Kurt Shintaku's Blog

Today, I received an email from a customer saying that he’d gotten a copy of Windows Vista Ultimate from China for $5 and questioned if he needed the legitimate copy I’d sent him.

The biggest reason for ensuring that you have a Genuine copy of Windows Vista, besides the fact that your machine may go into reduced functionality mode, which sucks, is the fact that while you can download security patches, you can’t download any patches or updates that are:

• Reliability fixes
• Performance fixes
• Junkmail updates for Windows Mail
• Functionality fixes (stuff that’s straight up broken)
• New add on components (like Windows Mobile Device Center or Powershell for Vista)

All of the following links require Genuine Windows Vista activation.  Consider this a sample of the updates that you can’t download if you do not have a Genuine copy of Windows Vista:

Reliability Patches:

Performance Patches:

• Update for Windows Vista (KB928089)
  This update resolves a performance issue with the Internet Explorer Phishing Filter when visiting web pages that contain multiple frames or when multiple frame navigations occur quickly.

Functionality Fixes:

• Update for Windows Vista (KB931573)
  Resolves an issue where you may be prompted to activate a pre-installed copy of Windows Vista.
• Update for Windows Vista (KB930163)
  Resolves an issue where connecting to a remote network using VPN after you switch from an active wired connection to another wired or wireless connection fails.
• Update for Windows Vista (KB932649)
  Resolves an issue where poor video quality may be experienced when configuring video to interlaced mode on a system running Windows Vista.
• Update for Windows Vista (KB931671)
  Resolves an issue where an error message is received when placing a Windows Vista system into a sleep state while a PPP connection is active.
• Update for Windows Vista (KB930857)
  Fixes an issue with Windows Error Reporting that may cause some information about application errors to be sent to Microsoft without notifying you.
• Update for Windows Vista (KB929735)
  Resolves an issue that prevents Windows Search from returning a complete set of results when a search is performed using the date option and a non-Gregorian calendar is in use.
• Update for Windows Vista (KB933872)
  Resolves an issue where the default gateway setting is lost when you wake a computer running Windows Vista from a sleep state.
• Update for Windows Vista (KB929762)
  Resolves an issue which may cause the system to crash while resuming from hibernation while an IEEE 1394 hard drive is connected.
• Update for Windows Vista (KB933590)
  Resolves an issue where your display flashes and becomes corrupt when Flight Simulator X is run in multi-monitor mode and the monitor configurations are not identical.
• Update for Windows Vista (KB932988)
  Resolves an issue where when adding metadata to RAW images from Canon EOS-1D or EOS-1Ds cameras, the file is truncated and the image is permanently lost.
• Update for Windows Vista (KB929761)
  Resolves an issue where installing a Microsoft Update (.MSU) using the /quiet switch fails if the update contains a new or updated EULA.
• Update for Windows Vista (KB932590)
  Addresses an issue where the TZ environment variable may not work as expected due to Daylight Savings Time changes in the United States.
• Update for Windows Vista (KB929763)
  Addresses issues in the Mongolian Baiti font that prevent correct display of Mongolian-language text.
• Update for Windows Vista (KB932634)
  Improves the translation quality of the Swedish version of Windows Vista.
• Cumulative Update for Windows Media Center for Windows Vista (KB932818)
  Addresses issues with Windows Media Center. For a complete listing of issues included in this cumulative update, see KB932818. 
• Update for Windows Vista (KB932637)
  Improves the translation quality of the Czech version of Windows Vista.
• Update for Windows Vista (KB930585)
  Addresses an issue with the Romanian language pack where the letter T may be incorrectly capitalized.

New Components & Improved Functionality:

