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Stories and comments across the archive that link to microsoft.com.

Comments · 34,132

  1. Re:Prior art? by SchroedingersCat · · Score: 0, Redundant · on Smartphones Patented — Just About Everyone Sued 1 Minute Later

    Motorola MPx200 released Oct 21st, 2003
    http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/features/2003/oct03/10-21smartphone.mspx
    SD slot for expansion
    Windows Media Player for mp3/view streaming over Internet
    Pocket Internet Explorer
    Pocket Outlook client
    etc etc etc

  2. Re:Completely useless. by dotancohen · · Score: 1 · on 2M New Websites a Year Compromised To Serve Malware

    http://update.microsoft.com/

  3. Re:In other news by maxume · · Score: 1 · on Motley Fool Writes Off Microsoft

    Bundled sales aren't necessarily profitable at all; they are however, essentially free revenue(their incremental revenue is whatever they get paid per license, the incremental cost is close to zero, someone else does the work in installing it and selling it; sunk costs could be higher than the revenues).

    Anyway, they took in about $4.3 billion in operating system revenues in the last three months and called about $3.3 billion of it income, see the 'client' numbers at the bottom of this page:

    http://www.microsoft.com/msft/earnings/FY08/earn_rel_q2_08.mspx

    That includes XP and whatnot, but it was larger than the previous number. Depending on just how much they spent on Vista(not all of which would be wasted right, as long as it is useful somewhere later...) and how much they eventually take in, the numbers could be pretty OK. Considering that they probably already wrote down most of the costs of developing Vista, that $3.3 billion in income is pretty nice.

    In the end, it depends on whether you think they will eventually make up those costs; their accounting isn't going to be set up so that they have to do it in two years to call it a profit...

  4. Who to believe? by BlueF · · Score: 1 · on Motley Fool Writes Off Microsoft

    "Aw, people can come up with statistics to prove anything, Kent. Forty percent of all people know that."

    Microsoft Profit Tops Estimates on Xbox; Shares Rise (bloomberg.com) http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=a2fCzio_sChs&refer=home

    Microsoft Reports Record Second Quarter Results (microsoft.com) http://www.microsoft.com/Presspass/press/2008/jan08/01-24fy08Q2earnings.mspx

  5. fortunes peaked by norbac · · Score: 1 · on Motley Fool Writes Off Microsoft

    "In fact, even Microsoft will tell you that its fortunes peaked several months ago."

    Yes, MS' quarterly report released yesterday is all doom and gloom. What with it's 30% increase in revenue and all.

  6. Re:Fewest Admitters = Fewest Flaws by rtb61 · · Score: 1 · on Microsoft Says Vista Has the Fewest Flaws
    You know I started looking, started compiling all the links and even found interesting bits of M$'s own site where the differentiate between discovery of a security vulnerability and disclosure (sic) of security vulnerability (really what kind of marketing B$ is that). Realised I was wasting my time and to be honest you want to find them look for them you bloody self they are easy enough to find.

    What I did find truly hilarious in a twisted kind of logic way on the M$ web site, is the marketing yarn the Linux is more insecure than windows because the discovery of a security flaw coincides with the disclosure of a security flaw in Linux and as such windows is more secure because the discovery of a security is kept secret and not disclosed prior to the fix (apart from of course the bunch of flaws where the discoverers have refused to join M$ in it's marketing lie). http://www.microsoft.com/technet/security/secnews/articles/itproviewpoint060904.mspx

  7. Re:Fewest Admitters = Fewest Flaws by dch24 · · Score: 5, Interesting · on Microsoft Says Vista Has the Fewest Flaws

    Excellent point. Although other debates have questioned Microsoft's numbers, if there are really 20 million installs (plus further installs since then) in use out there, hackers might begin to take a look.

    But to paraphrase the Drake equation, of the total Vista installs, how many have been hit by crackers? How many of those were honeypots, caught by virus scanners, or otherwise detected? How many exploits found by crackers have been used in highly targeted attacks and kept secret?

    All I can think of is the remote TCP/IP exploit. As some of you may recall, that exploit existed in all versions of Windows. And Vista supposedly has a "completely rewritten TCP/IP stack" (source).

    "I have a bad feeling about this."

  8. Re:Fewest Admitters = Fewest Flaws by dch24 · · Score: 5, Interesting · on Microsoft Says Vista Has the Fewest Flaws

    Excellent point. Although other debates have questioned Microsoft's numbers, if there are really 20 million installs (plus further installs since then) in use out there, hackers might begin to take a look.

    But to paraphrase the Drake equation, of the total Vista installs, how many have been hit by crackers? How many of those were honeypots, caught by virus scanners, or otherwise detected? How many exploits found by crackers have been used in highly targeted attacks and kept secret?

