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    May 27

    FROM > http://davidlower.spaces.live.com 1000s OF MY PAGES CLICK ON ONE OF THE CATEGORIES

    1000s OF MY PAGES CLICK ON ONE OF THE CATEGORIES  FROM > http://davidlower.spaces.live.com
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    DAVID PAUL LOWER PHOTO SMALL 24TH MAY 2008
     
     WWW.howstuffworks.com
     ABOUT 
    FUTURE SOFTWARE - COMPUTERS / COMPUTERS - OF THE PAST / MICROSOFT WINDOWS / XP /  VISTA / WINDOWS 7 / VIENNA
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     LATEST TECHNOLOGY NEWS / LATEST SCIENCE NEWS
     
    MY
    WINDOWS VISTA LIVE WEBSPACE
     
    MY
    WINDOWS 7 LIVE WEBSPACE
     Will Windows 7 be a major Windows release?
    No
     Windows Vista was a major release
     &
     Windows 7 will be a relatively minor
     or interim
     update
     Microsoft is currently
     on a development path where
     every other Windows version is a major release

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    May 26

    Microsoft Virtual PC 2007 SP1 FREEWARE DOWNLOAD & INFO

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    Microsoft Virtual PC 2007 SP1
    INFO AND DOWNLOAD
     
     
    With Microsoft® Virtual PC 2007, you can create and run one or more virtual machines, each with its own operating system, on a single computer. This provides you with the flexibility to use different operating systems on one physical computer.


    This update SP1 for Microsoft Virtual PC 2007 includes support for the following additional Host and Guest Operating Systems:
     
    System Requirements

    * Supported Operating Systems: Windows Server 2003 x64 editions; Windows Server 2003, Standard Edition (32-bit x86); Windows Vista 64-bit Editions Service Pack 1; Windows Vista Business; Windows Vista Business 64-bit edition; Windows Vista Enterprise; Windows Vista Enterprise 64-bit edition; Windows Vista Service Pack 1; Windows Vista Ultimate; Windows Vista Ultimate 64-bit edition; Windows XP Service Pack 2; Windows XP Service Pack 3

    * Processor: AMD Athlon/Duron, Intel Celeron, Intel Pentium II, Intel Pentium III, Intel Pentium 4, Intel Core Duo, and Intel Core2 Duo

    * CPU Speed: An x64-based or an x86-based computer with a 400 MHz or faster (1 GHz recommended) processor with L2 cache

    * RAM: Add the RAM requirement for the host operating system that you will be using to the requirement for the guest operating system that you will be using. If you will be using multiple guest operating systems simultaneously, total the requirements for all the guest operating systems that you need to run simultaneously.

    * Available disk space: To determine the hard disk space required, add the requirement for each guest operating system that will be installed.

    Additonal Guest Operating System support:
    Windows Vista® Ultimate Edition with Service Pack 1 (SP1)
    Windows Vista® Business Edition with Service Pack 1 (SP1)
    Windows Vista® Enterprise Edition with Service Pack 1 (SP1)
    Windows Server® 2008 Standard
    Windows XP Professional with Service Pack 3

    Additional Host Operating System support:

    Windows Vista® Ultimate Edition with Service Pack 1 (SP1)
    Windows Vista® Business Edition with Service Pack 1 (SP1)
    Windows Vista® Enterprise Edition with Service Pack 1 (SP1)
    Windows XP Professional with Service Pack 3

    Download From Microsoft : Virtual PC 2007 SP1 (32-bit and 64-bit) | 31.8MB (Freeware)
     

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    FREE DOWNLOAD XdN Tweaker is a free tweaking program for Windows XP, Windows Server 2003, and Windows Vista

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    FREE DOWNLOAD XdN Tweaker is a free tweaking program for Windows XP, Windows Server 2003, and Windows Vista
     
    It sets itself apart from the other tweak programs though by not being filled with options, settings, and "tweaks" that are actually normal options and menu settings of other programs. It tries to fill the gaps that other tweak programs overlook. Instead of just being another way of doing something you could do yourself just by clicking on "options" or "settings" in Windows, it offers features that Windows normally wouldn't allow you to do without digging into the system registry. Depending on if you run the program under Windows XP, Windows Server 2003, or Windows Vista, different options will be available to you (works with 32-bit and 64-bit Windows).

    Features:

    * Changes the number of Folder views Windows saves.
    * Resets the folder views Windows has saved.
    * Add/Remove classic Windows 2000 user control panel icon.
    * Disable/Enable ATI Catalyst Control Center right click on Desktop
    (only for use if you have an ATI video card and have the Catalyst Control Center installed).
    * Disable/Enable ‘SendTo’ right-click menu.
    * Allows you to adjust and tweak TCP/IP settings.
    * Disable/Enable ZipFolders.
    * Disable/Enable the Outlook Express/Windows Mail splash screen.
    * Put the File menu above the Back/Forward buttons in IE7.
    * Remove or Replace the Search box in IE7.
    * Disable/Enable User Account Control prompts under Vista.
    * Disable/Enable the “- Shortcut” text under Vista.
    * Attempt to force Vista to better save folder views.
    * Disable/Enable Windows Media Player Explorer context menus.
    * Add/Remove “Take Ownership” to right-click menus under Vista.
    * Disable/Enable the Documents item on the Classic Start Menu.
    * Changes “Delete” to “Search…” on Recycle Bin.
    * Turn off the annoying full screen “black” UAC prompt.
    * Add/Remove the Network Connections icon to Control Panel

    Download:Size(309 KB)
    XdN Tweaker 0.9.0.2 (link 1)
    XdN Tweaker 0.9.0.2 (link 2)

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    May 20

    6 FREE Download Packs To Transform Windows XP SP2 OR SP3 To Other OS www.davidlower.spaces.live.com

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    6 FREE Download Packs To Transform Windows XP SP2 OR SP3 To Other OS
    20th MAY 2008
     
    A new look? If you’re bored of having to look at the same kind of icons and eyecandy everytime, you can download and install these free transformation packs, and transform XP to look like any other OS.

     1...  Vista Transformation Pack 8.0.1 [Download]

    vista-transformation-pack.jpg

    Vista Transformation Pack does all kinds of appearance tweaks, and makes Windows XP look like Vista. From icons, transparency to new sounds, this pack does it all to make your XP look like Windows Vista.

     

     2...   Mac OS Transformation Pack [Download]

    mac-OSX-transformation-pack

    Transforms XP to look like Mac OS X 10.5. Some important components like Windows Explorer and other shell files are patched to mimic Mac OS X appearance. Work only with Windows XP SP2 SP3 (English version).

     

     3... FlyakiteOSX  [Download]

    flyakite-windows-like-OSX

    Again, make your windows look like Mac OS X. However, it’s much more comprehensive than the above one. This enhancement utility does everything from registry tweaks, visual styles, sounds, icons to imitate the appearance of Mac OS X. See other screenshots here. If you’re using iTunes then make sure to deselect ‘iTunes Multi-Pugin’ option (under ‘Software’) in the installation wizard.

     

     4... Fedora Transformation Pack  [Download]

    fedoratrans.jpg

    This tool is intended for making XP resemble the Fedora Linux Distro. Though the utility just packs a simple visual style, it does include icons, screensavers and wallpapers, and other Fedora-like skins for programs.

     

     5... Ubuntu Transformation Pack  [Download]

    ubuntu-transformation-pack

    This pack contains visual styles, icons and other patches that can give the brownish Ubuntu look to WINDOWS XP. If you just can’t get Ubuntu working on your PC, but still love its looks, you can download this pack.

    .....................................................................................................................................

     6... Vienna Transformation Pack v. 1.2

    2

    DOWNLOAD LINK

    .....................................................................................................................................

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    May 16

    SOME COMPANYS ARE SKIPPING VISTA & WAITING FOR WINDOWS 7 WHY YOU SAY NEWS 16TH MAY 2008 www.davidlower.spaces.live.com

     

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    SOME COMPANYS ARE SKIPPING VISTA & WAITING FOR WINDOWS 7
     
     http://images.businessweek.com/story/08/600/0512_vista.jpg
    GM keeps building cars on XP - Closing the Door to Microsoft Vista
     
    Putting a dent into Microsoft's effort to resuscitate Windows Vista, carmaker General Motors says it is considering skipping the OS release entirely.
    A number of companies are opting not to embrace Redmond's latest operating system and, like GM, are waiting for Windows 7 instead
     
     General Motors (GM) may take a detour around Vista, the latest computer operating system from Microsoft (MSFT). The automaker has encountered so many speed bumps getting Vista to work on its machines that it may just wait for the next version of Windows, due in 2010 or 2011. "We're considering bypassing Vista and going straight to Windows 7," says GM's Chief Systems & Technology Officer Fred Killeen.
     
    Vista taxes all but the most modern PCs with hefty processing and memory requirements. Many of GM's PCs can't even run the system. "By the time we'd replace them, Windows 7 might be ready anyway," Killeen says. Then there are compatibility problems with all the software that needs to run on Windows. GM's software vendors still haven't ensured all their programs will run on Vista trouble-free. So the company is sticking with Windows XP for now. Killeen figures GM could install Windows 7 in three or four years.

    In an interview with BusinessWeek, GM technology chief Fred Killeen said that, for now, he's sticking with Windows XP.

    "We're considering bypassing Vista and going straight to Windows 7," Killeen told the magazine. In particular, he pointed to the higher hardware requirements that would require many PCs in GM's fleet to be replaced. "By the time we'd replace them, Windows 7 might be ready anyway," he said.
    Microsoft has said fairly little thus far about Windows 7. The company had said that it will arrive by 2010, although comments by Bill Gates in Miami last month suggested it might arrive sooner.
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    If Gates is right, how much longer for keyboards & mice 16TH MAY 2008 www.davidlower.spaces.live.com

     
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    NEWS 16TH MAY 2008
     
    If Gates is right, how much longer for keyboards & mice
     
    It wasn't exactly Minority Report but Bill Gates' technology demonstration at the company's CEO Summit earlier Wednesday may be remembered years from now as a harbinger of the end for the keyboard and mouse era. Not today.
     
    Maybe not tomorrow. But soon enough. (Cue Winston Churchill here about how this is not the end, the beginning of the end, but perhaps, it's the end of the beginning.) As Gates demoed a 4-foot-by-6-foot prototype called TouchWall, there was little resemblance to Tom Cruise's futuristic data juggling in that 2002 sci-fi performance as he moved 3D screens around with simple hand gestures.
     
