Microsoft Support & Discussions

By Paul Thurrott For Microsoft, an Apple-style marketing halo simply doesn’t exist, and few consumers connect the company that makes Xbox and Kinect with the one that makes Windows and Windows Phone. So the software giant is seeking to fix this problem during the 2011 Holiday season via a new series of ads dubbed "It’s a Great Time to Be a Family." Source: Win Super Site

By Paul Thurrott Microsoft announced today that it has completed development of Windows Intune 2, the next release of its cloud-based PC management service. Windows Intune 2 follows the original Intune release by less than seven months, suggesting that the software giant is serious about getting this service up to speed with its more mature on-premise PC management servers. Source: Win Super Site

By Paul Thurrott There’s a long-running joke that Apple’s fans would buy anything the company sold, no matter the quality. But this past weekend, the joke became reality when the Cupertino consumer electronics giant sold 4 million units of a smart phone, the iPhone 4S, which even its most charitable supporters have described as an evolutionary update over its predecessor. Source: Win Super Site

By Paul Thurrott This week on What The Tech: Andrew interviews Microsoft

By Paul Thurrott In the latest episode of the Windows Weekly podcast, Mary Jo, Tom Merritt, and I discuss Microsoft’s purchase of Skype and what it means to the various application versions, Microsoft and Hadoop, Microsoft’s Windows Phone chief has tough words for iPhone and Android, Blackberry has a worldwide outage at a bad time, a lot more Windows 8 stuff, Surface 2.0 delays, and Microsoft’s marketing plans for the holiday season. Source: Win Super Site

By Paul Thurrott In a BUILD session, Microsoft’s Matt Merry explains that, sadly, the Registry isn’t just alive and well in Windows 8 it’s still a core technology behind Windows 8 and its new, Metro-style apps. Source: Win Super Site

By Paul Thurrott As the basis for the iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch, iOS is installed on hundreds of millions of devices, a platform that constitutes one of the single biggest competitors to Windows there is. So it should come as no surprise that iOS 5, the latest version of this software, is a compelling, evolutionary update that all iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch users are going to want to download and install as soon as possible. Source: Win Super Site

Microsoft is launching a new holiday ad campaign during NBC Sunday Night Football with the theme “It’s a Great Time to Be a Family.” Source: All About Microsoft

Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) provides Web developers with a declarative, markup-based language for building rich, interactive content as part of their Web sites. With SVG Filter Effects, supported in IE10 in the Windows Developer Preview, developers have a collection of powerful, image-based effects that apply to all SVG elements. Like all Web page content in IE9, SVG Filter effects in IE10 are built with hardware-accelerated rendering, resulting in stunning performance and opening up new opportunities for Web developers to create exciting content for end-users. SVG filters demo on IE Test Drive site Introduction to SVG Filters SVG Filter Effects expand the…

Skype is officially now part of Microsoft, as of October 13, with the closing of the $8.5 billion acquisition. Source: All About Microsoft

Microsoft is set to begin rolling out new updates to its Office 365, SQL Azure and Dynamics CRM Online services in the coming weeks/months. Source: All About Microsoft

By Paul Thurrott An often irreverent look at some of this week’s other news, including a week in Paris and London, Microsoft’s IE security claims, humans are the weak link in PC security, Dell will focus on Windows not Android, a US judge wants to test the validity of Apple’s patents, the iOS 5 upgrade has gone poorly, C and UNIX pioneer Dennis Ritchie passes away, details of Jobs’ death, Jobs’ wife is giving in a way Jobs never was, Google plans MP3 store and reports massive profits and revenues, and a late start for this week’s Windows Weekly. Source: Win Super Site

By Paul Thurrott With antitrust regulators in the US and EU both giving their OK to Microsoft’s purchase of Skype, the software giant today announced that it has closed its acquisition of the Internet communications firm. Microsoft purchased Skype for $8.5 billion, its biggest ever acquisition, and will now move to integrate the company’s software into its own solutions for both consumers and businesses. Source: Win Super Site

Severity Rating: Important Revision Note: V1.0 (October 11, 2011): Bulletin published. Summary: This security update resolves five privately reported vulnerabilities in Forefront Unified Access Gateway (UAG). The most severe of these vulnerabilities could allow remote code execution if a user visits an affected Web site using a specially crafted URL. However, an attacker would have no way to force users to visit such a Web site. Instead, an attacker would have to persuade users to visit the Web site, typically by getting them to click a link in an e-mail message or Instant Messenger message that takes users to the attacker's Web site. Read Bulletin

Severity Rating: Important Revision Note: V1.0 (October 11, 2011): Bulletin published. Summary: This security update resolves a privately reported vulnerability in the Microsoft Windows Ancillary Function Driver (AFD). The vulnerability could allow elevation of privilege if an attacker logs on to a user's system and runs a specially crafted application. An attacker must have valid logon credentials and be able to log on locally to exploit the vulnerability. Read Bulletin

Severity Rating: Important Revision Note: V1.0 (October 11, 2011): Bulletin published. Summary: This security update resolves two publicly disclosed vulnerabilities in Host Integration Server. The vulnerabilities could allow denial of service if a remote attacker sends specially crafted network packets to a Host Integration Server listening on UDP port 1478 or TCP ports 1477 and 1478. Firewall best practices and standard default firewall configurations can help protect networks from attacks that originate outside the enterprise perimeter. Best practices recommend that systems that are connected to the Internet have a minimal number of ports exposed. In this case, the Ho…

The next version of Microsoft’s Dynamics NAV ERP product, which will be available as an Azure-hosted service, is due out in the Fall of 2012. Source: All About Microsoft

Quanta Computer, a designer/developer that helped create the RIM PlayBook and Amazon Kindle Fire products, has signed a patent-licensing deal with Microsoft. Source: All About Microsoft

Microsoft is looking into reports by some Windows Phone Mango users of problems they’re experiencing when accessing Office 365 and Exchange Server 2003. Source: All About Microsoft