Microsoft Support & Discussions

By Thurrott, Paul Windows 9x comprises Windows 95 (and the various "OS-R" updates to Windows 95, which were provided only via PC makers), Windows 98, Windows 98 Second Edition (SE), and of course the unfairly maligned Windows Millennium Edition (Me). All of these releases, except for Windows Me, actually predate the SuperSite, interestingly. But here’s all the content I’ve created here for those Windows versions. Source: Win Super Site

By Thurrott, Paul In the latest episode of the Windows Weekly podcast, Leo and I discuss Steve Ballmer’s desire to stay at Microsoft, Windows Phone "Mango" heads out to developers, the Office 365 launch in New York, Microsoft and Mozilla spar over business customers, Internet Explorer 10 PP2 hints at Windows 8 functionality, Office 2010 SP1 arrives, Google+ soft launches, and MySpace gets sold. Source: Win Super Site

By Thurrott, Paul This is one of those overdue moves that will be misunderstood by many (hence the deliberately misleading headline above). But it boils down to this. Microsoft is simply rebranding the Windows gaming service, and its associated online store, so that it matches what’s available on Xbox 360 and Windows Phone. Source: Win Super Site

Responsive Web pages result in happier consumers. With Web workers, Web applications are more responsive by offloading complex JavaScript algorithms to run in the background. For example, in this test drive (link), you can see that offloading the work to calculate movement of water in the fountains via Web workers makes the main page more responsive for consumers: This video shows Web Workers in action in the second IE10 Platform Preview. For a closer look at the code behind this demo, watch this video. This example (link) shows the difference in how Web workers help run the ECMAScript test suite much faster. With Web workers, the script on the page runs…

Here’s a roundup of Microsoft-related news items, including Windows Phone Marketplace connectivity issues Microsoft rumored to be talking to Hulu about an acquisition a possible Microsoft/Skype/Facebook deal and more. Source: All About Microsoft

Today, July 1, is the first day of Microsoft’s fiscal 2012 year, and is also the day that some new cloud-focused licensing changes from the company commence. Source: All About Microsoft

By Thurrott, Paul Microsoft announces today that Windows Thin PC is now generally available. As you may recall, Windows Thin PC is a new, locked-down version of Windows 7 aimed at enterprises that wish to repurpose aging PCs as thin clients. Source: Win Super Site

By Thurrott, Paul An often irreverent look at some of this week’s other news, including Microsoft partner excitement over Windows 8, good news and bad news for Windows Phone, IE 9 usage share in June, a new rootkit removal strategy, the death of Hohm, an indestructible botnet, HP’s TouchPad, Android and iPhone growth compared, a MySpace sell-off, and the July 4th holiday weekend... Source: Win Super Site

By Thurrott, Paul Angry Birds is the first no-brainer, must-have game for all Windows Phone 7 users. It’s addictive, funny, and fun, and it’s hard to put down. And you’ll probably want it even if you’ve already played it elsewhere. It really is that good. Source: Win Super Site

By Thurrott, Paul This week that Microsoft announced a dramatic improvement in the performance of Hotmail when accessed via the web. According to Hotmail group program manager Dick Craddock, the company wants to make the service "feel instant." So performance was improved in a number of ways. Source: Win Super Site

Microsoft, as reported earlier this week, was, indeed, part of a consortium bidding for 6,000 or so Nortel telecommunications patents being auctioned as part of Nortel’s bankruptcy process. And that group ended outbidding Google for them. Source: All About Microsoft

Microsoft is making some big changes to one of its Windows Phone programs that is resulting in some unhappy former advocates. Source: All About Microsoft

This is a great week for the Web, in particular JavaScript developers. Standards bodies have ratified the latest version of JavaScript, ECMA-262 edition 5.1, and have published the test262 test suite for JavaScript. Now, anyone can run the test suite at http://test262.ecmascript.org/ and compare how well different browsers support the standard. The suite already has over 10,000 tests contributed by members of JavaScript technical committee as well as all the JavaScript tests that we have posted on the IE Testing Center. Standardized test suites are important for Web interoperability and enabling the same markup to work consistently across browsers and devices. ISO ra…

Not too surprisingly, Microsoft is pulling the plug on its Hohm energy monitoring service. Source: All About Microsoft

In its third such announcement this week, Microsoft officials said on June 30 that they have signed up Android tablet maker Onkyo Corp. as another of its patent licensees. Source: All About Microsoft

Amazon is taking a page out of Microsoft’s book and is making inbound data transfer free for its Amazon Web Services (AWS) offering, as of tomorrow, July 1. Source: All About Microsoft

By Thurrott, Paul I won’t be reviewing the HP TouchPad or any other non-Windows-based iPad competitor for that matter. Others are looking at it, of course. We do live in a gadget-of-the-day world, after all. Here are some random thoughts from around the web. Source: Win Super Site