Its reach is impossible to measure precisely, but more than 3 million vulnerable machines may ultimately have been infected. : The inside story on the Conficker Worm at New Scientist.
posted by The Whelk on Jun 15, 2009 - 84 comments

Microsoft announced today, it will open a small number of stores to compete directly against Apple. Some think it's a dubious idea. "In a statement, Microsoft said the first priority of Mr. Porter, who is also a 25-year veteran of Wal-Mart, will be to define where to place the Microsoft stores and when to open them."
posted by Xurando on Feb 13, 2009 - 115 comments

Celebrity computer endorsements throughout the ages.
posted by Artw on Aug 21, 2008 - 65 comments

Is the next President of the United States running Linux? The Democrats love open source and the Republicans love Microsoft.
posted by caddis on Jul 5, 2007 - 41 comments

FlexGo™. Microsoft targets emerging markets with pay as you go and subscription models.
posted by davehat on Jun 29, 2006 - 13 comments

NSA,FISA, and Privacy It is of course the president who finally approves of actions that may or may not be deemed legal but before 9/11, this is what he had been advised to consider "The largest U.S. spy agency warned the incoming Bush administration in its "Transition 2001" report that the Information Age required rethinking the policies and authorities that kept the National Security Agency in compliance with the Constitution's 4th Amendment prohibition on "unreasonable searches and seizures" without warrant and "probable cause," according to an updated briefing book of declassified NSA documents posted today on the World Wide Web. If this is the sort of reading you enjoy, then by all means dig about here: But then Windows allowed NSA to have a sure access to your machine . And by now we all know that Google will fight the government on making its search data base available in order to protect your privacy.(Reality: to protect Google stuff). And if you worry about search engines tracking you and making data available, then here is a workaround
posted by Postroad on Jan 20, 2006 - 16 comments

Inventor of CTRL-ALT-DEL ridicules Bill Gates. "'I may have invented CTRL-ALT-DEL, but Bill Gates made it famous". Video clip of the episode, via TUAW, who say "The funniest part is the expression, or lack thereof, on the face of Bill."
posted by nthdegx on Jul 28, 2005 - 50 comments

Securing public computers isn't easy, but a Microsoft kit to do that may also help families share home computers. If you share a Windows XP Home or Professional computer with other users, particularly, children, or family members, you may find the Shared Computer Toolkit beta an interesting idea. But caveat emptor: this is free "beta" software, has a spooky "validation" process to confirm your copy of Windows is "genuine," and installation is not for the faint of heart. Then again, neither is re-installing Windows after a friend/relative/SO inadvertently trashes your computer.
posted by paulsc on Jul 7, 2005 - 18 comments

Think you're in full control of your computer? Think again. Intel has just quietly added one of the necessary components of Microsoft's (and the TCG/TCPA's) DRM technology, Palladium, to the PC platform. Some say this is a move against rampant Chinese software piracy, others think it's a power grab by the content producers. Left unchecked, content and software producers will have the final say in how you use your computer, fair use be damned.
posted by id on May 28, 2005 - 55 comments

Gates talks about our future. Bill gates shows a side that is rarely seen by computer users. Love him or hate him, I just want to know why he doesn't want me to have one of these some time in the next 15 years too.
posted by sourbrew on Jul 13, 2004 - 25 comments

The John Markoff of the New York Times [registration required] reports that Google plans to roll-out a text and file search tool code-named Puffin for finding information stored on PCs. The move is seen as a defensive one; Microsoft plans to include PC searching in its new operating system, scheduled to be released in 2006 (at the earliest).
posted by tranquileye on May 19, 2004 - 7 comments

Whizzkid develops Linux application for Windows [...]The significance of the development is that Linux and Windows are able to work in parallel on the same computer or server. To[sic] now, the computer world is divided into systems that operate either with Windows or with Linux. [...]
posted by Postroad on Apr 12, 2004 - 33 comments

Windows Vulnerabilities XPlained I've always used Gibson Research's website to test my Windows system for vulnerabilities. With the latest BLAST aimed at MS, I thought to share his site with the class. While Mr. Gibson obviously has some axes to grind and bones to pick with Microsoft and with various software firewall makers, his explanations of how Windows can be XPloited in terms that are fairly easy to understand is most appreciated. Be sure to check out the numerous free utiltites (small downloads! I mean, really small!) that will help you plug nearly every hole in your Windows.
Didn't know MS had shut down www.windowsupdate.com til just now, either
posted by WolfDaddy on Aug 18, 2003 - 42 comments

Microsoft to discontinue development of IE for the Mac... Surprisingly this apparently isn't being done because of the low market share for Macintosh, but rather as a side effect of the increasing integration (whether real or alleged) between IE and the Operating System, which on the Mac is closed, so MS can cease development as support for their claims of mandatory integration between browser & OS. I await the next step, mandatory integration between email & OS? IM? Media tools? Net access?
posted by jonson on Jun 13, 2003 - 68 comments

