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Thanks.

I also found this: How to configure TCP/IP to use DNS in Windows XP.

It is news on smart phones which started with lessons learned from Desktop and mobile trojans themselves. Apple ignored those lessons and now paying for it.

http://wiki.forum.nokia.com/index.php/Symbian_Platform_Security_Model
http://developers.sun.com/mobility/midp/articles/permissions/
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc512651.aspx

In fact, security scene kind of gave up on iPhone&iPod. Let whoever buys makes his/her own mind.

The tessellation stages of the pipeline are quite an important addition, in that they are the first attempt to truly standardize parametric surfaces for videogames. http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd835170.aspx

That is one of the things I like about Windows 7 MCE-Internet TV is as easy to browse through as my local cable channels, so between Internet TV and basic cable I have more entertainment than I could possibly ever watch.

As for BT, unlike a certain other evil OS which shall be forever damned (rhymes with fist ya) networking in Windows 7 is actually solid and doesn't crap itself when you listen to an MP3. Of course after being exposed to the previous version my view might be just a wee bit tainted, seeing is how I can actually do things like multitask without the OS slowing to a crawl.

Just a side note, it is also possible for individuals who wants the Windows source code to get it. They simply have to become an MVP (most valuable professional) and be in good standing and sign a few NDAs. I consider that as any person who wants it *bad enough* can get legal access to it.

While technically not Visual Studio, you can download Visual Basic/C++/C# Express Editions for free.

http://www.microsoft.com/express/product/ looks free from here and it's not like you are required to use VS to develop for Windows

Crippling in a software sense also often means 'deliberately limiting (purely for market segmentation reasons) some feature which by default would be available'
In windows Vista/7 the amount of memory you can use is limited in this way:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa366778(VS.85).aspx#physical_memory_limits_windows_7

I wouldn't claim that the home premium maximum of 16Gb RAM is a serious limitation for even top-end home users now, but given that at the top end you could be already be using 8Gb (the limit for home basic), it could well be an issue within the lifetime of windows 7.

As far as the server versions of Windows are concerned, this is already a serious issue. You can easily hit the 'server standard edition' limits in server 2003/2008 (16/32Gb) and have to pay huge amounts of extra money for a higher grade version of server, even if the *only* extra feature you want is to address a bit more memory. This definitely counts as 'crippling' in my book.

This has got to be one advantage of FOSS operating systems - they *never* introduce artificial limits like this. Linux is currently limited (by its design, I assume) to about 64Tb of physical memory according to this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X86-64#Linux
Whereas even the most expensive version of windows server 2008 is limited to 2Tb.

Actually, the Registry is a good concept. The Registry is just a file system for little data items. The trouble is that any application can write to any part of it. It lacks a security model. (Yes, you can attach security restrictions to registry keys, but nobody does this, because Windows 95 didn't have that, and applications didn't have support for it.)

Um, 100% wrong dude. The Registry uses ACLs, just like the file system. Infact if you edit the registry permissions its the exact same control that you use to edit filesystem ACLs.
And as for "nobody does this"... Try logging onto windows as a non-administrator and editing anything in HKLM. you can't.

The "real" problem is that outside of a large company, all desktop users are administrators.

"Local System" at least comes close. An Administrator can gain those privileges using something like the following:

at current_time + 1 minute /interactive cmd

(I found that here:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/926639

)

I don't know the specifics, but I came across that article when I was trying to edit the permissions on a HP printer driver service, they had been set to "D:(D;;DCWDWO;;;WD)" which essentially means "Deny rights to everybody", something the "Local System" account doesn't care about.

This little program demonstrate how screw up Windows (any version, including Win 7 ) are !

http://download.sysinternals.com/Files/RegHide.zip

Get the low down on Hidden Registry Keys from http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb897446.aspx

Or test it on your test machine :

http://live.sysinternals.com/Reghide.exe

You are confusing designed by default with default behaviour. They are two different things. Default behaviour in the Win2k/XP timeframe was poor - Vista & Win7 change this.