    Making what is likely his last appearance as master of ceremonies at this annual conclave of corporate heavy hitters, Gates used the show-and-tell session to offer a prediction. In the future, he said, all surfaces will feature "an inexpensive screen display capability and software that sees what you're doing there so that it's completely interactive." I've been watching Gates give performances like these since 1985 and it's wise to treat his predictions with the appropriate grain of salt. When it comes to Microsoft, the concept of vaporware is not entirely foreign. Still, I found the demo interesting when you consider the topic against the backdrop of what Microsoft is developing in Windows 7.
     
    In fact, a couple of months ago, Gates hinted at future support for touch-based gestures and speech recognition in a the post-Vista OS."The likelihood is that touch will become mainstream on certain form factors very quickly because we are working hand-in-hand with the hardware companies," he told my colleague Ina Fried.
    I'll wait to see how Microsoft's product roadmap evolves before getting too exciting. Planned features for operating systems often don't make the final scratch because of various and sundry. For his part,
     
    Gates appears confident this is the future direction of man-machine relations. In a practiced sales pitch for the TouchWall, Gates predicted that home and office walls eventually will become computers. Period. Of course, that's also going to require a lot of infrared cameras to pick up touch patterns as well as projection technology--and that's all going to cost. (For the foreseeable future, touch sensitive walls remain a toy for the plutocrats. Last Christmas, Nieman Marcus was selling Jeff Han's Interactive Media Wall for $100,000. On the other side of the equation, these sorts of technologies are moving into the mainstream in fits and starts. Vista includes some support for touch sensitivity and millions of iPhone owners now see gestures as natural. The fact is that we are getting beyond the keyboard and mouse as the end-all and be-all. The mouse is more than 40 years old, while the idea for the QWERTY keyboard dates back to a Civil War era invention by C.L. Sholes. Don't know about you but I'm ready for a change. Keyboard, mouse to get company in Windows 7 you won't have to rely on a keyboard and mouse to use it.
     
    After decades of investing in things like speech technology and handwriting recognition, Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates said that users appear ready for new ways of interacting with machines. And, he said, advances in those areas and in touch-based gestures will find their way into the next version of Windows, known as Windows 7. "The version after Vista is a big step forward in terms of speech," Gates said in an interview following his speech at Stanford University. "It's a big step forward in terms of ink. It's a big step forward in terms of touch." Microsoft has already hinted that iPhone-like gestures are a part of the next Windows, and Gates said that touch-screen is likely to be the most broadly appealing of the new interfaces.
     
    The likelihood is that touch will become mainstream on certain form factors very quickly because we are working hand-in-hand with the hardware companies," Gates told CNET News.com "Speech and ink it's a little harder to say."
     
    Gates has been a tireless proponent of the Tablet PC concept and made it clear he is not giving up on that dream, despite the fact that such machines remain a small fraction of notebooks nearly half a decade after their introduction. "I'm a big ink lover," he said, adding that he hopes with Windows 7 more students decide to go withWindows notebook that can use pen input. "I would vote yes, but I have a known bias."
     
    Microsoft has not said when to expect Windows 7. Some have said it may not be until 2010, while others predict Microsoft will try to get a release out the door next year following a lackluster reception for Vista and growing competition from Apple.
     
    WHAT OTHERS ARE SAYING
     
    Old tech new fashion.
    By lex on 16.05.2008 - 09:05
    touch screen technology has been around for 30 years and has not changed that much, presumably because nobody thought it was a particularly good idea and certainly not a replacement for mouse and keyboard.
    then apple discovered that most people under the age of 30 now rely on new technology to attract women, whether it works or not and brought out the
    iphone and now, all of a sudden, touch screen is a good money making idea.
    by pepperboi222 May 14, 2008 8:03 PM PDT
    Now if it looks and feels physical then you might like it.
     
    by frankwick February 20, 2008 9:01 AM PST
    If you believe everything Jobs says, then I can see why you would say that. However, if you open your eyes you will see that innovations comes from a lot of places. I would say that MS has innovated more than Apple over the years. Apple innovates a lot of look and feel items, but MS has the whole driver model, usable features, etc... Apple has better marketing.
     
    by Dalkorian February 21, 2008 3:18 PM PST
    Maybe my memory is getting a little fuzzy, but wasn't the bloated garbage pile known as asta-la-vista supposed to come with a new file system, a revolutionary new file system at that? Anyone care to argue that NTFS is that revolutionary new file system? I didn't think so. I'll believe it when I read about it in a review. I'll never experience it myself because I have to much self esteem to become a slave to the evil Micro$loth empire. I just don't hate myself that much anymore, I got better. 
     
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    May 12

    LIST & INFO & DOWNLOADS OF INTERNET BROWSERS ALL FOR WINOWS XP - VISTA WINDOWS XP XPSP1 XPSP2 XP SP3 WINDOWS VISTA VISTA SP1 & LATER TESTED USED VOTED BEST BY DAVID LOWER > SCORES FROM 1 TO A 10 www.davidlower.spaces.live.com

     

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    DATE OF WRITE UP   >>   12TH MAY 2008
    LIST & INFO & DOWNLOADS OF INTERNET BROWSERS
    ALL FOR WINOWS XP - VISTA
    WINDOWS XP XPSP1 XPSP2 XP SP3 WINDOWS VISTA VISTA SP1 & LATER
    TESTED USED > VOTED BEST > BY DAVID LOWER > SCORES FROM 1 TO A 10
     
     
             FIREFOX CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD LATEST FIREFOX DOWNLOAD & INFO PAGE 9 OUT OF 10
     
     
               SAFARI CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD LATEST SAFARI DOWNLOAD & INFO PAGE 9 OUT OF 10
     
     
               FLOCK CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD LATEST FLOCK DOWNLOAD & INFO PAGE NOT TESTED
     
     NETSCAPE Official End of Support
    .............................................................................................................................................................................................................................................
    LATEST BETAS
    DOWNLOAD & INFO PAGES
     
     
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    HOW TO: create a bootable XP SP3 CD www.davidlower.spaces.live.com

     
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    PLEASE NOTE 1ST ONLY MAKE SLIPSTEAMS OF XP SP3 ON ONLY XP OR 2003 MACHINES
    HOW TO: create a bootable XP SP3 CD

    Next time you wipe your PC's hard drive clean and reinstall Windows with that old installation disc, you don't want to connect your fresh, unpatched and vulnerable system to the internet only to download 176 new updates from Microsoft. If your XP installation CD is older than 2004, once your system is online, you'll have to wait for hefty service packs to download, chained to your mouse while pushing the Next button, watching progress bars, and rebooting multiple times. Wouldn't it be better to start your installation, head out to run errands or grab coffee, and come back to an up-to-date system before your system gets online? It's possible, using some free software and a blank disc. After the jump, I'll show you how to create an automated, customized XP installation CD or DVD, that includes Microsoft's official-but-not-released Service Pack 3 for Windows XP.

    Note on the current status of Service Pack 3: As of May 2, 2008, Microsoft has released Windows XP Service Pack 3 to PC manufacturers, but due to a last minute bug discovery which has to do with software for businesses (not home users), they have delayed the "release to web." This means they are not yet pushing it to users via Windows Update, and they have not yet published a Microsoft Download Center page for it. However, the official SP3 file is available for download on Microsoft's servers. Here's the direct link to the English version. No word on when SP3 will appear on Windows Update, but no doubt it will be soon. For more on what you get with the new service pack, here's our complete field guide to SP3.

    Why make a "slipstreamed" disc?

    Maybe you're the type who can't fathom being absent while Windows installs, unable to prune all the unnecessary applications and features, customize the desktop, set up user accounts and install needed drivers. Well, you and I have a lot in common, but we can both enjoy what nLite, a free slipstreaming utility, can do:
    • Pre-configure and tweak Windows—Nearly every power-user setting, from hidden file showing to deep registry hacks, can be set from the get-go.
    • Pre-install drivers and printers—No more searching through the Nvidia, ATI, or printer manufacturers' sites for the exact package after install.
    • Strip your system for speed—Adam's already showed us how nLite can help you trim Windows to its bare essentials, which not only saves disk space and frees up memory, but saves you the time of disabling and removing the superfluous stuff later (and clicking "Yes" on every "Are you sure ..." prompt).

    What you'll need

    Note for Vista users: There's a similar utility for creating a slipstreamed Vista DVD, vLite, which got the step-by-step treatment from Digital Inspiration. That tool, however, doesn't allow for half as much customization—not yet, anyways.

    Getting started

    nlite_1.jpgAfter you've installed nLite, load your installation CD into your disc drive and make sure you've got your 25-character product key handy. Launch nLite, click to the next screen, "Locating the Windows installation." Before you go further, create a new folder somewhere on your computer, at the hard drive root (as in "C:\") if possible. Click "Browse," select your CD drive, and you'll be prompted to copy your CD to a folder. Select the folder you created, then wait for the copy to finish.

    nlite_3.jpgNLite's next screen will ask what you want to customize on your install disc. If you only want to update to SP3, only click the "Service Pack" button. But unless you love answering questions and never touch a setting in Windows XP, you'll want to flip all the switches green and click "Next."

    nlite_2_2.jpgNow nLite will ask for slipstream files, or packages you want to integrate into the installer. You'll always want to have the latest service pack available, since, for instance, Service Pack 3 incorporates the fixes made in SP1 and SP2, so it makes them unnecessary. If you grabbed the latest beta of nLite, you'll see a Service Pack 3 already offered for integration, but it's an older release candidate. Hit the "Choose" button, select the executable file you downloaded from Microsoft with the seriously long file name, and give nLite a few minutes to implement it. When you see the version number change, hit "Next" and move on.

    wul_cropped.jpg"Hotfixes and Update Packs" is for all the tiny little Windows Updates between service packs. If you're including SP3, you can pretty much skip this part. But in the future, and for those not jumping onto SP3, I recommend running WinUpdatesList. You'll see a list of all the updates you've installed, and sorting by date and type should show you what you've installed since the last service pack. Right-click on an update, and you'll get a link to a related Microsoft Knowledge Base article, where you should be able to download the fix directly and patch it into nLite. You can also roll executables for Windows updates—like Internet Explorer 7, which (still!) doesn't install by default—into your disc.

