October 24th, 2009

Selected testers get new build of Microsoft Security Essentials

Posted by Mary Jo Foley @ 9:38 am

Categories: Anti-piracy, Code names, Corporate strategy, Security, Vista, Windows 7, Windows XP, Windows client

Tags: Microsoft Corp., Tester, Microsoft Windows, Microsoft Windows 7, Operating Systems, Security, Software, Mary Jo Foley

Microsoft has made available for download on October 24 by a select group of testers the first build of its next release of the free Microsoft Security Essentials (MSE) anti-malware product.

The new test build, No. 1.0.1676.0, is available via the Microsoft Connect site by those contacted by the company. The MSE team sent invitations for the “ongoing” beta of MSE to a subset of the Windows 7 test group earlier this month, telling those notified that they would hear back by November 1 as to whether or not they’d be getting the new test bits.

One tester who downloaded the build today told me the only difference he noticed was the new build number. Ars Technica is reporting that there are test versions available for Windows XP 32-bit (8.62MB), Windows Vista/7 32-bit (4.29MB), and Windows Vista/7 64-bit (4.72MB). Ars said that every installer grew by 0.01MB with this new build.

Here’s a copy of the e-mail message the MSE team is sending to some testers today (which one tester shared with me):

From: Microsoft Security Essentials Beta
Date: 2009/10/24
Subject: Microsoft Security Essentials Ongoing Beta Invitation
To: xxxx

The Microsoft Security Essentials Ongoing Beta Program needs you!

Interested in joining the fight against viruses, spyware, and other PC health dangers? Help improve Microsoft® Security Essentials, Microsoft’s new antimalware solution for consumers, by becoming an Ongoing Beta program tester. As part of the Microsoft Security Essentials Ongoing Beta program, you will have the opportunity to explore new builds before the public sees them, submit bugs, and give feedback. Your feedback helps Microsoftto make its software and services the best that they can.

If you are interested, please click on the link below, sign-in with Live ID/password and install the Ongoing Beta build.

CLICK HERE TO JOIN THE Microsoft Security Essentials Ongoing Beta Program

Best Regards,

Microsoft Security Essentials Team

Microsoft made available for download at the end of September the final version 1 of MSE. MSE (codenamed “Morro”) is the replacement for Windows Live OneCare and a superset of Windows Defender. Microsoft officials have said it will work on Windows XP SP2, Windows Vista and Windows 7.

Microsoft is targeting MSE at customers who are unwilling and unable to pay for security software. Company officials have said they believed it was worth offering customers a free product to help thwart security breaches on unprotected Windows PCs that potentially could be used to infect other users’ systems.

I recently asked some of my Twitter followers and blog readers what they’d like to see in the next version of MSE. Here are a few of their responses:

PhilltheChill: “v2 of MSE should have integration within Outlook and Windows Live Mail - The icing on the cake”

nvyseal: “knock down that spike in MsMpEng.exe. http://bit.ly/VXvyr”

mgeddes: “It doesn’t show a history of scans (that I can find anyway). It would be nice to know if it did a full scan last week for instance. I have them scheduled but I don’t really have proof they ran. Maybe it puts something in the event viewer (haven’t looked), but easy and up front is better. Also, move towards business support like WSUS. (management, AD & workgroup support, reporting etc). The non-free versions from other companies always leave a lot to be desired.”

Other new feature requests for the MSE team?

October 8th, 2009

Microsoft adds an 'Office Starter' edition to its distribution plans

Posted by Mary Jo Foley @ 9:40 am

Categories: Activation, Channel, Corporate strategy, OEMs, Office, Office 2010/Office 14, Resellers, System builders, Windows client

Tags: Microsoft Corp., Office Application, Microsoft Office, Office Suites, Software, Mary Jo Foley

Microsoft officials shared on October 8 more details about three new ways the company is planning to try distributing Office 2010 when the product ships next summer.

Via a post on the Office 2010 Engineering blog, Microsoft officials explained three new distribution mechanisms the company will use to get more users to try the next version of Office. The three:

Office Starter 2010: A preload that includes stripped-down versions of only Word 2010 and Excel 2010. (Stripped-down here means basic document viewing and editing only.) Starter will be ad-supported, so, free. But Microsoft is positioning it as “an easy way for customers  to try the product and eventually upgrade to enhanced versions of Office,” not as a replacement for Office. This is meant to replace the Microsoft Works trial that is often preloaded on new PCs. In spite of its name, Office Starter 2010 really has little resemblance to Windows 7 Starter Edition.

