http://www.infosweb.comYour Windows informations web site8/30/2007 You'll have to wait a little longer for Windows Server 2008. Microsoft is delaying the release to manufacturing of the server operating system from the end of the year until sometime in the first quarter of 2008, the company announced Wednesday. Windows Server 2008 is now in Beta 3 and feature complete, but Microsoft is delaying it because "it needs a little more time to bake," according to Windows Server program manager Alex Hinrichs, who is quoted in the announcement on Microsoft's Windows Server blog. There's no indication if the added "baking" time will help push forward the release of Windows Server's upcoming virtualization technology, Viridian, which had also been delayed -- and also announced on a company blog. http://www2.webng.com/windowsvista/news.asp?numero=15778/30/2007 Microsoft will take the wraps off its long-awaited PerformancePoint Server on Sept. 19, a move that's likely to expand the company's already considerable presence in the business intelligence software market. PerformancePoint, officially Microsoft Office PerformancePoint Server 2007, is Microsoft's entry in the rapidly growing market for performance management applications used for monitoring, analyzing and planning business activities. Traditional business intelligence software vendors Business Objects and Cognos already compete in this space while Oracle and SAP, through their recent acquisitions of Hyperion Solutions and OutlookSoft, respectively, are also expanding into performance management. http://www2.webng.com/windowsvista/news.asp?numero=15768/30/2007 AutoPatcher, a four-year-old project to distribute Microsoft patches and other updates to software that runs on Windows, has shut down because of a Microsoft request. "Today we received an e-mail from Microsoft, requesting the immediate takedown of the download page, which of course means that AutoPatcher is probably history," said project manager Antonis Kaladis in a post Wednesday. "As much as we disagree, we can do very little, and ... we took the download page down." http://www2.webng.com/windowsvista/news.asp?numero=15758/30/2007 Looking to assist developers in building business applications, Microsoft published a second beta version of ADO.Net Entity Framework this week and a community technology preview of tools to work with the framework. The goal of the ADO.Net Entity Framework is to eliminate the impedance mismatch between data models and languages, saving developers from having to deal with these. An example of such a mismatch is objects and relational stores. Automation of complex processes is critical to the framework. http://www2.webng.com/windowsvista/news.asp?numero=15748/30/2007 After months of silence, Microsoft finally coughed up details Tuesday about its plans for the first update to Windows Vista, saying the service pack will arrive in the first quarter of next year. In the next few weeks, Microsoft will start private testing of a beta of Service Pack 1 for Vista as well as a third service pack for Windows XP. The company plans initially to release the beta only to 10,000 pre-selected testers, though it may expand that release later. A small group of testers are already working with a "beta preview" version. http://www2.webng.com/windowsvista/news.asp?numero=15738/30/2007 When developing Windows Vista, Microsoft set out to provide higher levels of productivity, mobility, and security, with lower costs. After more than six months of broad availability and usage, it's evident that these investments are improving the Windows computing experience. For example, in the first six months of use, Windows Vista had fewer security issues than Windows XP (Windows Vista had only 12 issues, and Windows XP had 36). According to the Windows Vista 6-Month Vulnerability Report by Jeffery R. Jones, Windows Vista had fewer security issues than all the popular operating systems he studied. http://www2.webng.com/windowsvista/news.asp?numero=15728/29/2007 Newest update to Microsoft OS, intended for use by invite-only list of testers, can be downloaded from BitTorrent networks ahead of official release. Microsoft distributed a new build of Windows Vista's first service pack last week to its invite-only list of testers, according to bloggers armed with copies. But as is the norm, the version also leaked to BitTorrent networks. The 6.0.6001.16633 (longhorn.070803-1655) build weighs in at a relatively svelte 684MB, bloggers and message forum users claimed. The first Vista Service Pack 1 (SP1) beta, which leaked earlier this month to BitTorrent peer-to-peer file-sharing networks, was significantly larger -- more than 3GB -- and came as an .iso file that was, in effect, Vista with SP1 already added. Last week's build, an .exe file, updates existing Vista installations.http://www2.webng.com/windowsvista/news.asp?numero=15718/29/2007 The long awaited Entity Framework Beta 2 and the accompanying Entity Framework Tools CTP have been released! Beta 2 of the Entity Framework includes many great improvements and added features since the last release of the June CTP, including: Events to customize code generation Abstract types in EDM models Complex types <Using> support in metadata files Entity key serialization Increased persistence ignorance in entity data classes Improved connection management in ObjectContext Improved DataBinding usability Metadata annotations Better support for span over LINQ to Entities queries Improvements to LINQ queries: additional canonical functions and automatic mapping from CLR functions to server functions A new event for extensibility of SaveChanges Usability and consistency improvements Polymorphic results from stored procedureshttp://www2.webng.com/windowsvista/news.asp?numero=15708/28/2007 Microsoft Monday said development is complete on its System Center Configuration Manager 2007, a cornerstone in its model for managed IT systems, and that the management tool will ship in November. For users moving from the pervious version called System Management Server the release represents an upgrade, but for those tracking Microsoft's Dynamic Systems Initiative (DSI), a 10-year plan to build a management platform for Windows, it represents a beginning and an end. http://www2.webng.com/windowsvista/news.asp?numero=15698/28/2007 Tafiti: It sounds like something contestants might yell on Survivor Africa. But it's really an experimental Microsoft search mashup application built around the company's Silverlight cross-platform streaming media technology and Microsoft's Live Search engine. The experimental application, which uses Silverlight to front-end Windows Live Search, is available online as of this week.http://www2.webng.com/windowsvista/news.asp?numero=1568