Category: Windows Vista

More on the Windows Defender name flap

Over the weekend, Dwight Silverman asked: “Does Microsoft know there’s already a Windows Defender out there?” I answered hypothetically:

Microsoft has an army of lawyers, and one would have to assume that no product naming decision gets publicly announced until there’s been a thorough trademark search.

Todd Bishop of the Seattle P-I says that assumption was right. He tracked down the developer of the original Windows Defender program, 22-year-old Adam Lyttle from Adelaide, Australia:

Lyttle wasn’t inclined to get into a legal tussle with the software giant and its army of lawyers. For one thing, he had stopped working on his Windows Defender program nearly a year before that point.

He was puzzled by one element of the agreement, which gives to Microsoft all rights to the Windows Defender name. However, after consulting with a friend in law school, he decided to just sign it and move on.

The story doesn’t make Microsoft look very good.

Thanks for following up, Todd!

Windows AntiSpyware gets a name change and then some

In case you’ve been wondering why Windows AntiSpyware has been in beta for what seems like two years (it’s actually been only 10 months), Microsoft’s Steve Dodson spills the beans. Three pieces of news:

The new name is Windows Defender.

It will be integrated into Windows Vista. Steve explains:

You will be able to run another spyware product instead of Windows Defender if you would like. Although I may shed a small tear, you will be able to disable or turn off Windows Defender and install whichever 3rd party anti-spyware application you would like. The really cool thing is that the Windows Security Center in Vista will be redesigned to detect if an Anti-Spyware application such as Windows Defender is running and operating normally.

And it will soon receive signature updates via Automatic Updates rather than through a separate update engine.

More details in a somewhat breathless post at the Anti-Malware Engineering Team blog:

Windows Defender is about what Windows will do for customers, defending them from spyware and other unwanted software. Our solution has really been about more than just the standard definition of “spyware”. We’ve always said we will provide visibility and control, as well as protection, detection and removal from other potentially unwanted software, including rootkits, keystroke loggers and more.

Making the engineering change from “Windows AntiSpyware” to “Windows Defender” took a lot of careful coordination across our team to ensure that the strings in the UI got changed, the help files all got updated, registry keys, file names and properties, as well as a couple of images all got changed. All this work was completed and tested last Thursday, and is currently making its way through our build systems in Windows to make it into the main build environment, where official builds come from. We’re pretty excited by the name, and by the sleek new UI and other improvements we’ve been making in it to help make Windows Vista the best operating system around! But Windows Defender is about a lot more than just a name change. The engine is now moved to a system service, and signatures are delivered over Windows Update. The detection mechanisms have also been radically improved by applying to spyware threats all the great detection technology we use in our antivirus engine.

Unanswered question: What happens to anyone using Windows XP or Windows 2000?

Update: The new software will be available for Windows XP, according to the AMET Blog post. But no word on Windows 2000.

Also see this follow-up story.

Podcast alert

I’ll be a featured guest on Ian Dixon’s Media Center Show this week. And don’t let the title fool you. Although we talk about Media Center, we also talk about Windows Vista and Office 12, so there should be something for everyone. We recorded it a couple weeks ago, and my short-term memory isn’t what it used to be, so it should be just as much of a surprise to me as it is to you.

You can listen to the show here. I did make one small mistake: I started Ed Bott’s Windows Expertise in December 2002, not 2003.

AntiSpyware to be part of Windows Vista

Ryan Naraine reports:

Microsoft has confirmed plans to bundle anti-spyware protection into Windows Vista, a move that is sure to raise eyebrows among competitors and possibly antitrust regulators.

The Windows AntiSpyware product, which currently ships to consumers as a free standalone application, will be integrated into Vista, as is indicated in the newest beta build of Vista distributed to technical beta testers on Monday.

Good. And baseline anti-virus protection should be baked in too, with the user having the option to replace it with a full-featured alternative. It’s just like the firewall bundled with Windows XP SP2. This level of protection should be a core part of the operating system. If someone files an antitrust complaint over this move, I will be among the first to complain about their move.

Oh, and this same baseline level of security should be ported to Windows XP as well. It’s only right.