    Click "Next," and you'll see an identical screen for drivers. If you know where to find the .INF files that connect your hardware to Windows, you can roll them into your install disc, but be warned: a small printer INF increased the final size of my ISO by at least 200 MB—I'm still trying to figure out why, but if you encounter similar problems, simply throw the driver installation files into spare space on the disc (more on that soon).

    Customize your install


    nlite_4.jpgYou start really making your XP system your own on the next screen. The "Compatibility Window" that pops up can protect you from yourself; unless you're sure you can do without an item, you'll want to leave it checked. Behind it, the "Remove Components" section is where you can pull out all the stuff you don't ever use or don't have. Most of the savings are small in hard drive size, but keep your system from clogging with services and drivers it doesn't need. Among the almost-guaranteed safe removals:"Briefcase" from Accessories; most of the non-red items in Hardware; Keyboards and Languages that you don't ever plan to use; "Tablet PC" from Multimedia; and MSN Explorer and Windows Messenger from Network.

    nlite_5.jpgUp next is the "Unattended" section, if you checked it, and this one requires attention to detail. If you want to set and forget your XP install, change "Unattended Mode" to "Fully automated," but then move slowly through every tab, filling in every section you'd expect to get prompted for during install. You can fill out your Product Key in advance here, and you'll also want to check "Skip OOBE" (Out Of Body Experience, or the introduction tour). Fill out all the name fields in "Users" and "Owner and Network ID," and make sure to set the time in "Regional." Once you're content you've pre-empted your installer, click "Next."

    nlite_7.jpgYou can pretty much leave the "Options" pane alone, although I enable the "merge" option by way of hoping for a smaller package. The "Tweaks" options are up next, and while I can't tell you how to customize your desktop, I'll note that you can basically set up your desktop, Start Menu, Internet Explorer and lots of other Windows tweaks from these prompts. Check the bottom bar for descriptions, and fear not—all of these can be undone, and we've posted a good many here at Lifehacker.

    nlite_6.jpgHit "Next," and you're almost done—click "Yes" to start the bundling process. Once that's finished (about 7-10 minutes on a faster computer), you can click through to make or burn an ISO file. Before doing that, gather up any files you want to keep on the disc, like that finicky printer driver or your favorite app installers, and place them in their own folder in the directory where you copied your original XP CD to. Now hit "Make ISO," choose where to save the image, and then burn it to CD or DVD using your favorite utility, like the free ISO Recorder.

    You've now got a CD that's completely up to date, and installs by itself (once you get past the initial blue-and-white loading screens, that is). You might have to run through nLite a few times if your images turn out bigger than you want, but you can always create a bootable DVD if needed.

    What changes, updates, or advanced features have you slipstreamed into your Windows disc? What do you still wish you could have loaded onto your Ultimate No-Touch Install CD? Let's hear 'em both in the comments.

     

     Windows XP ISO with SP3 integrated, When I want to install it on a clean machine, I noticed that setup prompts for a product key and it does not allow me to continue, which should be a new feature in XP sp3. OK so I fill in the VLK but it does not accept it, I try another one from a customer of mine, does not work either. Angry

    I found out that the problem is when you do the XP Sp3 slipstream process on a
    WIndows Vista machine, the API gives a different response and screws up the PID process. This is a bug and Microsoft knew about this in December, still the bug remained and made it all the way to RTM, nice work Microsoft.

    So XP SP slipstream only on XP or 2003 machines

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    May 11

    MICROSOFT WINDOWS 7 FULL INFO UPTO 11TH MAY 2008 FROM www.davidlower.spaces.live.com

     
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    MICROSOFT WINDOWS 7  FULL INFO UPTO 11TH MAY 2008
     
                        
     

    Windows 7 (formerly known as Blackcomb and Vienna) is the working name for the next major version of Microsoft Windows as the successor of Windows Vista.Microsoft has announced that it is "scoping Windows 7 development to a three-year timeframe", and that "the specific release date will ultimately be determined by meeting the quality bar." Windows 7 is expected to be released sometime in 2010. The client versions of Windows 7 will ship in both 32-bit and 64-bit versions. A server variant, codenamed Windows Server 7, is also under development.

    Microsoft is maintaining a policy of silence concerning discussion of plans and aspirations for Windows 7 as they focus on the release and marketing of Windows Vista, stating that Microsoft does not want to promise features and then fail to deliver, though some early details of various core operating system features have emerged. As a result, little is known about the feature set, though public presentations from company officials have disseminated information about some features. Leaked information from people to whom Milestone 1 (M1) of Windows 7 was shipped also provides some insight into the feature set.

     

    Screenshot of Windows 7 Milestone 1 Build 6519. In this preview screenshot, the only visible differences from Windows Vista are the button to show all icons in the system tray, which points upward instead of leftward and a new gadget on the Windows Sidebar for beta testers to send feedback.
    Developer
    Microsoft
    Release information
    Release date: H2 2009-2010 (expected) info
    Preview version:  Milestone 1 (6.1.6574.1) (April 20, 2008) info
    Source model: Closed source
    License: Microsoft EULA
    Kernel type: Hybrid Kernel
     
    Development
     
    History
     

    In about 2000 Microsoft started the planning to follow up Windows XP and its server counterpart Windows Server 2003 (both codenamed Whistler) with a major new release of Windows that was codenamed Blackcomb (both codenames refer to the Whistler-Blackcomb resort). This new version was at that time scheduled for a 2005 release

    Major features were planned for Blackcomb, including an emphasis on searching and querying data and an advanced storage system named WinFS to enable such scenarios. In this context, a feature mentioned by Bill Gates for Blackcomb was "a pervasive typing line that will recognize the sentence that [the user is] typing in."

    Later Blackcomb was delayed and an interim minor release, codenamed "Longhorn", was announced for a 2003 release.By the middle of 2003, however, Longhorn had acquired some of the features originally intended for Blackcomb, including WinFS, the Desktop Window Manager, and new versions of system components built on the .NET Framework. After the 2003 "Summer of Worms", where three major viruses -- Blaster, Sobig, and Welchia -- exploited flaws in Windows operating systems within a short time period, Microsoft changed their development priorities, putting some of Longhorn's major development work on hold in order to develop new service packs for Windows XP and Windows Server 2003 that included a number of new security and safety features. Development of Windows Vista was also "reset" in September 2004 as a result of concerns about the quality of code that was being introduced to the operating system. The eventual result of this was that WinFS, the Next Generation Secure Computing Base, and other features seen in Longhorn builds were deemed "not ready" for wide release, and as such did not appear in Windows Vista or Windows Server 2008.

    As major feature work on Windows Vista wound down in early 2006, Blackcomb was renamed Vienna. However, following the release of Windows Vista, it was confirmed by Microsoft on July 20, 2007 that "the internal name for the next version of the Windows Client OS" is Windows 7, a name that had been reported by some sources months before

    Focus

    Microsoft's Ben Fathi claimed on February 9, 2007 that the focus on the operating system was still being worked out, and could merely hint at some possibilities:[8]

    We're going to look at a fundamental piece of enabling technology. Maybe it's hypervisors. I don't know what it is" [...] "Maybe it's a new user interface paradigm for consumers.

    Bill Gates, in an interview with Newsweek, suggested that the next version of Windows would "be more user-centric." When asked to clarify what he meant, Gates said:

    That means that right now when you move from one PC to another, you've got to install apps on each one, do upgrades on each one. Moving information between them is very painful. We can use Live Services to know what you're interested in. So even if you drop by a [public] kiosk or somebody else's PC, we can bring down your home page, your files, your fonts, your favorites and those things. So that's kind of the user-centric thing that Live Services can enable. [Also,] in Vista, things got a lot better with [digital] ink and speech, but by the next release there will be a much bigger bet. Students won't need textbooks; they can just use these tablet devices. Parallel computing is pretty important for the next release. We'll make it so that a lot of the high-level graphics will be just built into the operating system. So we've got a pretty good outline.

    Milestone 1

    The first known build of Windows 7 was identified as a "Milestone 1 (M1) code drop" according to TG Daily with a version number of 6.1.6519.1. It was sent to key Microsoft partners by January 2008 in both x86 and x64 versions. Though not yet commented on by Microsoft, reviews and screenshots have been published by various sources. The M1 code drop installation requires Windows Vista with Service Pack 1, and creates a dual-boot system with Windows Vista.

    On April 20, 2008, a second build of M1 was leaked with a version number of 6.1.6574.1. This build included improvements to Windows Explorer as well as a new Windows Health Center.

     Later builds

    According to TG Daily, the Milestone 2 (M2) code drop is scheduled for April or May of 2008. UI changes are expected to appear in later builds of Windows 7 Milestone 3 (M3) is listed as coming in the third quarter, with the release to manufacturing in the second half of 2009. The release dates of a beta version and a release candidate are "to be determined".

    Bill Gates commented in a press conference in April 2008 that a new version would come "in the next year or so".According to additional clarification by Microsoft, he was only referring to availability of alpha or beta versions of Windows 7

    Features

    Windows 7 has reached the Milestone 1 (M1) stage and has been made available to key partners. According to reports sent to TG Daily, the build adds support for systems using multiple heterogeneous graphics cards and a new version of Windows Media Center. New features in Milestone 1 also reportedly include Gadgets being integrated into Windows Explorer, a Gadget for Windows Media Center, the ability to visually pin and unpin items from the Start Menu and Recycle Bin, improved media features, a new XPS Viewer, and the Calculator accessory featuring Programmer and Statistics modes along with unit conversion.

    Reports indicate that a feedback tool included in Milestone 1 lists some coming features: the ability to store Internet Explorer settings on a Windows Live account, updated versions of Paint and WordPad, and a 10 minute install process. In addition, improved network connection tools might be included.

    A new feature in build 6574, Windows Health Center, allows the user to monitor all of his PC's health problems, and concerns in one place. It allows turning User Account Control on and off, and monitoring 3rd party anti-virus programs, firewalls, etc

     MinWin

    A minimalistic variation of the Windows kernel, known as MinWin, is being developed for use in Windows 7. The MinWin development efforts are aimed towards componentizing the Windows kernel and reducing the dependencies with a view to carving out the minimal set of components required to build a self-contained kernel as well as reducing the disk footprint and memory usage. MinWin takes up about 25 MB on disk and has a working set (memory usage) of 40 MB. It lacks a graphical user interface and is interfaced using a full-screen command line interface. It includes the I/O and networking subsystems. MinWin was first publicly demonstrated on October 13, 2007 by Eric Traut. The demo system included an OS image, made up of about 100 files, on which a basic HTTP server was running.

