As promised, Microsoft is bringing some early gifts to your Xbox 360 just prior to the holiday season. Beginning at 02:00 a.m. PST on December 4th, the Xbox 360 Fall Dashboard Update will be available for all connected Xbox 360 consoles free of charge, bringing an array of new features and enhancements to the leading gaming and entertainment system. Among the key new enhancements are the previously announced Xbox Originals game download service, Family Timer parental control feature, DivX support and expanded social networking experiences. Xbox 360 owners can also look forward to enhanced navigation, profile and video features and Xbox LIVE Arcade Hits.

Windows Vista SP1 (Service Pack 1) has several nifty new features, and a few performance tweaks. Anyone hoping to get their hands on said features and performance tweaks will be able to do that in a week or two. Next week, select beta testers (most likely the same ones that got a copy of Vista SP1 Beta code) will be able to play with Vista SP1 RC1. In the second week of December, Microsoft is most likely going to start a public beta program, much like the public beta program that Vista originally had. The current build is 17051, and Microsoft hopes to have a final Vista SP1 build out by early 2008.

The latest edition of Greenpeace's quarterly Guide to Greener Electronics published yesterday, revealed that Nintendo, Microsoft and Philips completely fail to show any environmental credentials when it comes to e-waste. The Guide ranks companies according to their policies and practices on toxic chemicals and takeback. Along with mobile phone and personal computer companies, the latest report adds the biggest makers of TVs and games consoles. Old TVs are a large part of e-waste and the games console market is one of the fastest growing in consumer electronics according to Greenpeace.

Nintendo has the dubious honour of being the first company to score 0/10 in the guide. Microsoft did little better, scoring only 2.7. Philips is the lowest TV-maker scoring only 2.

Windows Vista could be hit by more than 40 security vulnerabilities next year, as its market share increases to the point where hackers start to take notice, according to a McAfee analyst. "Most of the current malware has ignored Vista," said Craig Schmugar, a threat researcher at McAfee's Avert Lab, but that's not because the operating system has been secure. Concisely, we reported on Monday that Windows Vista nears 8% market share which means hackers will soon start to write more and more malicious software for the DX10 OS as it becomes more popular.

As Vista gains in adoption, it then impacts malware authors and forces them to focus attention on finding vulnerabilities, or to alter their social engineering techniques to accommodate it

Schmugar said.

On November 20, 1985, Microsoft unveiled Windows 1.0, and it began seeing mass-adoption by users this week. While Microsoft seems content with just letting the anniversary of the landmark operating system pass away, Windows lasting this long says plenty about it's quality and power. While some people love it, and others hate it, for various reasons, Windows has been growing ever since that week in 1985. The words Bill Gates said as he pushed Windows 1.0 out of factories are quite fitting for the anniversary:

Windows provides unprecedented power to users today and a foundation for hardware and software advancements of the next few years. It is unique software designed for the serious PC user, who places high value on the productivity that a personal computer can bring.

As a bit of nostalgia, the original version of Windows was $99USD, just like the Nintendo 64 and original Sony Playstation. Windows 1.0 also introduced Microsoft Write and Microsoft Paint to the computing scene.

Despite of widespread critics among certain groups of end-users, Microsoft Windows Vista operating system (OS) captured additional part of the market in October, whereas other operating systems from Microsoft reduced their installed base. At the same time, platforms from Apple reduced the shares of the market they command. In September the share of Windows Vista-based personal computers used to browse the Internet was close to 8%, 7.91% to be precise, up insignificantly, according to data collected by Net Applications, a provider of Web tools. The shares of Windows 2000 and Windows XP operating systems decreased to 3.16% and 79.07%. The share of systems based on Mac OS decreased to 6.55% in October, down from 6.61% a month before. Other operating systems, namely outdated Windows versions, Linux OSes and so on, which have been losing market share for many months now, are now used in 3.31% of devices that are browsing online.