Product Key Card: This is a single-license card that unlocks Office 2010 which will be sold at major retailers and OEMs. The idea behind this is to allow users to more easily and quickly upgrade to one of the three full consumer versions of Microsoft Office 2010. There’s no media on the card; it’s just a key. This works when an Office image is pre-installed already on a new machine and the key activates it.

Click-to-Run: This streaming/virtualization technology is targeting the existing Office installed base. Microsoft has been testing the Click to Run functionality among a select group of Office testers since earlier this summer. The Office applications are streamed to you and so you can get up and going in minutes instead of a half hour or longer. You can start using the individual apps as each is downloaded to your machine. And the Click to Run version can be used alongside existing versions of Office that you might already have on your PC.

Microsoft officials aren’t yet sharing any pricing details regarding the Product Key Card or Click-to-Run.

I’m betting a lot of pundits are going to be trumpeting “Microsoft drops price of Office with Starter to zero out from Google Docs pressure!” when they read about this announcement. But that’s not what this is about.

Microsoft knows that older versions of Office are the biggest competitors to a new release of Office and that the company needs to find new ways to get customers to try Office so they’ll consider buying it. If you dig up Chief Software Architect Ray Ozzie’s “Internet Services Disruption” memo from 2005, Ozzie focuses quite a bit on how Microsoft needed to do more software trials and devlop new distribution mechanisms to keep the company competitive.

Do you think any of these new distribution vehicles will get more current Office users to give Office 2010 a try? Why or why not?

September 8th, 2009

Microsoft to preview two Silverlight 4 features

Posted by Mary Jo Foley @ 11:15 am

Categories: Anti-piracy, Channel, Corporate strategy, Development tools, Silverlight (wpf/e)

Tags: Microsoft Silverlight, Digital-rights Management, Movie, Microsoft Corp., Microsoft Community Promise, Digital Rights Management (DRM), Digital Media, Security, Consumer Electronics, Personal Technology

Microsoft is slated to show off two features that it is incorporating into the next version of Silverlight, its Internet Explorer browser-plug-in alternative to Adobe Flash at the International Broadcasting Conference (IBC) in Amsterdam, which kicks off on September 11.

According to a September 8 press release, Microsoft plans to add a native multicast capability, as well as support for offline digital rights management (DRM). Microsoft’s PlayReady DRM will work outside the browser with Silverlight 4. (Microsoft first added out-of-browser support to Silverlight with version 3, the final version of which Microsoft released to the Web in July.)

Offline DRM will allow consumers to download a movie and watch it later when they’re offline, even if it is DRM-protected. Microsoft also is touting the out-of-the-browser capability as allowing movie studios to offer network-delivered updates, special offers, live events and other experiences that will “extend their relationship with consumers past the single movie purchase.”

Microsoft officials declined to share any target dates as to when the company is planning to deliver a test build or final version of Silverlight 4. There is a growing Silverlight 4 wish list on Microsoft’s Silverlight site, however.

Microsoft also announced on September 8 plans to release its Internet Information Services (IIS) Smooth Streaming Transport Protocol and Protected Interoperable File Format (PIFF) specification under the Microsoft Community Promise. By doing this, Microsoft is trying to encourage third-party developers to build client-side software and services that interoperate with Smooth Streaming. The Microsoft Community Promise is a Microsoft agreement not to sue developers for patent infringement for a specific technology.

August 27th, 2009

Microsoft to add more anti-piracy features to Office 2010

Posted by Mary Jo Foley @ 9:57 am

Categories: Activation, Anti-piracy, Corporate strategy, OGA, Office, Office 2010/Office 14, WGA

Tags: Antipiracy, Microsoft Corp., Microsoft Office, Office Suites, Software, Mary Jo Foley

Microsoft is adding more “Genuine Advantage” features to its forthcoming Office 2010 release to make the product harder to pirate.

The company is planning to add new volume-licensing activation technologies to Office 2010 in an attempt to thwart the pirating of volume-license keys, Microsoft officials said via a press release. Microsoft also is adding more counterfeit-detection and tamper-resistant features to Office 2010, the press release says. It sounds like Microsoft will limit the ability of Office 2010 users to do an “Anytime Upgrade” to those users who those who allow Microsoft to do a Genuine Advantage scan:

“’While future (Office) consumer installations will closely resemble what we have today, additional advantages that customers can expect include the ability to issue product keys that upgrade the installed version to one that is incrementally feature-rich,’ says (Cori) Hartje, (senior director of Microsoft’s Genuine Software Initiative).”

