Microsoft last week pulled an update for Outlook 2007 issued just two days earlier, citing connection and performance problems for the unusual move.
The update was issued mid-day on Dec. 14 as part of the monthly Patch Tuesday. Within hours, users reported trouble with retrieving e-mail and major delays when switching folders.
"This latest update results in Outlook 2007 being very slow in changing folders and the archiving functionality appears to have been removed," said someone identified as "alspar" on a Microsoft support forum early Wednesday morning. "Is this an error or by design?"
Others said they couldn't send or receive e-mail, including Gmail messages, through Outlook after installing the update.
Ironically, Microsoft had billed the update, which didn't patch any security vulnerabilities, as one that contained "stability and performance improvements."
By Thursday, support forum moderators were telling users to uninstall the update.
Microsoft made that official late Friday in a post on the Outlook team's blog . "We have discovered several issues with the update and ... as of December 16, this Outlook 2007 update has been removed from Microsoft Update,"
According to Microsoft, the Tuesday update contained three flaws related to Secure Password Authentication (SPA), a Microsoft protocol used to authenticate mail clients like Outlook to a mail server; sluggish folder switching when Outlook wasn't configured to grab mail from an Exchange server; and a broken AutoArchive feature.
Wednesday, January 19, 2011
The problem with Windows 7 tablets: they still run Windows
Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer and cohorts drew some major applause at CES by showing off new tablets running Windows 7, and for good reason. New devices from Acer, ASUS and Samsung are sleek and have innovative form factors, for example dual screens and slide-out keyboards. But the advances can largely be attributed to the good work of Microsoft's hardware partners. The problem with Windows tablets is that they still run Windows.
That's not to say Windows can't be adapted to the tablet age. Microsoft would argue that the devices shown off at CES this week prove Windows 7 is tablet-ready, but analysts aren't necessarily ready to agree.
The issue, says Aberdeen Group research analyst Andrew Borg, is that Microsoft is still using pre-iPad thinking.
Microsoft bashes Apple at CES while previewing next-gen Windows
Microsoft's comfort zone is with what we might call Tablets 1.0, which were based on stylus and 'digital-ink' interaction, and used a unipoint (not multi-touch) touchscreen interface," Borg wrote during the course of a few e-mails we've exchanged since Ballmer's keynote last night. "Apple's iOS replaced that metaphor once and forever (call it Tablets 2.0) with gesture-based interaction on a multi-touch touchscreen interface. It's fundamentally a different use case: the first assumes the presence of a keyboard along with the stylus which simply replaces the mouse or pointer; the second doesn't replicate the traditional computer desktop or laptop metaphor, it replaces it."
Let's give credit to Microsoft where credit is due. There was a real "wow factor" when they demonstarted prototypes of tablets coming out within the next few months, and it shows that Microsoft is working closely with hardware partners to get some cool devices into the hands of consumers. Samsung, for example, is coming out with Windows 7-based tablets that have a slide-out keyboard, and ASUS has a standalone tablet with a Bluetooth keyboard. The ASUS device will use a combination of stylus and finger-based touch, and will be able to tell the difference between the stylus and your hand.
Most visually striking, in my opinion, is the Acer ICONIA, which has two 14-inch touch screens that can both be used for Web surfing and all the other stuff you'd do with a Windows tablet. But one of its coolest features is also a reminder that Windows 7 is still much more a desktop than a tablet operating system.
That's not to say Windows can't be adapted to the tablet age. Microsoft would argue that the devices shown off at CES this week prove Windows 7 is tablet-ready, but analysts aren't necessarily ready to agree.
The issue, says Aberdeen Group research analyst Andrew Borg, is that Microsoft is still using pre-iPad thinking.
Microsoft bashes Apple at CES while previewing next-gen Windows
Microsoft's comfort zone is with what we might call Tablets 1.0, which were based on stylus and 'digital-ink' interaction, and used a unipoint (not multi-touch) touchscreen interface," Borg wrote during the course of a few e-mails we've exchanged since Ballmer's keynote last night. "Apple's iOS replaced that metaphor once and forever (call it Tablets 2.0) with gesture-based interaction on a multi-touch touchscreen interface. It's fundamentally a different use case: the first assumes the presence of a keyboard along with the stylus which simply replaces the mouse or pointer; the second doesn't replicate the traditional computer desktop or laptop metaphor, it replaces it."
