Hello IT Pros! February 27 is a big day.  Windows Server 2008 will be officially launching in Los Angeles with Steve Ballmer, Microsoft CEO, kicking off in just a few hours.  In support of this very important technology milestone as well as the Windows Vista SP1 release, the Microsoft Solution Accelerators Team has just ...

On Monday (February 4th), we announced the release to manufacturing (RTM) of Windows Vista Service Pack 1 (SP1).  Overall, people are excited to hear that we have reached this milestone, but some are disappointed they are not able to immediately download it. In my blog post on the subject, I noted that we were going to make SP1 available to ...

Hi, Mike Nash here from the Windows Product Management group at Microsoft.  Today we are excited to announce that we have released Service Pack 1 for Windows Vista to manufacturing (RTM) for our first set of languages (English, French, Spanish, German and Japanese). Service Pack 1 is a very important milestone because it addresses many of ...

  The wait is over!  The Microsoft Solution Accelerators Team is pleased to announce the newly-released Windows Vista Hardware Assessment 2.1 with many of the features YOU have been looking for.  For example, we've added features such as localization to 6 more languages in addition to North American English, IP range scanning and ...

Hi Folks, Windows Vista and 2007 Microsoft Office are here!  And, you are probably thinking that it's time to take advantage of these 2 great technologies.  But, you need to get answers on a few practical questions first: Would my existing PCs run Windows Vista and 2007 Microsoft Office? Should I buy new ones or upgrade them ...

When we release a product to market at MS, tradition holds that everyone involved in building it is usually given a small gift in recognition of their efforts.  These ''Ship-It Awards'' are usually of more sentimental value than anything else, but everyone who's received one displays it proudly in their office as a badge of honor (and often ...

Hi I'm Peg McNicol, the product manager for application compatibility in Windows Vista. In the midst of all the excitement around the general availability of Windows Vista, it's almost strange to talk about IT Pro & developer tools, but if you are an IT Pro, or developer, this should be pretty exciting too. Today the final version of the ...

I was recently able to sit down and talk to Windows Release Manager Sven Hallauer to discuss next steps now that Windows Vista has RTM'd, in particular regarding product updating via Windows Update.  Sven discusses the goals behind instituting Windows Update as well as the process entailed in pulling down security updates, fixes and, of ...

Photos from our RTM ship party on Wednesday ... there were over 2K balloons in the room (at least, before everyone started popping them).         

As an addendum to our announcement from yesterday, I wanted to share with you a screen shot of the Web page our that our development team used during the Windows Vista testing process to gauge their progress toward yesterday's milestone of 100% sign-off: It's official!