Soft District

Do you expect Vista's first service pack? I am sure a lot of people do, but it's not here for everyone just yet. The good part is that Microsoft released a bunch of updates to Vista today, so the Vista SP1 is actually here, but since Microsoft said some programs won't run on it, I guess it's not the best thing to choose for some people...


To be honest, I wasn't expecting such a thing. After all the problems with Vista so far, SP1 is going to CAUSE problems, and not remove them? What are they trying to do? Cut the tree they're in? I know, I know, there are "just a few" programs that work in Vista and won't work in Vista SP1, but WHY?

While most updates released before SP1 solved various issues, and - basically- they should be independent, it seems SP1 won't install without applying some older updates, first of all. The problem appears with the fact that - as expected - Microsoft claims SP1 improves "reliability, security and performance", but what's the price?

For example, SP1 will block, from "reliability reasons", applications such as BitDefender Antivirus and Internet Security, version 10, two versions of Jiangmin KV Antivirus software and Check Point Technologies' Zone Alarm Security Suite, while other programs may encounter problems, like The New York Times Reader.

Voices all over the Web claim that this major update finally managed to speed up Vista, but there are others that don't agree, so I ask you: did you update yet? How does it feel?

To be honest, I can't find the courage to make the big step yet...but anyway, let's celebrate - good or bad, Vista SP1 is, finally, here! For now, only English, French, Spanish, German and Japanese Vista versions have the service pack ready, but others will follow in mid-April, so I guess we'll get back to this topic pretty soon...

Do you remember the petition to save Windows XP? If you missed all the news related to it so far, then it's my pleasure to bring it on your computers' displays once more, because I think it deserves your attention. Of course, if you don't agree with me, feel free to drop your comments below, but until we get there, let's see what's new first, shall we?


To be honest, I didn't have any special problems with Vista - it works fine, all my drivers are up to date (well, I had some problems with an older network card, but I managed to solve them my own way - read here, and I also bumped into the ISATAP adapter bug), I never saw the BSOD(to be honest, every time I saw it in XP, it was because of faulty hardware), but...I don't like the look and feel of Vista, and the fact that its memory management improvements are not supported by a new file system.

Being given the above, I still consider Windows XP Professional the OS to work with most of the time, and I am sure that a lot of office-Internet home users don't really need Vista (it depends on the user's experience a lot, as well as on its personal taste). Anyway, this is not a "Vista vs. XP" article - the problem is that Microsoft wants to discontinue Windows XP this summer, and a lot of people go against this. How many?

According to latest reports, there are over 100,000 signatures so far, but Microsoft doesn't really care about those yet. In the end, it's not about going to Linux or Mac, it's simply the fact that Windows XP, despite its age, remains the best choice for a lot of users, and Microsoft should listen to their needs.

I know it's much easier to bundle Vista with new systems, and instantly get a few million users without any big effort, but how many of those users are really satisfied with their Vista computers?

I really hope that next time I get to write about this subject, Microsoft will take that petition seriously, and maybe think better about the fact that people signing it are usually those that can lead at least a few others to Microsoft's operating systems, or away from them...

When we were talking about Macromedia Flash, I don't think many were expecting to see it become Adobe Flash. No, we may see Microsoft Flash arriving on our mobile devices... but it's not quite that way. Obviously, Adobe can't let this extremely popular technology go away, but licensing it seems like a good idea, and that's exactly what they have just done. The company that got its licensing agreement? Microsoft!


This time we're not talking about rumors, because both Microsoft and Adobe confirmed a few hours ago that the Redmon giant has licensed Adobe's software for viewing rich media content on mobile phones, so the outcome is that Microsoft will distribute Flash Lite and Reader to cell phone makers that use Windows Mobile.

Since Flash is an ubiquitous technology already, I can't help myself but wonder "Why?"... After all, Microsoft is already working hard on Silverlight, which proves to be a pretty interesting alternative to Adobe Flash, but I am sure there are details of this deal that will emerge in time.

While we're talking about a deal involving a lot of money, financial details are secret for now, and that's probably how they'll remain. The good part is that end users will get the same free programs so, for now, there's not much difference for us... or maybe am I missing something? Let me know your opinions, please!