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         Date

Hardware & Software Department Updates
  18th, July Hardware & Software news available ! Rich software though...
  16th, July Software updated. Games news appeared ! Don't miss.
  14th, July Software updates. Still no hardware news :-((( Expect even minor hardware news to appear.
  11th, July Software update by Microsoft
  10th, July Software updates by Microsoft.
  9th, July Software update only. Nothing really serious is going on so far. Summer....what did you expect.
  26th, June Software update for you.
  22nd, June Software updates.
  21st, June Software news available !
  20th, June New page has been started. Software updates available ! Read all the previous available news here.

 

 

AMD announces Athlon64 release date officially ! (18.07.2003)

AMD has finally officially confirmed the release date of the most prospective processor of this year - Athlon64 that will use the so far unsettled in this market x86-64 architecture that will allow to work with 64-bit applications and operating system (I think there's no need of describing the architecture because: 1) it has already been described a year ago in my articles; 2) you can always read about it at www.amd.com; 3) you might have already read about it if you are at least a little bit interested in the new processor).

So AMD Athlon64 processor is going to be officially released on the 23rd of September, 2003 in San Francisco. No additional information has been provided except that both, desktop and mobile versions will be presented.

VIA Apollo KT600 - mass distribution started (19.06.2003)

 

 

VIA Technologies announced the beginning of VIA Apollo KT600 mass distribution. VIA Apollo KT600 is intended for the support of AMD Athlon XP processors with 400 MHz FSB speed. Memory controller is held using the FastStream4 technology, i.e. the use of preselection buffers block for decreasing memory controller delays). Let's see the comparison table:

 

 

 

  VIA Apollo KT600 VIA Apollo KT400A
North Bridge

VIA Apollo KT600

   VIA Apollo KT400A
Supported Processor AMD Athlon XP AMD Athlon XP
System Bus Speed 266/333/400 MHz 266/333 MHz
Memory Bus Speed 266/333/400 MHz 266/333/400 MHz
AGP Support AGP4X/8X AGP4X/8X
Memory Type DDR266/333/400 DDR266/333/400
Maximum memory capacity allowed 4.0 GB 4.0 GB
South Bridge VT8237 VT8235CE
North-South Bridge Connecting Bus 8X V-Link (533 Mb/sec) 8X V-Link (533 MB/sec)
Integrated Audio VIA Vinyl Six-TRAC AC'97 codec VIA Vinyl Six-TRAC AC'97
Integrated Modem MC'97 MC'97
Integrated Network Controller VIA MAC 10/100 Ethernet VIA MAC 10/100 Ethernet
PCI Support 6 slots 6 slots
IDE Dual Channel Serial ATA supports 2 SATA devices, SATAlite interface supports 2 more SATA devices (up 4 devices) Parallel ATA (up to 4 devices)
VIA RAID RAID 0, RAID 1; RAID 0+1 supports SATA and ATA-133  
USB 8 ports 6 ports
Super I/O LPC Super I/O LPC Super I/O
IO APIC Present Present
Power Management ACPI/APM/PCI/PM ACPI/APM/PCI/PM

 

About 20 mainboard manufacturers, including ABIT, Acorp, Albatron, Aopen, Asus, Azza, Biostar, Chaintech, DFI, ECS, Epox, FIC, Gigabyte, Jetway, MSI, Shuttle, Soltek, Soyo and QDI have already confirmed their readiness for producing mainboards on VIA KT600 chipset.

AMD K8 - in August, confirmed (19.06.2003)

 

Chipsets for AMD K8 Platform
  Type Chipset South Bridge Release Date NOTE
VIA Discrete K8T800 VT8235 series
VT8237 series		 22, April, 2003 Formerly K8T400M
Integrated K8M800 VT8235 series
VT8237 series		 3rd Quarter, 2003 Formerly K8M400
UniChrome2 GFX Graphics Core
- K8T890 - 4rh Quarter, 2003 Formerly K8 PCIE
PCI Express Support
SiS Discrete SiS755 SiS963 18, November, 2002 -
Integrated SiS760 - - -
ALi Discrete M1687 M1563 3rd, June, 2002 -
Integrated M1688 - - -
Nvidia Discrete nForce3 Pro - 22nd, April, 2003 -
Single-chip Crush K8 - - -
Crush K8S - - Serial ATA Support
Crush K8 Pro - - PCI Express Support

 

 According to the DigiTimes, AMD Company has presented their plans for AMD K8 family release. AMD K8 processors will first officially appear in August (and not in September as it was been expected before). This information has also been provided by heavy mainboard manufacturers, ASUSTek and GigaByte Technology, that announced that they will start receiving AMD Athlon XP 3100+ and 3400+ processors in August. But in consideration of mass distribution (200,000-300,000 chips per month planned), that will surely begin only in the end of the year, Intel Pentium 4 platform will not be pressed.

