Register for the wait list for the Microsoft Office 2010 Technical Preview

Microsoft has begun accepting user information for possible participation in a Technical Preview of Microsoft Office 2010.

By registering at the site you are signing up to be considered for the Technical Preview Program. This means you will be wait-listed for consideration to be invited into the Technical Preview Program, it doesn't mean that you will definitely be selected.

Registration only takes a moment and offers a chance to see an early version of the next Microsoft Office suite. Microsoft will notify those selected in early to mid July.

Technical previews are not for the faint of heart so unless you plan to spend some time with possible issues from using pre-release software, I'd suggest waiting until a public beta is released.

You can register at the Microsoft Office 2010 Technical Preview Registration page.

Via GottaBeMobile

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Infected Pirate Copies of Windows 7 Build Botnet

Additional information related to the malware infected version of the Windows 7 RC making the rounds on the bit torrent sites indicates that the trojan program was building a network of bots. Check out this quote from Kelly Jackson Higgins of Dark Reading:

The rogue OS, which is rigged with a Trojan downloader, at one point had around 27,000 bots in its control as of May 10, when researchers took over the command and control (C&C) server that communicated with the bots and served them additional malware. At the height of the botnet buildup, the botmaster was recruiting more than 200 machines an hour...

The rest of the article is available at Dark Reading. JM Hipolito of the Trend Micro Malware Blog reports:

A file being hosted in popular torrent sites posing as a copy of the Windows 7 RC was found to be a Trojan by security researchers. The file which arrives with the file name setup.exe is detected as TROJ_DROPPER.SPX. TROJ_DROPPER.SPX drops TROJ_AGENT.NICE.

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Malware Infected Versions of Windows 7 RC Make Rounds

Microsoft released the Windows 7 Release Candidate last Tuesday on the Microsoft Developers' Network and TechNet web sites. Already Windows 7 RC is available on bit torrent sites being downloaded by those who don't have access to either of the Microsoft web sites.

On Thursday, Microsoft reported that some of the illegally-distributed copies are infected with malware (MALicious softWARE) designed to infect computers. Risks faced by users associated with using Malware infected software include potential identity theft, system failures and unrecoverable data loss if their systems become infected.

Windows protects itself from piracy by detecting when attempts have been made to circumvent or tamper with its built-in product activation technology. When the software is determined not to be “genuine,” the computer starts to display on-screen notifications that it is not, and then shows a “black screen of death."

The Windows 7 RC will be available for legitimate download from the Microsoft sites until the end of July.

Via SC Magazine

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Microsoft Releases Windows 7 Upgrade Advisor

If you're starting to think about upgrading to Windows 7 when it's released this fall, you should be thinking about whether or not your existing computer is compatible with Windows 7.

Is your computer fast enough? Do you have enough free disk space? Do you need to install more memory? Will your printers be supported? Is there a driver for your mouse?

If your computer is currently running or is certified to run Windows Vista, you should have few issues. However, all these questions and more can be answered by downloading and running the free Microsoft Windows 7 Advisor utility.

The utility will generate a report telling you if your PC can run Windows 7, and if there are known compatibility issues. If the issues can be resolved, the utility will provide suggestions for next steps such as if you need an updated software driver. It will also provide advice on how to upgrade to Windows 7.

Note that Windows XP users are required to do a clean install of the Windows 7 Release Candidate as well as the final product when it ships. Only computers running Windows Vista can be upgraded to Windows 7.

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The Six Degrees of Windows 7

Unless you live under a rock, you've heard about the next version of Windows to supersede Windows Vista, Windows 7.

Deciding whether to upgrade to Windows 7 when available is enough of a mental exercise however, as Microsoft did with Vista, they'll be offering numerous different versions, or SKUs, of the product intended for use by different groups of users in different types of environments.

Although this information has been available since February of this year, I thought it might be good to quickly review it again since the public release of the Windows 7 Release Candidate (RC) was recently released to MSDN and TechNet. Things may change between the date of this posting and the actual "gold" release date but as of now, there are six different versions that will be available as follows:

1) Windows 7 Home Premium - This edition has partial Aero effects, no support for Multi-touch, and no Windows Media Center and will be available to all users worldwide through retail and OEMs.

2) Windows 7 Professional - This edition adds features missing in Home Premium including encryption and XP Mode, and will also be available to all users worldwide through retail and OEMs.

3) Windows 7 Starter Edition - This edition is intended for installation and use on lower-powered Netbooks and will have a limitation of three concurrent applications, excluding Windows Explorer, Control Panel Applets, the Command prompt and Task Manager. It will be a 32-bit version only and lack the Aero Glass theme (probably to reduce the need for more powerful graphics) and support for Multi-Touch. An in depth look at Windows 7 Starter Edition is available at the WindowsITPro site.

4) Windows 7 Home Basic Edition - This edition is intended for "emerging markets" such as Brazil, China, India, Indonesia, Mexico, Pakistan, the Philippines, and Thailand. This version has no artificial limitation on the number of applications, but some Aero Glass options are excluded along with some new features.

5) Windows 7 Enterprise - This full-blown edition is targeted at the enterprise market and will be sold through volume licensing to Microsoft Software Assurance contract customers. This edition adds adding Multilingual User Interface (MUI) which allows for installation of multiple interface languages on a single system, Unix feature support, encryption features, and support for Windows XP Mode virtualization.

6) Windows 7 Ultimate - This version will include the Windows 7 Enterprise features and will be available to home users on an individual license basis.

It's probable that the computers sold this coming holiday season will include either the Windows 7 Premium or Professional editions depending on the specific OEM with Windows 7 Ultimate for higher end systems or as an upgrade. Vista may even show up on some models from some vendors with an option for upgrade to Windows 7.

It remains to be seen how many Netbook vendors will ship Windows 7 Starter Edition as many offer other non-Microsoft operating system options including Ubuntu. It will also depend on politics, profit and whether the OEMs feel that buyers will be interested in an abbreviated version of Windows 7. Personally, I would want a Netbook powerful enough to run Ultimate but that's another post...

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