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Today's guests reveal two opposing views on the Department of Justice's settlement in the historic antitrust case against Microsoft.

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Microsoft and the Justice Department on Friday settled their acrimonious antitrust battle, an agreement that many called a victory for Microsoft and that could run into resistance from state attorneys general. The proposed deal would impose relatively mild restrictions on the software maker compared with earlier rulings in the 3-year-old case, focusing largely on tweaking Microsoft's competitive behavior. Among other provisions, the company promised to refrain from contracts and related activities that compel other companies to do its bidding. The Windows operating system, at the heart of a court ruling that branded Microsoft a monopolist, would emerge largely unchanged, and Windows XP--once a focal point of further proceedings--will be free of any significant restrictions.

Thanks to NeoWin! Microsoft was none too pleased with build 0121 of Messenger, so for the second time since its release on October 25th, EVERYONE, update your Messengers! I hope, but do not expect these issues to be solved

• May I shut down Messenger whenever I want to bloody do it? - FIXED!
• Where is my contact list, you know the one from the systray?
• Why the hell are half of my messages not received by the person I am trying to "communicate" with?

Download New Windows Messenger 4.5.0125

Using Windows XP Visual Styles and PrintWindow in Windows Applications
This article develops an augmented AltTab application, TaskSwitcher, as a framework for demonstrating how the new visual styles of Windows XP, and PrintWindow, can be used in Windows applications. Also discussed is the .manifest file to make old applications use the comctl32.dll v6 one! Also download the sample application, TaskSwitcher.

Background Intelligent Transfer Service version 1.0
Microsoft® Background Intelligent Transfer Service (BITS) provides the documentation and samples necessary to write client applications that transfer files between a client and server, and monitors jobs within the transfer queue.

New Graphical Interface: Enhance Your Programs with New Windows XP Shell Features
The Windows XP shell introduces many new features that both users and developers are sure to welcome. There are more shell registry settings available to the user and developer, a facility for customizing infotips, and infotip shell extensions. In addition, folder views can be customized. This article covers these shell changes and includes a discussion of a number of other Windows XP additions. These include fast user switching, which lets users log on and off quickly, and AutoPlay support for a variety of devices and file types not previously supported.

MP3 Creation Pack for Microsoft Windows XP Acceptance Criteria Specification
This is intended for both internal and external codec developers. It describes the criteria that the Microsoft Windows Media Player for Windows XP requires for codecs to be hosted by the Player on the Copy Music tab of the Options dialog accessible from the Tools menu. Issues include conformance to Windows Driver Development Kit guidelines, installation issues such as privacy considerations and required registry keys, and requirements for quality, compatibility, and security.

Windows Media Player Printing Support for Windows XP
This is intended for independent software vendors (ISVs) that would like to enable label printing for Microsoft Windows Media Player for Microsoft Windows XP.

InfoWorld stood alone this week, declaring that Windows XP significantly underperformed Windows 2000 and 9x in its test. But the controversial InfoWorld results don't just fly in the face of Microsoft's published results and actual real world use: They fly in the face of every single independent performance test that's been performed on Windows XP so far. One gets the idea that... nah... they were actually trying to make Windows XP lose. Don't believe me? Consider this: XP has been tested, independently of Microsoft, by the following organizations: CNET/ZDNET, eTesting Labs, eWeek, PC Magazine, and PC World. To a one, each of these independent labs came to the same conclusion: Windows XP meets or exceeds the performance of Windows 2000 and 9x. Every time. The InfoWorld results also fly in the face of real world XP use, which already includes hundreds of thousands of beta testers, tens of thousands of IT professionals and developers, and hundreds of thousands of enterprise customers. " Microsoft has not received any indications that users are experiencing reduced performance compared with Windows 2000," a company spokesperson said. "We have had extensive feedback that Windows XP is better performing than Windows 9x." Go figure. And yet, you just know that every anti-Microsoft site on the planet is going to run with the InfoWorld story, and not any of the other ones. Ain't life grand?

Microsoft and the Justice Department are expected to deliver a proposed settlement on Friday to the federal judge overseeing the landmark antitrust case. The two parties and 18 states will update U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly on settlement talks during a 6 a.m. PT status hearing. Kollar-Kotelly had set a Friday deadline for reaching a settlement. The states are expected to ask for more time to review the proposed settlement, said sources familiar with the matter. Last week, the states hired Brendan Sullivan, with the law firm of Williams & Connolly here, to lead their portion of the case. He will make the request on behalf of the states. The states not signing off on the settlement proposal could be a significant turning point in the case. The Justice Department and Microsoft appear to have largely worked out the tentative agreement without the states, said sources familiar with the matter.

Despite negative economic news, the markets added gains after reports that Microsoft is nearing a settlement with the government. The Nasdaq composite index was up 56.10, more than 3 percent, at 1,746.30, and the Dow Jones industrial average rose 188.76 points, more than 2 percent, to 9,263.90. The Justice Department and a group of state attorneys general met to discuss the Microsoft case this week. The proposed deal would allow computer manufacturers to load non-Microsoft software on their machines and give software companies more access to the Windows code. The news sent Microsoft's stock up $3.69, or more than 6 percent, to $61.84 as investors pondered what could turn out to be the completion of the dispute. But the end may not quite be in sight: Experts cautioned that this week's settlement discussions could collapse at any time, and the states are reportedly not entirely happy with the proposed deal.

U.S. Justice Department officials met throughout the day on Thursday with state attorneys general in the Microsoft Corp.  antitrust case, hoping to win their support for a settlement deal ahead of Friday's court-imposed deadline. In the wake of Thursday's talks, the states may ask a federal judge to extend Friday's deadline for settling the landmark case while they consider whether to go along with the settlement deal reached be Microsoft and the Justice Department, a source close to the negotiations said. It's still not clear exactly how long an extension the states may request, the source said.

The Windows XP kernel includes a number of improvements over Windows 2000 that promote better scalability and overall performance. This article covers these changes and explains how they improve startup time, increase registry size limits, and promote more efficient disk partitioning. Windows XP provides support for 64-bit processors, which is covered here along with a discussion of how side-by-side assemblies end DLL Hell. Also new in the Windows XP kernel is a facility that will roll back driver installations to the Last Known Good state of the registry, making driver installation safer. Other topics include the new volume shadow copy facility, which provides for more accurate backups and improvements in remote debugging.  (Thanks to ActiveWin for link)

New Application in the Office Family Puts Powerful, Easy-to-Use Data Analysis Tools In the Hands of Knowledge Workers

Microsoft Corp. today announced availability of Microsoft Data Analyzer, the latest product in the Microsoft Office family, which offers innovative graphical analysis and data visualization capabilities that will enable knowledge workers to rapidly identify new business opportunities, trends and issues. Data Analyzer adds rich visualization and analysis capabilities to Microsoft's current business intelligence offering of SQL Server 2000 Analysis Services and Office XP, which provides Excel 2002, Office Web Components and digital dashboards.