I also suggest that you read the Windows 7 logo program requirements: http://go.microsoft.com/?linkid=9668061. One of the guidelines is around proper behaviour with UAC, and another is around programs putting data in the right place.

If you remove the Win32 API, EVERY WINDOWS APPLICATION EVER WRITTEN breaks. Assuming we don't want to do that, the only other option would be to remove the NT API. Unfortunately, this is the API that allows user-mode applications to communicate with the kernel. I don't think you could write a very useful application that has no ability to access the registry, files, network, hardware, etc, all of which require calls to the kernel. You were right, that *was* easy!

Obviously you don't know the first thing about the architecture of Windows NT (and judging by many other comments I've read you are not alone). If anybody cares to educate themselves, I highly recommend Windows Internals.

Actually it was supposed to be a joke. Whomever modded it down is an M$ fanboy with no sense of humor.

I suppose this is from 1994? I doubt viewing fonts on a Linux system could end up rooting your machine. <bad sense of humor>Some would say that's because one can't view fonts on a Linux machine anyway.</bad sense of humor>

Actually, the Registry is a good concept. The Registry is just a file system for little data items. The trouble is that any application can write to any part of it. It lacks a security model. (Yes, you can attach security restrictions to registry keys, but nobody does this, because Windows 95 didn't have that, and applications didn't have support for it.)

The big problem with Windows security is Microsoft never put a security model in place under the concept of program installation. The way this ought to work is that there should be several classes of things one can install. Call them "applications", "plugins", "middleware", and "system modifications".

Installers of "applications" should be limited to writing to the application's subtrees in Program Files, Documents and Settings, and the Registry. Uninstalling an application consists of removing those subtrees. Applications cannot install anything that runs at startup or runs periodically. Most programs (especially games and entertainment apps) should be applications. Under these restrictions, installation of applications is relatively safe, and should be allowed with Power User privileges.

"Plugins" are sub-applications which affect one application. They go in their own subtree under the appropriate application. The application controls their installation, and they can't do anything the application can't do. Browser plug-ins fall in this category if the browser is an "application". If the browser is "middleware" (IE is, but Firefox is not), more privileges are required.

"Middleware" is programs run by other programs, like Java. Changing middleware can affect multiple applications, so that requires more privileges. Code signing is appropriate.

"System modifications", which modify the OS itself and may require a reboot, should require both code signing by a clearly identified party and administrator privileges to install.

Of course, if we had something like that, app developers would bitch that they couldn't load their "phone home for update" service or "prelauncher". Tough. You don't really need to know if ZowieApp needs an update until you run ZowieApp again. And if your app needs to be "prelaunched" because it loads slowly, maybe the problem is that it loads slowly.

Well, yeah, except that there seem to be other constraints and Microsoft has also placed artificial limits on the various versions of Windows.

The highlights: Windows Server (2003 and 2008) Enterprise and Datacenter editions, along with the Itanium editions can address a maximum of 2 TB. Windows Server standard editions have a 32 GB maximum. Windows 7 Enterprise, ultimate and Business have a 192 GB maximum. Vista Enterprise, Ultimate and Business have a 128 GB maximum. For others, you can read about them on on this MSDN article, which has a nice table..

(Whoosh, btw)

If you have to stick to VS2008 for work/business, and you are dealling with native applications in C++, make sure you download the Feature Pack for C++.

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=D466226B-8DAB-445F-A7B4-448B326C48E7&displaylang=en

If you are just doing some personal development and are coming from the MSVC6 world, you'll likely be unlearning some things from 2008 if you goto 2010 later ex. app deployment. 2010 is pretty much coming out in a few months so the Beta 2 is feature locked for the most part, so it would be good to start here.

stay tuned for an answer on perf.

Here's a checklist
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windows-7/compare/default.aspx

Note that some pretty critical things like Domain Access and XP Mode are not included in the Home version.