    Incidentally, the name MinWin was also used earlier to refer to what is currently known as Server Core in Windows Server 2008.Both efforts are intended to consolidate and modularize the core of Windows; however, the two are quite different in implementation. With Server Core, the functionality of the OS is constrained according to server roles, and unneeded components (which will never be used as the role isn't supported) are removed from the binary image. However, the dependencies still exist in code, and the code cannot compile without the components. In contrast, with MinWin, the dependencies are consolidated into MinWin and what is not needed is removed at the code level itself. As a result, the code compiles even without any extraneous components and builds a stripped-down self-contained OS kernel image.

    Methods of input

    On December 11, 2007, Hilton Locke, who worked on the Tablet PC team at Microsoft reported that Windows 7 will have new touch features.

    I will say that if you are impressed by the "touch features" in the iPhone, you'll be blown away by what's coming in Windows 7. Now if only we could convince more OEMs that Windows Touch Technology is going to drive their sales.

    Also, Bill Gates has said that Windows 7 is also "a big step forward" for speech technology and handwriting recognition.

    Antitrust regulatory attention

    The development of Windows 7 has already attracted the attention of the antitrust regulators who oversee Microsoft's operations following the 2001 United States Microsoft antitrust case settlement. According to status reports filed, the three-member panel began assessing the prototypes of the new operating system in February 2008

    Michael Gartenberg, an analyst at Jupiter Research said that, "[Microsoft's] challenge for Windows 7 will be how can they continue to add features that consumers will want that also don't run afoul of regulators"

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    LOOK FREE Fifty of the finest tips for Windows XP and Vista www.davidlower.spaces.live.com

     
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    Fifty of the finest tips for Windows XP and Vista
               
     
    For most people using a computer means using Windows and over the years Microsoft’s operating system has become easier to use.

    However, there is always room for improvement, so in this feature we have compiled 50 of the finest tips for Windows XP and Vista. These can help to make Windows even better, easier to use and faster. Most don’t even require you to install any extra software, so if you want to make your copy of XP or Vista better, it’s possible to get started immediately.

    1 Access My Documents from the Taskbar (XP and Vista)
    Right-click an empty section of the Taskbar and select toolbars, then New Toolbar. Navigate to the My Documents (XP) or Documents (Vista) folder and click the OK or Select Folder button. In its default position to the far right of the Taskbar, the toolbar provides menu access to the entire contents of the folder.

    2 Extra speed with Readyboost (Vista)
    Plugging in a USB memory key is one of the easiest ways to speed up Vista. When the Autoplay menu appears, select ‘Speed up my system’, or right-click the drive in Computer and select Properties. Move to the Readyboost tab, tick ‘Use this device’ and use the
    slider to choose how much space should be given up. Not all USB memory keys are fast enough to provide this boost.

    3 Save folders after a crash (XP)
    If you have lots of folders open in Windows XP, when one of them crashes, they will all close. This can be avoided by using a hidden option. Open the Control Panel, then choose Folder Options. Move to the View tab and scroll down through the list of options until you get to one called ‘Launch folder windows in a separate process’. Place a tick next to it, then click OK.

    4 Disable Aero Glass (Vista)
    Vista’s Aero Glass transparency effects may look great, but they also drain a computer’s processing power. To speed up a struggling computer, right-click the desktop and select Personalize. Click the link ‘Window Color and Appearance’ at the top of the screen and untick the ‘Enable transparency’ box before clicking OK.

    5 Save memory (XP)
    When you run programs, Windows XP stores files known as DLLs in memory. When you close the programs, it usually leaves them there for later use but this can slow down the computer. If you are fine editing the Windows Registry, this can be fixed – but make suitable backups first and take great care. Click Start, then Run, type regedit and press Enter.

    Click the plus sign next to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE, then SOFTWARE, then Microsoft, Windows, and Current Version. Select the Explorer folder. Click Edit, then New, then DWORD Value. Name the new entry AlwaysUnloadDll, press Enter, then double-click the item and assign it a value of 1. From now, DLL files will be removed from memory when programs are closed.

    6 Partition a hard disk (Vista)
    Vista makes it possible to divide a
    hard disk into two or more partitions that Windows sees as separate disks. Click Start, right-click Computer and select the Manage option. Select Disk Management from the left-hand pane, right-click the disk that is to be split and select Shrink Volume. Enter a new size for the partition and click Shrink.

    Now right-click the drive space marked as Unallocated and select New Simple Volume. Follow the wizard to create and format the new partition.

    7 Make room for Start menu favourites (XP)
    The Start menu includes space for six shortcuts to the most frequently used programs, but this can be increased if it is not enough. Right-click the Start button, select Properties and click the Customize button. In the Programs section in the centre of the dialogue box, use the up arrow button to increase the number of icons that should be displayed and then click OK.

    8 Restore a deleted Recycle Bin (Vista)
    If you right-click the Recycle Bin, there’s a Delete option – this makes it easy to accidentally remove the bin from your desktop. To get it back, right-click the desktop, select Personalize and then click ‘Change desktop icons’. Tick the box next to the Recycle Bin option and click OK – it will reappear on the desktop.

    9 Automatically log in to Windows XP
    If your PC has only a single user account, it might seem silly to type in a password every time you start it up. To avoid this, click Start, then Run, and type control userpasswords2 before pressing Enter. Select your account and untick the box labelled ‘Users must enter a user name and password to use this computer’. Click OK, enter the password when prompted and click OK again.

    10 Add Run to Start menu (Vista)
    After moving from Windows XP to Vista, some people miss the Run option from Windows XP’s Start menu. To add a Run link in Vista right-click on Start, select Properties and move to the Start Menu tab before clicking Customize. Scroll down through the options, tick the box labelled ‘Run command’ and click OK.

    11 Make it easier to select files (Vista)
    To make it easier to select a number of files or folders, it is possible to add a tick-box feature to all icons. Open a folder and click Organize, then on ‘Folder and Search Options’. Move to the View tab, tick the box labelled ‘Use check boxes to select item’ and click OK.

    12 Restore the Show Desktop icon (XP)
    The Show Desktop icon in Windows XP’s Quick Launch toolbar is very handy, but it’s also easy to delete. Getting it back is rather convoluted, but
    Microsoft has provided a guide – scroll down the page and click Download Guided Help. Opt to Run the file, and follow its instructions. For a quicker way to show the desktop, press the Windows key and the M key together.

    13 Extend Send To (Vista)
    We’ve explained how to add items to the Send To menu in Windows XP numerous times, but the process is a little different in Windows Vista. Open the Control Panel, then Folder Options, then move to the View tab and select the option labelled ‘Show hidden files and folders’ before clicking OK. Now click Start, Computer, and open the C drive.

    Open the folder called users, then the one with your user name, then the folders AppData, Roaming, Microsoft, Windows and SendTo. Add any shortcuts you want in the Send To menu to this folder.

    14 Hide Recent Documents from Start menu (XP)
    The Windows Start menu normally shows which files have been opened most recently. This can be handy, but it’s possible to remove this feature. To do so, right-click the Start button, select Properties and move to the Advanced tab. At the bottom of the dialogue box, untick the option labelled ‘List my most recently opened documents’ and click OK.

    15 Quick Launch keyboard shortcuts (Vista)
    The Quick Launch bar makes it very easy to start the most frequently used programs. As well as clicking the shortcuts, though, it’s possible to start the programs in Quick Launch using the keyboard. Press the Windows key, then the number key relating to the position of the icon you want – for example, to start the program that’s second from the left in the Quick Launch bar, press the Windows key and 2 together.

    16 Access shared folders simply (XP)
    It’s possible to make it easier to find shared files on a computer attached to a network. Right-click the My Computer icon in the Start menu, select Map Network Drive then choose a drive letter from the dropdown menu. Click Browse, then navigate to the shared folder and then click Finish. It’ll now be easy to find that shared folder by simply opening My Computer.

    17 Permanently show menus (Vista)
    When viewing folders in Vista the menu bar is hidden. It can be temporarily restored by pressing the Alt key, but it’s also possible to permanently restore it. With a folder open, click the Organize button and select ‘Folder and Search Options’. Move to the View tab and tick the box labelled ‘Always show menus’ before clicking OK.

    18 Disable disk indexing (XP)
    Unless you regularly use the Find tool to search for files on your computer, Windows XP’s indexing feature will only slow down the PC. To disable it, right-click the
    hard disk in My Computer and select Properties. Untick the box labelled ‘Allow Indexing Service to index this drive for fast file searching’, then click OK.

    19 Trim Start menu searches (Vista)
    Vista’s Start menu can be used to perform searches, but the sheer number of files that are searched can mean dozens of results are produced. To get more control over just what is searched for, right-click the Start button and select Properties. On the Start Menu tab, click the Customize button and untick any options that can safely be ignored. We unticked ‘Search favourites and history’, as we don’t often want to look for these.Then click OK.

    20 Quickly lock Windows (XP)
    For security purposes, a computer can be quickly locked by pressing the Windows key and L simultaneously. To make this process even quicker, right-click on the desktop, hover the mouse over New and select Shortcut. In the dialogue box that opens, type rundll32.exe user32.dll,LockWorkStation.

    21 Reduce window borders (Vista)
    Vista’s Aero
    graphics can give program and folder windows a fairly chunky border. When using a program that has several floating windows, such as image-editing software, the wasted space can become annoying. To shrink the borders down to size, right-click the desktop and select Personalize before clicking ‘Window Color and Appearance’.

    If the Appearance Setting dialogue box does not appear, click ‘Open classic appearance properties for more color options’. Click the Advanced button, select Border Padding from the dropdown menu, reduce the size setting to less than 4, then click OK twice.

    22 Group Taskbar buttons (XP)
    Normally opening more than one copy of the same program will produce more than one button on the Taskbar, and this can mean the Taskbar runs out of space. To make things simpler, it’s possible to group Taskbar buttons from the same program together. To activate this feature, right-click on an empty section of the Taskbar and select Properties. Tick the box labelled ‘Group similar Taskbar buttons’ and click OK.