While expecting new AMD processors, VIA Technologies recently renamed their K8T400M, K8M400 and K8PCIE chipsets to K8T800, K8M800 and K8T890 respectively. NVIDIA is planning to present  K8-platform chipsets - Crush K8, Crush K8S and Crush K8 Pro.

 

 

 

Testing of AMD Athlon XP 3200+ and its market competitors                                                     -                      HERE !!!

Testing of NVIDIA GeForce FX 5900 Ultra (NV35) and its market competitors                                -              HERE !!!

Testing of AMD Athlon XP 3000+ (Barton) and P4 3,06 GHz                                                    -                 HERE !!!

Testing of 10 Main boards on the chipset VIA KT400                                                             -                 HERE !!!

Testing of 5 Low-End processors on different hardware systems                                             -                 HERE !!!

Testing of Athlon XP 2200+ Thoroughbred and Intel Pentium 4                                                 -                HERE !!!

 

LogiTech MX700 Cordless Optical Mouse  (13.02.2003)                             -         HERE !!!

 

K-Lite CodecPack v2.04 Final (18.07.2003)

K-Lite Codec Pack is a package of all the required encoders/decoders that may be needed for playing DivX and XviD format files. The following codecs were included in the new version of the package (full kit contents displayed below):

BSplayer v.0.86.500
DivX Pro Decoding v.5.0.5
DivX Pro Encoding v.5.0.5
DivX ;) MPEG-4 Low and Fast motion v.4.1.0.3927
XviD Decoding Koepi's Build 04/10/2002
XviD Decoding Koepi's Build 24/06/2003
XviD Encoding Koepi's Build 24/06/2003
3ivX v.4.0.4
Microsoft MPEG-4 (modified) v.4.1.0.3927 / 8.0.0.4487
Windows Media v.7.1.0.3055
Windows Media v.8.0.0.371
Windows Media v.9.0.1.369
Cyberlink DVD Decoder v.5.0.0.602
Ligos MPEG-2 Decoder v.4.0.77
Elecard MPEG-2 Decoder v.2.0.0.2525
huffyuv v.2.1.1
Ligos Indeo XP v.5.2
Intel Indeo v.3.2
Intel I.263 v.2.55.1.16 ( NT)
WMA Audio v.8.0.0.4487
AC3 Audio v.0.69b
Fraunhofer IIS MPEG Layer-3 DirectShow Decoder v.1.9.0.311
Fraunhofer IIS MPEG Layer-3 ACM Codec v.1.2.0.63
Ogg Vorbis Audio DirectShow Filter v.0.9.9.5
Ogg Vorbis ACM v.0.0.3.1
TFM Audio Filter v.1.0b8
Morgan Multimedia Stream Switcher v.0.9.7
DirectVobSub v.2.23
DivX Anti-Freeze v.0.4
FourCC Code Changer
GSpot Codec Information Appliance v.2.21 build 030711

 

K-Lite Codec Pack v.2.04 Final (Basic Kit, 2.7 MB, Freeware, Windows 9x/Me/2000/XP)
 K-Lite Codec Pack v.2.04 Final (Full Kit, 8.2 MB, Freeware, Windows 9x/Me/2000/XP)

 

Microsoft updates Windows operating systems (18.07.2003)

It looks as though Microsoft has not allowed its staff to go on a summer holiday :-). Two updates for Microsoft Windows operating systems have recently been released.

 

Buffer Overrun In RPC Interface Could Allow Code Execution (823980)

Remote Procedure Call (RPC) is a protocol used by the Windows operating system. RPC provides an inter-process communication mechanism that allows a program running on one computer to seamlessly execute code on a remote system. The protocol itself is derived from the Open Software Foundation (OSF) RPC protocol, but with the addition of some Microsoft specific extensions.

There is a vulnerability in the part of RPC that deals with message exchange over TCP/IP. The failure results because of incorrect handling of malformed messages. This particular vulnerability affects a Distributed Component Object Model (DCOM) interface with RPC, which listens on TCP/IP port 135. This interface handles DCOM object activation requests that are sent by client machines (such as Universal Naming Convention (UNC) paths) to the server. An attacker who successfully exploited this vulnerability would be able to run code with Local System privileges on an affected system. The attacker would be able to take any action on the system, including installing programs, viewing changing or deleting data, or creating new accounts with full privileges.

