Microsoft Support & Discussions

Vendor prefixes enable Web developers to experiment with new standards before they reach the Candidate Recommendation stage. I previously wrote how these prefixes are also a mechanism browser vendors use for handling timing conflicts between implementations and specifications. In building demos of new features for our IE Test Drive site and in various presentations, many of us on the IE team deal extensively with vendor prefixes. This blog post describes a pattern we’ve used in some recent demos that’s making things significantly easier for us and has become a best practice. We’d like to share it with you and hear your thoughts on this approach or any others you consid…

Web graphics in SVG (Scalable Vector Graphics) format offer better quality display over a broader range of device sizes compared to bitmap-based graphics. SVG also has inherent accessibility making it the best choice for interactive graphics and those involving text. SVG usage on the Web continues to grow. Last week at SVG Open 2011, we had the opportunity to meet with and hear from Web developers putting SVG to use in a wide variety of real-world applications. These applications include data-driving charts, technical drawings, games, interactive instructional diagrams, and geographic visualization of data. Though the SVG specification itself is nearing a decade old, S…

Could and should Bill Gates return to day-to-day responsibilities at Microsoft? Fortune is reporting there’s a rumor to that effect. Continue reading...

Microsoft and HP have teamed on a four-year plan to sell private and public cloud solutions based on Office 365 and the on-premises versions of its component products. Continue reading...

Microsoft is moving a number of its healthcare products and people to a new health-focused joint venture it is forming with GE. Continue reading...

Microsoft may charge business users for Skype video archiving and authentication, but keep the base consumer video service free, according to one high-ranking company executive. Continue reading...

Microsoft has delivered an Xbox live app for iPhones and iPads on the same day it rolled out its Xbox Companion app for Windows Phones. Continue reading...

On this blog, we’ve discussed the ways that scammers can attack your PC, through malicious software, rogue security alerts, phishing attacks and more. But the bad guys have now devised a new vector: the phone. I first learned about this when I heard my parents had received a call that they had been identified as having rogue software on their PC. The caller, who said he was from Microsoft, needed to remote access their PC to resolve the issue. Turns out scammers like these were simply taking the time to prey on potential victims by calling them and masquerading as a representative from a trusted institution to trick them into giving up valuable and personal information. S…

You may have seen articles recently that highlight a social engineering technique called “cookiejacking” and how a particular instance may currently affect Internet Explorer. It’s important to note that we have not seen widespread attacks related to this specific case. However we take security very seriously and to ensure customers are protected, we are working on an update to Internet Explorer. Cookiejacking is a variant of an industry-wide attack type known as clickjacking. All Internet browsers are potentially susceptible to clickjacking which is a form of social engineering attack, so as well as talking about this issue we wanted to highlight some more general best …

Our friends over at the FutureFed blog reported that Windows 7 the has passed the Common Criteria (CC) certification process and achieved Evaluation Assurance Level 4 with augmentation (EAL4+). Common Criteria certification is an international standard recognized by 26 member nations including the United States and is a procurement requirement for U.S. Defense and national security customers. With this certification, we are excited that our federal customers as well as foreign governments can feel secure in deploying Windows 7, having successfully passed the rigorous security testing protocols set forth by the National Information Assurance Partnership. Several governm…

While the Internet is an amazing resource in terms of the information you can find and things you can do today, it’s important to also be smart about how you browse. A browser can be a great tool in helping you stay safe when you go online. Most online attacks fall into one of the three situations: 1. Malware that relies on social engineering to spread 2. Attacks directed against your browser or your operating system 3. Attacks directed towards the websites you visit Let me spend some time describing what I mean by each of these, and also how Internet Explorer can help protect you from each of these types of attacks. Helping Protect You from Socially Engineere…

Last week, we saw the re-emergence of another new trojan that is disguising itself as Microsoft’s no-cost antimalware program Microsoft Security Essentials. This imposter is known in the technical world of antimalware combat as “Win32/FakePAV”. FakePAV is a rogue that displays messages that imitate Microsoft Security Essentials threat reports in order to entice the user into downloading and paying for a rogue security scanner. The rogue persistently terminates numerous processes such as Windows Registry Editor, Internet Explorer, Windows Restore and other utilities and applications. This fake software is distributed by a tactic commonly described as a “drive-by download”…

By Paul Thurrott Microsoft this week released its Xbox Companion App for Windows Phone 7.5, which can be used as a remote control for your Xbox 360-based entertainment, and as a mobile hub for discovering more about all of the content that can flow through this console, including games, TV shows and movies, and music. Continue reading...

By Paul Thurrott Apple this week unveiled Rewind 2011 on the App Store, a collection of the top apps and games released this year for the iPhone. And it occurs to me that one of the key ways in which we might assess the health of Windows Phone is to examine which of these top iPhone apps--if any--are also available on Windows Phone. Continue reading...

By Paul Thurrott Microsoft today released Silverlight 5, which could be the last major version of Microsoft’s .... Microsoft’s ... Hhm. Just what the heck is Silverlight? Continue reading...