    23 Add links to folder Favorites (Vista)
    When viewing folders in Vista the ‘Favorite Links’ panel is displayed to one side. Adding the folders you use most often to this list makes using the computer quicker and easier. Simply drag and drop the folders you use most often onto the ‘Favorite Links’ panel.

    24 Access web pages quickly (XP)
    Visiting a website is a two-stage process: first open a web browser, then type in the address. To speed things up add an address bar to the Windows Taskbar. Right-click an empty section of the Taskbar – if there is a tick next to ‘Lock the Taskbar’ remove it. Next, hover the mouse over Toolbars and click on Address.

    A tiny address bar will appear – type in any website’s address and it will open in your web browser of choice.

    26 Use Flip 3D (Vista)
    Flip 3D is one of Vista’s most impressive tricks, but many people don’t even know it exists. With several programs or windows open, hold down the Alt key and push the Tab button a few times – Vista will cycle through the windows in a useful but dull way.

    Now, try holding down the Windows key and pushing Tab a few times – Vista will use the impressive-looking Flip 3D system to change between the windows, allowing you to view each one as they change.

    27 Speed up the Start menu (XP)
    When using the Start menu you might notice a delay between clicking a sub-menu and watching it open – this is added deliberately by Windows. It’s possible to remove it, as long as you are a confident computer user happy to edit the Windows Registry. To do so, click Start, then Run, type regedit and press Enter.

    Click the plus sign next to HKEY_CURRENT_USER, then click the plus sign next to Control Panel and select Desktop. Look for an entry in the right pane called MenuShowDelay. This has a default value of 400. Right-click it and select Modify – entering a value of between 50 and 100 will speed up the Start menu.

    28 Make USB disks faster (Vista)
    If you leave your USB hard disk permanently connected, it’s possible to make it faster. Click Start, type Device Manger and click the Device Manager link. Expand the
    Disk Drives entry, right-click the USB disk icon and select Properties. On the Policies tab tick ‘Optimize for performance’ and click OK.

    29 Advanced Windows shortcuts (XP)
    Windows XP is full of keyboard shortcuts, but there are a few that every user should know. Hold down the Windows key, then try pressing these letter keys: E will launch Windows Explorer, R will launch the Run box, F will launch the Find utility, M will minimise all open windows to show the desktop, and L will instantly lock the computer.

    30 Activate windows without clicking (Vista)
    Normally it’s necessary to click a window to make it active, but it is possible to avoid this by using one of Vista’s Ease of Access features. Click Start, open the Control Panel and then choose the ‘Ease of Access Center’. Click the link labelled ‘Make the mouse easier to use’ and then select the option labelled ‘Activate a window by hovering over it with the mouse’. It’s easy to go back and de-select the option if you want.

    31 Keep track of notes
    It’s easy to lose notes kept on scraps of paper, so why not keep them handy on the desktop? Right-click the desktop, select New then Text Document. Call it ‘notes’. From now on, to make a note simply double-click the file, press F5 to insert the date and time, type a note then press the Control and S keys together to save.

    32 Clever keyboard (Vista)
    Windows Vista has an on-screen keyboard that can be accessed by pressing the Windows key and the R key together, then typing osk.exe and pressing Enter. For a more useful version, right-click the Taskbar, then select Toolbars followed by Tablet PC Input Panel. Click the icon that appears in the Taskbar, then click the keyboard icon in the dock that appears.

    Select ‘Dock at Bottom of Screen’ from the Tools menu to dock this keyboard at the bottom of the screen. When the keyboard is not needed click the usual close button, and to bring it back click the small floating panel to the side of the screen.

    33 Add a shortcut for updates (XP)
    Windows Update means Windows XP can be set to check for security updates automatically. If you prefer to check yourself, you can create a desktop icon to simplify the process. Right-click an empty spot on the desktop and select New, then Shortcut. In the box that appears type www.windowsupdate.com, then click Next. Enter a name such as ‘Check for updates’ and click Finish.

    Simply double-click this icon to start the update process.

    34 Change Start menu power button (Vista)
    By default, the power button in Vista’s Start menu activates sleep mode rather than switching the computer off. To fix this open the Control Panel, then Power Options, and click the ‘Change plan settings’ link beneath the currently selected power plan. Click ‘Change advanced power settings’ and expand the ‘Power buttons and lid’ entry.

    Expand the ‘Start menu power button’ entry, click the menu next to Setting and select Shut down before clicking OK.

    35 Type in quick shortcuts (XP)
    There are a few programs in Windows that can be very handy but which are hidden in the Start menu. If you’re busy doing something else and don’t want to rummage around in the Accessories folder for the Calculator, though, don’t
    worry. Simply press the Windows key and R together, type calc and press Enter.

    Similarly, for a quick way to start a text file press the Windows key and R together, type notepad then press Enter.

    36 Preview documents (Vista)
    To save having to open a document to see what it contains, turn on Vista’s file preview option. Open a folder, click the Organize button and select Layout followed by Preview Pane. Select a file, and a preview will be displayed to the right.

    37 Give hard disks a friendly name (XP)
    If your computer has more than one
    hard disk, it’s often a good idea to store different files on each one – programs on drive C, for example, and music files on drive D. If so, why not give each disk a friendly name? Open My Computer, right-click the hard disk and select Rename, then type in something appropriate – we called our second disk ‘music and video’.

    38 Disable User Account Control (Vista)
    Vista’s User Account Control (UAC) is a useful security feature, but some people find it incredibly annoying. It can be disabled. Open the Control Panel, then User Accounts, and click the link labelled ‘Turn user account control on or off’ before clicking Continue. Untick the box labelled ‘Use User Account Control (UAC) to help protect your
    computer’ and click OK.

    Re-enabling UAC is simple – follow these steps again, then re-tick the box.

    39 Check your specs (XP)
    Sometimes it’s helpful to know some basic information about the parts inside your PC. For details on the processor and memory, right-click the My Computer icon and select Properties. Look at the bottom of the box that appears: under the word ‘Computer’ you’ll find, the type of processor inside, along with its speed (in MHz or GHz), and then the amount of memory, which will look something like ‘512MB of Ram’.

    40 Scan again for wireless networks (Vista)
    Wireless networks don’t always show up the first time you perform a scan. Vista will re-scan after a while, but there’s no need to wait. Simply press F5 to start another scan immediately.

    41 Move My Documents (XP)
    Now that hard disks are larger and cheaper than ever, it’s easy to keep documents and programs separate. If you’ve added a new
    hard disk, it’s easy to move the My Documents folder over to it. Click the Start button, right-click My Documents and select Properties. Click the Move button and then choose a folder on the new disk. Click OK once again and click Yes to move existing documents to the new folder.

    42 Create XPS documents (Vista)
    Much like PDF files, XPS documents created in Windows Vista will look the same on any computer used to view them. Any document can be converted to XPS format. To do this choose to print the file, then select the XPS Document Writer. XPS files can be opened and viewed in Internet Explorer 7, or using the free XPS viewer program. This can be
    downloaded.

    43 Restore Preview option to image files (XP)
    By default, Windows XP uses its own image preview tool if you double-click an image file. Annoyingly, though, other programs will sometimes take over so double-clicking an image opens that program instead. For those who prefer the preview tool, open the Control Panel, then Folder Options. Select the File Types tab, and scroll down to find the file type in question, such as JPG, then click the Restore button.

    44 Disable Windows Defender (Vista)
    Windows Vista includes a tool that helps to protect Windows Vista against spyware. If you prefer to use another program to defend against spyware it’s possible to disable Defender. Launch Windows Defender from the Start menu and click Tools, then Options. Scroll down to the bottom of the list and untick the box labelled ‘Use Windows Defender’ before clicking Save.

    45 Different web browser for each user (XP)
    Windows XP remembers which web browser you prefer to use, but if several different users share a computer it annoyingly assumes they all prefer the same one. To allow different users to choose different web browsers,
    download a free copy of the DefaultBrowser tool. Double-click the ZIP file and copy the defaultbrowser.exe file to somewhere safe on the hard disk.

    Each user can now double-click this program file and select a browser from the menu.

    46 Watch your network (Vista)
    Vista includes a handy tool that gives a quick visual indication of how busy a home network is. Look for the network icon in the notification area at the bottom right-hand corner of the screen – this looks like two computer monitors, one in front of the other. Right-click it, and select ‘Turn on activity animation’ – the icon will now show when the network is busy.

    47 Manage notification area icons (XP)
    If you install lots of programs on your computer, the notification area in the bottom right-hand corner of the screen can become full. To make it more manageable, right-click the Taskbar, select Properties and tick the box labelled ‘Hide inactive icons’. This generally works well, but sometimes useful icons can disappear.

    If this happens, right-click the Taskbar and select Properties again, then click the Customize button. Click the icon you want to see, then select ‘Always Show’ from the menu to its right and click OK.

    48 Copy file location (Vista)
    Sometimes it’s useful to know where a file is stored. It’s possible to type the location of a file manually, but this can lead to errors. Instead click Start, select Computer and navigate to the file in question. Hold down the Shift key and right-click the file, then select the option to ‘Copy as Path’. It’s now easy to insert the file location into an
    email or document – choose paste from the menu or press the Control and V keys together.

    49 Advanced Autoplay (XP)
    When you insert a CD or DVD into a
    Windows XP computer, Windows will pop up an Autoplay window asking you what to do with it. This can be very handy, but if you want to do the same thing each time it can be skipped. Open My Computer, right-click on the CD or DVD drive and select Properties, then click the Autoplay tab.

    Select a type of file from the dropdown menu, then choose the action you want the computer to perform from the list below it. For example, we like to set ‘Mixed Content’ discs so Windows will ‘Open folder to view files’ without asking us each time. Different options can be set for each different type of files.

    50 Quick internet test (XP)
    Sometimes it can be hard to tell whether a broadband internet connection is broken, or whether there’s a problem with your web browser. For a quick way to tell, press the Windows key and R together to launch the Run box, then type cmd and press Enter. A black window will appear. Type ping www.computeractive.co.uk and press Enter. Windows will attempt to connect to our website.

    16

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    WinFS (short for Windows Future Storage) FULL INFORMATION AT www.davidlower.spaces.live.com

     
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    WinFS (short for Windows Future Storage)
     
    Not to be confused with WinFX.

