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What is this "Paint" thing you refer to? Is it like The GIMP or ImageMagick, just less useful?

ED's article claims that the program has become somewhat more useful in Windows 7.

Windows 7 is bloatware that doesn't run a lot of the software I already own. I either have to buy updates to everything I run now (if it is still available) or stay with XP. Hmmm...

If you buy a new PC with a new warranty, and it isn't from Apple, System76, or some other specialty vendor, it will come with Windows 7. To use non-game apps that require Windows XP and don't work with Program Compatibility Wizard, you can Anytime Upgrade to Windows 7 Professional and then install XP Mode.

What is this "Paint" thing you refer to? Is it like The GIMP or ImageMagick, just less useful?

ED's article claims that the program has become somewhat more useful in Windows 7.

Windows 7 is bloatware that doesn't run a lot of the software I already own. I either have to buy updates to everything I run now (if it is still available) or stay with XP. Hmmm...

If you buy a new PC with a new warranty, and it isn't from Apple, System76, or some other specialty vendor, it will come with Windows 7. To use non-game apps that require Windows XP and don't work with Program Compatibility Wizard, you can Anytime Upgrade to Windows 7 Professional and then install XP Mode.

As long as I have to pay $99 ... to apps I develop on my own phone, I'm out

Discover Windows Phone 7 Development

1.Download the Windows Phone Developer Tools.
2.Create your Windows Phone app.
3.Test it in the Windows Phone Emulator.
4.Sell it in the Marketplace.

The - Free - Windows Phone Tools:

[Vista and Windows 7 Only]

Visual Studio 2010 Express For Windows Phone
Windows Phone Emulator
Silverlight For Windows Phone
XNA Game Studio 4.0
Expression Blend 4 For Windows Phone.

Visual Studio Express 2010 For Microsoft Phone

Channel 9

Windows Phone 7 Developer Training Kit

Getting started with Windows Phone
Silverlight for Windows Phone
XNA Framework 4.0 for Windows Phone

Now of course there is the Interix product that adds a real useful POSIX layer (both API and userland), but this started as an expensive third party product that was bought out by MS. It was renamed to SFU and then SUA.

Yes and as I said, it has been supplied by Microsoft for over a decade. Since February 1999 to be exact.

It was formerly free to download but now it is only available bundled with the most expensive versions of Windows 7.

Formerly? I can go to this page and download it for free. Maybe you got confused by the "suggested registration" and assumed that meant it was no longer free?

Windows 7 and Vista support faux DOS just as XP does. Easier to just use a Cygwin bash shell most of the time, however, as the commands available are still quite limited.

Spoken like someone who has never actually done any DOS scripting. And when you want to move beyond that, there's plenty that NT/XP added to their CLI (which is NOT just fake DOS - see command vs cmd).

And of course there's always Powershell for those who want to do more.
http://gallery.technet.microsoft.com/ScriptCenter/en-us/site/search?f%5B0%5D.Type=ScriptLanguage&f%5B0%5D.Value=Powershell&f%5B0%5D.Text=Windows%20PowerShell&sortBy=Ratings

As for the tools available, of course Linux has more. It is by no means due to a limitation of Windows, but the way most people use it.

I think the XP commands still work, I don't use them all but some of them are fun.
Try:
Taskkill /im [program_image_name] /f
as a batch file to kill those programs that want to stay running in the background

The limit has been raised to about a million for a few versions now: http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/excel-help/excel-specifications-and-limits-HP010073849.aspx

And how many accountants never migrate their data to a version earlier than Excel 2007?

The limit has been raised to about a million for a few versions now: http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/excel-help/excel-specifications-and-limits-HP010073849.aspx

The big question is why Motorola? Why not Google?

In February of 2009, Google licensed Microsofts syncing tech and then introduced Google Sync.br>
At the time, the list then also included Apple, Nokia, Palm, Samsung, and Sony Ericsson. Note the absence of Motorola.

