As always: It is the second Tuesday of the months and we released the Security Updates. However, this month is special from one perspective: We released an update for the DNS resolver, which is released simultaneously by a lot of DNS vendors with the same vulnerability. Here are some technical details about this vulnerability on the SWI blog: MS08-037 : More entropy for the DNS resolver . If you want to get some additional details on the vulnerabilities we fixed, the SWI blog might be a very good source: Security Vulnerability Research & Defense

Roger    

Yes, I know: It is US-only at the moment but it might nevertheless pretty interesting for you: We announced yesterday that we will launch a subscription-based Office version called Equipt. Here is an extract from the announcement:

Initially code-named "Albany," Microsoft Equipt offers consumers Microsoft Office Home and Student 2007, giving them the latest versions of Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote for their personal and school projects; Windows Live OneCare, the all-in-one security and PC management service; Windows Live tools, such as Windows Live Mail, Windows Live Messenger and Windows Live Photo Gallery so they can connect and share with people they care about most; and Office Live Workspace, a new service from Microsoft that makes it easy to save documents to a dedicated online Workspace and share them with friends and classmates. Anytime a new version of Office or Windows Live OneCare is released, Microsoft Equipt customers will get the version upgrades as part of their subscriptions.

I am looking forward to this offering so that I can use it for my parents and keep them on the latest version all over the place. It will be $69.99 in the US.

Here is the press announcement

Roger

We announced yesterday some additional features in Internet Explorer 8, which will be part of Beta 2. They are way cool and will help to do some additional significant steps towards a more trustworthy browsing experience. Yesterday we mainly talked about two features:

• The XSS Filter, which helps to protect from cross-site scripting attacks
• SmartScreen® Filter: This is the follow-up of the well-known phishing filter in Internet Explorer 7

If you want to get an overview of the comprehensive protection, you should read the overview on the IE blog

Roger

In the meantime I think everybody knows that Bill Gates left Microsoft. It is not uncommon at Microsoft that if somebody leaves that he or she sends a mail to people they know like "My last day at Microsoft" saying goodbye (and telling you how you can keep in touch if you want). It was strange, however, to get this mail from Bill Gates (without the point how to stay in touchJ).

There was an internal meeting to say goodbye to Bill. If you are interested (some quite touching scenes are in there), here are the videos:

Microsoft Leadership Virtual Pressroom: Video Highlights

Roger