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Except it's Microsoft who calls themselves an innovator. The Ayn Rand Institute even said during the MS trial that MS should be allowed to innovate. And MS had it's own Freedom to Innovate campaign.

Looks like the list is right on Microsoft's website.

In the case of a large botnet, instead of each security company trying to compete for user downloads (e.g. Symantec, AVG, Kapersky, Microsoft OneCare, etc) they should all get together, make one free download that specifically targets and eradicates the botnet source on the computer (on any OS) and ensure it gets shoved through all the distrubution channels like Microsoft download, Linux package installers, other tool updates, etc. Maybe the botnet is too complicated for this. I don't know the detials. However I know it's within the software companies' reaches to work together in spcial situations.

Something like Microsoft's Malicious Software Removal Tool, you mean? Sure, it's not crossplatform, but really, what other platforms have serious virus problems?

Yes it is.

According to this article:

http://www.betanews.com/article/1079773789

Microsoft bought Webcorp in 1993, Windows for Workgroups was first released in October of 1992 according to this document http://support.microsoft.com/kb/126746 from MS. WfWG was in development for more than a year before they bought Webcorp and was released at least several months before.

What's more, WfWG was not just an add-on for Windows. It was really the entire basis of Windows 95. It introduced the VMM model that Windows 95 was basically entirely based on. Also, the networking stack of WfWG was the same stack that was built into NT, which they had licensed from Spider Software and was based on a licensed version of the BSD stack (predating the first open source release of BSD) and STREAMS technology.

I'm just a bit too paranoid to right away break out the "run as admin" option as a first troubleshooting step. Process Monitor is a fantastic little tool for figuring out what an uncooperative app is trying and failing to access. Sometimes it's just a case of loosening permissions on one particular directory or reg key, and I like to try that before giving anything blanket admin privileges.

Yeah. But...

Holy Shit.

Imagine how cool it would be to apply that technology directly to the vast Flickr image catalog.

Kernel mode? I thought it is all run in user mode and inside a single process but in separate threads.

It all runs in kernel mode. If you're verifying that the "processes" don't do anything bad, why wouldn't you run them in kernel mode? That eliminates the context switch for any system calls.

And cut down that flaming part a bit or I'll tell you mom ;)

If people wouldn't talk about things they don't understand, there won't be any need.

With an astonishing 62% premium price of its current stock price, Microsoft sent this proposal to the Yahoo! Board of Directors. Here's the . Actually, part of the premium price is explainable by the recent sunk of Yahoo! stock.

January 31, 2008

Board of Directors
Yahoo! Inc.
701 First Avenue
Sunnyvale, CA 94089
Attention: Roy Bostock, Chairman
Attention: Jerry Yang, Chief Executive Officer

Dear Members of the Board:

I am writing on behalf of the Board of Directors of Microsoft to make a proposal for a business combination of Microsoft and Yahoo!. Under our proposal, Microsoft would acquire all of the outstanding shares of Yahoo! common stock for per share consideration of $31 based on Microsoft's closing share price on January 31, 2008, payable in the form of $31 in cash or 0.9509 of a share of Microsoft common stock. Microsoft would provide each Yahoo! shareholder with the ability to choose whether to receive the consideration in cash or Microsoft common stock, subject to pro-ration so that in the aggregate one-half of the Yahoo! common shares will be exchanged for shares of Microsoft common stock and one-half of the Yahoo! common shares will be converted into the right to receive cash. Our proposal is not subject to any financing condition.

Our proposal represents a 62% premium above the closing price of Yahoo! common stock of $19.18 on January 31, 2008. The implied premium for the operating assets of the company clearly is considerably greater when adjusted for the minority, non-controlled assets and cash. By whatever financial measure you use - EBITDA, free cash flow, operating cash flow, net income, or analyst target prices - this proposal represents a compelling value realization event for your shareholders.

We believe that Microsoft common stock represents a very attractive investment opportunity for Yahoo!'s shareholders. Microsoft has generated revenue growth of 15%, earnings growth of 26%, and a return on equity of 35% on average for the last three years. Microsoft's share price has generated shareholder returns of 8% during the last one year period and 28% during the last three year period, significantly outperforming the S&P 500. It is our view that Microsoft has significant potential upside given the continued solid growth in our core businesses, the recent launch of Windows Vista, and other strategic initiatives.

