1975–Paul Allen and Bill Gates, friends who had co-written a programming language for the Altair hobby-kit personal computer, license it to the makers of the Altair. This programming language is the first Microsoft product.

Jan. 1, 1979–Microsoft moves from Albuquerque, N.M., to the Seattle area.

1980–Microsoft chosen by IBM to create operating system for its first PC. Microsoft buys the software

for $50,000 from another company and calls it MS-DOS. Steve Ballmer joins Microsoft.

Aug. 12, 1981–IBM introduces the PC, running on MS-DOS.

1983–Microsoft introduces its Word word-processing program, announces plans to create Windows operating system. Allen resigns as vice president, but remains on the board of directors.

November 1985–Microsoft ships its first version of Windows.

March 13, 1986–Microsoft’s stock goes public.

Aug. 1, 1989–Microsoft introduces earliest version of the Office business software suite.

1991–Federal Trade Commission investigates claims Microsoft monopolizes the market for PC operating systems. Investigation closes two years later without a formal complaint.

January 1, 1994–Bill Gates marries Melinda French on the Hawaiian island of Lanai.

July 1994–U.S. and European antitrust investigations settled; Microsoft agrees to change contracts with PC makers. Settlement is rejected in federal court, then reinstated in 1995.

Aug. 24, 1995–Microsoft launches Windows 95.

Nov. 27, 1995–Microsoft releases Internet Explorer 2.0, challenging Netscape’s Navigator Web browser.

Dec. 7, 1995–Gates details shift in Microsoft strategy to focus on the Internet.

Aug. 6, 1997–Microsoft and Apple Computer agree to share technology and set aside long-standing feud.

Oct. 20, 1997–Justice Department sues Microsoft, says it violated the 1994 consent decree by requiring computer makers to use its Internet browser as a condition of using Windows.

May 18, 1998–Justice Department and 20 states sue Microsoft, alleging it illegally thwarted competition. One state later drops out of the suit.

July 21, 1998–Ballmer becomes president of Microsoft.

Oct. 19, 1998–The antitrust trial begins, continues into summer of 1999.

Nov. 5, 1999–U.S. District Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson releases his findings of fact, which label Microsoft a monopoly.

Jan. 13, 2000–Gates steps aside as CEO, giving the post to Ballmer, remains chairman and becomes chief software architect.

Feb. 17, 2000–Microsoft launches Windows 2000.

June 7, 2000–Jackson orders the breakup of Microsoft into two companies.

Sept. 26, 2000–Supreme Court refuses to hear Microsoft’s appeal of Jackson’s decision, sending the case to a federal appeals court.

Sept. 6, 2001–Justice Department says it will no longer seek a breakup of Microsoft.

November 2001–Microsoft, Justice Department reach tentative deal to settle antitrust case.

Oct. 25, 2001–Worldwide launch of Windows XP.

August 2002–Microsoft unveils business and product changes to comply with Justice Department settlement.

June 23, 2003–Microsoft announces Windows Mobile for handheld computers and phones.

March 24, 2004–European Commission fines Microsoft a record $613 million for antitrust violations, though the sanction is later suspended while Microsoft appeals.

April 2, 2004–Sun settles antitrust claims with Microsoft for $1.95 billion.

June 30, 2004 _U.S. appeals court unanimously approves settlement with Justice Department.

Dec. 22, 2004–An EU court rejects Microsoft’s appeal of the March order.

May 12, 2005–Microsoft shows off new Xbox 360; console hits shelves in November.

July 1, 2005–Microsoft agrees to pay IBM $775 million in cash and $75 million in software to settle antitrust claims.

Oct. 11, 2005–RealNetworks settles antitrust claims with Microsoft for $761 million.

March 23, 2006–Microsoft announces a shake-up in its Windows unit, two days after saying it won’t have its next consumer version of Windows ready for the holiday season as planned.

June 15, 2006–Bill Gates announces plans to withdraw from day-to-day duties at Microsoft in July 2008 so he can focus on his charitable foundation.

Nov. 14, 2006–Microsoft introduces Zune music player.

