Slashdot Mirror

All new ergonomic keyboards from MS do not have "Insert" key. But thankfully they still sell old models.

That's not actually accurate (unless you mean "not all do have"). Two of the five ergonomic keyboards that appear in their catalogue have the standard 3x2 layout with "Insert", as does this other one that's listed separately. Another has a 2x3 layout, though it's not possible to make out whether "Insert" is there. The remaining two have the bigger "Del" key that you describe.

Seems to me that in the last year or so Microsoft has done a bit of a swing away from messing around with novel layouts for those keys.

Keyboards made in "past 27 years" minus keyboards made in past 2 years. MS started killing off "Insert" key on their keyboards and now some new Logitech and Genius keyboards have simply bigger "Del" key too, but no "Insert". Many ergonomic keyboards produced now do not have "Insert" key. All new ergonomic keyboards from MS do not have "Insert" key. But thankfully they still sell old models.

actually that is where you are wrong. For every million dollars ms spends on R&D they get something like $100 back.

And do you have any numbers actually supporting this?

Nearly every other division of MSFT is losing money with the exception of windows and office

You know, it may help to look things up before posting: it's so easy to Google for "Microsoft financial report", and it would really make you sound less stupid. Have a look here. MSFT has 5 divisions; 3 are big money makers (Client, makers of Windows, Business - owners of Office, and Server and Tools, mainly selling SQL Server), Entertainment and devices (mostly known around here for the XBox), made less money (only 178 millions in the 3 month ending Sept 30), but was still in the black, and only one division, Online Services, actually lost money (no surprise there).

If you marginalize either one of those products MSFt goes bankrupt in less than 10years.

You're so wrong it's not even funny. Look at the numbers again; in the 3 months ending September 30, the consolidated income for MSFT was $5999 million. The biggest earner was the Business division, with an operating income of $3311 million. Even if you completely remove all revenue from Office while still keeping all the related expenses (research, development, sales and so on), MSFT still ends up with an income of more than 2 billion in the three months, or 8+ billion anually. You're so far removed from reality I have to ask: doesn't it hurt to pull so much weird stuff from your nether regions?

So... what was it you were complaining about, again?

More or less, exactly what you pointed out :) -- you have to jump around through several different pages, sometimes branching through whole trees, to find out the properties and methods of one single object type. This is not easily discoverable. Sure, it's possible to find things out, but it's certainly not terribly easy nor fast. From a source code point of view, I can understand the reasons for listing which interfaces are implemented, but from an API perspective, why not include also the methods and properties themselves, all on the one page? That's easy enough to do with proper referencing and no need to duplicate content on the server, and keeps the reader from having to jump through so many hoops.

And, as you yourself note, in some cases the documentation doesn't even document things properly:

...there isn't actually any doc to describe the properties that are applicable to a TextCursor instance. 'course, the easiest answer is to hack up some test code to emit all the properties and see what's there, but that's certainly not ideal.

So again, it's possible, but neither easy nor fast. When I'm trying to get myself up to speed with either an API or a bunch of source code, the last thing I want to be doing is wasting time and energy due to poor organization of the docs.

In contrast to the maze of twisty passages that is the OOo documentation, let's look at Microsoft's documentation for the Selection object for MS Word, roughly similar in some ways to Writer's TextCursor. Here, we have all properties and methods listed on one page, with no need to click and click just to find the names of what properties and methods a Selection object has. As much as I quite dislike MS for how they conduct business, their documentation puts just about any FOSS project, and certainly OOo, to shame.

Cheers,

But Salesforce doesn't compete with Microsoft.

oh yes they do. MS Dynamics CRM had its hosted version launched recently. http://www.microsoft.com/dynamics/crm/product/hosted.mspx

So far every single doc I have had sent to me I have been opening just fine, probably because most places have Office set for "compatibility" mode doc saving anyway. And if I do run into one the compatibility pack is just a few seconds away. So why bother jumping on the treadmill and have to toss out a whole pile of working hardware just for the privilege of using a ribbon interface I frankly can't stand?