• Microsoft Windows Mobile Device Center Driver for Windows Vista (32-bit)
  The Microsoft Windows Mobile Device Center enables data synchronization between Windows Mobile-powered devices and Windows Vista.
• WinHlp32.exe for Windows Vista
  WinHlp32.exe is required to display 32-bit Help files that have the ".hlp" file name extension. To view .hlp files on Windows Vista, you need to install this application.
• Windows PowerShell 1.0 Installation Package for Windows Vista (KB928439)
  Microsoft Windows PowerShell is a new command-line shell and scripting language designed for system administration and automation. Built on the .NET Framework, Windows PowerShell enables IT professionals and developers to control and automate the administration of Windows and applications.
• Microsoft Photo Info 1.0 
  Easily view and change "metadata" properties in digital photographs from within Windows Explorer.
• Microsoft Keyboard Layout Creator 1.4
  Microsoft Keyboard Layout Creator allows users to create or modify keyboard layouts
• Update for Windows Vista (KB930955)
  Install this update to enable the User Profile Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI) provider (Win32_UserProfile).
• Microsoft Experience Pack for Windows Vista
  Download these four programs to add fun and functionality to your Tablet PC.
• Update for Windows Vista (KB931174)
  This update configures the Windows Customer Experience Improvement Program to improve the quality of software information sent to Microsoft.
• NZ Bliss Desktop Backgrounds for Windows
  Free uniquely New Zealand desktop backgrounds & wallpaper.
• Group Policy Log View
  Provides the Group Policy Log view tool for Windows Vista

Junkmail Filter Updates:

• Update for Windows Mail Junk E-mail Filter [April 2007] (KB905866)
  Install this update for Windows Mail to revise the definition files used to detect e-mail messages that should be considered junk e-mail or that may contain phishing content.

Development Tools for Windows Vista:

• Device Simulator for Windows SideShow
  This download allows developers of gadgets for Windows SideShow to test their gadgets without physical hardware.
• Windows SideShow .NET Framework Components 1.0 (Beta)
  This download allows developers to build and users to run gadgets for Windows SideShow in managed code using the Microsoft .NET Framework.
• The .NET Show- CardSpace (300K)
  The .NET Show hosts Microsoft’s Richard Turner, product manager, and Garrett Serack, community product manager, to talk about how CardSpace solves the problem of securely managing your digital identity on the web.
• PDC 2003 Avalon Screen Saver Contest Winners
  Download the source code for the PDC 2003 Avalon Screen Saver Contest Winners.
• The Panel – Code and Examples
  Code examples and applications for WPF and Windows Live applications.

Miscellaneous Downloads requiring Windows Vista genuine advantage:

• BitLocker AD Guide
  Describes how to configure Active Directory® to back up recovery information for BitLocker™ and the TPM
• Power Management for Windows Vista Best Practices
  Use computer power plans to reduce consumption with Windows Vista.
• Planning the Windows Vista Deployment at Microsoft
  Describes how Microsoft IT facilitated the deployment of Windows Vista with careful pre-deployment planning.

Running Windows Vista?  Looking for drivers & software for your Microsoft peripheral?  Here’s a site for all the latest drivers and downloads for our hardware.

Be sure to download all appropriate updates – critical or otherwise – for the best performance.  Some of these will require Genuine Windows Advantage approval.

• Keyboard or Mouse Products »  Install software
• Desktop Set Products (includes Keyboard and Mouse) »  Install software
• LifeCam software (for webcams) »  Install software
• LifeChat software (for headsets) »  Install software
• IntelliMouse Explorer 3.0 »  Install software
• Xbox 360™ Wireless Controller for Windows® »  Install software
• Xbox 360™ Controller for Windows® »  Install software
• Habu™ Laser Gaming Mouse »  Install software
• Fingerprint Reader »  Install software
• Wireless Notebook Presenter Mouse 8000 »  Install software

DOWNLOAD:  http://www.microsoft.com/hardware/windowsvista/support.mspx

I wrote up a list of my top 10 favorite software products on my other blog, and I thought I’d cross-post it here because I think there’s a ton of my customers that might enjoy it.

http://kurtsthoughts.spaces.live.com/blog/cns!97895BBB8AD10F37!483.entry

Recently, How-To Geek posted an article about disabling Hybrid Sleep mode for laptop users.  This basically just echoes the sentiments of Jim Allchin in his article about Windows Vista Power Management on the Windows Vista blog… that Hybrid Sleep exists for desktop PCs and not for laptop users.

Jim Allchin on Windows Vista Power Management
http://windowsvistablog.com/blogs/windowsvista/archive/2006/12/08/windows-vista-power-management.aspx 

WHAT IS "SLEEP"?  (Versus "STANDBY")
One of my personal favorite improvments to Windows Vista is "Sleep" which is a great way to rapidly power down a machine within seconds and enabling the machine to be woken up almost instantaneously, almost as if the display was just powered down but the computer had been running all the time.

Windows Vista’s behavior is in great contrast to how this ‘power-saving mode’ worked with Windows XP. 

