Recent research report published by Matousec revealed a list of affected products which could be attacked by KHOBE technique. This list included many of the famous Windows security softwares. MSE was not present on this list. Microsoft reveals that their product is not affected by the recent attack technique due to the design of their real time protection system.

MSE does not use SSDT hooks, which is used by many security softwares, so its real time protection can not be disabled by this method. As per the research, only the softwares using the hooking technique are vulnerable to this attack. Only some antivirus products implement hooks but many antivirus products do not use hooks at all.As told by Matousec spokesperson ” The major group of software that is affected are not antivirus products but HIPS [Host Intrusion Prevention System] software, behavior blockers, various Internet Security Suites with host protection features etc.”

Usually the security softwares implement self defense techniques using hooks, but they are not part of the Microsoft’s solutions. As the hooking mechanism still works with newer versions of Windows, vendors prefer to stick with the older hooking mechanism. Microsoft, on the other hand, had used the newer methods to enable self defense mechanisms. Thus MSE is considered to be safe from such attacks.

The list at the time of publishing had 35 vulnerable products and Matousec is continuously updating the list. This has been a major boost for MSE, which shows that their approach at developing the security software was positive and better than many of the other vendors. This adds to the positive user feedback MSE has received till now.

[via : arstechnica]

Once the notification tool has once checked your copy as being genuine there doesn’t seem to be any point in checking again and again on every boot. RemoveWGA lets you remove this tool. Also Microsoft in past has used deceptive ways to install this tool on the people’s system , one of which being encapsulating as a security update which is essential for users.

This Notification tool of Windows is different from Windows Genuine Advantage Validation. RemoveWGA removes only the notification tool and not the validation tool from the system.

Some of the features of the software are :

• Tell you if the WGA notification tool is active on your system
• Allows you to remove the WGA notification tool from your system
• Accept the “-silent” command line parameter to silently check if the WGA notification tool is active on your system, and popup only if it is found (useful for checking automatically at startup for instance)
• Set all files to be deleted at next reboot instead of just the system32 ones

Note: Some antivirus may show RemoveWGA as a security threat but it is actually not a security threat at all.

The software is freely available on many free download sites all over the net.

Some of the Microsoft freebeies are  :

1. Paint.NET

Paint.NET is a free image and photo editing applicatiprovided by Microsoft. It was actually a State University project based on .NET technology. Microsoft liked it so much that incorporated it in its product range and launched it under its wing.

It along with providing an simple interface and easy to use incorporates all the essential features needed for image editing along with layers, special effects and support for various image formats. It also has a online community where  one can interact with numerous people regarding the software.

download here

2. WorldWide Telescope.

This application comes from Microsoft Research and provides you with a virtual telescope on your system.

WorldWide Telescope (WWT) enables your computer to function as a virtual telescope, bringing together imagery from the best ground and space-based telescopes in the world. Experience narrated guided tours from astronomers and educators featuring interesting places in the sky.
A web-based version of WorldWide Telescope is also now available. This version enables seamless, guided explorations of the universe from within a web browser on PC and Intel Mac OS X by using the power of Microsoft Silverlight 3.0.

This package brings together amazing imagery from the Hubble Space Telescope and approximately 10 earthbound telescopes. The images are sewn together seamlessly ad one cam explore outer space with ease and also zoom into an area as far as available data allows

World wide telscope

3. SyncToy

It another one of thefree applications by Microsoft. It is used to synchonise files and folder between locations . It is very commonly used as backup creator o ffiles and floders

• Dynamic Drive Letter Assignment: Drive letter reassignment will now be detected and updated in the folder pair definition.
• True Folder Sync: Folder creates, renames and deletes are now synchronized for all SyncToy actions.
• Exclusion Filtering Based on Name: File exclusion based on name with exact or fuzzy matching.
• Filtering Based on File Attributes: The ability to exclude files based on one or more file attributes (Read-Only, System, Hidden).
• Unattended Folder Pair Execution: Addressed issues related to running scheduled folder pairs while logged off.
• Folder Pairs With Shared Endpoints: Ability for folder pairs associated with the same or different instances of SyncToy to share end-points.
• Command line enhancements: Added the ability to manage folder pairs via the command line interface.
• Re-Architect Sync Engine: The SyncToy engine has been rearchitected to provide scalability and the ability to add significant enhancements in future releases.
• Sync engine is also more robust insomuch that many single, file level errors are skipped without affecting the entire sync operation.
• Sync Encrypted Files: Sync of Encrypted files works when local folder and files are encrypted, which addresses the common scenario involving sync between local, encrypted laptop PC folder and remote, unencrypted desktop PC folder.
• 64-Bit Support: SyncToy now has a native 64-bit build (x64 only) for 64-bit versions of Windows.
• Folder pair rename
• Sub-folder Exclusion Enhancements: Descendents created under excluded sub-folders are automatically excluded. Usability improvements for the sub-folder exclusion dialog.
• Folder Pair Metadata Moved: Folder pair metadata removed from MyDocuments to resolve any issues with server-based folder pair re-direction setup.
• Setup Improvements: Integrated setup with single self-extracting archive file and no extra downloads if you already have .NET Framework 2.0 installed. Enabled silent install for the SyncToy Installer file (see readme.txt file for more information).

download here

1. XML Notepad 2007

It is a basic, small yet powerful XMl editor. it hosts a tree view pane with colored view of classes, tags and values. You can customise and choose fonts as per your liking. Some of the other features are drag and drop, find and replace, incremental search, instant XML schema validation, a built-in XML Diff tool, and much more. A great free XML editor option for all users.

