March 30, 2008 -  A security researcher on Friday exploited a critical bug in Adobe Systems Inc.’s Flash Player to hack a notebook running Windows Vista Ultimate, the second machine to fall in this year’s “PWN To OWN” challenge. The only unclaimed laptop of the original trio by the contest’s end was a Sony Vaio running the Ubuntu distribution of Linux. Shane Macaulay,... 

A day after it was released for public download, Windows Vista SP1 is drawing barbs from some computer users who say the software wrecked their systems. “I downloaded it via Windows Update, and got a bluescreen on the third part of the update,” wrote “Iggy33″ in a comment posted Wednesday onMicrosoft (NSDQ: MSFT)’s Vista team blog. Iggy33 was just one of dozens of posters... 

Microsoft has released the long-awaited first Windows Vista Service Pack, a wrap-up of incremental updates that apparently cripples certain vendors’ software. SP1 tackles reliability and performance, adds support for new hardware and wraps in earlier updates for compatibility with third party software. Microsoft claims more than 2,000 applications are now “certified for” or “work... 

Microsoft continues to step up its virtualization push, with the acquisition of desktop virtualization management software developer Kidaro. Without disclosing a purchase price or when the deal is expected to close, Microsoft said it plans to acquire Kidaro and integrate its technology into the Microsoft Desktop Optimization Pack for Software Assurance. Kidaro offers management technology aimed at...