LiveSide - News blog : Windows

Windows Media Center Brings Netflix To Consumers Using Silverlight

Sunshine — Wed, 20 May 2009 10:31:21 GMT

Windows Media Center supports Microsoft Silverlight as of today! It starts by offering the Netflix Service on Windows Vista Home Premium or Ultimate. The following announcement appeared on the Silverlight Blog:

It’s official! As of today Silverlight is now supported within Windows Media Center. Microsoft just announced the immediate availability of the Netflix service on Windows Media Center for Windows Vista Home Premium or Ultimate. Under the hood, this is the same Silverlight-based service that users can get from www.netflix.com. To use it on Windows Media Center, you need to be a subscriber to Netflix and you need to have Silverlight installed on your PC. As shown below, a new Netflix tile now appears under TV + Movies in the Media Center UI.

On first use, you’ll be prompted to install Silverlight 2 if it’s not already on your machine.

For content providers like Netflix, Silverlight support in Windows Media Center means they can leverage most, if not all, of their previous Silverlight development work to reach a potential audience of some 180 million Media Center users, 13 million of whom spend about 90 minutes in Media Center per session. Technically, Silverlight just plugs into Windows Media Center the same way it plugs into a web browser, so it supports all the features of Silverlight. However, that doesn’t mean that any content provider can make their Silverlight application available in Windows Media Center.At this point Microsoft has only announced the addition of Netflix as a Silverlight-based provider, but we look forward to the Windows Media Center team adding more Silverlight-based content experiences in the future.

Really cool, no word about it on Windows 7 atm though*. But hey that hasn’t even hit RTM yet, surely once it does you will be able to enjoy the same on that. It sure is good to see Silverlight being used more and more, on the web and in the OS!

* The only thing Windows 7 the announcement mentioned is about a new EPG that integrates both TV programming and Internet content in Windows Media Center.

Update: more info and a demo can be found here

Laptop Hunters Contest, Win A Free Skin For Your Laptop!

RyanRCRea — Mon, 06 Apr 2009 02:32:21 GMT

We here at LiveSide have really been inspired by Microsoft's new “Laptop Hunters” ads. They have really struck a nerve on the internet, whether or not they have any effect in real life, is yet to be seen.

So far we’ve have seen Lauren & Giampaolo buy HP’s. Now we want to see you and your Laptop. In return, you’ll get a chance to win a $25 giftcard from www.uniqueskins.com

All you have to do is post a comment in reply to this post, with a link to a photo of you and your laptop. Just like my silly mug above. The sillier and more creative, the better.

Sound like fun? Get to work snapping those photos!

Search Within Office 2007 Documents: Filter Pack For Windows Search

Sunshine — Tue, 21 Oct 2008 16:18:00 GMT

Windows Search 4 already is an improvement over the standard Windows Search, but did you know you can search inside Office 2007 documents too?

I sure didn’t, Sarah Perez (on 10) does:

With the the Microsoft Filter Pack installed, Windows Search 4.0 is able to search within Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and other Office 2007 documents based on the text they contain. It also works for Vista too, adding new search capabilities which can be accessed right from Vista’s search bar. Now when you do a search, the Windows indexing service doesn’t just search for file names but also knows what’s in the files themselves, and that makes finding the right file so much easier.

Very handy, thanks Sarah!

The 2007 Office System Converter: Microsoft Filter Pack, will install and register IFilters with the Windows Indexing Service. These IFilters are used by Microsoft Search products to index the contents of specific document formats. This Filter Pack includes IFilters for the following formats: .docx, .docm, .pptx, .pptm, .xlsx, .xlsm, .xlsb, .zip, .one, .vdx, .vsd, .vss, .vst, .vdx, .vsx, and .vtx. It is supported on Windows Server 2003, Windows Vista and Windows XP.

Windows Desktop Search (WDS) consumes IFilters from Windows Indexing Service, so the IFilters will be automatically registered and available for use by WDS. If you want to register these filters with another specific Search product ( Office Sharepoint Server 2007, Search Server 2008, Exchange Server 2007, SQL server etc.), have a look at the KB articles provided on the download page.

Download Windows Search 4
Download Microsoft Filter Pack

Microsoft ad spend rises to $500m - Windows.com gets “FTP” update and promotes Windows Live

Chris — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 04:53:27 GMT

Today saw another Microsoft ad campaign being won by the agencies, this time for the Business Solutions unit, with $200m being the amount touted for winning the enterprise advertising. This is in addition to the $300m for the consumer campaign going to Crispin Porter + Bogusky, part of which is the “Free The People” marketing campaign.

On a related noted is something we forgot about in all the iPhone madness at the end of last week (Steve Jobs’ RDF affects even the best of us). LiveSino today picked up the new Windows.com homepage that has been rolled out, doing away with the Windows Vista UI and instead adopting the same feel as the new Windows Mobile homepage we posted about a few weeks back.

What’s interesting about the new page is the huge prominence given to Windows Live, and underneath that Windows Mobile. In fact you could be forgiven for thinking this wasn’t the Windows homepage at all, as it barely gets a mention – you’ll need to hover over the Products menu at the top to start looking at the different Windows versions.