    All I can think of is the remote TCP/IP exploit. As some of you may recall, that exploit existed in all versions of Windows. And Vista supposedly has a "completely rewritten TCP/IP stack" (source).

    "I have a bad feeling about this."

  9. Re:Fewest Admitters = Fewest Flaws by dch24 · · Score: 5, Interesting · on Microsoft Says Vista Has the Fewest Flaws

    Excellent point. Although other debates have questioned Microsoft's numbers, if there are really 20 million installs (plus further installs since then) in use out there, hackers might begin to take a look.

    But to paraphrase the Drake equation, of the total Vista installs, how many have been hit by crackers? How many of those were honeypots, caught by virus scanners, or otherwise detected? How many exploits found by crackers have been used in highly targeted attacks and kept secret?

    All I can think of is the remote TCP/IP exploit. As some of you may recall, that exploit existed in all versions of Windows. And Vista supposedly has a "completely rewritten TCP/IP stack" (source).

    "I have a bad feeling about this."

  10. How much text is in a document? by tepples · · Score: 1 · on W3C Publishes First Public Working Draft of HTML 5

    But that's exactly the point, you're suggesting the browser should simply guess where to end blocks, that breeds ambiguity when there's no set way to decide where a specific block should end, browsers simply have to make a best guess and when different browsers guess differently then well, you get fucked up pages on some browsers. As I understand it, the HTML 5 spec describes the behavior of a conforming parser in such a way that a user agent will know exactly where each element ends.

    With XHTML the industry can bring forth it's own solution an awful lot quicker than any HTML standards comittee will ever be able to. The point is that the industry has chosen not to.

    the whole point of HTML is you have the loose structure and the content defined in the XHTML with the presentation defined in the CSS, with a handheld device you may simply ignore the CSS or apply your own to present it in a format best suited to your device. On a PC with a 720p-class screen and a high-speed fixed Internet connection, you might want to present a whole article in each document. But on a handheld with a 160p-class screen and a comparatively slow GPRS radio, you might want to present a shorter section in each document, so that the user only receives (and pays for) the sections that he or she wants to read. CSS alone cannot shrink "George W. Bush" from Wikipedia below its current 90 kB.
  11. The value of XHTML 1.0 Strict? by tepples · · Score: 1 · on W3C Publishes First Public Working Draft of HTML 5

    I wonder, are these the same moron authors who can't do XHTML What's the point of sending XHTML over the wire if the 80 percent web browser still can't render XHTML except as a broken version of HTML 4? I don't see a point, and hixie agrees with me.

    or provide fallback content for users without script? I make a real-time video game in JavaScript. What fallback do you recommend for users without script?

    <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> The HTML 4.01 and XHTML 1.0 strict doctypes have one major flaw: a list item <li> can no longer carry a value attribute. This means that an ordered list can't start at any number other than 1 or with any difference between items other than 1. Such a list can't easily represent, say, the track listing for Follow the Leader by Korn, which starts at 13, or a top ten list, which is conventionally printed in 10 to 1 reading order. (The workaround involves a <dl> element, placing numbers in floated <dt> elements and text in <dd> elements.) HTML 5, on the other hand, restores the value attribute.
  12. Worst... Proposal... Ever! by 200_success · · Score: 4, Interesting · on IE8 May Not Pass the Acid2 Test After All

    Microsoft claims that the X-UA-Compatible flag is necessary on standards-compatible content to avoid breaking IE-specific content. I call BS.

    For years, Microsoft has been telling everyone to put version-specific IE hacks in conditional comments, in case IE's behavior improves in future versions. Now that they are finally fixing IE, they spring this X-UA-Compatible "solution" on us, punishing those who have been producing standards-compliant content and rewarding the zombies who have been writing IE-specific code. If your site is standards-compliant, you have to do the extra work to tag it as such, and keep that crufty tag around for the foreseeable future!

    If you sat down today and wrote a new standards-compliant browser, it would work just fine with almost all the content and web applications out there. Apple did this recently with Safari. Microsoft claims to have done this with IE 8. Safari didn't need any X-UA-Compatible flag. Why should IE 8 need one?

    The only reason IE 8 would need the X-UA-Compatible flag is simply because it is IE 8. If their new browser identified itself as, say, "Microsoft Trident VI" instead, things would just work. Microsoft could still call it "Internet Explorer 8" for marketing purposes, but web developers would know that "MS Trident VI" means IE 8, just as "WebKit 4xx" means Safari 2 (or similar browsers) and Gecko means Firefox (or similar browsers).