And in all the years I have been working on PCs I have had exactly ONE document that was sent to me in a funky MSFT format I couldn't read(damned if I can recall which format, but it was a non standard funky one) and there was no freeware that I could find or Office addon that would allow me to open it. I simply wrote the nice lady an email pointing out that the format she used was a non standard format that couldn't be accessed without that particular piece of software, and could she please pick "save as" under the file menu and see if there is a way to send it as a Word Document(.doc) or a Rich Text File(.RTF)? Not an hour later I got an email from her saying sorry about that and with an attached word doc. So I would say it would probably be quite easy to write the person a nice email stating the reason why I couldn't read their document and most likely I would get a new version in a format I could read. Most folks just want to get the job done and a little kindness and understanding goes a long way.

And as for try it under Linux? You do realize I am a Windows repairman,right? With Linux I would pretty much have to throw everything out and start over, as all the apps I require to do my job are Windows based. And I have tried on several occasions to sell Linux desktops and the simple fact is 99% of the hardware sold in your average Walmart simply doesn't work with Linux. So between that and the fact that here a good 85% of the households have Lexmark all in ones Linux is a non starter for me. Again it simply isn't worth beating myself up simply for the privilege of NOT running a MSFT OS or Office Suite, when both were quite cheap and paid for years ago. So if OO.o on Linux works for you then great! But for me Linux simply isn't an option.

Go to that link you posted. Look at the Outlook 2007 sitting on the first page along with all the other Office applications.

The version they are offering to students is actually their highest tier Office retail product (non-volume licensed):
http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/products/FX101635841033.aspx

It normally costs an egregious $680 USD! The whole idea with that promotion is to see if it curtails piracy of Office on college campuses by providing their best version of it for a pittance.

Sure I'm sure there are lock-in motivations among other motives behind it, but that is pretty damn good deal on Microsoft's part.

The OS does no checking on files you work with. Windows Media Player will of course check media files you play to see if they are DRM'd, just as every media player does. This is part of the process by which it determines the media format type, i.e. is it an MP3? A WMA? A DRM'd WMA? This works exactly the same on Vista as on XP, and is the same sort of check iTunes and other apps do. There is no overhead here beyond that required to determine the difference between an MP3 and a WMA, and it only occurs at the time a file is loaded.

What Vista provides above and beyond XP is something called Protected Media Path. This is similar to Windows XP's Certified Output Protection Protocol, but more sophisticated.

Protected Media Path allows for a great many possible restrictions on both audio and video output, including those defined by HDCP. And since it is a protected process, it allows decoders to be run in a context that prevents them from being manipulated or attacked (i.e. having their memory scanned for secret keys and such). Whether there is any overhead for using PMP to host your decoder is debateable, if there is any it should be negligible at worst. It's the same code running, whether it runs in your app's process or in mfpmp.exe instead. Yes there's IPC overhead, but lots of media player do out-of-proc hosting anyway so that a bad decoder won't crash the media player and to dodge certain security issues like heap spraying attacks.

What's important, though, is that this is an API that applications *CAN* use, not something that is imposed on applications or users. The Protected Media Path code will only get loaded and used if an application specifically calls MFCreatePMPMediaSession. It will cause the application-provided code to be hosted inside the protected process (mfpmp.exe). You won't see mfpmp.exe running unless an application has specifically invoked it via that API call - which would most likely happen because you are playing a BluRay disc with a player that has decided to make use of PMP.

Windows Media Player on Vista does use PMP for all media decoding, and suffers no ill effects from it. However, you do have a problem with it, just use Winamp or some other player that doesn't invoke PMP.

Like I said, having the support for DRM or output protections like HDCP won't affect you at all if you don't use media (or applications) that request or require that support. It just allows developers to run their code in a protected space and place what restrictions they want on their content. It make no determination about whether such restrictions are necessary, wise, or just. It's just an API. APIs can be used for good or for evil, if you have a problem with how a BluRay app uses the PMP API, then complain to Sony or the app developer =)

I'm guessing from the "Ultimate" legend on many of the screenshots, the pricing structure hasn't changed. We can expect to wade through at least 3 differing releases with various capabilities turned on and off, while "Ultimate" is dangled over our heads for over $300.

Windows also can't seem to shake the Windows 2000/95 desktop style. The style in XP seems like a thin skin painted over this 13-year-old design (read: hack). But I thought Vista offered a complete redesign of the display infrastructure. Instead, Vista surprised me that if you don't like Aero's color choices and over-sized widgets, you're only choice is to downgrade to the old Windows 2000 look, which is apparently still around for the ride. My guess is Windows 7 is the same?