With Windows XP, there was a feature called "Standby" which essentially put a machine into a "ACPI standard S3 Sleep State".  (ACPI’s sleep state is a hardware condition and should not be confused with Windows Vista’s Sleep function.)  A common complaint about "Standby" however was that for many people it took forever for their Windows PC to go into Standby resulting in that embarrassment of not being able to ‘turn off all portable electronic devices’ when the paranoid flight attendants say so.  For some, it would often simply refuse to go into Standby altogether and you’d end up with a machine that had to either be hard-shutdown… or simply left on.

WHY DIDN’T "STANDBY" WORK?
The problem is explained in short on Raymond Chen’s site and it has to do with, once again, the trust that Microsoft has placed in application developers to create software that behaves properly when the user tells the computer to go to Standby mode.  Essentially, in Windows XP it was possible for all the running applications to take their sweet ol’ time cleaning up their state in memory, save content to disk, paint its toenails, watch paint dry, etc.  The end result was a verrrrrrry slow transition to "Standby" for many users.

In fact, worse yet, the application would tell Windows, "No. I won’t go to sleep. I’m too important and have to run so you just go and tell the user that he can stick it."  And rather than risk going afoul of the application and it’s developer’s wishes, succumbed and told the user, "There are applications that are preventing the computer from going into Standby," frustrating the user and the end result is usually them cursing Microsoft for their crappy software.

WHAT’S CHANGED IN WINDOWS VISTA?
Folks – this was one of the many areas that Windows Vista is radically different from Windows XP:  We completely redesigned how Power Management works from top to bottom.

To quote Jim Allchin, instead of waiting for each application, service and device to agree before going into power saving mode, in Windows Vista we changed the approach so that we give the application, services and devices a notice of the impending suspend and then wait a maximum of 2 seconds for them to finish up any work and put themselves into a state they can continue from when the system wakes up.  In other words, we used to give developers the power to ‘veto’ the PC’s state transition to ‘Standby’… but not any more.  They’ve lost that right in Windows Vista. (And not every developer is happy about that)

Basically, there’s a new sheriff in town:  His name is Windows Vista and he’s tired of his ancestors historically getting pissed on because of other 3rd parties making his family look bad.

OKAY.  SO IT’S FASTER.  IS THAT IT?
Oh heck no.  The main reason I love the new Power Management functionality in Windows Vista is because it’s smart.  In addition to making ‘Sleep’/’Standby’ work:

1. PERIPHERAL POWER CONTROL
   It’s highly configurable for the user to determine what components & peripherals to turn off to save power while on battery.
2. BATTERY LIFE INDICATOR ACCURACY
   The battery meter is accurate with excellent estimations on battery life.
3. HIBERNATE DURING SLEEP

…aaaaaaannnnd is this last bullet, "Hibernate during sleep" that no one seems to talk about, but is an incredibly useful facility in Windows Vista for the majority of laptop users that travel around quite a bit and use "Sleep"/"Standby" functionality a lot.

HIBERNATE DURING SLEEP
Have you ever been travelling, and had to quickly "standby" your Windows XP computer, frantically shove it into your laptop bag (because the thing was taking too damned long to change state), and forget about it?  Here are the 4 outcomes of this situation as I’ve experienced them:

• ALL GOOD
  Windows XP ‘Standby’ worked as advertised.  The PC eventually went to a low power state and allowed you to continue where you last left off once you got to you destination.
• NEVER STOODBY
  Windows XP was prevented from going to ‘standby’ because of an application, service, or process that ‘vetoed’ the ‘standby’ instruction to change to a low power state resulting in the machine continuing to run while in your laptop bag, effectively chewing up your battery.
• WENT TO STANDBY, THEN WOKE UP
  Windows XP did in fact go to ‘standby’ then was woken up for some reason, again, chewing up the battery power until it was used up.
• CHANGED TO STANDBY AND YOU FORGOT ABOUT IT
  Ah… the most common scenario:  The machine went to ‘standby’, you forgot about it, and over two days, the battery drained itself completely.  CRAP.  In this last scenario, you really have no one to blame but yourself.

Windows Vista to the rescue!  If you go to "sleep"/low-power usage state, then forget about the fact that your PC is slowly eating juice from your battery, within 20 minutes (the default) Windows Vista will wake up, put your PC into HIBERNATE state – effectively saving everything in memory on disk, then shutting down the PC completely.