From a Microsoft Press Release

"Google's licensing of these Microsoft patents relating to the Microsoft Exchange ActiveSync protocol is a clear acknowledgment of the innovation taking place at Microsoft. This agreement is also a great example of Microsoft' s openness to generally license our patents under fair and reasonable terms so long as licensees respect Microsoft intellectual property. This open approach has been part of Microsoft's IP licensing policy since 2003 and has resulted in over 500 licensing agreements of the last five years."

Hey, they're working on it.

The reasons for this are mainly improvements in the thread handling in modern operation systems. With the event based approach you must handle the states for multiple sessions all for your self. Usually the space for state handling is stored on the heap. Communication between the sessions must be impelemnted by hand. And when you are not carefully when implementing how the sessions output data, you might add artificailly latency.

With the 1:1 approach (one thread for one session) the state for each session is stored on the stack, the synchronisation can be done by the operating system, and each thread can write its output as soon as it is ready. You only have problems when managing threads is quite expensive, especially when you have thousands of them. And this is where operation systems have improved in the last few years, e.g. Linux with the O(1) scheduler.

A good analysis of this subject together with some numbers can be found in the paper Why events are a bad idea for high performance servers from Microsoft research.

Then teach them that 99% of all malicious software runs on Windows, and that it's a reflection of the number of vulnerabilities in Windows code and market share.

Market share, yes. Vulnerabilities in Windows code...eh, not so much any more. It may not be the most popular thing to say around these parts, but MS has made great strides in adopting and pushing secure coding techniques. These days, the most culpable are third-party developers, especially device drivers. Sure, you can argue that Windows' access control policies allow it, but that's not what you said above. But I'm just being nitpicky.

Better yet, email the .exe to the entire class. Call it CS101-Example.exe, and use the harmless infection to talk about social engineering. Then take them through the 'infection' process, and show them how to remove the file by hand.

Are you insane?!? Absolutely DO NOT DO THIS!!

I remember a few years ago when researchers at Indiana University conducted a study on phishing. Basically, they set up a web site and lured students to enter their credentials. The s*** storm that erupted was immediate and furious. The only thing that saved these researchers' jobs was that they had worked very closely with the school's Institutional Review Board (IRB) to make sure that they were adequately ensuring (among other things) respect for persons. Deception is inherently disrespectful, even if it is done with good intentions.

What may seem like a "harmless infection" to you demeans the students, because you're encouraging the instructor to abuse the trust that their students have placed in him. In short, what you are proposing causes harm to the teaching profession.

I'm pretty sure you can find the Melissa virus around somewhere. Mostly benign. http://support.microsoft.com/kb/224567

Not overly difficult to remove. Isolated to Word. Doesn't do perm. damage.

Support for XP has stopped, it's an old OS.

Windows XP is supported until 2014 if you keep up with service packs.

Microsoft does, on an annual basis:

http://www.microsoft.com/investor/reports/ar09/10k_fr_dis.html

If you read through a bit, you will see that they currently incur legal expenses of about $500 million a year and spend about $9 billion a year on R&D.

(Of course, those legal expenses include settlements...)

the downside is that bot-infected users are MICROSOFT addicted customers.
who comprise 75% of Internet users.

Ooops.............
Deleting 75% of the Internet users is an additional BENEFIT.

Yours In Minsk,
K. Trout

Since our mainstream XP supported v6 at its release

Not really, it was only there as a Developer Preview. Proper support was introduced in Service Pack 1.

I felt sorry for the IE team, what with all their recent hard work and losing market share anyway, so I wanted to install their shiny new browser and give it a whirl.

But all my searches in Synaptic turned up nothing, despite having a number of non-standard repositories enabled. Does anyone know what repository I could find that in? Or will I have to get a tarball from somewhere and compile it myself?