We've been hearing about the latest service packs from Microsoft for some time, but until recently, there have been no mentions as to how either performs. An independent researcher took test versions of both Windows Vista SP1 and Windows XP SP3 and pitted them against each other. What he found was astounding, to say the least. Vista SP1 at most points was no faster than the release version, and in some cases was twice as slow. However, XP SP3 was able to claim a very hefty performance boost from Vista SP1, and even XP SP2. If the beta performance carries over to the final versions, Microsoft will be making quite a pretty penny off of XP SP3, considering the massive performance gains seen at this time. Have a look at this very telling benchmark chart (Officebench, in seconds, less time is better).

Despite some PlayStation3 success in Japan, the Nintendo Wii is selling extraordinarily strong all around the world. While Nintendo hasn't been able to keep up with Wii demand since the console was released, they continue to make insane amounts of profit. After selling 200,000 units in Australia in just 50 weeks, analysts in the country declared that the Wii is the fastest selling console to ever hit Australia. Even the Nintendo DS and PlayStation Portable, which both were met with extreme fanfare, took at least 55 weeks to reach the 200,000 mark in Australia. Sony refuses to let Nintendo take this title without a fight, as their PlayStation2 continues trucking along to its seventh birthday. Sony announced that they will continue to sell the PS2 throughout all of 2008, and possibly 2009. It is priced competitively, at $199AUD, for Christmas. Microsoft also is working hard to compete with Wii sales, by pricing the Xbox360 at the same price as the Wii ($399AUD). Time will tell if the Wii really is just a fad/gimmick, or if it really has something going for it.

Microsoft and Bungie have received both good and bad press from Halo 3. On the one hand, they claim record sales and profits. On the other, a sizable portion of the disks were faulty anyways. Thanks to a trivial packaging mistake, most of the "Legendary edition" disks came loose and scratched themselves during shipping. Even when the Halo 3 disks arrived in one piece, there was a certain chance that the game would not even load correctly, which Microsoft was well aware of. This inability to load correctly causes Xbox360s to "crash, freeze or lock up". That's the case that Californian gamer Randy Nunez is making against Microsoft. His class-action lawsuit seeks $5 million USD, and claims that Microsoft should have recalled Halo 3 after they knew about the crashing, freezing, and locking-up that Halo 3 would cause. What could really win this case in favor of Nunez is the fact that quite a few gamers get disk read error messages in the middle of a Halo 3 battle.

Microsoft's Windows Home Server officially launched earlier this month, is already preparing to be updated. Microsoft says that the new update is "part of the ongoing process of continually enhancing the customer experience with Windows Home Server." The update includes a few feature additions for Windows Home Server. Currently, users who login to their server when away from their home network - through an external URL like https://yourname.homeserver.com - are greeted with a security warning. The November 27 update will now provide users with a trusted SSL certificate for their Windows Home Severs. The SSL certification was provided with the help of Windows Live Domains and GoDaddy. Other new features include a "Delete All" button to remove home computer backups. Microsoft has also taken steps to make the Shared Folders and Server Storage aspects of Windows Home Server more robust and user friendly.

It's no secret that Microsoft's anti-piracy campaign, WGA (Windows Genuine Advantage), is a lot like strict gun laws: they make sure that only criminals have an easy time of things. While legitimate users are accused of piracy and have to re-activate Windows every time they upgrade their graphics card, pirated versions of Windows, completely cracked, lack all forms of WGA software. In light of this, Microsoft did a study of their WGA software. An analysis of the study results found a couple things that would make WGA much more trustworthy, easy to work with, and less frustrating. Microsoft has already repaired the WGA validation servers that caused such a fuss back in August, and is adding quite a few backup servers. Microsoft also added 24/7 technical support via phone and internet for anyone with a problem. In the future, Microsoft plans to unleash a "get genuine" campaign. If anyone discovers that their version of Windows is pirated, and wants to go legitimate, the "get genuine" software will give these people an easy way to get a legitimate copy of Windows installed and running.

To the delight of gamers and science-fiction (sci-fi) fans alike, the wait is finally over as "Mass Effect," an award-winning action role-playing game (RPG) described by Game Informer Magazine as "One of the greatest science fiction stories ever told," hits retail shelves today, with a continued rollout to retailers worldwide planned.