This saves your hide when you ‘forget’ that you left your PC in a trickle-charge state.  Instead of leeching all the power out of your battery, Windows Vista halts all power usage on the hardware long before the laptop completely runs out of power and ensures that you’re going to have a good amount of juice available once you decide to turn your computer back on.

NOTE:  To those of you who don’t think this is a big deal, you’ve obviously never been in sales.  I mean sh-t happens no matter how thorough a salesperson you are.  You put your laptop to sleep while landing on a plane, and exhausted you forget you left your laptop on (even in a low power state) and you end up having dinner and drinks with a client that night.
…the next day, you flip your laptop open and you hook it up to a projector in boardroom.  You realize your laptop doesn’t have enough juice to do the whole presentation because of your forgetfulness the night before so you have to break out your power supply… except that the power cable won’t stretch far enough to the wall or the power strip so you end up tap dancing, asking people for an extra power strip or extension cable, wishing that someone would get off their butts and invent "wireless power".

The public beta for Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 and Office Communicator 2007 is available now and can be downloaded at:  http://www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtechnol/beta/ocs/default.mspx 

During the course of the evaluation of the beta, customers will have access to dozens of technical webcasts and virtual labs, as well as e-learning clinics and beta forums.

So be sure to sign up to get in on all this free training & insider pre-release information!

Test, test and test more: Using Idera SQLscaler to understand SQL Server scalability and performance

Load testing – making sure application or a database will perform well under expected usage – is a tricky business. It requires intimate knowledge of everything from how an application or database works and how users are likely to interact with it to how the production environment is set up. In fact, load and stress-testing is an afterthought in many companies — often causing costly performance problems and delays.

Attend this live Web seminar to learn how you can simulate production workloads in a test environment and analyze results of key changes in your SQL Server environment BEFORE going to production.

In this live demonstration Web seminar, you will learn how SQLscaler from Idera can help you:
• Accelerate the deployment of SQL Server 2005
• Assess scalability and plan for SQL Server capacity increases
• Save money by consolidating servers
• Make informed hardware decisions
• Prevent expensive performance problems

Register now for this Live Event, Friday April 27, 12:00pm EST.

http://www.sqlmag.com/go/seminars/idera/SQLscaler?partnerref=0423dedicated

This is an interesting “three dimensional RSS Reader” called UniveRSS for Windows Vista that was featured back during the betas of WPF. It links off the feeds you’ve subscribed to in Internet Explorer 7.0. What makes this interesting is that it’s a fully 3D application with Z axis controls that your mouse manages, however the entire thing is less than 300k in size. (When was the last time you had a graphical application that was only 300k?) Again, most of the software is in the operating system.

The folks at the Panel took it down but it’s been reposted elsewhere. In any case, it’s a pretty neat demonstration of what’s possible using the graphics engine under Windows Vista – although I wish there were more of these demos available because we seem to be lacking commercial software that takes advantage of our presentation engine outside of “Texas Hold’em Poker”.

Note:  The photo doesn’t do it justice.  It’s truly a dazzling display of full motion 3D graphics.

To install, simply click on the link below:
http://userexperience.message.ch/thepanel/UniveRSS.application

A week or so ago, we finally unveiled the our cross platform audio/video media software.  Microsoft Silverlight was announced at NAB (National Association of Broadcasters) and presents our first entree into the cross-platform interactive applications & media streaming market.

I’ve read some… well… very poorly informed web articles on this topic spouting venom like "who needs this when the war’s already won by Flash" and "Silverlight is dead out the door" without even considering why some people might gravitate toward it relative to other standards. 

So I decided to write my own ‘English-language’ blog entry on it.

1. It’s not about "copying Flash"
   This is the part that most people have a problem understanding:  This really isn’t about "copying Flash".  Although there are some key intersections in functionality between the two, Silverlight’s goals are very focused on what our Microsoft technology-using customers want from Microsoft itself.

   I’ve paraphrased what Joe Stegman said on his blog but basically, we have a very different point of view from Adobe.  Silverlight was created as a result of talking to Microsoft’s customers about what it is that they wanted.  Very consistently, it was expressed that customers want to:
   – Be able to leverage their Windows Media encoded intellectual property across both Windows & Macintoshes over the Internet.
   – Use their Microsoft developers & their Microsoft development environments (like version control) for creating applications & interfaces on the Internet, not just the desktop.
   – Have a richer web development environment that integrates well with AJAX technologies & Web 2.0 type technologies.

