Laptop Battery Drain Problem with Windows XP SP2

Back in February, it was reported that there was a bug in Windows XP SP2 concerning battery life and laptops. Originally it was attributed to the Intel Core Duo/Centrino platform, however that turned out not to be the case – it was simply a problem with Windows XP SP2 and USB controllers (particularly those that stayed on for some reason). This fix is for 32-Bit Windows XP only (both Home and Professional versions). It’s highly recommended that you take a look at this fix if you have a laptop and Windows XP SP2 and think there maybe something funny with your battery life.

Samsung’s Flash memory Harddrive – Windows Vista Only

The Register is reporting that Samsung and Microsoft will have a demonstration of Samsung’s new Flash-based harddrive here in a few weeks at WinHEC (Windows Hardware Engineering Conference). Flash-based harddrives have a lot of advantages – especially in the area of durability, but the initial expense will be one of the largest hurdles to widespread adaptation (there are technical hurdles, but by the time these things are ready to ship, those should be overcome).

It looks like Microsoft Windows Vista will be the first Operating System to support such storage, so it’ll be a while before anybody sees these drives in production machines.

Windows Vista (For Consumers) Delayed Until 2007

Official Microsoft Press Release Excerpts:

Microsoft Corp. today confirmed that Windows Vista™, the next generation of the Windows® client operating system, is on target to go into broad consumer beta to approximately 2 million users in the second quarter of 2006. Microsoft is on track to complete the product this year, with business availability in November 2006 and broad consumer availability in January 2007.

“Product quality and a great out-of-box experience have been two of our key drivers for Windows Vista, and we are on track to deliver on both,” said Jim Allchin, co-president for the Platforms & Services Division at Microsoft. “But the industry requires greater lead time to deliver Windows Vista on new PCs during holiday. We must optimize for the industry, so we’ve decided to separate business and consumer availability.”

How many notebook manufacturers were counting on selling Vista-powered notebooks for the holiday season of 2006? I don’t know all of the issues involved, but I’m surprised. Considering that Apple will probably complete their Intel transition by September, along with having Mac OS X 10.5 out, something very serious must have come up for Microsoft to give Apple even more room to grow, but that’s neither here nor there – the important thing is, this could affect what notebooks we see out around the holidays, or whether or not manufacturers will work out something where holiday buyers are able to get some kind of coupons/mail-ins/etc. to obtain the Vista upgrade when it’s avabile.

Ars Technica mentioned security:

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