An anonymous reader writes: The Windows XP and Windows Server 2003 source code that was leaked online last week on 4chan has been confirmed to be authentic after a YouTube user compiled the code into working operating systems. Shortly after the leak occurred last week, ZDNet reached out to multiple current and former Microsoft software engineers to confirm the validity of the leaked files. At the time, sources told ZDNet that from a summary review, the code appeared to be incomplete, but from the components they analyzed, the code appeared to be authentic. NTDEV, a US-based IT technician behind the eponymous Twitter and YouTube accounts, was one of the millions of users who downloaded the code last week. But rather than wait for an official statement from Microsoft that is likely to never come, NTDEV decided to compile the code and find out for themselves. According to videos shared online, the amateur IT technician was successful in compiling the Windows XP code over the weekend, and Windows Server 2003 yesterday. "Well, the reports were indeed true. It seems that there are some components missing, such as winlogon.exe and lots of drivers," NTDEV told ZDNet in an interview today, describing his work on XP.

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Microsoft's Bing search app will appear as a download prompt on new Android phones in Germany, the U.K. and France after it won slots in a Google auction for rivals. From a report: Google announced the results of its October-December auction on Tuesday, showing info.com won slots on a choice screen for new Android phones in all 31 countries, PrivacyWall won slots in 22 countries, GMX in 16 countries and Bing in 13 countries. DuckDuckGo won just eight slots in smaller markets, down from a slot in each country in the last period.

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Most of Microsoft's money now comes from its cloud service Azure, points out open-source advocate Eric S. Raymond. Now he posits a future where Windows development will "inevitably" become a drag on Microsoft's business: So, you're a Microsoft corporate strategist. What's the profit-maximizing path forward given all these factors? It's this: Microsoft Windows becomes a Proton-like emulation layer over a Linux kernel, with the layer getting thinner over time as more of the support lands in the mainline kernel sources. The economic motive is that Microsoft sheds an ever-larger fraction of its development costs as less and less has to be done in-house. If you think this is fantasy, think again. The best evidence that it's already the plan is that Microsoft has already ported Edge to run under Linux. There is only one way that makes any sense, and that is as a trial run for freeing the rest of the Windows utility suite from depending on any emulation layer. So, the end state this all points at is: New Windows is mostly a Linux kernel, there's an old-Windows emulation over it, but Edge and the rest of the Windows user-land utilities don't use the emulation. The emulation layer is there for games and other legacy third-party software. Economic pressure will be on Microsoft to deprecate the emulation layer... Every increment of Windows/Linux convergence helps with that — reduces administration and the expected volume of support traffic. Eventually, Microsoft announces upcoming end-of-life on the Windows emulation. The OS itself , and its userland tools, has for some time already been Linux underneath a carefully preserved old-Windows UI. Third-party software providers stop shipping Windows binaries in favor of ELF binaries with a pure Linux API... ...and Linux finally wins the desktop wars, not by displacing Windows but by co-opting it. Perhaps this is always how it had to be.

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Long-time Slashdot reader Bismillah quotes iTnews: A software engineer in Melbourne is whiling away the city's lockdown by creating a tool that DOS users so far have lacked: an integrated Linux environment similar to what Windows 10 users enjoy... "I first started out just seeing if I could get Linux booting from the DOS command line, and that turned out to be straightforward enough so I thought it'd be fun to see if I could continue executing DOS once Linux was running," Charlie Somerville said. "I'm mostly surprised by how smoothly the whole thing works given how *dodgy* it all is haha," he added. DOS Subsystem for Linux runs a real copy of MS-DOS under the QEMU virtual machine, and starts up from that, Somerville said... "Helpfully Linux seems to leave the first megabyte of memory (where DOS lives) intact during its own boot process, so it's just a matter of jumping back to the right place to continue DOS execution," he added. Somerville had it pointed out to him that this approach of running DOS under vm8086 is actually how early Windows worked. "Kinda cool to rediscover the technique so many years later," Somerville said.