Microsoft's consistent belief has been that the combination of Microsoft and Yahoo! clearly represents the best way to deliver maximum value to our respective shareholders, as well as create a more efficient and competitive company that would provide greater value and service to our customers. In late 2006 and early 2007, we jointly explored a broad range of ways in which our two companies might work together. These discussions were based on a vision that the online businesses of Microsoft and Yahoo! should be aligned in some way to create a more effective competitor in the online marketplace. We discussed a number of alternatives ranging from commercial partnerships to a merger proposal, which you rejected. While a commercial partnership may have made sense at one time, Microsoft believes that the only alternative now is the combination of Microsoft and Yahoo! that we are proposing.

In February 2007, I received a letter from your Chairman indicating the view of the Yahoo! Board that "now is not the right time from the perspective of our shareholders to enter into discus

You don't need silverlight, silverlight just shows static jpg images that are also on the website:

http://www.microsoft.com/heroeshappenhere/comicviewer/Images/Week1_Day1_full.jpg
http://www.microsoft.com/heroeshappenhere/comicviewer/Images/Week1_Day2_full.jpg
http://www.microsoft.com/heroeshappenhere/comicviewer/Images/Week1_Day3_full.jpg

You don't need silverlight, silverlight just shows static jpg images that are also on the website:

http://www.microsoft.com/heroeshappenhere/comicviewer/Images/Week1_Day1_full.jpg
http://www.microsoft.com/heroeshappenhere/comicviewer/Images/Week1_Day2_full.jpg
http://www.microsoft.com/heroeshappenhere/comicviewer/Images/Week1_Day3_full.jpg

You don't need silverlight, silverlight just shows static jpg images that are also on the website:

http://www.microsoft.com/heroeshappenhere/comicviewer/Images/Week1_Day1_full.jpg
http://www.microsoft.com/heroeshappenhere/comicviewer/Images/Week1_Day2_full.jpg
http://www.microsoft.com/heroeshappenhere/comicviewer/Images/Week1_Day3_full.jpg

It says that, and yet in the Why Silverlight? section, it promises "Compelling Cross-Platform User Experiences" and "Consistent experiences between Windows-based and Macintosh computers". So I guess what they mean is compelling and consistent experiences across all the platforms you're liscenced to use it on?

Looks like static jpgs to me

http://www.microsoft.com/heroeshappenhere/comicviewer/Images/Week1_Day1_full.jpg

You must have read the license with a PC. I'm using FireFox on a Mac - when I clicked the link to read the license agreement, I was directed to a page with "MICROSOFT SOFTWARE LICENSE TERMS FOR FIREFOX 1.5+ AND SAFARI ON MACINTOSH OSX 10.4+". See http://www.microsoft.com/silverlight/license-mac.aspx
/K

Another funny...

If you install Silverlight, the license is specifically for XP SP2 (see here: http://www.microsoft.com/silverlight/license-Win.aspx). "INSTALLATION AND USE RIGHTS. You may install and use any number of copies of the software only with the browser and operating system software named above." Does that mean when SP3 comes out, your Silverlight license is invalidated?

Hi - I'm the Microsoft employee quoted in the ZDNet article. If you want to find out more about Microsoft's OXML policy positions please go to http://www.microsoft.com/office/openxmlpolicy or http://www.openxmlcommunity.org/ Regards, Nicos Tsilas

"While MINIX 3, QNX, Integrity, PikeOS, Symbian, L4Linux, Singularity, K42, HURD, Coyotos, and others [all microkernels] are an eclectic bunch; clearly I am not alone in seeing something in microkernels. If you are wondering why microkernels aren't even more widely used, well, there is a lot of inertia in the system. Why haven't Linux or Mac OS X replaced Windows? Well, there is a lot of inertia in the system. Most cars in Brazil can run on home-grown ethanol so Brazil uses relatively little oil for vehicle fuel. Why doesn't the U.S. do that and reduce its dependence on the volatile Middle East? Well, there is a lot of inertia in the system. Getting people to change, even to superior practices, is very hard."