More on Windows Vista versions

Rafael Rivera at Extended64.com poked around in some Windows Vista XML files and found this list of 20 version names. Before the ‘sphere starts shrieking that this is even worse than the seven versions we heard about before, let’s take a closer look. I’ve reordered the list slightly to make it easier to see the product mix.

Retail versions for the home market:

  • Windows Vista Starter
  • Windows Vista Home Basic
  • Windows Vista Home Premium
  • Windows Vista Ultimate

Retail and VL versions for the business market:

  • Windows Vista Pro Standard/SB
  • Windows Vista Pro Std/SB/Ent – VL Binding Service
  • Windows Vista Pro Std/SB/Ent – VLGeneric
  • Windows Vista Pro Std/SB/Ent – DMAK

OEM editions for sale with new consumer PCs

  • Windows Vista Starter Digital Boost – OEM
  • Windows Vista Home Basic – OEM
  • Windows Vista Home Premium – OEM
  • Windows Vista Ultimate – OEM

OEM editions for sale with new business PCs

  • Windows Vista Pro Standard/SB – OEM
  • Longhorn Enterprise Server – OEM

Longhorn Server versions (due in 2007):

  • Longhorn Enterprise Server (ADS)
  • Longhorn Enterprise Server – IA64
  • Longhorn Standard Server
  • Longhorn Datacenter Server

The ones that no one will ever buy:

  • Windows Vista Home Basic N
  • Windows Vista Pro Standard N

Speculate away. DMAK and Digital Boost are the ones that have me puzzled at first glance.

(Via bink.nu)

Resources for Windows Vista testers

I’m guessing a significant number of people who visit this site regularly are going to be testing Windows Vista. That number should shoot way up in a few months when the public beta is available.

So, for all of us brave souls, I’ll be collecting resources to drivers, support files, and the like. I’ll try to keep this post updated, and if it gets big enough I’ll move it to its own page.

Nvidia Windows Vista drivers and information

ATI Windows Vista drivers (see page 2)

The real point about that orange button

All those people who are jabbering about the color, shape, and text or lack thereof on the button that identifies an RSS-based Web feed are missing the point. Which is:

What happens when you click that button?

Today, in most browsers, if you click the orange (or blue) XML/RSS/whatever button you get taken to a Web page that is an ugly, stripped-down version of the page you were just reading.

Here, for example, is what you get if you click the orange XML button on Dave Winer’s home page in Firefox:

Dave Winer\'s XML

Not very helpful, is it? It could fairly be described as user-hostile.

If you click the XML link on this page, you get a page that’s much prettier, thanks to the fine work of those wonderful folks at FeedBurner.

But it’s still dauntingly technical. If you’ve set up an account at My Yahoo, NewsGator, Rojo, or Bloglines, it’s easier to figure out what to do, but an RSS newbie will run screaming from either page unless they are determined and not easily intimidated.

In fact, when people click on the orange XML button now, what do they learn? Don’t do that again.

When IE7 ships, it needs to have a really great way of dealing with RSS feeds. If it’s successful in that regard, then people at all technical levels will have a good experience when they click the button, regardless of its color, shape, or text. And they’ll be likely to do it again.

Screen shots of new Windows Vista release

Neowin has three screen shots of Windows Vista Build 5231. According to the Web site, this update (which is not Beta 2, but an interim release on the road to Beta 2) will be released to official beta testers next week.

The changes in the Audio Devices and Sound Themes Control Panel application are interesting, as is the preview of Windows Media Player 11.

If history is any guide, Neowin may shortly be asked to pull these screens from their site, so go look now.

Office 12 beta coming in November

Microsoft Office VP Steven Sinofsky tells CNET News.com that an Office 12 beta will arrive in November. But don’t expect to get your hands on it unless you’re an invited tester. And do be ready for some of the inevitable glitches, bugs, and instability that go along with beta releases:

When we come out with our beta, it will be our Beta 1. That’s the first of the betas, so it will be in the kind of shape that people normally expect Beta 1 to be in.

By contrast, 2006 should be an interesting year for anyone who wants to experiment with new software. The Beta 2 releases of Windows Vista and Office 12 should be available to anyone who wants to experiment with them, invited or not.