Microsoft Calls Do-Over For Vista
“We broke a lot of things. We know that, and we know it caused you a lot of pain.” So Brad Brooks, VP of Windows Vista consumer marketing, fessed up at Microsoft’s annual Worldwide Partner Conference, acknowledging that the company messed up the Vista launch and wants to try again.
To do that, Microsoft has launched a huge advertising campaign to counter Apple’s “I’m a Mac …. And I’m a PC” commercials. The first ads push Vista for small businesses.
Microsoft wants to reverse the widely held belief that Vista isn’t compatible with many applications and devices.
It says 77,000 devices are compatible with Vista (double the number when the OS launched) and 99% of major business apps. Two new Web sites, Windows Vista Small Business Assurance and the Windows Vista Compatible Center, are aimed at changing these perceptions. Microsoft is offering free Vista technical phone support through October 31 for Small businesses that buy the OS by September. 30.
Microsoft also intends to talk up Vista’s upgraded security, including features like Bitlocker Encryption Microsoft says Vista had fewer than half of the security vulnerabilities that Windows XP had in its first year.

-J. Nicholas Hoover

Microsoft Pledges Windows XP Support Through 2014

Microsoft may have little choice but to support XP for an extended period since most of its business customers have not upgraded to Windows Vista.

In an unprecedented move, Microsoft (NSDQ: MSFT) has committed to providing support services for its soon to be retired Windows XP through 2014 — a full 13 years after the operating system was originally released.
In a letter sent to customers this week, Microsoft senior VP Bill Veghte said the software maker will provide security patches “and other critical updates” for Windows XP until April, 2014.
That may be, but Microsoft normally terminates support for an OS within ten years of its release — at the latest. For instance, it plans to end support for Windows 2000 in 2010.
Microsoft may have little choice but to support Windows XP for an extended period, given that the majority of its large business customers have not upgraded their personal computers and laptops to the newer, Windows Vista operating system.
Many companies have balked at Vista’s cost, resource requirements, and lack of compatibility with older applications.
Microsoft released Vista in January of last year. But the company has apparently accepted the fact that many of its largest customers will skip Vista altogether and will continue using XP at least until Windows 7 becomes available three years from now, and possibly longer.
In addition to supporting XP through 2014, Microsoft is now actively promoting a program that allows customers to downgrade Vista systems to XP through a loophole in the company’s licensing terms. Microsoft’s software license allows customers who purchase a copy of Windows to install and run a previous version of the OS at no additional cost.
“It’s true that we will stop selling Windows XP as a retail packaged product and stop licensing it directly to major PC manufacturers [after June 30],” wrote Veghte. “But customers who still need Windows XP will be able to get it,” he said.
Beyond the downgrade program, Microsoft will continue to make Windows XP available to manufacturers of low-cost PCs incapable of running Vista through June 2010. Low cost PCs, like the Asus Eee PC, are gaining popularity in fast growing emerging markets like India and China.
Without continued access XP, manufacturers of such systems would be forced to offer them with the rival Linux OS on board — a situation Microsoft is hoping to preempt.

- By Paul McDougall

I spoke with three customers today who all had the same questions about their IT setup and plans for the rest of the year. Most of our customers are concerned about the same things, so here are the four points they asked about. If you want, you can use this as a checklist for budgeting your own expenses for the rest of 2008:

1. Anti-virus needs to be up to be updated, and the licenses can expire! If you’re not getting regular updates for your anti-virus program, then you might as well not have one at all. Remember that if the license for your anti-virus program has expired, you’re probably not getting updates.
2. Backing up your crucial data is extremely important. Ask yourself how much it would cost to rebuild your business if you lost the HR data, financial records, customer lists, etc. stored on your machine. Consider backing up your data within your office, or look into an off-site solution for a more managed solution.
3. If you’re shopping for a phone solution, look into bundling it with a high-speed internet provider. You can save money, get additional features, and worry about just one bill when you combine services.
4. Maintenance programs become more and more important as a business grows. If you’re anticipating a growth year for your business, take a moment to compare the costs of a maintenance schedule against a “patch and fix” solution. We’re seeing a dramatic upturn in cost-effectiveness as companies pass the critical growth point.

Outlook users will be familiar with the PST file extension. This is a Microsoft Outlook Storage file, where all your email information, as well as your calendars and contacts are stored. In older versions of Outlook (Outlook 97 through Outlook 2000) the PST file was encoded using an ANSI text format which only allowed a maximum size of 1.9 GB.
If this size limit was reached, mail retrieval and even deletion of mail items became difficult if not impossible. In newer version of Outlook (Outlook 2003 and 2007 currently) support increased mail capacity defaulted to 20 GB using a new encoding process known as Unicode. The Archive folder however, still uses the older format, but this issue has been corrected since Service Pack 1.

Outlook users that have an Exchange server have the option of using a local PST file in addition to an OST file. This file allows you to keep an offline copy of your email stored on your local computer (so you can get to it when the server is not available) but keeps the mail on the server, which allows for greater security as well as retrieval using Outlook Web Access (OWA), a way to remotely view your mail using a standard web browser.
The OST file also has the file limitation of 1.9GB. However, this restriction can be lifted with the appropriate patches installed on the Exchange Server

Since both file types store email, they can be backed up on a regular basis simply by copying them to the server or a shared location on a daily or weekly basis.
While it is possible to store and access them from the server or shared location, this is not supported by Microsoft and will lead to trouble later on since the file requires quick read/write response times.

Please feel free to post any comments or suggestion you may have regarding this information. If you do have any questions regarding this or other computer issues, please feel free to contact us at 817-577-2861, or you can send us email at contact@userfriend.com

The purpose of the BCC: and CC: fields in most email clients like Outlook, Outlook Express, and Microsoft Mail is to allow the sender to include multiple receipt addresses on a single email. This is particularly useful when you want to send one email to more than one recipient.

So what’s the difference between BCC: and CC:?

BCC: stands for “Blind Carbon Copy” meaning that the individuals receiving your email will not be able to tell who else has received the message. This is useful when you want to send an email communication to multiple recipients, but you don’t want them to be able to communicate with each other.

With CC: “Carbon Copy”, all of the recipients will have access to the other recipients’ addresses. This is useful if you are communicating with multiple individuals and want them all to be able to respond and communicate as a group.

When should I use BCC:?
Use Blind Carbon Copy messages for messages where you don’t want the recipient to know who else is receiving this message. Use it when sending messages to your client database, or when your recipients have no reason to know who else is receiving the message.

When should I use CC:?
Use Carbon Copy when your recipients might want to communicate with each other as a group. They will be able to use the “Reply All” feature found in most email programs to issue a response to the entire mailing list.

Why does this matter?
At User Friendly, we’ve seen instances where clients have sent a bulk email to their entire contacts list using CC: instead of BCC: and essentially sent their entire address book to potential competitors and current customers.

WE’VE MOVED!!
User Friendly Computer Consultants has moved to 124 Grapevine Hwy. Ste D in Hurst, Texas 76054.
Our new location features a convenient drop off location for your ailing computers with ample parking and two service centers to repair and return your equipment to you promptly.

Please stop by, we would love to show you our new facility and help keep your computers in top condition.

After years of faithful service, we’ve retired our old web site and replaced it with a new look and some new features! Please browse around to see what we’ve added, and let us know what you think.