OK - if your a developer - or anybody who is - please tell me something...

I just made a big jump from Win XP Pro and MSVC 6 to Windows 7 64 bit and VS2008, and I am trying to get up to speed. I created a very simple benchmarking console app on the old system and compiled a release build under MSVC 6, and then compiled exactly the same code under VS2008 on the new machine. No matter what optimizations I used, or whether I created a 32 bit release build or a 64 bit release build with VS2008, the exe created under the old MSVC ran about 25% faster on my new platform than the new build on my new platform. Question - what is it with VS2008? This is intolerable!

Try it yourself and get back to me.

*DISCLAIMER* I work at Microsoft

the last few years, we've focused on enhancing .NET with our tools. With the next release of Visual Studio, we're focusing again on native code and taking the good things of VC6 and bringing them into Visual C++ 2010.

Check out why "10 is the New 6" http://channel9.msdn.com/pdc2008/TL13/

I'm curious on the perf issue myself so I'll try to get an answer back to you, but in the meantime, would you mind running the same test using Visual Studio 2010 Beta?
http://www.microsoft.com/visualstudio/en-gb/try/default.mspx

4) Vista SP 1 fixed a lot of performance-related bugs. In other words, pre-SP1, Vista was slow and buggy: http://social.technet.microsoft.com/forums/en-US/itprovistadesktopui/thread/30c9c7f3-2cc4-426a-9db9-885086ff183e/ That bug for example was fixed, but the crucial point is, it was there when Vista was rolled out and everyone and their dog wrote reviews. Recovering a ruined reputation is hard.

I hacked into my friend's (disregard that he smokes cock) computer to give him a virus and distribute some movies I just downloaded, but also to say this:

Buy cheap penis-pills from Verizon or I'll make my botnet DDOS your SMTP server with e-mails, you assholes!

I'm the one who cut all those underwater intercontinental fiber lines, by the way, and I did it while using a Verizon phone as a dildo in public to show my hate for the Jews!

Too bad you suckers can't do anything about it, though, because I'm in Iran!

... there, that should be about all of them.

So I get modded troll for mentioning another Microsoft Research product? Ok, so I forgot the link: Microsoft Songsmith
 
It's a program that plays accompanying chords to match up with improvised recorded singing. The video ad they created is even more painful of a concept.

"with features like lexical closures that are usually only found in advanced programming languages"

You mean like Visual Basic?

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc441753.aspx

Well, for the third, you could probably use Junction to link it's Program Files/Whatever/Data directory to somewhere else. I've done this several times with applications that want to write to annoying places. Though, I don't know if you can junction to %HOMEDIR%.

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb896768.aspx

If what you say is true then why does Microsoft and all of their paid mouthpieces in the press have their knickers in a bunch over the damned thing? Methinks they doth protest too much.

Because it's Google. Microsoft execs have been paranoid at everything Google has been putting out since day one, and with good reason - the Google paradigm is to have everthing web-centric, including stuff like Google Docs. When you give users for free what Microsoft sold for years (Office, which is their main cash cow), they do well to panic.

Now, those kind of developements stroke directly into the heart of Microsofts' businesses. Chrome OS is a whole different deal, and i have to agree with the parent poster, i still don't get what all the fuzz is about. It's basically the Chrome browser running as a standalone app. Also, Microsoft has its own answer to the whole "cloud computer" thing: Azure.

I don't care whether your software is open source or not, Linux is a support nightmare. It's the dozens of distributions.

This is a very, very old argument, I hope you know. And it's quite wrong.

For all your ranting, you're really just demanding that the open source software ecosystem behave in the same manner as the proprietary software ecosystem that you're used to. I'm surprised that this still needs repeating (especially here on Slashdot), but here it is anyway: Open source software and proprietary software are not the same thing.