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In a blog post announcing the next version of its Exchange Server, Microsoft has slipped in a single line that's bound to make those who hate paying subscription fees for Office apps happy. From a report: "Microsoft Office will also see a new perpetual release for both Windows and Mac, in the second half of 2021," the tech giant's Exchange team wrote, confirming that a new version of Office you can purchase with a one-time payment is coming next year. The company has been pushing Microsoft 365 for years now as the main way to get its Office apps. This subscription-based version of its suite gives you access to Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook and other apps for a monthly payment. While you can use some of those apps for free online with a Microsoft account, you won't be able to install them on your PC like you'd be able to if you pay for a subscription. Further reading: Microsoft Really Doesn't Want You To Buy Office 2019.

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Microsoft suffered a rare cyber-security lapse earlier this month when the company's IT staff accidentally left one of Bing's backend servers exposed online. From a report: The server was discovered by Ata Hakcil, a security researcher at WizCase, who exclusively shared his findings with ZDNet last week. According to Hakcil's investigation, the server is believed to have exposed more than 6.5 TB of log files containing 13 billion records originating from the Bing search engine. The Wizcase researcher was able to verify his findings by locating search queries he performed in the Bing Android app in the server's logs. Hakcil said the server was exposed online from September 10 to September 16, when he notified the Microsoft Security Response Center (MSRC), and the server was secured again with a password. Reached out for comment last week, Microsoft admitted to the mistake.

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Millions of employees now commute from their bed to a desk at home. After the initial euphoria of skipping smog-filled traffic jams and cramped train compartments, a new reality has dawned in which the work day blends into the rest of life, like a never-ending video conference call. Microsoft has a solution for this. From a report: The company's Teams collaboration software is adding the ability to schedule a "virtual commute." It won't start your car or ride the subway for you, but it will remind users about the end of the work day, suggest tasks to help workers wind down and create a little mental space before kids' homework, dinner, laundry and other obligations come crashing in. For example, Teams will prompt users to list tasks as completed or add them to tomorrow's to-do list, while asking workers to rate how their day went and suggesting guided meditation, through an integration with the Headspace app. Pandemic-related burnout and difficulty separating work and personal life has become a surprisingly common concern among Microsoft's corporate customers, according to Chief Marketing Officer Chris Capossela. "The thing we didn't predict that we've learned is now at the top of customers' mind is really the well-being of their employees," he said.

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Microsoft's Xbox team significantly expanded its list of game development studios on Monday, announcing the purchase of ZeniMax Media for $7.5 billion in cash. From a report: The entertainment company owns several industry-leading game developers, including Bethesda Softworks, the maker of the post-apocalyptic Fallout games and the fantasy series the Elder Scrolls. It also owns id Software, known for its Doom, Rage and Wolfenstein shooting game franchises. The move grows the number of in-house Xbox game development studios to 23, up from 15 earlier, and giving it control of some of the game industry's most popular franchises. Microsoft also plans to run Bethesda as its own division, with leadership and structure intact. "As a proven game developer and publisher, Bethesda has seen success across every category of games, and together, we will further our ambition to empower the more than three billion gamers worldwide," Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said in a statement.

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"Microsoft has submitted a series of patches to Linux kernel developers," reports ZDNet, "requesting that Linux run as the root partition on the Hyper-V, its hypervisor software for running Windows and non-Windows instances on hardware." Microsoft "wants to create a complete virtualization stack with Linux and Microsoft Hypervisor", according to Microsoft principle software engineer Wei Liu. Liu has proposed an RFC or request for comment that for now merely implements what are only the "absolutely necessary components to get things running... There will be a subsequent patch series to provide a device node (/dev/mshv) such that userspace programs can create and run virtual machines. We've also ported Cloud Hypervisor over and have been able to boot a Linux guest with Virtio devices since late July." Cloud Hypervisor is an experimental open-source hypervisor implementation from Intel written in the Rust programming language. It's a virtual-machine monitor that runs on top of KVM, the Kernel-based Virtual Machine hypervisor in the Linux kernel that's designed for cloud workloads... Liu points out three more changes beyond amendments to the Hyper-V Top-Level Functional Specification. For example, Microsoft wants Linux to set up existing Hyper-V facilities differently. It also wants Linux kernel developers to change the kernel's behavior when accessing hardware memory in a way that affects driver access to the GPU and CPU that's being managed by an operating system memory manager. It's this issue that Microsoft engineers are least confident about and are asking for Linux developer support, according to Liu.... As Microsoft's executive VP of the cloud and enterprise group, Scott Guthrie, told ZDNet last year, Microsoft's shift to Linux and open source started over a decade ago when it open-sourced ASP.NET. "We recognized open source is something that every developer can benefit from. It's not nice, it's essential. It's not just code, it's community," explained Guthrie.

