It's an all-too-familiar marketing ploy: download a utility you really want, and get a toolbar for your browser free. This week, Microsoft joined the "download one, get one free" bandwagon, but with a twist: Redmond announced a deal with Sun Microsystems to offer the MSN Toolbar to US users of Internet Explorer whenever they download the Java Runtime Environment. MSN Toolbar offers one-click access to Live Search, direct access to Windows Live Hotmail and Windows Live Messenger, and stories from the MSN network. If you hate toolbars, or your browser's already running your favorite toolbar, you can opt out of the MSN toolbar.

This Microsoft plus Sun pairing represents a big "win" for Microsoft, as Google's toolbar was previously being offered as the freebie with Java. As El Reg points out, this sort of thing is nothing new for Sun and Java. Java's also been used to deliver offers of OpenOffice and the Yahoo! toobar (the latter to Mozilla Firefox browser users only).

So, how do you feel about these combo deals? Would you rather get a coupon for free french fries, or are you comfortable with getting "two for one" downloads"? Join us after the jump and sound off.

InfoWorld's Randall C. Kennedy has put Windows 7's Milestone 3 pre-beta build 6801, a freebie from last month's Microsoft Professional Developer's Conference, through a variety of benchmark tests, and isn't all that impressed:

As I reported on my Enterprise Desktop blog, the more I dug into Windows 7, the more I saw an OS that looked and felt like a slightly tweaked version of Windows Vista.

At his blog, Kennedy complains that Windows 7 is:

Just as slow as Vista...Just as consumer-focused as Vista...Just as confusing as Vista...

Kennedy cites these similarities:

• The number of execution threads in key subsystems is almost the same in Windows 7 as in Vista
• Benchmarks of Windows 7 and Vista Ultimate SP1 using the DMS Clarity Studio tools suite show almost identical results
• Similar amounts of RAM are used by Windows 7 and Windows Vista

From these facts and visual similarities between Windows 7 and Vista, Kennedy concludes:

Bottom line: So far, Windows 7 looks and behaves almost exactly like Windows Vista. It performs almost exactly like Vista. And it breaks all sorts of things that used to work just fine under Vista. In other words, Microsoft's follow-up to its most unpopular OS release since Windows Me threatens to deliver zero measurable performance benefits while introducing new and potentially crippling compatibility issues.

Is Kennedy right, or is he missing a big difference between Windows 7 and its predecessor? For my take, join me after the break.

This month's Patch Tuesday, unlike October's, is a quiet one, with just two security bulletins:

• MS08-069 solves a remote code execution vulnerability in Microsoft's XML Core Service that is rated as Critical for version 3.0 and Important for later versions. All 32-bit and 64-bit desktop versions of Windows from Windows 2000 SP4 through Windows Vista SP1 are affected, as well as Microsoft Office 2003 and 2007. The Exploitability Index is 1 (Consistent Exploit Code Likely - the most serious ranking) or 2 (Inconsistent Exploit Code Likely), depending upon the version of XML Core Services installed. Windows Server 2003 and some installations of Windows Server 2008 are also affected.
• MS08-068 patches a remote code execution vulnerability in the SMB protocol. MS08-068 is rated as Important for Windows 2000 SP4 and Windows XP, and Moderate for Windows Vista. Windows Server 2003 and all Windows Server 2008 installations are also affected. Despite Microsoft's rating this vulnerability as only Important rather than Critical, MS08-068's Exploitability Index is 1 because exploit code targeting Windows XP is already public.

That's it for Patch Tuesday security bulletins, both of which will be arriving soon via Windows Update (or can be downloaded manually if you prefer). What else has Microsoft served up?

The only non-security content this time is the usual monthly update for the Malicious Software Removal Tool (KB890830; not yet updated as this article was posted now updated) and the usual monthly update for the Windows Mail junk mail filter (KB905866), available in 32-bit and 64-bit versions.

Long Zheng's I Started Something blog reports a welcome improvement in Windows 7's Complete PC Backup: in addition to backing up to local hard disks and DVDs, you can now back up to a network share. Complete PC Backup is the image (aka "bare metal restore") backup feature originally found in Vista's Business, Enterprise, and Ultimate editions (see our 2007 article to learn how it compares to other popular image backup/restore programs). This new feature brings Complete PC Backup's backup target options basically in line with those in the file/folder backup portion of the Backup and Restore Center, and makes it possible to use an NAS appliance as well as a folder share on another PC as a backup target.