    WinFS (short for Windows Future Storage) is the code name for a data storage and management system based on relational databases, developed by Microsoft and first demonstrated in 2003 as an advanced storage subsystem for the Microsoft Windows operating system, being designed for persistence and management of structured, semi-structured as well as unstructured data. WinFS includes a relational database for storage of information, and allows any type of information to be stored in it, provided there is a well defined schema for the type. Individual data items could then be related together by relationships, which are either inferred by the system based on certain attributes or explicitly stated by the user. As the data has a well defined schema, any application can reuse the data; and using the relationships, related data can be effectively organized as well as retrieved. Because the system knows the structure and intent of the information, it can be used to make complex queries that enable advanced searching through the data and aggregating various data items by exploiting the relationships between them.

    A mockup calendar application sorting images by the dates and using their relationship with contacts to filter the images. WinFS aimed to provide a shared schema system that would enable such a scenario.
    A mockup calendar application sorting images by the dates and using their relationship with contacts to filter the images. WinFS aimed to provide a shared schema system that would enable such a scenario.

    While WinFS and its shared type schema makes it possible for an application to recognize the different data types, the application still has to be coded to render the different data types. Consequently, it would not allow development of a single application that can view or edit all data types; rather what WinFS enables is applications to understand the structure of all data and extract the information that it can use further. When WinFS was introduced at the 2003 Professional Developers Conference, Microsoft also released a video presentation, named IWish, showing mockup interfaces that showed how applications would expose interfaces that takes advantage of a unified type system. The concepts shown in the video ranged from applications using the relationships of items to dynamically offer filtering options to applications grouping multiple related data types and rendering them in an unified presentation.

    WinFS was billed as one of the pillars of the "Longhorn" wave of technologies, and would ship as part of the next version of Windows. It was subsequently decided that WinFS would ship after the release of Windows Vista, but those plans were shelved in June 2006, with some of its component technologies being integrated into upcoming releases of ADO.NET and Microsoft SQL Server. While it was then assumed by observers that WinFS was finished as a project, in November 2006 Steve Ballmer announced that WinFS was still in development, though it was not clear how the technology was to be delivered.

    Motivation

    Many filesystems found on common operating systems, including the NTFS filesystem which is used in modern versions of Microsoft Windows, store files and other objects only as a stream of bytes, and have little or no information about the data stored in the files. Such file systems also provide only a single way of organizing the files, namely via directories and file names.

    Because a file system has no knowledge about the data it stores,applications tend to use their own, often proprietary, file formats. This hampers sharing of data between multiple applications. It becomes difficult to create an application which processes information from multiple file types, because the programmers have to understand the structure and semantics of all the files Using common file formats is a workaround to this problem but not a universal solution; there is no guarantee that all applications will use the format. Data with standardized schema, such as XML documents and relational data fare better as they have a standardized structure and run-time requirements.

    Also, a traditional file system can retrieve and search data based only on the filename, because the only knowledge it has about the data is the name of the files that store the data. A better solution is to tag files with attributes that describe them. Attributes are metadata about the files such as the type of file (such as document, picture, music, creator, etc). This allows files to be searched for by their attributes, in ways not possible using a folder hierarchy, such as finding "pictures which have person X". The attributes can be recognizable by either the file system natively, or via some extension. Desktop search applications take this concept a step further. They extract data, including attributes, from files and index it. To extract the data, they use a filter for each file format. This allows for searching based on both the file's attributes and the data in it.

    However, this still does not help in managing related data, as disparate items do not have any relationships defined. For example, it is impossible to search for "the phone numbers of all persons who live in Acapulco and each have more than 100 appearances in my photo collection and with whom I have had e-mail within last month". Such a search encompasses needs to have a data model which has the both the semantics as well as relationships of data defined. WinFS aims to provide such a data model and the runtime infrastructure that can be used to store the data as well as the relationships between data items according to the data model, doing so at a satisfactory level of performance.

    Overview

    WinFS natively recognizes different types of data, such as picture, e-mail, document, audio, video, calendar, contact, among others; rather than just bytestreams as with file systems. Data stored and managed by the system are instances of the data type recognized by the WinFS runtime. The data is structured by means of properties. For example, an instance of a résumé type will surface the data by exposing certain properties like Name, Educational Qualification, Experience, among others. Each of the properties may be of simple types like strings, integers, or dates or complex types like contacts Different data types expose different properties. Besides that, WinFS also allows different data instances to be related together, such as a document and a contact can be related by an Authored By relationship.Relationships are also exposed as properties; for example if a document is related to a contact by a Created By relationship, then the document will have a Created By property. When it is accessed, the relationship is traversed and the related data returned.By following the relations, all related data can be reached.

    An e-mail application can use the relationships to create dynamic filters to create different views of emails, as in the mockup screenshot
    An e-mail application can use the relationships to create dynamic filters to create different views of emails, as in the mockup screenshot

    WinFS promotes sharing of data between applications by making the data types accessible to all applications, along with their schemas. So any application, when it wants to use a WinFS type, by using the schema can find out the structure of the data and utilize the information. So, an application has access to all data on the system, even though the developer did not have to write parsers to recognize the different data format. It can also use the relationships and related data to create dynamic filters to present the information the application deals with, in different ways. The WinFS API further abstracts the task of accessing data. All WinFS types are exposed as .NET objects with the properties of the object directly mapping to the properties of the data type. Also, by letting different applications which deal with the same data share the same WinFS data instance rather than storing the same data in different files, the hassles of synchronizing the different stores when the data changes is removed. Thus WinFS help reduce redundancies.

    Access to all the data in the system allows complex searches for data to be performed across all the data items managed by WinFS. In the example used above ("the phone numbers of all persons who live in Acapulco and each have more than 100 appearances in my photo collection and with whom I have had e-mail within last month"), WinFS can traverse the subject relationship of all the photos to find the contact items. Similarly, it can find filter all emails in last month and access the communicated with relation to reach the contacts. The common contacts can then be figured out from the two sets of results and their phone number retrieved by accessing the suitable property of the contact items.

    WinFS, in addition to fully schematized data (like XML and relational data), supports semi-structured (like images, which has an unstructured bitstream plus structured metadata) as well as unstructured (like files) as well. It stores the unstructured components directly as files while storing the structured metadata in the structured store. WinFS internally uses a relational database to manage the data. But, it does not limit the data to belong to any particular data model, like relational or hierarchical, but can be of any well-defined schema. The WinFS runtime maps the schema to a relational modality, by defining the tables it will store the types in and the primary keys and foreign keys that would be required to represent the relationships. WinFS includes mappings for object and XML schemas by default; mappings for other schemas needs to be specified. Object schemas are specified using XML; WinFS generates code to surface the schemas as .NET classes. ADO.NET can be used to directly specify the relational schema, though a mapping to the object schema needs to be provided to surface it as classes. All relationship traversals are performed as joins on these tables. WinFS also automatically creates indexes on these tables, to facilitate fast access to the information. Indexes significantly speed up joins, and thus traversing relationships to retrieve related data is performed very fast. Indexes are also used during searching of information; searching and querying use the indexes so that the operations complete quickly, much like desktop search systems.

    Development

    The development of WinFS is an extension to a feature which was initially planned in the early 1990s. Dubbed Object File System, it was supposed to be included as part of Cairo. OFS was supposed to have powerful data aggregation features. But the Cairo project was shelved, and with it OFS. However, later during the development of COM, a storage system, called Storage+, based on then-upcoming SQL Server 8.0, was planned, which was slated to offer similar aggregation features.This, too, never materialized, and a similar technology, Relational File System (RFS), was conceived to be launched with SQL Server 2000. However, SQL Server 2000 ended up being a minor upgrade to SQL Server 7.0 and RFS was not implemented.

    But the concept was not scrapped.It just morphed into WinFS. WinFS was initially planned for inclusion in Windows Vista,and build 4051 of Windows Vista, then called by its codename "Longhorn", given to developers at the Microsoft Professional Developers Conference in 2003, included WinFS, but it suffered from significant performance issues. In August 2004, Microsoft announced that WinFS would not ship with Windows Vista; it would instead be available as a downloadable update after Vista's release

    On August 29, 2005, Microsoft quietly made Beta 1 of WinFS available to MSDN subscribers. It worked on Windows XP, and required the .NET Framework to run. The WinFS API was included in the System.Storage namespace. The beta was refreshed on December 1, 2005 to be compatible with version 2.0 of the .NET Framework.WinFS Beta 2 was planned for some time later in 2006, and was supposed to include integration with Windows Desktop Search, so that search results include results from both regular files and WinFS stores, as well as allow access of WinFS data using ADO.NET.

    However, on June 23, 2006, the WinFS team at Microsoft announced that WinFS would no longer be delivered as a separate product, and some components would be brought under the umbrella of other technologies - like the ADO.NET Entity Framework as well as support for unstructured data and adminless mode of operation into SQL Server 2008, then codenamed Katmai.

    With that announcement, most analysts assumed that the WinFS project was being killed off. But in November 2006, Steve Ballmer said in an interview that WinFS is being actively developed but integration into the Windows codebase will come only after the technology has fully incubated

     Data storage

     Architecture

    WinFS is not a physical file system; rather, it provides schematized data modeling capabilities on top of the NTFS file system. It still uses NTFS to store its data in physical files. WinFS uses a relational engine, which is derived from SQL Server 2005, to provide the data relations mechanism. WinFS stores are simply SQL Server database (.MDF) files with the FILESTREAM attribute set. These files are stored in access-restricted folder named "System Volume Information" placed into the volume root, in folders under the folder "WinFS" with names of GUIDs of these stores.

    At the bottom of the WinFS stack lies WinFS Core which interacts with the filesystem and provides file access and addressing capabilities The relational engine leverages the WinFS core services to present a structured store and other services such as locking which the WinFS runtime uses to implement the functionality. The WinFS runtime expose Services such as Synchronization and Rules which can be used to synchronize WinFS stores or perform certain actions on the occurrence of certain events.

    WinFS runs as a service which runs three processes - WinFS.exe, which hosts relational datastore, WinFSSearch.exe, which hosts the indexing and querying engine, and WinFPM.exe (WinFS File Promotion Manager), which interfaces with the underlying file system. It allows programmatic access to its features, via a set of .NET Framework APIs, that enables applications to define custom made data types, define relationships among data, store and retrieve information, and allow advanced searches.The applications can then aggregate the data and present the aggregated data to the user.

