.

...Which is why we love Windows Steady State. It creates a cache file in which your operating system operates, meaning any harmful changes can be undone by simply emptying the cache. After downloading it's a snap to install - just a few obligatory clicks and the usual EULA mumbo-jubmo and you're set.

Our first test was pretty a pretty low-intensity workout. We surfed, bookmarked, set up a POP account and downloaded a few messages, and cluttered up the desktop with a dozen or so hilariously named folders. After issuing the old Windows - U - R we waited anxiously for the system to reboot.

There it was, just as it had been before - no trace of any of our activity. The desktop was still tidy, no favorites or emails were anywhere to be seen. So far so good, but let's try some real abuse!

Windows 7 cannot come fast enough! The New York Times is reporting that Intel has decided against upgrading its 80,000 employees to Windows Vista. An Intel spokesperson told the Times that Vista is being tested and deployed in certain departments, but not company-wide.

Although the enterprise push to upgrade to Vista has fallen short of expectations, this is a particularly brutal blow. Intel is one of Microsoft's oldest and most important partners; both companies became industry leaders in large part because of that partnership.

Although the Times' Intel source made efforts to say that the decision wasn't about "dissing Microsoft," we doubt that will make Steve Ballmer feel any better. Can you imagine what that conversation is going to sound like?

Despite the lack of widespread corporate adoption, the install base for Windows Vista is 140 million worldwide -- hardly peanuts. Still, with large corporations declining to upgrade their systems, Microsoft has had to extend support for Windows XP through 2014.

Thanks Mike!

Now that Windows Vista SP1 has been out for a few months, there's no particularly good reason that you should be running an early release candidate of the service pack. But if you're too lazy to have uninstalled it, you've got about two weeks before Microsoft forces you to do so.

Starting June 30th, any machines running a release candidate of Windows Vista SP1 will only be able to run for about an hour at a time. Basically, you boot your system, it runs normally for an hour, and then the kernel shuts down and you get a message that says END_OF_NT_EVALUATION_PERIOD. At least it's fairly easy to understand.

But wait! Didn't Microsoft push Windows Vista SP1 final out through automatic updates? Well, yes, it did. But you can only install Windows SP1 if you've first rolled back any release candidates of the service pack. So if you haven't done that yet, there's no time like the present.

[via Flexbeta]