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Depends on the OS really. But you're right if you mean any commercially available OS today. Singularity might solve a few problems if it was adopted. There are also some promising techniques being proposed by the people responsible for E.

Oh yeah? First show me the code!

Ask, and you shall be given.

System Requirements: (2.0)
...
Disk Space Requirements: 280 MB (x86), 610 MB (x64)

Programmers are no longer encouraged to try to optimize code.

System Requirements: (2.0)
...
Disk Space Requirements: 280 MB (x86), 610 MB (x64)

Programmers are no longer encouraged to try to optimize code.

Vista Basic is crippled, but I don't think this is missing from Vista Home Premium (the standard version most OEMs use).

It is. I had Vista Home Premium, and no shadow copy and no backup utility. I upgraded to Ultimate specifically to get these features. I believe they're even listed on Microsoft's site, although Microsoft's site is pretty vague about which versions do what: http://www.microsoft.com/windows/products/windowsvista/editions/choose.mspx

They have a feature for "scheduled backups" in Vista Home Premium, but it's much wimpier and less powerful than the "Complete PC Backup" feature, which is only on Business and Ultimate. (The Complete PC Backup feature can back up to a bootable disk image, as I understand it. I use Mozy.com for backups, so I haven't played with that feature yet.) That chart doesn't list shadow copy, unfortunately, but I'm nearly 100% sure it's only on Business and Ultimate.

My mother would love to have something like this on my father's computer. She calls Diablo II 'the divorce game'.

Yes. She can also setup limits on web browsing and overall computer use besides just gaming. Of course she'd have to upgrade to Vista to use it.

Strangely enough, I've seen several EULAs with 'no weapons' clauses. (The Linux version of Seatools lacks that section for some reason.)

http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/exec/mount/default.mspx

Totally...

Nope. If we believe the ValleyWag on this one (uh oh...), the lady in question is a VP there at MS HQ herself. His underling, yes, but VPs just don't take that kind of crap at all. Sexual harassment necessarily involves pressuring somebody into sexual behavior, and you don't much pressure VPs -- they know they can hand your ass to you in court.

And neither it is about them having an affair per se (although it must have seemed like a very awkward PR/gossip disaster waiting to explode), it's about them both having lied about "emergency family leave" they took at the same time to go humping together somewhere. Or maybe more realistically a combination of the two...

So who would it be, then? Go figure...

http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/exec/default.mspx?group=A-D

One of those and a VP directly under CIO. If we believe the 'Wag, that is.

So, like another poster some way above very illustriously did, I'll just wrap this up by stating "Of course I could be completely wrong" so I'll too get the +5 Insightful for that bit alone ;-)

"Maybe they found out he's running Debian or Ubuntu at home"

And from this, it looks like he has been in the job since summer 2005.
http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/features/2005/dec05/12-05Scott.mspx

So its taken them 2 years to find out he is running linux. I guess two years to finally turn on a PC (to do some work), is about right for at Microsoft CIO.

... it must have been a rainy day, so he had to take the day off from the golf course. So I guess in the end, tech support reported him, once they found out he can't run Microsoft golf sim on his PC.

Rumor: love affair

lives with his wife and seven children in Washington. He spends his free time with his family, coaching sports teams, leading youth groups, and playing golf.

Stuart L. Scott is corporate vice president and chief information officer (CIO) of Microsoft Corp. Under Scott's leadership, Microsoft IT is responsible for security, infrastructure, messaging and business applications for all of Microsoft, including support of Microsoft product groups, corporate business groups, and the global sales and marketing organization.

Snooping on other people's email?

http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/exec/stuartsc/default.mspx

* He is a Six Sigma black belt.
* Scott lives with his wife and SEVEN children.
* He helped "ensure that Microsoft is the "first and best customer" of its own products."
* He spends his free time with his family, coaching sports teams, leading youth groups, and playing golf.

I'm guessing...he was teaching Six Sigma karate to underprivileged inner-city girls and, as happened with his wife, got too close and BAM...instant pregnancies all round.

Seriously...who has SEVEN CHILDREN? On PURPOSE?

again, it's features. Your copy of Office 2007 can do a lot more then your original word processor.

PC with a Pentium 75-megahertz (MHz) or higher processor
32 MB of RAM for the operating system, plus an additional 4 MB of RAM for Word
147 MB of available hard-disk space

500 megahertz (MHz) processor or higher
256 megabyte (MB) RAM or higher (Grammar and contextual spelling in Word is not turned on unless the machine has 1 GB memory.)
1.5 gigabyte (GB) HDD

again, it's features. Your copy of Office 2007 can do a lot more then your original word processor.

