The Windows.old folder

Hi, Now i am going to describe Windows.old folder. When you install Windows Vista, the Windows.old folder is created. The Windows Vista installation program creates this folder to store the files from the Windows XP installation. To locate the Windows.old folder in Windows Vista, click Start Collapse this image Expand this Start button

type drive:\windows.old in the Start Search box, and then click Windows.old in the Programs list.

If you are prompted for an administrator password or confirmation, type the password or click Continue.
The Windows.old folder contains the following folders from the Windows XP installation:

1. drive:\Windows.old\Windows
2. drive:\Windows.old\Documents and Settings
3. drive:\Windows.old\Program Files

The "Documents and Settings" folder Most programs store a user's personal files in the Documents and Settings" folder.

Generally, you do not find personal files in the Windows folder or in the Program Files folder.

The "Documents and Settings" folder contains one folder for each user who logged on to the computer in Windows XP. For example, the following folders appear in the "drive:\Windows.old\Documents and Settings" folder:

* drive:\Windows.old\Documents and Settings\Administrator

If you did not use the Administrator account to log on to Windows XP, this folder may not contain any personal files.
* drive:\Windows.old\Documents and Settings\All Users

If you used the Shared Files feature in Windows XP, the shared files are located in the All Users folder. For example, this folder contains recorded television shows on computers that are running Windows Media Center Edition 2005. Open the folders in the All Users folder to locate any files you may want to preserve. Then, copy these files to a new location that is outside the Windows.old folder structure.
* drive:\Windows.old\Documents and Settings\UserName

Most personal files are located in folders that are labeled for each user who logged on to the computer in Windows XP.

User folders
Most personal files are located in the following location:
drive:\Windows.old\Documents and Settings\UserName
This folder contains the following three folders:

* drive:\Windows.old\Documents and Settings\UserName\Cookies
* drive:\Windows.old\Documents and Settings\UserName\Start Menu
* drive:\Windows.old\Documents and Settings\UserName\UserData

Typically, these three folders do not contain important user data. The following three folders are also located in the "drive:\Windows.old\Documents and Settings\UserName" folder:

* drive:\Windows.old\Documents and Settings\UserName\Desktop
* drive:\Windows.old\Documents and Settings\UserName\Favorites
* drive:\Windows.old\Documents and Settings\UserName\My Documents

Typically, these three folders contain most of the important personal files from the Windows XP installation.

Why I Didn't Skip Microsoft Vista: Security

After bad reports for microsoft windows vista , there is positive results are coming than vista is more good than xp , users are giving positive feed back , so little hope has come in microsoft for microsoft windows vista.

Microsoft's recent Security Intelligence Report shows that microsoft Windows Vista canada was more resistant to exploits than Windows XP in the first half of 2008.

In addition, veteran Microsoft blogger Ed Bott recently ran some numbers and concluded that Vista has a security edge over Windows XP.

Another security report, from last month, by Jeff Jones, Security Strategy Director in the Microsoft Security Technology Unit, cites that Windows Vista was affected by 50 percent fewer vulnerabilities than other desktop operating systems in the first half of 2008 and had 19 percent fewer vulnerabilities than Windows XP SP2 in the same time period.

Security reports from Microsoft touting its own operating system have been met with endless debate over the metrics used to crown Vista the most secure operating system.

Nevertheless, some IT professionals contacted for this article who have upgraded or are upgrading to Vista point to the OS's security as a major plus as compared to Windows XP.

(For the IT viewpoint from the other side, see our recent article "Why I'm Skipping Vista").

Vista Offers Better Search, Better Security

"The two features of Vista that are significantly better than Windows XP are security and search," says Scott Noles, Director of Technology and Education at Kinex Medical Center, a post-operation rehabilitation facility in Waukesha, Wis.

Kinex, an early adopter of Windows Vista, currently has it installed on 90 desktops, 22 laptops and is in the process of installing Vista on 170 tablet PCs.

Noles says the security features built into Vista's Windows Security Center, including the notorious UAC (User Account Control), have proved effective in protecting his users' desktops. "With Vista we can keep unwanted software and configurations out of our environment without needing third-party tools and with less effort than in previous versions of Windows."

A big part of Noles' job at Kinex Medical Center is making it easier to track and find patient data, and the search capabilities in Vista are more user-friendly and faster than those in XP, he says.

"Vista's ability to find files, applications and pieces of data whether it is in e-mail, network shares or on the local computers has allowed our employees to be more efficient."

Farther south, Jim Osteen, Assistant Director of IT for the City of Miami, is in the process of upgrading to Windows Vista. Currently, Osteen has Vista installed on 100 workstations, with a goal of 900 workstation installations by September, 2009.

Osteen agrees that Vista's search and security features exceed XP's, adding that he believes Microsoft's response times to new security threats in Vista are the best in the industry.

The City of Miami's switch to Vista coincides with its move from a mainframe environment to a Windows Server environment and also a move to a centralized storage infrastructure, he says. Vista's data backup features can do automatic incremental data replication much better than XP, Osteen says. "The replication model of XP was causing bottlenecks," he added.