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An anonymous reader shares a report: Earlier this year, some leaks about Microsoft's "MetaOS" had a lot of us Microsoft watchers scrambling to figure out what this foundational layer is and how it will affect Microsoft's various products and services in the future. Recently, I've unearthed some more details about the company's high-level goals and lower-level product plans around MetaOS. MetaOS has a lot to do with what's next for Microsoft Teams, Office, Edge, and more. I don't know when or if Microsoft will ever talk about MetaOS publicly, but MetaOS and the related Taos team, headed by Chief Operating Officer and Corporate Vice President of the Experiences and Devices Group Kirk Koenigsbauer, is working actively on the MetaOS inbox apps and services, I hear. Microsoft's highest level MetaOS pitch is that it is focused on people and not tied to specific devices. Microsoft seems to be modeling itself a bit after Tencent's WeChat mobile social/payment app/service here, my sources say. Microsoft wants to create a single mobile platform that provides a consistent set of work and play services, including messaging, voice and video, digital payments, gaming, and customized document and news feeds. The MetaOS consists of a number of layers, or tiers, according to information shared with me by my contacts. At the lowest level, there's a data tier, which is implemented in the Office substrate and/or Microsoft Graph. This data tier is all about network identity and groups. There's also an application model, which includes work Microsoft is doing around Fluid Framework (its fast co-authoring and object embedding technology); Power Apps for rapid development and even the Visual Studio team for dev tools. Microsoft is creating a set of services and contracts for developers around Fluid Core, Search, personalization/recommendation, security, and management. For software vendors and customers,

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Microsoft has submitted a series of patches to the Linux kernel with its aim being "to create a complete virtualization stack with Linux and Microsoft Hypervisor." The Register reports: The patches are designated "RFC" (Request for comments) and are a minimal implementation presented for discussion. The key change is that with the patched kernel, Linux will run as the Hyper-V root partition. In the Hyper-V architecture, the root partition has direct access to hardware and creates child partitions for the VMs it hosts. "Just think of it like Xen's Dom0," said Microsoft principal software engineer Wei Liu. Hyper-V's architecture is more similar to Xen than it is to KVM or to VMware's ESXi, and Liu acknowledged that "we drew inspiration from the Xen code in Linux," specifically for code handing interrupts. Until now, the Hyper-V root partition had to run Windows. Microsoft has also ported Intel's open-source Cloud Hypervisor, a Virtual Machine Monitor (VMM) written in Rust that normally runs on KVM, the hypervisor that is built into the Linux kernel. Cloud Hypervisor itself is currently in "very early pre-alpha stage." Even when Linux is the root partition, it will still run on top of Microsoft's hypervisor, a thin layer running with ring -1 privileges. It will no longer be necessary to run Windows on that hypervisor, though, enabling Microsoft to call the new arrangement "a complete virtualization stack with Linux."

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This week Krebs on Security reported that Microsoft "released updates to remedy nearly 130 security vulnerabilities in its Windows operating system and supported software." None of the flaws are known to be currently under active exploitation, but 23 of them could be exploited by malware or malcontents to seize complete control of Windows computers with little or no help from users. The majority of the most dangerous or "critical" bugs deal with issues in Microsoft's various Windows operating systems and its web browsers, Internet Explorer and Edge. September marks the seventh month in a row Microsoft has shipped fixes for more than 100 flaws in its products, and the fourth month in a row that it fixed more than 120. Among the chief concerns for enterprises this month is CVE-2020-16875, which involves a critical flaw in the email software Microsoft Exchange Server 2016 and 2019. An attacker could leverage the Exchange bug to run code of his choosing just by sending a booby-trapped email to a vulnerable Exchange server. "That doesn't quite make it wormable, but it's about the worst-case scenario for Exchange servers," said Dustin Childs, of Trend Micro's Zero Day Initiative. "We have seen the previously patched Exchange bug CVE-2020-0688 used in the wild, and that requires authentication. We'll likely see this one in the wild soon. This should be your top priority." Also not great for companies to have around is CVE-2020-1210, which is a remote code execution flaw in supported versions of Microsoft Sharepoint document management software that bad guys could attack by uploading a file to a vulnerable Sharepoint site. Security firm Tenable notes that this bug is reminiscent of CVE-2019-0604, another Sharepoint problem that's been exploited for cybercriminal gains since April 2019. The article points out that Google also shipped a critical update for Chrome this week "that resolves at least five security flaws that are rated high severity."

