The fourth Platform Preview of Internet Explorer 9, available now, shows the opportunity of fully hardware-accelerated HTML5. You can run new test drive samples that show modern SVG and native JavaScript integration in action. In March, we promised to deliver platform preview releases approximately every eight weeks. With this installment, you will find more performance and more support for same markup.

Getting sites ready for Beta

With the fourth Platform Preview, we strongly recommend developers, designers, and partners to start getting your sites ready for the IE9 Beta.

• Test your site in IE9 Standards Mode.  This mode provides the best performance and interoperability and will offer additional benefits in the IE9 Beta. We suggest using the HTML5 doctype. More details here and here.
• We recommend sending IE9 the same standards-based markup your site sends other browsers. More details here and here. From the feedback so far, and our experience with sites, the best way to get your site working in IE9 Standards Mode is to start from the same markup other browsers receive rather than IE6, IE7, or IE8 markup.
• Use feature detection, not browser detection to handle any cross browser differences in behavior or feature support.  This keeps your site working even as browsers change.
• Please continue to report issues on Connect if your site doesn’t look or work right, and you’re giving it the same code as you’re giving to other modern browsers. With IE9 Platform Preview 4, we’ve fixed over 100 community-reported issues. We will fix even more between now and the IE9 beta and want your feedback.
• Consider the experience for IE9 Beta users if you find that sending the same markup creates more issues than you can resolve in your production site. It is possible that running your site in Compatibility View is better for your users.
• Take advantage of HTML5, CSS3, SVG, DOM, ES5, and more… all described here in the developer guide.  We’re excited to run the amazing experiences you bring to the web using these new capabilities, taking advantage of hardware through IE9.

Source IE Engineering Blog

o Keep your PCs supported and up-to-date
o Get ongoing updates to the Windows 7 platform
o Easily deploy cumulative updates at a single time
o Meet your users’ demands for greater business mobility
o Provide a comprehensive set of virtualization innovations
o Provide an easier Service Pack deployment model for better IT efficiency

The public beta is best suited for IT pros, tech enthusiasts and developers who need to test the service pack in their organization or with the software they are developing.

In order to download and install the Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 Beta you must currently have a Release to Manufacturing (RTM) version of Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 already installed. The Beta is available in English, French, German, Japanese and Spanish.

To learn more about piloting, deploying and managing Windows 7, visit the Springboard Series on TechNet.

Download Windows 7 SP1 Beta

Turner shared the beta date during his morning keynote at the annual Microsoft Financial Analyst Meeting (FAM) on July 29.

According to several recent leaks, Microsoft had been targeting August as its beta delivery target for IE 9. This beta is expected to be public (as the test previews have been), and to feature more of the user interface elements.

On July 29, Neowin.net reposted some screen shots from what they believe to be a newly leaked test build of IE 9. That build includes a new download manager, but doesn’t yet feature the new user interface.

Source:  All About Microsoft

New features in the beta of Microsoft Security Essentials include:

Windows Firewall integration – During setup, Microsoft Security Essentials will now ask if you would like to turn the Windows Firewall on or off.
Enhanced protection for web-based threats – Microsoft Security Essentials now integrates with Internet Explorer to provide protection against web-based threats.
New protection engine – The updated anti-malware engine offers enhanced detection and cleanup capabilities with better performance.
Network inspection system* – Protection against network-based exploits is now built in to Microsoft Security Essentials.

New features in the beta of Microsoft Security Essentials include:

Windows Firewall integration – During setup, Microsoft Security Essentials will now ask if you would like to turn the Windows Firewall on or off.
Enhanced protection for web-based threats – Microsoft Security Essentials now integrates with Internet Explorer to provide protection against web-based threats.
New protection engine – The updated anti-malware engine offers enhanced detection and cleanup capabilities with better performance.
Network inspection system* – Protection against network-based exploits is now built in to Microsoft Security Essentials.

To download the beta of Microsoft Security Essentials, click here to visit the Microsoft Connect page to register for the beta. Once completed – you will find the instructions for downloading and installing the beta.

Source Windows Team Blog

The Windows 7 Service Pack 1 Beta Build 7601.16562.100603-1800, which also covers Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1, has popped up in some of the usual places and may or may not be rigged with a spot of malware, just to keep you on your toes.

Windows Server 2008 R2 includes a bunch of new features addressing virtualisation and Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) and RemoteFX, which Microsoft says will “bring a rich, connected user experience to the virtual desktop market enable organizations to realise the greatest possible potential from their infrastructure.”

The Windows 7 service pack is expected to be even less exciting but may include USB 3.0 support and improvements to Bluetooth and Wi-Fi handling.

