Microsoft plans to close the Windows Vista Beta 2 test to new users after Friday, a company executive said Thursday, because the preview has reached its copy limit. Ian Moulster, a .Net product manager based in the U.K., blogged that the take-up on the free-of-charge beta had been "incredible," and that with the company's self-imposed download and mail-delivered limit fast approaching, the offer would be withdrawn.

"When it's gone, it's really gone," Moulster wrote. Microsoft confirmed the Friday shut-off in a message posted to the Vista Beta 2 site. The Redmond, Wash. developer released Beta 2 early this month, and at the time indicated that supplies might be limited. Currently, Vista is scheduled to release in November to corporate customers, and to consumers in January 2007.

Windows Vista Customer Preview Program
Thank you for your interest in Windows Vista. The Customer Preview Program is now closed. We have reached our program capacity and no new orders are being accepted. We apologize for any inconvenience.

For registered customers who have received a Product Key the download sites will remain open until Friday, July 14.

source: http://www.microsoft.com/windowsvista/getready/preview.mspx

While Microsoft talked up Windows Vista security at Black Hat, a researcher in another room demonstrated how to hack the operating system. Joanna Rutkowska, a Polish researcher at Singapore-based Coseinc, showed that it is possible to bypass security measures in Vista that should prevent unsigned code from running.

In the second part of her talk, Rutkowska explained how it is possible to use virtualisation technology to make malicious code undetectable, in the same way a rootkit does. She code-named this malicious software Blue Pill."Microsoft is investigating solutions for the final release of Windows Vista to help protect against the attacks demonstrated," a representative for the software maker said. "In addition, we are working with our hardware partners to investigate ways to help prevent the virtualisation attack used by the Blue Pill."
source: ZDnet via msfn