Windows 7 Upgrade: Isolated Problems, Not Disaster

Speed Up Windows XP With System Mechanic 10.8

System Mechanic 10.8 Put Through The Test

We've all seen those annoying television commercials that promise to speed up a slow computer, but do such solutions really work? The CRN Test Center put Iolo's System Mechanic 10.8 through its paces and was impressed with the results.

Our test subject was an old Pentium III-era PC running Windows XP so slowly that the machine was completely unusable. Just opening the Start menu easily took 20 seconds, opening an app required about a minute, and we could fix a steak-and-egg breakfast in the time it took to reboot this dinosaur.

But it was perfect for our purposes. We installed System Mechanic 10.8 and, after running a scan, the tool reported that the overall system status was poor and health and security were at alarming levels.

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As expected, the floodgates were opened last week on Windows 7 upgrades. From some of the histrionics on the blogosphere, one would almost surmise that an upgrade to Windows 7 was nothing short of a painful, abysmal failure. Much of the spotlight focused on upgrade problems with the Windows 7 Student edition -- one of the more understandable gripes about the upgrade process. Accusations about a host of glitches, such as endless loops of Windows 7 startup, abounded.

However, some of the outrages over Windows 7 upgrades are dubious, at best. As Channelweb.com's Kevin McLaughlin reported, many users are complaining that that they cannot do clean installs with Windows 7 upgrade media.

Say what? When has Microsoft (NSDQ:MSFT) ever made it an option for a user to do a from-scratch install with an upgrade CD? Legitimately, that is, without any workarounds?

It became a bit hard, during the course of last week, to separate justifiable gripes about the Windows 7 upgrade process from the lone freak incidents and overall general biases against Microsoft. However, upon a deeper dig into a disparate sampling of users all over the Internet recording their Windows 7 upgrade experiences, our verdict is that most problems were more incidental with third-party hardware drivers, line-of-business applications, and just random quirkiness.

We conducted our own independent tests on the upgrade process. What we found were very specific, yet irritating incidents that don't significantly undermine Microsoft's promise that "if it works in Vista, it will work in Windows 7." Furthermore, we did not find any issues in our testing that should render a business system inoperable. Note, all upgrades were done using 32-bit software.

In our initial test, we upgraded a Toshiba Portege 500 laptop from Vista SP2 to Windows 7 Ultimate. The full-blown version of Ultimate, and not an upgrade version, was used for the test. We first attempted to do a clean install over an upgrade, but Toshiba's native hard disk drive software prevented a complete wipe-out of the system. So, we moved on, doing just a plain old upgrade. The upgrade process was successful. There were no issues with drivers or any other preinstalled software.

One nuisance we noticed after upgrading to Windows 7 and Internet Explorer 8 was a persistence of IE8 to open new IE sessions and tabs at 150 percent zoom. Somewhere during the upgrade process, the previous settings for IE were adjusted, but that is probably more of an issue with the upgrade from IE7 to version 8.

Next, we upgraded a year-old Dell (NSDQ:Dell) XPS laptop, again, with Vista SP2 to Windows 7. There also were no issues with the upgrade process, save for a broken link to a shortcut we had on the Vista OS desktop to wireless networking.

An upgrade of a Dell Vostro 220 mini-tower also gave no problems. All shortcuts and drivers transitioned over to Windows 7 without incident.

This should be of some comfort to home users. From our testing, all of the major OEMs seem to really have prepared for the final release of Windows 7. For business users and those in the channel, it appears that the biggest headaches will be caused by incompatibility issues with LOB software and any other proprietary software or unique hardware. Of course, a solid testing plan along with backing up of mission-critical data and system registries should alleviate any major issues with a Windows 7 upgrade.

Our expectation is that most businesses will opt for clean installs anyway, or replace dated machines with preinstalled Windows 7 ones. It would seem that so far, the Windows 7 upgrade process is a relatively painless one and does not merit the drama it has seemed to attract.

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Microsoft announces 7 bulletins for May 2012 Patch Tuesday, closes book on MAPP data leak

In addition to its advance notification for Patch Tuesday, Microsoft uncovers the party responsible for leaking security information and exposing customers to attacks against RDP


Just hours after releasing the advance notification for May's Patch Tuesday release, which consists of seven bulletins, Microsoft brought some closure to its biggest security threat of the year.

RELATED: Microsoft's MAPP reportedly hacked, RDP exploits coming sooner than expected

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In a post on its TechNet blog, Microsoft blamed March's information leak in the Microsoft Active Protections Program (MAPP) that led to several threats against a Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) vulnerability on Chinese partner company Hangzhou DPTech Technologies.

"During our investigation into the disclosure of confidential data shared with our Microsoft Active Protections Program (MAPP) partners, we determined that a member of the MAPP program, Hangzhou DPTech Technologies Co., Ltd., had breached our non-disclosure agreement (NDA)," Yunsun Wee, director of Microsoft Trustworthy Computing, wrote in the blog post. "Microsoft takes breaches of our NDAs very seriously and has removed this partner from the MAPP Program."