I found more details about some of the planned Office 2010 Genuine Advantage volume-activation changes in an August 24 posting on the Office 2010 Engineering blog.

Microsoft already has made Office more like Windows, in terms of the way it nags users who fail to activate their individual copies of a new release.  With Office 2010, volume licensees will be required to activate, too. From the August 24 Office 2010 Engineering blog post:

“Starting in Office 2010, all volume editions of Office client software will require activation.  What’s great for administrators is that Office has adopted the Windows Software Protection Platform (SPP), which means that most of what you have learned (or will learn) about Volume Activation for Windows applies to Office as well. For example, the same Key Management Service (KMS) host can be configured to activate Office 2010 clients as well as Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2. Also, there is no reduction in functionality in volume editions of Office 2010. Even if Office is not activated, your users will still be able to open, save, edit, and print. Office files, though users will see notifications reminding them to activate.”

Microsoft also is expanding the Office Genuine Advantage Notifications program into 13 more countries, upping the total to 41 countries.

June 23rd, 2009

A reminder: Win 7 testers, your beta is about to expire

Posted by Mary Jo Foley @ 1:05 pm

Categories: Activation, Anti-piracy, Corporate strategy, WGA, Windows 7, Windows client

Tags: Release Candidate, Microsoft Corp., Beta, Microsoft Windows 7, Microsoft Windows, Operating Systems, Software, Mary Jo Foley

If you’re one of those Windows 7 testers still running the Beta — and not the Release Candidate — of Microsoft’s next-generation client, it’s time to get the lead out.

Bi-hourly shutdowns of the Windows 7 Beta (which Microsoft released officially in January of this year) are set to begin next week, on July 1. On August 1, the Windows 7 Beta will be marked as “non-Genuine” software, with those running it becoming subject t the punishments that Microsoft has earmarked for pirates.

Testers have until August 15 to download the Windows 7 Release Candidate (RC) build, which Microsoft made available for download starting in May 2009. The RC is set to begin its own bi-hourly shutdowns in March 2010 and to be designated “non-Genuine” in June 2010.

Windows 7 is expected to be released to manufacturing in July and will be generally available starting October 22, 2009.

June 18th, 2009

Microsoft Security Essentials: What wannabe testers need to know

Posted by Mary Jo Foley @ 1:02 pm

Categories: Activation, Anti-piracy, Channel, Code names, Corporate strategy, OEMs, Resellers, Security, System builders, Vista, WGA, Windows 7, Windows XP, Windows client

Tags: Security, PC, Microsoft Corp., Microsoft Security Essentials, Microsoft Windows, Operating Systems, Desktops, Software, Hardware, Mary Jo Foley

Microsoft finally broke its silence about its Microsoft Security Essentials (MSE) — a k a “Morro” — June 18, after refusing for months to provide any real details on its planned free consumer security replacement to Windows Live OneCare.

Alan Packer, General Manager of Microsoft’s Anti-Malware team chatted with me today about MSE. Based on our conversation, here’s what wannabe MSE testers and customers need to know:

• MSE provides antivirus and anti-malware protection for Windows XP SP2, Windows Vista and Windows 7 (including Beta or Release Candidate) systems. It makes use of the same core engine as the Forefront Client product Microsoft offers to businesses, but it doesn’t provide the management capabilities that the paid Forefront Client — or the former Windows Live OneCare subscription offering do.
• Microsoft is making MSE available for public beta testing starting some time on June 23. It will be available in 32- and 64-bit flavors, downloadable from the Microsoft Connect site. The test version is targeted at users in English-speaking countries, plus Brazil, Israel (and some time later this year), China (in simplified Chinese).
• The beta will remain open until the final version of the MSE product is released before the end of calendar 2009. (Microsoft officials won’t provide any more specific of a date target than that.) The final product will be a free download available directly from Microsoft.com.
• Microsoft will be updating and refreshing the beta code regularly in the coming months by pushing updates over Windows Update and other Web mechanisms. MSE isn’t Microsoft-hosted, but it does include a Dynamic Signature updating service that Microsoft is touting as “cloud-based.”
• Microsoft plans to offer PC OEMs and system builders the option to bundle MSE on new PCs, but it isn’t expecting any of the big PC makers to jump, since they currently make money by preloading competing, paid offerings from third-party providers.
• Speaking of third-party products, MSE will uninstall Windows Defender if it is present on a user’s PC, as MSE is a “superset” of Defender. Upon setup, MSE also will advise users to uninstall other third-party offerings, as running multiple antivirus/anti-malware offerings degrades PC performance.
• MSE is aimed first and foremost at users who either can’t or won’t pay for antivirus/anti-malware software. There will be no registration required, no trials with an expiration date or required renewals. But Microsoft is restricting the MSE download (both the beta and final) to PCs running Genuine Windows (which has been authenticated as non-pirated).