In the proprietary software world, all players take responsibility only for their own products. (And often, not even then.) When there's a problem that looks like it might be the fault of some other company's product, the user is directed to the other company for support. Sometimes, the situation reaches a stalemate where one company blames the other and you can't get them to budge from that position. Since the code is closed, you don't even have the option of fixing the problem yourself, even if you have the skills to do so or the money to hire someone. If you want anything besides a base OS install (which generally isn't very useful), you have to go out and buy software, and then go through an often non-trivial installation process involving physical media, registration, CD keys, and reboots.

In the Linux world, the distributions try to take responsibility for the entirety of the end-user's computing experience. On Linux, the onus is on the distribution to provide a stable and usable base system, hardware drivers, desktop environment, and thousands upon thousands of free third-party programs. End-user support is largely community-based, but there are commercial support options as well. To install new software, you just open up your package manager, click a button or two, and your new software (plus any dependencies) is installed automatically. Most hardware devices are completely plug-and-play right out of the box, with no device drivers to manually install or some endless series of reboots.

"Fragmentation," as many people put it, is part of the Linux ecosystem by design. It gives the distributions the freedom to innovate, try new features, new designs, new subsystems, and so on. It gives the end user choice. If they don't like one Linux distribution for whatever reason, there are several others to download and take for a spin. If all distributions were forced into a single unyielding design or set of libraries all for the sake of a few proprietary apps, then there would no longer be any point to having multiple distributions. All distros would essentially be indistinguishable and we'd be stuck with the same interface, bugs, and security problems for decades on end. (Remind you of anyone?)

It would be one thing if they could leave it up to the distros to port, build, and test the software. But they can't. As soon as subscription fees are involved, users expect all kinds of unreasonable levels of support. Google can't JUST support Fedora or Ubuntu. Imagine the uproar over them playing favorites.

Google certainly can leave it up the distros to port and build, that's the way the Linux software ecosystem is meant to work. All Google has to do is release the source and the distros will do the rest. Subscription fees don't even enter into it. You can't please everyone and there will always get people who get mad at the world because they don't know how to operate their own computer, but if the software is good enough, there will be few support problems. Even in the worst-case scenario, it would even be within Google's right to say, "here's a port of our software to Linux, you're free to use it, but don't come crying to us for support." This is exactly how Skype has always handled it and they seem to be doing just fine.

I'm a chip designer, and so I use Xilinx tools. When I do, I use the Windows versions. No

Well, in languages such as Java, the finalize() method may never be called. You have to manually call a "close"/"destroy" type method since finalize() isn't really a destructor. Even C# recommends you implement explicit destruction (See "Explicit Release of Resources" in the linked page.) I quote:

The programmer has no control over when the destructor is called because this is determined by the garbage collector. The garbage collector checks for objects that are no longer being used by the application. If it considers an object eligible for destruction, it calls the destructor (if any) and reclaims the memory used to store the object. Destructors are also called when the program exits.
[...]
If your application is using an expensive external resource, we also recommend that you provide a way to explicitly release the resource before the garbage collector frees the object.

In other words, the lazy destruction in a "managed" language can really bite you in the hindside, since who knows when the GC will get around to releasing your resource? Why else would a managed language have an entire standard interface devoted to the problem?

In contrast, in C++ (an unmanaged language), objects' destructors are always called automatically when they go out of scope or when you delete them.

Well, in languages such as Java, the finalize() method may never be called. You have to manually call a "close"/"destroy" type method since finalize() isn't really a destructor. Even C# recommends you implement explicit destruction (See "Explicit Release of Resources" in the linked page.) I quote:

The programmer has no control over when the destructor is called because this is determined by the garbage collector. The garbage collector checks for objects that are no longer being used by the application. If it considers an object eligible for destruction, it calls the destructor (if any) and reclaims the memory used to store the object. Destructors are also called when the program exits.
[...]
If your application is using an expensive external resource, we also recommend that you provide a way to explicitly release the resource before the garbage collector frees the object.