Osteen expects to save $80,000 in power savings through the use of Vista's GPOs (group policy objects), which enable quick transitions between a computer's active and sleeping states. "Windows Vista has improved sleep mode; with XP, we were always turning computers on, wasting energy and money," he says.

Vista Not Perfect, But We Can't Wait Two Years

Noles and Osteen are not immune to the negative perceptions about Windows Vista. But both attribute most of the negativity to lack of education and testing by users.

With any operating system, Noles says, there are good items and bad items, and the key for businesses is to do complete testing to see if an OS is a good match.

"When we participated in the Vista beta program we tested the operating system in all areas of our business," Noles says. "We were not listening to the press, but testing to make up our own minds whether we wanted to move forward with it. From testing we determined that Vista would be effective in our environment."

Not that Vista has been perfect for either Noles or Osteen. Both have had driver compatibility problems and are disappointed in how long it has taken third-party vendors to release software and hardware that works effectively with Vista.

But Osteen notes that he has seen reliability and compatibility improvements since the release of Vista Service Pack 1 last February.

Source:http://www.pcworld.com/businesscenter/article/154250/why_i_didnt_skip_microsoft_vista_security.html#

Microsoft windows vista bizspark

With an initiative called BizSpark, software giant Microsoft is making a new pitch for startups to run their business on Microsoft’s tools.

Microsoft is starting a new free new software package in which all things are included software support , maintaince and all othter things you have to give only $100 when you exit from the program. some experts are saying that microsoft is following the same path which google has adopted that is giving services for free , it may be that in future micrsoft my provide its windows software for free.



“Microsoft BizSpark helps software developers to to develop softwares because it removes many barriers in software development tools.

Microsoft has set some criteria for companies if companies meet those criteria , companies will get a free three-year license to Microsoft windows vista canada software and servers including Visual Studio, Windows Server and Microsoft SQL server, companies will also get technical support for all these softwares , actually microsoft is looking for venture companies.

Microsoft is providing support to startups can choose to build on many competing platforms, and as more and more startups are moving towards a cloud computing model, where Microsoft is playing catch up to companies like Amazon, Google and Rackspace.



Source: http://localtechwire.com/business/local_tech_wire/venture/story/3900821/

What does Microsoft have against Windows Vista

Microsoft is going to release windows 7 the new operating system from software giant , it gave the name windows 7 , because it is the 7 operating system release from Microsoft.

In the meantime, the company has spent considerable time releasing ads to discuss Windows and PCs, but hasn't done enough to talk about the benefits of owning Vista. But every chance it gets, Microsoft tells the world why we should all wait and see what will happen with Windows 7.

"It's not minor because it's a lot more work than a minor release. It's a major release," Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer said recently. "Windows 7 will be Vista, but a lot better."

Wow. Now I understand that microsoft windows vista canada has a vested interest in seeing Windows 7 become a success, but doesn't it want to see Windows Vista become a success too? Sure, Microsoft would say that Vista is already a success and it doesn't need to prove it to anyone. But let's face it: major PC vendors like Dell and HP realize their customers still want XP and have yet to adhere to Microsoft's call for every company to give up on XP. And the way I see it, none of the major vendors will do that.

So what does Microsoft really have against Vista? It may not be the kind of quality operating system it has in XP, but it's not that bad, right?

Microsoft is running from Vista and, to be quite honest, I just don't know why. Sure, it's a troublesome product that has annoyed more people than most previous iterations of Windows, but we can't forget that as soon as Microsoft released Service Pack 1, the OS was significantly improved.

But I think Microsoft is running from Vista for another reason: businesses and vendors aren't happy about it.

It's easy as consumers to say that we're the only people who matter in business decisions, but that's simply not true. Microsoft has a slew of stakeholders that it needs to make happy and that includes businesses and its hardware vendors like HP and Dell. In previous years, making Dell and HP happy was relatively easy: release a new OS and they will fall in line. But now that consumer demand for Vista isn't nearly as high as vendors would like and businesses are loath to deploy the operating systems in their operation, two of Microsoft's staunchest allies are turning their backs.

With that in mind, Ballmer and company are forced to run. Microsoft can only put so much pressure on vendors before it fails to have anymore pull. And as Dell and others continue to downgrade Vista to XP, it's becoming abundantly clear that the control Microsoft once had over its stakeholders is dwindling.

Microsoft has finally realized that it upset some people with Vista. And now, in an attempt to return to its former days of prominence, Microsoft is running as fast as it can to Windows 7.

It may make some sense from the standpoint of wanting to return to former glory, but I simply don't think Vista is so bad that it requires shunning. Call me crazy, but wasn't Vista once heralded as the next big thing in operating systems?

If Microsoft still believes that, it better start acting like it or the enterprise and vendors will wonder if it will act the same way with Windows 7

Source: http://news.cnet.com/8301-13506_3-10079251-17.html