    Dear Microsoft, here's a sane solution for you:

    1. Ditch the X-UA-Compatible flag; it's a stupid idea.
    2. Continue supporting HTML conditional comments as you have been doing.
    3. Fix the layout engine and the CSS parser at the same time, so that any existing IE-specific CSS hacks become irrelevant.
    4. Add support for CSS conditional comments, to give web designers an escape route. Let's face it, CSS hacks are a reality, so we might as well have a tool to do it cleanly.
    5. Send this as the User-Agent string: Mozilla/5.0 (compatible; Microsoft Trident VI; Windows NT x.y; ...; Microsoft Internet Explorer 8.0; ...). Any server-side code doing browser sniffing, not seeing the "MSIE" string, should send a standards-compliant response. User-Agent strings have never really been logical anyway -- IE started this mess years ago by sending the "Mozilla" string, and Opera continued the trend by optionally sending the "MSIE" string -- so additional games in this area wouldn't do any more harm to the Web.
    6. In JScript, navigator.appName should return 'Microsoft Trident', and navigator.userAgent should return the string above. Client-side scripts doing explicit browser sniffing, not seeing the "MSIE" string, would suppress their legacy IE hacks.
    7. In JScript, document.all should evaluate to false (although expressions involving document.all can still behave as in older versions of IE). This approach worked for Mozilla, and it will work for Microsoft too.

    As you see, it is possible to fix IE in a backward compatible way without introducing a X-UA-Compatible flag. The chances of Microsoft taking these steps is almost nil, since it places IE 8 on an even playing field with other standards-compliant browsers. That's why they are proposing X-UA-Compatible -- they can claim to support web standards while knowing that web developers will find it easier to muddle along than to use their stupid flag.

  13. Re:Wait a second? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0 · on Microsoft Confirms IE8 Has 3 Render Modes

    ...and that's why DOSBox is so popular, right? Popular? As in, more than a few thousand people on Earth have actually had contact with it? Try 'niche'.

    DOSBox users have exactly zero relevance as a source of revenue contributing customers for Microsoft. For actual paying customers, however, Microsoft provides extensive support including free tools such as this and platforms such as this. Grownups use these sort of tools to insure important software functions correctly for decades on end.

    You may now resume your Leisure Suit Larry.

  14. Re:Wait a second? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0 · on Microsoft Confirms IE8 Has 3 Render Modes

    ...and that's why DOSBox is so popular, right? Popular? As in, more than a few thousand people on Earth have actually had contact with it? Try 'niche'.

    DOSBox users have exactly zero relevance as a source of revenue contributing customers for Microsoft. For actual paying customers, however, Microsoft provides extensive support including free tools such as this and platforms such as this. Grownups use these sort of tools to insure important software functions correctly for decades on end.

    You may now resume your Leisure Suit Larry.

  15. Re:UAC on standard and admin accounts by SEMW · · Score: 1 · on Windows 7 To Be Released Next Year?

    in the admin account, you don't only get UAC warnings when performing an admin task. you also get them when performing a "potentially harmful" task, like running a program from a cd. in the standard account, you ONLY get UAC warnings when you need to elevate privs, hence the fewer warnings. I'm sorry, but that's just not correct. UAC is a privilege elevation system; the only time it ever appears, on any type of user, is when you need to elevate privileges. If you run a program that doesn't require elvated privileges from a CD, you won't get a prompt, whether you're running as standard user or admin (I've just tried it). If you run a program that does, you will get a prompt, on both types of account. E.g. for an unsigned exe that wants admin privs: the prompt for a standard user, and the prompt for an administrator.

    That's not to say that all UAC prompts are for elevation to administrator. Internet Explorer runs with very low privileges, lower than a standard user; if you're doing something (e.g. an IE add-on wants to write to anywhere other than temporary internet files) that needs normal privileges, you need to elevate from low to normal (example prompt), but this is the same whether you're running as standard user or admin.

    In other words, there's no such thing as a UAC dialogue warning of a "potentially harmful" task that doesn't elevate, on any kind of user account. A potentially harmful task is one that requires privilege elevation of some sort, and the UAC dialogue is asking whether you want to elevate.
  16. Re:It isn't Microsoft Surface! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative · on Wiimote Turns TV into Touchless MS Surface

    They are using this Wiimote system to control a Microsoft Surface dumbass.

  17. Re:So what if it is a generic term by ricegf · · Score: 1 · on Groklaw Explains the Cyberlaw "Trademark"

    And they use the (r) here plain as day. Mea culpa - it would have been so easy to look first. *blush*

    The rest of my statements were accurate, however, despite my lapse of memory. Microsoft's initial request for a trademark on Windows was rejected as generic, but they succeeded in overturning that ruling on appeal. Lindows sought to have the trademark invalidated as generic as part of their countersuit. Microsoft launched a blitz of lawsuits worldwide to (I believe) drive Lindows into financial distress and force a settlement rather than litigate on the merits of their case. And Microsoft did pay Lindows $20 million to end the lawsuit and change their name (to Linspire) - which looks less like a victory to me than a payoff. You can read the details here and here.