   Ultimately, Silverlight is about providing a continuum for developers/designers/CTOs across the full Microsoft developer/designer product offering.  Note that the value of Silverlight extends beyond the Microsoft developer as we’ve tried to make it easy and approachable for a broad range of users and scenarios but first and foremost it must be consistent with other Microsoft product offerings. 

2. Two words:  Content protection
   Attention media creators:  There is absolutely no way to prevent people from stealing one’s content if it’s streamed over Macromedia Flash.  If it’s using Flash video, you can record it digitally, save it, and retransmit it or post it elsewhere.  Regardless of the codec, which is either Sorenson or On2’s stuff, Flash Video (FLV) is always capturable and there are numerous tools on the Internet that give you the ability to do it.  I’ve seen some companies try to pervert the stream by obscuring the data in some way, but it’s virtually always reversable.  For example:  Here’s a tool that will download any video from YouTube, Google Video, or Soapbox.

   Silverlight will provide a streaming architecture with optional DRM-protection based on the experience we’ve had with the WM9 codec – making it very difficult to capture intellectual property programmatically.  Barring having someone use a Sony Handicam against a laptop screen, people will have a devil of a time siphoning off multimedia IP.

3. Media moguls love it for the "quality experience".
   This ain’t no kiddie production tool.  Silverlight is based on the 10 years of research & evolution behind Windows Media. 

   In the multimedia space, this is a product that’s squarely focused on media quality, media tools, and media needs.  Born of the research & technology behind VC-1, the codec selected as a standard for BluRay & HD DVD high definition DVD formats, as well as the platform technologies of Microsoft’s streaming technologies, meaning all of Windows Media’s existing tools, services, 3rd party support, and programmability, this is immediately a product that produces higher quality audio/video such as true 720p HD quality, 5.1 digital surround sound experiences that are copy protected and piped all over a single 1.5Mb connection.

   Additionally, thoughtful technologies like the ability to seamlessly provide advertisements within video or animations provide media companies with an immediate foundation to make money on.

   And just like the iHD menuing technology used in HD DVD, Silverlight provides ample support for content-specific overlays:  The ability to have content layered over an existing video or animation specific to the content – not just the player.  So for example, a director could "circle" a mistake in a video posted online while his head is shown in a picture-in-picture square at the bottom right hand corner of the video window.  Or maybe the content provider would like a  custom menuing system on the screen hovering over the playback video specific to just that video – it’s completely possible and the menu would be independent from the player itself.  So "The Hunt for Red October" could have a customized "Stop-Play-FFwd" overlay buttons that look like "torpedoes" floating over the running video.  Then maybe "The Matrix" might have a menuing system that looks completely different when played from the exact same page, all because the overlays are specific to the content being delivered.

   To be clear, the media & broadcasters at NAB didn’t just "like" Silverlight – they loved it:  Microsoft Silverlight won "Best in Show" at NAB.

4. This isn’t a ‘one or the other’ war.
   Newsflash:  Both Flash & Silverlight can coexist, but more importantly, they’re complimentary in many areas.  The most important thing to remember is that consumers don’t have any insane religion around Macromedia Flash like Macintosh users have about Apple:  They’ll use anything they need to get at content professionals produce & publish on the web.  I know this will shock some because the proponents of Flash that I talk to seem to really believe that the world cares if video is streamed using Flash or not.  "People like having just one engine", "Users like having a simple standard", "Flash is a recognizable, efficient technology", etc. etc. etc. 

   Folks, people install Flash’s runtime because… well… they want to see some content.  Otherwise, they don’t really care.  To them, Flash is just a necessary evil.  They’d just as well install a 1MB client as well to experience content from a major motion picture studio or TV network.  Between Flash & Silverlight however, I believe moving forward the content companies will choose Silverlight when it comes to broadcast, high fidelity media.

5. Developers, developers, DEVELOPERS!
   Anyone developing with Visual Studio… anyone developing within a professionally versioned development environment for C#/C++/Visual Basic… anyone using Microsoft development tools & libraries can develop great programs, great backend code, and great experiences for Silverlight using the tools they already own.  And they can have that product on both Macs & Windows.

   And if they want to leave the end user visuals to someone else – no problem.  That’s what using XAML is all about in Silverlight:  Separating design from code.  They can either have someone else develop those front end experiences using other tools and simply plug in their code later… or they can choose to learn the Expression Suite of tools to do-it-themselves.