It's important to realize that Complete PC Backup is a complementary technology to file and folder backup. Use it to back up your entire PC, and then use file and folder backup to backup data files that change after you create an image backup. Note that the NTBackup program (included in Windows XP and earlier versions) is not an image backup program, but a file and folder backup program only; it does not have a true 'bare metal' restore option.

I've used Complete PC Backup on a number of occasions to backup and restore Windows Vista systems, and I'm looking forward to this additional improvement in Windows 7's version (and I hope it will be available in all Windows 7 SKUs, by the way). What do you think? Join us after the jump and tell us.

Election Day wasn't the only event to make history on November 4th - the FCC made its own kind of history on Tuesday in approving the development of wireless devices that can use "white space" (the unused broadcast TV spectrum between broadcast TV channels, which ranges from 512MHz to 698 MHz). Unlike the close race between fellow senators for the US Presidency, the FCC decision to open up unused TV spectrum was unanimous, ZDNet's Sean Portnoy reports, despite lobbying against the rule by 50 members of Congress and a variety of recording artists worried about the effects of the decision on their live performances.

The decision (available here in PDF format) balances the hopes of companies like Microsoft and Google to make wireless Internet-enabled devices even more ubiquitous than now with the fears of the theater industry that exploiting white space will interfere with wireless microphones that use the same spectrum, and the concerns of the National Association of Broadcasters that using "white space" will interfere with TV viewing.

To find out how the FCC plans to make everybody happy in wirelessland, join us after the jump.

This year's edition of WinHEC, which has already demonstrated Windows 7's digital goodness with Device Stage, has more good news about Microsoft's next desktop operating system:

• Longer battery life
• Faster boot times

As Maximum PC.com readers know, better hardware support has been a major goal of Windows 7 right from the start, and it looks as if Windows 7, even in its pre-beta stage, is making impressive strides.

Engadget has posted a video from WinHEC that shows a Windows 7 machine providing energy savings equivalent to an extra hour of DVD playback: you won't have to worry about running out of power before the movie ends, and you'll even have enough juice for a special feature or two.

WinHEC also featured Microsoft exec Jon DeVaan, the Senior Vice President in charge of Core Operating System Division, performing a "boot drag race" pitting identical machines running Windows 7 and Windows Vista: Windows 7 won by several seconds. It's part of DeVaan and Steven Sinofsky's keynote address, which you can see at the WinHEC virtual pressroom.

To find out who else is seeing the improvements in Windows 7, join us after the jump.

While Windows 7's basic "look" is a refined version of Windows Vista, Windows 7 is much more than "Vista, Take 2." One of the most significant new features coming in Windows 7 is Device Stage, and Device Stage is one of the major themes of this week's Windows Hardware Engineering Conference (WinHEC).

What is Device Stage?

Device Stage, for the first time, looks at a device as a single entity rather than as a collection of different components. As ArsTechnica describes Device Stage:

Attaching a device in current versions of Windows gives sometimes unpredictable results. A multi-function printer/scanner/fax, for instance, might show up as several different things within Windows: a printer, scanner, removable disk, and some vendor supplied management suite...The "Device Stage" feature is designed to alleviate some of these problems by treating devices as distinct "things" with multiple abilities.

Ever since Windows Vista arrived, MacOS fans have delighted in discussing how Microsoft's newest operating system was "inspired" by Apple's OS. According to TGDaily, though, the tables have turned in Windows 7. TGDaily's Christian Zibreg identifies five Windows 7 features that should be on the "add to MacOS" list, including:

• Multi-touch (on-screen keyboard, mouse gestures)
• The Windows 7 taskbar (live thumbnails that even show opened tabs in IE8)
• Libraries (group as many locations for music, photos, or other media together as you need and access them with a single logical location)
• Play to and Windows Media Center (better media playback wherever you want it)
• Device Stage (all your device information and configuration tools in one place)

Whether you're a MacOS fanboy (or fangirl) or are just looking for a better x86/x64 platform than Windows Vista, these features are pretty exciting. Until the public beta hits late this year, you can check out some of these features here. Be sure to join us after the jump for the chance to sound off about what you like, or want to see, in Windows 7.

TGDaily delivers a slideshow of Windows 7's new and improved features, including improvements to the desktop, media playback, file management, hardware support, networking, security, applets, and tops off the tour with a look at IE8 and Windows Live applets. To go straight to the features you're most curious about, join us after the jump.

For most of the last decade, improving 3D performance has been the primary goal of operating system, application (read gaming) developers, and hardware developers. However, when you're at work, trying hard to make the money you need to buy a new HDTV and über-gaming PC, you're probably working in a 2D world that's being managed by the creaky GDI/GDI+ APIs which were first developed back to the 1990s.

