Download Free Windows Vista Enterprise

Microsoft is offering Windows Vista Enterprise as a free download in combination with the Office 2007 Professional System.




While all editions of the Windows Vista operating system can be test driven from anywhere from a month to 120 days, this copy of Vista Enterprise is limited to only 30 days. This coincides with the Initial Grace period of the latest operating system from Microsoft.

The limitation is associated with the whole Vista Enterprise and Office 2007 professional bundle. The marriage of Microsoft's flagship products comes in the church of virtualization. The download Microsoft is providing is in fact nothing more than a pre-configured Virtual Hard disk. The Microsoft Office 2007 Professional VHD is essentially an installation of Windows Vista Enterprise with Office 2007 Professional deployed on top of the platform.

This is not the first time that Microsoft has made the bundle available for download, but the VHD was updated on November 5. "This VHD contains both the 30 day edition of Windows Vista Enterprise Edition and an evaluation of Office 2007 Professional which includes Publisher, Excel, Outlook, Outlook, PowerPoint, Access, and Word. See how with these new platforms can simplify how people work together, find information and improve business insight, help protect and manage content, and reduce IT costs and improve security. Test drive today to experience how Windows Vista and Office 2007 work better together", Microsoft informed.

All other SKUs of Windows Vista can have their Initial Grace period prolonged up two 120 days via the slmgr -rearm command. The same is not valid for the Enterprise edition of the operating system, which comes to the table with an entirely different activation mechanism. The various editions of the Office 2007 System are also available as stand-alone downloads 60 days trial versions.

Microsoft Office 2007 Professional VHD weighs in at a maximum of 2678.9 MB, coming with no less than 12 archives (238.4 MB each with one exception) and is available for download via this link.

Leopard and Vista - More alike than you think?

When Vista was released the chorus of complaints and criticisms quickly grew from a low hum to a near deafening roar. A little more than a week since Apple released Leopard and that low hum of discontent has already been amplified to the point where it’s starting to hurt my ears.

Within weeks of Microsoft unleashing Vista on the buying public the issues facing those making the switch from XP to Vista were clear and you could sum them up in a few bullet points:

* UAC too intrusive
* Too many bugs
* System slow-downs
* Too many compatibility casualties
* Glitchy interface
* Baked-in vulnerabilities
* Install buggy and prone to crashing
* Systems that were rock-solid under the XP now falling over regularly

Now that Leopard has been in the hands of users for a little under ten days and you can draw up a similar list for Apple’s latest OS:

* Too many bugs
* System slow-downs
* Too many compatibility casualties
* Glitchy interface
* Baked-in vulnerabilities
* Install buggy and prone to crashing
* Systems that were rock-solid under the Tiger now falling over regularly

Dave Winer does a good job of summarizing the problems affecting Leopard:

I’ve given Leopard a chance, but it’s pretty clear, this is not a good operating system release.

I’ve been out of the Mac loop for most of the last decade, just got back in a bit over 2 years ago. I don’t know if early OS releases are generally as crappy as this one, but I wasn’t prepared for where we’re at now. If I had known, I would have waited, instead of upgrading most of my Macs to the new system.

In fact, Winer also goes on to compare Windows to Mac OS X:

Talking with a friend a few days ago, he asked what I thought of Leopard. He had installed the new version, like me, the first day it came out. “I’m not liking it,” I said. He said something that was simple, profound and revealing: “It’s like Windows.” It is. It’s that unpleasant to use. It disappears for long periods of time. Systems that didn’t used to crash now crash regularly. On one system three hard disks were rendered unusable, and I lost a couple of full days restoring them (luckily I had good backups). The user interface is quirky. The new networking interface is a big step backward. The firewall moved and lost features! That’s simply never done, you don’t charge customers to remove features, esp security features. I think Apple doesn’t understand how many people depend seriously on their Macs.

I’m guessing that the root cause for these problems echoes Vista too - a rush to get the OS out of the door. It makes me sad to say it but we as consumers are now having to put up with buying far too many flawed products because companies are rushing to get products out to market and leaving us (the poor saps stuck with the defective product) to road test it properly, I’ll bet that the road to fixes for these problems will be as long and rocky as the one for Vista. Something else that the two operating systems will have in common.

Leopard’s not generating good press for Apple at the moment (actually, when you stop and thing about it for a moment, not much is generating good press for Apple lately) and it might help is affected users were given a timetable of when to expect robust fixes to come down the tubes.

The strange thing is that I’m quite happy with my Mac and Leopard. I’m guessing that this is because I’m still near the bottom of the Mac OS X learning curve and not pushing the OS too hard.

Source

Windows 7, to Take Networking Up a Notch

Microsoft has yet to define Windows 7 (Seven), the successor of Window Vista, when it was announced that it planned to ship the operating system in mid 2010, but the next Windows platform is slowly starting to take contour.