You need to upgrade your kernel first. ;)

after a 3 year battle to carpal tunnel/RSI/tendinitis i'm finally getting it under control. after taking care of the carpal tunnel with surgery i still had the RSI/tendinitis. pills did nothing to help. touch-pads killed me. PT cost a fortune. i attribute it to a complete change in lifestyle. not working 7 days a week. no more 16 hour programming marathons. getting away from the computer during lunch. i cut out foods which encouraged inflammation, and increased intake of foods which help reduce inflammation. setting my computer screen to lock me out every 1/2 hour for 3 minutes so i stand up. i ended up losing weight in the process :) made sure every work area is ergonomically correct. no more laptops for me. heat, stretching exercises & ice daily. after the severe inflammation went away, i am now finally working my way up to strengthening exercises. i tried a dozen input devices and finally settled on the mouse which has kept me employed and the Microsoft ergonomic 4000 keyboard. maybe this will help someone or just give them hope

Just to start?

How about a kernel that is designed and optimized for multicore systems. Sounds boring, because it is, but it's important. The new kernel changes involved removing several locks that usually hold up XP. They also massively improved the dispatcher, the memory manager and the cache manager, which means you actually use a modern architecture to it's fullest. Overall, that results in a speed boost on very complex applications up to 15x. Think Excel, Access, and SQL Server (YES, SQL IS DESKTOP TOO).

The power management system is also improved significantly, with changes including Idle Resource Utilization, Trigger Start Services, Enhanced Processor Power Management, Timer Coalescing, Adaptive Display Brightness, Low-Power Audio, Bluetooth and Networking Power Improvements. Now when you leave for the day, your workstation can go to low power and still be running, so if you need to access your desktop from home, you can. Your laptop can see a large battery improvement as well.

Security is improved from XP, where the default is now the non-privileged user, and web browsers can run in a locked down protected mode environment. \
ActionCenter shows when changes have been made to the desktop.
AppLocker lets the network admin easily lock down the local workstation.
Remote access is improved using DirectAccess, where the enduser doesn't have to jump through hoops to configure a vpn.
Branch cache offers improved caching from the office to the home office.
Improved remote desktop services with network level authentication.

I'm going to stop here because I have work to do. But if that above doesn't justify spending about 10 cents per user per day over a modest 5 year life-cycle (and you know it will be more like 8 years), then you should seriously re-think network administration.

Sources:
http://www.osnews.com/story/22501/Microsoft_Kernel_Engineers_Talk_About_Windows_7_s_Kernel
http://www.thewindowsclub.com/power-management-improvements-in-windows-7#ixzz11UUVBuSj
http://download.microsoft.com/download/8/5/4/854F66B6-8C09-4F8A-986E-38E9EBAC1677/Windows7_Power_Management_Whitepaper.pdf
Some others that I forgot, use Google.

As Z80xxc! pointed out, let me know when WSUS officially comes to Windows Home Server. The last time I checked, it was an unsupported scenario. Has this changed, and if so, when?

There has been a steady transition to PowerShell for all Microsoft server products, precisely so as to enable CLI scripting with full feature coverage, similar to what has been enjoyed on Unix for a long time. It had started with Exchange 2007, but the most recent addition (to the best of my knowledge) is SharePoint 2010.

So in other words, WSUS? Currently it's only meant for corporate users, but it would be great if Microsoft would release it as a module for Windows Home Server, so home users could have that functionality.

Or better, do you have an option for no-GUI installation?

Mostly. Server2008 server core.

For closure, I'll respond to my own comment - according to their website, the MS Office Web Apps do in fact support other browsers and other platforms.

Again, irony would abound if availability of Office Web Apps enabled widescale migration to Linux on desktops, by virtue of eliminating the dependency on Office. Otoh, since for businesses that would drive either licensing the apps from MS in their cloud, or adoption of Windows Server licenses (to be able to run SharePoint), it could be a hedge-your-bets kind of move on MS's part.

Of course, until there's a clear analysis of how degraded the user experience is when accessing from something other than IE on Windows, I, for one, have this urge to keep chanting "it's a tarp, it's a tarp". We'll see.