To exploit this vulnerability, an attacker would need to send a specially formed request to the remote computer on port 135.

Download locations for this patch (Size: 1.2 MB)

Windows NT 4.0 Server
Windows NT 4.0 Terminal Server Edition
Windows 2000
Windows XP 32 bit Edition
Windows XP 64 bit Edition
Windows Server 2003 32 bit Edition
Windows Server 2003 64 bit Edition

Microsoft Security Bulletin MS03-026

 

Unchecked Buffer in Windows Shell Could Enable System Compromise (821557)

The Windows shell is responsible for providing the basic framework of the Windows user interface experience. It is most familiar to users as the Windows desktop. It also provides a variety of other functions to help define the user's computing session, including organizing files and folders, and providing the means to start programs.

An unchecked buffer exists in one of the functions used by the Windows shell to extract custom attribute information from certain folders. A security vulnerability results because it is possible for a malicious user to construct an attack that could exploit this flaw and execute code on the users system.

An attacker could seek to exploit this vulnerability by creating a Desktop.ini file that contains a corrupt custom attribute, and then host it on a network share. If a user were to browse the shared folder where the file was stored, the vulnerability could then be exploited. A successful attack could have the effect of either causing the Windows shell to fail, or causing an attackers code to run on the users computer in the security context of the user.

Download locations for this patch (Size: 5.2 MB)

Microsoft Windows XP 32 bit Edition
Microsoft Windows XP 64 bit Edition

Microsoft Security Bulletin MS03-027

 

 

Games: "Pirates Of The Caribbean" dispatched to the print (16.07.2003)

Akella Company together with Bethesda Softworks has announced the release of "The Pirates Of The Caribbean". The new game is a continuation of one the most award-winning sea role playing game "Sea Dogs" also developed by Akella.

Designed as a thrilling blend of role-playing and action Pirates of the Caribbean takes place in a large group of Caribbean islands during the golden age of piracy and high seas adventure. You will take command of a ship and its crew, swordfight with other captains, accept and complete daring quests, chase rumors of dangers and riches, and change allegiances amongst the colonial powers in the game. Through skill and daring, you will have the ability to obtain more power than the toughest captains in history ever dreamed possible.

You will be able to customize your captain, crew, skills, and attributes to their individual liking. During shore leave on the many fanciful islands, players can interact with townspeople and shopkeepers to replenish stores of ammo and crew, and explore the wilderness in search of adventure and treasure!

A party-based system on land and at sea allows you to hire friendly captains to form small fleets of ships for trade or battle, and your own band of adventurers when on land. Ultimately, you will be able to control your destiny by following the game story or sailing off in a search of pirate loot.

Pirates of the Caribbean features advanced AI, incredibly detailed characters and vessels, breath taking views at sea, and lush, exotic environments. Enhancing the game's realism, wind and water conditions will affect how ships sail and fight. Day and night lighting and jaw-dropping water effects make the game come alive.

 

M@je$+|c: The graphics certainly amazes anyone. No even minor disparities between graphics and the real world. The best "sea" game I've ever seen. Pleasantly shocked again after the appearance of Sea Dogs.

KEY FEATURES

- An epic role-playing game on land and at sea
- Gorgeous graphics and realistic weather effects
- Open-ended gameplay set in exotic locales
- Exciting high seas battles and thrilling duels

 

According to Bethesda, the game will be available on sale already in July. At this moment, you can pre-order the game in the Internet shop for 50$.

Internet Explorer SP-1 update released (16.07.2003)

Microsoft has released an update for Internet Explorer 6 Service Pack 1.

Error Message: "Internet Explorer Cannot Download a File"

When you try to download a file with Internet Explorer from a Web server, you may receive the following error message:
 
"Internet Explorer cannot download FileName from WebServer."

 

This behavior occurs because the content disposition header for the file stream is greater than approximately 150 bytes and the Latin character set is equal to 150 characters. This behavior may occur if the content disposition header is formatted with a non-Latin character set, such as Japanese or Russian.

For example, a 17-character content disposition header in the Japanese character set is 153 bytes because the UTF-8 encoding scheme uses 9 bytes to represent a single Japanese character, but it uses only 1 byte in the Latin character set.

Microsoft Knowledge Base Article 816868

Although for obtaining the fix you need to contact Microsoft Support, you can use a direct link to get it.