   For the uninitiated, Macromedia Flash has its own language, its own development environment, and its own group of developers using their own libraries. 

   Dan Rayburn, heavyweight in the Streaming Media industry (of StreamingMedia.com) agrees.
   As Sean Alexander has echoed, Macromedia Flash can’t do the stuff that Silverlight can.

6. It… simply… costs… LESS!
   In every way, Silverlight will have a lower total cost of ownership than Flash.

   From licensing its technology to providing a sufficient server backend to having a high value infrastructure for monitoring & maintaining the application serving ecosystem, Silverlight will save content providers money from day one. 

   Licensing costs for using Silverlight will be cheaper than what On2 and Adobe charges and using Windows Servers for broadcasting will be the cheapest way to provide a complete infrastructure not just to host media but also to collect customer information, develop custom solutions for, and monitor & manage the infrastructure using off-the-shelf tools.

   For the professionals out there, you’ll be able to distribute on-demand Windows Media (WMV) content from an IIS in Windows Server – and that’s all you’ll need.  You won’t need to buy a Flash Media Server nor will you need to license anything else.

7. Client platform opportunity is everywhere.
   It’s not just about Windows & Macintoshes.  XBox 360, Media Centers, Windows Mobile Smartphones, Pocket PCs, DVR players, even basic televisions with Windows Embedded in them… all of these can consume Silverlight content because it’s built on technologies that are easy to incorporate or provide updates for on other delivery platforms.

   It’s also not just about YouTube, lest you think this is about the war for silly Jackass-like pwned videos.  It’s also about broadcasting professionally created & licensed content.

   Why else would Major League Baseball, NetFlix, & Akamai all make commitments to using Silverlight?

8. Technology Differentiators galore.
   One comment I read a lot of is, "What so different about Silverlight?"  "What’s so next-gen about it relative to Flash?" (I got that last one from someone from an Adobe employee)

   This week at MIX07, Microsoft’s conference for web developers and designers, we’re going to be rolling out the laundry list of "Hey look at what you can do with Silverlight" demonstrations that differentiate it from Flash.  As soon as those are posted, I’ll fill all of this in being that I don’t want to post anything "before it’s time".

   And you know that overlays will be copiously used in at least one demo.

9. Simple internationalization
   This isn’t a surprise for folks that understand what "separation of design from code" means but XAML and Silverlight’s support for East Asian characters, double byte characters and any East Asian font of Middle Eastern font makes it possible to use the same application code with different language designs to quickly & easiliy provide localized versions of the same Silverlight application.

   Additionally, the input mechanism treats all languages in the same way making input easily consumable across different locales.

10. Upscaling to the "More Robust" Client
    Silverlight is a scaled down version of the Windows Presentation Foundation – the newly introduced environment/runtime for next generation interfaces on .NET 3.0 or Windows Vista based clients.

    If a developer feels that their need for a particular feature that is not available within Silverlight (real 3D, hardware-based video acceleration, and full document support) outweighs the need to keep the application lightweight, web-based & platform agnostic, it’s a simple switch for the developer to begin developing against WPF.

———————–

How to install Silverlight CTP (Feb 2007):

• Windows:  http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=E63992D3-CCF5-40B9-B98A-D16BCA57467C&displaylang=en
• Mac:  http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=8B6B1524-ECD9-4FF2-BB0F-D9156F570C5B&displaylang=en

How to demo Silverlight:

• http://www.screenedit.co.uk/sevideo/9992/9992.htm
• http://blogs.msdn.com/mharsh/default.aspx
• http://channel9.msdn.com/playground/wpfe/rvbplayer/

It looks like this patch is a little more than what it describes:
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=a8c26743-5a77-4947-aad4-6a6b8ef84f9c&DisplayLang=en

Apparently, this patch for Office Communicator 2005 also fixes some potential issues when integrating with Outlook 2003/2007 to provide "presence" information about users that have sent you email.

Some folks have reported that this fix essentially fixed some Outlook hangs that used to be a result of using Office Communicator 2005.

Check this out:  We have a new MSN.COM page.
http://www.msn.com

But in particular, check out the banner ad:  It’s an ad for Office 2007 highlighting one of the new features in the Office "ribbon" interface (or "Fluent" interface, as marketing tells me I’m supposed to call it) and it’s one of the more creative banner ads I’ve ever seen.

Hint:  The photo below is NOT, I repeat, NOT a photo of Microsoft Word 2007.