Microsoft

Microsoft has included in recent Windows 7 test versions an option to turn off the Internet Explorer 8 Web browser, according to testers who have used the recent builds.

According to Chris Holmes, build 7048 of Windows 7 includes Internet Explorer as one of many Windows components that can be turned on or off via a "Windows Features" dialog box. The control panel exists in the public beta version of Windows 7, but IE8 is not listed among the features that can be turned on and off.

Microsoft declined to comment on the feature's inclusion as well … Read more

The European Commission has said it will stop actively monitoring Microsoft to check that the software maker is complying with a 2004 antitrust ruling.

In 2005, the Commission appointed an independent trustee to assess whether Microsoft was supplying interoperability information for Windows with workgroup servers to software rivals. The Commission told CNET News sister site ZDNet UK on Wednesday that it will no longer require a full-time monitor, and that it will use "ad hoc assistance" to provide it with advice on any issues arising from the ruling.

"We don't think it's necessary to have … Read more

With Windows 7, Microsoft is trying not to make the same mistakes it did with Windows Vista. That much is clear.

One of the biggest things Microsoft is trying to do different this time is be a more dependable software vendor. The company knows it lost some credibility with businesses by changing its Vista plans midstream and also having several delays.

"We know the stop and start nature of Vista created big challenges for our customers and partners," Microsoft senior director Gavriella Schuster said in an interview this week.

Microsoft is aiming to get Windows 7, currently in beta, … Read more

Just because Office 14 won't be fully released until next year doesn't mean consumers will have to wait that long to try out the products.

In an interview this week Senior Vice President Chris Capossela said that Microsoft will offer more details on the beta "relatively soon," noting that Office has traditionally made its products available to millions of testers well before the final version ships.

"That's been true of the suite," he said. "That will certainly be true of the suite this time and of the Web apps."

With Office … Read more

REDMOND, Wash.--Rajesh Jha likens complex software projects to building a skyscraper.

That means in the end, the thing might look pretty good. Along the way, though, it tends to be kind of a mess.

"If you walk by the site of a skyscraper under construction, it looks chaotic," Microsoft corporate VP Rajesh Jha said in an interview last week. "It looks confused. You will see dirt, scaffolding."

At the end, though, if it is useful, it will be something worth all the dust.

"If it is designed well, what comes out is something that … Read more

As it has in years past, Microsoft is meeting this week with some of its hardcore enthusiasts--the Most Valuable Professionals (MVPs) that serve in many ways as unpaid ambassadors for the company's products.

This year, though, the gathering with tech enthusiasts is completely closed to reporters and is also covered by nondisclosure agreements (NDA). However, that hasn't stopped the chatter, particularly because of the heavy use of Twitter to discuss the event. (For the latest discussion, simply click on this link.)

There are dozens of postings every few minutes, ranging from talk about meals and the weather to … Read more

Microsoft plans later this week to begin internal testing of Kumo, a long-anticipated update to its Live Search product, CNET News has learned.

Ultimately, Kumo is designed to be both a rebranding and an update for Live Search, although at this point Microsoft is describing it as "an internal test environment."

"Kumo is the name of an internal test environment we are launching to a small sampling of employees...this week," a Microsoft representative told CNET. Kumo had been long rumored to be a possible name for the Live Search rebranding.

Word that Microsoft was close … Read more

REDMOND, Wash.--At Microsoft's TechFest, it takes a little imagination to see how the research technologies might eventually come to market.

A new video from Microsoft shows in an elegant, if utopian way, what it might look like if all of those gadgets came together several years hence. Earlier on Friday, Microsoft Business Division President Stephen Elop showed the video in a speech at the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School of Business.

As I noted in my interview with Stephen Elop, the hardest thing for me to imagine wasn't that in several years time, all our walls … Read more

REDMOND, Wash.--When Microsoft showed its Seadragon technology some time ago, it was clear that a bird's-eye view was a neat way to do photos. But Microsoft clearly thinks the "bird's-eye" view of content has applications way beyond photos.

On Friday, Microsoft is releasing a free add-on, dubbed Canvas for OneNote, that takes that same approach to viewing one's notebooks in OneNote.

Because it is an adjunct to OneNote, Canvas requires one really be a heavy user of that program to get the benefit. (It also requires Windows Vista and uses Microsoft's Windows Presentation … Read more