windows

Looking back now, it seems inevitable that Windows 7 would eclipse the much-disliked Windows Vista, released three years ago amidst absentee fanfare. Now, we've got perfect proof of Microsoft's success in improving upon the latter: Windows 7 has now ... passed its predecessor as the most-used operating system (OS) in the world. Impressively, it took just seven months for Windows 7 to achieve that feat. Early predictions had been that it would take the new OS until sometime this summer to pass Vista, but in the end the process was complete only weeks after the ushering in of spring. Compatibility ... (view more)

It would appear two potential rivals to Apple's iPad have been bumped off by their parent companies in just a few days' time. According to reports, Hewlett-Packard's (HP) Slate tablet , which planned to use Windows 7, has been cancelled. The news ... comes less than a week after word that Microsoft had nixed its Courier device. Microsoft admitted last week that it had no plans to release a final version of Courier, a dual-screen, touch screen tablet computer that opened up like an old-timey book and used a stylus for navigation. That wasn't such a huge surprise, since Courier received most of its ... (view more)

Symantec Message Labs has uncovered some interesting information in light of a new research project. Apparently, Linux computers are sending a disproportionate amount of spam in comparison to other operating systems. The news comes as a surprise, ... since Linux retains only a small market share. The research project consisted of Symantec taking a "snapshot" of spam rates from November 2009 through March 2010. This is done through a method called "passive fingerprinting" which involves analyzing the network traffic of a remote host, in turn revealing the operating system of that host. Linux's ... (view more)

Microsoft last week reported an impressive 35 per cent increase in net income for its third quarter ending March 31, 2010. Overall, revenue saw a jump of 6 per cent since the same period last year, and most analysts are pointing to Windows 7 as the ... cause. Released on October 22, 2009, Windows 7, Microsoft's latest (and, critically, greatest) operating system (OS) has fueled a remarkable rise in the Redmond-based firm's popularity and profitability. According to reports, sales in Microsoft's Windows unit were up 28 per cent, to $4.4 billion. That's good news for a department that desperately ... (view more)

Toshiba says it will be launching its own line of tablet computers to rival the Apple iPad later this year. That follows on from a similar announcement by netbook specialists Asus earlier this month . Toshiba may be working on more than two tablet ... machines, one running Windows 7, the other Google's Android operating system (OS). It says that as well as considering a 10-inch screen model, it's also looking at producing a dual-screen device, though the dual-screen version would run Windows 7 only. (Source: reuters.com ) That sounds similar to Microsoft's Courier project, which involves a ... (view more)

This month's security updates from Microsoft will cover every currently supported edition of Windows. That means home users should check carefully if they don't have automatic updates switched on, while businesses will need to plan how they will ... apply the patches. As happens on the second Tuesday of every month, Microsoft will release its Patch Tuesday security fix for issues affecting the Windows operating system (OS). This month, though, there was an exception: an emergency patch released on March 30th for a serious security flaw in Internet Explorer versions 6 and 7. At the time, several ... (view more)

It's been a long time coming. Thanks to a recently leaked build of Windows 7 Service Pack 1 (SP1), rumors circulating around the Internet suggest that the update's beta version could be available in the next month or two. It appears a few different ... builds have made their way online. The first, reviewed by tech blog GeekSmack, features a compile date of March 27th, suggesting that the build is fairly new and intended to show off how SP1 is looking at the moment. Windows 7 Service Pack 1: Highlights Critics have thus far marveled at a number of things: for one, SP1's installation speed. ... (view more)

Microsoft has released a revised beta edition of Windows High Performance Computer Server (HPC Server), in its effort to crack the supercomputing market. The new edition makes several changes which improve integration with Linux machines. ... Supercomputing is all about processing speed: the idea being to produce computers capable of performing as many calculations as possible. The types of employed tasks tend not to be technically complicated, but instead involve a great deal of detail. A typical example of supercomputing would be data modeling, in which a computer simulates future events where ... (view more)

Taiwan computer manufacturer Asus has announced it will release at least two tablet PCs in the next few months. They'll join a growing list of potential rivals to the much-hyped Apple iPad. Asus is better know for producing netbooks: indeed, it can ... be argued that its Eee PC, released in 2007, helped establish the market for the slimmed-down notebooks designed mainly for Internet browsing and light office tasks. Chairman Jonney Shih told Forbes that Asus is still committed to netbooks, but believes there is a gap in the market between netbooks and smartphones which can be filled by tablet- ... (view more)

Windows 7 launched on October 22, 2009 -- just over five months ago -- but has already gained substantial ground on Microsoft's previous operating system (OS), Windows Vista. According to a recent report from industry analysts Net Applications, ... Windows 7 now accounts for an impressive 10 per cent of the total OS market share. Windows Vista, which launched over three years ago now, is slowly but surely watching its share of the pie decline. (Source: rcpmag.com ) For the record, it took Vista over a year to hit the 10 per cent plateau. Windows 7 is expected to surpass Vista in total market ... (view more)