    Perhaps I was wishfully thinking. I believe the original rejection of the trademark was proper. That and $5 will get you a coffee at Starbucks, of course.

  18. Re:Sudo, UAC, and ignorance... by Penguinisto · · Score: 1 · on Windows 7 To Be Released Next Year?
    Nice try, but we both know that UAC does not require a password if the user is a member of the Administrators local group (which is by default the first user account created on the machine when you install it). Or maybe you can tell us where one types the password in here?

    If a user is a member of the Administrators Group (which the first user gets by default since Administrator is disabled by default in Vista), he/she/it only gets the "Cancel or Allow?" prompt by default. Here - read it for yourself. (and here's a second source just in case). IOW, QED, my point stands.

    OTOH, in OSX/Linux, my username may be a member of wheel, but I still have to type the password in each time, every time, if the app (or whatever else I'm doing) requires system-level privileges.

    Note that in this situation -- when you're logged in as root -- Linux would not (by default) prompt at all, and would certainly not request a password.

    Nice strawman. If I want all-root, all-the-time, then I either have to log in directly as root (or in Windows, Administrator), or I have to use a command (such as "su root") and supply the password) to get to that state. This has bupkis to do with someone logged in as the actual root account (or again, "Administrator") - we're talking the normal default user here. And, by default, the first user created in Vista has the privs due to the fact that the Administrator account is disabled by default in Vista.

    Therein lies the diff. HTH. ;)

    /P

  19. Re:Such optimism? by thexile · · Score: 1 · on Windows 7 To Be Released Next Year?

    Vista also has it own bugs as well and I assure you not all will be fixed by future Service Packs. Vista is more secure than XP but how can you link boot loader to it? Will deleting boot.ini cause you to suffer data loss? Moreover, it is not like corrupted/missing boot.ini can't be fixed with 1-2 simple commands... http://support.microsoft.com/kb/330184/

  20. Re:Vista's missing features by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0 · on Windows 7 To Be Released Next Year?

    From the CreateFile documentation: "To extend this limit to 32,767 wide characters, call the Unicode version of the function and prepend "\\?\" to the path". Is thirty-thousand characters enough?

    Thanks for advertising your ignorance jimbojw. It's been that way for a *long* time...

    http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa363858.aspx
    http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa365247(VS.85).aspx

  21. Re:Vista's missing features by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0 · on Windows 7 To Be Released Next Year?

    From the CreateFile documentation: "To extend this limit to 32,767 wide characters, call the Unicode version of the function and prepend "\\?\" to the path". Is thirty-thousand characters enough?

    Thanks for advertising your ignorance jimbojw. It's been that way for a *long* time...

    http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa363858.aspx
    http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa365247(VS.85).aspx

  22. Re:Wow by Taimat · · Score: 1 · on Microsoft Unveils Virtualization Strategy

    Actually, if you read correctly, you will notice that is that supported platforms for the WORD Document. Not for the Hyper V itself.

    http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=0FE4E411-8C88-48C2-8903-3FD9CBB10D05&displaylang=en

  23. Re:My desktop machine has been up 700hrs by ErroneousBee · · Score: 1 · on Startup Offers Instant-Boot Windows Alternative

    Phoenix were not involved in the 1.0 specifications.

    Phoenix was involved in the 1.0 spec, regardless of what that PDF says. Most of the work for ACPI was done by Intel and Phoenix.

    Your assertion is simply not backed up by available evidence. The best I can find is that Phoenix "contributed" to the 1.0 spec, and produced BIOSes that implemented the early specs. There is no evidence I can find that Phoenix was a leading player in the 1.0 spec. Perhaps you could supply some evidence?

    Microsoft were not getting "broken DSDT tables" from manufacturers. Microsoft were shipping software that generated broken DSDT tables.

    Do you even know what a DSDT table is? It's a compiled table that describes the system. It's written in a custom language called ASL (ACPI Source Language) and is compiled into AML (ACPI Machine Language) by the compiler. Back in 1998 Microsoft was sent broken ASL from the manufacturers that would not compile unless they tweaked the compiler. If they DIDN'T tweak the compiler ACPI features would not work in Windows (just like they don't work in Linux). What the fuck were they supposed to do?

    Nowadays, manufacturers just compile the DSDT tables themselves using MS' compiler, instead of Intel's, because it's EASIER. Once again, how is this the fault of Microsoft? The manufacturers certainly CAN write proper ASL source and they CAN compile them with the more stringent Intel compiler. The fact they the choose not to do so is NOT MICROSOFT'S FAULT. It certainly CAN be done, presumably Apple did this for MacOS.

