A gang of 11 people has been convicted of pirating Microsoft products in China, with some receiving jail terms up to six-and-a-half years. That’s the longest such sentence ever handed down in a country with a reputation for being soft of copyright infringement.

The beta release of Windows 7 isn’t just a hit with professional reviewers. It’s also getting a strong response among ordinary users – albeit ones who don’t represent Microsoft’s customer base.

The British Navy is now using a specially modified version of Windows XP on board its fleet of nuclear submarines. Officials say they went with the commercial operating system to cut maintenance costs.

Improving upon Vista would not be a hard task even for the most incompetent of programmers but Microsoft has done more than that with Windows 7.  If the first looks are to be believed the first beta of Windows 7 could be released to the masses right now.

It should come as no surprise that anyone who has been following the saga of Windows 7 is interested to know what versions of it will be available.  Microsoft has been silent about this issue, but now a small tidbit of information has come to light.

As we finished part 2 of this recap, Microsoft had just paid Jerry Seinfeld $10 million in an attempt to boost the company’s status. It was to be far from a critical success.

In part 1 we covered the launch of Vista’s first service pack, the impending withdrawal of XP and the lukewarm reception of Vista among corporate users. In this part we pick up the story in May with a surprising adoption of XP.

Windows 7 is all set to be the savior of Microsoft if the early versions are any indication.  We should all prepare to bid Vista a fond farewell and prepare to welcome Windows 7.

2008 has been the year XP refused to die, Vista continued to cause controversy and Windows 7 made its first public appearance. Now we look back at the ups and downs of the world’s dominant operating system.

A senior Microsoft security expert says the company failed to spot the recent Internet Explorer bug because staff weren’t trained to spot that particular type of problem. That’s cold comfort to those who’ve risked infection from 10,000 Web sites which could exploit the problem.

It appears Windows XP really will not die. Microsoft has extended its retirement date yet again, though this time there is a notable difference.

Intel has a series of ‘pre-production’ drivers for its graphics chipsets in Windows 7. It’s a clear attempt to avoid the incompatibility problems which plagues Vista.

The netbook market may become yet another boost to the ‘XP won’t die’ phenomenon. Four leading producers say the system is proving far more popular then expected, at the notable expense of Linux.

It’s fairly obvious that Vista has been a flop and users as well as industry professionals have made Microsoft well aware of this fact.  There is almost no compelling reason for the average user or business to put money into upgrading to Vista.  Some of these people are best advised to wait anyway because Windows 7 promises to be “Vista done right.”

Microsoft is today issuing an emergency patch for the Internet Explorer bug which has reportedly infected 2 million computers. While potentially embarrassing to be forced into such a move, it’s considerably better than letting the problem continue to be exploited.