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Joanna Stern, reviewing the Surface Duo for the Wall Street Journal: It isn't always clear when something is ready. Take my grilling. Sometimes I remove steak well before or after I should've. You might say it's a "tough" call. But there's nothing tough about stating this: The new two-screen Surface Duo is undercooked. Microsoft's new $1,400 book-like phone-tablet thingy is not ready for me and not ready for you. Unless, of course, you want an Android device that repeatedly ignores your taps on its screens, randomly slows down, struggles to figure out its own up, down and sideways positioning, and abruptly rearranges parts of its own interface. If that is your dream, well, then it is ready. Somehow, Microsoft disagrees. "We had been testing for some time. We wanted to get it out. We thought this was the right time for us," said Matt Barlow, Microsoft's corporate vice president of modern life, search and devices. With OneNote, I've loved brainstorming and taking notes with the $100 Surface Pen (sold separately). I'd love it even more if the pen could keep up with my writing. Another performance issue. Unfortunately, key Microsoft apps like Excel and Skype haven't been optimized for two screens. Microsoft and Google are also working with third-party app developers. The Kindle app, for instance, places a page on each screen to make this one adorable little e-reader. (Or at least it should. It glitched midway through testing, but began working again later, after I complained to Microsoft.) You can also launch one app on each screen -- Edge browser on left, Word on right, for instance. One of my favorite features is App Groups, which lets you pair two apps together to simultaneously launch. I have Twitter and TikTok in one with the label, "Bad for My Brain." One screen is still better suited to many of our current needs, and that makes this wide device feel awkward more often than not.

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Microsoft's next-generation consoles, the Xbox Series X and Xbox Series S, will be released on Nov. 10, Microsoft announced on Wednesday. Microsoft also confirmed the price of Xbox Series X: $499. Pre-orders will open on Sept. 22. From a report: As part of Wednesday's announcement, Microsoft also said it will expand Xbox All Access program to 12 countries. This program essentially allows players to purchase a console and Xbox Game Pass on a monthly payment program -- $24.99 a month. Xbox All Access will be available in Australia, Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, South Korea, Sweden, United Kingdom, and United States. Microsoft's localized Xbox Twitter accounts have also been tweeting regional pricing: In the U.K., the Xbox Series X will cost $499 and the Xbox Series S will cost $299. This holiday Xbox Game Pass Ultimate and Xbox Game Pass for PC members get an EA Play membership at no additional cost.

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An anonymous reader shares a report: Microsoft has seen success with its budget friendly Surface Go tablet thanks to its $399 starting price, and it appears the company is hoping to further capitalize on that success with another price conscious Surface PC, this time in the form of a laptop. Codenamed Sparti, I'm told that Microsoft is working on a lightweight midrange clamshell PC designed with students in mind. According to my sources, Sparti has a 12.5-inch display with a 10th-generation Intel Core i5 processor, 4GB RAM, and 64GB storage in the entry-level model. It'll ship with Windows 10 in S mode and be priced somewhere between $500 and $600. I'm told that Sparti is being positioned as a more affordable Surface Laptop, similar to how Microsoft positions the Surface Go alongside the Surface Pro today.

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An anonymous reader quotes a report from CNBC: The Pentagon said Friday it will stick with Microsoft for a major cloud contract that has been disputed in court for months. The JEDI, or Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure, deal has become one of the most hotly contested contracts for the Department of Defense. The contract is intended to modernize the Pentagon's colossal IT infrastructure and could be valued up to $10 billion for services rendered over as many as 10 years. "The Department has completed its comprehensive re-evaluation of the JEDI Cloud proposals and determined that Microsoft's proposal continues to represent the best value to the Government," the Pentagon said in a statement. "The JEDI Cloud contract is a firm-fixed-price, indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity contract that will make a full range of cloud computing services available to the DoD. While contract performance will not begin immediately due to the Preliminary Injunction Order issued by the Court of Federal Claims on February 13, 2020, DoD is eager to begin delivering this capability to our men and women in uniform." The outcome represents a loss for Amazon, which challenge the award of the contract after the Pentagon gave it to Microsoft in October. An Amazon representative did not immediately respond to request for comment. "We appreciate that after careful review, the DoD confirmed that we offered the right technology and the best value. We're ready to get to work and make sure that those who serve our country have access to this much needed technology," a Microsoft spokesperson told CNBC in an email.