In other words, the lazy destruction in a "managed" language can really bite you in the hindside, since who knows when the GC will get around to releasing your resource? Why else would a managed language have an entire standard interface devoted to the problem?

In contrast, in C++ (an unmanaged language), objects' destructors are always called automatically when they go out of scope or when you delete them.

I didn't see a link to the KB article in question. I assume this is the one: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/975530

Managed code does (well, can) have one totally awesome feature: provable type safety. What makes this great, is that you can take the memory protection hardware out of your CPU (where AIUI it tends to be on the critical path), and replace it with some checks in your compiler and some bounds-checking on array accesses. So basically you're moving most of the (fairly significant) work of keeping programs separate out of the tightest loop possible and instead doing it once at startup time. Even running on standard x86 with some of the protection features disabled still gives a noticeable speedup (see section 4.2 at the link).

Memory safety is indeed a great property, but the memory barriers in the garbage collector of your managed code environment almost certainly rely on the same protection features you're proposing to disable, so you're not winning anything. That said, compiler-enforced type safety is orthogonal to the issue of code being "managed" (whatever that Microsoft newspeak really means), and there are plenty of languages with equivalent type safety which compile directly to machine code without an additional VM underneath.

"Managed code is like antilock brakes. You used to have to be a good driver on ice or you would die. Now you don't have to pump your brakes anymore."

Might have been more appropriate to compare it in that people in the high performance arena (nascar) don't like antilock brakes because of their limits and the separation you get from your task at hand. (you lose your "feel for the road")

Or note that antilock brakes can increase your stopping distance.

Tho I'm a little strangely biased, I miss the days of assembly, when 10k was a LOT of code to write to solve a problem, thing ran at blindingly fast speed with almost no disk or memory footprint. Nowadays, Hello World is a huge production in itself. 97% of today's coders don't have any idea what they've missed out on and just accept what they've got. Even someone that understands the nerf tools like VB at a lower level can get sooo much more out of them. I recall taking someone's crypto code in VB and producing a several thousand-fold speed boost because of my understanding of how VB was translating things. They didn't know what to say, they'd just accepted that what they were doing was going to be dog slow. (and unfortunately the users are also falling under the same hypnosis)

Managed code does (well, can) have one totally awesome feature: provable type safety. What makes this great, is that you can take the memory protection hardware out of your CPU (where AIUI it tends to be on the critical path), and replace it with some checks in your compiler and some bounds-checking on array accesses. So basically you're moving most of the (fairly significant) work of keeping programs separate out of the tightest loop possible and instead doing it once at startup time. Even running on standard x86 with some of the protection features disabled still gives a noticeable speedup (see section 4.2 at the link).

Interix was created solely for the reason of destroying UNIX

Do you have any proof?

You ask as if I was accusing Microsoft of being especially evil. This isn't another big secret like the the way they carefully arrange APIs to disadvantage other companies that develop for Windows. In fact let's just ask them.

from an MS press release>:

It allows users with UNIX environments to take advantage of the benefits of the Windows environment without having to rewrite critical applications. In addition, users can immediately use the full Windows-based application development environment to develop native Win32® API-based applications.

In other words we'd like UNIX customers to move to Windows and abandon UNIX.

from the same MS press release:

Interix 2.2 brings Microsoft customers one step closer to its vision of a single desktop computer for all uses by providing a complete enterprise platform to run all Windows-based, UNIX and Internet applications.

In other words, we'd like you to only use Windows.

In fact there is nothing wrong with this as such. The normal way the free market works is by competition in which one company tries to destroy another companies products by getting people to use their own. What could easily be wrong is if they were, for example, ensuring some of their own software in a market where they had used illegal tactics to become a dominant player were only available on their own platform so that their competitors could not try to do the same to them.

It interests me why the MS astroturfers are so touchy about this topic? Could it be that MS has something to hide on this topic?

What would you consider the SUA community?