    "Microsoft was sent broken ASL from the manufacturers" makes no sense at all. You are suggesting that manufacturers sent ASL tables to Microsoft for them to compile into binaries, which get sent back to the manufacturer. This picture is utterly wrong.

    Microsoft and Intel produced compilers that the manufacturers download. Intel's compiler was written correctly, and gave error messages so that the manufacturers could correct the ASL source and recompile. Microsoft's compiler appears to have been designed to only flag faults that were significant to Microsoft's own OS, and I have supplied evidence that this may have been done on purpose, instigated at board level within Microsoft.

    Intel's compiler is available Unix and Linux systems. Linux uses the Intel tools (to create fixed DSDTs), as well as its own code for implementing ACPI functionality.

    I would imagine that Apple used Intel's compiler as it would probably work for OSX. Its also very apparent that installing OS-X on non-apple approved hardware will result in exactly the same issues as Linux finds, specifically a series of hardware problems as Apple's AppleACPIPlatform driver trips over buggy DSDT tables.

    You will have to supply evidence that using Microsoft's compiler is easier, as both a trivial downloads, and I have used iasl on Linux with no hardships. You will also have to supply evidence that manufacturers are moving to Microsoft's compiler, as my feeling (I cant find evidence either way) is that the big players are moving to iasl as they start offering Linux. I know Compaq used the Microsoft ASL compiler, and clearly people stopped buying their kit for some reason.

    I guess I'm saying that it's incumbent upon the Linux people to work around the problems in MS' compiler by re-implementing ACPI in Linux, make their own compiler, or convince the manufacturers to write proper ASL.

    Linux has been working around the problem, by supplying corrected DSDT tables where appropriate, and blacklisting ACPI on unfixable hardware.

    Bitching about MS doesn't accomplish any

  24. Hyper-V hypervisor by Thyrteen · · Score: 2, Funny · on Microsoft Unveils Virtualization Strategy

    http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=0FE4E411-8C88-48C2-8903-3FD9CBB10D05 - wtf? and I thought I had trouble managing URLs at times. Those guys have gotta be sharp. :P

  25. Citrix + Softgrid by bmfs · · Score: 1 · on How Would You Make a Distributed Office System?

    I'd go with Citrix (I don't think MS Terminal Services is there just yet) and deploy MS Office to those servers and then distribute all other software via Microsoft Softgrid (soon to be called Microsoft Application Virtualization): http://www.microsoft.com/systemcenter/softgrid/default.mspx

    The combination of Citrix + Softgrid is a pretty powerful combination - there's no need to silo your Citrix farm any more, and apps deployed via softgrid don't leave any junk behind on the filesystem or registry (since both are virtualised). Use a Citrix access gateway (basically an SLL VPN device that integrates with Citrix) to publish a windows desktop and then your remote offices just need a decent connection to the internet (budget approx 50 kbit/sec per user with 30% concurrent usage). Users can then work from home or from a notebook with a 3G data card too. Or forget the access gateway and connect the offices to the data centre with dedicated leased lines / MPLS links etc.

    In each office install network printers onto each local device and then use the Citrix Universal Printer driver to send compressed print jobs from the data centre to the printer via the citrix client. Or if you have the bandwidth, install the printer on a print server located in the data centre and send jobs directly from the print server, over the WAN, to the printer in the remote office (this is easier to manage).

    Lock down the citrix servers and client desktops with AppSense http://www.appsense.com/ and you'll then have a secure, remotely accessible system which is managed centrally.

  26. Re:Talk about innacurate by Soko · · Score: 1 · on Microsoft to Force IE7 Update on February 12th

    Thanks again Slashdot for proving the Linux camp really are full of a bunch of anti-Microsoft loonies who read only what they want to read.

    It's a /. headline - of course it's alarmist and sensationalist. Anyone with any sense of reality takes such things with a large grain of NaCl.

    We all aren't loonies - I'm in a Microsoft shop and tend to have a balanced view (I hope). What this story does is let me know that I need to ensure our WSUS server isn't set to auto-approve rollups (IOW, ensure the guy admining that bit of software hasn't gone bat-shit insane), and that my family and friends have IE7 Block installed (watch out for the Silverlight popup!) - that way my support headaches won't increase.

    Soko

  27. Re:I used to turn my machine off at night ... by ScrewMaster · · Score: 1 · on Do Any Companies Power Down at Night?

    but now IT has loaded so much crap on it ("desktop agents" [ie apps that spy on me], antivirus, patches, etc)

    Autoruns is your friend.

