Dell, Intel and their various partners have all announced initiatives and new technologies aimed at eliminating and/or reducing the need for an OS all together.  The secret, according to these companies, lies in mobility technology, and apparently cutting out Microsoft all together.

With the full details of Microsoft’s latest monthly update now available, it’s now emerged that it included two alterations to the Windows Registry designed to fix problems caused by third-party programs. Meanwhile there’s some mystery over a planned fix to Windows Media Player which was pulled from the update.

Microsoft has launched an official blog for the engineering side of Windows 7. And it has promised to reveal more details about the operating system at two conferences in October.

A White House department has issued advice to help government agencies meet federal guidelines on security in both XP and Vista. Surprisingly, though, the guidelines seem to have been relaxed this year.

A new piece of analysis estimates 46% of new computers shipped with Vista between April and June. That will likely become a majority this quarter – though it’s still unclear exactly how many copies of Vista are actually in regular use.

The researchers who discovered a fundamental flaw in Vista’s security set-up have spoken out to clarify that “the sky is not falling”. And they’ve pointed out that XP is actually less secure.

Some people, like myself, might not know that there’s a better way to transfer CDs and DVDs across the internet, rather than the traditional method of burning ISO images.  By using some free software, which acts as a virtual drive on your PC, you can mount an ISO image to run much faster and efficiently. 

The Microsoft/NBC deal for online Olympic coverage is not getting publicity as favourable as planned. The International Herald Tribune has criticised the way viewers are forced to install the Silverlight software to use the service.

You may already have all the PC or Mac you need, but the lure of a Media Center PC always draws you in.  What to do?  Use some free software and some slight hardware changes to transform practically any machine into a full-functioning Media Center.  It may be easier than you think.

The internet raises undeniable privacy concerns on several fronts, from malware and spyware to trojan horses and key loggers, no one is truly safe from the harm we put ourselves in while surfing the net.  Some free downloads for both XP and Vista can protect you and your computer from such harm, if you know where to find them that is.

Microsoft is to release fixes for a dozen serious vulnerabilities next Tuesday, seven of them ranked critical. But the firm has also announced a three-stage process to reducing the effects of future vulnerabilities.

Two security researchers claim they’ve found a foolproof way to exploit a basic security flaw in the way Vista operates.

Samsung is in talks with Microsoft to find a solution to the problem of solid state drives (SSDs) not working as effectively as they should in Vista.

Seems Vista laced with 64-bit technology is making more headway than previously thought.  Now that PC manufacturers are opting to pre-install it over the 32-bit version, adoption numbers are actually on the rise.  Consumers with high-memory demands and gaming requirements appreciate the added power boost.

The slow enterprise adoption for Vista has created an opportunity for competing business-level OSs to shine.  Solutions for IBM and Linux-based systems will start to be pre-loaded on packaged PC sales along with Linux-based word processing and collaboration tools.  Or, so they hope.  Their idea is to show enterprise that there are suitable alternatives to Windows.  Can they do it?