Tag: MICROSOFT,@FEATURES

The Internet Explorer 9 Release Candidate is now available. For all intents and purposes, this means IE9 is feature complete. Small changes might occur, but it's mostly bug stomping from here on out. Download it, give it a whirl; it might just be the first IE browser that's actually enjoyable to use. Download Squad got its grubby mandibles on the RC a few days ago, which means we can show you ...

Don't get me wrong -- I really enjoy using Zune to listen to music on my desktop computer. When all I want to do is quickly drop a couple of songs or video clips onto my Windows Phone 7 device, however, it's a bit overkill. While my humble little Palm Pre has a USB mass storage mode which lets me copy files onto it like it was any other external hard drive, WP7 devices aren't quite as accessible. ...

Just yesterday Mozilla released the first beta of Firefox 4 (Fennec) for Android and Maemo. We've reported on various versions of Firefox for Mobile, but this build is something else entirely -- this is actually Firefox 4, with the Fennec UI strapped on top. Externally, from an end-user point of view, this is business as usual: Mozilla has been trying to produce a working version of Fennec for ...

Today saw the release of the first in-depth previews of Microsoft's next-generation mobile operating system Windows Phone 7. The problem is, I don't really care about the screen, or indeed any of the hardware. I'm not interested in half the things that Engadget or ZDNet have to say about the phone: I'm just interested in what the software -- the operating system -- enables the phone to do. I ...

Another week has slid past, and again both 3.6.4 and 3.5.10 have failed to emerge! I can only assume that Mozilla is feverishly working away on a critical bug or feature -- and really, unless they get 3.6.4 out of the door this week, I don't think we'll see Firefox 4.0 Beta 1 this month. Here's hoping! In unrelated news, Thunderbird 3.1RC2 came out this week. You know, I've never met anyone ...

Microsoft Labs has an insanely-cool tech demo product called Pivot. In a nutshell, it's a completely new browsing paradigm which lets you "swim" in the ocean of data rather than drown in it. You can zoom in and out on complex sets of data, and slice and dice them in all sorts of crazy ways. I saw a TED talk about it (you can watch it too, after the jump) and on the one hand it seemed very ...

MSN.com, Microsoft's search, news and services portal page, hasn't weathered the years well. Tweaking the same basic design for a decade left it far behind the times in terms of design and usability. With today's clean, whitespace-friendly, reimagining of MSN.com, Microsoft ditches the spectre of MSN search and delivers a site that's a little more worthy of showcasing the company's new search ...

tweetmeme_url = 'http://downloadsquad.switched.com/2009/10/29/twitter-facebook-weather-windows7-gadgets/'; tweetmeme_source = 'downloadsquad'; The number of gadgets for Windows 7, both made by Microsoft and third-party developers, has skyrocketed. Only a few months ago there was little choice and almost nothing worth calling home about -- but today, you're spoilt for choice! What you have here ...

Let me begin with some common knowledge to put us on some common ground. Vista sucks. By association, DirectX10 sucks. In fact, you might not even know what DirectX is -- and you would be forgiven! DirectX is the piece of software that sits between your computer, and your video games. If you don't play games, you won't have heard of it. When you play a game on your PC it goes through DirectX. ...

Now that you can go and pick up Windows 7 just about anywhere (I hear there's a free copy of Starter coming with every Happy Meal*), let's take a look back at some of Download Squad's past articles about the new OS. After all, we've been covering it since it was just a rumor and using Windows 7 hands-on since...Well, frankly since that first leak appeared on torrent trackers. With our retail ...

While much of the Download Squad audience is already well-educated about Windows 7, there are still many of you who might not know what all the fuss is about. Over the next week or two, you're going to be seeing and hearing a lot about Microsoft's new operating system, so our team is going to help bring you up to speed. So what's all the fuss about? All the badmouthing aimed at Windows Vista ...

While most computer techs and savvy users usually advise against performing an upgrade from one Windows version to another (what's called an "in-place upgrade"). There's always the chance that your new OS could inherit some problems from the old, after all, and it could potentially cause issues with your current programs or hardware. Truth is, some users want to upgrade and Windows 7 handles the ...

Here at Download Squad, we like saving money. We love finding freebies, and we're certainly not ashamed to walk up to the cash register with a fistful of coupons. Since the announcement of the Windows 7 pricing scheme, we've been looking for ways to cut the costs to make the move. We've compiled a list of seven ways you can get that Windows 7 goodness without shelling out quite as many ...

Microsoft released a nice, big chart the other day which details the many possible ways of moving from your existing Windows OS to Windows 7. It's got a slight case of information overload, however, so let's simplify things a bit. After all, not everyone reading Download Squad is an IT director with years of experience. First, let's spell out the important terms. In-Place Upgrade: means one ...

Millions of you have the Windows 7 beta installed, and for the most part people seem to be enjoying it. It's been almost universally praised as being "everything Vista should have been" and "Microsoft's most stable beta to date." Yes, the internet is all atwitter about Windows 7 and that should be great news for Microsoft. Unless, of course, they manage to suck the wind out of the sails. How ...