Also I doubt your claim that Aero actually does TTF rendering on the GPU, do you have any references to back that up?

Ask and ye shall receive:

One of the most important factors in determining WPF performance is that it is render boundâ"the more pixels you have to render, the greater the performance cost. However, the more rendering that can be offloaded to the graphics processing unit (GPU), the more performance benefits you can gain. The WPF application hardware rendering pipeline takes full advantage of Microsoft DirectX features on hardware that supports a minimum of Microsoft DirectX version 7.0. Further optimizations can be gained by hardware that supports Microsoft DirectX version 7.0 and PixelShader 2.0+ features.

Source: Optimizing Performance: Taking Advantage of Hardware

Tier 2: Text rendering--Sub-pixel font rendering uses available pixel shaders on the graphics hardware.

Source: Graphics Rendering Tiers.

ClearType in Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF) can take advantage of hardware acceleration for better performance and to reduce CPU load and system memory requirements. By using the pixel shaders and video memory of a graphics card, ClearType provides faster rendering of text, particularly when animation is used.

Source: ClearType Overview
See also: Typography in Windows Presentation Foundation

Also I doubt your claim that Aero actually does TTF rendering on the GPU, do you have any references to back that up?

Ask and ye shall receive:

One of the most important factors in determining WPF performance is that it is render boundâ"the more pixels you have to render, the greater the performance cost. However, the more rendering that can be offloaded to the graphics processing unit (GPU), the more performance benefits you can gain. The WPF application hardware rendering pipeline takes full advantage of Microsoft DirectX features on hardware that supports a minimum of Microsoft DirectX version 7.0. Further optimizations can be gained by hardware that supports Microsoft DirectX version 7.0 and PixelShader 2.0+ features.

Source: Optimizing Performance: Taking Advantage of Hardware

Tier 2: Text rendering--Sub-pixel font rendering uses available pixel shaders on the graphics hardware.

Source: Graphics Rendering Tiers.

ClearType in Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF) can take advantage of hardware acceleration for better performance and to reduce CPU load and system memory requirements. By using the pixel shaders and video memory of a graphics card, ClearType provides faster rendering of text, particularly when animation is used.

Source: ClearType Overview
See also: Typography in Windows Presentation Foundation

Also I doubt your claim that Aero actually does TTF rendering on the GPU, do you have any references to back that up?

Ask and ye shall receive:

One of the most important factors in determining WPF performance is that it is render boundâ"the more pixels you have to render, the greater the performance cost. However, the more rendering that can be offloaded to the graphics processing unit (GPU), the more performance benefits you can gain. The WPF application hardware rendering pipeline takes full advantage of Microsoft DirectX features on hardware that supports a minimum of Microsoft DirectX version 7.0. Further optimizations can be gained by hardware that supports Microsoft DirectX version 7.0 and PixelShader 2.0+ features.

Source: Optimizing Performance: Taking Advantage of Hardware

Tier 2: Text rendering--Sub-pixel font rendering uses available pixel shaders on the graphics hardware.

Source: Graphics Rendering Tiers.

ClearType in Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF) can take advantage of hardware acceleration for better performance and to reduce CPU load and system memory requirements. By using the pixel shaders and video memory of a graphics card, ClearType provides faster rendering of text, particularly when animation is used.

Source: ClearType Overview
See also: Typography in Windows Presentation Foundation

Also I doubt your claim that Aero actually does TTF rendering on the GPU, do you have any references to back that up?

Ask and ye shall receive:

One of the most important factors in determining WPF performance is that it is render boundâ"the more pixels you have to render, the greater the performance cost. However, the more rendering that can be offloaded to the graphics processing unit (GPU), the more performance benefits you can gain. The WPF application hardware rendering pipeline takes full advantage of Microsoft DirectX features on hardware that supports a minimum of Microsoft DirectX version 7.0. Further optimizations can be gained by hardware that supports Microsoft DirectX version 7.0 and PixelShader 2.0+ features.

Source: Optimizing Performance: Taking Advantage of Hardware

Tier 2: Text rendering--Sub-pixel font rendering uses available pixel shaders on the graphics hardware.

Source: Graphics Rendering Tiers.