Internet Explorer Service Pack 1 Update Q816868 (374 Kb, Windows 98/Me/2000/XP)

MagicTweak v2.50 (14.07.2003)

MagicTweak is a special program designed to optimize and personalize Microsoft Windows. It provides one-stop, instant access to a variety of Windows settings that can be altered for a friendlier Windows environment. This unique software makes it easy to tweak hundreds of hidden settings in Windows XP/2000/Me/98. The utility has already been in the PC HELPER LAB, here.

Options that deal with the Windows Explorer customization and the Internet were optimized in the new version.

  MagicTweak v2.50 (1 MB, Shareware, Windows XP/2000/Me/98

Additional Language files for MagicTweak can also be downloaded.

The software solution is still the same. Visit www.software-pc1.narod.ru .

Windows Media Player 9 Update (11.07.2003)

Microsoft Corp. has recently released a fix for Windows Media Player 9.

FIX: Windows Media Player 9 Series Downloads Radio Preset Information (822964)

When the Windows Media Player 9 Series starts, it updates the radio preset list from the Internet. In certain enterprise scenarios, the network administrator may want to restrict this behavior.

A new Group Policy object permits an administrator to prevent the Windows Media Player 9 Series from accessing the Internet to retrieve this information. Download the patch to fix this bug.

  Windows Media Player 9 Series Update 822964 (1,9 MB, Windows 9x/ME/2000/XP)
 

This issue has been described in the Microsoft Knowledge Base Article 822964

Security updates for MS Windows and MS Windows XP (10.07.2003)

Microsoft has recently released 2 security updates for their Windows operating systems.

Buffer Overrun In HTML Converter Could Allow Code Execution (823559)

All versions of Microsoft Windows contain support for file conversion within the operating system. This functionality allows users of Microsoft Windows to convert file formats from one to another. In particular, Microsoft Windows contains support for HTML conversion within the operating system. This functionality allows users to view, import, or save files as HTML.

There is a flaw in the way the HTML converter for Microsoft Windows handles a conversion request during a cut-and-paste operation. This flaw causes a security vulnerability to exist. A specially crafted request to the HTML converter could cause the converter to fail in such a way that it could execute code in the context of the currently logged-in user. Because this functionality is used by Internet Explorer, an attacker could craft a specially formed Web page or HTML e-mail that would cause the HTML converter to run arbitrary code on a user's system. A user visiting an attackers Web site could allow the attacker to exploit the vulnerability without any other user action.

To exploit this vulnerability, the attacker would have to create a specially-formed HTML e-mail and send it to the user. Alternatively, an attacker would have to host a malicious Web site that contains a Web page designed to exploit this vulnerability. The attacker would then have to persuade a user to visit that site.

You can protect your computer from possible attacks via the flaw by installing the security update (Size: 375 Kb) released by Microsoft.

 

Download locations for this patch

            Windows 98 and Windows 98 Second Edition
            Windows Me
            Windows NT 4.0 Server
            Windows NT 4.0 Terminal Server Edition
            Windows 2000
            Windows XP 32 bit Edition
            Windows XP 64 bit Edition
            Windows Server 2003 32 bit Edition
            Windows Server 2003 64 bit Edition

The issue has been described in the Microsoft Security Bulletin MS03-023

 

Buffer Overrun in Windows Could Lead to Data Corruption (817606)

Server Message Block (SMB) is the Internet Standard protocol that Windows uses to share files, printers, serial ports, and to communicate between computers using named pipes and mail slots. In a networked environment, servers make file systems and resources available to clients. Clients make SMB requests for resources, and servers make SMB responses in whats described as a client server request-response protocol.

A flaw exists in the way that the server validates the parameters of an SMB packet. When a client system sends an SMB packet to the server system, it includes specific parameters that provide the server with a set of instructions. In this case, the server is not properly validating the buffer length established by the packet. If the client specifies a buffer length that is less than what is needed, it can cause the buffer to be overrun.

By sending a specially crafted SMB packet request, an attacker could cause a buffer overrun to occur. If exploited, this could lead to data corruption, system failure, orin the worst caseit could allow an attacker to run the code of their choice. An attacker would need a valid user account and would need to be authenticated by the server to exploit this flaw.

You can protect your computer from possible attacks via the flaw by installing the security update (Size: 416 Kb) released by Microsoft.

          Download locations for this patch

      Windows NT 4.0 Server
      Windows NT 4.0, Terminal Server Edition
      Windows 2000 Server
      Windows XP 32 bit Edition
      Windows XP 64 bit Edition

This issue has been described in the Microsoft Security Bulletin MS03-024

 

 

Reg Organizer v1.4 Release Candidate 4 (09.07.2003)

Reg Organizer is a system registry tweaker that offers a variety of tools required for effective System Registry and configuration files management. This software lets you view, edit and clean the Registry and preview the registry files you want to import (including the ability to preview files directly from Windows Explorer).