I don't see the point in buying QNX. They already have Singularity which seems very interesting to me. Now I don't know much about microkernels but the idea looks nice. Let compiler handle all the nasty IPC stuff at compile time to lower the performance penalty which comes from process context switches and such.

It is missing "My Videos", "My Music" and any hint of fetching existing content from the hard disk.

You sure about that? Because I'm looking at my Microsoft Remote and it appears to have "My Music," "My Radio," "My Pictures," "My Videos" and "My TV" in that order. Personal experience with XP MCE is good, allowing me to point said folders to one or many places on my local hard drive, network drives or streaming servers (I'm not sure what the protocol is, but TVersity implements it well). Don't believe me? Check out the Remote, see the list of features or maybe look at this Guide to Burning Recorded TV shows to DVD.

Microsoft is not doing pesky Apple (or Hauppage) things and offering the users what they actually want. That is good ya know.

Most of the examples I hear are things that *nix-specific things that Microsoft does in other ways (SSH, X-Window), innovative things that MS said were going to be released with Vista that didn't quite make it (WinFS, PowerShell) or things that are easily obtained (Firefox). Another one is the removal of the HDCP system they use.

A lot of people give Microsoft crap for the Protected Video Path and all the HDCP support - but can you legally play a BluRay or HD DVD on OSX or a Linux distro? No, you can't (although, ironically, you can burn it in OSX). Sure, DRM sucks, but MS thought that the ability to play high-definition content would be important to people, so they did what they had to do to get media conglomerate approval. It's pissed a few people off, but that's the risk you get for being the first OS developer to do it. MS has taken hit and when Apple releases their own version of PVP/HDCP (and they will, unless something dramatic happens), it will pass under the radar.

I'm posted this anonymously because I don't want to take the karma hit when this post inevitably is marked as "flamebait."

It is missing "My Videos", "My Music" and any hint of fetching existing content from the hard disk.

You sure about that? Because I'm looking at my Microsoft Remote and it appears to have "My Music," "My Radio," "My Pictures," "My Videos" and "My TV" in that order. Personal experience with XP MCE is good, allowing me to point said folders to one or many places on my local hard drive, network drives or streaming servers (I'm not sure what the protocol is, but TVersity implements it well). Don't believe me? Check out the Remote, see the list of features or maybe look at this Guide to Burning Recorded TV shows to DVD.

Microsoft is not doing pesky Apple (or Hauppage) things and offering the users what they actually want. That is good ya know.

Most of the examples I hear are things that *nix-specific things that Microsoft does in other ways (SSH, X-Window), innovative things that MS said were going to be released with Vista that didn't quite make it (WinFS, PowerShell) or things that are easily obtained (Firefox). Another one is the removal of the HDCP system they use.

A lot of people give Microsoft crap for the Protected Video Path and all the HDCP support - but can you legally play a BluRay or HD DVD on OSX or a Linux distro? No, you can't (although, ironically, you can burn it in OSX). Sure, DRM sucks, but MS thought that the ability to play high-definition content would be important to people, so they did what they had to do to get media conglomerate approval. It's pissed a few people off, but that's the risk you get for being the first OS developer to do it. MS has taken hit and when Apple releases their own version of PVP/HDCP (and they will, unless something dramatic happens), it will pass under the radar.

I'm posted this anonymously because I don't want to take the karma hit when this post inevitably is marked as "flamebait."

Windows 7 is just a code name. I'm sure marketing will come up with a public name once it's closer to release.

However, even as code names go, "7" is a departure from "Longhorn", "Whistler", "Cairo" and others. Word on the street is that it's an effect of Sinofsky taking over leadership of the Windows org after leaving Office (where numbers have always been used for product code names).

http://www.microsoft.com/sql/prodinfo/features/compare-features.mspx

There. It has the service broker, doesn't have data driven notification... One thing thats nice, is that it can deal with "on the fly" attaching of database files...so you can use SQL Server databases a bit like you'd be using MS Access databases, or (I beleive, I've never used it) SQLite. Ship the application with the database file, and it will use it like (but not quite) it was an embedded database... Thats something the full version of SQL Server does -not- do. (pretty amusing when you have a 40 thousand dollars SQL Server install and an SQL Server feature from the free version doesn't work :) )

Fail.