Windows XP Home for ULCPCs will be available until the later of June 30, 2010, or one year after general availability of the next version of Windows.

*sigh*

You keep moving the goal posts.

Sorry--there are just so many things that annoy the crap out of me and hinder me from getting work done in Windows that I just can't decide on one. ;)

By the way, there are free WMI tools.. Microsoft even provides some, and there are 3rd party tools. You don't have to buy MSC. Like all things, if your environment is large enough, than an expensive tool can save you money in the long run. If it's not, you make do.

Microsoft WMI tools

Mildly useful tools that appear like they were designed for Windows 95 and have annoying problems running in IE8.

As for licensing, you don't typically buy software a le carte, you buy them as part of a volume license program that includes all your CAL's and other licenses for a pretty substantial cost savings.

Yup. Why pay the horrendous retail price when you can simply buy into something like eOpen where you pay a slightly less than horrendous price along with having to pay to keep your eOpen SA benefits every three years...and then Microsoft doesn't release Vista until 5 years later. Such a benefit.

But just to show you that I'm not totally anti-Microsoft, I'll tell you something I like: Windows 2008 Group Policy. The addition of the ability to do things like map drives, add/delete/disable local user accounts, map printers, etc...it's pretty handy. No more batch or VBS scripts sitting in NETLOGON to do that stuff upon login. I haven't seen anything in Linux that comes close.

I appreciate your reply --it's a touchy subject.

Regarding VS, Enterprise is still Enterprise, not free. We are misled since VS Express did compile our DOS-only-GUI Computer Science homework, to believe that utilizing MS's C++ compiler freely means we get a *visual* Windows GUI designer should they we ever become Win32 programmers. Why do they even call it Visual if they withhold the visual component part in the free version? ;-) We miss out on MFC, ATL and anything related to dialogs for Win32 code. When we actually need forms (GUIs) for Win32 stuff in C++, MFC, Dot Net or ATL or WTL GUI's, VS Express fails. Coding them in by hand is hardcore, and Code::Blocks or DevC++ or even VS Express are nowhere near replacing that, the most elusive feature found only in the Pro versions.

For that, we need non-express cash (or illegal hacks.) The US link(*) lists 1200 dollars for Pro and $799 for upgrades. Well, I've seen Adobe software in the several thousands, so it's not too crazy. VS 2010 seems to be real cheap in Spain --only $500 euros.

I tested VS Express, still the only free-tier version on MS's website. To MS's credit there are demos for pro and enterprise that I may check out.

* Had trouble getting URLs for the USA due to browser/server region redirects. Thanks, Ubuntu 10.10 RC for Spanish/USA! ;)

I appreciate your reply --it's a touchy subject.

Regarding VS, Enterprise is still Enterprise, not free. We are misled since VS Express did compile our DOS-only-GUI Computer Science homework, to believe that utilizing MS's C++ compiler freely means we get a *visual* Windows GUI designer should they we ever become Win32 programmers. Why do they even call it Visual if they withhold the visual component part in the free version? ;-) We miss out on MFC, ATL and anything related to dialogs for Win32 code. When we actually need forms (GUIs) for Win32 stuff in C++, MFC, Dot Net or ATL or WTL GUI's, VS Express fails. Coding them in by hand is hardcore, and Code::Blocks or DevC++ or even VS Express are nowhere near replacing that, the most elusive feature found only in the Pro versions.

For that, we need non-express cash (or illegal hacks.) The US link(*) lists 1200 dollars for Pro and $799 for upgrades. Well, I've seen Adobe software in the several thousands, so it's not too crazy. VS 2010 seems to be real cheap in Spain --only $500 euros.

I tested VS Express, still the only free-tier version on MS's website. To MS's credit there are demos for pro and enterprise that I may check out.

* Had trouble getting URLs for the USA due to browser/server region redirects. Thanks, Ubuntu 10.10 RC for Spanish/USA! ;)

I appreciate your reply --it's a touchy subject.