"You will not be able to save or create new documents", the MS Office XP (Re-)Activation Wizard said to me this afternoon. You can imagine my horror, when I sat down to print off my housemate's coursework, only to discover that the floppy drive I'd reattached so that I could get to her document had spurred Office XP into an unwelcome data embargo. Be warned, MeFites: Significant hardware changes piss Microsoft off! This is especially dangerous for those of us who... er... can't seem to find our original store-bought fully licensed Office CDs.
Even though it's been lurking a while, I'd never heard of it. Is this a justifiable (ha!) anti-piracy technique or another excellent reason not to hand in Uni assignments on time? ("I'm sorry sir; Microsoft ate my homework") Either way, I won't be able to check my email in Outlook for a while.
Until then, thank God for openoffice.org.
posted by armoured-ant on Nov 1, 2002 - 62 comments

Do you have a 'Super Cookie' ??? Another m$ screw-up... Very interesting since wmp just minutes before tried to access the net through my firewall that is set to block all except a few programs. If you're running mozilla his demo doesn't hit but using msie it sures pulls up the ID# of my wmp... time to tighten things down again!!! Another blasted waste of time to fix what m$ should not have let out in the first place!!! Link via... Inflight Correction
posted by tilt on Jan 17, 2002 - 13 comments

Microsoft considering anti-virus support and why we should care.
posted by GriffX on Dec 11, 2001 - 13 comments

As a part of the upcoming Microsoft Settlement: "Terms of the deal would require Microsoft to donate software, recycled laptops and desktop computers, and other services to students in grades K-12 who attend public schools where 70 percent or more pupils are eligible for free or reduced-price lunches."

So, is this MS reaching out to help disadvantaged children and positively affect their future, or is this allowing MS to lure hundreds of thousands into being MS customers for life?
posted by mathowie on Nov 20, 2001 - 40 comments

Is it sloppy programming, or do full computer security vulnerability disclosure make it too easy for hackers? Microsoft has a personal interest in minimizing the exploit of their code, but the evil you know is better than the evil you don't. Others have weighed in on this debate in the past, or provided a fair but vague blueprint for the computer security community. Do you think that a middle ground exists?
posted by machaus on Oct 18, 2001 - 14 comments

Remember the scary-sounding Hailstorm that was set to prove how evil Microsoft's system is? Well worry no longer, because it's now called .NET My Services. How could something with such a cute, gentle name like that be bad for users?
posted by mathowie on Sep 25, 2001 - 15 comments

New worm doing the rounds. Great.
posted by nico on Sep 18, 2001 - 23 comments

In the midst of being indignant over the death of the BeOS, Scot Hacker talks about Microsoft's OEM license with hardware vendors. Although Microsoft claims the terms of the agreement are a "trade secret," preventing it from making appearnce in the DOJ circus, apparently it prevents OEMs from installing any non-Microsoft OS along side a Microsoft OS... If true, the "browser integration" thing's just a minor annoyance - this would be monopolistic and anti-competitive... via rc3.org
posted by m.polo on Aug 31, 2001 - 9 comments

Slate's Mickey Kaus and the Washington Post ask the question: For all the claims of illegal monopolies and unfair advantage, is the tech industry counting on Microsoft and Windows XP's Oct. 25 release to save its bacon?
posted by rcade on Jul 30, 2001 - 19 comments

Seeing weird things in your website logs today? This will explain it... Running IIS and haven't patched it in over a month? Go here. 13,000 servers have already been affected.
posted by machaus on Jul 19, 2001 - 37 comments

Win XP's Product Activation as a breeze to hack. Provided that RC1 still ships as is and you keep your RAM locked at a fixed number of sticks, it's simply a matter of keeping a backup of a DBL file. For all the ballyhoo, it's amazing that something this obvious slipped under the cracks. With WPA this sloppy, is this the only half-hearted facet of Windows XP?
posted by ed on Jul 17, 2001 - 36 comments

Someone reverse engineered the Win-XP activation mechanism. It's not as bad as many people thought. It's certainly no cause for paranoia.
posted by Steven Den Beste on Jul 9, 2001 - 25 comments

One million credit card numbers stolen! News at 11! The FBI has gone public with a rather dry account of a huge organized attack on ecommerce sites, exploiting security flaws in NT which Microsoft fixed and offered patches for nearly two years ago.
posted by Steven Den Beste on Mar 9, 2001 - 5 comments

The last computer you'll ever own. With the entertainment industry pushing electronics manufacturers towards closed, proprietary hardware, how soon will we be limited to strictly "renting" media, serives, etc.?
posted by harmful on Mar 7, 2001 - 10 comments

Microsoft Reader is out. Did MS finally make a decent product, to really spark ebooks. Or is it more of the same?
posted by owillis on Aug 14, 2000 - 17 comments

New Microsoft Bug Found This one's pretty serious. Because it affects the whole world.
posted by PaperCut on May 20, 2000 - 13 comments

Blame MICRO$OFT for the "I love you" virus, ohh, and it has 40 authors to it
posted by tiaka on May 16, 2000 - 14 comments

You know their server isn't particularly secure; well neither is their browser.
posted by ericost on Apr 19, 2000 - 2 comments

Big companies overheard on the playground:
Sun: we put the dot in dot com!
Microsoft: Naw-uh! You did not!
Sun: We did too! Your OS is stupid!
MS: No, your OS is stupid!
Sun: Quit copying me! You always copy me!
MS: No, you're copying me! stupid-head!
Sun: Stupid-head!? You're so busted for that!
MS: Am not! I can do anything I want!

These are adults? I'm just glad I'm not an investor in either company.
posted by mathowie on Apr 10, 2000 - 0 comments