Microsoft late last week released an updated test version of Windows XP Service Pack 3 to about 15,000 beta testers. The update, the third such service pack for the six-year-old operating system is due out in final form in the first half of next year. The company said before its final release it expects to issue a public test version of the service pack, though it did not provide more specificity than at "a later date."

"We are targeting (the first half of) 2008 for the release of XP SP3," Microsoft said, "though our timing will always be based on customer feedback as a first priority."

Beginning December 11, three new multiplayer maps will be available for players of Bungie's Halo 3 (X360). Titled the Heroic Map Pack, its three maps - Foundry, Rat's Nest, and Standoff - will be downloadable from the online Xbox Live Marketplace for 800 Microsoft Points ($10). Microsoft describes Standoff as "ideal for mid-sized objective and Slayer game types" due to its symmetrical layout and boulder-filled battlefield. Rat's Nest is said to be "an indoor vehicle paradise" best suited for big team battles, whereas Foundry is "the ultimate Forge map" as players can manipulate and replace every object object within it to create their own custom arena.

Microsoft has signed off on Visual Studio 2008 and is expected to release it early next week-on November 19th. Earlier this month Microsoft committed to ship Visual Studio 2008, formerly code-named Orcas, by the end of November. The company is making good on that commitment and is expected to have Visual Studio RTM (release to manufacturing) on Nov. 19, according to sources and Microsoft blogs. The tool-set will be available on the MSDN (Microsoft Developer Network). "Visual Studio 2008 is anticipated out early next week, with availability for subscribers," the MSDN blog said in a late-night post on Nov. 16. Visual Studio 2008 and the .Net Framework 3.5 enable developers at all levels to rapidly create connected applications for Windows Vista, Windows Server 2008, the 2007 Microsoft Office system, mobile devices and the Web. Microsoft's Visual Studio Team System is also expected to ship by the end of November.

Microsoft Corp. plans to release a major update to its Windows Live OneCare security suite next week, according to online retailer Amazon.com. Amazon has already begun accepting orders for OneCare 2.0, which it says will ship next Thursday. Microsoft has been beta testing OneCare 2.0 since July. The software, which can be run on up to three PCs, has new tools for backing up, monitoring and managing home networks. It also has new features to speed up the performance of systems that use the software. Its suggested retail price is US$49.95, but Amazon is offering it for $42.99. OneCare is sold on a subscription basis, so these prices would cover a one-year subscription.

A man who claims Microsoft improperly allowed his underage son to use his debit card to subscribe to the company's Xbox Live gaming service and automatically renewed the subscription without authorization is suing the software maker for consumer fraud. In a class action suit, Georgia resident Francisco Garcia claims that in October 2005 his son, Silvario, used his debit card to buy a $49.99, one-year subscription to Xbox Live. The service lets Xbox owners play games like Halo 3 against each other over the Internet. A year later, Garcia claims, Microsoft automatically billed him for an additional year of Xbox Live without his knowledge or consent. He contends that the charge sent his checking account into overdraft, and that his bank slapped him with a $35.00 penalty. By accepting a subscription from a minor and automatically renewing it without consent, Microsoft "fraudulently induced a contractual relationship for Xbox Live services," Garcia claims in his suit. Microsoft has asked the federal court to dismiss the case, claiming it has paperwork that proves Silvario Garcia misrepresented his age when he subscribed to Xbox Live by falsely stating that he was at least 18 years old.

DailyTech has made inquiries about what other big developers and Microsoft itself think of DirectX 10.1. Expected to be rolled out with Microsoft's upcoming Windows Vista Service Pack 1, "DX10.1 is an incremental update that won't affect any games or gamers in the near future." said senior global director of Microsoft games on Windows, Kevin Unangst. Microsoft isn't the only developer downplaying DirectX 10.1. Cevat Yerli, CEO of Crytek, states, "We pride ourselves on being the first to adopt any important new technology that can improve our games so you would expect us to get with DX10.1 right away but we've looked at it and there's just nothing in it important enough to make it needed. So we have no plans to use it at all, not even in the future." NVIDIA also has a response for AMD's DirectX 10.1 support, a feature of AMD's new HD 3800 series that the company has been rather vocal about. NVIDIA's latest guidance describes DirectX 10.1 as "a minor extension of DirectX 10 that makes a few optional features in DirectX 10 mandatory". NVIDIA's corporate roadmap details plans to include DirectX 10.1 in its ninth-generation GPU architecture, codenamed D9. However, the first D9 processors will not debut until next year.

