Microsoft Support & Discussions

Microsoft is planning to launch its WebMatrix Web-development tool bundle this week at the CodeMash event, according to multiple tweets. Microsoft’s ISV Developer Community site confirmed the planned January 13 launch. View the full article

Supersite Apparently, the web is interested in my schedule. Here are some more items from today... ... View the full article

Supersite In this week's mailbag: .NET on the Mac, Windows Phone 7 and video chat, iPhone 4's hardware problems revisited, reviewing the 2011 tablet devices, and Windows Phone 7 on Sprint and Verizon. ... View the full article

Microsoft will be launching Office 365, its successor to BPOS, Live@Edu and Office Live Small Business — later this year (I’m still hearing early June). On January 11, Microsoft shared new pricing and packaging details about one of the coming Office 365 SKUs: Office 365 for Education. View the full article

Supersite Today: my attempts at tough love with Microsoft, Apple's over-use of the term revolutionary, Office 365 heading to education, and the iPhone 4 announced for Verizon Wireless. ... View the full article

Windows IT Pro In last week's UPDATE commentary, I described an all-too-familiar scenario in which I, as the resident PC expert among a certain circle of friends and family, become the lifetime tech support for all of them. Based on my email, much of you are in the same boat as well. ... View the full article

Windows IT Pro Verizon Wireless announced today that its customers will be able to purchase Apple's iPhone 4 starting next month. The announcement was long expected, and while the iPhone 4 is a nearly year-old design that comes laden with the most hardware defects of any recent Apple device, this change is expected to have long-term repercussions in the wireless industry, perhaps especially at AT&T. ... View the full article

Windows IT Pro Microsoft confirmed this week that its Server & Tools Business (STB) president, Bob Muglia, is leaving the company this year to pursue opportunities elsewhere. Muglia is a 23-year veteran of the software giant and has held the president position for two years. Based on internal email, it appears that Muglia was ousted by Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer ... View the full article

Bulletin Severity Rating:Critical - This security update resolves two privately reported vulnerabilities in Microsoft Data Access Components. The vulnerabilities could allow remote code execution if a user views a specially crafted Web page. An attacker who successfully exploited this vulnerability could gain the same user rights as the local user. Users whose accounts are configured to have fewer user rights on the system could be less impacted than users who operate with administrative user rights. View the full article

Bulletin Severity Rating:Important - This security update resolves a publicly disclosed vulnerability in Windows Backup Manager. The vulnerability could allow remote code execution if a user opens a legitimate Windows Backup Manager file that is located in the same network directory as a specially crafted library file. For an attack to be successful, a user must visit an untrusted remote file system location or WebDAV share and open the legitimate file from that location, which in turn could cause Windows Backup Manager to load the specially crafted library file. View the full article

Supersite Microsoft provides a last minute fix for the expiring version of Windows Home Server "Vail." ... View the full article

At the end of January 10, 2011, the latest Windows Home Server ‘Vail’ public preview was slated to expire — even though there was no replacement beta slated for another four to six weeks. But Microsoft has issued a last-minute expiry workaround, officials said today. View the full article

We’ve seen Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer’s January 10 e-mail to the troops about Server and Tools Business (STB) Unit President Bob Muglia’s unexpected departure from the company. But we haven’t heard from Muglia — until now. View the full article

Microsoft veteran and Server & Tools Business (STB) President Bob Muglia is leaving Microsoft, according to an email that CEO Steve Ballmer sent to employees on January 10. View the full article

Supersite Today: iTunes at 10, iPad 2 rumors, Microsoft's wake-up call, some serious bad news for WHS "Vail" users, Verizon confidence on the eve of iPhone launch, and Angry Birds for the PC. ... View the full article

Microsoft officials said on January 10 to expect a new version of its Dynamics AX ERP product (codenamed AX 6) to ship in the third calendar quarter of 2011. This means if Microsoft holds to its current plans, the company could end up releasing new versions of all four of its ERP products this year. View the full article

Microsoft is making available as of January 10 its Windows Embedded Handheld 6.5 operating system — its offering for ruggedized enterprise phones and devices. View the full article

Windows IT Pro With the 2011 CES dust finally settling, I think it's time for a rational look at what Microsoft really announced last week. And what I see is a troubling example of tunnel-vision. ... View the full article

Microsoft’s healthcare leaders already are thinking about how the newly announced Surface 2, Xbox, Xbox Live and the Kinect sensors may be incorporated into healthcare applications. View the full article

With Microsoft acknowledging this week that it is bringing Windows to the lower-power, tablet/slate-friendly ARM processor, I — like a number of others — also am wondering what Microsoft’s longer-term plans are for Windows Compact Embedded. View the full article

Supersite This week's Windows Phone 7 app pick is Weatherbug, which combines a beautiful Windows Phone presentation with nice customization features and a great dynamic live tile with notifications. ... View the full article

Supersite Microsoft's Director of Policy and Enforcement for the Xbox LIVE service exposes his company's dirty little secret: The people who make product decisions at the software giant suffer from a reality distortion field of their own. Unfortunately, this one is directed internally, and not at customers. And it explains why Microsoft just can't get it right, again and again and again. ... View the full article