Microsoft has been receiving complaints from a number of their partners that it is a pain to downgrade a system from Vista to XP should a client desire the XP option, that pain is about to go away for Microsoft’s 170 “gold” (top-tier) OEM partners.  Everyone else that’s lower on the food chain can just wait, including individual consumers.

Consumers haven’t exactly been clamoring to get their hands on Vista, unless it just happened to come with a computer purchase. Those upgrading their own systems to Vista are few and far between. Microsoft has had, at best, a lukewarm response to the Vista family discount program which will now be coming to an end.

Here we are once again, with Microsoft saying one thing and analysts saying another. Microsoft would like us all to believe that the PC market is growing because of Vista, because people want the latest and so-called “best” operating system. That’s not the case, at all.

Microsoft is obviously trying to put Vista in a good light, after some negative press about it, the company could certainly use it. Isn’t Microsoft aware of the saying “there is no such thing as bad press,” maybe someone should inform their PR department. What else would a company with deep pockets do but pay some top bloggers to promote Vista.

Trend Micro, a security software provider, announced the released of two security enhancement packages, the Trend Micro Firewall Booster and Trend Micro Pre-Startup Scan for Windows Vista users running Trend Micro Internet Security.

Which company is more evil than the other? Sure Google is a great search engine but they aren’t as nice as they used to be, it’s like watching The Republic turn into The Empire. At any rate, Microsoft is asking a federal judge not to allow Google to be part of the 2002 antitrust case. If allowed, Google would be the 20^th plaintiff.

People are going to use Windows and they are going to use other Microsoft products, it’s just one of the facts we all accept when we are born. That does not mean we have to accept any data that comes out of Redmond. Microsoft claims that Vista is the best selling OS since the beginning of time. Retailers and analysts don’t see it as a success at all. More likely than not, it’s somewhere in between.

Shadowrun, one of the first computer games to take advantage of the “Games for Windows Live” service that offers cross-platform matches between Windows Vista and Xbox 360 gamers, has been reportedly cracked for Windows XP system by a hacking group Razor1911.

Microsoft doesn’t want to share much information with anyone these days. After a government ruling that sided with Google, Microsoft was supposed to provide a beta of Vista SP1 before the end of this year.

The Windows Vista team has released a demo video about Certified for Windows Vista Software to show how easy and seamless it is to install a Certified for Windows Vista software application.

It should come as no surprise that Microsoft doesn’t want anyone working on its older operating systems, trying to revive them and then making the whole thing available for free download. That was the idea behind the Longhorn Reloaded project which has received cease and desist orders straight from Redmond.

Earlier this week, Microsoft announced that it planned to reverse its earlier policy barring  the use of Vista Home and Home Premium editions under virtualization on the Mac. However, the company has now decided to keep things as they are.

Microsoft is touting Vista as being more secure than XP but its own data shows the contrary to be true. Windows Vista has more security holes left open than Windows XP does. Six months after Vista released, Microsoft has left more publicly announced Vista security holes and bugs unpatched than Windows XP had during the same time period.

Stephenson Harwood, an international law firm has decided to keep using Windows XP on its computers rather than upgrade to Windows Vista. The firm decided this was best in order to maintain compatibility with its existing suite of applications.

Microsoft does not like talking about release dates for its service pack release schedule for Vista or XP. Vista Service Pack 1 has been rumored to be out this year and Windows XP Service Pack 3 is still slated for release at some point next year. It may not be willing to discuss XP SP3 but the Department of Justice has told Microsoft that it will release Vista SP1 Beta before the end of the year, “or else.”