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CodeInspired shares a report from The Verge, adding: "This is pretty incredible. We're seeing the beginning of next-gen gaming come to life!" From the report: Microsoft Flight Simulator players have turned into virtual stormchasers this week, hunting down Hurricane Laura as it approached the US Gulf Coast. While Texas and Louisiana brace for what is being described as an "unsurvivable storm surge," the real-time weather inside Microsoft Flight Simulator is providing a surreal spectacle for players. Virtual strormchasers have gathered in the skies above the Gulf of Mexico to fly directly into Hurricane Laura. The results demonstrate the incredible realism in Microsoft Flight Simulator, just as Hurricane Laura threatens catastrophic damage in the real world. Players have been flying directly through the eye of the storm, around the outer edges, and even so far up that planes have frozen over and needed to be de-iced. The virtual views have allowed players to track Hurricane Laura during the moments before it made landfall as a category 4 hurricane with 150mph winds. A YouTube user also captured the virtual experience of flying through Hurricane Laura, showing just how well the storm cloud formations are depicted in the game.

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An anonymous reader quotes a report from CNBC: Microsoft's acquisition talks with TikTok and its Chinese parent company ByteDance "ballooned" this summer after President Donald Trump intervened, according to a report from The New York Times, citing people familiar with the situation. ByteDance is being forced to sell TikTok's U.S. business by the Trump administration, which says the app's current ties to China make it a national security threat. An executive order signed by Trump on Aug. 6 means a sale must go through before Sept. 15. However, TikTok sued the U.S. government on Monday, alleging it was deprived of due process. The lawsuit could delay the ban, giving TikTok more time to get a better deal for the sale. When the deal talks began, Microsoft is said to have been reluctant to do any kind of large TikTok acquisition, due in part to the rising tensions between the U.S. and China, according to the Times report. However, a minority stake in the wildly popular video sharing app was viewed positively as it may lead to TikTok ditching Google Cloud, which it currently uses, and signing up to Microsoft Azure, instantly making it one of Microsoft's largest cloud customers. TikTok could also be integrated with Microsoft's $7 billion advertising business. Microsoft issued a statement on Aug. 2 about its pursuit to buy TikTok's U.S. business. However, on Aug, 3, Trump said he'd rather Microsoft, valued at $1.6 trillion, purchase the app that is used by 100 million Americans in its entirety. "I think buying 30% is complicated," Trump told reporters in the Cabinet Room at the White House. There are now several other bidders competing with Microsoft, with the main one being enterprise software firm Oracle. Netflix and Twitter have also been contacted by bankers and investors, but it's not clear if they're interested, according to the Times. In any case, deal talks between the parties have "morphed into a big, messy, political soap opera," according to the report.

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New submitter bondman writes: Windows 95 was released a full quarter century ago today, on August 24th, 1995. Long gone, nearly forgotten? I'm surprised to not have come across a retrospective article yet. I've linked to the Wikipedia article. As for me I still haven't grown to re-like The Rolling Stones "Start Me Up" yet. I got so sick of hearing it with all the pre-launch and post-launch hype, as the song was tied heavily to the Win 95 launch event. Microsoft paid the Stones a princely sum to use it. I still remember how exciting it was to see the full-length, full-screen video included on the installation CD-ROM, "Buddy Holly" by Weezer. Mind-blowing to watch a whole music video on your computer. Crappy resolution by our standards today, and a very limited palette to my memory. But as I said, amazing in the day. Windows 95 had many fans and many critics. At the time, I recall it as an exciting OS (or GUI on top of DOS, if you prefer). PC users were riveted to all the magazine and other media coverage pre-launch. I remember it fondly (with all the obligatory respect due Mac OS, the Amiga, and all the other early GUIs of course).

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