People who are neither working for the good of the "Open Source Community" nor Microsoft? Possibly, in part, Useful idiots? People who would be better to spend their time improving Debian or CentOS? Is Microsoft contributing or not? I know little of this and would be honestly interested to analyse it.

I think this is the target audience: organizations who want to run UNIX applications on Windows in a supported way. It's probably not indented for people who want a complete GNU system. (Recent packages ship with GCC and GDB, but otherwise come with BSD or SVR4-derived utilities.)

Agreed.

Surely the BSD lawsuit had something to do with Linux taking off instead of BSD?

That is what many people say. However the SCO probably lawsuit hasn't really had that much influence on Linux. I'm not convinced that it's true. Certainly this doesn't apply to Minix or many of the other BSD situations. It certainly doesn't explain the success of Mozilla (copyleft) over Mosaic (not).

[...] But some organizations that do use Linux and GNU software don't contribute much back - consider many of the consumer electronics devices that run GPL software, such as consumer broadband routers. Some provide the source as required by the GPL, but not much else - for example, the Linux source used might be available, but the wifi driver might be a binary module.

The source they do provide means that any major feature they implement in Linux its self is available to others. That's key. That means that competitors who release features into Linux can do so with the knowledge that major improvements to their features will be available to copy back.

As far as the binary module thing goes; this is an exce

Oh and BTW... Grand Central Dispatch?

What about it? A wonderful Apple product, the secret sauce being OS support. Currently the only stable OS shipping it is OS X. FreeBSD will get one soon in RELEASE versions (which aren't STABLE, so...). Linux - not supported (yet), so you can forget about any meaningful cross-platform use of GCD for now.

As for ThreadWeaver, it's just another userspace task/job-centric threading library, which is nothing new. For Microsoft take on this, see PPL, PFX, and PLINQ - the latter being particulary interesting as it's one step of abstraction above task-based parallelism with explicit dependencies.

Oh and BTW... Grand Central Dispatch?

What about it? A wonderful Apple product, the secret sauce being OS support. Currently the only stable OS shipping it is OS X. FreeBSD will get one soon in RELEASE versions (which aren't STABLE, so...). Linux - not supported (yet), so you can forget about any meaningful cross-platform use of GCD for now.

As for ThreadWeaver, it's just another userspace task/job-centric threading library, which is nothing new. For Microsoft take on this, see PPL, PFX, and PLINQ - the latter being particulary interesting as it's one step of abstraction above task-based parallelism with explicit dependencies.

Oh and BTW... Grand Central Dispatch?

What about it? A wonderful Apple product, the secret sauce being OS support. Currently the only stable OS shipping it is OS X. FreeBSD will get one soon in RELEASE versions (which aren't STABLE, so...). Linux - not supported (yet), so you can forget about any meaningful cross-platform use of GCD for now.

As for ThreadWeaver, it's just another userspace task/job-centric threading library, which is nothing new. For Microsoft take on this, see PPL, PFX, and PLINQ - the latter being particulary interesting as it's one step of abstraction above task-based parallelism with explicit dependencies.

According to the Microsoft Security Advisor 977981 IE5 and IE8 are *not* vulnerables:

http://www.microsoft.com/technet/security/advisory/977981.mspx

Vista and will be supported until Vista ceases to be; contrary to what others may say, this is likely to be a very long time, I'd wager a minimum of 1 decade from RTM.
Your wager would appear to be correct for vista business and enterprise their current plan seems to be a decade and a few months from "general availability" http://support.microsoft.com/lifecycle/?p1=11707 . I doubt they will reduce the dates but they may pull what they pulled with XP recently and claim some fixes are impractical to backport.

Given how unpopular vista has been in the enterprise I doubt these dates will be extended (unlike 2K and XP which got a lot of extensions over their lifetime).

The other editions of vista (home basic, home premium and ultimate) are currently listed as not getting extended support presumably because they are considered consumer products. how exactly that will play out remains to be seen (my guess is they will be able to download patches for the core OS but the home specific media stuff will cease to be updated).

