Microsoft today released Service Pack 2 for its Exchange mail, calendaring, and contacts server. In addition to the usual bug fixes and stability improvements, the service pack introduces new support for "hybrid deployments": Exchange 2010 installations that are partially on-premises, partially in the cloud.

Hybrid deployments were first introduced with the RTM release of Exchange 2010. They allow companies to migrate from on-premises Exchange installations to cloud-based ones in a piecemeal fashion. In a hybrid deployment, mailboxes, calendars, and contacts can reside locally or in the cloud; Exchange will ensure that messages are routed appropriately and shared data is available to users of both systems.

Service Pack 2 introduces a new configuration wizard to ease the configuration and creation of these hybrid deployments. The wizard enables the relevant hybrid features, such as mailbox migration between cloud and on-premises installation, and performs the necessary configuration to connect the local Exchange to the cloud one.

Such features are all part of a broader Microsoft strategy to get customers migrated into the cloud. As ZDNet's Mary Jo Foley reported last month, Microsoft is building the tools to help customers both build private clouds, with improved virtualization and management facilities, and migrate from private installations to public clouds.

These developments are in turn making sense of Steve Ballmer's oft-repeated claim that Microsoft is "all-in" on the cloud. Cloud offerings such as Office 365 and Azure are not some mere afterthought: they're central parts of Microsoft's platform offering, and it wants to make it as easy as possible for customers to migrate to them.

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Ever since Microsoft first announced that Windows 8 would be compatible with certain ARM system-on-chip processors, questions about what this would mean for existing Windows applications have been abundant. ARM's strength is in low-power applications, and the decision to support the architecture was plainly motivated by the needs of the tablet market—which left observers wondering just how much of Windows would actually be supported on ARM? Just the bits relevant to tablet and consumer applications, or the whole shebang?

When Microsoft revealed and then described Windows 8's Metro-style tablet interface, the company left the ARM questions unresolved. Windows 8 has two distinct kinds of application: traditional Windows applications that run on the desktop, and new finger-friendly Metro-style applications, with the latter integrated into the new Start screen, and the former segregated off into a separate desktop. This led to speculation that ARM Windows might support only Metro-style programs, and exclude the desktop altogether.

Internet Explorer's desktop market share, which has been in a near-constant free-fall since 2003, held steady in November. Meanwhile, Chrome has moved to within striking distance of Firefox, with Mozilla's browser likely to lose its second place spot within the next few months.

Microsoft has released the fourth preview of Internet Explorer 10. As is the case with previous Platform Previews, the release is aimed at developers: the new features are important to those creating rich, complex Web applications, but will have less impact on Web users.

However, even Web developers might struggle to get too excited about the latest preview, because they probably won't be able to run it: it only works on the Windows 8 preview release that Microsoft shipped at its BUILD conference in September.

Microsoft is preparing a much simpler Windows 8 setup and installation process for less-advanced users, potentially reducing the number of clicks from 60 to 11. It  will also dramatically reduce the amount of time needed to upgrade systems loaded with lots of files and applications. In addition to the simplified setup, a separate (and more complex) process will be available to those who want to dual-boot multiple operating systems, configure partitions, or perform other advanced tasks.

Microsoft describes the new setup process in the latest post of its Building Windows 8 blog, which has been revealing details of the next version of Windows bit by bit. The overarching theme is reducing the amount of stuff users have to do to upgrade a Windows 7 (or XP or Vista) machine to Windows 8, compressing the size of the OS download, and cutting installation time by optimizing file operations.

At the upcoming MalCon security conference in Mumbai, Austrian independent developer and security analyst Peter Kleissner is scheduled to release the first known "bootkit" for Windows 8—an exploit that is able to load from a hard drive's master boot record and reside in memory all the way through the startup of the operating system, providing root access to the system. The exploit allegedly defeats the secure boot features of Windows 8's new Boot Loader. Kleissner will also present a paper called "The Art of Bootkit Development."

Kleissner previously developed the Stoned bootkit, a proof-of-concept exploit that could attack Windows XP, Vista, and 7, as well as Windows Server 2003. Stoned, which is available as source code from Kleissner's site, was able to install itself into the Windows kernel and gain unrestricted access to the entire system, even on systems with encrypted drives—because the master boot record on those drives remains unencrypted.

The details of the Windows 8 bootkit have not yet been shared, but Kleissner said in his Twitter feed this morning that the new bootkit, called Stoned Lite, has an infector file that is only 14 kilobytes in size, and the bootkit can be started from a USB drive or CD. He added that he was considering adding "in-memory patching of msv1_0!MsvpPasswordValidate." That exploit, previously demonstrated against Windows XP as part of a bootkit, changes the password validation routine in Windows to accept any password as valid for an account.

Windows 8's boot loader has added a number of security features to prevent malware and security breaches, including a measure that requires any software loaded at boot time to be authenticated with a valid digital signature. Microsoft advertised this feature as a malware killer, because it would in theory block any unsigned software from loading into memory before startup. But the new boot loader has caused concern in the open-source world, because Linux distributions such as Red Hat and Ubuntu don't come with a digital signature.

MalCon noted that Kleissner's appearance is still tentative, as he hasn't yet been granted a visa for the conference. However, he may still present via video and release the code through the conference if he is unable to attend.

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Google and at least one of its Android partners—Barnes and Noble—have been agitating for a government antitrust investigation of Microsoft's patent licensing practices. Last month, Barnes and Noble submitted a formal request for the Department of Justice to launch a probe.

According to Barnes and Noble, Microsoft claims to have over 60,000 patents. Fewer than 20,000 of those were granted by the patent office; Microsoft presumably purchased the other 40,000 from other firms. The result is one of the world's largest "patent thickets." Microsoft has so many patents that it's difficult to build a software product as complex as a mobile operating system without infringing dozens, maybe even hundreds, of them.

Microsoft's monthly Patch Tuesday came and went yesterday without a patch for a Windows kernel vulnerability that's being exploited by Duqu malware. Microsoft pushed out an emergency workaround last week, which shuts off access to T2EMBED.DLL, the dynamic link library that allows applications to display TrueType fonts.

The workaround was issued quickly because successful Duqu-based attacks could allow attackers to run arbitrary code in kernel mode, allowing them to install programs; view, change or delete data; or create new accounts with full user rights. But Microsoft is still developing a permanent fix to the software, which will be included in either a future monthly update or an out-of-band patch, if it is ready earlier.