No matter how you look at it, the release of Windows 7 has gone off without a hitch compared to the headaches that accompanied the launch of Windows Vista.  Not only that, but reviews of Microsoft's new OS seem to be universally positive, with both critics and consumers liking what they see.  Windows 7 is Microsoft's most eye catching OS to date, and the similarities to OS X are undoubtedly there.  Still, one doesn't usually expect a Microsoft executive to say that OS X was the inspiration for Windows, but that's exactly what happened yesterday when Simon Aldous said the following in an interview with PCR.

Although some folks like to rail against Microsoft and the state of Windows security, the company's operating system is arguably more secure than it ever has been. That's in no small part due to the many new features that make Windows 7 a robust operating system.

Just got your hands on Windows 7 and want to bend it to your will? No problem. We've got plenty of tips, hacks and secrets to keep you busy for a long time, including automatically opening Windows Explorer to a folder of your choice, speeding up taskbar thumbnails, finding hidden desktop themes, forcing User Account Control to act the way you'd like, keeping your Explorer searches secret from others, and more. So check out these tips. If you like them, we'll keep more coming.

Full story: Computer World

Microsoft on Tuesday issued six security bulletins fixing 15 vulnerabilities, including a critical patch for holes in the Windows kernel and other Windows and Office components that could allow an attacker to take control of a computer.

The critical bulletin affecting the Kernel-Mode Drivers was publicly disclosed and could be used to create a Web page with malware designed to exploit the hole on systems that visit the page, Microsoft said in a blog posting.

Firefox accounted for almost half of all browser vulnerabilities in the first six months of 2009, a Web security company claimed today.

According to California-based Cenzic, Mozilla's browser had the largest percentage of Web vulnerabilities over the six-month span, while Apple's Safari had the dubious distinction of coming in second. Microsoft's Internet Explorer (IE) was third, while Opera Software's flagship browser took fourth place.

After months of often bitter debate, European Union lawmakers reached agreement on how to preserve citizen's rights to Internet access in a meeting that ended in the early hours of Thursday morning.

The issue, which pits citizens' civil liberties against the rights of content owners such as record and movie companies to protect creative works on the Internet, has blocked the passage of a wide range of laws collectively dubbed the telecoms package.

We like Windows 7: it's faster than Vista, makes better use of your system resources, is packed with interesting features, and looks great, too. But that doesn't mean it's perfect, of course. If you've moved to Windows 7 recently then you might have noticed various upgrade problems, interface issues and features that seem to have disappeared entirely, among many other complications with the new system.

Intel is investigating a flaw that affects people trying to sync their iPhone with a PC that has an Intel P55-based motherboard and the 64-bit version of Windows 7. The inability to synchronise iTunes with iPhones on such configurations was first flagged up on an Apple support forum in mid-September. Some posters said they had been able to mitigate the issue by downgrading iTunes from version 9.0.2 to version 9.0.0.