AWS

As expected, Microsoft is making a new beta of its Windows Live Essentials 2011 (known currently as “Wave 4″) available for download on Tuesday, August 17. View the full article

Microsoft is splitting the Small Business Server product line in half, and one of those products, codenamed "Aurora," provides a cross-premise solution that combines the best of on-premise Windows Home Server services with the cloud. View the full article

Microsoft is reconfirming, on the eve of GamesCon 2010, that it is making sure the Windows Phone 7 platform will be a game-centric one. View the full article

Microsoft volume-license customers and partners are voicing concerns — and more — about the fact the company’s Volume Licensing Service Center (VLSC) has been down for a few days with little explanation. View the full article

It’s not just a new preview build of Windows Home Server Vail that is going to testers this month. The promised test builds of Microsoft’s “Aurora” small-business server also is available for download by anyone who wants to kick its tires. View the full article

Microsoft has released an updated preview build of its Windows Home Server “Vail” product to selected testers. View the full article

Windows Azure Appliances aren’t the only ways for Microsoft customers to create private clouds. They also can assemble a number of on-premises components, including the just-finalized Virtual Machine Manager 2008 R2 Self Service Portal 2.0. View the full article

In this week's mailbag, how to access US-based web services while in other countries, what happened to Windows Weekly episode 13, whether Microsoft has given up on Windows Gadgets, Windows Phone 7 support for instant messaging and Bluetooth, and spelling and grammar issues on the SuperSite. View the full article

KISS is a very good rule to follow. The less you do the less the chance things can go wrong.

In the latest episode of the Windows Weekly podcast, Leo and I discuss news stories that didn't make the cut this week, Windows Phone's cloud sync requirements, the Dell Streak mini-tablet, Mark Hurd's abrupt exit from HP, Google and Verizon vs. the world, and Netflix's $1 billion content deal. View the full article

When Windows Update installs certain types of updates, a reboot is required so that certain software components can be updated while they're not running. Unfortunately, this means that many people will leave their PCs running, with open applications and unsaved data, and in many cases, they'll wake up the next day to discover the PC was automatically rebooted by Windows Update. Here's how to stay secure, but prevent the computer from rebooting automatically. View the full article

On August 12, Microsoft made available the first version of a tool designed to help customers migrate from MySQL to SQL Server and/or SQL Azure. View the full article

I’d think there could be a whole lot of celebrating going on in Redmond today, the day after Oracle announced it is suing Google over alleged patent infringements involving Java in the Android mobile operating system. View the full article

The Windows 7 Start Menu is an enhanced version of the Start Menu that debuted in Windows Vista, and features Jump Lists and an improved Start Menu Search. But the single biggest feature, perhaps, is that the Start Menu is being deemphasized as an application launcher because of the new taskbar. View the full article

Microsoft is inviting selected members of the press and “VIPs” to a September 15 event in San Francisco where it will launch the beta of Internet Explorer (IE) 9. View the full article

Windows Phone will only sync with cloud-based data sources like Exchange, Windows Live, and Google/Gmail, so those who are still using Outlook as a hub for their personal information are going to have to move their data to the cloud. This isn't a bad thing. In fact, it's an opportunity to jump into the 21st century and make your data more resilient and accessible. View the full article

Microsoft’s Windows Azure development engine is chugging along, following closely the original path the team outlined for its cloud operating environment. But the marketing and positioning of Azure isn’t tracking as smoothly. View the full article

Microsoft is preparing to deliver a second beta of the next version of its Windows Live Essentials suite next week. View the full article

Some Wall Streeters are sounding early warning bells regarding a possible consumer PC slowdown. Yesterday, those rumors affected Intel and AMD share prices. On August 11, Microsoft also got dinged. Microsoft execs are downplaying the reports. View the full article

In some ways, Microsoft’s Azure cloud operating environment doesn’t seem to have changed much since the Softies first made it available to beta testers almost two years ago. But in other ways, Azure has morphed considerably, especially in the last 12 months. View the full article

Microsoft rolled out to all of its Hotmail users the newest version of its Web-based e-mail program in early August. Since that time, a number of users have been reporting problems accessing and composing their mail when using the latest release. View the full article

Microsoft rolled out a new add-on to its Premier support program on August 10 that is aimed at companies with mission-critical needs. View the full article

Bulletin Severity Rating:Critical - This security update resolves two privately reported vulnerabilities in Microsoft .NET Framework and Microsoft Silverlight. The vulnerabilities could allow remote code execution on a client system if a user views a specially crafted Web page using a Web browser that can run XAML Browser Applications (XBAPs) or Silverlight applications, or if an attacker succeeds in convincing a user to run a specially crafted Microsoft .NET application. Users whose accounts are configured to have fewer user rights on the system could be less impacted than users who operate with administrative user rights. The vulnerabilities could also allow remote code execution on a server system running IIS, if that server allows processing ASP.NET pages and an attacker succeeds in uploading a specially crafted ASP.NET page to that server and executing the page, as could be the case in a Web hosting scenario. View the full article

Bulletin Severity Rating:Important - This security update resolves one publicly disclosed vulnerability and one privately reported vulnerability in the Tracing Feature for Services. The vulnerabilities could allow elevation of privilege if an attacker runs a specially crafted application. An attacker must have valid logon credentials and be able to log on locally to exploit this vulnerability. The vulnerability could not be exploited remotely or by anonymous users. View the full article

Bulletin Severity Rating:Important - This security update resolves two privately reported vulnerabilities in Microsoft Windows. The more severe of these vulnerabilities could allow elevation of privilege due to an error in the processing of a specific input buffer. An attacker who is able to log on to the target system could exploit this vulnerability and run arbitrary code with system-level privileges. The attacker could then install programs; view, change, or delete data; or create new accounts with full user rights. View the full article