Vista SP1 Blocks Some Anti-Virus Programs

More Vista flubs from Microsoft are surfacing, this time we are learning that Microsoft's Service Pack One (SP1) has a nasty side-effect of blocking third-party applications from working. More serious is the fact that some of these programs are security apps such as antivirus programs: Zone Alarm Security Suite 7.1, Trend Micro Internet Security 2008, and BitDefender 10.

Microsoft has put together a list of the 12 "programs that are known to experience a loss of functionality when they run on a Windows Vista Service Pack 1-based computer will either."

Problems with Vista SP1 problems started Wednesday when Microsoft pulled an update that would prepare Vista PCs for the SP1 update. Software and hardware compatibility with Vista has also been a nagging issue with users.

Most troubling is that a majority of the incompatible programs are virus detection programs. Windows Vista SP1 will block BitDefender 10, Jaingmin KV Antivirus, Trend Micro Internet Security, and Zone Alarm Security Suite. The Microsoft support page does state that a compatible version of all of these programs are now available, however older versions will be blocked.

Programs that will either not run or lose functionality include Iron Speed Designer, Xheo Licensing, Free Allegiance, NYT Reader, Rising Personal Firewall, and Novell ZCM Agent. Microsoft's support page also provides links to each program's support page so that if you experience any problems there is a source for help.

This is not the open invitation to embrace Vista that many Windows users were hoping and expecting. The fact that Windows Vista SP1 has compatibility issues with security programs that will help keep my PC running smoothly is a very worrying prospect.
Hopefully some good news will come out about SP1 before it becomes readily available mid-March. Otherwise I don’t see a switch from XP to Vista in many people's futures.

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Microsoft yanks Vista SP1 update causing endless reboots

No fix, no word on whether this delays mid-March SP1 rollout

Responding to reports of endlessly rebooting PCs that flooded support newsgroups last week, Microsoft Corp. said on Tuesday it had pulled an update designed to prep Windows Vista for Service Pack 1.

Although the update -- actually a pair of prerequisite files that modify Vista's install components -- has been temporarily pulled from Windows Update, Microsoft has not yet produced a fix for users whose machines either won't boot or reboot constantly.

"Immediately after receiving reports of this error, we made the decision to temporarily suspend automatic distribution of the update to avoid further customer impact while we investigate possible causes," said Nick White, a Vista program manager, in a post to the company's blog Tuesday afternoon.

White downplayed the problem. "So far, we've been able to determine that this problem only affects a small number of customers in unique circumstances. We are working to identify possible solutions and will make the update available again shortly after we address the issue."

According to White, Update 937287 was the cause of the problem. In a support document, Microsoft describes that update as one for Vista's installation software, "the component that handles the installation and the removal of software updates, language packs, optional Windows features and service packs." Along with a companion update pushed to users starting Feb. 12 and another that was offered to machines running Vista Ultimate and Vista Business in January, the guilty update is required before Vista can be upgraded to Service Pack 1 (SP1).

Shortly after the two prerequisites hit Windows Update last week, users began reporting problems on Microsoft's support newsgroups. Most said that the update hung as the message "Configuring Updates Step 3 of 3 -- 0% Complete" appeared on the screen. When users rebooted hoping to clear the error, their PCs went into an endless cycle of reboots. A smaller number of users said that their computers refused to boot normally.

Some users have been able to regain control by booting from a Vista install DVD and selecting the "Restore from a previous restore point" option.

What's it doing in there? It's uncertain whether Microsoft knows exactly why Update 937287 is hammering PCs. Even after White posted the company statement to the Vista blog, Darrell Gorter, a Microsoft employee, was asking users to send him system logs. "I still need more log files for the investigations that we are doing," Gorter said in a message on the support newsgroup. Late last week, Gorter made a similar request on the same message board.

Also unclear is the actual extent of the problem. Although White called the number "small," the traffic on the Vista SP1 newsgroup is heavy. One thread had been viewed more than 35,500 times by late Tuesday.

But the problem is not new. Computerworld has found messages describing the endless reboot problem dated Dec. 13, one day after it first offered a Vista SP1 release candidate to the general public. That build of SP1 also required the prerequisite updates, including 937287.

Microsoft was not available for comment Tuesday night to answer questions about whether, and if so how, the snafu will impact its plans to start offering SP1 to most users next month. Currently, only beta testers, Volume Licensing customers, and subscribers to TechNet Plus and Microsoft Developer Network have been able to download legal versions of the service pack.
That will change in mid-March when SP1 is set to land on Windows Update as an optional update, and again in mid-April when Microsoft said it would start installing SP1 automatically on most PCs running Vista.

Outsourcing your IT - Percento Technologies

Microsoft Gives Away Software Worth Thousands To Students

Microsoft chairman Bill Gates says he wants to "equip a new generation of technology leaders with the knowledge and tools they need to harness the magic of software."