  28. Tool to do this The Right Way from the EPA by hklingon · · Score: 4, Informative · on Do Any Companies Power Down at Night?
    For some odd reason windows stores the Power Management stuff in the registry in a Binary (!) obscure (!!) machine/driver-specific acpi (!!!) way. This means doing stuff with it via group policy is tricky at best. Fortunately, the EPA has a really great solution we've been using for years and is absolutely fantastic.

    Unfortunately the EPA's EZ GPO page seems to have gone poof or something recently, but you can get it here.

    Basically, you push a (simple) msi to the machines (I do this a lot of the time via psexec (props to Mark Russinovich) but there are other methods. Once you have that running on the machine you can configure how you want your machines to behave/re power management:
    • Monitor Sleep time when logged in
    • ...when not logged in
    • Hybernate or Suspend to ram options
    • Allow logged-in users to override (e.g. laptops/presentation mode)
    • Non Intrusive setup/no options

    We also have a script that runs at midnight a few days of the month that does the magic packet thing as has been mentioned so WSUS and/or SMS (or SC:CM) can do their thing and automatic updates run as normal. In a few "why does my machine have to boot up every day this sucks" user groups we have a scheduled job to send magic packets about 15 minutes before they arrive to wake up their machines. With hybernate they hardly know anything happened.

  29. Re:We power down at weekends by ACMENEWSLLC · · Score: 2, Interesting · on Do Any Companies Power Down at Night?

    We ask our users to reboot their PC & not to shut them down for the patch reason. Unlike most, we keep up to date with patches. We watch Secunia and automatically roll out kill bits for insecure active x controls, automatically patch Windows via WSUS and all the other pieces of software such as Adobe's, Real, Apple, et al. That is a lot of software.

    We do this automatically eg automated.. If we do it while the non-admin user is signed on, many of these packages fail to install. Flash and others require the logged on user to be an Admin, or to run while no-one is signed on.
      a
    So what do we do? Have users turn off their PC & thus never get patched, but save money on power? We do have AMD Cool & Quiet enabled on 150 machines. These PC's go into a lower power use state. We do use WoL and some people do shut down, but it works on maybe 50% of the machines with WoL. Many do not have WoL.

    Also, in the winter months such as now, the cost of those PCs being powered on is negated by the cost of heating the building otherwise. I guess this makes more sense in our environment, where we are staffed 24/7 365 -- just less staff at night.

    Windows has an API to shut down the machine. One could easily write a program that checks for use (Mouse/keyboard) and prompts a user after x minutes of inactivity (60?) Perhaps also checking for system activity. If you detect no use, prompt the user that you are going to shutdown after 15 minutes. Then issue the API to shutdown. If no user is signed on, then just shut down. If the CEO is signed on then perhaps do nothing. This API works around 90%+ of the time in my experience.

    http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa376868(VS.85).aspx

    Or perhaps hibernate if it is supported.

    Someone could code this up in a few hours and release it on Sourceforge..

  30. Re:Airplane Operating Systems by Alien54 · · Score: 4, Funny · on Failed Avionics a Possible Cause of BA038 Crash

    2nd thought:

    The Knowledge Base reports on Flight Simulator are scary enough as it is.....

    the rest of the scenario writes itself

  31. Re:A very niche OS by __aaxwdb6741 · · Score: 1 · on FreeBSD 6.3-RELEASE Now Available

    Sorry to break your bubble, but even Windows Server 2003 uses enough BSD code for Microsoft to acknowledge that they
    - Cannot write it better themselves
    - Have to provide the Berkeley copyright notice
    Source: Windows Server 2003 Copyright info

    I guess you could call that "Not a lot"...

  32. Re:How about using .Net? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0 · on Microsoft Says VBA Is Here To Stay

    What I would like to see would be a .net based macro system in Office. Something where we could write macros in VB, C#, Python, or any other CLR language...all that is really needed is a way to embed .Net code in MS Office documents. Look no further: VSTO (Visual Studio Tools for Office) has been around since 2003. It lets you do extensive design-time and run-time customization of documents and templates for all the Office apps. You can hook events, create menus, buttons, ribbons, and custom task panes that can do anything .Net can do (including using WinForms and WPF controls). You can also write application-level add-ins for Outlook, Excel, Word, PowerPoint, InfoPath, and Visio. The default project types are VB.NET and C#, but you can reference assemblies written in any CLR language.

    VSTO is a free add-on for Visual Studio 2005 and built into 2008. All you have to do is create a document customization or add-in and your .Net code is attached in a DLL. There is also a ServerDocument object you can use the apply and remove customizations for existing documents and templates, and a data caching model so you can preserve the state of your objects right inside your documents in case you aren't backended by a database or an external file. There is even full F5 run and debug support for all of the projects. This has made Office development basically work like any WinForms or ASP.NET project, which is pretty amazing considering the relatively sorry state of VBA and COM automation you had in the past.

