Microsoft Support & Discussions

By Paul Thurrott The Amazon Kindle Touch is a rare misstep for the online retailer, a device that is hard to use and deeply flawed. Amazon makes several excellent Kindles--too many, one might argue--but this isn’t one of them. And I find myself in the unexpected position of warning potential customers to skip this Kindle and look at other options. Source: Win Super Site

By Paul Thurrott Amazon’s Kindle Fire tablet is a far better device than most reviewers would have you believe. And while my own review of this amazing media tablet is still a ways away, I did want to offer up one thought about this emerging two-way race beforehand. And that’s how Apple could beat Amazon at its own game. Source: Win Super Site

By Paul Thurrott Microsoft last night announced that it was delivering a "wave" of firmware updates to Windows Phone handsets, aimed at fixing bugs in certain models. As important, the company is now delivering Windows Phone 7.5 to users of the Samsung Focus with firmware revision 1.4, a particularly difficult version of the phone that often has trouble getting updates in a timely manner. And there’s also a new update to build 7740 for certain phones that fixes bugs with voice mail bug and Exchange 2003 support in Windows Phone 7.5. Source: Win Super Site

By Paul Thurrott An often irreverent look at this week’s other news, including a new shareholder low for Steve Ballmer, credible rumors of a Windows 8 delay, Microsoft’s plan to update third-party apps in Windows 8, the new Surface table, Amazon is making money on every Kindle Fire sold, a coming RIM PlayBook fire sale, and new sales records for Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3. Source: Win Super Site

Microsoft and Windows Phone partners are pushing out new firmware updates and bug fixes to some users on select carriers, as of this week. Source: All About Microsoft

By Paul Thurrott Microsoft/Skype announced today that it is extending its partnership with social networking giant Facebook to include Facebook-to-Facebook calling from within the Skype application on Windows and the Mac. The capability, which is currently in beta, means that users can use the familiar Skype app instead of the Facebook web site to make audio and video calls to their Facebook friends. Source: Win Super Site

The near-final test build of Microsoft’s SQL Server 2012 is ready for download, a few months ahead of the slated launch. Source: All About Microsoft

By Paul Thurrott Google is again treading a well-worn path that was pioneered by others, this time in digital music: The online giant announced the launch of its Google Music service, which provides iTunes-like functionality on Android devices and free cloud storage for users’ music collections. The service was previously available in a limited public beta version. Source: Win Super Site

By Paul Thurrott This week on What The Tech: Andrew and Paul discuss the just launched Amazon Kindle Fire. Andrew gives a quick demo of the device. How does it stack up against the review and other tablets? And what about the Silk browser Amazon boasted about at it

By Paul Thurrott Suddenly, the Amazon Kindle isn’t so simple anymore. In addition to numerous mobile apps, and PC/Mac and web apps, the online retailer now offers a bewildering lineup of dedicated Kindle devices, each with its own unique set of capabilities and features. So here’s a rundown of what Amazon is offering for this holiday season with a peek at the new devices I’ll be reviewing soon. Source: Win Super Site

Microsoft is dropping its ‘Dryad’ big-data processing work and focusing, instead, on developing a Windows Azure and Windows Server implementation of Hadoop. Source: All About Microsoft

By Paul Thurrott Microsoft held its annual meeting of shareholders on Tuesday, an event the company describes as a chance to outline its momentum in numerous product categories. But reading the meeting transcript reveals some interesting details about the future, and what Microsoft plans to do to confront various competitive threats and other corporate trends in the year ahead. Source: Win Super Site

Microsoft is readying new server and management products to help the company shore up its private-to-public cloud-migration story. Source: All About Microsoft

By Paul Thurrott Microsoft this week announced a major milestone for its Live@edu program, which provides free, co-branded, cloud-hosted email, calendaring, document sharing, and communications functionality to educational institutions. Currently in the middle of a transition to Office 365, Live@edu now has are now over 22 million users, Microsoft says. Source: Win Super Site

By Paul Thurrott Amazon.com delivered two amazing new Kindles this week, the touch-based Kindle Touch eBook reader and the Kindle Fire tablet. Here are some photos of the new Kindle Fire, which compare it to Apple’s iPod touch and iPad. Source: Win Super Site

By Paul Thurrott Microsoft celebrates the 10th anniversary of its Xbox video game console with the release of a new version of the game title that started it all, Halo. Source: Win Super Site

By Paul Thurrott A Nokia executive from France has inadvertently let slip a few interesting details for 2012. The company will indeed broaden its portfolio of Windows Phone devices for the US market with a bigger, higher-end device than the Lumia 800. And it will be releasing a Windows 8 tablet ... in June 2012. Source: Win Super Site

By Paul Thurrott Since I’ve had sources tell me that Microsoft is going to use Windows 8 as the basis for the next major version of Windows Phone, I’ve been waiting for some official confirmation. And that confirmation seemed to come today, in a report from Business Insider. Sadly, it’s untrue. Source: Win Super Site

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. Read Bulletin

By Paul Thurrott No matter how successful Windows 8 is for Microsoft, it will mark a major shift for the software giant this shift will have enormous repercussions on Microsoft’s customers and on the tech industry. Source: Win Super Site