Blogs: Windows 7

At first blush, the news is all good about Windows from Microsoft's earning report. But a closer look shows that's not at all the case.

The clocks have finally sprung forward here in the UK, which gives us another hour of daylight and more time to examine the latest releases of Microsoft's Patch Tuesday security update process. With the Microsoft Security Bulletin Summary for April 2013, we see a set of nine updates, with two marked as “Critical,” and the remaining seven rated as “Important.” As usual, all of these updates will require a restart on your desktop machines.

Dell, which built itself into a tech powerhouse by selling Windows-based PCs, is being seriously hurt by poor Windows 8 adoptions and big slowdowns in enterprise Windows 7 upgrades. So says a Dell SEC filing. And things may only get worse from here -- potentially for Microsoft as well as Dell.

With this month’s Microsoft Patch Tuesday update, we see a set of seven updates, four of which are marked as “Critical,” addressing serious problems that could enable someone to access your computer if they are not patched. The remaining three are rated as “Important,” and, while they aren’t as serious as the critical patches, they do address security issues that need to be fixed. Most of the seven patches affect Microsoft Office, with only two impacting Windows.

Poor, beleaguered Apple -- nothing's going right: on the one hand it must try to make its business out of a minority (20 percent) share of the PC industry; on the other, Macs manufactured six or more years ago are still in active use. Life really does suck, sometimes…

This pilot fish is responsible for the firewall, so it makes sense when his supervisor asks if fish has stopped any Internet traffic going to a particular workstation. No, says fish -- but there's clearly a problem.

It's now official: Windows 7 is the most popular desktop operating system in the world, finally surpassing the old warhorse, Windows XP. And given that Windows 8 was built more for tablets than traditional PCs, Windows 7 will likely reign for many years to come.

If the number of people using pre-release versions of Windows 8 are any guide, the new operating system may have a rocky launch and uptake, says new research from Net Applications.

It's nearly official: Windows 7 this month will become the world's most popular operating system, surpassing Windows XP. And don't expect Windows 8 to take away the crown, because it's not at all likely.

Windows XP was one of Microsoft's greatest successes and greatest failures: A success because it was so rock-solid, a failure because it was so good that many people didn't want to upgrade to Windows Vista. Based on initial looks at Windows 8, Windows 7 may well be the new XP.