    Since .Net has built-in support for different trust levels, code signing, etc., security should be more manageable. Security is more manageable because you can either use the very granular Code Access Security model or the ClickOnce sandbox, depending on your deployment requirements. If you really are interested you should check it out. The MSDN support forum is extremely active, and there are no fewer than 20 VSTO books available.

    Most of the work is in fact already done. The Microsoft.Office.* hierarchy already exists in .Net FYI, Microsoft.Office.* is just for external COM automation of the Office programs through the programmable interop assemblies. This is what you get when you check ".Net Programmability Support" during setup in Office XP or later. It's for manipulating in-memory documents or opening and automating the main program interfaces. Very basic.
  33. Re:How about using .Net? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0 · on Microsoft Says VBA Is Here To Stay

    What I would like to see would be a .net based macro system in Office. Something where we could write macros in VB, C#, Python, or any other CLR language...all that is really needed is a way to embed .Net code in MS Office documents. Look no further: VSTO (Visual Studio Tools for Office) has been around since 2003. It lets you do extensive design-time and run-time customization of documents and templates for all the Office apps. You can hook events, create menus, buttons, ribbons, and custom task panes that can do anything .Net can do (including using WinForms and WPF controls). You can also write application-level add-ins for Outlook, Excel, Word, PowerPoint, InfoPath, and Visio. The default project types are VB.NET and C#, but you can reference assemblies written in any CLR language.

    VSTO is a free add-on for Visual Studio 2005 and built into 2008. All you have to do is create a document customization or add-in and your .Net code is attached in a DLL. There is also a ServerDocument object you can use the apply and remove customizations for existing documents and templates, and a data caching model so you can preserve the state of your objects right inside your documents in case you aren't backended by a database or an external file. There is even full F5 run and debug support for all of the projects. This has made Office development basically work like any WinForms or ASP.NET project, which is pretty amazing considering the relatively sorry state of VBA and COM automation you had in the past.

    Since .Net has built-in support for different trust levels, code signing, etc., security should be more manageable. Security is more manageable because you can either use the very granular Code Access Security model or the ClickOnce sandbox, depending on your deployment requirements. If you really are interested you should check it out. The MSDN support forum is extremely active, and there are no fewer than 20 VSTO books available.

    Most of the work is in fact already done. The Microsoft.Office.* hierarchy already exists in .Net FYI, Microsoft.Office.* is just for external COM automation of the Office programs through the programmable interop assemblies. This is what you get when you check ".Net Programmability Support" during setup in Office XP or later. It's for manipulating in-memory documents or opening and automating the main program interfaces. Very basic.
  34. Re:How about using .Net? by andy9701 · · Score: 4, Informative · on Microsoft Says VBA Is Here To Stay

    Isn't that what Visual Studio Tools for Office does? I've never really looked into it much, but my understanding was that it was a .NET replacement for writing Office apps with VBA.

  35. The Source for the Runtime is also out. by aldousd666 · · Score: 4, Interesting · on Microsoft Releases Source of .NET Base Classes

    The CLR 2.0 source (the runtime, not just the BCL) code is up too, it's in C++, not managed code. Strangley the article and summary seem to completely miss that fact. I'm very surprised, because it's much more significant, and it can't be ascertained using the decompilers like the managed code can. THIS is probably the thing that can kill mono.

  36. Re:A gift from Microsoft by mikelieman · · Score: 1 · on Microsoft Releases Specs for Binary Formats

    This morning, I posted this on Brian Jones' Blog....

    HERE is the Gotcha.

    I don't see *any* promises or commitments that ALL FILE FORMATS will ALWAYS BE AVAILABLE, much less in a timely manner to ensure interoperability. Note the use of "existing versions".

    From the OSP page:

    Q: Does this OSP apply to all versions of the standard, including future revisions?

    A: The Open Specification Promise applies to all existing versions of the specification(s) designated on the public list posted at http://www.microsoft.com/interop/osp/, unless otherwise noted with respect to a particular specification (see, for example, specific notes related to web services specifications).

  37. OSP: Might ba a trap for GPL license software by denis-The-menace · · Score: 5, Insightful · on Microsoft Releases Specs for Binary Formats

    Disclaimer:IANAL
    The docs are released under MS' own "Open Specification Promise" *cringes*
    http://www.microsoft.com/interop/osp/default.mspx

    If you do a search on GPL you get:

    Q: Is this Promise consistent with open source licensing, namely the GPL? And can anyone implement the specification(s) without any concerns about Microsoft patents?

