Today ReadersZone comes with all major software releases by Microsoft in last month.

• Windows Vista Ultimate Extras : Three new Windows Ultimate Extras are now available for installation via Windows Update! This is the 6th wave of Ultimate Extras released by Microsoft exclusively for Windows Vista Ultimate users.
• New Online Food Website: Hearst Magazines Digital Media, a unit of Hearst Magazines, and MSN today announced the launch of Delish (a new online food destination. Delish.com, also available at msn, features thousands of quick and easy food and cocktail recipes from Hearst Magazines and other sources, as well as fan blogs on the most popular food television shows, and the latest on food events and festivals worldwide.
• Word2007 Redaction Tool : This open-source tool is unsupported by Microsoft, however advanced users and IT Professionals may wish to review it. The tool enables the process of removing specific parts of text which you don’t want to appear in the final document.
• Windows Server 2008 HPC Server (HPCS) : Windows HPC Server 2008 can efficiently scale to thousands of processing cores and provides a comprehensive set of deployment, administration, and monitoring tools that are easy to deploy, manage, and integrate with your existing infrastructure.
• SQL Server 2008 Cumulative Update #1 : You can find more information in the KB Article 956717 to take your SQL Server to build 10.00.1763.00.
• System Center Essentials Technology Adoption Program (TAP): The goal of the TAP program enables customers and Microsoft to build a mutually beneficial and long term relationship to build the next version of the System Center Essentials product. If you are interesting in joining the TAP.
• Windows Live Messenger BETA : The next version of the popular Windows Live Messenger is now available, get the BETA version here. What’s new? A new improved and cleaner User Interface, pictures of people right in your contact list, the ability to search for people and the web, new categories feature and much more.
• Virtual Earth 6.2 and Virtual Earth Web Services 1.0 : The next version of Virtual Earth is now available with new features included, enhanced mobile support, better international support and more detail for more countries around the word, the platform infrastructure with new geocoding and parsing improvements, and a richer user experience and more intuitive functionality.
• Silverlight 2.0 RC0 : The release candidate of Silverlight will give developers the change to convert their sites from Beta 2 before the final release is announced.

Source : Microsoft News Summary, 28th September 2008

On August 6,2008 Microsoft announced that SQL Server 2008 is now released for manufacturing. Microsoft SQL Server 2008 provides powerful new capabilities such as support for policy-based management, auditing, large-scale data warehousing, geospatial data, and advanced reporting and analysis services. SQL Server 2008 provides the trusted, productive and intelligent platform necessary for business-critical applications.

Ted Kummert, corporate vice president of the Data and Storage Platform Division at Microsoft Said

Microsoft developed this release of SQL Server with the customer in mind.SQL Server 2008 is the only major database that includes comprehensive, tightly integrated functionality for data management as well as advanced business intelligence out of the box. By offering a complete solution, we save customers time and money and allow them to focus on deriving the most value from their data assets.

SQL Server 2008 is available in the following editions:

• SQL Server 2008 Enterprise. SQL Server 2008 Enterprise is a comprehensive data management and business intelligence platform that provides enterprise-class scalability, data warehousing, security, advanced analytics and reporting support for running business-critical applications. With this edition, it is possible to consolidate servers and perform large-scale online transactional processing.
• SQL Server 2008 Standard. SQL Server 2008 Standard is a complete data management and business intelligence platform that provides best-in-class ease of use and manageability for running departmental applications.
• SQL Server 2008 Workgroup. SQL Server 2008 Workgroup is a reliable data management and reporting platform that delivers secure, remote synchronization and management capabilities for running branch applications. This edition includes core database features and is easy to upgrade to the Standard or Enterprise edition.
• SQL Server 2008 Web. SQL Server 2008 Web is designed for highly available, Internet-facing Web-serving environments running on Windows Server. SQL Server 2008 Web provides the tools necessary to support low-cost, large-scale, highly available Web applications or hosting solutions for customers.
• SQL Server 2008 Developer. SQL Server 2008 Developer allows developers to build and test any type of application with SQL Server. This edition features all of the functionality of SQL Server Enterprise but is licensed only for development, test and demo use. Applications and databases developed on this edition can easily be upgraded to SQL Server 2008 Enterprise.
• SQL Server 2008 Express. SQL Server 2008 Express is a free edition of SQL Server that features core database functionality including all of the new SQL Server 2008 data types, in a small footprint. This edition is ideal for learning and building desktop and small server applications, and for redistribution by ISVs.
• SQL Server Compact 3.5. SQL Server Compact is a free embedded database designed for developers and is ideal for building stand-alone and occasionally connected applications for mobile devices, desktops and Web clients. SQL Server Compact runs on all Microsoft Windows platforms, including the Windows XP and Windows Vista operating systems, and on Pocket PC and smartphone devices.