ClearType in Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF) can take advantage of hardware acceleration for better performance and to reduce CPU load and system memory requirements. By using the pixel shaders and video memory of a graphics card, ClearType provides faster rendering of text, particularly when animation is used.

Source: ClearType Overview
See also: Typography in Windows Presentation Foundation

XP can do 64-bit just fine, and has been able to for several years; even before Vista came out.

What you ask exists. Vista Virtual Store. Basically, if your crappy app writes to "C:\program files" in vista and you are running as a standard user, Vista will do exactly what you describe... it will redirect the file IO to a place owned by the user, not the system.

Microsoft legally sells student licensing of MS Office 2007 for $60. It isn't the same package as the entreprise version. It lacks Outlook for instance. I pay $400 per seat for Office licenses at work, but on campus with a student ID, you can get Office for $60.

http://www.microsoft.com/student/discounts/theultimatesteal-us/default.aspx

Except that Microsoft has implemented this one. It's called FlexGO

And, it actually makes sense for the intended audience--developing nations.

Oh man, you're living in a dream world. Granted the auto industry could probably burn through 30 billion in a few months but Microsoft seems to know what they are doing.

http://www.microsoft.com/msft/reports/ar08/10k_fh_fin.html

It amuses me that the geek can't see the irony in admitting that the transition to gainful employment implies mastery of MS Office.

The $60 Ultimate Steal:

Word 2007, Excel 2007, PowerPoint 2007, Outlook 2007, One Note 2007, Groove 2007, Publisher 2007, Access 2007, InfoPath 2007, Accounting Express 2008.

The offer is open to part-time students, students of community colleges and business schools like Bryant and Stratton.

It's not a bad investment, if you are in the job market or very soon will be.

This isn't intended for the developed world. See: this

Autoruns by sysinternals is a much better program. Microsoft keeps it updated here http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb963902.aspx

Process Explorer is also another good program for killing running spyware and viruses prior to their removal (to unlock files for deletion). http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb896653.aspx

Autoruns by sysinternals is a much better program. Microsoft keeps it updated here http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb963902.aspx

Process Explorer is also another good program for killing running spyware and viruses prior to their removal (to unlock files for deletion). http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb896653.aspx

have a look at microsoft sharepoint, they have document checkout so you can see exactly who did what with the document http://www.microsoft.com/Sharepoint/default.mspx

And this major feature is used in MS apps outside of the core OS, then I'm sure it's well documented somewhere, so competing developers can apply it, right?

Yes, absolutely. It's part of Vista/Win2008 system API. I even gave the link to the API documentation on my initial post on the subject, but here it is, for convenience.

Thanks for confirming that Win7 is an incremental release from Vista.

You're welcome (though I'm just a random guy, so what does my confirmation really matter?), but this isn't news in any way - the fact that the non-marketing version number for Win7 will be "NT 6.1" has been known for a while, and all Win7 builds released to the public so far respond to "ver" as "6.1.xxxx".

At the same time, it's actually what makes me somewhat optimistic about this release. Like I said at the beginning of this thread, Vista has a solid technical base. Yes, it broke a lot of things from XP, and most of that was justified for the sake of moving forward. However, the UI/Shell layer was very unpolished in many cases (such as that slow file copy problem - you'd only see that if you copy using Explorer, not if you used a third-party file manager or just "copy foo bar" from command line).

That, and the OS was really released before it was ready - it's telling that Win2008, which is built from the very same codebase as Vista, was released together with Vista SP1, and not with the original version - personally, I take it as an acknowledgement that Win2008 team realized that the codebase as it was at the time of Vista release was not stable enough for a server (and I don't see why the core services of my desktop should be any less stable than a server!).

Now with Win7, they're doing a lot of cleanup and optimization specifically in the areas most often complained about (for example, I've seen a lot of people now say that UAC specifically is faster to pop up, and smarter in that it doesn't double- and triple-ask). And making things 1) faster, and 2) more polished, is precisely what Vista needs to be a good OS.

There had been a significant top-level management change, too (a while ago, actually, but it is only going to affect this release of Windows). Win7 is managed from the beginning by Stefen Sinofsky, the guy who was previously behind the Office 2007 release (and unlike the flop which was Vista, Office 2007 is an extremely successful product on the whole - check the box sales numbers - and probably the best recent MS release). Given that a lot of Vista woes were associated with bad management, it can also make a lot of difference.