Back in mid 2007, when Msft first started to talk Windows 7, there were approximations made that the reason why Microsoft was failing to provide any palpable details about its next operating system was the fact that the product was still yet to take shape.

Now Msft is promising that while Windows Vista has evolved wireless networking in comparison to Windows XP, Windows 7 will literally blow your mind.

Vista was about making Wi-Fi connections as seamless, manageable and secure as wired networks. The next Windows version is really about taking Wireless networking to the next level by enabling new complete end to end scenarios and experiences that are going to change how windows PCs interact with each other and other devices and nodes over a wireless network

Microsoft revealed in the details for the job of Software Development Engineer.

The Windows Networking Ecosystem Technologies team will center on a range of new development scenarios focused on building new wireless networking capabilities into Windows 7. In this context, Windows 7 will bring to the table virtualised Wireless design to permit connections to multiple networks simultaneously. On top of this, Windows 7 will enhance wireless throughput and latency for Windows to Windows wireless connections.

As a part of this work, you will be working closely on existing and in-works wireless standards such as IEEE 802.11s, 802.11k, 802.11r, 802.11w. This position will provide you the unique opportunity of working on core wireless areas as well as collaborating with several other key Windows technologies to deliver a complete functional end to end scenario. The work will be in both the Windows kernel and user space.

Personal Note: Even though I personally like Windows Vista and can vouch for the beta SP1 available for the latest public Windows Operating System on the market today, I do look forward towards Windows 7 and believe Msft will prosper in the areas they originally hoped to with Vista. I see this upsetting many 'Vista Ultimate' owners but I still rather Msft progress than sit still. Vista will still blossom as Windows XP has and still continues to, so I see this as good news myself.

Sony says the 40GB PS3 is still using 90nm chips

We've all been hearing that Sony's new 40GB PS3 featured a revised design with a 65nm Cell processor and improved cooling, but sadly it looks like those reports were in error.
A Sony spokesperson has told Heise Online that the 40GB model continues to use 90mn processors, but does feature an updated design with a lower power consumption of just 120 to 140 watts, compared to 180 to 200 watts for the older models. Sony says its still planning on moving to 65nm processors in the near future, but for now, it looks like the PS3 is 90nm across the board.

Translated Source

D-Link’s Got a New 802.11n Gaming Router

D-Link’s Xtreme N Gaming Router.

Designed for the best online gaming experience ever, the DGL-4500 is supposedly friendly with any incarnation of the 802.11 spec. According to CrunchGear, the unit promises speeds up to 300Mbps. Gamers can also choose between the 2.4 of 5GHZ band to help them slay opponents all over the world.

Other features include D-Link’s own GameFuel technology, which promises to cut interference from other programs to keep games running smoothly. There’s a also a nifty looking Network Activity Display, which allows users to check Internet, LAN, WAN and other various settings all from one screen.

The new 802.11n router is now shipping for $240USD.

More info.

Major Nelson on XBL protection, Gamerscore cheating

Due to the onslaught of phishing and other identity theft-related cases in the Xbox Live Network (XBL), Major Nelson of Microsoft reiterates the importance of guarding your account information when logging on to XBL.

Using an example of how some Halo 3 player would ask for your XBL ID and password to rank you up or find you all the skulls in the game, the Major reminds everyone not to give out their info, tempting as the supposed benefits might be. His stern reminder reads:

If that "friend" of yours decides not return your account and buys a bunch of Arcade titles and movies on your account, there is nothing we can do except cancel the account since you willingly shared your information.

Cancelled.

As in you can never get it back.

Which means... yep, you guessed it. Goodbye Gamerscore, goodbye game saves, goodbye Gamertag, goodbye Hayabusa Armor. Ouchie.

On a related note, Major Nelson also discussed the consequences of tampering your game saves. Any and all users caught messing with their Achievements and Gamerscore can have their numbers totally wiped out. All of it. And if push comes to shove, Microsoft might even ban those accounts and/or console from XBL.

What's the lesson here? Play by the rules. Earn whatever you can using legit ways. No tampering, no cheating, no problems!

More from the source.

Back to Business.

Those aware would have known (can check into my very few first posts) that I have been waiting for a few months now to begin my government assisted business course initiative which will consist of up to 13 weeks (7 weeks minimum) the aim of this all would be to have myself starting a full time business in the field I so enjoy… Computers; Building, Upgrading, Refurbishing and Servicing as well as starting an E business where I’d sell hardware PC parts online at great prices.

I’m currently in my second day as I type this and I do have a positive output towards how it is going thus far, great teachers, environment is helpful and I’m starting to look at my business structure more effectively. I do look forward to what I can put into this course and what it will give me back in the sense of my business and the decisions I make from what I’ve learned.

I will keep an update on how this all plays out as well as implementing what I learn progressively here on my blog also ;)

Keep checking my blog out for more.