Microsoft already lets users to download retro games via Xbox LIVE Arcade, but the company is now planning to expand on its game downloads by offering users the ability to download full games from the original Xbox. With the release if the Xbox 360's next software update, which is planned for 2nd December, Microsoft will allow gamers to download from an initial selection of half a dozen Xbox games, with the first wave of titles being Burnout 3, Crash Bandicoot: The Wrath of Cortex, Crimson Skies: High Road to Revenge, Fable, Indigo Prophecy and, of course, Halo: Combat Evolved. The pricing is expected to be 1200 Microsoft Points per game, which works out at about $15, and although no details about content protection were released, Microsoft is likely to prevent users sharing games between more than one account. Microsoft intends to gradually make more games available for download, although any Xbox 360 owners who are interested in this and only have a 20GB hard drive may want to invest in bigger storage.

At Microsoft TechEd IT Forum 2007, Bob Kelly, corporate vice president of Infrastructure Server Marketing at Microsoft Corp., updated an audience of more than 5,000 IT professionals on the development of Windows Server 2008 and a new virtualization offering. As Microsoft nears the final stages of Windows Server 2008 development and the Feb. 27, 2008, worldwide launch event, Kelly announced detailed packaging, pricing and licensing information for Windows Server 2008.

This week, the software giant announced its commercial Microsoft Authorized Refurbisher (MAR) program, a part of its Genuine Software Initiative. This program is tailored to the needs of large refurbishers that wish to work with Microsoft to deliver genuine Windows software licenses on systems they refurbish and resell. It also aims to reduce pirating of Windows. Microsoft estimates that, in 2004, 20 million refurbished PCs were sold. Today, the company projects that number is closer to 28 million. Two large refurbishers have been initially selected to participate in MAR: Columbus, Ohio-based Redemtech and Austin, Texas-based TechTurn. Find out more about MAR here.

Daniel A. Reed will join Microsoft Research as director of Scalable and Multicore Computing, reporting to Senior Vice President of Research Rick Rashid. Reed is an expert in high-performance computing, multicore architectures and scientific applications, as well as a leader in U.S. information technology research policy.

In a bid to make the Xbox 360 more family-friendly than the Nintendo Wii, Microsoft is adding parental controls to the Xbox 360 Dashboard sometime in early December. This "family timer" feature will allow parents (or whoever knows the master password) to control exactly how much time gamers can spend, you know, gaming. The timer, to its credit, will give gamers warning a few minutes before the alloted time period is up, at which point the console simply shuts off. This will make running for save-points much more interesting indeed.

In related news, enforcing strict controls on when children can play video games may cause more problems than it's worth. A recent random-selection poll conducted by Microsoft of 800 families found that 45% of families create tension in the home by putting restrictions on digital content, and punishing children by barring them from their video games can lead to disturbing murder plots in extreme cases.

Microsoft fired Chief Information Officer Stuart Scott on Friday after two years with the company, saying he violated company policies. The software maker did not specify which policies.

We can confirm that Stuart Scott was terminated after an investigation for violation of company policies,

a Microsoft representative said in an e-mailed statement. Microsoft said that two executives - General Manager Shahla Aly and Corporate Vice President Alain Crozier - will assume Scott's responsibilities until a replacement is identified. Microsoft declined to comment further on Scott's departure.

After a trickle of updates and "betas", Microsoft Corp. is ready to start promoting its official package of free desktop programs for e-mail, instant messaging, blogging and sharing photos. The programs are "essentially a free upgrade for Windows," said Brian Hall, general manager of Windows Live at Microsoft. The package includes Windows Live Mail client, which should replace the old and integrated Outlook Express. The package also includes Windows Live Photo Gallery, Live Writer for writing blog posts, and the Live Messenger instant-messaging software. The applications aren't much different from test versions previously available.