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May 25, 2003
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Microsoft prepares reply to iTunes
While Apple Computer grabs publicity for its new 99 cent music download store, Microsoft is quietly preparing for a counterattack by improving its own technology for supporting subscription music services.
Services such as Pressplay, which uses Microsoft technology, have been put on the defensive with news that Apple has sold more than 2 million downloads since April 28, the day its iTunes Music Store launched. But Microsoft is betting that new security enhancements planned for later this year could make renting music, rather than owning it, more attractive to consumers.
Microsoft said it is developing software that makes it easier for subscription services to transfer music to portable music players. These services now provide unlimited downloads of hundreds of thousands of songs to a PC for a monthly fee, but they typically do not allow files to be moved around much. Microsoft said it will soon address this shortcoming with technology that will allow unlimited downloads to a portable device--a dramatic improvement.
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Backup Glitch In Windows Server 2003
A change to Microsoft's tape backup feature makes file backup tapes created with Windows Server 2003 incompatible with previous versions of Windows including Windows XP and Windows 2000.
The problem is due to a change in the Windows Server 2003 version of the free ntbackup.exe utility that comes with Windows operating systems and was first disclosed in the online security news group NTBugtraq.
The change means that backup tapes formatted using Windows Server 2003 cannot be used to restore data to Windows 2000 or Windows XP machines, according to Brian Bergin, president of Terabyte Computers, a Boone, North Carolina, IT consulting company.
When contacted about the problem, a Microsoft spokeswoman confirmed that the problem affects Windows 2000 Server and Professional as well as Windows XP.
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