Tag Archives: Microsoft

Windows 8.1 Update 1 is now available to download

Windows 8.1 update 1 (also known as KB 2919355) has been made available to download for free through the Windows update feature and the Microsoft’s download section.

If you are planning to install the update by downloading the files through Microsoft’s website make sure that you have the KB 2919442 patch already installed as it is required in order to install the new update.

On other other hand, if you are installing the patch through the Windows update feature there is a high chance that you have already installed the patch by now.

The update is designed to improve the Windows interface as well as the functionality for keyboard and mouse users. For more detailed information visit Exploring Windows 8.1 Update.

Download Links:

Microsoft drops support for Windows XP

After supporting Windows XP for more than 12 years Microsoft announced that they will be dropping the support for Windows XP on 8 of April 2014. After that date Windows XP users will not receive any updates through windows update and technical support from Microsoft will no longer be provided.

In addition to the above, Microsoft announced that they will also stop providing Microsoft Security Essentials for download for Windows XP users on the same date.

This is an important announcement since a Windows XP holds more than 10% of the users in the current market.

Since the upcoming security issues will no longer be fixed after the 8th of April, current Windows XP users should strongly considering moving to a newer Windows version, mainly to either Windows 7 or the Windows 8 version.

Windows 8.1 Update 1 to be released this spring (2014)

Joe Belfiore has mentioned in the Windows blog page that Windows 8.1 Update 1 is currently scheduled to be released this spring.

Over the next few months, we’ll continue to deliver innovation and progression with an update to Windows 8.1, coming this spring.

Not much information has been released yet as to what changes the new update will bring to the users, but based on the things pointed out in an official post it seems that desktop user experience will be one of the main things they want to improve.

  • We’ll enable our partners to build lower cost hardware for a great Windows experience at highly competitive price points.
  • We are making improvements to the user interface that will naturally bridge touch and desktop, especially for our mouse and keyboard users. We have a number of targeted UI improvements that keep our highly satisfying touch experience intact, but that make the UI more familiar and more convenient for users with mouse/keyboard. Don’t worry, we still LOVE and BELIEVE IN touch… but you’ll like how much more smooth and convenient these changes make mouse and keyboard use!
  • We are enhancing support for enterprise customers via a few tweaks, particularly including features that greatly improve IE8 compatibility in Internet Explorer 11, which is especially critical for web-based line of business applications. Additionally, we’re extending mobile device management capabilities and making deployment easier.

As a desktop user I welcome any chances aimed to improve the functionality for keyboard and mouse users and I am eager to see what the update has in store for us.

What kind of features/improvements would you like to see in the new update ?

Visual Studio 2013 update 1 is now available

A new update for Visual Studio 2013 has been released. The update includes the latest updates, including feature additions and bug fixes.

For more detailed information about what was fixed visit http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2911573#fixedissues.

Visual Studio 2013 Update 1 can be applied to the following products:

  • Microsoft Visual Studio Ultimate 2013
  • Microsoft Visual Studio Professional 2013
  • Microsoft Visual Studio Premium 2013
  • Microsoft Visual Studio Express 2013 for Web
  • Microsoft Visual Studio Express 2013 for Windows
  • Microsoft Visual Studio Express 2013 for Windows Desktop
  • Release Management Client for Visual Studio 2013
  • Release Management for Visual Studio 2013
  • Release Management Server for Team Foundation Server 2013

Download links removed. Read below.

Visual Studio 2013 update 2 is now the newest update. Visit Microsoft Visual Studio 2013 Update 2 is now available for more information.

Creating and connecting to a Microsoft Access Database programmatically in C#

The following example aims to get you a bit more familiar as to how to create and connect to a Microsoft Access database programmatically while being able to add any type of tables you want as well are inserting and retrieving data from it.

Firstly we will need to reference two libraries in our project. Microsoft ActiveX Data Objects 2.0 Library (Interop.ADODB.dll) which we will use to ensure that the connection to the database is closed after we are done creating it, and Microsoft ADO Ext. 2.8 for DDL and Security (Interop.ADOX.dll) which is needed to be able to access the classes that are required to create our database.

After you have finished adding those two references to your project you can use the code sample below to create the database file programmatically. Feel free to modify the code to suit your needs. Also please note that setting your project to Any CPU build will cause exceptions to be thrown when creating the database.