PC with a Pentium 75-megahertz (MHz) or higher processor
32 MB of RAM for the operating system, plus an additional 4 MB of RAM for Word
147 MB of available hard-disk space

500 megahertz (MHz) processor or higher
256 megabyte (MB) RAM or higher (Grammar and contextual spelling in Word is not turned on unless the machine has 1 GB memory.)
1.5 gigabyte (GB) HDD

(c) not use the Character Animation Data and Image Files to disparage Microsoft, its products or services or for promotional goods or for products which, in Microsoft's sole judgment, may diminish or otherwise damage Microsoft's goodwill

Mou... Mic... Mic... Sla... Exc... Mou... Mic... Mic... Sla... Exc... Mou... Mic... Mic... Sla... Exc... Mou... Mic... Mic... Sla... Exc...

Even if we throw in a tag to make legacy javascript viable, every legacy page out there would have to be updated - meaning all of those abandoned or hardly maintained web sites with tons of useful information are going to be broken

How would you all be reacting if there was talk about re-implementing C

or heaven forbid Ruby.

You seem to have some facts wrong, so your viewpoints are off.

MicroSoft has not released Silverlight for Linux, go look at the downloads page (/silverlight/downloads.aspx). They probably never will.

Miguel de Icaza of Mono/GNOME/Novell fame has led the effort to make a Linux implementation called MoonLight (http://www.mono-project.com/Moonlight). Supposedly, Microsoft will not sue for the infringement of their intellectual property, http://www.microsoft.com/interop/msnovellcollab/moonlight.mspx -- but that is a promise, not a license, so those are legally tenuous grounds to walk on. If they were serious, then they would grant a license. The problem is that it would have to be an open source license.

Do not delude yourself or others: Microsoft sees Linux as a threat to their OS. Microsoft uses Silverlight to control Internet user interfaces and fend off adoption of Adobe/Macromedia's Flash, Java applets, and the web standard of SVG, and even AJAX/HTML/CSS as well as all other UIs.

JavaScript has always operated in a sandbox: so I disagree about your notion of "developed in a trusting world" because any compromise is lethal, no matter what the point. Designing a sandbox around JavaScript is pragmatic security design -- much like Flash, Java applets, and much unlike ActiveX's origins. So if you've ignored the security patches of JavaScript (to keep it secure) and if you've never benefited from an AJAX web site or HTML form validation, then I can forgive your comment.

Of course, people who do not design for graceful degradation of any technology in a web page might have caused your comments, but the web benefits from dynamic applications in web pages: there's no installation necessary.

You can keep your HTML 1.0 web circa 1993 -- I remember it fondly, because nostalgia wins the truthiness argument. I'm happier with the possibilities of web applications based on open standards delivered by the Internet versus proprietary OS applications because it fosters competition and advancement in the market.

as Microsoft stopped supporting us with their .WMV player
Flip4Mac is Microsoft's .WMV player for the Mac. Go to Flip4Mac's website and it says "GET WMV Player FREE Download from Microsoft".

You have to be pretty stupid to download anything but pictures and videos from a porn website. It may be a good scam, because people do fall for it, but people also give their credit card numbers to the strangers operating these sites, they give out their social security number over the telephone, wire a small amount of money to an African country, buy video cables from bricks-and-mortar stores, and play the lottery. The title of the article should be "Fake Codec is Trojan (if you give it your computer's password)", because this has nothing to do with the operating system and everything to do with people (not being smart).

How many computers have been infected by this? Is this just another in-the-lab example?

http://windowshelp.microsoft.com/Windows/en-US/Help/99a95df6-04e6-46eb-bb65-6404cd215e641033.mspx

Well, friendly "professional"- you should use Program Compatibility Wizard! ;)

I find it hilarious that people respond to apparent incompatibility by switching to Mac- a platform that suffers from such serious compatibility issues that you need to refresh your software library on almost a yearly basis. Why don't you equate your mac use with using Vista on newer compatible PC hardware with all brand new applications that are Vista-compatible. It's like your PC IS A MAC NOW.

People just demand so much more from PC's while lauding so much less from Apple- it's just... weird.

That would be Starter edition

32bit only and aimed at emerging markets.

You're moronic.

Every operating system, whether it be Windows NT, XP, or Vista, Linux, FreeBSD, or Solaris, states that 1Kb = 1024bytes, 1Mb = 1024Kb, and so on.

Why the fuck are you here?

Do you even know where "here" is?

I think you might be looking for the other forum: http://forums.microsoft.com/

As I'm sure you're already aware, OEM pricing is very different from full retail, plus it's not like he's going to need Office Professional (the one that would cost $460) just to get Powerpoint. Looking at MS's product matrix, he could get away with "Home & Student" and still get Powerpoint - that can be had from Newegg for $129, and includes Word, Office, Powerpoint, and OneNote. Compare to StarOffice, which is $70 - yes, you get most of the same functionality, but it's still not quite the same; the point, however, is that this is less than a third of the price you quoted.

Windows licensing, meanwhile, is not $210 for OEM licensing. A NewEgg search reveals that you can get OEM licensing in packs of three for roughly $410; that works out to under $140 per license. Obviously, mass-manufacturers of PCs get much more favorable licensing pricing than that, but, for the sake of argument, we'll say that the customer is paying $140. This is still $70 less than the number you pulled out.

