Updates for Windows 7 Beta Users

5 test updates to PCs running the Windows 7 Beta (Build 7000) via Windows Update. These updates allow us to test and verify our ability to deliver and manage the updating of Windows 7. We typically verify servicing scenarios during a beta.
Next week Windows 7 beta users will get a variety of updates, only they aren't really updates.

Instead, Microsoft said in will sending the patches to test the operating system's updating mechanism.

The company stressed the updates won't actually add new features or update anything.

Brandon LeBlanc explained the nature of the updates in a blog posting .
This is not something we will support in Windows 7. We've talked about and shown a great many "personalization" elements of Windows 7 already, such as the new themepacks which you can try out in the beta. The reasons for this should be pretty clear, which is that we cannot guarantee the security of the system to allow for arbitrary elements to be loaded into memory at boot time. In the early stages of starting Windows, the system needs to be locked down and execute along a very carefully monitored and known state as tools such as firewalls and anti-virus checking are not yet available to secure the system. And of course, even though we're sure everyone would follow the requirements around image size, content, etc. due to performance we would not want to build in all the code necessary to guarantee that all third parties would be doing so.
Most should not be surprised about this decision, not only because of the security and performance concerns, but because Microsoft has not supported customizing boot screens on its previous Windows operating systems.
Personalization
Many of you might be asking if you could include your own animation or customize this sequence. This is not something we will support in Windows 7. We’ve talked about and shown a great many “personalization” elements of Windows 7 already, such as the new themepacks which you can try out in the beta. The reasons for this should be pretty clear, which is that we cannot guarantee the security of the system to allow for arbitrary elements to be loaded into memory at boot time. In the early stages of starting Windows, the system needs to be locked down and execute along a very carefully monitored and known state as tools such as firewalls and anti-virus checking are not yet available to secure the system. And of course, even though we’re sure everyone would follow the requirements around image size, content, etc. due to performance we would not want to build in all the code necessary to guarantee that all third parties would be doing so. One of our design goals of Windows 7 was around making sure there are ample opportunities to express yourself and to make sure your PC is really your PC and so we hope that you’ll understand why this element is one we need to maintain consistently.

This was a quick behind the scenes look at something that we hope you enjoy. With Windows 7 we set out to make the experience of starting a Windows PC a little more enjoyable, and from the feedback we’ve seen here and in other forums, we think we’re heading in the right direction. In addition to our efforts to make boot fast, we also have a goal to make the system robust enough, such that most of you will not see this new boot animation that often and when you do it will be both enjoyable and fast!

Microsoft :The company's new Web site, HealthVault, is it trusted

New day new technology new service, security , trust
Microsoft has long been labeled an enemy of the people--the company you didn't even trust with your PC's serial number. Now the new Microsoft, led by philanthropist Bill Gates, hopes you will entrust your medical records with it.

The company's new Web site, HealthVault, aims to be a central repository for consumers to store their personal health data so that they can share it more easily with doctors and other medical professionals. The idea has become a sort of medical care holy grail: Current recordkeeping is a mishmash of files. Chronic care patients can wind up taking multiple medications prescribed by doctors who may be unaware of one another. Care of critically ill patients gets mismanaged because doctors can't find the right records.

But can Microsoft (nasdaq: MSFT - news - people ) solve this? Microsoft, the company whose personal computer software is regularly attacked by hackers, the company reprimanded by governments for its aggressive monopolistic behavior?

"Those are the same questions I asked," says Peter Neupert, the Microsoft vice president in charge of the company's health group. This is Neupert's second stint at Microsoft: He left in 1998 to start Drugstore.com, which went public a year later. He has since served on presidential commissions on health care. But he wanted to do more than just analyze the problems, and convinced Microsoft Chief Executive Steve Ballmer two years ago take him back. "I told him I had this passion and wanted to go back to work. I finally persuaded him it was a good idea."

Neupert figured health care could only be solved by a brand big enough to be recognized around the world. Given the complexity and scale of the health care problems, "even to move the needle takes something like a Microsoft, a company with patience, with an ability to get partners, build infrastructure and, quite frankly, financial strength," Neupert says. "Who are mom and dad going to feel comfortable sharing private data with? The government? No. The insurance industry? Statistics say 87% of consumers don't trust their health plan. Some under-funded no-name organization?" Worldwide, Microsoft is one of the best-known brands, he notes. "I think we have a pretty good shot."

He has lots of competition. In particular, Google (nasdaq: GOOG - news - people ) has been exploring a health care initiative. That program slowed recently when the executive leading the program left Google. Insurance companies, including Aetna (nyse: AET - news - people ), UnitedHealth Group (nyse: UNH - news - people ) and WellPoint (nyse: WLP - news - people ), also have medical recordkeeping systems under way.

There is no shortage of skeptics for a dozen reasons. "The concept behind it is dead on track, but it won't work very well" without a better way to integrate data from local doctors, predicts medical data guru Brent James, vice president for research at Utah's Intermountain Healthcare. The bottleneck, he says, is that there is no universal way to get blood test results, imaging scans and other basic data from thousands of local doctors and labs onto the Web.