     Data Store

    WinFS stores data in relational stores, which are exposed as virtual locations called stores. A WinFS store is a common repository where any application can store data along with its metadata, relationships and schema. WinFS runtime can apply certain relationships itself; for example, if the values of the subject property of a picture and the name property of a contact are same, then WinFS can relate the contact with the picture.Relations can also be specified by other applications or the user.

    WinFS provides a unified storage but stops short of defining the format that is to be stored in the data stores. Instead it supports data to be written in application specific formats. But applications must provide a schema that defines how the file format should be interpreted.For example, a schema could be added to allow WinFS to understand how to read and thus be able to search and analyze, say, a PDF file. By using the schema, any application can read data from any other application, and also allows different applications to write in each other’s format by sharing the schema.

    Multiple WinFS stores can be created on a single machine.This allows different classes of data to be kept segregated, for example, official documents and personal documents can be kept in different stores. WinFS, by default, provides only one store, named "DefaultStore". WinFS stores are exposed as shell objects, akin to Virtual folders, which dynamically generates a list of all items present in the store and presents them in a folder view. The shell object also allows searching information in the datastore.

    A data unit that has to be stored in a WinFS store is called a WinFS Item. A WinFS item, along with the core data item, also contains information on how the data item is related with other data. This Relationship is stored in terms of logical links. Links specify which other data items the current item is related with. Put in other words, links specify the relationship of the data with other data items. Links are physically stored using a link identifier, which specifies the name and intent of the relationship, such as type of or consists of. The link identifier is stored as an attribute of the data item. All the objects which have the same link id are considered to be related. An XML schema, defining the structure of the data items that will be stored in WinFS, must be supplied to the WinFS runtime beforehand. In Beta 1 of WinFS, the schema assembly had to be added to the GAC before it could be used.

     Data model

    WinFS models data using the data items, along with its relationships, extensions and rules governing its usage. WinFS needs to understand the type and structure of the data items, so that the information stored in the data item can be made available to any application that requests it. This is done by the use of schemas. For every type of data item that is to be stored in WinFS, a corresponding schema needs to be provided which will define the type, structure and associations of the data. These schemas are defined using XML.

    Predefined WinFS schemas include schemas for documents, e-mail, appointments, tasks, media, audio, video, and also includes system schemas that include configuration, programs, and other system-related data Custom schemas can be defined on a per-application basis, in situations where an application wants to store its data in WinFS, but not share the structure of that data with other applications, or they can be made available across the system

     Type system

    WinFS Type Hierarchy
    WinFS Type Hierarchy

    The most important difference between a file system and WinFS is that WinFS knows the type of each data item that it stores. And the type specifies the properties of the data item. The WinFS type system is closely associated with the .NET framework’s concept of classes and inheritance. A new type can be created by extending and nesting any predefined types.

    WinFS provides four predefined base types – Items, Relationships, ScalarTypes and NestedTypes. An Item is the fundamental data object, which can be stored, and a Relationship is the relation or link between two data items. Since all WinFS items must have a type, the type of item stored defines its properties. The properties of an Item may be a ScalarType, which defines the smallest unit of information a property can have, or a NestedType, which is a collection of more than one ScalarTypes and/or NestedTypes. All WinFS types are made available as .NET CLR classes.

    Any object represented as a data unit, such as contact, image, video, document etc, can be stored in a WinFS store as a specialization of the Item type. By default, WinFS provides Item types for Files, Contact, Documents, Pictures, Audio, Video, Calendar, and Messages. The File Item can store any generic data, which is stored in file systems as files. But unless an advanced schema is provided for the file, by defining it to be a specialized Item, WinFS will not be able to access its data. Such a file Item can only support being related to other Items.

    Defining a new Type
    Defining a new Type

    A developer can extend any of these types, or the base type Item, to provide a type for his custom data. The data contained in an Item is defined in terms of properties, or fields which hold the actual data. For example, an Item Contact may have a field Name which is a ScalarType, and one field Address, a NestedType, which is further composed of two ScalarTypes. To define this type, the base class Item is extended and the necessary fields are added to the class. A NestedType field can be defined as another class which contains the two ScalarType fields. Once the type is defined, a schema has to be defined, which denotes the primitive type of each field, for example, the Name field is a String, the Address field is a custom defined Address class, both the fields of which are Strings. Other primitive types that WinFS supports are Integer, Byte, Decimal, Float, Double, Boolean and DateTime, among others. The schema will also define which fields are mandatory and which are optional. The Contact Item defined in this way will be used to store information regarding the Contact, by populating the properties field and storing it. Only those fields marked as mandatory needs to be filled up during initial save.Other fields may be populated later by the user, or not populated at all. If more properties fields, such as "last conversed date", needs to be added, this type can be simply extended to accommodate them. Item types for other data can be defined similarly.

    Relationships
    Relationships

    WinFS creates tables for all defined Items. All the fields defined for the Item form the columns of the table and all instances of the Item are stored as rows in the table for the respective Items. Whenever some field in the table refers to data in some other table, it is considered a relationship. The schema of the relationship specifies which tables are involved and what the kind and name of the relationshp is. The WinFS runtime manages the relationshp schemas. All Items are exposed as .NET CLR objects, with uniform interface providing access to the data stored in the fields. Thus any application can retrieve object of any Item type and can use the data in the object, without being bothered about the physical structure the data was stored in.

    WinFS types are exposed as .NET classes, which can be instantiated as .NET objects. Data is stored in these type instances by setting their properties. Once done, they are persisted into the WinFS store. An WinFS store is accessed using an ItemContext class (see Data retrieval section for details). ItemContext allows transactional access to the WinFS store, i.e., all the operations since binding an ItemContext object to a store till it is closed either all succeeds or all changes are rolled back. As the changes are made to the data, they are nor written to the disc; rather they are written to a in-memory log. Only when the connection is closed are the changes written to the disc in a batch. This helps optimize disc I/O. The following code snippet creates a contact and stores in a WinFS store.

     Relationships

    A datum can be related to one more item, giving rise to a one-to-one relationship, or with more than one items, resulting in a one-to-many relationship.  The related items, in turn, may be related to other data items as well, resulting in a network of relationships, which is called a many-to-many relationship. Creating a relationship between two Items create another field in the data of the Items concerned which refer the row in the other Item’s table where the related object is stored.

    WinFS Relationships
    WinFS Relationships

    In WinFS, a Relationship is an instance of the base type Relationship, which is extended to signify a specialization of a relation. A Relationship is a mapping between two items, a Source and a Target. The source has an Outgoing Relationship, whereas the target gets an Incoming Relationship. WinFS provides three types of primitive relationships – Holding Relationship, Reference Relationship and Embedding Relationship Any custom relationship between two data types are instances of these relationship types.

    • Holding Relationships specifies ownership and lifetime (which defines how long the relationship is valid) of the Target Item. For example, the Relationship between a folder and a file, and between an Employee and his Salary record, is a Holding Relationship – the latter is to be removed when the former is removed. A Target Item can be a part of more than one Holding Relationships. In such a case, it is to be removed when all the Source Items are removed.
    • Reference Relationships provide linkage between two Items, but do not have any lifetime associated, i.e., each Item will continue to be stored even without the other.
    • Embedding Relationships give order to the two Items which are linked by the Relationship, such as the Relationship between a Parent Item and a Child Item.

    Relationships between two Items can either be set programmatically by the application creating the data, or the user can use the WinFS Item Browser to manually relate the Items. A WinFS item browser can also graphically display the items and how they are related, to enable the user to know how their data are organized.

     Rules

    WinFS includes Rules, which are executed when certain condition is met. WinFS rules work on data and data relationships. For example, a rule can be created which states that whenever an Item is created which contains field "Name" and if the value of that field is some particular name, a relationship should be created which relates the Item with some other Item. WinFS rules can also access any external application. For example, a rule can be built which launches a Notify application whenever a mail is received from a particular contact. WinFS rules can also be used to add new properties fields to existing data Items.

    WinFS rules are also exposed as .NET CLR objects. As such any rule can be used for any purpose. A rule can even be extended by inheriting from it to form a new rule which consists of the condition and action of the parent rule plus something more.

     RAV

    WinFS supports creating Rich Application Views (RAV) by aggregating different data in a virtual table format. Unlike database view, where each individual element can only be a scalar value, RAVs can have complex Items or even collection of Items. The actual data can be across multiple data types or instances and can even be retrieved by traversing relationships. RAVs are intrinsically paged (dividing the entire set of data into smaller pages containing disconnected subsets of the data) by the WinFS runtime. The page size is defined during creation of the view and the WinFS API exposes methods to iterate over the pages. RAVs also supports modification of the view according to different grouping parameters. Views can also be queried against.

     Access control

    Even though all data is shared, everything is not equally accessible. WinFS uses the Windows authentication system to provide two data protection mechanisms. First, there is share-level security that controls access to your WinFS share. Second, there is item level security that supports NT compatible security descriptors. The process accessing the item must have enough privileges to access it. Also in Vista there is the concept of "integrity level" for an application. A higher integrity data cannot be accessed by a lower integrity process.

     Data retrieval

    Flowchart for creating, searching and updating WinFS data instances.
    Flowchart for creating, searching and updating WinFS data instances.

    The primary mode of data retrieval from a WinFS store is querying the WinFS store according to some criteria, which returns an enumerable set of items matching the criteria. The criteria for the query is specified using the OPath query language. The returned data is made available as instances of the type schemas, conforming to the .NET object model. The data in them can be accessed by accessing the properties of individual objects.

    Relations are also exposed as properties. Each WinFS Item has two properties, named IncomingRelationships and OutgoingRelationships, which provides access to the set of relationship instances the item participates in. The other item which participates in one relationship instance can be reached through the proper relationship instance.

    The fact that the data can be accessed using its description, rather than location, can be used to provide end-user organizational capabilities without limiting to the hierarchical organization as used in file-systems. In a file system, each file or folder is contained in only one folder. But WinFS Items can participate in any number of holding relationships, that too with any other items. As such, end users are not limited to only file/folder organization. Rather, a contact can become a container for documents; a picture a container for contacts and so on. For legacy compatibility, WinFS includes a pseudo-type called Folder which is present only to participate in holding relationships and emulate file/folder organization. Since any WinFS Item can be related with more than one Folder item, from an end user perspective, an item can reside in multiple folders without duplicating the actual data. Applications can also analyze the relationship graphs to present various filters. For example, an email application can analyze the related contacts and the relationships of the contacts with restaurant bills and dynamically generate filters like "Emails sent to people I had lunch with".