Regarding VS, Enterprise is still Enterprise, not free. We are misled since VS Express did compile our DOS-only-GUI Computer Science homework, to believe that utilizing MS's C++ compiler freely means we get a *visual* Windows GUI designer should they we ever become Win32 programmers. Why do they even call it Visual if they withhold the visual component part in the free version? ;-) We miss out on MFC, ATL and anything related to dialogs for Win32 code. When we actually need forms (GUIs) for Win32 stuff in C++, MFC, Dot Net or ATL or WTL GUI's, VS Express fails. Coding them in by hand is hardcore, and Code::Blocks or DevC++ or even VS Express are nowhere near replacing that, the most elusive feature found only in the Pro versions.

For that, we need non-express cash (or illegal hacks.) The US link(*) lists 1200 dollars for Pro and $799 for upgrades. Well, I've seen Adobe software in the several thousands, so it's not too crazy. VS 2010 seems to be real cheap in Spain --only $500 euros.

I tested VS Express, still the only free-tier version on MS's website. To MS's credit there are demos for pro and enterprise that I may check out.

* Had trouble getting URLs for the USA due to browser/server region redirects. Thanks, Ubuntu 10.10 RC for Spanish/USA! ;)

I appreciate your reply --it's a touchy subject.

Regarding VS, Enterprise is still Enterprise, not free. We are misled since VS Express did compile our DOS-only-GUI Computer Science homework, to believe that utilizing MS's C++ compiler freely means we get a *visual* Windows GUI designer should they we ever become Win32 programmers. Why do they even call it Visual if they withhold the visual component part in the free version? ;-) We miss out on MFC, ATL and anything related to dialogs for Win32 code. When we actually need forms (GUIs) for Win32 stuff in C++, MFC, Dot Net or ATL or WTL GUI's, VS Express fails. Coding them in by hand is hardcore, and Code::Blocks or DevC++ or even VS Express are nowhere near replacing that, the most elusive feature found only in the Pro versions.

For that, we need non-express cash (or illegal hacks.) The US link(*) lists 1200 dollars for Pro and $799 for upgrades. Well, I've seen Adobe software in the several thousands, so it's not too crazy. VS 2010 seems to be real cheap in Spain --only $500 euros.

I tested VS Express, still the only free-tier version on MS's website. To MS's credit there are demos for pro and enterprise that I may check out.

* Had trouble getting URLs for the USA due to browser/server region redirects. Thanks, Ubuntu 10.10 RC for Spanish/USA! ;)

*sigh*

You keep moving the goal posts.

By the way, there are free WMI tools.. Microsoft even provides some, and there are 3rd party tools. You don't have to buy MSC. Like all things, if your environment is large enough, than an expensive tool can save you money in the long run. If it's not, you make do.

Microsoft WMI tools

As for licensing, you don't typically buy software a le carte, you buy them as part of a volume license program that includes all your CAL's and other licenses for a pretty substantial cost savings.

However, Microsoft have now deprecated the use of the CS_XXXX constants and introduced yet another method to find the locations of various system directories.

The new method requires Windows Vista. Has Microsoft also deprecated developing applications that are compatible with Windows XP, which is still in extended support?

Well it's not documented here: http://www.microsoft.com/windows/products/winfamily/desktopsearch/technicalresources/advquery.mspx
or http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows7/Advanced-tips-for-searching-in-Windows#keywords

Anyway, even then it doesn't always work because it uses an index which is often out of date and I don't see a way to force it to not use the index. Rebuilding the index seems to require it to scan the whole hard drive, not just current bit I'm interested in.

I'm not the only one having problems: e.g. http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/w7itproui/thread/ecbecc00-f3e7-429f-87cd-8900fc313add

Well it's not documented here: http://www.microsoft.com/windows/products/winfamily/desktopsearch/technicalresources/advquery.mspx
or http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows7/Advanced-tips-for-searching-in-Windows#keywords

Anyway, even then it doesn't always work because it uses an index which is often out of date and I don't see a way to force it to not use the index. Rebuilding the index seems to require it to scan the whole hard drive, not just current bit I'm interested in.