Microsoft Updates.

Actually that really isn't funny. Microsoft Office (and I think maybe Microsoft Windows too) has long had a term in its EULA outlawing its use to write anything that might harm Microsoft's reputation or disparage their products.

Unfortunately, Microsoft makes their Microsoft Office EULA available for download only as an executable binary (.EXE) following a couple of download pages (containing a flashing Javascript pop up that moves about encouraging me to upgrade my browser to Internet Explorer)—I kid you not—making it difficult for me to check the latest terms on GNU/Linux.

If CAPTCHAs are easily hackable, why are they the best identification system out there? What is Google doing right that makes it so you never here about Gmail accounts being hacked into? Hell, Microsoft invents their own stupid system and Hotmail is still probably the most hacked e-mail accounts on the net.

Honestly, what gives... and more importantly... how come Google does it better?

I don't use IE any more, but when I did use to browse at "High" security settings. That turned off all the crap by disabling Javascript. Most sites work fine without it (Snopes included), and you can selectively "Trust" sites that need it.

http://www.microsoft.com/protect/computer/advanced/browsing.mspx

You can use sdelete on Windows

http://www.microsoft.com/technet/sysinternals/Security/SDelete.mspx

Secure Delete; http://www.microsoft.com/technet/sysinternals/Security/SDelete.mspx

I use this to zero out drive space on virtual machines, which allows for their virtual drive to be shrunk.

sdelete -p 2 -z -c -s c:\

It's batch scriptable to run in %tasks% nightly.

"Delete implements the Department of Defense clearing and sanitizing standard DOD 5220.22-M, to give you confidence that once deleted with SDelete, your file data is gone forever. Note that SDelete securely deletes file data, but not file names located in free disk space.

To overwrite file names of a file that you delete, SDelete renames the file 26 times, each time replacing each character of the file's name with a successive alphabetic character. For instance, the first rename of "foo.txt" would be to "AAA.AAA"."

So in other words, if you have a bunch of mp3's in a directory that is deleted - the mp3's data will be gone. But the filenames will be there, in the form of zzzzzzzz.zzz zzz.zzz zzzzzzzz.zzz

Now, if you trust Microsoft with this task, that's another story.

Nothing official, but I hear that the MinWin idea was based a lot on the Singularity project. The link has some papers, and there is some really interesting ideas there in terms of fast process isolation, etc. Sure, a microkernel is nothing new, but there are new ways of making a microkernel.

Microsoft's own website says that Vista requires 15GB to install. The authors probably confused requirements to install (which includes temporary files automatically deleted post-installation) and final installation size.

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/windowsvista/aa905075.aspx

Yes; if we're speaking of the kernel and not the full product, there's this picture of what was changed in Vista:
http://download.microsoft.com/download/9/c/5/9c5b2167-8017-4bae-9fde-d599bac8184a/kernel-en.doc

Yeah, that's pretty much what they are doing - only using Windows instead of Linux.

MS makes an OS like this - Windows Embedded. The philosophy appeals to me on some level, but for a consumer OS there are some negative implications. For instance, if I buy a new game that uses ActiveX but I chose not to install ActiveX when I installed the OS... well, now there is a search for my Windows disk and a reboot in my future and people will bitch about Windows requiring the original disk and reboots. Even if the reboot can be engineered out, it still sucks a bit.

I can't speak for everyone, but since I usually use an older version of Windows and buy pretty decent hardware, I just do a full install of Windows because performance isn't an issue. If I ever install Vista, it will be 2 or so years from now on a computer well above the recommended specs for Vista. I mostly don't ever want to insert the install disk again.

Idiotic?

To quote your link: "This is all a matter of protecting the trademark of 'LEGO' for the company (using it otherwise degenerates the strength of the trademark)."

I have absolutely no interest in using a clumsy, unintuitive wording just because the company in question would like so. Do you seriously write all your Microsoft-related text like this? I don't think so. Admittedly I have more respect for the Lego Group than Microsoft. Nevertheless, there's a limit where convenience overrides their wishes of trademark protection. It was their choice not to give a proper name for the actual product line. If they don't offer a usable one, people will make it up. Tough.

