Microsoft Support & Discussions

By Thurrott, Paul Google Calendar has received a nice-looking facelift with a flatter UI, a cleaner layout, and some other niceties. Google reports that the changes are just cosmetic, so the underlying Calendar functionality hasn’t changed. Source: Win Super Site

By Thurrott, Paul Microsoft on Wednesday announced that it was beginning the delivery of pre-release versions of Windows Phone "Mango" to developers months ahead of the product’s expected general release. Via this early access to the new Windows Phone OS version, developers will be able to create new mobile apps that take advantage of the system’s new features. Source: Win Super Site

By Thurrott, Paul After months of speculation about whether Microsoft’s CEO should be shown the door, Steve Ballmer has finally addressed the issue publicly. And his fiery denunciation of the idea should leave no doubts as to his opinion. Source: Win Super Site

Apologies to Jennifer Hudson (and Jennifer Holiday), but Microsoft CEO Ballmer is telling folks he’s not going anywhere — at least not for the time being. Source: All About Microsoft

The service Pack (SP) 2 for Windows Server 2008 R2 HPC (High Performance Computing) product is available for download, as of June 28. But it’s missing one promised component: Dryad, Microsoft’s Hadoop/MapReduce competitor. Source: All About Microsoft

By Thurrott, Paul Microsoft today announced the release of its second platform preview release for Internet Explorer 10, the web browser it plans to deliver with Windows 8 and for existing Windows customers sometime next year. IE 10 PP2, as the release is called, adds a number of new features. Source: Win Super Site

On June 29, Microsoft made its second preview build of Internet Explorer (IE) 10 available to testers for download. Source: All About Microsoft

IE10 Platform Preview 2, the same HTML5 engine seen in the recent public

Microsoft’s BPOS platform has had a rough few months, in terms of outages and glitches. But the Softies think they can and will do better with Office 365. Here’s why. Source: All About Microsoft

Just days after announcing that General Dynamics was paying Microsoft undisclosed patent royalties to cover Android-based devices, Microsoft announced a similar deal with custom-PC vendor Velocity Micro Inc. Source: All About Microsoft

Microsoft has made available to developers a beta build of its “Mango” Windows Phone operating system, as of June 29. Source: All About Microsoft

Though I’d love to take credit if it were due, I have to say I’m skeptical that Windows 8 rumor from earlier this week is the reason Microsoft stock has been up this week. So what’s the real reason? Source: All About Microsoft

By Thurrott, Paul And you thought Microsoft was slow-moving! Google this week released a very limited beta version of a new service, Google+ (as in "Google plus") which it hopes will "fix" the "awkward, even broken" sharing methods currently available via Facebook. Source: Win Super Site

By Thurrott, Paul With the release of Office 2010 Service Pack 1 this week, it’s time to take a look at slipstreaming that update package right into the base Office 2010 install files. That way, all future installs of Office 2010 will include the SP1 updates too. Source: Win Super Site

Web technologies across the board can make faster and better progress now that the CSS 2.1 specification is a final, completed standard and published as a Recommendation. First, finishing CSS 2.1 unblocks faster progress moving the Web forward with the rest of CSS and other important technologies in the broader W3C HTML5 family. Even more important, the lessons from CSS 2.1 raise expectations for measuring and improving the actual interoperability of Web standards. Because CSS 2.1 has been &ldquomostly working&rdquo for some time, it&rsquos easy to overlook the importance of this milestone that has been in the making for over ten years. It&rsquos exac…

By Thurrott, Paul Microsoft is launching its Office 365 cloud services offering today in New York City, bringing hosted versions of Exchange, SharePoint, Lync, and the Office Web Apps to businesses of all sizes as well as educational institutions and even individuals. CEO Steve Ballmer will host the event, which serves as a major milestone in Microsoft’s move to the cloud. Source: Win Super Site

By Thurrott, Paul In 2002, faced with rampant bugs in Windows XP and a general security malaise across its various product lines, Microsoft did something that was previously unthinkable: It simply stopped developing new software and went back and reassessed its then-current and in-progress products from a security standpoint. Source: Win Super Site

Microsoft made available for download the final version of Service Pack (SP) 1 for Office 2010 on June 28. Source: All About Microsoft

http://www.zdnet.com/blog/microsoft/microsoft-preps-users-for-the-move-to-office-365-cloud-platform/9536 Source: All About Microsoft

Windows IT Pro Microsoft is launching its Office 365 cloud services offering today in New York City, bringing hosted versions of Exchange, SharePoint, Lync, and the Office Web Apps to businesses of all sizes as well as educational institutions and even individuals. CEO Steve Ballmer will host the event, which serves as a major milestone in Microsoft's move to the cloud. ... Source: Win Super Site

Paul Thurrott's Supersite for Windows I attended the Office 365 launch today in New York. There were no surprises--I guess I was vaguely hoping for a last-minute surprise along the lines of a stripped down, free version of Office 365 that would answer the "what about the free version of Google Apps" question once and for all--but this is obviously a huge milestone, and one that will indeed put Google Apps in the rear view mirror for good. In fact, depending on how you measure things, that may have already happened. ... Source: Win Super Site

Paul Thurrott's Supersite for Windows Microsoft today released the first service pack for Office 2010, Service Pack 1 (SP1), coincidentally alongside the launch of Office 365. (There's no SP1 requirement for Office 365.) In addition to aggregating previous fixes, this service pack includes a number of small changes and fixes. ... Source: Win Super Site