By J. Nicholas

Microsoft is giving away, free of charge, development software that would normally cost about $3,300, the company announced Tuesday. The effort, called DreamSpark, is aimed at giving jump starts to current high school and college students for their IT careers.

"We want to do everything we can to equip a new generation of technology leaders with the knowledge and tools they need to harness the magic of software to improve lives, solve problems, and catalyze economic growth," Microsoft chairman Bill Gates said in a statement.
It's not all altruistic, of course. Microsoft hopes that by giving students software for free, the students will be more likely to purchase the paid versions later.

DreamSpark includes Visual Studio 2005 Professional Edition, Visual Studio 2008 Professional Edition, Expression Studio, XNA Game Studio 2.0 with a free yearlong subscription to the XNA Creators Club, SQL Server 2005 Developer Edition and Windows Server 2003 R2 Standard Edition. When Windows Server 2008 is released to MSDN, it will be available to students as well.
In the beginning, DreamSpark will provide college students in 10 countries access to all this software, and Microsoft hopes to expand the program worldwide and to high school students by the end of 2008. Students will log into a site on Microsoft's Channel 8 student-oriented Web site to get access.

The software will be available under an educational license, meaning that it isn't licensed to use for business. However, it won't stop working when students leave their institutions, and Joe Wilson, Microsoft's senior director of academic initiatives for developer and platform evangelism, said in an interview he hopes students will use the software as a way to get their business careers started.

"If we have a thousand more ISVs or new startups, I think that's a great outcome for this program," Wilson said. "Students are on the honor system. Overall, students are going to go do what the best thing for them is at that point; we don't sit around worrying about that."
It could be challenging for Microsoft to verify identities, but the company has a verification system in place to make sure students are students and not professional developers. It uses public and private sources of information to verify identities, including a database run by academic software company JourneyEd in the United States and other educational information networks in China and Europe.

That's not to say nonstudents won't fall through the cracks. "There's no magic button to instantly verify students," says Wilson.

Microsoft's effort follows that of Adobe, which began giving away a free version of its Flex Builder development software to students in November.

IT System Audit and Network Documentation

Sprint announces world-roaming Samsung Ace

Good news for Sprint business customers who want a world-roaming smartphone but don't want the RIM BlackBerry 8830 World Edition. Today, the carrier introduced the Samsung Ace, a Samsung BlackJack lookalike, that offers dual-mode CDMA/GSM functionality so you can use your smartphone internationally. This means that the Ace will use Sprint's CDMA network for all domestic calls, and then you can use the included SIM card to make calls on GSM networks abroad. In addition, the SIM is unlocked so you're not restricted to the one packaged with the smartphone. That means travelers can buy a local SIM card at their destination and save some money on calling rates.

As far as design goes, the Samsung Ace bears a striking resemblance to the first BlackJack. It's slightly taller but more narrow, and the QWERTY keyboard has been slightly revamped. I've had the phone for a couple of days and prefer the Ace's keyboard to the Samsung BlackJack II, since the buttons aren't as stiff and they have a raised ridge that make them easier to press. Inside, the smartphone is running Windows Mobile 6 Standard Edition with Windows Live integration and has Bluetooth, a 1.3-megapixel camera, and push e-mail. It's also a EV-DO capable handset with support for Sprint TV and On Demand.

The Samsung Ace for Sprint is available now for a pretty nifty $199.99 with a two-year contract, after rebates and discounts. As I mentioned earlier, I've had the smartphone for a couple of days now and I'm pretty impressed. Call quality has been great, and general performance has been solid as well. I'll have a full review when I get back to the office on Tuesday, so check back then.

Toshiba may end its HD DVD video business

TOKYO, Japan (AP) -- Sony's Blu-ray technology is emerging as the likely winner in the format battle for the next generation of DVD players after Toshiba appeared ready to ditch its HD DVD business.

Such a move would help consumers know which system to invest in and would likely boost sales in Blu-ray gadgets, analysts say. But it will disappoint the 1 million people around the world estimated by Toshiba who have already bought HD DVD players.

Toshiba said Monday no decision has been made but acknowledged it had started a review of its HD DVD strategy. The comments follow a flurry of weekend Japanese media reports that the company was close to pulling the plug on the business.

A company official, speaking on condition of anonymity because she isn't authorized to speak on the matter, said a board meeting could be held as soon as Tuesday, where a decision is likely.
HD DVD has been competing against Blu-ray disc technology, backed by Sony, Matsushita, which makes Panasonic brand products, five major Hollywood movie studios and others.

Both formats deliver crisp, clear high-definition pictures and sound, but they are incompatible with each other, and neither plays on older DVD players. HD DVD was touted as being cheaper because it was more similar to previous video technology, while Blu-ray boasted bigger recording capacity. Both formats play on high-definition TVs.

Only one video format has been expected to emerge as the victor, much like VHS trumped Sony's Betamax in the video format battle of the 1980s.

