* Customizing Windows User Interface (UI)
* Optimizing system settings
* Optimizing hardware settings
* Customizing Windows application settings
* Controlling user environment with policies

Fresh UI is organized by section for easy navigation and completed with detail descriptions for easy reference.

Supported Operating System: Windows 95, Windows 95 OSR2, Windows 98, Windows 98 Second Edition, Windows Me, Windows NT 4.0, Windows 2000, Windows XP. FRESHUI is FREE for personal/private use only. Free registration is required if you want to use it longer than 11 days. Registration number for this version can be obtained for FREE, simply visit http://www.freshdevices.com.

What's new: * hidden settings for Spider game.

Download:
Fresh UI 7.93 (link 1)
Fresh UI 7.93 (link 2)
Fresh UI 7.93 (link 3)

The Redmond company is in fact stretched between pushing Vista on all fronts, and pouring all of its efforts into its latest operating system, and continuing to offer and support Windows XP due to the consistent feedback coming from consumers, system builders and original equipment manufacturers. At the same time, Microsoft is cooking the next stages of evolution for both Vista and XP. In fact, the service packs for the two operating systems are almost synchronized and both scheduled for the first half of 2008. But while almost 80% of users still run XP with just over 7% having switched to Vista, is XP SP3 a valid option rather than Vista SP1? Well, not really...

First off, Windows XP was introduced in late 2001, and updated in 2004 with Service Pack 2. In this context, SP3 will not make XP any less expired. Of course that Microsoft does not consider XP obsolete, and it will breathe life into the Home, Media Center and Professional editions of the platform throughout 2014, as it extended support before Vista hit the market. On top of this, it will also sell the operating system through retail and OEM channels until mid 2008, and via system builders until February 2009. Still, opting for XP SP3 rather than Vista and its SP1 means that you will have to ride XP for all it’s got until 2010. Only in three years’ time will you be able to upgrade XP to Windows 7 (Seven), Vista's successor. By 2010, you will be running a nine-year-old operating system... It's the same as thinking that you could still be using Windows 98 today.

Secondly, XP SP2 will not be a repeat of XP SP2. Microsoft made it clear that the second service pack for Windows XP was an exception brought about by a specific context. The third and final refresh for XP will be a standard service pack cumulating updates, security patches, hotfixes and just a sprinkle of added functionality and features. That's right, XP SP3 will be getting a taste of Windows Vista, but nothing more, and certainly not enough to justify ignoring Vista. No matter the expectations of XP SP3, currently planned for the first half of 2008, Microsoft will deliver little satisfaction with the refresh beyond what users experience with XP SP2.

The third reason is none other than the first service pack for Windows Vista. Microsoft's latest operating system was released at the time when the environment of devices, applications and hardware was not fully ready for it. By Vista SP1, in the first quarter of 2008, the ecosystem orbiting the operating system will be mature enough to deliver full support and compatibility. Now, there is little doubt that Vista is a superior product to XP. However, a few glitches have held the platform back and generated a plethora of mixed reviews. With SP1, Microsoft will soften all of Vista's rough corners in terms of reliability, performance and compatibility. Will all the details taken care of, SP1 will indeed recommend upgrading from XP.

Thanks to DigitalDud on Channel9 for noting, on October 13 last week, Microsoft’s distinguished engineer Eric Traut gave a presentation at the University of Illinois about Microsoft’s virtualization technology and also mentioned Windows 7 - the next version of Windows after Vista. And believe it or not it was on video. Whilst the presentation is not directly about Windows 7, it does contain a demonstration of MinWin - an internal project to build the most efficient Windows kernel which will in turn be used in Windows 7.

The whole presentation (WMV) goes for approximately 1 hour and includes a very deep look into hypervisors. I’ve clipped out the 8-minute segment which Eric focuses on Windows 7 specifically to make it easier to watch. Because Eric goes into a lot of detail as well as background information about what is presented, and because it’s 2AM, I won’t regurgitate it. All I’ll say is that if you think Windows at its core is bloated, think again.

Download: Full WMV video (1 hour & 6 minutes)

Video: Windows 7 Footage (8 minutes)

Microsoft's own game with Service Pack 3, involving numerous and repeated delays, helped not only XP SP2 to dig in its roots deep enough to provide a consistent inhouse competition to Windows Vista, but also managed to starve XP users, already terribly hungry for a major update to their operating system.

In mid July, concomitantly with the pre-beta release of Vista SP1, Microsoft also delivered a limited preview of XP SP3, confirming that the service pack was right on track for general availability in the first half of 2008. With Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008, formerly codenamed Longhorn, pushed to the foreground, the next development milestone for XP SP3 shipped after the first beta for Vista SP1 and the Release Candidate 0 of Microsoft's last 32-bit server operating system. The late availability date for XP SP3, in comparison with the synchronized releases for Vista SP1 and Windows Server 2008 is a clear indication that the operating system is being strategically kept in the background.

But while this is indeed valid for the company, Windows XP users and Microsoft partners play to a different tune. According to data from Net Applications, Windows XP still accounts for 79.32% of the operating system market. This while Windows Vista's share has grown from near to nothing at launch to over 7.3%, an indication that Microsoft has passed the 70 million shipped licenses in the operating system's first eight months on the market. And if Vista keeps its current adoption pace, it is unlikely that Microsoft will reach the 100 million sold copies mark, roughly equivalent to 10% of the operating system market by the end of 2007, even taking into consideration the holiday shopping spree.