This week, Microsoft introduced a replacement for GDI/GDI+ called Direct2D. Microsoft's Thomas Olsen, a Dev Lead in the Windows Desktop Graphics organization, uses his new blog to bring us up to speed on why we need the new Direct2D API and how it will make PCs work better.

To learn more about Direct2D, join us after the jump.

Microsoft Surface has already been transformed from its original tabletop multitouch interface to a spherical computer, and this week's PDC added even more excitement with the introduction of SecondLight, the next phase in Surface's development.

As the UK's PC Pro website puts it, SecondLight is like "Surface on steroids." A product of Microsoft's Cambridge, England research labs, SecondLight projects an image through the table, enabling a translucent surface placed on top of the Surface tabletop to display additional information, such as place names, an interior view of an object, and much more.

To learn more about how SecondLight works, join us after the jump.

It was called "Project Red Dog" during development, but this week Microsoft revealed its favorite color for its cloud computing development platform is actually blue - Azure, in fact.

Windows Azure Services Platform was introduced at this week's PDC, and includes the following key components, according to eWeek:

• Windows Azure (service hosting, management, low-level scalable storage, computation and networking)
• Microsoft SQL Services (databases and reporting)
• Microsoft .NET Services (.NET Framework workflow, access control, and so forth)
• Live Services (file and media synchronization between PCs, phones, apps and website)
• Microsoft SharePoint Services and CRN Services (business content, collaboration, and rapid solution development)

To learn more about the Azure platform, and what it might mean for the future of Microsoft, join us after the break.

ZDNet's Mary Jo Foley once again lives up to her blog's "All About Microsoft" title, delivering the news that attendees at this week's Professional Developers' Conference (PDC) will also take home a pre-beta of Windows 7's server counterpart, Windows Server 2008 R2. Here's what's new in what's being characterized as a "minor" update:

• Windows Server 2008 R2 represents the end of 32-bit support in the Windows Server family; it's 64-bit only
• Windows Server 2008 R2 features version 2 of Hyper-V "bare metal" virtualization, which will include a new Live Migration feature for fault-tolerant failover
• PowerShell Version 2.0, which includes a more graphical interface than its predecessor
• .NET incorporated in Server Core
• Remote Desktop Services replaces Terminal Services

Is Windows Server 2008 R2 in your company's future? Microsoft hopes so. According to Foley, Microsoft is calling the pairing of Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 "Better Together," with features such as BitLocker support for removable drives, BranchCache (hosted server caching) and others working better when both operating systems are in use.

Join us after the jump for your thoughts on "Windows 7 Server."

Officially, Microsoft pulls the drapes off the Windows 7 pre-beta tomorrow (October 28) at the Professional Developer's Conference. So, what's new and different? ZDNet blogger Mary Jo Foley's received the inside scoop on what's coming tomorrow. Look for:

• A new peripheral management interface called Device Stage (more info about this is coming in the Windows 7 Partner Showcase at November's WinHEC 2008 conference)
• A new self-diagnosis feature called Action Center
• A new A/V control method called StreamOn
• A new animation framework
• New task bar and shell integration features
• Multi-touch and gesture recognition
• Improved Bluetooth support
• Ribbon UI akin to Office 2007 for Windows 7's applets

The version PDC attendees will be seeing appears to be build 6801 M3 (Milestone 3), which was finalized on October 20. You can find screen shots of an earlier version of this build at the WinFuture.de website (the site's in German, but the screen shots are in English).

Stay tuned to Maximum PC for more Windows 7 coverage.

ArsTechnica's been looking at the tea leaves in the Microsoft cup to try to figure out when Windows 7 will show up on retail shelves. There are lots of indicators that suggest late 2009:

• A posting at I Started Something notes that the 2008 version of WinHEC (November 2008) will be the last WinHEC before Windows 7 ships (WinHEC is normally held in April or May).
• ZDNet's Ed Bott and others (including our own Pulkit Chandna) note that ASUS is planning to put Windows 7 on its Eee PCs in the second half of 2009.
• Microsoft is distributing a pre-beta release of Windows 7 at next week's PDC, and a public beta is expected in December of this year.

For some reasons to take a deep breath before betting on Windows 7 in 2009, and for your chance to comment, join us after the jump.

Redmond usually releases security patches once a month, on Patch Tuesday, but Microsoft's security experts are worried enough about a newly reported vulnerability in the Server service to post an "out-of-band" security update, MS08-067, yesterday for all versions of Windows from Windows 2000 SP4 through Windows Server 2008 and Windows 7 pre-beta. Microsoft hasn't issued a security update between Patch Tuesday releases since April 2007, so this is a significant security issue.

