We all know that Microsoft has decided to make the latest version of DirectX 10 Windows Vista only most likely to drive more sales to the new operating systems. Some independent developers have decided to create a working version of DirectX 10 for Windows XP with the goal to run any application that requires DirectX 10 also on that operating system.

The current release is a alpha release and probably only interesting for developers or coders. The plan is however to support the two games that have been released for Vista only. Halo 2 and Shadowrun are the two games that can only be installed and played using Windows Vista at the moment.

Categories: Operating Systems, Tools, Windows

Microsoft’s Internet Explorer 7 has that strange limitation that you can only download two files simultaneously. This might not bother casual downloaders but what if you have to download many files in a short time ? Sure, you could use a download manager to download all the files and forget about the limit in Internet Explorer. A nice download manager would be for instance Orbit, which I reviewed earlier this year.

Categories: Browsing, ie, The Web

I always thought that the Windows Vista sidebar was nice to look at but not very useful. It uses system resources to display a clock or some other gadgets that have pretty much no value at all in my daily routine. I did not want to just remove the sidebar without researching if there were gadgets that were actually that useful that I decided to keep the sidebar and use at least some of the gadgets all the time. Space is limited and I run some all of the time and some only if I need that information.

Categories: Notebooks, Operating Systems, Tools, Windows

Microsoft added resource heavy DRM processes to Windows Vista in a move to “please” the content industry. I can’t think of another reason why they would add this kind of mechanisms if there would not be some kind of agreement between them and the content industry. Microsoft would have made such a big impact if Vista would not enforce digital rights management protections on content. The system would probably be more stable, faster and more resource friendly. Well, Microsoft decided to ensure that not only the needs of the consumers but also those of the content owners would be supported which makes me wonder which consumer would actually be pro DRM.

Categories: Hacking, Music Industry, Operating Systems, Windows

Microsoft advertises its Anti Spam program Windows Defender with the slogan spyware protection for free but is it really a good alternative to other anti spam and spyware programs like ad-aware and spybot search and destroy. It is only fair to compare Microsoft’s anti spyware software which is available free to other free solutions that can be used and downloaded for free as well. Microsoft’s Windows Defender came under heavy fire recently as two competitors released studies that were supposed to prove that Windows Defender had – by far – the weakest spyware and spam detection rate.

Categories: Operating Systems, Security, Windows

Microsoft tries to compete with its Windows Marketplace against the addon dominance of Firefox. The main difference between addons that you find at the Marketplace and those that you find at the Mozilla website is that some Marketplace addons are not free. This articles concentrates only on free addons for Internet Explorer 7. I try to point out similar addons that are available for Firefox to make this article useful for Firefox users as well. I do use both on different computers by the way.

Most of the addons that can be downloaded from the Windows Marketplace for Internet Explorer are actually toolbars. I would estimate that about 50% of all addons are toolbars.

Most of the addons that can be downloaded from the Windows Marketplace for Internet Explorer are actually toolbars. I would estimate that about 50% of all addons are toolbars.

Categories: Browsing, Firefox, Opera

It is getting better and better. I was describing a method to extend the activation period of Windows Vista by 90 days to a total activation period of 120 days. But this is actually not the maximum that you can extend the activation period of Windows Vista. Ryan from Cybernet wrote a nice article today that explains how every Windows Vista user can extend the activation period by the factor three raising the total time until Windows Vista has to be activated to

Categories: Hacking, Operating Systems, Windows

I’m not using Internet Explorer 7 at all but I know some guys who like it so much that they might ditch Firefox for it. The new Internet Explorer 7 has basically the same functionality and expandability as Firefox. You can download add-ons for Internet Explorer 7 to add functions to it. The Windows Marketplace lists more than 550 add-ons for Internet Explorer 7. The major difference that I can see is that Microsoft offers free and commercial add-ons for Internet Explorer 7 while I do not know of a single Firefox add-on that is commercial. (correct me if I’m wrong)

Categories: Browsing, ie

If you want to connect a Zune to a computer that is not its home zone you receive a popup asking if you want to connect the Zune as a guest or “sync with your library on this pc.” The second option would remove all content on the Zune and sync it with the library on the new computer. I suppose this is another feature to please the Music Industry by making it harder to add music from your friends computer to your own Zune. This spells troubles. Imagine if you have purchase a new pc or something gets messed up on your old computer.

Categories: Hacking, Zune