I'm not the only one having problems: e.g. http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/w7itproui/thread/ecbecc00-f3e7-429f-87cd-8900fc313add

Well it's not documented here: http://www.microsoft.com/windows/products/winfamily/desktopsearch/technicalresources/advquery.mspx
or http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows7/Advanced-tips-for-searching-in-Windows#keywords

Anyway, even then it doesn't always work because it uses an index which is often out of date and I don't see a way to force it to not use the index. Rebuilding the index seems to require it to scan the whole hard drive, not just current bit I'm interested in.

I'm not the only one having problems: e.g. http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/w7itproui/thread/ecbecc00-f3e7-429f-87cd-8900fc313add

What guarantee does OSS make that will save taxpayers millions of dollars?

Just a wild guess, but I'd say that it's because you don't need to pay to use it.

You're forgetting about Total Cost of Ownership. (Duh!)

Here's a link to an independent study about that to help you out:

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsserver/compare/default.mspx

--

I Have a Master's Degree.... Innnnnnnnnnnnnnn Science!

Or you download some file from M$ that does the same thing as that command. Do you honestly believe M$ would EVER tell a user to run something on a command line?

Maybe not, but it's not like the command line is the only way:

http://www.microsoft.com/resources/documentation/windows/xp/all/proddocs/en-us/sag_ip_v6_pro_inst.mspx?mfr=true

Microsoft BOPS... Seriously?

No, Slashdot got it wrong, in a move that has surprised literally nobody. It's BPOS.

These days I use ODF for everything that I can, but until it becomes common place for other people to handle, that's not much of an option either.

Like since the release of Microsoft Office 2007 Service Pack 2? http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/2008/may08/05-21expandedformatspr.mspx "When using SP2, customers will be able to open, edit and save documents using ODF and save documents into the XPS and PDF fixed formats from directly within the application without having to install any other code. It will also allow customers to set ODF as the default file format for Office 2007."

Using Subsystems for Unix Applications gets you a nice csh and ksh combo with vi, grep and an outdated gcc.
It feels weird to edit files in /dev/fs/c/windows/ but it's doable.
You can compile the necessary stuff to do grep ERROR logfile | mail -s "to_address" in a few minutes.
SUA
(Why yes, I hate myself a little for this comment)

Microsoft disagrees with you: http://www.microsoft.com/exporting/basics.htm

I suspect they have better lawyers than you.

I swear, though, every upgrade makes the documentation harder and harder to use, though.

I guess that explains the sucky documentation browser in VS2010 - it's just trying to catch up with the latest Apple trend! ~

Do NOT use Windows.

Yours In Krasnoyarsk,
Kilgore Trout

http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/2004/apr04/04-02sunagreementpr.mspx

I mean, yeah, what the fuck would James Gosling know, compared to you, eh?

This is both a security advisory about the bug and a security bulletin about the upcoming patch on Microsoft's site. Does that make you happier?

This is both a security advisory about the bug and a security bulletin about the upcoming patch on Microsoft's site. Does that make you happier?

Just a software developer at this place.

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsazure/ :)

OEM versions are only for new machines that will be resold. You cannot build your own machine this way.

http://www.microsoft.com/oem/en/licensing/sblicensing/pages/licensing_for_hobbyists.aspx

OEM System Builder Software
Must be preinstalled on a PC and sold to another unrelated party.

This would mean that any SmallComputerCompany exec that uses a SmallComputerCompany computer at home (that uses a system builder version) that he bought from the company is in breach because it's not sold to an unrelated party? I'm not sure if Royalty licensing is the same, but that would then affect the entire HP/Lenovo/Toshiba etc. workforce that use computers made by their own company.