The breach, which came at the hands of hackers in China, granted the cybercrime community access to information to attack the RDP vulnerability before Microsoft customers were given the information needed to patch it. Wee added that Microsoft "took actions to better protect our information," while senior program manager Maarten Van Horenbeeck provided more visibility into the inner workings of MAPP.

Given the relatively light load of security bulletins, Microsoft chose an opportune time to close the book on March's security scare. Three of the seven bulletins were rated critical, the most interesting of which was Bulletin 1's critical patch for Office, Qualys CTO Wolfgang Kandek says.

Threats against Office typically require the user to open a file containing a malicious program, Kandek says. Microsoft has traditionally been more prone to issue the "important" rating to threats that involve user interaction, he added, making this month's critical bulletin "kind of interesting."

Marcus Carey, security researcher at Rapid7, speculated that the Office vulnerability patched with Bulletin 1 "is an underlying issue on how it processes data." Citing the recent phishing attacks against Mac systems, Carey says threats coming through Microsoft productivity software are "becoming a recurring theme for organizations and end users because it's primed for phishing attacks."

Beyond that, the remaining two critical patches will attract the most attention, primarily because they address vulnerabilities in Windows versions XP through 7, Carey says.

"This means that all organizations and the entire user base will be affected by these critical bulletins," Carey says.

The other four bulletins were all rated important. Bulletins 4 and 5 address remote code execution vulnerabilities in Office, while bulletins 6 and 7 address elevation of privilege in Windows Vista and Windows 7.

With seven bulletins in April, Microsoft's total bulletins for 2012 rises to 35, compared to the 36 issued by the same point last year. Interestingly, Microsoft's release schedule has been far more consistent than in years past. From January through May 2012, the total number of Patch Tuesday bulletins issued in a single month has dipped as low as six and risen only as high as nine. In the same period last year, those totals ranged from two in both January and May to 12 in February and 17 in April.

This trend shows a sign of stability in Microsoft research and makes the jobs of systems administrators much easier, Kandek says.

"I'm not sure how they do this internally in terms of planning, but it seems to me going to a more steady stream is a sign of maturity, and from my systems administration perspective I prefer that than every two months getting something bigger," Kandek says. "I personally prefer a steady stream coming out. I can deal with that better, rather than things where suddenly my capacity is stretched more."

Andrew Storms, director of security operations for nCircle, also took note of Microsoft's continued move away from the "feast and famine" approach of last year. However, the number of bulletins is less relevant than the number of common vulnerabilities and exposures (CVEs), Storms says, and the security community should put more focus on Microsoft's increase in that area this year.

"Bulletin numbers don't tell the whole patch story," Storms says. "CVEs correspond to the number of bugs fixed, and this year Microsoft is on a CVE streak. With the 23 CVEs in May's patch, Microsoft's CVE count has already reached 70 for 2012. This time last year Microsoft issued just 59 CVEs."

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Will Windows Phone feel any pain after getting dumped by LG?

Claiming sales are too weak, did LG make a valid point in dumping Windows Phone, or an excuse to avoid competing with Nokia? How about both?

Ahead of a meeting between their CEOs, Korea's LG Electronics has decided to shun any more Windows Phone products because there have yet to be "meaningful" sales.

That should get the meeting off to a good start.

The electronics manufacturer told the Korean Herald this week that Windows Phone devices are just not selling well enough worldwide to warrant continued manufacturing WP phones. Instead, LG will turn its focus to the Android platform.

RELATED: Expected Windows Phone 8 features justify Samsung’s decision to hold out

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"The total unit of Windows Phone sold in the global market is not a meaningful figure," a LG spokesman told the Herald, adding that the company currently has no plans of rolling out another LG-manufactured Windows Phone soon.

The company will "continue research and development efforts" on Windows Phones. Translation: we give up, unless it takes off in the marketplace.

RELATED: The Nokia Lumia 900: Pros and cons compared to the iPhone 4s

It's not exactly a huge loss for Microsoft. LG is getting its you-know-what handed to it by Samsung. The Herald notes that the mobile business unit's performance has consistently failed to meet expectations, with operating losses for seven consecutive quarters. It was only when the company focused on LTE Android phones that it got back into the black

It's not like Windows Phone will suffer as a result of this decision, either. Microsoft still has HTC, Nokia and Samsung, all of which are clobbering LG. And with all the hoopla around the Nokia Lumia 900, including raves from Steve Wozniak, it's easy to see why LG would get its feelings hurt.

Still, it's embarrassing PR for Microsoft to lose a mobile partner, especially one that had previously gone all in for the Windows Phone OS. Back in 2009, Microsoft and LG signed a partnership in which LG chose Microsoft's mobile OS as its main phone platform, committing to manufacturing up to 26 Windows Phones for 2012.

So, if nothing else, the lawyers might get involved, which will do nothing to help sell phones..

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