WinInsider

Microsoft's new Windows XP operating system will be ready for production as early as Friday, said Chief Executive Steve Ballmer, sounding optimistic about an on-schedule launch despite the company's ongoing antitrust case. "Our job now is to get Windows XP done," Ballmer told a news conference at a technology meeting on Monday. "With a little bit of luck, we should have it ready by Friday." If Microsoft's programmers are able to ship the final code to manufacturers by Friday, that would put the software giant on track to release Windows XP as planned in October. Microsoft last week told PC manufacturers to expect final XP code around Aug. 22.

Antitrust lawyer Emmit Stanton discusses what it would take for both sides to settle in the dispute between Microsoft and the Justice Department.

C|Net Video (high-speed connection)

The bundling controversy over Windows XP has been blown "way out of proportion" by a few prominent companies that don't like Microsoft adding to its operating system technologies that compete with their applications, the company says.  Greg Sullivan, lead product manager for Windows XP, said there are thousands of developers creating applications for the Windows operating system, and the number of technologies Microsoft chooses to add to its OS is quite small in comparison.

Not everyone believes that distribution of Windows XP should be halted. Giga Information Group analyst Rob Enderle said many companies, including the major PC makers, are counting on the new OS to help boost fourth-quarter sales.

The war over DVD recording standards will escalate Monday when Hewlett-Packard unwraps the details on its first DVD drive for PCs that lets people repeatedly record on discs. The DVD-writer dvd100i, which will cost $599 when it hits store shelves in September, will be the first commercially available drive based on the DVD+RW standard. With it, consumers will be able to record video onto a disc, play it on a typical home DVD player, and then erase and record again on the same disc. HP plans to incorporate the drives into its PCs later this year.

Well, this time seems it's true. Windows XP interim build 2600 has been leaked. This is not RTM release. RTM release is expected to be 2600.1, it indicates that RTM Gold Code is few days away.

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Intel's Pentium 4 has now been shipping for roughly nine months, but it was never able to become a real mass product. Intel's initiative to offer its flagship processor at rather competitive prices might have improved the situation a little bit, but the real problem still remains Pentium 4's expensive platform. Until now, the only chipset that supports Pentium 4 is Intel's 850, which requires the unreasonably expensive RDRAM memory.

The hands-on labs that comprise the Experience Visual Studio .NET module highlight the programming features within Microsoft Visual Studio .NET. You will be introduced to C#, ASP .NET and Visual Basic .NET in a variety of ways: you will look at, run, and debug code using the Visual Studio .NET Integrated Development Environment (IDE). You will take an application in Microsoft® Visual Basic® 6.0 and migrate it to Visual Basic .NET, and then extend it with additional Visual Basic .NET programming concepts. When you finish these exercises, you will be able to identify the key new features of Visual Studio .NET and the programming elements within.

Ever sat in your chair at front of computer and shook your head and thought: It is unbelievable and unacceptable what DOJ is doing to Microsoft (followed possibly by extreme cursing). Now your voice and million of other people can be heard. Thanks to ActiveWin for brining up this link.

Here's a petition to voice the opinion of many consumers in reference to the Department of Justice case against Microsoft. The initiator of the petition, Adrian Latinak, reports "I personally feel that, as a consumer, they are not looking out for our best interest and just wasting our hard earned tax-dollars. Lets tell the DOJ how we feel, as they say they are doing this case to supposedly stop harm to US the consumer." Be sure to sign this petition!

Screening has begun for testers who wish to participate in the developmental phase of the latest service pack for Windows 2000. As per the usual, key areas being focused on by the sustained development team are setup, application compatibility, operating system reliability, and numerous security issues. There are no plans to incorporate new features into Windows, as this is solely a maintenance release. The soon to be released update marks the third installment of a service pack since Windows 2000 went gold in December of 1999.

Microsoft Personal Security Advisor will scan your system and build a customized report on items such as: missing security patches, weak passwords, Internet Explorer and Outlook Express security settings, and Office macro protection settings. For each weakness identified on your computer, MPSA provides easy to understand information on the security issue at hand, how to fix it, and links to additional information about the issue. Once you correct a reported deficiency, you can run the scan again and see the results of the change. Running MPSA on a regular basis will help ensure that your system stays up to date and secure.