I can't believe I haven't seen someone suggest MS SharedView http://www.connect.microsoft.com/site/sitehome.aspx?SiteID=94 works like a dream for me, and gives both users their own cursor, so your friend can point at stuff. The other thing that 'just works' is www.showmypc.com - vnc based, but it's a small download that just works for people - no installation process required.

Ones where you have to agree to an end user license agree that states " IF YOU DO NOT AGREE, DO NOT INSTALL, COPY, OR USE THE SOFTWARE; YOU MAY RETURN IT TO YOUR PLACE OF PURCHASE FOR A FULL REFUND, IF APPLICABLE." Windows XP EULA
Surely Microsoft's license doesn't apply to all the components, but it specifically says you can get a refund from where you purchased the software. Companies don't want to honor the Windows EULA? Don't sell computers with Windows.

...it is now up to the manufacturer to decide whether they will give you a refund or tell you to return the PC, just look at MS EULA page.

Even if it's just that sticker and license you hold, it still contains the value. If you decline it, you are not legally allowed to use the software.

Also to begin with you are not required to buy a computer that comes with Windows. Or you can read the EULA online before buying it. Or ask to read it in store.

Windows XP has started to lose its value because the support is discontinued, so the "software doesn't get old during time" doesn't fully hold.

http://www.microsoft.com/hyper-v-server/en/us/default.aspx

Peddle your third rate rubbish software elsewhere. There might be some PHB's somewhere that will fall for your bullshit sales pitch and your bullshit software.

seriously, do you have no other work than to troll a Microsoft guy trying to make a suggestion to use a product that will actually solve the poster's problem?

This whole post lacks information on the environment, userbase, company etc etc. Almost no one is giving any advice that is actionable.

Bottom line, this is a company with about a dozen servers serving 150 people. This is a low workload for thing the post cited. While everyone is talking about HA, virtualization, and everything else, what this guy is really asking is how should i think about consolidation and improved supportability. The guy is clearly clueless about modern IT or an amateur, so fundamentally according to Slashdot, it just makes sense for him to move to a Microsoft stack right? If he was an actual Linux guy, then he wouldn't have even posted such a silly question.

If the poster is reading this and you're thinking about virtualization as an option, you may consider Microsoft Hyper-V Server R2...its FREE as in beer and supports all workloads. But like Junta, virtualization is not the right move based on your described needs. Modern boxes can reliably handle the services you describe.

http://www.microsoft.com/hyper-v-server/en/us/default.aspx

Junta, get a life or start a blog about why Microsoft sucks...I'll even comment on it :) prick

If you have heard of Small Business Server, Microsoft just released a 3 server solution for businesses of your size called EBS. It will do everything you just outlined including setting the foundation for branch office scenarios with redundancy. With EBS, you get SharePoint, Exchange, Fax serving, AD, DNS, DHCP, firewall, FTP, IIS for web serving all included. Because it is built on Windows Server 2008, you get access to all the services that it provides. It will be a huge leap in user experience for your end-users and you'll finally stop fire fighting and actually allow time to deal with the real IT/Business challenges.

Rather than pushing the features, the real work you need to do is to identify business requirements and map them to features, implementation costs, and upkeep costs.

Once you have a sane, self-managing system in place, you can start to role out self-service IT systems for your users so they don't bother you for password resets. Some would say that you're putting yourself out of a job by doing this, but if you play your cards right and plan out the technical and the social aspects of the project, you will really be a hero and you'll probably be seen in a more respectable light.

visit http://www.microsoft.com/ebs

Moreover I tried to sign up for the IE bug feedback system.