2. Virtual PC 2007

It is a extremely useful program which allows you to run multiple operating systems at the same time on the same physical computer. Virtual PC 2007 is easy to install and easy to use. It is supported by Windows 7 as well as Vista and XP. Microsoft also has a number of preconfigured VHDs  containing sample copies of Windows XP and Windows Vista which you may download  and install for testing purpose.

3. World Wide Telescope

This tool from Microsoft Research provides you with a virtual telescope. this brings to you amazing imagery from Hubble Space Telescope and approximately 10  earthbound telescopes. One can view unthinkable views of outer space. Also you may zoom into a area as much as data available may allow. You may focus on the bodies that interest you. A great offering by Microsoft.

4 Visual Web Developer 2008 Express  Edition

If you are one who is on lookout for a light , easy to use tool for Web development, this is a must for you. Moreover it is free. It is aimed at amateur or intermediate level users. It has capabilities to allow you to develop variety of web sites from basic html based sites to advanced ASP.net or based on SQL Server. You also have been provided by a video which shows you some of the basic features and how to productively use them.

5. Paint.NET

Developed from a college project into a full fledged Microsoft application, Paint.Net provides you with simple, easy to use interface with vast capabilities for image editing with plus layers, special effects, and support for a wide range of image formats. It has huge number of tutorials, videos etc on net. It is also supported on Windows 7.

Neowin has reported that a phishing scheme was responsible for stealing of most of these passwords. The list of passwords were uploaded and displayed on a code sharing site PasteBin. The passwords are believed to be uploaded by some anonymous user. the list uploaded consisted only of those between letters A and B. One shudders to think what may be the actual size of the list of stolen passwords.

“The details have since been removed but Neowin has seen part of the list posted and can confirm the accounts are genuine and most appear to be based in Europe. The list details over 10,000 accounts starting from A through to B, suggesting there could be additional lists. Currently it appears only accounts used to access Microsoft’s Windows Live Hotmail have been posted, this includes @hotmail.com, @msn.com and @live.com accounts,” the site reports.

Microsoft has also confirmed the happenig and also denied any leakage on its part. The company has also issued certain advisories for the users :

• Renew their passwords for Windows Live IDs every 90 days
• For administrators, make sure you approve and authenticate only users that you know and can verify credentials
• As phishing sites can also pose additional threats, please install and keep anti-virus software up to date

This has come as a setback to the already ailing prospects of the email service of Microsoft. Microsoft has seen its market share been eaten away by Google’s email service. This events marks another instance which may end up loosening the grip of Microsoft on the email service industry. Google has been constantly increasing customer base and that is on account of Microsoft. Such events confirm the choice of users to go for more reliable Google even if it may have certain technical glitches not present in Microsoft’s service.

So hurry up and change your passwords….!

This features presents you with a grid of images which you can browse through by scrolling down.Each image will display details when you place the cursor over it.You do not need to know the exact name,you can recognize using the image and narrow down to your required result.This feature can prove very handy when you are shopping for some branded products or you wish to search for some celebrity,personality,sports star etc.You can easily view the images and place cursor over them to see the details.

Suppose if you search for ‘premeir league players’ ,it’ll show you grid of images of players from premier league.You can then place curson over each player to know the name and statistics of the player and then select the one you actually wished to search for.Also you can filter your results by player earnings,matches played etc.

There are more than 100 visual galleries ranging from movies, books, and cars to products, animals, and sports teams. The sorting criteria changes from category to category.For players it could be player statistics like matches played, earnings etc,for motor bikes it could be mileage,price,engine capacity etc.

This feature is powered by Microsoft’s Silverlight technology,which makes the animations and visual rendering possible. The content for Visual Search is provided by several sources.It is a unique feature provided by Microsoft and seems to be quite useful in certain instances.

nMicrosoft is coming up with unique features and continuously updating the services to match upto its main competitor Google.Though it won’t be easy to make a dent onto Google’s market share,but with innovative ideas and  new services , Microsoft may have begun a battle in which it has not much to loose.Ultimately users will decide if they wish to switch on to Bing and experience some not seen till now or they wish to remain with the most reliable search engine Google.

Also, the MSDN subscribers already have an access to the beta release of Windows 7 along with genuine key. So if you have an MSDN subscription, what are you waiting for. Go get your download today and start playing with the new baby. However, you don’t wanna play with this baby on your production machine. This is still in beta and not worth the risk. So if you get a hand on this one, make sure you are trying it out on a machine where the chances of damage is pretty less.

Good news however is that there’s been a very positive review in the websphere about Windows 7. Very unlikely of a Windows release! So, it’s sure worth a shot. If you cannot wait another day and don’t have an MSDN account please feel free to search for the leaked release on torrents or rapidshare.