Matt Rosoff, an analyst with Directions on Microsoft, wondered whether the Windows Genuine stipulation might prove problematic.

MSE “looks like an adequate protection product, similar to Defender but for more types of malware. However, from early screenshots, it looks like they’re going to require Windows Genuine validation for use,” Rosoff noted. “That seems to undercut their stated goal with the product: to broaden the base of Windows PCs protected against malware, especially in developing countries.”

For more in-depth coverage (and screen shots galore) of what MSE is and how it works, check out my ZDNet blogging colleague Ed Bott’s gallery and coverage.

So now that we finally know more (official) specifics about MSE/Morro, what do you think? Is Microsoft doing users a service or disservice in trying to secure the perimeters of the Windows ecosystem via a free antivirus/antimalware product like this?

June 9th, 2009

Microsoft sheds its third-party anti-piracy technology

Posted by Mary Jo Foley @ 1:43 pm

Categories: Activation, Anti-piracy, Corporate strategy

Tags: Antipiracy, IP, Microsoft Corp., SLP, IrishTech, Piracy, Network Technology, Networking, Business Operations, Corporate Law

Last fall, Microsoft abruptly halted sales of its Software Licensing and Protection Services — a technology similar to its own Genuine activation/anti-piracy mechanism. At the time, the Softies said they were seeking a new home for SLP, having decided it no longer fit in with the company’s overall business plans.

On June 9, Microsoft announced it had found a taker for SLP. Microsoft licensed SLP to Dublin-based startup IrishTech.

Microsoft used its IP Ventures licensing group to move the SLP division directly over to IrishTech. (IP Ventures has found external licensees for a number of Microsoft-nurtered technologies and products the Redmond company has chosen to farm out via IP Ventures. Other include including Wallop, Zumobi (formerly known as ZenZui) and LaunchTile.

IrishTech inherits the 120 customers Microsoft had obtained for SLP.  Curiously, according to the June 9 press release, “Microsoft itself intends to be a customer of the new (IrishTech) startup.”

May 7th, 2009

With Windows 7, 'Genuine' is out; 'Activation' is in

Posted by Mary Jo Foley @ 8:56 am

Categories: Activation, Anti-piracy, Corporate strategy, Vista, WGA, Windows 7, Windows XP, Windows client

Tags: Microsoft Windows 7, Microsoft Windows Vista, Microsoft Corp., Microsoft Windows, Operating Systems, Microsoft Windows Vista (Longhorn), Software, Mary Jo Foley

Microsoft is giving its anti-piracy/DRM technology a PR face lift with Windows 7. The “Windows Genuine” branding is being supplanted by a new name: Windows Activation.

The choice is interesting. Microsoft’s anti-piracy technology consists of two parts: Activation and validation. By emphasizing “Activation” with the new name, Microsoft is downplaying the part of its Genuine technology that has been most criticized for both heavy-handed punishment tactics and false-positive results. (Microsoft fixed some of those problems with its Genuine DRM/validation with Vista SP1.)

(The “Genuine” brand isn’t going away completely, however. Microsoft will continue to release “Genuine” updates and notifications for XP users, officials said in a press update on May 7.)

Windows 7’s Activation technology will be built on the same “Software Protection Platform” that was part of Vista, according to Microsoft. There will be some minor tweaks, officials are acknowledging. From today’s press statement (a Q&A with Joe Williams, general manager, Worldwide Genuine Windows):

“While we have seen success with our implementation in Windows Vista, as evident from the lower levels of piracy, we also knew we could do better in Windows 7. For example, with Windows Vista Service Pack 1, if a PC was not activated during the login process, customers would periodically see a dialog box as a visual reminder they still needed to activate their copy of Windows. Within this prompt, they could choose to activate immediately or later. But the option to push the ‘activate later’ button was grayed out for 15 seconds. Customers told us that while the prompt grabbed their attention, they didn’t understand why they needed to activate immediately and that the delay was annoying. In Windows 7 we modified this process: When customers choose to activate later they will see a dialog box highlighting how activation helps them identify if their copy of Windows is genuine and be allowed to proceed immediately without a 15-second delay. In Windows 7 we’ve made changes so that users will see more informative notifications messages and be able to more easily complete the tasks they need to.”

