From the monthly archives:

October 2006

Automatic Install of IE 7 starts November 1st

October 31, 2006

Just want to remind everyone that IE 7 will be automatically installed on November 1st. Since most of you are running Automatic updates it would be prudent to block the install until you have fully tested it against all of the websites and software your company uses. Microsoft provides a command line blocking tool that [...]

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Microsoft releases new version of Media Player

October 31, 2006

Windows Media Player 11 was released today. Like all new Microsoft software you need to have a valid version of windows to install it. Additionally, it is only available for Windows XP. This is the first edition of Media player to provide integration with the MTV Urge music service. Key features boasted by Microsoft include: [...]

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Security firm finds a way around Vista 64 Bit Patch Guard security

October 28, 2006

For most windows administrators Vista is still a long way off before they need to deploy it on their networks. Even further off is a 64 bit version of Vista. Still it is important to stay on top of what is going on with these products, so as an administrator you are not blindsided when [...]

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Microsoft releases final version of Defender (Antispyware)

October 26, 2006

Microsoft released its final version of Windows Defender on Tuesday (Formerly known as Microsoft Antispyware). The last release was beta 2 in February. Since then about 30 million people have downloaded it. It is a well polished product, and so far it has been great at removing most of the spyware that I have encountered. [...]

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IE 7 breaks outlook hotmail integration

October 26, 2006

I admit it. I still have a hotmail account. I have had a hotmail account since they started way back in the day – before Microsoft had anything to do with it. They were one of the first web based free email sites on the internet. For quite some time now I have been happily [...]

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How to add your Hotmail account to Microsoft Outlook

October 12, 2006

Hotmail is one of the biggest free email providers on the internet. They were around way before gmail was even a thought in anyone’s head. The one thing I notice is that when people start to use Microsoft Outlook they really miss its features when they use web based email. Other free email providers like [...]

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Update your Windows XP SP2 Serial number

October 10, 2006

I have many friends who are getting notifications like this from Microsoft: Many times I would shake my head when they bought their machines from a corner computer store – that had photo-copied licenses keys included with the machine. It was pretty obvious that the serial numbers were pirated. With the Genuine Advantage push by [...]

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Why some shortcuts say "Publisher cannot be verified"

October 3, 2006

When service pack 2 came out for Windows XP, I was surprised with the following message when trying to launch applications from the desktop: It is the result of Microsoft trying to protect users from malicious programs. The message will appear for any shortcut or executable that is hosted on a network share. The maddening [...]

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