    A: The Open Specification Promise is a simple and clear way to assure that the broadest audience of developers and customers working with commercial or open source software can implement the covered specification(s). We leave it to those implementing these technologies to understand the legal environments in which they operate. This includes people operating in a GPL environment. Because the General Public License (GPL) is not universally interpreted the same way by everyone, we can't give anyone a legal opinion about how our language relates to the GPL or other OSS licenses, but based on feedback from the open source community we believe that a broad audience of developers can implement the specification(s).

    I don't get warm and fuzzy feelings reading this and I think that's the idea...

  38. Re:But you can email a copy to coworkers by inKubus · · Score: 1 · on Sun Buys MySQL

    Too bad Excel only allows up to 65535 lines ;) However, you can have an unlimited number of worksheets up to available memory and resources. Unfortunately, the girls in accounting figured this out a few years ago...

    Billing Xref.xls (1.86GB)

  39. Re:heh, interesting disclaimer by Salsaman · · Score: 1 · on 10-year-old Microsoft Ticket Resurfaces?

    No, the bug is still there, but they built a whole new operating system around it.

  40. Re:Unrelated VS jab?!? by Just+Some+Guy · · Score: 1 · on VBA Going Away, Macs Now, PCs Soon

    Seriously... how long do you expect them to the language?

    I can still compile C that was written in the '70s. No one but Windows developers would consider a nine year support span (released in '99, extended support ends two months from now) to be anything less than suicidal. Honestly, I've been around servers with uptimes longer than VB6's entire life cycle.

  41. Re:Durr by FreeGamer · · Score: 1 · on Study Touting OOXML Over ODF Is Debunked

    Or perhaps he went to Microsoft to "get the facts"?

  42. Re:Yeah and moon is made from.. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0 · on First Scareware For the Mac

    http://support.microsoft.com/kb/256986

  43. Re:I can't wait! by Anonymous+Conrad · · Score: 4, Informative · on Y2K38 Watch Starts Saturday

    If we are sill running 32 bit software in 2038 I will fully blame MSFT. But 32-bit OS can still use 64-bit numbers. And they do! In fact Windows's native time format *is* 64-bit.
  44. Re:Difference between VST(O|A) and VBA? by Randolpho · · Score: 1 · on VBA Going Away, Macs Now, PCs Soon

    Recall, that MFC is now largely considered deprecated and dangerous. They spent a long time getting that entrenched.
    The New and Improved MFC, coming soon to a PC near you!

    MFC is actually a great way to build windows applications in C++, provided you absolutely love and worship pseudo-Hungarian notation, which I in fact hate.
  45. Re:Well, it's a start. by BrentH · · Score: 1 · on VBA Going Away, Macs Now, PCs Soon

    They tried.

  46. About Time by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Flamebait · on VBA Going Away, Macs Now, PCs Soon

    This should teach the morons about using MicroFUCKed software.

    Cheers.

  47. Re:Inaccurate summary by Gadget_Guy · · Score: 1 · on Public Request For Microsoft To Release Deprecated File Formats

    Well another alternative to read old files is to legally download Word 5.5 for DOS. Warning - this links directly to the EXE (self extracting ZIP) on Microsoft's site.

    I found this in the references footnotes on the Microsoft Word Wikipedia entry. I haven't tried it yet. Once I manage to extract some old Word docs from the obsolete tape backup format that I have my old backups on then I will give it a whirl.

  48. Re:Inaccurate summary by jayp00001 · · Score: 1 · on Public Request For Microsoft To Release Deprecated File Formats

    All it would take is for Microsoft to release a fully compatible viewer/converter so that everybody can open the oldest of documents, and companies would likely cease to care.


    They supposedly have:

    http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=95E24C87-8732-48D5-8689-AB826E7B8FDF&displaylang=en

    I don't have any old docs to test it with but it is descibed as reading all the old files.
  49. Re:Its rare by Osrin · · Score: 1 · on Public Request For Microsoft To Release Deprecated File Formats

    It is indeed an interesting request, especially when you consider that the office binary document format specification (older and current versions) is already available to any developer under a royalty free license.

    http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx/kb/840817 - the relevant section is about 2/3 of the way down the KB article. The process to get the documentation could be slicker, but it is at least available.

  50. Re:Not a big deal by techpawn · · Score: 2, Informative · on Smash Bros. Delayed Until March 9th

    the major short-coming of the Wii is that it does not have a hard drive
    What you talkin' bout Willis? It DOES HAVE MEMORY Only 512 and most of that is used for downloads from the Wii Shop. But, I agree. If you rush a product with the idea of "we'll just patch it later" that's just bad programming. I mean WHO who do THAT?