Excel/OneNote 2010 will support simultaneous editing

As we are preparing for the Technical Preview of Office 2010, additional information has started emerging from various sources.

One of the most interesting scenarios of the new Office 2010 is the ability to simultaneously edit Excel 2010 or OneNote 2010 files along with your colleagues.

This feature is not actually new for OneNote, since OneNote 2003 / 2007 provides the “Shared Session” feature that lets teams of (as many as you like) people access a shared set of notes at the same time by automatically synchronizing everyone's changes to the notebook.

It is not yet clear if simultaneous editing in Office 201o will be implemented in the same way; sure is that Google Docs provides this feature for a long time, allowing up to ten people to work on the same document.

Word 2010 will not support simultaneous editing; even though we don’t know why, I am sure a lot of people will be disappointed to find out about this since such a collaborative scenario would be a killer feature for Office 2010.

Don’t forget that you can still apply for Office 2010 Beta. Find more information here.

(Image source: on10.net)

FCS update re-offering problem resolved

It seems like the WSUS team continues to face problems publishing updates.

This time, an update released for Forefront Client Security installed successfully without issues but afterwards another FCS update of previous version (1.0.1703.0) would be offered to the client. If the Client Update for Microsoft Forefront Client Security (1.0.1703.0) package attempted to install, it would fail as there would already be a later version of the FCS Antimalware engine on the system.

Consequently, the KB971026 update would be continually offered and continually fail to install.

Microsoft has re-released the (older) Client Update for Microsoft Forefront Client Security (1.0.1703.0) package. WSUS Administrators should sync their servers to get the updated metadata.

The issue did not affect home users running Forefront Client Security as part of an enterprise benefit, since Microsoft Update did not seem to face the problem (or was very quickly fixed).

Source: Forefront Client Security Support Blog

Mark your calendars: Microsoft Security Essentials beta on June 23rd

In just 4 days users will be able to download the beta version of Microsoft Security Essentials. Initially the beta will be available in English-speaking countries, Brazil and Israel.

Microsoft  Security Essentials will use the same engine as the paid Forefront Client Security. It will be available in 32- and 64-bit versions for Windows XP SP2, Windows Vista and Windows 7.

Microsoft  Security Essentials will require a Genuine (validated) version of Windows.

You can also check-out the official web site.

No more MCP Certification Welcome Kits after June 30

In accordance with the Microsoft Environmental Initiative and its goals to reduce carbon footprint, Microsoft is transitioning  to digital-only Microsoft Certified Professional (MCP) certificates. The digital certificates are available today in PDF or XPS at https://www.mcpdigitalcert.com/.

Orders for MCP Certification Welcome Kits will discontinue on June 30, 2009. After that, if you require a paper certificate, you may order one beginning July 7, 2009, through the MCP member Web site (costs will apply).

Poor new MCPs… I still have my MCP Welcome Kit, with its ID card, pins and Bill Gates signed certificate…

Forefront Client Security update released

As Microsoft announced yesterday, an update for Forefront Client Security anti-malware client has been released today. This update fixes several issues, including a new shortcut scanning behavior that allows overriding network location link (.lnk) scanning.

Even though .lnk scanning override is included with the update, it has to be explicitly enabled by the Administrator either through the local policy or through Active Directory by using a Group Policy administrative template (ADM) file, since this option is not manageable through the Forefront Client Security management console. Detailed information on how to achieve this, alongside more information about this hotfix, is available at Microsoft Support KB971026.

The updated client requires that definition update version 1.59.3.0 or a later version is installed.

Microsoft gets Advanced+ Antivirus Certification

Since Microsoft's new antivirus seems to be the topic of the day, let’s take a look at the recent antivirus comparison reports published by av-comparatives.org.

(Microsoft Live OneCare 2.5.2900.20 has been used in the tests, even though it will stop being sold in retail by June 30th, 2009).

The following report, where Microsoft scored second behind Avira and in par with G Data, shows the pro-active on-demand detection capabilities sorted by detection rate.

Microsoft’s antivirus was the only one with the least false alarms (0-2), compared to its competitors:

Last, but not least, Microsoft Live OneCare was awarded with the Advanced+ certification, alongside NOD32 and Kaspersky.

We all hope Microsoft will do even better with the new Morro / Microsoft Security Essentials free antivirus offering, when this is released by the end of 2009.

You can read the full report at av-comparatives.org (PDF, 840KB).

Forefront Client Security (FCS) update coming to WSUS

After today’s heat about Morro / Microsoft Security Essentials (here and here), Microsoft is releasing an update to Forefront Client Security v1:

Improvements to the FCS  kernel-mode driver

A change in how the component object model (COM) is used in Software Explorers. There is an issue present, only in Windows 2000, that causes it to crash.

A change to how the FCS engine scans shortcut files(.lnk). The engine can now be configured to query the path to which the shortcut points; if the path is on the local computer it will scan the referenced location, if it is a network location it will not scan the reference

Source: WSUS Product Team Blog