It sounds like some changes are in the works around enterprise Activation in the Windows 7 timefame, as well. Again, from the press statement:

“We also spent time thinking about how we could make activation and validation easier for enterprises. For example, we think IT professionals will appreciate support in Windows 7 for virtualized images and volume activation technologies. When Windows Vista was being developed, virtualization was primarily a server scenario, but today many companies have it in their production environment on both the server and the client. We listened and adapted our management tool for organizations by making them more easily available.”

Bottom line: Microsoft isn’t removing its anti-piracy/DRM mechanisms from Windows 7. Let’s see whether the company actually makes them less onerous.

April 9th, 2009

Microsoft patent loss: It's about activation not validation

Posted by Mary Jo Foley @ 2:48 pm

Categories: Activation, Anti-piracy, Corporate strategy, Legal, OGA, WGA

Tags: Antipiracy, Microsoft Corp., Piracy, Business Operations, Corporate Law, Mary Jo Foley

That patent-violation ruling that, if not overturned, could cost Microsoft $388 million? (The one in which Microsoft was found by a Rhode Island federal jury to have infringed on Uniloc’s anti-piracy technology — an award the Wall Street Journal said is the fifth largest patent award in history.)

I’ve seen a few folks celebrating the patent ruling as something that could put a damper on Microsoft’s Genuine Advantage anti-piracy technologies in Windows. But it looks like it may be a little soon to dance on the WGA/OGA graves.

The Uniloc ruling applies to the product activation technology used by Microsoft, not the product validation technology. (WGA and OGA both require activation and validation, but it’s the validation technology that results in the degradation of functionality and features for software deemed to be non-genuine.)

Microsoft officials have said they plan to appeal this week’s ruling.

December 30th, 2008

Microsoft and pay-as-you-go: Been there, done that

Posted by Mary Jo Foley @ 1:35 pm

Categories: Activation, Anti-piracy, Channel, Corporate strategy, Google, OEMs, OGA, Office, Office 2010/Office 14, Resellers, System builders, Vista, WGA, Windows 7, Windows client

Tags: Microsoft Corp., FlexGo, Microsoft Office, Office Suites, Software, Mary Jo Foley

Much is being made of Microsoft’s recent patent application for a pay-as-you-go service model. But many seem to forget Microsoft has been experimenting with this model for the past couple of years via several different programs.

One of these pay-as-you-go programs is FlexGo. FlexGo, in its 2006 incarnation, was a fairly complex program involving hardware, telecommunications, retail and financial services partners, Microsoft began testing pay-as-you-go rentals of Windows XP PCs and software in Brazil, India, Mexico and Russia. In 2007, Microsoft started to shift its FlexGo focus to a pure subscription model for Vista PCs and software.

Another pay-as-you-go program Microsoft has been testing in various countries revolves around Office. The Office Prepaid Trial program also launched in 2006. In the initial trials, Microsoft relied on system builders to sell users cards that provide them three months’ worth of Office 2003 usage for a set fee. With FlexGo, an entire PC system — hardware and software — is leased; with the Office Prepaid Trial program, only Office (either Office Small Business or Office Student and Teachers Edition) is rented out.

Both FlexGo and the Office Prepaid Trial programs still exist. FlexGo seems to be known now as the Unlimited Potential Group’s Subscription Computing Program (SCP). The Unlimited Potential team also is in charge of the current Office Prepaid Edition program.

The pay-as-you-go patent for which the Softies applied dates back to the summer of 2007. I wouldn’t be surprised to see Microsoft extend these kinds of trials to the U.S. — something officials said they’d consider but so far have yet to do. It also will be interesting to see how/if new offerings like the forthcoming Office Web applications alter (or doesn’t) Microsoft’s pay-as-you-go plans.

If you could buy Web browsing, gaming and/or business computing time by the hour, would you prefer that to doing your computing locally? Do you think hard economic times could drive more users to a pay-as-you-go model? Or will users simply embrace a Windows 7 netbook running Google Docs (or Microsoft’s Office Web apps) as the new cheaper computing platform?

Update: Microsoft’s pay-as-you-go patent application was shot down by the Patent and Trademark Office.