Jan. 30, 2007–Microsoft releases long-delayed Windows Vista and Office 2007.

Jan. 31, 2008–Microsoft makes unsolicited offer to buy Yahoo for $44.6 billion. Eventually walks away after Yahoo won’t agree to even higher offer, $47.5 billion.

June 27, 2008–Gates steps down from full-time role in company, remains board chairman.

Hotmail POP3 access on the way? No, it’s here! POP3 technology has now rolled out to Hotmail customers WORLDWIDE! And, at last I can access my Hotmail (or Windows Live Mail) from Gmail.

What is POP3? It is a protocol that allows retrieval of your emails in almost any email program that you’ve installed on your mobile phone or PC. Here’s all the information you might need when setting this up in your email program:

POP server: pop3.live.com (Port 995)  
POP SSL required? Yes
User name: Your Windows Live ID, for example yourname@hotmail.com
Password: The password you usually use to sign in to Hotmail or Windows Live
SMTP server: smtp.live.com (Port 25 or 587)  
Authentication required? Yes (this matches your POP username and password)
TLS/SSL required? Yes

In addition to POP3, Microsoft offers additional technologies that can provide you with an even richer experience of your E-mail. Try viewing your Hotmail using Windows Live Mail, Microsoft Office Outlook via the Outlook Connector, or Windows Live for Windows Mobile phone.

Looking for help with Hotmail? Visit the Windows Live Hotmail Solution Center! The Solution Center has instructions on how to set up your e-mail software to send and receive Windows Live Hotmail messages using POP3. You’ll also find instructions on how to set up Hotmail on the web to give you POP3 access to a non-Windows Live e-mail account. If you have problems using POP3 access, Windows Live Hotmail Solution Center also has links to report a problem with Hotmail.

Source: LiveSide

The likelihood that Live Search will soon be renamed has been given more credit due to a Twitter update by a Microsoft executive. The update, seen by blog LiveSide, has since been taken down. The Microsoft exec’s Twitter feed read, “Played today with Live search upcoming (to be rebranded) launch pre-beta. I like the new features and UX so far.”

Microsoft executives have been leaking information about the rebrand to the press since early last year, with the number of reports particularly high before Microsoft’s bid for Yahoo’s search business. Potential names circulating for the offering have included Bing, Hook and Kumo, with the latter being mentioned the most. According to reports, Microsoft is looking for a more user friendly name and wants a name that will take into account Live’s services other than search, such as its social network. Kumo means “cloud” and “spider” in Japanese.

It seems like Microsoft is rebranding their search engine when ever they acquire a new domain name. We’ll wait and watch for their next brand after Kumo.

Source: VNU

The Blue Screen of Death (also known as a stop error, BSoD, bluescreen, or Blue Screen of Doom) is an error screen displayed by some operating systems, most notably Microsoft Windows, after encountering a critical system error which can cause the system to shut down, to prevent damage.

So you believe that you are the only one who is getting that error screen? You’re not alone!

Wow! 39,161 Days And 10 Hours to copy a single file on Windows Vista! Microsoft! What exactly have you done to Vista?

If you look around most of the webmasters today believe in hiring SEO companies by paying them thousands of dollars as they need to optimize their websites for major search engines like Google, Yahoo and MSN. May be it is not possible for every webmaster, so for them if you keep track on the basic SEO tips you will actually save your money and get the same result. It may also sound difficult to optimize the sites for all the existing search engines simultaneously as the ranking algorithm and crawling differs with search engine spiders. Any how you can focus on following basic tips and you are more likely to achieve desired result. I have listed down SEO Power Tips for potentially heavy Traffic:

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Whether it is an administrator struggling to meet the uptime guaranteed in a service level agreement, or a developer working to meet a delivery deadline, both developers and network administrators have wrestled with web server configuration since Microsoft first introduced Internet Information Server (IIS) many years ago. While there will still be plenty of challenges for both administrators and developers, Microsoft Windows Server 2008 has made many tasks easier by overhauling the way in which IIS 7 handles configuration. From shared configuration for web farms, to xcopy deployment there are many changes in IIS 7 on Windows Server 2008 to be excited about.

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