     Searches

    The WinFS API provides a class called the ItemContext class, which is bound to a WinFS store. The ItemContext object can be used to scope the search to the entire store or a subset of it. It also provides transactional access to the store. An object of this class can then spawn an ItemSearcher object which then takes the type (an object representing the type) of the item to be retrieved or the relationship and the OPath query string representing the criteria for the search. A set of all matches are returned, which can then be bound to an UI widget for displaying en masse or enumerating individually. The properties items can also be modified and then stored back to the data store to update the data. The ItemContext object is closed (which marks the end of association of the object with the store) when the queries are made or changes merged into the store.

    Related items can also be accessed through the items. The IncomingRelationships and OutgoingRelationships properties gives access to all the set of relationship instances, typed to the name of the relationship. These relationship objects expose the other item via a property. So, for example, if a picture is related to a picture, it can be accessed by traversing the relationship as:

    WinFS also includes better support for handling data that changes frequently. Using WinFS Notifications, applications choose to be notified of changes to selected data Items. WinFS will raise an ItemChangedEvent, using the .NET Event model, when a subscribed-to Item changes, and the event will be published to the applications.

     Data sharing

    WinFS allows easy sharing of data between applications, and among multiple WinFS stores, which may reside on different computers, by copying to and from them. A WinFS item can also be copied to a non-WinFS file system, but unless that data item is put back into the WinFS store, it will not support the advanced services provided by WinFS.

    The WinFS API also provides some support for sharing with non-WinFS applications. WinFS exposes a shell object to access WinFS stores. This object maps WinFS items to a virtual folder hierarchy, and can be accessed by any application. WinFS data can also be manually shared using network shares, by sharing the legacy shell object.Non-WinFS file formats can be stored in WinFS stores, using the File Item, provided by WinFS. Importers can be written, to convert specific file formats to WinFS Item types.

    In addition, WinFS provides services to automatically synchronize items in two or more WinFS stores, subject to some predefined condition, such as "share only photos" or "share photos which have an associated contact X". The stores may be on different computers. Synchronization is done in a peer-to-peer fashion; there is no central authority. A synchronization can be either manual or automatic or scheduled. During synchronization, WinFS finds the new and modified Items, and updates accordingly. If two or more changes conflict, WinFS can either resort to automatic resolution based on predefined rules, or defer the synchronization for manual resolution. WinFS also updates the schemas, if required.

     Application support

     Shell namespace

    WinFS Beta 1 includes a shell namespace extension, which surfaces WinFS stores as top level objects in My Computer view. Files can be copied into and out of the stores, as well as applications can be directly used to save there. Even folders such as My Documents can be redirected to the stores. WinFS uses Importer plug-ins to analyze the files as they were being imported to the store and create proper WinFS schemas and objects, and when taking the objects out, re-pack them into files. If importers for certain files are not installed, they are stored as generic File types.

     Microsoft Rave

    Microsoft Rave is an application that shipped with WinFS Beta 1. It allows synchronization of two or more WinFS stores. It supports synchronization in full mesh mode as well as the central hub topology. While synchronizing, Microsoft Rave will determine the changes made to each store since the last sync, and update accordingly. When applying the changes, it also detects if there is any conflict, i.e., the same data has been changed on both stores since the last synchronization. It will either log the conflicting data for later resolution or have it resolved immediately. Microsoft Rave uses peer-to-peer technology to communicate and transfer data.

     StoreSpy

    WinFS included StoreSpy, a WinFS Item browser that could be used to browse structured data instances with their properties and relationships.
    WinFS included StoreSpy, a WinFS Item browser that could be used to browse structured data instances with their properties and relationships.

    With WinFS Beta 1, Microsoft included an unsupported application called StoreSpy, which allowed one to browse WinFS stores by presenting a hierarchical view of WinFS Items. It automatically generated virtual folders based on access permissions, date and other metadata, and presented them in a hierarchical tree view, akin to what traditional folders are presented in. The application generated tabs for different Item types. StoreSpy allowed viewing Items, Relationships, MultiSet, Nested Elements, Extension] and other types in the store along with its full metadata. It also presented a search interface to perform manual searches, and save them as virtual folders. The application also presented a graphical view of WinFS Rules. However, it did not allow editing of Items or their properties, though it was slated for inclusion in a future release. But the WinFS project was cut back before it could materialize. Type Browser

    WinFS also includes another application, named WinFS Type Browser, which can be used to browse the WinFS types, as well as visualize the hierarchical relationship between WinFS types. A WinFS type, both built-in types as well as custom schemas, can be visualized along with all the properties and methods that it supports. It also shows the types that it derives from as well as other types that extend the type schema. However, while it was included with WinFS, it was released as an unsupported tool.

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    May 05

    Identity 'at risk' on Facebook LATEST NEWS FROM 5TH MAY 2008 - www.davidlower.spaces.live.com

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     16
     
    Identity 'at risk' on Facebook
    By Spencer Kelly 
    Presenter, BBC Click
     
    LATEST NEWS 5TH MAY 2008 FROM - www.davidlower.spaces.live.com
     
    Personal details of Facebook users could potentially be stolen, the BBC technology programme Click has found.
    The popular social networking site allows users to add a variety of applications to their profile.
    But a malicious program, masquerading as a harmless application, could potentially harvest personal data.
    Facebook says users should exercise caution when adding applications. Any programs which violate their terms will be removed, the network said.
    Stealing details
    Facebook is the darling of the moment, allowing friends to stay in touch, post photos, and share fun little games and quizzes. And it also lets you keep your details private from the rest of the world. Or at least that is the implication.
     
    We have discovered a way to steal the personal details of you and all your Facebook friends without you knowing.
    We made up the fictitious profile of Bob Smith. He keeps most of his details on his profile private from non-friends.
    While we could not get all details, what we did get, included his name, hometown, school, interests and photograph, would certainly help us to steal someone's identity.
    Mining data
    So how did we do it?
     
    Click's resident coder, Pete
    Thousands of applications are available to Facebook users
    Using a couple of laptops and our resident coder Pete, we created a special application for Facebookers to add.
    One of the reasons Facebook has become so popular so quickly is because of the wealth of applications users can add to their profile pages.
    Little games, quizzes, IQ tests, there are thousands of them available. And once you have added an application, your friends are encouraged to add it too.
    Anyone with a basic understanding of web programming can write an application.
     
    We wrote an evil data mining application called Miner, which, if we wanted, could masquerade as a game, a test, or a joke of the day. It took us less than three hours.
    But whatever it looks like, in the background, it is collecting personal details, and those of the users' friends, and e-mailing them out of Facebook, to our inbox.
    When you add an application, unless you say otherwise, it is given access to most of the information in your profile. That includes information you have on your friends even if they think they have tight security settings.
    Did you know that you were responsible for other people's security?
    Security
    Now, many applications do need access to your details, in order to work properly.
    We do not know of any specific application which abuses user information, apart from ours.
    But the ease with we created our application has many people worried. If it is being used you would not even have to use the application we created to become a victim, you would just have to be a friend of someone who has.
     
     Morally, Facebook has acted naively 
    Paul Docherty, Technical Director of Portcullis Security
    Because these applications run on third-party servers, not run by Facebook - it is difficult for the company to check what is going on, whether anything has changed, and how long applications store data for and what they do with it.
    Although Facebook's terms and conditions contain a warning that this could in theory happen, and offer the option to stop an application from accessing your details, many games and quizzes would not work if this option is engaged.
    In fact, the only way we can see of completely protecting yourself from applications skimming information about you and your friends is to erase all the applications on your profile and opt to not use any applications in the future.
    So has Facebook done enough to protect its users from identity theft?
    Paul Docherty is the Technical Director of Portcullis Security, which advises several governments on IT security matters including British government.
    He told us he believed that Facebook's terms and conditions stated on the site meant that Facebook had legally covered itself from any liability.
    But he added: "Morally, Facebook has acted naively."
    He said: "Facebook needs to change its default settings and tighten up security."
    He also believes it would be difficult to secure the current system because so many third party applications are now in circulation.
    Removal team
    We put these concerns to Facebook.
    It told us that it has an entire investigations team watching the site, and removing applications that violate its terms of use which would include our Miner application.
     
    It also advises users to use the same precautions while downloading software from Facebook applications that they use when downloading software on their desktop.
    Now, all this comes in the month that competitor MySpace opened up its application platform. However, it handles them differently - here all applications run on its own servers so it can see what they are up to.
    MySpace also manually checks all submissions and rechecks them if authors wish to change the code. We were unable to create a similar threat to users' security using the MySpace system.
    It certainly seems that Facebook's standard security settings are not sufficient to protect your personal information, and those of your friends.
     

    Are you a Facebook user concerned about your personal details? Have you had your data skimmed? Tell your experience using the form below:
    I'm a Facebook user and although I've not been skimmed (I can't even know yet until something flags it) it's really scary to hear that this is possible with the ever number of applications in the site. Everyday I get about 20 requests to join/add different applications onto my profile and this news makes me want to remove all of them. Problem is, if you do remove them, then what are you going to do on Facebook? Give us more security features Facebook. 
    Ralph Ofuyo, Nairobi, Kenya
    The only data an application can "steal" is that which has already been posted to Facebook by the user themselves. Common sense dictates "anything" you put on the internet can be found by just about anyone. 
    Mark, Dallas, Texas, USA
    Perhaps the problem lies not so much with Facebook than with our banking system. If your date of birth and address are enough to get a credit card or a mortgage, no wonder this is being abused. Isn't this yet another sign that we need a better way to prove one's identity? Surely a national identity card would go a long way towards this - other countries don't seem to have these problems. 
    Bob, Oxford
    This is why I lie to Facebook about things like date of birth, setting them to be roughly there but not accurate enough. I tend to do this to any site that insists on having this information but I don't see the need for. 
    Richard, Leeds, UK
    I use Facebook on a daily basis to keep in touch with friends. I've gotten very tight with my security settings but it never occurred to me to worry about the applications that my friends and I have added. Thanks for the heads up! 
    Kate K, Washington DC, USA
     
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