In this context, Windows XP will continue to account for the lion's share of the estimated 1 billion install base of the Windows platform, in the first half of 2008, despite the release of Vista SP1. Undoubtedly, some XP users will ignore Vista SP1, wait for XP SP3, and ride the aging operating system launched in 2001, until 2010 when Windows 7, Vista's successor is planned for launch. Microsoft's perspective in this case is that such a move is nothing more than ignoring the inevitable, and the inevitable is of course synonymous with Windows Vista, for the company.

At this point in time, Microsoft will retire mainstream support for Windows XP in 2009, and extended support in 2014. But after caving in to the sheer pressure from end users and original equipment manufacturers, the company will continue to sell XP via the retail and OEM channels throughout mid 2008, and via system builders until the end of January 2009. This, along with XP SP3 is bound to deliver quite an impact onto the operating system market, that XP is already hugging to the point of asphyxiation, leaving Vista with little room to breathe, SP1 or no SP1.

Installing SP3 on top of XP SP2 won't make the operating system a Vista equivalent. Sure enough, Microsoft has backported some Vista specific features, functionality and capabilities to XP via SP3, and more could be in the works, although the company did not confirm such a scenario. Still, the Vista additions to XP SP3 involve revamped descriptive options to the graphical interface of the Security Center. On top of this, XP SP3 will also support FIPS 140-1 Level 1 cryptography implemented as a DLL at kernel level, opening up new algorithms to developers via the Kernel Mode Cryptographic Module. The black hole router detection system will be evolved along with the integration of Vista's Network Access Protection module.

SP3 will also feature a range of items previously available as standalone downloads including: Background Intelligent Transfer Service (BITS) 2.5; IPsec Simple Policy Update; Microsoft Core XML Services 6.0; Microsoft Management Console (MMC) 3.0; Digital Identity Management Service (DIMS); Peer Name Resolution Protocol 2.1; Wi-Fi Protected Access (WPA) 2 and Windows Installer 3.1 v2. So it is obvious that SP3 won't turn the operating system into Vista, but as far as end users are concerned, this is nothing short of a positive aspect.

Microsoft has now opened Windows XP SP3 Beta Preview Build 3205 to over 12,000 Windows Vista SP1 beta and Windows Server 2008 testers. The build has also been leaked to peer-to-peer file sharing networks, and Microsoft is preparing a public beta of the service pack.

Not only is VirtualBox an extremely feature rich, high performance product for enterprise customers, it is also the only professional solution that is freely available as Open Source Software under the terms of the GNU Public License (GPL). Presently, VirtualBox runs on Windows and Linux 32-bit hosts and supports a large number of guest operating systems including but not limited to Windows (NT 4.0, 2000, XP, Server 2003, Vista), DOS/Windows 3.x, Linux (2.4 and 2.6), and OpenBSD.

Changelog:

* Windows Installer: fixed installation on Windows 2000 hosts
* Windows Installer: proper warning when installing a 32-bit VirtualBox version on 64-bit Windows and vice versa
* Linux Installer: no longer require license acceptance during install, instead at first GUI startup (addresses issues with hanging installer on Debian based distributions)
* GUI: added user registration dialog
* GUI: fixed crashes on 64-bit Linux hosts
* GUI: several fixes and improvements to seamless mode
* GUI: fixed DirectDraw mode with certain video cards (e.g. Intel i915)
* GUI: fixed incorrect guest resolution after leaving fullscreen mode
* GUI: improved keyboard handling on Linux host
* GUI: show fatal VM aborts aka "Guru Meditation"
* GUI: fixed crashes due to a display update race condition on some systems

* GUI: added ACPI shutdown option to the VM close dialog
* GUI: NLS improvements
* BIOS: fixed floppy boot menu
* BIOS: expose the VM UUID in the DMI/SMBIOS area
* VGA: fixed CGA video modes
* VGA: fixed 8-bit DAC handling (Solaris setup)
* VMM: fixed issue with VT-x on Windows 64-bit hosts
* VMM: improved compatibility with Linux KVM
* VMM: fixed issues with Fedora 8 guests
* VMM: fixed fatal errors while installing Windows guests when using AMD-V
* VMM: fixed sporadic hangs when minimizing VM window and using VT-x/AMD-V
* VMM: fixed high load of ksoftirq on tickless Linux hosts
* VMM: fixed Windows 2000 guests hangs related to IRQ sharing
* VMM: fixed sporadic errors during openSUSE 10.3 installation
* VMM: fixed issue with Linux 2.6.23 guests
* VMM: fixed issues with Solaris guests
* VMM: fixed stability issue related to incorrect relocations
* Serial: significantly reduced CPU utilization
* Network: fixed issues with FreeBSD guests
* Network: added MII support
* Network: improved MAC address handling
* Network: added PXE release logging
* IDE: large reads from CD could exceed the I/O buffer size

Download:
VirtualBox 1.5.2 (link 1)
VirtualBox 1.5.2 (link 2)