I am Microsoftie 4 ever (18+ years) working in Windows Services and Content team in the UK, my blog is mainly focused on the Windows family of products and trying to provide help pointers and resources for customers on our products.
Last week I posted about April 29th was the date when Windows XP SP3 would be available, well it seems it has been delayed for a while due to a...
'...compatibility issue between Microsoft Dynamics Retail Management System (RMS) and both Windows XP SP3 and Windows Vista Service Pack1...'
Read the full announcement on the Technet Forums
Rob
It is not obvious but did you know that you can search the Windows Vista Knowledge Base (aka KB) directly from within the Windows Help and How-To site?
No? well I don’t blame you as it is quite hard to discover!
First you have to click the little black triangle next to the search box, which then leads to a fly out where you can then select ‘Windows Vista Knowledge Base’ instead of the content on the Windows Help and How-to site.
Now that you have found out about this little hidden (not intentionally) feature you may be wondering, so what? or what is the difference between the 2?
The way I like to think of how what distinguishes the 2 different searches is as follows:
However there is content such as common error messages where we try on the Windows Help and How-To site put a less technical and more consumer friendly view on it vs the KB article which tends to be more technically written and targeted at a wider audience. Such as about error 80070003
Windows Update error 8007003 Vs Error message when you try to download updates from Windows Update on a computer that is running Windows Vista: "Error 0x80070003 The system cannot find the path specified"
The other thing to remember about the support Kb is that it is not just for Vista but for all our products.
Yesterday we put up six great new demo videos on the Windows Help and How-to site. These are a new type of video to the ones we have traditionally have had. They are short and very task specific and demonstrate in a step by step fashion using screencasting technology and voice over narration.
We would love to hear your feedback on this type (or any other) of video on the help and how to site. Actually any feedback on any aspects of the site are very much appreciated.
I am typing this entry whilst trying out my new headphones a set of Microsoft LifeChat LX-3000’s,
...and I have to say I am very impressed so far with the sound quality. I am no audiophile at all but the music is very crisp and clear, and most of all the background noise has disappeared due to the generous cups that envelope my ears :). Although it feels odd to have these type of headphones as I am used to my Bose in ear phones for listening to music.
Of course these will come into there own for chatting to friends and colleagues via messenger.
One thing to mention was the install on my Vista notebook, I plugged them into a USB slot, Vista detected them within 2s and installed the drivers automatically and I had them setup and working within a few more seconds. Which all in all was a great and trouble free experience. I would highly recommend these to anyone wanting to listen to music, make calls or chat on there PC.
One minor thing where the experience could be improved ever so slightly is that when I hover over the little speaker in the notification (or System Tray), it says I am running Microsoft LifeChat LX-3000,great. However the icon is the same standard speaker one rather than the headphone one!
Currently listening to a little bit of Voodoo Chile by Jimi Hendrix, which sounds amazing :)
If you had not already heard April 29th is the scheduled date that Windows XP Service Pack 3 will be available via Windows Update and the Microsoft Download Center
See the announcement over on the Technet Forums:Windows XP Service Pack 3 Released to Manufacturing - TechNet Forums
There is a summary of what is in XP SP3 either in PDF or XPS here
‘Windows XP SP3 includes all previously released Windows XP updates, including security updates and hotfixes, and select out-of-band releases. Windows XP SP2 was released in August 2004. Since then, Microsoft has released hundreds of updates. Windows XP SP3 includes all of these updates. Microsoft is not adding significant Windows Vista functionality to Windows XP through SP3. However, SP3 does include Network Access Protection (NAP) to help organizations that use Windows XP to take advantage of new features in the Windows Server® 2008 operating system’
So a little later than planned, and following on from last months post here are the articles on the Windows Help and How-to that have the highest rating by you the customer. All are rated 85% positively or better, the top one getting a whopping 96% rating which is great :)
Some of these articles get very little traffic from UK customers, and I will need to look at how I can highlight/promote these on the site better. The fact the panorama one is top was a surprise to me based on my earlier post this week, here and here.
The same caveats apply to this list as last month.
Then visit my colleagues (Magnus) new blog over on technet Windows-tips
”Hej Magnum , god emot se du blogging , hoppas du hålla slik :)”
I hope that makes sense
OK so maybe it was supposedly an internal video that got leaked onto Youtube, or maybe even a viral effort, but you still have to worry at a lot of levels about it.
Watch the video and make you own mind up!
Updated with the smilies 17/04/2008
You can download the Helpful Hints – Your guide to mastering the Windows Vista Ultimate operating system for free here. Its quite big at nearly 9mb but contains some great and useful content especially if you are new to Windows Vista it is well worth a quick read.
It covers everything from starting your computer to managing pictures and security features to games.
However one thing to note is that it is focused on the Ultimate version so not all features are available if you have a different version.
Spurred on by my poor effort yesterday, I decided to give it another go today, and wandered out and took 5 shots (again on the E650) of the Microsoft UK main campus at Thames Valley Park. After a bit of cropping I got the following much better (but not perfect result).
(Click on it to open up the full image 1.3Mb)
So a better end product, I was surprised about how well it came out. Pity about the foreground ropes not quite lining up, and clearly it was sunny when I took the first shot on the left.