Let's give credit to Microsoft where credit is due. There was a real "wow factor" when they demonstarted prototypes of tablets coming out within the next few months, and it shows that Microsoft is working closely with hardware partners to get some cool devices into the hands of consumers. Samsung, for example, is coming out with Windows 7-based tablets that have a slide-out keyboard, and ASUS has a standalone tablet with a Bluetooth keyboard. The ASUS device will use a combination of stylus and finger-based touch, and will be able to tell the difference between the stylus and your hand.
Most visually striking, in my opinion, is the Acer ICONIA, which has two 14-inch touch screens that can both be used for Web surfing and all the other stuff you'd do with a Windows tablet. But one of its coolest features is also a reminder that Windows 7 is still much more a desktop than a tablet operating system.
Yahoo IPv6 upgrade could shut out 1 million Internet users
ahoo is forging ahead with a move to IPv6 on its main Web site by year-end despite worries that up to 1 million Internet users may be unable to access it initially.
Yahoo's massive engineering effort to support IPv6 -- the long-anticipated upgrade to the Internet's main communications protocol -- could at first shut out potential www.yahoo.com users due to what the company and others call "IPv6 brokenness.
Yahoo has been one of the most vocal Internet companies to express concern about industry estimates that 0.05% of Internet users will be unable to access Web sites that support both IPv6 and the current standard, IPv4.
IPv6 experts say some Internet users will experience slowdowns or have trouble connecting to IPv6-enabled Web sites because they have misconfigured or misbehaving network equipment, primarily in their home networks. Corporate users also could experience IPv6 brokenness because of faulty firewall settings.
The Internet Society's estimate that 0.05% of users will be unable to reach IPv6-enabled content may seem miniscule, but it actually represents around 1 million Internet users based on estimates that 2 billion people access the Internet.
"The numbers are going to vary from site to site, but it's definitely very critical that everybody understands that when they do make themselves available through both IPv4 and IPv6 at the same time what impact there will be on a small percentage of users," says Jason Fesler, an IPv6 architect with Yahoo.
Fesler explained that for end users with IPv6 brokenness, Web sites that support IPv6 and IPv4 simultaneously in what's called dual-stack mode will appear to be suffering from an outage.
"A certain number of users do have IPv6 on their systems, but they have it configured in such a way that their system believes they have a working IPv6 Internet connection when in reality they don't. Or their Web site browser will prefer IPv6," Fesler explains. "This will result in timeouts that can be anywhere from 5 seconds to several minutes. From an end user's point of view, the first major Web site that goes dual-stack is going to appear broken while other Web sites will appear to be up."
Yahoo's massive engineering effort to support IPv6 -- the long-anticipated upgrade to the Internet's main communications protocol -- could at first shut out potential www.yahoo.com users due to what the company and others call "IPv6 brokenness.
Yahoo has been one of the most vocal Internet companies to express concern about industry estimates that 0.05% of Internet users will be unable to access Web sites that support both IPv6 and the current standard, IPv4.
IPv6 experts say some Internet users will experience slowdowns or have trouble connecting to IPv6-enabled Web sites because they have misconfigured or misbehaving network equipment, primarily in their home networks. Corporate users also could experience IPv6 brokenness because of faulty firewall settings.
The Internet Society's estimate that 0.05% of users will be unable to reach IPv6-enabled content may seem miniscule, but it actually represents around 1 million Internet users based on estimates that 2 billion people access the Internet.
"The numbers are going to vary from site to site, but it's definitely very critical that everybody understands that when they do make themselves available through both IPv4 and IPv6 at the same time what impact there will be on a small percentage of users," says Jason Fesler, an IPv6 architect with Yahoo.
Fesler explained that for end users with IPv6 brokenness, Web sites that support IPv6 and IPv4 simultaneously in what's called dual-stack mode will appear to be suffering from an outage.
"A certain number of users do have IPv6 on their systems, but they have it configured in such a way that their system believes they have a working IPv6 Internet connection when in reality they don't. Or their Web site browser will prefer IPv6," Fesler explains. "This will result in timeouts that can be anywhere from 5 seconds to several minutes. From an end user's point of view, the first major Web site that goes dual-stack is going to appear broken while other Web sites will appear to be up."
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