Details of the upcoming SP were first leaked back in January, before the Vole stuck a bit of flesh on those bones just over two weeks ago.

Microsoft has promised to release a public beta of Windows 7 SP1 and Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 by the end of July.

Source: THINQ

I grabbed the English web installer version and without any kind of options it has installed the following separately:

• Windows Live Essentials Beta
• Bing Bar
• Microsoft Default Manager
• Windows Live Sync ActiveX Control for Remote Connection
• Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Compact Edition [Enu]
• Windows Live Provider ofr Microsoft Outlook Social Connector

I took the liberty of removing all existing Windows Live applications beforehand, so I don’t know how well it deals with upgrades and rebooted after installation.

Windows Live Wave 4: Direct Download Links – LiveSide.net

The Active Directory Migration Tool version 3.2 (ADMT v3.2) simplifies the process of migrating objects and restructuring tasks in an Active Directory® Domain Service (AD DS) environment. You can use ADMT v3.2 to migrate users, groups, service accounts, and computers between AD DS domains in different forests (inter-forest migration) or between AD DS domains in the same forest (intra-forest migration). ADMT can also perform security translation (to migrate local user profiles) when performing inter-forest migrations.

Download details ADMT v3.2

This bulletin advance notification will be replaced with the June bulletin summary on June 8, 2010. For more information about the bulletin advance notification service, see Microsoft Security Bulletin Advance Notification.

To receive automatic notifications whenever Microsoft Security Bulletins are issued, subscribe to Microsoft Technical Security Notifications.

Microsoft will host a webcast to address customer questions on these bulletins on June 9, 2010, at 11:00 AM Pacific Time (US & Canada). Register now for the June Security Bulletin Webcast. After this date, this webcast is available on-demand. For more information, see Microsoft Security Bulletin Summaries and Webcasts.

Microsoft also provides information to help customers prioritize monthly security updates with any non-security, high-priority updates that are being released on the same day as the monthly security updates.

Microsoft Security Bulletin Advance Notification for June 2010

The normal thing for IT is not to muck around with something that works,” said Wolfgang Kandek, chief technology officer for Qualys, as he tried to explain why corporations have stuck with 2004′s SP2 and not updated to SP3, which debuted two years ago.

Microsoft will officially retire Windows XP SP2 on July 13. After that date, although it will continue to provide security updates for XP SP3, it will stop issuing patches for the older SP2.

“I would expect that come August, SP2 will be getting hard and harder to defend,” said Kandek, referring to the lack of security updates. “I expect to see reliable exploits of unpatched vulnerabilities three or four months later.”

Companies have stepped up their efforts to migrate machines to XP SP3 in the last 11 months — the rate of adoption of the newest service pack during that period was roughly double that of SP3′s first 14 months of availability — but even now, just weeks before SP2 will slide off support, half of the Windows XP systems still run the older edition, according to Qualys.

“I think this simply flew under the radar of most IT professionals,” said Kandek, talking about the July retirement of XP SP2. “Personally, I didn’t know about it until two months ago. I don’t think many people were looking at the [retirement] messages Microsoft was putting out.”

Microsoft started warning customers of XP SP2′s looming retirement last February, and has been repeating that warning every month in its Microsoft Security Response Center (MSRC) blog on Patch Tuesday, the regularly-scheduled second-Tuesday-of-the-month security update release day. But not every user reads the MSRC blog.

Windows XP SP3 will exit all support in April 2014; to receive vulnerability fixes, users must update to that service pack by July.

Windows XP SP3 can be downloaded from the Microsoft site, or obtained from XP SP2 PCs via the Windows Update service.

Source: Computer World

There was scarcely any mention of the projects that could drag Microsoft’s mobile software efforts into the modern web-based world, notably Midori, described as its “first post-Windows OS”, and Gazelle, a browser-as-OS development that could rival Google Chrome OS.

Undeterred by their low profile ZDnet’s expert Microsoft watcher, Mary Jo Foley, has been checking up on the projects. Gazelle, now renamed ServiceOS, sounds somewhat like Chrome OS, though – true to Windows roots – it has a larger OS layer than Google’s full-browser platform.

The browser itself is isolated from this OS layer for greater security and becomes the key system for access to web services.

In a recent white paper, two researchers on the project, Helen Wang and Alex Moschuk, wrote: “Existing browsers rely on resource access control and sharing mechanisms built into traditional OSs. Unfortunately, such mechanisms are ill-suited for many complex web services, such as those embedding mash-ups of other web services.”

ServiceOS, then, builds resource sharing and access control into the heart of the browser, creating a less unwieldy OS. ServiceOS manages many resources from the processor and memory to devices like cameras and network bandwidth.

Read the Rest of the Article at The Register