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"They Criticized Vista. And They Should Know. By RANDALL STROSS ONE year after the birth of Windows Vista, why do so many Windows XP users still decline to “upgrade”? Microsoft says high prices have been the deterrent. Last month, the company trimmed prices on retail packages of Vista, trying to entice consumers to overcome their reluctance. In the United States, an XP user can now buy Vista Home Premium for $129.95, instead of $159.95. An alternative theory, however, is that Vista’s reputation precedes it. XP users have heard too many chilling stories from relatives and friends about Vista upgrades that...

Just spent my weekend dealing with new computers for the kids that have Vista installed. I found this short video that I think that all of you who have experienced Vista will appreciate. http://blip.tv/file/340692/

Windows Vista, One Bad Year Later A year since the release of Windows Vista, Microsoft is cringing at the poor sales of the new operating system. It was initially touted as a landmark new development to reinvigorate the IT industry, prompting expectations of wide-ranging “Vista effects.” Instead, Apple’s new operating system, which now also works on PCs, is stealing the thunder. Microsoft has hurriedly responded by developing a new version of the old XP. ◆ Windows Vista flops According to market researcher Net Applications, Apple is enjoying the largest-ever share in the global operating system market with Leopard, the...

Who in the hell is Asustek, and why does Microsoft hate them more than any other company in the industry? Why does Apple, Dell and Palm Computing hate them? And why does Intel love them? Taiwan's Asustek -- better known as ASUS -- is one of the most interesting, innovative and fastest-growing companies in technology. At its core, Asustek makes motherboards -- more than any other company. Asustek motherboards are the heart of Sony's PlayStation 2 consoles, Apple MacBooks, Alienware PCs, and some HP computers. But that's not why they're hated. The source of ire is a tiny laptop...

There were apparently some problems with at least one of the updates released last week as part of Microsoft's Patch Tuesday update for the month of December. The problem shows up with IE 6 and IE 7 and affects both XP and Vista. The issue surfaces slightly more than half the time upon firing up Internet Explorer. A dialog pops up with the message that "Internet Explorer has encountered a problem and must close." It is still possible to use Internet Explorer, though it normally takes restarting Internet Explorer a few times before it opens successfully. Customized homepages appear to...

Over a year after first coming to light, the cache engines of major search engines are still providing a safe hiding place for malicious code, a security company has revealed. The latest warning comes from security company Aladdin, which logged an attack against a university Web site which was eventually traced back to just such a 'poisoned cache.' The originating site had been taken offline, but the code from it was still able to spread by living on in the caches of a major search engine. To make matters worse, cached malicious code could circumvent URL filtering systems because they...

Hackers have newer methods to hack into your systems. They are smart enough to detect security loop holes in your PC and enter through open ports,unencrypted Wi-Fi connections,malicious websites or internet servers. It is better you check your PC periodically for invasions and protect your system to prevent pilfering and damage of data. Detecting security loopholes. Eliminating malicious programs. Tracking hackers .

I'm at work and I am operating Windows XP Professional version 2002 with Service Pack 2 on an Intel Pentium 4 CPU with 2.6GHz and .98GB of RAM. I keep getting the error message, after my computer has been on a while, even after I'm closed out of most of my programs, that states: Network drive:\ not accessable. Insufficient system resources exist to complete the requested service. And other times I get an error message that there isn't enough memory to complete the command/operation.

I run Microsoft Money on my PC. A week ago when I tried to log in I got an error message saying that Money could not validate my password and that I should go online, log into MSN Money, and update my settings. But I can no longer log into MSN.com, either. I just get a long string of possible problems but no solution. This problem follows a notice one morning last week that in the night my Windows XP was updated automatically and that "this may cause some programs to run more slowly or not at all." Does anyone...

Hey folks, Does anyone have the links to a post of all the quotes of democrats, pre 9/11, advocating taking our Saddam and Iraq having WMD. I lost all my bookmarks when FireFox crashed my system. I am currently discussing GWB's discussion witha liberal who does not know Bush was just echoing the previous administration. Thanks in advance and I will be backing up on the web next time. War Eagle

A silent update that Microsoft deployed widely in July and August is preventing the "repair" feature of Windows XP from completing successfully. Ever since the Redmond company's recent download of new support files for Windows Update, users of XP's repair function have been unable to install the latest 80 patches from Microsoft. Repaired installations of XP can't be updated Accounts of conflicts with XP's repair option came to our attention after Microsoft's "silent install" of Windows Update (WU) executable files, known as version 7.0.600.381, was reported in the Sept. 13 and 20 issues of the Windows Secrets Newsletter. The trouble...