In my very humble opinion people who use "Legos" have more common sense than those who violently want to defend a form which doesn't fit into common language at all. Sacrificing fluent everyday speech to protect some random company's trademark is more idiotic to me. I most certainly know what they want. I simply don't care. It's their job to protect their trademarks, not mine.

C:\Windows\Assembly isn't backward compatibility, it's the .NET Framework Global Assembly Cache

I dug up the licensing FAQ, and you are right. The only products you can use for production/private use are Office, Project, and Visio (and even then only with MSDN Premium).

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=68C48DAD-BC34-40BE-8D85-6BB4F56F5110&displaylang=en

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/lifecycle/servicepacks.mspx

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/936929

https://forums.microsoft.com/TechNet/ShowForum.aspx?ForumID=2010&SiteID=17

Just a small effort will tell you lots about XP SP3.

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=68C48DAD-BC34-40BE-8D85-6BB4F56F5110&displaylang=en

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/lifecycle/servicepacks.mspx

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/936929

https://forums.microsoft.com/TechNet/ShowForum.aspx?ForumID=2010&SiteID=17

Just a small effort will tell you lots about XP SP3.

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=68C48DAD-BC34-40BE-8D85-6BB4F56F5110&displaylang=en

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/lifecycle/servicepacks.mspx

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/936929

https://forums.microsoft.com/TechNet/ShowForum.aspx?ForumID=2010&SiteID=17

Just a small effort will tell you lots about XP SP3.

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=68C48DAD-BC34-40BE-8D85-6BB4F56F5110&displaylang=en

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/lifecycle/servicepacks.mspx

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/936929

https://forums.microsoft.com/TechNet/ShowForum.aspx?ForumID=2010&SiteID=17

Just a small effort will tell you lots about XP SP3.

"The biggest slip is that if you upload a trojan horse back to someone who was downloading data from your machine, there's still no way to force the remote criminal's computer to run it, as happens in the movie."

This is actually how many worms have spread in the past, actually. If you can get files onto a windows box, you can probably execute them remotely (easy mode: you have acquired logon credentials or the box accepts null sessions).

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb897553.aspx

To be precise, Windows XP was released on 25 October, 2001.

And from what I've seen, there are still quite a number of people using 2000 at home and at work.

I don't know why you bother with Windows Vista SP1. Windows XP didn't work fairly well until SP2. Why not let the early adopters have the grief?

Sure, that's only my opinion, but I'm not the only one who thinks that way. For example, see Why all Vista users should upgrade to Windows XP.

A good indication of how Microsoft treats its customers is the fact that it has been more than 3 years since SP2 was released on 8/10/2004. Here is a quote from Paul Thurrott, who is over-the-top pro-Microsoft, and who often apologizes for Microsoft's abusiveness in a way that tries to make abusive behavior sound less destructive: ... the 100+ updates that Microsoft has shipped since SP2 can be a nightmare to deploy.

For those who use Linux, I will explain: Windows often becomes infected with malware. It sometimes becomes unstable on its own, too; Microsoft releases sloppy, unfinished software. So, it is often necessary to re-load Windows XP SP2. Once you have done that, it is at present necessary to re-load perhaps 100 Megabytes of bug fixes that have been released since SP2. That's why delaying Service Pack 3 for Windows XP has been so damaging to customers; customers have paid millions of dollars extra because of the tedious time-consuming task of loading the 100+ updates since SP2, one at a time.

Microsoft shut down Autopatcher, which was created by volunteers. Autopatcher was a method of making installing the patches semi-automatic. I think that shows the true situation: Volunteers have to do needed work. Microsoft, which could have delivered updates using the same method, avoided making it easier and cheaper to use Windows XP.

Why buy a new product from someone who has frequently abused you in the past?

This is the overall issue, in my opinion: Microsoft somehow established, during the DOS days, that it could charge the full product price for what are actually quite minor updates. (Many people are still using Windows 2000.) So the company makes a huge amount of money each time it brings out what is actually a new version of Windows 2000 with a new name. But things have changed. Users tend to be more technically knowledgeable now. They see no reason to change if what they have now is adequate, if somewhat annoying and expensive to maintain.

