Microsoft retires NetMeeting

<font size="3">Microsoft retires NetMeeting</font>

Microsoft is retiring its six-year-old NetMeeting online conferencing application and instead will push Office Live Meeting, formerly known as PlaceWare, for online meetings.

NetMeeting helped pioneer online conferencing when it was released in May 1996, before the advent of instant messaging (IM) and other services for real-time online communication. The software still ships as part of Windows and some of its features, such as whiteboarding and application-sharing, are used by the MSN Messenger and Windows Messenger IM applications.

But NetMeeting has served its purpose and will gradually be phased out, Microsoft spokeswoman Stacy Drake said. Microsoft has already stopped development work on NetMeeting and links from MSN Messenger and Windows Messenger will be cut in future updates to those products, she said.

News source:...

Windows Server 2003 Interactive Training Simulations

<font size="3">Windows Server 2003 Interactive Training Simulations</font>

These interactive training modules give you a quick, hands-on experience with key Windows Server 2003 technologies. Each module presents approximately 10 minutes of interactive information, which can be viewed in its entirety or as separate exercises as your time allows.

Training

• Active Directory Migration Tool 2.0 [link]
• Internet Information Services 6.0: Application Pool Architecture [link]
• Internet Information Services 6.0: Consolidation [link]
• Shadow Copies of Shared Folders...

New IE may burst pop-up bubble

<font size="3">New IE may burst pop-up bubble </font>

Thanks to Tripwire45 for this article: Pop-up advertisements have thrived for years despite numerous efforts to eradicate them, but now online marketers are seriously wondering whether the Web's most detested ad format is about to meet its match: Microsoft.

The Redmond, Wash.-based software giant recently indicated that it will add pop-up blocking features to Internet Explorer (IE) next year, as part of an update for Windows XP. Others have offered similar tools before, but because IE so thoroughly dominates the browser market, ad executives and Internet watchers believe the changes could finally burst the bubble for pop-ups.

"If Microsoft does it right," said Richard Smith, a well-known security and privacy expert, "I think we will see a big drop in the use of pop-ups."

Fearing that they might lose one of their most effective advertising tools, some...

For security ask yourself...what would Microsoft do?

<font size="3">For security ask yourself...what would Microsoft do?</font>

Despite taking a beating in the press and from customers for security holes in its products, decision makers at Microsoft appear to think the company still has something to teach the world about computer security. The Redmond, Washington company this week published a technical white paper that describes its internal security practices, which Microsoft hopes will "help customers successfully secure their environments," the company said. The paper, simply titled "Security at Microsoft," details the methods and technologies that the company's Operations and Technology Group (OTG) use to secure the company's global corporate network of more than 300,000 computers and 4,200 servers.

In the paper, Microsoft describes its risk management strategy, which involves classifying different computing resources according to their "value class" --...

Microsoft investigates possible Exchange 2003 flaw

<font size="3">Microsoft investigates possible Exchange 2003 flaw </font>

Microsoft is investigating a potential security issue with Exchange Server 2003, which would be the first since the e-mail server was launched last month.

The potential flaw lies in the Outlook Web Access (OWA) component of Exchange Server 2003. A network administrator at a Nashville, Tennessee, provider of investment performance reporting tools found that users logging in to OWA could be logged in to another user's mailbox at random and have full access privileges.

"This seems to be a major security flaw and we have had to shut off OWA indefinitely because of the issue," the network administrator wrote in a posting to NTBugtraq, a well-known security mailing list.

A preliminary investigation by Microsoft indicated that the issue occurs only with Kerberos authentication disabled, which the vendor said is uncommon. "We recommend that...

Exam 70-299 Betas Nov. 26-Dec. 11

<font size="3">Exam 70-299 Betas Nov. 26-Dec. 11 </font>
Newest security specialist exam to go under beta testing in late November.

While the objective guide for Exam 70-299, Implementing and Administering Security in a Windows Server 2003 Network (click here to view the guide), hints at an impending beta testing phase in November, testing centers Vue has opened registration for the exam in its beta form. Vue's online registration site indicates that the beta exams are available from November 26 to December 11. Microsoft Corp. doesn't typically comment on exams under development.

Exam 70-299, numbered 71-299 while in beta, is an administration-oriented exam that counts as core credit toward the prescribed exams under the MCSE: Security specialization. It's also an elective for the MCSA and MCSE on Windows 2003 tracks.

News...

Is Microsoft Linux in the Wind?

<font size="3">Is Microsoft Linux in the Wind?</font>

Speculation that Microsoft might build a flavor of Linux into Windows Server 2003 has been rife since May, when the company said it was licensing the Unix source code and patent from the SCO Group. That action followed SCO's infamous US$1 billion lawsuit, filed in March, which accuses IBM of improperly lifting copyrighted Unix technology and building it into Linux. The Microsoft-Linux speculation has been fueled by Linux' increasing prominence on the enterprise server level, largely thanks to IBM, and Microsoft's historical willingness to react to competitive threats by creating its own versions of rival products. Still, despite the speculation, there is considerable doubt that Microsoft will develop or distribute its own version of Linux anytime soon.

Proprietary by Nature

Perhaps the most compelling reason for skepticism is that such a...

Virtualisation comes to Windows PCs

<font size="3">Virtualisation coming to Windows PCs</font>

Tuesday 18th November 2003

Virtualisation technology from Microsoft will bring closer the dream of running multiple instances of an operating system on a single computer

Software giant Microsoft and start-up VMware are bringing closer to reality a technology for running multiple instances of an operating system on a single computer.

The technology, called virtualisation, is a layer of software that isolates programs from the hardware they run on. In the near term, Microsoft hopes to use the idea to support customers with newer computers that must run older programs. But VMware is further along in a strategy to make its software a key part of the utility computing concept popular in the industry.

Read Full article here

Hackers Crack Latest Windows Flaw

<font size="3">Hackers Crack Latest Windows Flaw</font>

Computer code that exploits a critical new software vulnerability in the Windows XP and Windows 2000 operating systems is circulating on the Internet, according to security experts. Two examples of "exploit" code for a buffer overrun in the Windows Workstation Service were posted to security-related Internet discussion groups on Friday and Saturday. Both exploits have been tested and work, according to Dan Ingevaldson, director of X-Force at Internet Security Systems.

The Workstation Service vulnerability was disclosed by Microsoft in Security Bulletin MS03-049, which was released on November 11. The service is turned "on" by default in Windows 2000 and Windows XP systems and allows computers on a network to connect to file servers and network printers, Microsoft said.

Both the CERT Coordination Center at Carnegie Mellon University and ISS issued...

What Bill Gates Has to Say About Security

<font size="3">What Bill Gates Has to Say About Security</font>

Microsoft product managers at the PDC hammered home the idea that code has to get better, and that buffer overruns are caused, basically, by sloppy programming. But Bill Gates said, "You don't need perfect code to avoid security problems." Not if you use firewalls and keep your software up to date.

Read more in this illuminating article published by Informit