NEW in Release Candidate 4:

The 10 new settings were added to the Shell Settings window.
The password.log file added to the Ignore List of Advance Cleanup by
default. This file caused problems on some systems.

Reg Organizer v1.4 RC-4 (1,3 MB, Shareware, Windows 9x/ME/2000/XP)
Russian localization (257 Kb)

Software solution hasn't been changed. Visit www.software-pc1.narod.ru.

Microsoft updates Windows Media Player 9 (26.06.2003)

Microsoft has released a new patch for Windows Media Player 9.

It's "819639: Flaw in Windows Media Player May Allow Media Library Access".

An ActiveX control included with Windows Media Player 9 Series allows Web page authors to create Web pages that can play media and provide a user interface by which the user can control playback. When a user visits a Web page with embedded media, the ActiveX control provides a user interface that allows the user to take such actions as pausing or rewinding the media.
A flaw exists in the way in which the ActiveX control provides access to information on the users computer. A vulnerability exists because an attacker could invoke the ActiveX control from script code, which would allow the attacker to view and manipulate metadata contained in the media library on the users computer.

Microsoft Security Bulletin MS03-021

This patch fixes the flaw.

819639 Windows Media Player 9 Update (1,9 MB, Windows XP, English)

If you want to get this patch in another language, visit the download page.

 

ReGet Deluxe v3.3 build 184 Final (21.06.2003)

The new build of ReGet Deluxe v3.3 is released.

ReGet Deluxe is a powerful download manager - utility destined to make it more comfortable for you to download files from the Internet on your computer by using advanced methods and technologies for optimizing the speed of downloading and other conditions of downloading. This program has recently been reviewed in the PC Helper Lab, here.

ReGet Deluxe v3.3 build 184 Final (1,5 MB, Shareware, Windows 9x/Me/2000/XP)

The software solution is up. Visit www.software-pc1.narod.ru .

Microsoft updates Windows XP kernel (20.06.2003)

IN CASE YOU DIDN'T KNOW....

Kernel  - is a kind of a core. In Windows NT-based systems (NT/2000/XP) it acts as a part of the executive, that operates the processor; processes streams' planning and specialization, interruptions handling and synchronizing, operating system components synchronizing (such as I/O Manage, Processor Manager), simple objects for the executive.

 

Microsoft has released an important kernel update for Windows XP. It not only fixes the compatibility problems with Intel Pentium 4 processors (that use Hyper-Threading technology) but also optimizes and fixes other components of the operating system. It's compatible Windows XP and Windows XP Service Pack 1. The patch updates Windows XP kernel to version 5.1.2600.1224.

The kernel rollup hotfix package replaces the hotfixes that are listed in the Hotfix Replacement Information section later in this article, and it corrects the following issues:

The issues that are described in the articles that are listed in the Hotfix Replacement Information section later in this article
The issue whereby the user interface for multilingual binary files (such as Comctl32.dll) is displayed in English on computers that run Windows XP Professional Language Interface Pack (LIP)

Hotfix Replacement Information

This hotfix replaces the hotfixes that are described in the following Microsoft Knowledge Base articles. To view an article, click the article number.

330909 Hibernation Problem on Computers with 1 GB of RAM
814545 Registry Repair and Recovery May Inadvertently Delete a Subset of Keys
815011 Cannot Disable the Registry Repair and Recovery Feature in Windows XP Service Pack 1
815227 Performance Degradation Occurs in the UnmapViewOfFile Function

You can get further detailed about this topic in the Microsoft Knowledge Base 820128 Article.

There are choices of how you would like to download. 1) Send a request to Microsoft Support to obtain the update (instructions are given the Microsoft Knowledge Base article mentioned). 2) Download straight from Warp2Search site (unofficial but reliable mirror).

Q820128 Kernel Update (4,05 MB, Windows XP/Windows XP Service Pack 1)

 


 

Need For Speed IV: Hot Pursuit 2 Trailer (3,89 MB)                          -                 HERE  !!!

3D FISH v2.10 Screensaver (The best graphics I've ever seen)          -                 HERE  !!!

Sea Dogs I (The best 3D pirate adventuring game !!!)                      -                 HERE  !!!

 

 


Reviewed in the Laboratory last time:

ReGet Deluxe v3.3 build 182 Final (15.06.2003)

 

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...<<    -- 19th, June, 2003     ...             HERE    ! ! !

 

 

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