Microsoft will issue 14 security bulletins on Tuesday to plug 34 holes, including eight that are critical, in Windows, Office, Internet Explorer, SQL and Silverlight, the company said on Thursday.
“This will be the most bulletins we have ever released in a month; we have released 13 bulletins on a couple of occasions,” Angela Gunn, security response communications manager at Microsoft, wrote in a blog post. “However, in total CVE [common vulnerabilities and exposures] count, this release ties with June 2010, so there’s no new record there.”
Affected software includes: Windows 7; Windows XP; Vista; Windows Server 2003 and 2008; Windows Server 2008 release 2; IE 6, 7 and 8; Office XP Service Pack 3; Office 2003 Service Pack 3; 2007 Microsoft Office System Service Pack 2; Office 2004 and 2008 for Mac; Office Word Viewer; Office Compatibility Pack for Word, Excel and PowerPoint; 2007 File Formats Service Pack 2; Microsoft Works 9; and Silverlight 2 and 3.
The IE, Office, and Silverlight updates fix an increasingly used type of flaw “where attackers and malware go through the installed applications rather than through the core operating system,” said Qualys CTO Wolfgang Kandek.
Archive
Tag: Windows 7
A few days after announcing that Windows XP SP2 would no longer be supported, Microsoft on Monday announced the availability of a beta version of its Service Pack 1 update to Windows 7.
Intended for business computing professionals, the single update package simultaneously addresses Windows Server 2008 R2, which uses the same core code base as Windows 7. Microsoft made the announcement on the first day of its Worldwide Partner Conference (WPC) in Washington D.C.
Microsoft had discussed the coming service pack back in March at the company’s Desktop Virtualization Hour event, but no release date was divulged at that time. Then just last month at Tech Ed 2010 Bob Muglia, Microsoft’s president of Server and Tools Division, announced that the public beta of the service pack would appear in July, without getting more specific.
According to Microsoft’s TechNet site targeting IT professionals, “This early release of Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 Beta is not available for home users. The SP1 Beta does not provide new end-user features, and installation is not supported by Microsoft.” In fact, as has mostly been the case with recent Windows service packs, this first Windows 7 update is made up of previous fixes already delivered through Windows Update.
WinGuggle is a small application that can Set, Change and Backup your Original Equipment Manufacturer’s Information. It can also get your Windows 7/Vista/XP and Office Product Key for Backup easily. How? No Installation is needed, Just unzip the archive and launch the application.
- Now includes Bitmap Browser for images available on your PC (Windows 7 and Vista are supported)
- System Summary of the most important information such as Hardware components, CPU information, Disk Drives, Audio and Video Codecs, Display Drivers and many more.
- Before installation or upgrading to a new OS, It is recommended to run WinGuggle System Summary to a separate disk like flash drives or removable drive first to archived automatically all the System Information needed and if problems occur, you can still view the previous System Information like Sound Devices and Display Drivers. Prevention is Better than Cure!
Features:
- Recover Windows 7/Vista/XP and Office Product Key (CD Key)
- Change OEM Logo and Information Completely (Windows 7, Vista and XP)
- Change Performance Information and Tools OEM Logo (Windows 7 and Vista)
- Removing OEM Logo and Support Information in Windows 7/Vista/XP
- Manual and Automatic Backup of OEM Logo and Information Settings
- Reset to Default Restores the Original Settings
Windows 7/Vista/XP
Download WinGuggle 2.1 Build 1 Revision 1 (x32/64)
Download WinGuggle 2.1 Build 1 Revision 1 (x32)
I am thoroughly enjoying Windows 7 at the moment but do find this video quite funny. Wolves! Love it!
A computer operating system is like a desk. It should be comfortable to work at; sturdy and stable; handsome to look upon, but not distracting; it should be able to store files and tools away when not in use, but keep them accessible when you need them. But above all else, an OS should get out of the way and let you get your work done. Now imagine if your desk were enormous—taking up a significant portion of the room you keep it in. To get started working requires unfoldings, knob-twistings and other complex procedures. When you finally are seated, you open a drawer on your desk to get a new pen and the drawer instantly snaps shut on you, saying “Do you really want to use that pen? It’s new and I don’t know where it came from.” Then you say, “Yes, I bought the pen and I’d like to use it. I know where it came from.” And then your desk replies, “All right, fine. Use the pen, but before you do, I want to make sure that I’ve expressed my reservations about that pen. It’s a fountain pen and those have been known to explode and shoot ink all over the place. You’ve been warned.”