Windows 98 was an abuser's dream: It had an unstable file system, insuring that everyone would want to upgrade. Abusive company managers try to delay delivering a stable system, since most people don't want anything more from an operating system than stability.

It took Microsoft 3 years to make Windows XP stable and usable with less pain -- there were 3 years from the first release of XP until SP2 was released. Three years of pain, and since then only three years of relative stability? Is that acceptable, 50% pain? Why start the pain again, with Vista?

Microsoft needs the computer builders to advertise its new update of Windows 2000, called Windows Vista. Computer builders want to sell new computers. That's why Vista uses more resources. Vista is partly an attempt to make the present hardware obsolete.

However, people are beginning to understand better, and they are more difficult to manipulate now.

It seems sensible to me to wait to use Windows Vista until Vista SP2 or SP3 is released, and then a few months after that, to learn if the service pack works well.

Quote from Slashdot's story: "Microsoft also issued a new build of Windows XP SP3 this week, but it's getting next to no publicity out of Redmond..." Maybe so, but I can't find it. I found only an 12/10/2007 SP3, a release candidate, which is supposed to be an advanced beta version.

I don't know why you bother with Windows Vista SP1. Windows XP didn't work fairly well until SP2. Why not let the early adopters have the grief?

Sure, that's only my opinion, but I'm not the only one who thinks that way. For example, see Why all Vista users should upgrade to Windows XP.

A good indication of how Microsoft treats its customers is the fact that it has been more than 3 years since SP2 was released on 8/10/2004. Here is a quote from Paul Thurrott, who is over-the-top pro-Microsoft, and who often apologizes for Microsoft's abusiveness in a way that tries to make abusive behavior sound less destructive: ... the 100+ updates that Microsoft has shipped since SP2 can be a nightmare to deploy.

For those who use Linux, I will explain: Windows often becomes infected with malware. It sometimes becomes unstable on its own, too; Microsoft releases sloppy, unfinished software. So, it is often necessary to re-load Windows XP SP2. Once you have done that, it is at present necessary to re-load perhaps 100 Megabytes of bug fixes that have been released since SP2. That's why delaying Service Pack 3 for Windows XP has been so damaging to customers; customers have paid millions of dollars extra because of the tedious time-consuming task of loading the 100+ updates since SP2, one at a time.

Microsoft shut down Autopatcher, which was created by volunteers. Autopatcher was a method of making installing the patches semi-automatic. I think that shows the true situation: Volunteers have to do needed work. Microsoft, which could have delivered updates using the same method, avoided making it easier and cheaper to use Windows XP.

Why buy a new product from someone who has frequently abused you in the past?

This is the overall issue, in my opinion: Microsoft somehow established, during the DOS days, that it could charge the full product price for what are actually quite minor updates. (Many people are still using Windows 2000.) So the company makes a huge amount of money each time it brings out what is actually a new version of Windows 2000 with a new name. But things have changed. Users tend to be more technically knowledgeable now. They see no reason to change if what they have now is adequate, if somewhat annoying and expensive to maintain.

Windows 98 was an abuser's dream: It had an unstable file system, insuring that everyone would want to upgrade. Abusive company managers try to delay delivering a stable system, since most people don't want anything more from an operating system than stability.

It took Microsoft 3 years to make Windows XP stable and usable with less pain -- there were 3 years from the first release of XP until SP2 was released. Three years of pain, and since then only three years of relative stability? Is that acceptable, 50% pain? Why start the pain again, with Vista?

Microsoft needs the computer builders to advertise its new update of Windows 2000, called Windows Vista. Computer builders want to sell new computers. That's why Vista uses more resources. Vista is partly an attempt to make the present hardware obsolete.

However, people are beginning to understand better, and they are more difficult to manipulate now.

It seems sensible to me to wait to use Windows Vista until Vista SP2 or SP3 is released, and then a few months after that, to learn if the service pack works well.

Quote from Slashdot's story: "Microsoft also issued a new build of Windows XP SP3 this week, but it's getting next to no publicity out of Redmond..." Maybe so, but I can't find it. I found only an 12/10/2007 SP3, a release candidate, which is supposed to be an advanced beta version.