Really exciting news: Windows Defender was released to web today! It is available for consumers in German, English, and Japanese. Additional languages will follow soon.

You can get it here: http://www.microsoft.com/athome/security/spyware/software/default.mspx

The only drawback: You need a legal copy of Windows to download it :-)

Roger

Very interesting article about Restore Point Forensics in Windows XP

http://windowsir.blogspot.com/2006/10/restore-point-forensics.html

-Urs

Failing to protect customer privacy can lead to an erosion of trust. Over the last several years, Microsoft has established extensive internal guidelines for developers that help them protect customer privacy, give them a view into customer expectations and global privacy laws, and document the hard lessons we’ve learned.

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=C48CF80F-6E87-48F5-83EC-A18D1AD2FC1F&displaylang=en

-Urs

IE 7 hit just the web and the first claims of a vulnerability appeared. It is actually true that there is a vulnerability but not in IE 7 but in the underlying Outlook Express.

For more information, please read Christopher Budd's statement in the MSRC-blog at http://blogs.technet.com/msrc/archive/2006/10/19/information-on-reports-of-ie-7-vulnerability.aspx

Roger

I knew that I had another post today, as I awaited release of IE 7 today.

I did a little research before I did this post and what I liked was from the California Astrology Association. I quote from here: http://www.calastrology.com/lucky7.html

Those who carry the Lucky 7 with them may experience:

• A dramatic turnaround of events in their favor.
• Increased Lucky Streaks
• A noticeable reduction of bad luck, depression, lack of confidence.
• A knack for being in the right place at the right time.

I admit, they want to sell you something but, nevertheless - if this is true for IE 7, the product team has done a great job.

So finally, my call to action:

• Go to www.microsoft.com/ie and download and install IE 7
• If you did not have done so: Test your Internet-facing sites for compatibility (final call). There are checklists to be found here.
• If you update your computers in your enterprise through Automatic Update and you do not want IE 7 to be rolled out, deploy the blocker toolkit before November, 1st
• Test your internal applications for compatibility - again, the checklists are here.

So, have fun with IE 7 - it rocks on XP and even more on Vista :-)

Roger