Severity Rating: Critical Revision Note: V2.4 (November 30, 2011): Corrected the bulletin replacement information for .NET Framework 4 on Windows 7 for x64-based Systems Service Pack 1, Windows Server 2008 R2 for x64-based Systems Service Pack 1, and Windows Server 2008 R2 for Itanium-based Systems Service Pack 1. This is a bulletin change only. There were no changes to the detection or security update files. Summary: This security update resolves a publicly disclosed vulnerability in Microsoft .NET Framework. The vulnerability could allow remote code execution on a client system if a user views a specially crafted Web page using a Web browser that can run XAML Browser …

Severity Rating: Important Revision Note: V4.1 (November 23, 2011): Corrected the installation switches and switch tables for Microsoft Visual C++ 2010 Redistributable Package and Microsoft Visual C++ 2010 Redistributable Package Service Pack 1. This is an informational change only. Summary: This security update resolves a publicly disclosed vulnerability in certain applications built using the Microsoft Foundation Class (MFC) Library. The vulnerability could allow remote code execution if a user opens a legitimate file associated with such an affected application, and the file is located in the same network folder as a specially crafted library file. For an attack to b…

Severity Rating: Important Revision Note: V2.1 (November 15, 2011): Corrected the install verification registry keys, update log file name, and removal information for Windows XP and Windows Server 2003. This is an informational change only. Summary: This security update resolves a publicly disclosed vulnerability in the MHTML protocol handler in Microsoft Windows. The vulnerability could allow information disclosure if a user opens a specially crafted URL from an attacker's web site. An attacker would have to convince the user to visit the web site, typically by getting them to follow a link in an e-mail message or Instant Messenger message. Continue reading...

Severity Rating: Important Revision Note: V1.0 (November 8, 2011): Bulletin published. Summary: This security update resolves a privately reported vulnerability in Active Directory, Active Directory Application Mode (ADAM), and Active Directory Lightweight Directory Service (AD LDS). The vulnerability could allow elevation of privilege if Active Directory is configured to use LDAP over SSL (LDAPS) and an attacker acquires a revoked certificate that is associated with a valid domain account and then uses that revoked certificate to authenticate to the Active Directory domain. By default, Active Directory is not configured to use LDAP over SSL. Continue reading...

Severity Rating: Important Revision Note: V1.0 (November 8, 2011): Bulletin published. Summary: This security update resolves a privately reported vulnerability in Microsoft Windows. The vulnerability could allow remote code execution if a user opens a legitimate file (such as an .eml or .wcinv file) that is located in the same network directory as a specially crafted dynamic link library (DLL) file. Then, while opening the legitimate file, Windows Mail or Windows Meeting Space could attempt to load the DLL file and execute any code it contained. For an attack to be successful, a user must visit an untrusted remote file system location or WebDAV share and open a legitim…

Last March, we released a prototype implementation of the audio portion of a working draft of the W3C Media Capture API on HTML5 Labs. This prototype publicized some proposed API enhancements described in section 6.1 of Microsoft’s HTML Speech XG Speech API Proposal. We have now updated the prototype to include the image and video capture features described in the proposal to support scenarios we’ve heard are important for Web developers, as well as incorporating your feedback on audio. As more and more consumers use mobile devices to take still pictures, videos, and sound clips, Web developers increasingly need support to capture and upload image, video, and sound from …

Users expect to visit any site on the Internet with any browser and enjoy a similar quality experience. We first discussed Internet Explorer’s commitment to achieving the goal of consistent “same markup, same results” across browsers in a post on March 16, 2010 announcing the release of the IE9’s first platform preview. IE9 moved us a long way toward that goal and IE10’s HTML5-based Standards and Quirks modes largely completes that work. The post HTML5 Parsing in IE10 listed some of the legacy features removed from IE10’s HTML5-based Standards and Quirks modes. This post expands the list of removed legacy features to include two more: Vector Markup Language (VML) and D…

With HTML5 comes many APIs that push the envelope on user experiences involving media and real-time communications. These features often rely on binary file formats, like MP3 audio, PNG images, or MP4 video. The use of binary file formats is important to these features to reduce bandwidth requirements, deliver expected performance, and interoperate with existing file formats. But until recently, Web developers haven’t had direct access to the contents of these binary files or any other custom binary files. This post explores how Web developers can break through the binary barrier using the JavaScript Typed Arrays API, and explore its use in the Binary File Inspector Test…

An updated platform preview of IE10 for the Windows Developer Preview is now available for download. This IE10 preview adds even more support for HTML5 technologies, enabling richer Web applications with significantly improved performance. IE10’s hardware acceleration of technologies like SVG, CSS3 transforms and animations delivers faster rendering than other browsers, as highlighted in this short video. See some of the new HTML5 capabilities, performance improvements in IE10. With this fourth Platform Preview, developers can start working with more site-ready HTML5 technologies. You can read the full list here in the IE10 developer guide. Here are a few highligh…

For the Web and Web applications to keep making progress, the programming language of the Web must continue to improve. Today’s JavaScript standard lacks a few basic objects and library helpers that are vital for building rich, world-wide Web applications. Last week at the Ecma TC39 meeting at Apple’s campus in Cupertino, Microsoft shared reference implementations of proposals to address gaps in Math, String, and Number functionality as well as Globalization. To ensure that others in the community are also able to provide feedback, we’re releasing these reference implementations via HTML5 Labs. We encourage you to download the prototypes, and play with the sample Web pag…