1. It required me to get a live account. I did.

2. It required me to "register" with my live account. It didn't work with Webkit so I fired up Firefox, then I did.

3. It required email confirmation of my live account. I confirmed it.

4. It asked me to register to be able to vote on issues (GOTO 2)

No wonder the feedback is minimal and useless (as in not real bug reporting). There's probably no one who cares on the other end anyway

The Windows Vista machine across the street requests this: http://www.update.microsoft.com/v9/windowsupdate/selfupdate/wuident.cab

And my Windows 7 workstation requests these:
http://download.windowsupdate.com/v9/windowsupdate/redir/muv4wuredir.cab
http://download.windowsupdate.com/v9/windowsupdate/a/selfupdate/WSUS3/x86/Other/wsus3setup.cab

Those are technically web pages, as is this one requested nightly by a bunch of Linux machines at my house:
http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/dists/karmic-updates/multiverse/source/Sources.bz2

None of those are in HTML format, but they're served via http from a web server - just like the Google updates. Also like the Google updates, the "update service" can be set to install updates found on those "web accessible pieces of data" (aka "web pages") with no user interaction.

Google updater installs either the "google pack" (which is not a web page) or just Google software (also, not a web page). It can be configured: http://www.google.com/support/pack/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=46708 and works pretty much the same way as synaptic, windows update service, adobe updater, java updater, symantec live update, etc etc etc.

They all work pretty much the same way. There's an initial setup - in which you chose what you want automatically installed - and then something that runs automatically thenceforth (is that a word?) and requests updates from a web site. If that site's hijacked, your DNS is comprmised, etc; there's varying levels of bad things which can happen.

ASP

Did you perhaps mean VBS? or there’s another form of basic client-side scripting that you can do in IE, called conditional comments, and perhaps that is what you were thinking of...

Actually you'll find that most security flaws are treated like this, in order to give the vendor time to patch. It's part of the whole responsible disclosure credo. As an indication of how seriously MS take this they facilitated the disclosure of Kaminsky's DNS cache poisoning discovery. he was contracting there at the time. MS called all the major vendors, and hosted meetings in Redmond to kick the whole response off. He talked about it at Bluehat on 2008. Heck even Bluehat itself demonstrates something. They had speakers from Adobe and other "rivals" this year, and after about a month they put the session videos up and available to all for free.

Just check the sou.. Ah.

Actually source is not needed... Windows Symbol Packages IDA Pro

There is enough information publicly available to make trying to hide a backdoor functionality that includes authentication foolish. On the other hand they could place an obscure vulnerability that allows remote exploitation, but that is not so good for the NSA, as there is no way to prevent other parties from using the same backdoor if they find out, and thus they are making America's computers more vulnerable to foreign nations, exactly the opposite of what they're supposed to be doing.

So I've used various drawing programs for years to make crappy little graphical schematics to post online. MS Paint is all I really need, although I've used Photoshop and similar programs as well.

I heard a lot about how powerful GIMP was, and my Mac didn't come with even a basic drawing tool, so I downloaded it. Lasted... oh, maybe 2 minutes.

The issue came when I wanted to draw a line. Now, every other graphics program I've used has a "line" tool, somewhere in plain sight. Observe:
http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows-vista/Using-Paint
http://www.extropia.com/tutorials/photoshop/line_tool.html ...and so on. Such was not the case for GIMP. In GIMP, you use the Shift key with other tools to draw lines. Not an inherently bad way of doing things, I guess. But here's how you have to find out about it:

http://www.gimp.org/tutorials/Straight_Line/ (That's from the official GIMP site, mind you.)

Hey, GIMP guys. Screw you and your sarcastic screenshot telling me what the "Shift" button is. Your interface is the WEIRD one. People who use MS Paint or Photoshop or friggin' ClarisWorks - your potential customers - expect "line" to be a tool, not a key. And it's not like the key is entitled "Shift Or Draw Straight Lines In Some Linux Programs." It is NON-OBVIOUS that this would be the manner you draw lines. I don't care that I had to look up how to use a new interface, but don't act like I'm supposed to psychically fucking know ahead of time how your arbitrary interface works.

Note how both MS Paint and Photoshop are way MORE straightforward in this operation, and yet avoid sarcasm in their tutorials.