This time, however, it appears Sony will end up on the winning side.

"If true, this will be good news for the next-generation DVD industry in clearing up the confusion for consumers because of the format competition that had curbed buying," said Koya Tabata, electronics analyst at Credit Suisse in Tokyo. "This will work toward a profit boost for Sony."
The reasons behind Blu-ray's apparent triumph over HD DVD are complex, analysts said, as marketing, management maneuvers and other factors are believed to have played into the shift to Blu-ray's favor that became more decisive during the critical holiday shopping season.

Recently, the Blu-ray disc format has been gaining market share, especially in Japan. A study on fourth quarter sales last year by market researcher BCN Inc. found that by unit volume, Blu-ray made up 96 percent of Japanese sales.

American movie studios also were increasingly lining up behind the Blu-ray standard.
Last month, Warner Brothers Entertainment decided to release movie discs only in the Blu-ray format, joining Sony Pictures, Walt Disney and News Corp.'s Twentieth Century Fox. That left only Viacom Inc.'s Paramount Pictures and General Electric Co.'s Universal Pictures as exclusive supporters of HD DVD.

On Friday, Wal-Mart, the largest U.S. retailer, said it will sell only Blu-ray DVDs and hardware. That announcement came five days after Netflix Inc. said it will cease carrying rentals in HD DVD.

Several major American retailers have made similar decisions, including Target Corp. and Blockbuster Inc.

Despite the reports, Toshiba's stock soared 5.7 percent to 829 yen ($7.69) in Tokyo as investors cheered the likely decision as lessening the potential damage in losses in the HD DVD operations, despite the blow to Toshiba's prestige.

Sony shares rose 1.0 percent to 4,900 yen ($45.45). The Tokyo-based manufacturer declined comment on the reports about HD DVD. Sony also said it did not have numbers on how many Blu-ray players had been sold globally, or a number for Sony brand Blu-ray machines sold.
Adding to Blu-ray's momentum was the gradual increase in sales of Sony's PlayStation 3 home video-game console, which also works as a Blu-ray player. Sony has sold 10.5 million PS3 machines worldwide since the machine went on sale late 2006.

But PS3 sales have trailed the blockbuster Wii machine from Nintendo, and the game machine wasn't widely seen as that critical to the video format battle.

Microsoft's Xbox 360 game machine can play HD DVD movies, but the drive had to be bought separately, and its proliferation is believed to be limited. Toshiba said such players are included in the overall tally of 1 million HD DVD players sold so far.

Kazuharu Miura, an analyst at Daiwa Institute of Research in Tokyo, said the final holdout for HD DVD may come in personal computers, if Microsoft decides to continue to push HD DVD. But once the balance tilts in favor of one format, then the domination tends to become final, he said.
"You've seen this happen before, as in Macintosh vs. Windows," he said. "The content makers are going to choose one format, and the stores are going to want to stack their shelves with the dominant format, too."

Toshiba is expected to focus its resources on its other businesses, including computer chip production, such as flash-memory, which are used in digital cameras and cell phones.

The Nikkei, Japan's top business newspaper, reported in its Monday's editions that Toshiba plans to invest as much as 1.8 trillion yen ($16.7 billion) in two plants in Japan for its flash memory business for fiscal 2008, starting April 1. Toshiba said no decision has been made.

BlackBerry Service Out in North America; AT&T Says All Carriers Affected

NEW YORK — “CrackBerry” addicts were looking for thumbthing to do late Monday as BlackBerry smartphones throughout North America went on the blink.

A major service outage afflicted users of the popular, addictive BlackBerry smart phones across the United States and Canada on Monday, wireless carriers said.

Officials with AT&T Inc. and Verizon Wireless said BlackBerry maker Research in Motion Ltd. told them customers of all wireless carriers were affected.

It was not immediately clear how many BlackBerry subscribers had problems, as some users reported being able to access their service normally Monday afternoon.

The BlackBerry service, which lets users check e-mail and access other data services on their handheld devices, has become a lifeline for many business executives and is increasingly popular among consumers with models like the BlackBerry Pearl.

There was no word what caused the outage or when service would be restored.

RIM officials did not return phone calls.

Major disruptions have been rare but often provoke an angry backlash against the Canadian company because of its typically lengthy silences about the cause and because it eventually gives only cryptic, jargon-laden explanations.
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When the BlackBerry service suffered a major outage last April, the company remained silent about the cause for two days.

In a statement, AT&T spokesman Fletcher Cook said the company first learned about the problem from RIM at about 3:30 p.m. EST.

"This is not an issue with AT&T's wireless network," Cook said. "Customers could experience difficulties using their BlackBerry devices. RIM has not given us an estimated time of when this problem would be fixed."

RIM is based on Waterloo, Ontario, and has deals with scores of wireless carriers to offer the BlackBerry service around the world.