Ok, it's a big day for Microsoft, first day that IE 7 is available in "final" form. Vista nears RTM. Office 2007 closes in on release. So there's a lot to keep the folks in Redmond busy lately. Here are a few news tidbits about everyone's favorite software company to hate:
- IE7 Vulnerable to Old Exploit
Yes, that's right, less than 24 hours after release, IE7 already has a known and published vulnerability. And the worst part is, it's an OLD one, dating back to November 2003, and reported in IE6 last April. It's being called an Outlook Express hole, but since IE7 is the core render engine for the mail application, it's really a hole in IE.
UPDATE: After writing this article, MS officially responded saying this is entirely an issue with Outlook Express, not IE7.
- WindowsXP Service Pack 3 Pushed to 2008
Thought it was a long wait from SP1 to SP2 for WinXP? Well, if you're holding out hope for the next Service Pack for WinXP, you're going to be waiting another year and a half probably at the shortest. The service pack roadmap was quietly updated this week to list the date for SP3 at "1H 2008" This will place the pack at 3 years after the release of Service Pack 2, the most extensive upgrade to XP thus far.
- Microsoft Looks at Hardware Design Again
Sure there's the false-starter known as WebTV, but that hasn't deterred Microsoft from looking into the realm of computer hardware design and testing. Long tied to the Intel architecture, Microsoft is now examining the possibility of designing its own chips for some of its hardware products such as future XBox consoles, to reduce dependency on external hardware designers and manufacturers.
Additionally, Microsoft has dismissed the rumor that Vista would go RTM next week, saying there was still work to be done.