"how do we, or can we trace documents and find if they are being opened or used somewhere where they weren't intended?"

"if one of our documents were opened in a foreign country, that would arouse suspicions."

"Logging access" is exactly what he's trying to do. The idea here would be at least knowing, and if you've only given a document to one external entity, you know you have a leak somewhere within that entity or your own organization. Simple managed watermarking can help to discover which.

And DRM in general may be broken, but it's not that black and white: DRM does prevent some casual theft of content, because it's a hassle...that's all anyone with a brain -- and who has paid attention to anything in digital media for the last decade and still employs DRM -- expects anymore.

Those who which to pirate content will ALWAYS be able to do so, regardless of any protections put in place. Perhaps someday those who favor DRM will realize that the losses from hassle to honest customers or prospective customers outweighs anything "gained" from having DRM in place.

But back to the issue at hand, which is a different one: an organization wants to track -- and potentially prevent, under some circumstances -- access to original documents representing proprietary data. A "DRM" model (like that employed by Microsoft Rights Management Server) can help to accomplish this. Of course, once someone discovers it's in place, then any number of untrackable circumvention options, such as those you mentioned, can easily be employed. So, the best option for this case is passive tracking/logging.

There is no patch!

"Systems with Microsoft SQL Server 7.0 Service Pack 4, Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Service Pack 3, and Microsoft SQL Server 2008 are not affected by this issue."

The best solution to your problem probably would be using Microsoft's AD RMS.

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc753531.aspx

AD RMS provides you with the ability to control licensing, opening, printing, etc. of documents. This will provide you with the audit trail you migh tneed.

Of course, you can still photograph every screen while scrolling through the pages, so it's essentially worthless in practice, but it might satisfy your customers demands for proper paperworks.

Yep, implementing AD RMS will be a heck a lot of work, and you'll surely need to adjust your internal processes in order to incorporate AD RMS.

What you're planning on doing is DRM: Which is, as all Slashdot readers know, impossible with a properly determined person. And in your case (industrial espionage), there are better people working on it than a few hackers that try cracking Blue-Ray in their spare time.

See topic - MS do something which seems to be essentially *exactly* what you want, and since you are using MS Office, I would suggest giving it a try.

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsserver2003/technologies/rightsmgmt/default.mspx

SP3 was released on 15-Dec:

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=ae7387c3-348c-4faa-8ae5-949fdfbe59c4&displaylang=en

After having read through more than half the currently 400+ comments, I've come back up here to respond to this one, the first instance of "I setup my $ANCIENT_RELATIVE with $MY_FAVORITE_FLAVOR_OF_LINUX over $RANDOM_INTEGER years ago, and they love it! Not only that, but just recently ... $MY_FAVORITE_FLAVOR_OF_LINUX is the bee's knees for elderly with NO previous computer experience!!!

I didn't say that my Dad had no previous experience, in fact he'd had many years on Mac, but we couldn't afford an upgrade to OSX with a new Mac. After reading a lot of reviews and testing several distros myself, Ubuntu won.
It isn't a *nix/windows flamewar on my part. I just stated my experience, just like the many others have. It is also my experience that Ubuntu is really very good for those without computer experience and it is VERY easy to use. Far, far easier to learn that XP IMHO. I do up old computers and give them away to refugee families and disadvantaged students with Ubuntu or Xubuntu on them with a lot of success.
After my Dad had been on Ubuntu for a while, one of my brothers gave him a newer windows machine. He ran XP for a bit, then (can't remember which) either installed Ubuntu himself on it or asked me to.

Where an elderly person is used to XP, stick with it, just give them a limited user account, run Avast. Don't run any 3rd party firewalls, they have too many confusing pop-ups. Disable as many pop-ups as you can. Cut the menus down to the few apps they use, put shortcuts on the Desktop for those apps. Consider using Windows Steadystate to limit the damage they can do to the system.

Happy now cupcake?

As for all the comments recommending linux, well, this is slashdot?

Slashdot does it again with quality reporting. From the very first paragraph of the MS advisory:

"Systems with Microsoft SQL Server 7.0 Service Pack 4, Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Service Pack 3, and Microsoft SQL Server 2008 are not affected by this issue."

