Microsoft is a typical IT company of the last century - a huge strength, but turned a little less sensitive. Now, Microsoft is trying to change the tradition of no connection between home desktop and mobile system developers, the best indicator of this effort is their design.Microsoft products, especially software products, are now gradually using a simple, plain and neat appearance: Metro. But if you think the Metro is just on Windows 8, Windows Phone, the application market and Xbox Live, then in fact you should also see more things. Microsoft's designers explained in a recent discussion tha...

Windows OS already supports many development languages, including C++, JavaScript/HTML5, iVisual Basic, Visual C# and XAML. However, Microsoft is trying to add more development language supports in the next-generation PC operating system Windows 8. Microsoft revealed that they would support more development languages for Windows 8 app development at the Lang.Next Conference this week.Microsoft development manager and chief executive Martyn Lovell, claimed that "I hope the developers can create and develop more languages ​on ​the latest  WinRT development platform."Microsoft ...

Getting the 16×16 and 32×32 icons on Windows is relatively easy and is often as simple as one call to ExtractIconEx.However, getting the extra large (48×48) and jumbo (256×256) icons introduced respectively by XP and Vista is slighly more complex. This is normally done by:Getting the file information, in particular the icon index, for the given file using SHGetFileInfoRetrieving the system image list where all the icons are storedCasting the image list to an IImageList interface and getting the icon from thereBelow is the code I’m using in Appetizer to retrieve the extra...

NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- The PC needs saving. With Windows 8, Microsoft believes it has the magic cure.It just might. I've been testing a consumer preview version of Windows 8 for the past week, and it's unlike anything I've ever seen in a PC operating system.The stunning "Metro" interface just begs you to touch and interact with it. Beautifully designed apps, ultra-simple navigation, and instinctive commands make it hard to believe Metro came from the same company that brought us Windows Vista. Interactive, "live" tiles and an intuitive app store simplify the PC. Windows 8 is as easy to use as ...

Since the latest episodes of both Bent and Throw it Against the Wall have seen me mention Windows Phone 7, I think it’s about time I talk about why I like it. I know there’s a lot of scepticism surrounding it. And why not? Most people I know who were considering jumping the Microsoft ship did so in the dark days of Vista, so that’s their last experience with Windows. Anyone who saw their parents working on a Treo back in the nascent days of the Blackberry know the sloppy, malfunctioning horror that was Windows Mobile 6.5.There’s a messy pedigree there. And with tech...

Amitwas curious whyit takes longer for Task Manager to appear when you start itfrom the Ctrl+Alt+Del dialogcompared to launching it from the taskbar.Well, you can see the reason right there on the screen:You're launching it the long way around.If you launch Task Manager from the taskbar,Explorer just launches taskmgr.exevia the usual Create­Process mechanism,and Task Manager launches under the same credentialson the same desktop.On the other hand, when you use the secure attention sequence,the winlogon program receives the notification,switches to the secure desktop,and displays the Ctrl+Al...

The rave reviews for the latest iteration of Microsoft’s Windows Phone aren’t the only reason Microsoft will do better in the smart phone industry than it did in the MP3 player market.Whereas the Zune never really offered anything substantially different from the iPod and never pushed any real boundaries, Microsoft’s latest push into the mobile operating system business is much more bold. Microsoft isn’t rushing it this time – and it shows.So far, tech pundits of all stripes are pretty impressed with the Windows Phone OS and its evolution. We can’t be ...

Charlie Kindel (who left Microsoft earlier this year after 21 years, most recently as a Windows Phone General Manager), posted today on an “impedance mismatch” between carriers and device manufacturers, and Windows Phone, where those carriers and OEMs are “reluctant” to push Windows Phone, while Google’s Android has taken an approach that “reduces friction with carriers & device manufacturers at the expense of end users”.Kindel seems to be implying that Microsoft has taken the road less travelled, choosing to fight it out with the carriers and OEM...