Microsoft Support & Discussions

By Paul Thurrott Microsoft this week is celebrating Windows XP’s tenth anniversary, though I have to think the company’s efforts to get businesses off of this aging OS and onto the more secure and reliable Windows 7 somewhat colors the event. On that note, the theme here is that a lot has changed since XP first hit the market, and having attended the post-9/11 XP launch in New York City 10 years ago, I can certainly attest to that theory. Source: Win Super Site

By Paul Thurrott Netflix announced Monday that 810,000 subscribers had dropped its service this past quarter after price hikes and a confusing series of announcements. And while the firm posted better-than-expected financial results, earning $62 million on a record $822 million in revenues, it predicted more subscriber losses in the coming quarter. Source: Win Super Site

By Paul Thurrott Microsoft this week revealed that it has signed a patent licensing agreement with Compal, a Tawain-based ODM, or Original Design Manufacturer, that makes Android-based devices that are sold by other companies. With this agreement, companies accounting for more than half of all Android devices have now entered into patent license agreements with Microsoft. Source: Win Super Site

The Nokia World rumors are flying fast and furious as to which new Windows Phones the company will unveil this week, and when carriers around the world will begin offering them. Source: All About Microsoft

By Paul Thurrott Windows 8 Developer Preview is incomplete

With a newly minted agreement with Compal Electronics, Microsoft officials say that they now have more than half of the worldwide ODMs for Android and Chrome OS devices now paying them patent royalties. Source: All About Microsoft

By Paul Thurrott In the latest episode of the Windows Weekly podcast, Mary Jo, Iyaz Akhtar, and I discuss Microsoft’s record quarterly earnings, Bill Gate’s upcoming blast-from-the-past antitrust testimony, a Nokia World preview, Windows Intune 2, a 2011 holiday season Xbox console guide, and Apple’s success selling the iPhone 4S. Source: Win Super Site

By Paul Thurrott Microsoft, Google, and Alibaba are allegedly all prepping potential bids for struggling Internet giant Yahoo, according to various reports. But questions remain about the validity of some of these bids, and whether some companies are simply trying to fake out the competition. Source: Win Super Site

By Paul Thurrott The more I use Windows Phone 7.5, the more I’ve come to appreciate Local Scout, and I’ve come to believe that it may in fact be the single best new feature in this release. Local Scout is an excellent example of why Windows Phone’s integrated experiences are so useful and successful, and a major differentiator between this platform and the stuck-in-the-past competition. Source: Win Super Site

Microsoft is poised to deliver new updates to its CRM Online and CRM on-premises offerings. Here’s a list of the promised features. Source: All About Microsoft

Lodsys has not gone after Windows developers with claims that they’re violating the company’s in-app purchasing patents. But could this happen with Windows 8? Source: All About Microsoft

By Paul Thurrott An often irreverent look at this week’s Microsoft’s quarterly results, including an examination of a record quarter for the software giant, why Windows sales aren’t as bad as everyone desperately wants to believe, the continued success of Microsoft Office, how Microsoft’s other product lines fared, plus a ton of tidbits from the post-earning conference call. Source: Win Super Site

Both cloud and on-premises versions of its Office products were the star in Microsoft’s first fiscal 2012 quarter results. Source: All About Microsoft

Windows 8 Metro style apps let developers take their Web sites

By Paul Thurrott Don’t look at your calendar, as it’s not 1998 all over again. But Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates will soon testify in an antitrust hearing related the business practices he helped foster at the software giant almost two decades ago. Source: Win Super Site

Severity Rating: Critical Revision Note: V1.1 (October 19, 2011): Corrected the installing without restarting switch information for Microsoft .NET Framework 1.1 Service Pack 1. This is an informational change only. There were no changes to the security update files or detection logic. Summary: This security update resolves a privately reported vulnerability in Microsoft .NET Framework and Microsoft Silverlight. 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 Applications (XBAPs) or Silverlight applications. Users whose accounts are configured to have fewer …

Microsoft has made available a test build of its “Roslyn” compiler as a service technology. The final release will be some time after Visual Studio 2012, officials are now confirming. Source: All About Microsoft

By Paul Thurrott Pocketnow has what it calls the first leaked press shots of Nokia’s first Windows Phone, the 800. It looks great to me. It also looks like someone simply Photoshopped Windows Phone screens onto the company’s existing N9 device, which makes sense, since the 800 is apparently just a Windows Phoneification of that handset. Source: Win Super Site

By Paul Thurrott This week on What The Tech: Paul compares the internet connectivity from his recent trip to Paris and London, to the U.S. Are we better off or worse? Microsoft finishes acquiring Skype. Will we see Skype throughout Windows now? Andrew and Paul touch on the new Xbox dashboard and the cable programming integration. What sort of content will we see? Apple

Touch interaction with Web sites and apps has the opportunity to improve their usability and ubiquity as the Web and Windows 8 Metro style apps play a key role on tomorrow