February 21, 2008
Microsoft cuts Ultimate licenses for volume buyers
During most of 2007, buyers of Microsoft's volume-licensing bundle were allowed to run one copy of Vista Ultimate on each machine covered by the arrangement. Microsoft quietly changed this policy, however, and now allows businesses to get only one Vista Ultimate product key for every 100 copies of Vista Enterprise they purchase. Read more »
Dual-booting XP deletes Vista restore points
My Feb. 14 article explained how to set up a Vista machine to dual-boot between that OS and Windows XP. But booting to XP on a dual-boot system has the negative side-effect of deleting any Vista restore points, in addition to all but its latest backup file, and a Registry workaround is required to prevent this. Read more »
Roll over, Beethoven
Chopin. Strauss. And now Robbi-985. In this two-minute clip by the afore-mentioned composer, a musical masterpiece is created using nothing but sounds from Windows XP and 98. Read more »
Vista Service Pack 1 — boring but necessary 
For those of us who lived through the toe-curling changes in Windows XP Service Pack 2, Microsoft's new Vista Service Pack 1 rates as a real yawner. I've had a chance to put Vista's upcoming SP1 through its paces, however, and my toes didn't even twitch. Read more »
Now is the time for debunking the Mocmex threat
I'm going to do something a little unusual for me; I'm going to tell you that a particular security threat isn't as bad as it seems. You'll never catch me saying a particular security problem is impossible or can't happen to you — I'm often warning about possible future threats — but this time I smell hype. Read more »
Microsoft pulls buggy Vista 'prerequisite' patch
Microsoft on Feb. 19 halted automatic downloads of a Vista patch that caused numerous PCs to reboot uncontrollably. The patch, numbered 937287, is a "prerequisite" or "preliminary" patch that was intended to prepare machines for the installation of Vista Service Pack 1, which is expected to be released in March. Read more »