So it's "unpatched", unless you installed the service pack. First rate reporting here.

The best thing to do would be to install Windows SteadyState

It's designed for shared computers, but once set up it can reset the computer back to the default state on each boot, perfect for a parent or child without great computer skills. It's a free download too. Not sure but I think it can be set to allow saving to a particular drive or folder to at least allow for some permanence of data.

Clean XP/Vista Load,
Setup your admin account
Get printers/office/drivers updates ect
Install your fav winvnc software (ultra vnc, gotomypc ect)
Test machine, ect
Install Windows SteadyState >>> http://www.microsoft.com/windows/products/winfamily/sharedaccess/default.mspx

create new user account for user
setup account walk user though account, save settings
use Windows SteadyState to lock down new account

make ghost/XML drive image(s) of machine

your done!

this is also great for Hotels and Public Terminals!!!

Microsoft has a product you can download for free called Windows SteadyState. Here is the URL: http://www.microsoft.com/windows/products/winfamily/sharedaccess/ This tool works. It is a bit of a pain to set up, but not too much extra work. The PC can be set to act like a diskless PC and hence no real harm gets done when people try to change things or go to sites that are not totally safe. You will have to manage the anti-virus manually via remote login, or decide not to uese the most hardened settings. This may or may not be what you want, but it does make it easier to set up a system people can use for basic tasks (they need to know to keep data on a flash drive), and have some security that it won't get messed up by users you can't control very well. At least the price is right! I have to say, I also would rather give someone a Mac, but many people know and want XP or another MS OS. Either way, be sure to have a remote access tool installed so you can manage the box via the net. Good Luck!

This way when they turn off the PC, it will simply revert to the same way you set it up, regardless of what stupidity they do.

Here's a link:

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/products/winfamily/sharedaccess/default.mspx

Please provide us with the most recent scientific breakthrough not carried out by a government funded lab or subsidized university.

How about Microsoft Research?

While I'm a major critic of Microsoft as a company, some of their basic research activities are simply amazing and certainly aren't done through government subsidies.

Microsoft certainly isn't alone here, and private R&D does happen by forward thinking individuals and companies. IBM is another company who has done some incredible pure research into material science and nano-technology.

Yes, I understand that the government is a major player in scientific research, but it doesn't have to be the only game in town. Certainly relying on only the government to come up with new ideas is a horrible approach for society, and incredibly wasteful of economic resources.

Also, what needs the government has for scientific research are not necessarily things that are needed by ordinary people, for businesses, or even society as a whole. Is there a role for government-sponsored research? Yes! But it isn't the only nor should it be the only possible place for science to be advanced.

BTW, the old AT&T Bell Labs came up with a host of original and innovative scientific advancements.... all coming from non-government dollars. What is left now is a shadow of what it used to be, however this is a direct result of government interference in the company and not as a result of a lack of interest in basic research. Just look at the wiki article about Bell Labs and you can find hundreds of scientific break throughs that came from this non-government sources.

I'll answer his question, since he didn't ask about installing Ubunghole.

Windows has a great many features which would help for this. I'll assume Windows XP or higher. You can use the Accessibility Options to enable a lot of good features for people with difficulty seeing, among other things-
http://www.microsoft.com/enable/products/windowsxp/default.aspx

Adjusting the Fonts, Icon size, and the use of the Magnifyer will generally be most useful. The others may be a big help, depending on the situation.

My mother doesn't have bad eyesight, but she does poke around and try installing stuff she shouldn't. For that situation, you need to simply have it autologon into a restricted account. There isn't much damage she can do without being an administrator.

And if you want a "set and forget" web browsing machine, I always recommend virus/spyware/firewall protection. I'm liking Avast antivirus, the free version has any features you would want, and auto-updates. For spyware, you want to protect the machine from getting infected in the first place, so use SpywareBlaster. It's free if you want to manual update, but I recommend paying the $10/year to enable the autoupdate features- SpywareBlaster is great software, and supporting them with the nominal fee is a win for everyone. Spybot S&D likewise has an immunize feature, but no autoupdate, but it also has a very good spyware scanner (but if you are using SpywareBlaster, it shouldn't catch anything anyway).

Finally, you can go with Windows Firewall, but I recommend using ZoneAlarm. They also have a free edition, and it's all just about anyone would need.

