The US department of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) is going to stick with Windows XP for another three years, however, at the same time its computers are being upgraded to support Vista.

More than seven months since early copies of Windows Vista reached businesses and organizations, Microsoft finds that a significant number of enterprises are still not using Vista. A large number are opting to wait for the release of SP1, while a few others are either starting to evaluate the OS or are currently deploying it.

There are those that say Vista is riddled with problems, crashes and all sorts of other ills even 9 months after it’s initial release.  The problem is people aren’t upgrading their hardware as well, if anything, Vista likes new hardware.

New beta versions of Vista SP1 labelled “Vista updates installer 32bit-Pre-sp1-Aug25th-2007″ and “Vista 64bit (x64)Updates installer sp1 preview August 24th 2007″ have leaked onto BitTorrent sites, according to Channel Insider.

Remember the days when “the customer was always right.”  I do, just barely, I came into the world when this strategy was beginning to wane.  Microsoft has adopted just the opposite of this and applied it to Vista and Office 2007 (and 2003).  The WGA failure over the weekend left many legitimate users scratching their head.

Every user account in Windows Vista is a “standard” account by default without administrator privileges.  Normally in Vista a password is required to elevate access to the administrator level which some programs require in order to function properly, but in the business world this isn’t practical.  Most users in a work environment can’t have administrator access thus breaking some programs.  Privilege Manager manager fixes this problem and has been given Microsoft’s blessing.

Windows Vista has some quirks, and now particularly annoying quirk has emerged. Playing music apparently causes Vista to severely degrade its network performance. What’s odd is that even if you pause the setting of the audio, the network speed degradation still seems to continue.

By releasing DirectX 10 exclusively for Vista to lure gamers into adopting its latest OS, Microsoft has committed a serious marketing mistake, according to the head of Valve Software.

Users of both the Windows XP and Vista operating systems have come to know fully the problems when the WGA (Windows Genuine Advantage) system experiences a problem.  The online authentication systems to activate copies of Vista and XP is for all intents and purposes offline, a fix will be in place by Tuesday.  Those with new installations of Vista or XP are advised to hold off on activating their copies. [UPDATE:] According to ComputerWorld, the WGA Servers are functioning properly again, as of Saturday, August 25, 3pm (eastern US time) normal functionality resumed. So, go ahead, see if that copy of Vista (or XP) will come to its senses and validate.

There are many things in Windows Vista, mundane things that require UAC authorization, so much so that many individuals have just turned that feature off in the first place.  But businesses do not have that luxury, nor do they have the luxury of leaving the tyrant that is UAC on.  Privilege Manager will solve those problems.

Microsoft has issued a hotfix for a wireless networking flaw in Windows Vista.

As you may recall, outgoing PC Magazine editor Jim Louderback had almost nothing good to say about Vista in his most recent column.  Just about everyone I know that has used Vista is going to stick with it and Information Week poses the reasons why that not so strangely, I agree with.

Microsoft has just announced that Windows Home Server will be shipping August 27 for the US only but is already selling it in other countries to system builders.  There is also limited availability in retail stores and online stores are more than happy to sell you an OEM copy early.

Departing PC Magazine editor-in-chief, Jim Louderback chose to express his disappointment with Windows Vista as he passed the torch to Lance Ulanoff, new editor-in-chief.  

My brief period of using a Mac made me think something was just “off” about the font rendering but I couldn’t quite place my finger on it.  Things were harder to read in OSX across the board and now I’m glad to say this was not just in my head.