Exchange 2010 added to WSUS

Microsoft has added a new category to WSUS (Windows Server Update Services) for the recently RTM’ed Exchange 2010.

PowerPoint Web App’s New Reading-Optimized View

The Problem

The problem is simple and every user of PowerPoint has faced it at least once:

Read a PowerPoint presentation in Normal View or watch it as a Slide Show?

If you read it in the Normal view, you will see the notes but it will be missing animation and rich media.

If you choose the Slide Show, you’ll see animation and transitions, but miss the slide notes. In addition, complex slide animations are often unintelligible unless viewed in the full screen Slide Show.

The Solution

In order to solve this, PowerPoint Web App’s default view preserves animations and allows the viewing of slide notes. So the PowerPoint Web App’s default view is a new reading-optimized view, with the following components:

• Quick access to the Edit and Slide Show views

• A resizable window – with Silverlight installed the presentation will automatically resize to fit the window dimensions

• Slide transitions, object and text animation, live in the browser. Animation timings honor their original settings, and animations set to advance on click work just as you’d expect

• Additional controls to allow faster “browsing” and locating slides within the deck

• A notes pane

 

Read more at the PowerPoint Team Blog.

Preview the New Look of MSDN

Get an early look at the new experience coming to MSDN by checking out the Visual Basic Developer Center preview. This is the new design for all MSDN sites. The Library and Forums tabs are not integrated with this preview site. As this is a preview, there are still doing some final fine-tuning of the design.

 

See more at the New Visual Basic Developer Center.

WSUS: New Product Family Name for Visual Studio

According to the WSUS blog “Very soon, the "Visual Studio" product family will be renamed to "Developer Tools, Runtimes, and Redistributables".

Microsoft plans to distribute various developer-related products through Windows Server Update Services, including Report Viewer 2005 and Report Viewer 2008.

Any updates for Visual Studio 2005, and Visual Studio 2008 will be available under this new category.

Source: TechNet Blogs

Download Windows 7 90-Day Evaluation VHD

Microsoft has released an evaluation edition of Windows 7 that anyone can use free for 90 days. According to the publisher:

This download helps you evaluate the new features of Windows 7, Windows 7 has better ways to find and manage files—like Jump Lists and improved taskbar previews—to help you speed through everyday tasks. It's designed for faster and more reliable performance, so your PC just works the way you want it to. With 64-bit support, you can take full advantage of the latest powerful PCs. And great features like HomeGroup, Windows Media Center, and Windows Touch make new things possible. For more information about Windows 7, please go to http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windows-7/.

This download is available to customers running genuine Microsoft Windows.

Source: Microsoft Downloads Center

Forefront Threat Management Gateway 2010 RC Now Available

Microsoft has released the Release Candidate (RC) version of Forefront Threat Management Gateway 2010. This is the final public release prior to our RTM (release to manufacturing) and even though no new major features were introduced in the Release Candidate, there are several important improvements about security, reliability, performance, telemetry integration and overall solution completeness.

You can install Forefront TMG 2010 RC today and upgrade to a licensed version once available without changing the configuration of your deployment.  

The download of Forefront Threat Management Gateway 2010 RC is available from here.

My personal favorite feature of Forefront TMG is the ability to combine two ADSL lines (“ISP Redundancy”, as it’s officially called).

Source: Forefront TMG (ISA Server) Product Team Blog

Windows XP Mode RTM available on TechNet, MSDN

Microsoft has released the RTM versions of Windows XP Mode and Windows Virtual PC. They are currently available on TechNet and MSDN, with public downloads available soon.

Windows XP Mode

Windows XP Mode for Windows 7 makes it easy to install and run many of your Windows XP productivity applications directly from a Windows 7-based PC. It utilizes virtualization technology such as Windows Virtual PC to provide a Virtual Windows XP environment for Windows 7.
Windows XP Mode provides a 32-bit Windows XP Professional Service Pack 3 (SP3) environment pre-loaded on a virtual hard disk.

Note:

• You can use Windows Virtual PC to run Windows XP Mode on your computer

Windows Virtual PC

Windows Virtual PC is the latest Microsoft virtualization technology that allows you to run many productivity applications on a virtual Windows environment, with a single click, directly from a Windows 7-based PC.

Note:

• Install Windows XP Mode to create a virtual Windows XP SP3 environment.
• Windows Virtual PC requires Windows 7 RTM.
• Before installing the RTM version ensure that you have uninstalled the older version of both Windows Virtual PC and Windows XP Mode and restarted the system.
• Windows Virtual PC requires processor capable of hardware virtualization, with AMD-V™ or Intel® VT turned on in the BIOS.

For more information about Windows Virtual PC, please visit the Windows Virtual PC website.

Windows Virtual PC supports the following 32 bit Guest Operating systems : Windows XP Service Pack 3 (SP3) Professional, Windows Vista Enterprise Service Pack 1 (SP1), Windows Vista Ultimate Service Pack 1 (SP1), Windows 7 Professional, Windows 7 Ultimate, Windows 7 Enterprise.