Windows is easy and secure if you know what you are doing. Sadly... most people here don't, which is why they have problems.

Your lack of knowledge about windows doesnt make windows bad
For example he could use restore points.
He could set folder permission, to protect against destruction.
Or just some simple backup program like Paragon, and a boot CD.
He might also lock down XP, there are excellent reads about how to do that.
YOu might get a start here http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb457006.aspx
So you could write your own policies, and only allow for certain programs to execute.
Windows is a verry open aplication environment, so how about helping your parents remotely
I help my parents sometimes using http://www.logmein.com/ when i cannot be there.

Oh and yes my parents use vista, so there is verry little change they will get mallware installed.

Altough i believe microsoft could still improve their OS.
It is still a best choice for older people, due too its interface standards.

...for a senior, you'd want to look at the various Accessibility Options.

Also install SteadyState as soon as you're sure about the machine's final setup. :D

...for a senior, you'd want to look at the various Accessibility Options.

Also install SteadyState as soon as you're sure about the machine's final setup. :D

I wonder if they will let you buy the windows 7 upgrade for xp though?

From what I've seen over the years, Microsoft generally allows "upgrade" versions to work on at least the two previous versions. Upgrade versions of Vista work on Windows XP and Windows 2000. Upgrade versions of XP work on Windows 2000, NT 4, ME, and 98. Upgrade versions of Office 2007 work on Office 2000, XP, and 2003.

I wonder if they will let you buy the windows 7 upgrade for xp though?

From what I've seen over the years, Microsoft generally allows "upgrade" versions to work on at least the two previous versions. Upgrade versions of Vista work on Windows XP and Windows 2000. Upgrade versions of XP work on Windows 2000, NT 4, ME, and 98. Upgrade versions of Office 2007 work on Office 2000, XP, and 2003.

UAC can ask for a username/password however.

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc709691.aspx

Look for "To change the elevation prompt behavior for administrators"

A lot of really interesting new Vista features are under the hood and only visible for developers. For example, how about a true transacted file system & registry - so you can start a transaction, create directories and move files around, write into those files, maybe delete some - and then just roll it all back with a single API call or on a system crash, with guaranteed atomicity, while no other process in the system sees any of your changes until you commit them? I'm not aware of anything even remotely similar in previous versions of Windows (or any Linux-supported FS, for that matter). And the utility of this feature should be pretty obvious to most developers - finally, you won't need a full-featured journalled database (on top of an already journalled FS) for small-scale data storage just because you happen to need atomic updates!

For the extra $150, Dell will throw in the free Virtual Desktop Manager to go with your copy of XP.

If they do it for the Xbox360, then it might stand to reason that Media Center might follow? Dunno, the whole article is nothing more than speculation at this point. But it's from someone (Shane Kim) who, if anyone knew if it were a possibility/in the pipeline, it would be him.

Don't forget that you can extend that evaluation license time to 180 days through MS-approved methods:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/948472

Wow, Apple people are very ego-centric.
Microsoft aquired connectix because they wanted to move into the virtualization space, and the company clearly had experience with Windows.
http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/2003/Feb03/02-19PartitionPR.mspx

Is everything Microsoft does an attack on what you hold dear?

Yeah, because Windows customer service is just so amazing! Only yesterday my PC was crashing for no obvious reason, and I phoned up Microsoft and they sent someone over to my house to fix it, all for free.

Not.

Right, because you can do that with Ubuntu or any other Linux distro.

Not.

Actually I don't even know if you can get support from Microsoft. I certainly don't know anyone who's ever done so.

Just because you don't know if it can be done, or know anyone that has done it, doesn't mean it's not available (which it is). They even give you free support with Vista SP1 via phone, email, or online chat. Really, no joke.
Right here.

Of course, if you bough a PC with Windows installed, your first line of support will be the vendor, just like if it was a dell with Ubuntu installed.

But don't let facts get in the way of your bias!

If you want help fixing Windows, you basically have to ask volunteers on the Internet. At which point, you're in exactly the same position as you would be with Linux. So, why do people think Windows has a support advantage? Beats me.

Because it does. Simple as that.

Contig (part of the Sysinternals suite) will do this on a file-by-file basis. I have this setup nightly to go through my user directory and defrag individual files which tends to speed the system up a fair bit.