Although all supported versions of Windows are vulnerable, Windows 2000 SP4, Windows XP, and Windows Server 2003 versions are especially vulnerable to this flaw, which can permit remote code execution via a specially crafted RFC request.

To find out what makes this vulnerability so critical, and to learn how to get the update, join us after the jump.

Microsoft has released an updated technology preview of its cool Deep Zoom Composer tool for Silverlight 2. As we reported back in July, Deep Zoom Composer gives you the ability to display multiple high-resolution thumbnails, zoom in for a closeup, and pan back again. You can use Deep Zoom Composer to create mosaics (as in our original story), or to bring a new level of interactivity to online collections (as the Hard Rock Cafe has done).

If you want to give it a try, install the latest version of Silverlight 2 beta first, then install the Deep Zoom Composer technology preview 0.9.0005. Deep Zoom Composer runs on Windows XP SP2 or SP3 and Windows Vista, and requires a 2GHz Intel or AMD processor, at least 1GB of RAM, and a Microsoft DirectX 9-capable video card with at least 256MB of video memory.

See  the Teaching Ideas and Resources blog at MSDN for more information about this and other imaging tools from Microsoft.

Join us after the jump for your comments, and don't forget to share links to your creations!

Flickr's rolled out a new home page design that's intended to make it easier to see what's happening with your Flickr account and on Flickr in general.

Here's what's new:

1. The Your Photostream section now shows your five most recent uploads 
2. Your Photostream also has a toggle to show recent activity (such as comments from friends, your replies, and pictures selected as favorites). Don't want any more comments on a particular item? Click its Mute button.
3. Click More Recent Activity to see other activity and change activity settings.
4. The Your Contacts section now shows more photos.
5. The Your Groups section now shows the most recent photos from your groups.
6. Want to reduce page clutter? Click the double arrow icon next to a section title to close it, or click it again to open it.
7. There's now a new Explore module on the home page that displays the latest activities.
8. The latest entry at the Flickr Blog and the latest Flickr Tip occupy the right margin of the page, along with more ways to use your photos.

Haven't logged in for awhile? I think you'll like the changes. Join us after the jump and let us know if you agree - or not.

Adobe began shipping its Creative Suite 4 (CS4) this week, and perhaps the most significant new feature from a typical Maximum PC reader's point of view is the support for GPU acceleration in Photoshop CS4 and other components, including Bridge CS4, After Effects CS4, Premiere Pro CS4, Acrobat 9, and Flash Player 10.

Photoshop CS4 uses OpenGL 2.0 GPU acceleration for the following features:

• Smooth Display at ALL Zoom Levels
• Animated Zoom Tool
• Animated Transitions when doing a One Stop Zoom
• Hand Toss Image
• Birdseye View
• Rotate Canvas
• Smooth Display of Non Square Pixel Images
• Pixel Grid
• Move Color Matching to the GPU
• Draw Brush Tip Editing Feedback via GPU
• 3D Acceleration
  • 3D Axis
  • 3D Lights Widget
  • Accelerated 3D Interaction via Direct To Screen

To learn more about which GPUs make the grade, and the role memory size plays in performance, join us after the break.

I know it, you know it, almost everybody that reads Maximum PC knows it - but that doesn't mean that your family, your co-workers, or your bosses know it. What's it? Simply this: Microsoft never - repeat never - sends out security updates via email.

Cnet reports that yet another fake security email purporting to be from Microsoft is busy delivering a nasty Trojan called Haxdoor to unwary emailboxes near you.

The email, ironically enough, claims that "Since public distribution of this Update through the official website http://www.microsoft.com would have result in efficient creation of a malicious software, we made a decision to issue an experimental private version of an update for all Microsoft Windows OS users." And, it's signed "Steve Lipner, Directory of Security Assurance, Microsoft Corp."

Well, at least the bad guys got Steve's name right. However, he's actually senior director of security engineering strategy in Microsoft’s Trustworthy Computing Group, according to a recent interview.

The message (minus the Trojan, of course), is available at the Microsoft Malware Protection Center blog, where you can see for yourself the classic hallmarks of a fake message: a shaky command of the English language, sentence construction that's so stiff it belongs on a Victorian-era calling card, and off-the-wall sentiments that show it was adapted from a different con job document: "We apologize for any inconvenience this back order may be causing you." Back order? Whaat? I didn't order any malware!

Already getting calls from frantic family, friends, or co-workers wondering why their PCs have slowed to a crawl or become infested by popups? Join us after the jump for solutions.