It sounds silly, but that’s exactly the problem with Windows Vista, a big, creeping, cumbersome embarrassment for Microsoft the past few years. The worst part is that Vista was an honest attempt to deal with the consequences of the success of Microsoft’s Windows XP’. The ubiquity of Windows has made it a frequent target of cyber attackers and criminals, and the reviled User Account Control was intended to create a barrier so no program could install itself on your computer without your consent. The world got more dangerous, so Windows got more protective. The slow boot time and bloated size of Windows were consequences of the system’s need to be a photo viewer, media player, e-mail client and movie editor. And because, unlike Apple’s Macintosh OS, Windows is built to support thousands of potential computers with millions of potential peripherals, it must have generic support for most of those things built in.
InformationWeek – Microsoft is offering the Home Premium version of its new Windows 7 operating system to college students for just $30. The OS usually sells for $119.
In order to qualify, students must enter their college or university e-mail address into a special Web site that Microsoft has established in partnership with distributor Digital River for the promotion.
Microsoft said it also may require proof of enrollment, but it was not immediately clear how rigidly the software maker plans to enforce the policy.
The Web site also features a link to Microsoft’s online Upgrade Advisor, which students can use to verify that their PCs are capable of running Windows 7.
What’s not known is whether scholastic IT departments will support Windows 7 when it debuts on Oct. 22nd. Many held off supporting Windows Vista when it debuted in early 2007 due to concerns about application compatibility.
Earlier this week, Microsoft said it plans to release a set of tools in late October designed to help organizations, including academic institutions, deploy Windows 7.
Reuters - Panda Security, the Cloud Security Company, today announced that PandaLabs, the company’s laboratory for detecting and analyzing malware, has launched a beta version of its Panda 2010 security solutions to be compatible with the Windows 7 beta. Users who have installed the beta version of the new Microsoft operating system will benefit from the best protection against malware. Consumers can download it free from http://www.pandasecurity.com/windows7. The general release version will be available as soon as the new operating system is launched on October 22.
Panda’s 2010 solutions use Collective Intelligence, the company’s exclusive cloud-computing technology, to leverage the knowledge gathered from the community of millions of Panda users around the world. Each new file received is classified automatically within six minutes. The Collective Intelligence servers automatically classify more than 50,000 new malware samples every day. These technologies correlate information on malware received from each computer to continuously improve the protection level for the worldwide community of users. In addition, Panda’s 2010 solutions have perpetual, real-time contact with this vast knowledge base, guaranteeing users the fastest response against new malware that appears every day.
The best that users can hope for is a 1 hour and 24 minute process, said Chris Hernandez, who works in the Windows deployment team, in a company blog published Friday.
So-called “clean” installs, where the user overwrites an existing edition of Windows to end up with the newest version of the operatiing system, but no former data or applications, take less time: from 27 to 46 minutes.
Hernandez said the in-place upgrade times were obtained from lab machines in three different configurations — labeled low, mid-range and high-end — with three simulated users: a medium user, a heavy user and a super user. The profiles differed in the amount of data and the number of applications that were on the PC before the upgrade to Windows 7.
Microsoft made the change in Windows 7 earlier this year to stop the spread of the infamous Conficker worm, which was taking advantage of the functionality to silently jump from PC to PC. With the change, Windows will no longer display the AutoRun task in the AutoPlay dialog except for removable optical media such as CDs and DVDs.
The functionality was made available for XP, Vista and Windows Server 2003 and 2008 on Aug. 25. Information on how to download the updates can be found here.
The decision to make the change followed the well-publicized growth of malware spreading via USB devices during the past couple of years. In fact, a report by Symantec (PDF) found that self-copying to removable media was among the most common means of malware propagation in the second half of 2007.
“McAfee expects increased attacks involving USB sticks and flash-memory devices used in cameras, picture frames, and other consumer electronics,” Dave Marcus, director of security research at McAfee Avert Labs, blogged in January. “This trend will continue due to the almost unregulated use of flash storage across enterprise environments as well as their popularity among consumers.”