"The intercommunications don't exist to get the data from where they now live into this central format and back out again to the physicians and nurses who would use them," James says.

Neupert agrees. "Hospitals, data devices, pharmacies, labs--we need to connect them all because the current situation is just too fragmented and siloed." As a starting point for pulling together data, Microsoft says it is working with 40 partners, including the New York-Presbyterian Hospital, the Mayo Clinic, Johnson & Johnson and the American Heart Association, to provide content and applications for the sites. It also is working with device companies on applications that will allow readings to move directly from a range of diagnostic instruments--such as blood pressure cuffs and diabetic glucose monitors--to HealthVault.

Microsoft argues that HealthVault can avoid the countless security problems that have afflicted its operating systems. "It's an apples and oranges comparison," he asserts. "It's a lot easier for us to manage a service for reliability, security and privacy than it is to manage hundreds of millions of distributed personal computers." Microsoft is working with two hacker organizations to test the security of its system.

Although HealthVault will be free for consumers, this is no philanthropic effort. Microsoft hopes HealthVault will translate into more search revenues through targeted health-related ads. The site includes an improved online search that uses a machine-learning algorithm to help consumers search through articles on health issues by breaking broad topics into concrete subcategories.

"By providing a great health search experience, we will actually improve the search loyalty of Microsoft overall," says Sean Nolan, the Microsoft programmer who designed the site. He admits though that moving into the medical record arena "is a huge crazy challenge." Among other issues, Microsoft will have to tiptoe the line between assuring people their information is private--and serving up advertisements relevant to the health problems they have.

James says Microsoft's move into health care is reminiscent of dot-com companies who tried to develop medical records in the 1990s and stalled because they didn't control the data. "It is the same old great idea but the devil is in the details," he says. At least Microsoft has lots of money and technical expertise, he says.

Neupert says the potential "life-saving benefits" of a good electronic records system are worth the business risks. He ticks off what Microsoft needs to make the system real: Sign up medical partners who can start providing patient data, put privacy principles in place, work with hackers to test the system and so on. It's a long list.

The one virtue that even its critics concede to Microsoft is patience. It will need it.

Microsoft has revamped its slow-selling Zune digital player

Microsoft Corp. Chairman Bill Gates, is joined by J Allard, the company's corporate vice president for design and development.

How many development?? for customer satisfaction or business ...or both.

Microsoft has revamped its slow-selling Zune digital music player and created a MySpace-style social-networking site in its drive to compete with Apple's market-leading iPod player.

In large part, the Microsoft moves announced Tuesday - the introduction of a smaller, sleeker version of the Zune player and the planned Zune social Web site - reflect an attempt to build scale for a brand that so far has achieved only niche status.

Microsoft said it had sold about 1.2 million units of the original device in the last year.

"For something we pulled together in six months, we are very pleased with the satisfaction we got," Bill Gates, Microsoft's chairman, said in an interview Tuesday. "The satisfaction for the device was superhigh. The satisfaction on the software actually is where we'd expect to see a huge uptick this year. It was just so-so on the software side."

Microsoft said it had re-engineered the Zune hardware and software and the associated digital music store to make them all easier to use."I'm sure a year from now we'll do even better," Gates said. "But I'm blown away by what they've been able to do in a year."

Many of the changes are stylistic. The company reworked the device's navigation button and dropped one of its signature colors, brown, from the list of options. The Zune will be available in black, pink, green and red.

But one of the most striking changes had to do with Microsoft's effort to enhance what had been perhaps the most talked-about feature on the original device: the ability to share music files and other media wirelessly with other Zune owners.

Far too few people, however, purchased the player for such sharing to become commonplace, and the function held little appeal because it was crippled by usage rules negotiated with the music industry. Shared songs expired within a few days, even if the recipient did not play them. And a file acquired from one Zune user could not be shared with a third user.

Under the new rules, Microsoft said, shared songs would have no expiration date, and it would be repeatedly possible to pass along songs sent from one device to another. But a shared file can be played only three times on each Zune.

Partly to warm up the initially tepid response, the company is creating a social-networking site, Zune Social, to encourage the sharing of samples of songs online, even for fans who do not own a Zune player. Members of the network will also be able to use a small application on their computers to display which songs they have been listening to, and that information can be posted on certain Web sites outside the network or sent by e-mail to friends.

Various social networking sites, like Facebook, already offer sharing of samples of songs.

"The whole idea behind Zune is much broader than the devices themselves," said J Allard, the Microsoft vice president who oversees design and development for consumer products like the Zune and the Xbox 360 game consoles.

"The conditioned thought is around a portable device being the center point of the experience, when in fact it's not. It really is about how do we start taking Zune beyond that device."

He said the social networking would appeal to Zune owners and people who had not bought the device.

Van Baker, an analyst at the research firm Gartner, said the Zune revisions amounted to "a much-needed line extension" for the brand.

"Is it enough to get somebody to move away from Apple to Microsoft? I don't think so," he said, "but it should help Microsoft against some of the other alternatives."