It looks like the beta version of Service Pack 1 for Windows Vista will be released in the next few weeks to obliging volunteers and manufacturers. It’s not going to be on the same scale as the infamous Service Pack 2 for Windows XP, which included some major security upgrades and replaced large chunks of the operating system, but it is still fairly large, at a little over 45Mb, it covers quite a lot of ground and we are assured, will fix a few niggling problems.

What we know so far is that it will include support for a new file format called ExFAT, which is designed for use with flash memory devices. There will also be support for SD Advanced DMA, for faster file transfer and reduced CPU workload. (more…)

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Many of us tried to access Google Search from a mobile device and even if the company allows such operations, viewing the results provided by the search engine was very difficult. Google launched a tool that allows users to visit all the pages from a mobile phone without any issue using a special transcoder.

T.V. Raman, Research Scientist at Google, posted a message in his blog to present and describe the new utility: “designed for cell phone users, I find the Google web transcoder has become an indispensable tool for me when I’m confronted with complex web pages. In fact when one searches the web using mobile phones, Google search hits often get redirected to go through the transcoder in order to provide the mobile user with a web page that works on small displays. (more…)

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Pctipsbox.com August 2007 Popular Tips
1. Restarting Windows Without Restarting Your PC
2. How to remove Vista or install XP
3. Windows Vista Performance and Compatibility Fixes Leaked Out
4. Custom Logon Message for XP and Vista
5. How do I turn on Aero in Vista?
6. The secrets of about:config - part6
7. Uninstall vista bootloader
8. Top 5 Things About Windows Vista That Still Suck
9. Vista Performance and Reliability updates released
10. How to Kill IE7 in Windows Vista
and other popular tips

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Most people have considered at least once or twice the reasons to keep using Vista after installing the free Betas released by Microsoft before the official launch or after buying their own copy of the OS and installing it on their newly upgraded and Vista compatible PC.

If you’re in the first category you might find most of the arguments I’m going to list here in favor of making use of Vista instead of other OSs mostly because you haven’t gone radical about it and went to the store to buy yourself new Vista ready hardware. The cause of this is not the object of my article therefore I’m not going to write about it (although I suppose the money basis would be a definite turn off it has also been my case).

If you’re one of those that used Vista since the early released Betas and are still using it with the appropriate hardware then this article might give some reasons you haven’t been aware of to stick to it and not give it up for anything else, be it Microsoft material or open source. (more…)

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Microsoft just gave us an updated version of the Windows Script engine that we all love so much… This version brings very few additions, but great many fixes.

From release notes:
This release of Windows Script brings the improvements in scripting made during the Vista development cycle to downlevel platforms. During any release cycle we test with increasingly effective analysis tools designed to expose stability problems, memory leaks, and potential security weaknesses in code. The results from this testing comprise the vast majority of changes. Of course, we also include all the current security updates. This is the fastest, most robust, and secure release of Windows Script available.

Why Version 5.7?
The primary reason for changing the version number from 5.6 to 5.7 is to simplify servicing and support by synchronizing the versioning to a consistent scheme based on Vista build number. The minor version increase does not indicate significant new features. The scripting feature set is substantially the same as 5.6, with only minor additions.

What’s New
In addition to the general improvements noted above, the following are some of the notable changes in this release.

JScript
• This package includes the improved garbage collector (GC) shipped with Internet Explorer 7 and Vista. The new GC can dramatically improve the performance of applications that create large numbers of objects, such as Ajax-style web applications. These performance improvements are now available to users of earlier browsers.This work replaces and improves upon KB919237. If you have implemented KB919237, we recommend removing the registry keys.
• New progid JScript.Compact implements the JScript Compact Profile (ECMA 327). This is a profile of the ECMAScript language standard with a subset of features. See the ECMA 327 standard for more information.
• Update for new Daylight Savings Time rules.

VBScript
• VBScript defines a new global function GetUILanguage that returns the current default user interface language. This is the same value returned by the Windows API GetUserDefaultUILanguage. Script authors can now write code that is aware of the current user’s language preference.
• Fix crash when calling VBScript class objects from JScript.
• Fix problems with comparisons to NaN in some versions (KB901104).VBScript and JScript
• Support for large address space on machines with > 2GB RAM (KB890048)
• Improved stack checking makes script more robust in the face of stack overflows.
• Fix miscellaneous TLS leaks and memory leaks, including using the RegEx object with more than 10 sub-matches.Windows Scripting Host
• Fixed rare deadlocks in remote scripting. Prevents occasional hangs in remote scripts.
• Fixed propagation of error return codes in remote scripting. Error codes produced by remote scripts are more reliably returned to the client.
• Fixed attempting to load nonexistent wshenu.dll which created performance problem in login scripts.

Included KB’s
This release also contains fixes described in the following knowledgebase articles.
KB831191
KB834742
KB836863
KB890048
KB892296
KB901104
KB903648
KB906092
KB917344
KB919237 (superceded by new GC)
KB925753
KB933811
KB933812
KB933873
KB940284

Download here:
Windows Script 5.7 for Windows 2000
Windows Script 5.7 for Windows XP
Windows Script 5.7 for Windows Server 2003
Windows Script 5.7 Release Notes

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