This is all part of a much larger picture, aiming to improve perception and awareness of the various Microsoft consumer offerings. Much more of this coming over the rest of the year, and then into 2009 as Windows Live Wave 3 and finally Windows Mobile 7 join into the campaign. PC vs Mac set the benchmark high, so it’ll be interesting to see what this campaign produces.

Another One Bites the Dust - Windows Live for TV

Gregor — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 05:53:00 GMT

With all the news about Windows Live/Live Search products being dropped for good lately we almost forgot to add another one to the list - one that never made it out of beta. After the first drop of Codename Orbit hit the web back in December 2006 and a little update released the following April it got silent around the promising Windows Live for TV project.

Two weeks ago Chris Lanier spotted a post on TGB that sets an endpoint to this uncertainty for now. Windows Live for TV is dead. The product team has been moved around to a different part of Microsoft and we will most likely not see the product come out of beta - at least that is what a program manager been quoted to say as a source.

At best this could mean that the team has been merged into the Media Center Edition team and that some parts of the software will eventually show up in an upcoming Media Center update (but there have not been any hints about this happening with Fiji for now) - at worst we wont ever hear about any of the features again...

Thanks to Andy for reminding us to post about this....

UPDATE: Now we have an even more official confirmation of this - the beta service is being shut down for good on June 24th according to a post on the team blog.

Windows Sysinternals: Now Live

Sunshine — Fri, 30 May 2008 03:04:00 GMT

The Sysinternals web site was created in 1996 by Mark Russinovich and Bryce Cogswell to host their advanced system utilities and technical information. Microsoft acquired Sysinternals in July, 2006. Whether you’re an IT Pro or a developer, you’ll find Sysinternals utilities to help you manage, troubleshoot and diagnose your Windows systems and applications.

All these applications are now also available to you online, 24/7, without you having to download them. From the Windows SysInternals Homepage:

We’re excited to announce the beta of Sysinternals Live, a service that enables you to execute Sysinternals tools directly from the Web without hunting for and manually downloading them. Simply enter a tool’s Sysinternals Live path into Windows Explorer or a command prompt as \\live.sysinternals.com\tools\<toolname> or view the entire Sysinternals Live tools directory in a browser at http://live.sysinternals.com.

If you are unfamiliar with Microsoft Windows Sysinternals, it is highly recommended that you visit the website at http://technet.microsoft.com/sysinternals before using these tools.

Earth? No, the Sky is the limit?!

Sunshine — Wed, 20 Feb 2008 23:11:00 GMT

We can already look at Earth with Virtual Earth, but what about the Sky? Microsoft doesn't have anything for that yet. Yes, that's right, YET! This might change on February 27th at the TED Conference in Monterey California:

Microsoft To Announce WorldWide Telescope On February 27

A source close to Microsoft says the company will launch new desktop software called WorldWide Telescope on February 27 at the TED Conference in Monterey, California....

The service will be accessed through a downloadable application - Windows only for now is what we hear. Users will be able to pan around the nighttime sky and zoom as far in to any one area as the data will allow. Microsoft is said to be tapping the Hubble telescope as well as ten or so earth bound telescopes around the world for data. When you find an area you like, you can switch to a number of different views, such as infrared and non-visible light.

From what we hear, WorldWide Telescope will be significantly better than Google Sky, which launched last August as part of Google Earth... The key is the user interface, which is seamless as you move around the sky and zoom in and out. Much of the Photosynth technology is said to have been used for the project. And the sheer amount of data Microsoft is accessing, said to be measured in the terabits, gives that great user interface something to show off...

Very interesting if you are into stargazing or astronomy. I hope it will be easier to use than Google Sky, I just had a first look at that today and it's still confusing me...

Internet Explorer 7 optimized for MSN!

Matthew — Tue, 12 Jun 2007 17:05:00 GMT

Although Yahoo! and Google have already released an "optimized" version of Windows Internet Explorer for their services, MSN has followed suit by releasing a version with it's line of products and services. They include:

Quick access to your MSN Content and Features
Customized MSN links, feeds and favorites
MSN.com as your home page
Windows Live Toolbar
Live Search set as your default search provider

Yahoo! was actually the first to release a branded WIE 7 during beta 2, but Google soon followed. It's common for Internet service providers to release a branded IE, in fact MSN Internet Access would include Internet Explorer on CDs since it's launch in 1995, but usually the only customizations included Favorites, a button perhaps, and "Internet Explorer provided by MSN" at the top of each window. Once MSN Explorer launched, there was no need for customizations, and very few ISPs, including AOL, continued to brand IE to death.

However, now Internet portals are doing an extensive makeover to WIE, by including their own toolbar software and other plug-ins, much like they do during Instant Messenger installation. Windows Vista users can even have their WIE "optimized" since all it does is install Windows Live Toolbar and apply a WIE Administration Kit. In fact, if you don't want the toolbar, but want an "optimized" WIE, you can cancel the toolbar install. Windows Internet Explorer Optimized for MSN sounds so much better, doesn't it?

MSN.com will be including an inline popup to advertise, but for more info check out the site and release notes [there are known issues]. Also, be sure to submit any feedback and support issues.

@Matthew

PS--Unfortunately MSN doesn't install MSNBC News in a second tab like Yahoo! and Google do with their respective news site.

Thanks to Alber1960.