When I turn on my PC, it's because I want to use it, not make coffee while waiting. Windows Vista is a real pig when it comes to bootup times from all of the services and drivers that initialize when the system starts. Microsoft has noticed this and is actually focusing a lot on it for Windows 7:

"For Windows 7, we have a dedicated team focused on startup performance, but in reality the effort extends across the entire Windows division and beyond. Our many hardware and software partners are working closely with us and can rightly be considered an extension to the team.

As an example Windows 7 effort, we are working very hard on system services. We aim to dramatically reduce them in number, as well as reduce their CPU, disk and memory demands. Our perspective on this is simple; if a service is not absolutely required, it shouldn’t be starting and a trigger should exist to handle rare conditions so that the service operates only then.

As noted above, device and driver initialization can be a significant contributor as well. In Windows 7, we've focused very hard on increasing parallelism of driver initialization. This increased parallelism decreases the likelihood that a few slower devices/drivers will impact the overall boot time."

News Source: Engineering 7 Blog

Microsoft's new Photosynth tool has received its first update, bringing improvements to the backend and website, including:

- Improvements to solve upload problems
- A better quality "Recently Synthed" view
- More prominent "Report Abuse" button
- Compatibility with IE8 Beta2
- Fixes to problems with the About page
- Changes to featured synths on the front page
- Changes to printing, to save your printer cartridge

View: Photosynth
News Source: LiveSide

Rafael of the Within Windows blog today released a website called 'Hotfixr'. The website essentially goes hunting in the Microsoft web-server and scopes out hotfixes that otherwise wouldn't be available to the public.

All you need to do is to open Hotfixr, enter the knowledge base article number for an issue that claims to have a hotfix (but you can't find it can you?) and hit enter, agree to the terms and conditions and you're away!

View: Hotfixr Website
News Source: In House

RPG-TV got a briefing last week on the Xbox Live Experience and was told that the Fall dashboard update would be hitting in November, i.e. this fall. Makes sense to me. Before I start sounding too glib, while the fall update has routinely landed in November, an update of this size could have theoretically been pushed back to later in the year. So it is nice to have Microsoft telling some on the record that we can expect our sexy new look and deeper features in three months or so. Preview of New Xbox Experience + LIPS[RPG-TV]

Forums: Xbox 360 Update Discussion
News Source: kotaku.com

Much to our surprise, the second beta of Internet Explorer 8 has hit the web, one day earlier than expected!

This second beta has brought on a massive amount of changes which I certainly cannot sum up in just one small article. Some of the most exciting features to mention however, are InPrivate Browsing, as announced a few days ago, a new "Site Suggestion" recommendation system which recommends different web sites to users based on their browsing history (yes, this can be disabled, Mr.Paranoid), a new color coding tab system which neatly organizes your tabs using various colors, a fully revamped search system which provides on-the-spot results in a flyout menu; and oh so much more!

You certainly have to give this browser a try for yourself to truly experience it all. Head on over to the links below for more.

And to answer your questions, Acid2: Yes; Acid3: Not even close.

Download: Internet Explorer 8 Beta 2 (All Editions)
Screenshots: Internet Explorer 8 Beta 2 Gallery
Forums: IE8 Beta 2 Discussion
View: IE8 Home Page
Read: IEBlog Release Announcement
News Source: In-House

Earlier today we were speculating over a new animation on the Microsoft website, which suggested with the provocative tag line; "Say Goodbye to Laser". A bold statement, seeing as most PC users are still plodding along happily on optical mice. However, judging by the image spotted over at Amazon.de the cute little new mouse will be aimed at the portable market with Blue Track apparently supporting more surfaces than laser and optical mice. Unfortunately no light has yet been shed on whether or not it's accuracy is to be lusted after (by slightly obsessive gamers no doubt) over the lasers. So the playing field may still be dominated by laser technology, at least on the desktop, for some time.

View: Larger "Bluetrack" mouse image
News Source: In House

There's rumor afoot that Halo 4, supposed prequel to sales record setting Halo 3, will be the launch title for the next generation of Microsoft's game consoles.

The Official Xbox Magazine hinted towards it's readership that Gearbox, the same people that are working on Brothers in Arms: Hell's Highway, have started work on a fourth installment to the Halo series. Bungie have made it explicit about their disinterest in carrying on the series with Microsoft Game Studios. Randy Pitchford, speaking about the next big Gearbox title and currently marketing the new upcoming Brothers In Arms release was quoted saying, "When you find out what this is, you'll likely agree that I can't oversell this one."

News Source: In House

Normally we wouldn’t be getting all excited over a mouse but, according to the this article, Microsoft is releasing a new mouse on the 9th of next month and the only hint the company is giving is “Say Goodbye To Laser” and this logo:



The obvious guess is that it's a new mouse technology, maybe replacing the internal lasers currently used to determine the relative position of mice. But it could be something else entirely. Microsoft isn't offering any details. Does the shape of the logo provide any clues? I'm doing a little digging, and I'll update this post if I turn anything up.

News Source: HardOCP

Microsoft's Mojave Experiment involved showing Vista to skeptical users whilst tricking them into thinking it was a new version of Windows and recording their reactions.

David Webster who came up with the idea for the experiment has posted about an update to the Mojave website which is now showing the demos subjects were shown. The site features Silverlight heavily and presents videos in a zoomable "cloud".

View: Mojave Experiment
View: Windows Vista Team Blog
News Source: WinSuperSite

As you probably know, there is a new Windows Live "Wave" coming soon, Wave 3. These "waves" are where everything in the Windows Live suite/service is updated. Microsoft has a hidden page up, and LiveSide has picked up on some new features:

Speed: The coming soon page says that for broadband users, the new Hotmail will be up to 70% faster on sign in (50% for non-broadband users). That's a pretty big claim, and one which should provide for some interesting testing once the beta is open to the public.

Ever-increasing storage: Microsoft have carefully avoided using the phrase "unlimited storage", as Yahoo has done, but in a sense this is what is being offered. The figures we last heard for this were the the existing 5GB free accounts would be getting growth of 250MB per month, but this is pre-beta and could have changed and so our usual disclaimer applies. Obviously the PR definitely looks better leaving the figures out, but a free inbox of 8GB by the end of year 1 gives us a warm feeling. (For comparison, Gmail is currently on 7GB and still growing.)

New UI: Along with the new Wave 3 UI, in particular the new header and themes available shown below, the new promotion site suggests that the classic and full versions of Hotmail will be combined together. This potentially means that full functionality could be available across all browsers. Also worth mentioning here are improvements around deadling with spam.

WebIM built-in: This feature doesn't really need much explaining and should be a popular addition. From what we've heard it'll support most of the basic needs such as presence, notifications and chat via the WebMessenger dogfood. Yes its been a while since we've spoken about that!

Integrated Calendar: No surprise if you're on the new Windows Live Calendar beta to hear there will be integration between the two services.

Easier to send group emails: Thanks to the new Windows Live Groups service (go ABCH!) it'll be easier to email all those contacts in one go.

News Source: LiveSide
View: Coming Soon in Windows Live Hotmail (Microsoft)