How Not to Install Windows Vista SP1 Beta Chris Pirillo Commentary I thought I would have been fine with installing the first Windows Vista SP1 beta last night (after having been invited and accepted into the feedback program). Guess what?Everything seemed fine after the first three installer-induced reboots, but then I came to see a black screen of… nothing but my mouse cursor. No matter what I tried, I could not move past this snag.I tried rebooting in Safe Mode a few times - and the first few times, it showed me that SP1 was installing itself again. Eventually,...

Hello Everyone, I am looking to buy a new computer. I have been out of the market for about 5 years now and I am way behind on current tech. I would appreciate any and all advice on what to get. I have included the system I am currently contemplating below. (CybertronPC AMD Gaming PC – AMD Athlon 64 3800+, 1GB PC5400 (667MHz) DDR2, 250GB SATA II, DL DVD±RW, 2 Asus nVidia 7300GT 256MB Video Cards, Gigabit LAN, NO OS, Silver/Black X-Plorer, Speakers) Here is a list of my requirements: Must be below $1,500.00, Video for 2 monitors, DVD Burner,...

<p>Some sales reps at brick-and-mortar retailers convince PC purchasers to buy unnecessary store-made backups.</p> <p>When Ian Griffith of Queens, New York, purchased an HP notebook from a Circuit City store in Brooklyn earlier this year, the salesperson urged him to have the chain's in-store Fire Dog technicians create Windows XP recovery discs in case Griffith needed to reinstall the OS.</p>

Excerpt - Microsoft is planning to ship its next major version of Windows--known internally as version "7"--within roughly three years, CNET News.com has learned. The company discussed Windows 7 on Thursday at a conference for its field sales force in Orlando, Fla., according to sources close to the company. While the company provided few details, Windows 7, the next client version of the operating system, will be among the steps taken by Microsoft to establish a more predictable release schedule, according to sources. The company plans a more "iterative" process of information disclosure to business customers and partners, sources said....

Back on July the 6th all of my systems that were on Comcast could not connect to most websites. I could connect to google just fine and also some smaller sites. I called around to most people I knew (on Comcast)and found they also had the same problem. So I called Comcast and after waiting on-line for around 30 minutes, I just hung up figuring that they must be inundated with calls. I then proceeded to do some checking on my own, I was able to ping the sites I could not connect to, but unable to do anything else(web/Mail/Telnet)...

The growing problem of accessing old digital file formats is a "ticking time bomb", the chief executive of the UK National Archives has warned. Natalie Ceeney said society faced the possibility of "losing years of critical knowledge" because modern PCs could not always open old file formats. She was speaking at the launch of a partnership with Microsoft to ensure the Archives could read old formats. Microsoft's UK head Gordon Frazer warned of a looming "digital dark age".Costly dealHe added: "Unless more work is done to ensure legacy file formats can be read and edited in the future, we face...

Forget about the WGA! 20+ Windows Vista Features and Services Harvest User Data for Microsoft - From your machine! By: Marius Oiaga, Technology News Editor Are you using Windows Vista? Then you might as well know that the licensed operating system installed on your machine is harvesting a healthy volume of information for Microsoft. In this context, a program such as the Windows Genuine Advantage is the last of your concerns. In fact, in excess of 20 Windows Vista features and services are hard at work collecting and transmitting your personal data to the Redmond company. Microsoft makes no secret...

Last week, when I condemned the flood of crippled trial software, ads and offers that come loaded on new Windows Vista computers, readers reacted strongly. I received roughly 700 emails, all but a handful agreeing with me. The column was the most popular article that day on WSJ.com and was cited on numerous other Web sites. Clearly, many people are furious about these unwanted programs and icons, which are sometimes called craplets. Many would like to smite them without going through the laborious process of uninstalling them manually, one at a time. Some readers suggested strategies. The following are some...

About 3 hours ago we let the world know that for the last few months, we've been quietly building and testing an entirely new version of Parallels Desktop for Mac. Named Desktop for Mac 3.0, this forthcoming major update - due in a few weeks - has over 50 great new features. Since we're still in beta testing I won't go into all of them, but I did want to highlight two of them: SmartSelect: A wicked cool new feature that lets you assign any OS X or Windows application as the default for any Mac or Windows file type....