Microsoft Support & Discussions

Paul Thurrott's Supersite for Windows In this special edition of the Mailbag, I address a wide range of Windows 8 questions that have come up in the wake of Microsoft's revelations this week. These include a Windows 8 and Windows Mobile 6.5 comparison, Windows 8 Snap with more than two apps and multiple monitors, whether the Windows 8 development environment is really only HTML 5 and JavaScript, Kinect and Windows 8 compatibility, Windows 8 32-bit compatibility, my review of Windows 8, and many unanswered questions. ... Source: Win Super Site

Microsoft is holding its official launch of its cloud-hosted application suite, known as Office 365, on June 28. Source: All About Microsoft

I'm in the process of learning the Application Server role on Server 2008 but the definition I'm coming across do not have me in a state of understanding. The following is the definition that I have most commonly come across: "Application pools consist of one or more URLs that are served by a worker process or a set of worker processes. They use process boundaries to separate applications." Ok, so its one or more URLs, but "served by a worker process or a set of worker processes"? What do they mean by worker processes? Can anyone give me a better explanation of Application Pools and an example please? Thanks.

Years ago, I had the opportunity to interview Microsoft’s Brian Hall, who is now the general manager of Windows Live and Internet Explorer. So I was interested to see (courtesy of Rafael Rivera) that he just spoke at the Cowen and Company Annual Technology Media & Telecom Conference in New York this week. Things have been pretty quiet on the Windows Live side of things lately, as you probably know, so I was hoping to discover more about Windows Live 5, which will presumably ship alongside Windows 8 next year. But I had forgotten how fricking awesome Brian is, and if you are interested in Microsoft or Windows more generally, you’re going to want to read th…

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Paul Thurrott's Supersite for Windows In addition to the Steven Sinofsky and Jensen Harris demos of Windows 8 this week, Microsoft's Michael Angiulo also showed off the next Windows for the company's hardware partners at the Computex trade show. And not surprisingly, his talk included some details the others didn't mention. Here's another ton of new Windows 8 information! ... Source: Win Super Site

Windows IT Pro An often irreverent look at some of this week's other news, including some delusional reactions to Windows 8, Microsoft's hardware partners freaking out that they won't be able to destroy the Windows 8 user experience, claims about Windows Phone being the most secure smart phone, a non-news news story about Nokia and Microsoft, EA's new Steam competitor, Adobe claims battle with Apple is over but it ain't, Apple preps subscription music service, and a Gmail attack targets White House. ... Source: Win Super Site

Internet Explorer still dominates the browser landscape by a wide margin, but it has been slowly but surely losing share for years. Firefox, once thought to the be the future, has stalled at roughly 20-25 percent usage share and is, in fact, slowly declining too. Chrome, however, is on the rise, with steady gains since its release a few years back. These are simple (and accurate statements). But sometimes a picture helps tell the story better. And in this case, Net Applications obliges with a graph showing the relative usage share of each of the major web browsers over the past few years. Source: Win Super Site

Supersite ... Source: Win Super Site

In addition to the Steven Sinofsky live appearance yesterday, and the Microsoft preview document and video (analyzed here), Microsoft also separately previewed Windows 8 at the Computex conference in Taipei. Here is some info from the release: Source: Win Super Site

Microsoft has an estimated 100 million users of its SkyDrive “anywhere access and sharing” service today. But the company knows it needs to do more to help users understand what it is and how best to use it. Source: All About Microsoft

A day after Microsoft showed off an early version of its user interface for Windows 8 and I actually had a chance to actually see it via videos and photos I got mixed feelings. Source: All About Microsoft

Paul Thurrott's Supersite for Windows Yesterday, Microsoft revealed a first major peek at Windows 8 and its new multitouch-based user interface. Here's an in-depth look at what the company really discussed, with an eye towards understanding where Windows is going in the year ahead. ... Source: Win Super Site

Windows IT Pro Appearing at an industry conference Wednesday night, Microsoft president Steve Sinofsky provided the first peek at the Windows 8 user experience, with a demo of a tiles-based UI that closely resembles that of Windows Phone. Sinofsky said that this UI could be used on iPad-like slate PCs, but still provided the normal Windows desktop--and, most crucially, compatibility with traditional Windows applications--as needed. ... Source: Win Super Site

Microsoft execs told developers earlier this year that there would be a new developers conference happening in mid-September 2011. But until this evening, details about this until-now-unnamed event were relatively few. Source: All About Microsoft

Microsoft showed off a first public glimpse of the planned user interface for its Windows 8 operating system at the AllThingsD conference on June 1. Here’s what it looks like Source: All About Microsoft

Supersite ... Source: Win Super Site

Supersite ... Source: Win Super Site

Paul Thurrott's Supersite for Windows Microsoft president Steven Sinofsky is appearing live tonight at the D9 conference in Rancho Palos Verdes, California. Rumor has it he's going to discuss Windows 8 and new tablet PC designs. Follow along as we discover what's revealed. ... Source: Win Super Site

I reported last year that Microsoft had internally abandoned its Zune brand after the launch of the Zune HD and was working on a multi-year plan to phase out that brand going forward. This week, Microsoft has finally publicly hinted at what its plans are going forward: It will use Xbox as its sole entertainment brand. This makes sense as Xbox is Microsoft’s only successful consumer brand. The hint comes in a blog post called Xbox: Now That’s Entertainment, in which Microsoft claims that 40 percent of overall Xbox usage is non-video-game related: Source: Win Super Site

Microsoft may be discontinuing its Forefront Threat Management Gateway (TMG) product, according to information from analysts with the Gartner Group. But Microsoft is neither completely confirming nor denying Gartner’s assertion. Source: All About Microsoft

Windows IT Pro Just six weeks after it offered cautionary sales guidance for the coming year, struggling phone giant Nokia this week issued a new warning for its current quarter and the fiscal year, noting that results would be even lower than previously expected. The news sent investors into a tizzy, with Nokia's stock price dropping 18 percent in the wake of the warning. ... Source: Win Super Site

Supersite ... Source: Win Super Site

A year ago, Microsoft was attempting to differentiate slates from tablets and advocating that OEMs use different versions of Windows for each type of device. This year, the message is it’s all one big Windows world. Source: All About Microsoft

Windows IT Pro Former Google CEO Eric Schmidt snubbed Microsoft in a very calculated way during an appearance this week at the D9 conference Rancho Palos Verdes, California. He referred to a so-called "gang of four," high tech companies that were driving innovation and growing astronomically as a result. These companies include his company, Google, as well as Amazon, Apple, and Facebook. ... Source: Win Super Site