So, at this point, we've spent no more than $270 in software. Is this $270 you don't have to spend if you get the WalMart Linux PC? Of course, but if the WalMart Linux PC doesn't fit your needs, $270 is a reasonable number, and certainly much more reasonable than the hyperbole-screaming $2500 you came up with on a whim.

DISCLAIMER: I run Ubuntu Linux on everything I have because it meets my needs and does so at a price point that I am quite content with (free!). I do think that, as far as Linux distros go, it's easily the most user-friendly one that I've ever run across, and would happily recommend it to anyone that has some basic technical acumen. That said, I do not run Ubuntu because of it's philosophy, nor do I do it because of any particular dislike of Microsoft's "monopoly practices". From where I'm sitting, Microsoft did precisely what Ubuntu is doing now - they offered a lower priced (compared to the competition of the time), mostly fully featured set of applications that met the needs of a vast majority of people. Think back to the late '80s - if you wanted a GUI, the only way it was going to happen was if you bought new hardware that was incompatible with your existing IBM hardware or if you paid through the nose for OS/2... until Windows 3.0 came out. Need a server operating system? No problem - your choices were Unix (required expensive hardware, had severe vendor lock-in at the time, licensing was atrociously expensive), Netware (a little better on all counts, but still pricey), or Windows NT (same interface as all your workstations and a little cheaper). If you're a 10 person operation, guess which one you're picking? Hey, it's 1994 and you need a small database. Microsoft Access costs $100. How much does everything else cost? Oh... I see. Access it is! How about an Internet browser? Remember when those weren't free-as-in-beer? How did they get free? That's right - Internet Explorer. Were any of those products perfect? Heck no. All of their products were functionally inferior to the competition - but they met the needs of 99% of the world and cost less than their competition. Sound familiar? What people seem to forget in their haste to hate Microsoft is that, for better or worse, they were better behaved than their competition of the time. Now, their time is passing, and look who's sneaking up on them...

I know everyone here hates MS but sometimes their research is really useful. Case in point, Avalanche. Basically it makes it easier for peers to get pieces they don't have already, which is a big problem with torrents, in that downloaders tend to get the same pieces of the file from the seeder, and can't really share with each other.

http://research.microsoft.com/camsys/avalanche/

And they have already stopped retailing XP
according to http://www.microsoft.com/windows/lifecycle/default.mspx XP is still supposed to be availible retail and direct (big brand) OEM until June 30, 2008 and system builder (whitebox OEM) until January 31, 2009 .

I love how even they even got the first bullet point wrong.

You can use Windows Vista without a mouse by using speech recognition. Not so with OS X.
http://www.microsoft.com/enable/products/windowsvista/speech.aspx

JAWS also supports Braille displays in Vista.

NTFS has atime too.

Yeah, as in the the first counter-move by Microsoft would be to drop Office support for Mac.

some would argue they did that 3 years ago...there is a link to Office 2008, but who knows when that will actually happen, and Mac has their own competitor, anyway.

There's no question that buffer overruns are at least as big a problem for Apple as they are for Microsoft. Just ask QuickTime. We could argue all day over why they aren't as widely exploited on OS X for now, but whatever the reason, it's no excuse for being complacent about the problem.

In much the same way that Adobe and Microsoft don't give a flying fuck about Cocoa on OS X. Today's new software is by and large being developed on Cocoa and .NET; but of course all the big legacy applications are still based on the older frameworks, on their respective operating systems.

Anyway, there's a whole lot more to a managed runtime like .NET than the corresponding security against memory corruption (which even by itself is significant). For example:

• Portability. Suppose the PC industry altogether decided to switch from the x86 architecture to PowerPC. For pure .NET applications, we wouldn't have to suffer the burden of running them in Microsoft's anti-Rosetta until native PowerPC versions were shipped by each vendor; as long as there is a .NET runtime on that processor architecture, the apps would "just work", no fat binaries needed. A managed virtual runtime helps future-proof applications against unknown hardware requirements and advances.
• Type safety. Program behavior can be better verified under the memory-safe conditions of a managed runtime. This may eventually lead to widespread changes in hardware and software architecture. See the Singularity project for more information.
• Interoperability. Microsoft's CLI in particular provides a unified approach for handling exceptions, garbage collection, method invocation, and data passing in environments containing code written in a variety of languages.
• Fine-grained security. .NET's Code Access Security provides fine-grained control through code validation and call stack inspection.

It's not just "safety snobs" who see the managed runtime as the future. There's a whole world of benefit to be had in abstracting bytecode from the CPU, replacing some of the rigid complexity of the hardware with software's power and flexibility. And if the managed runtime proponents turn out to be right, Apple will have lot of catch-up work to do...

Raleigh, NC - GNAA (Gay Nigger Association of America) this afternoon announced one of their loyal members was responsible for planting the "backdoor" inside the popular opensores operating system, Lunix (Stocks, Websites).

In a shocking announcement this afternoon, GNAA representative goat-see revealed that the mistery hacker who penetrated high-security defenses of the Lunix "source code" repository and injected viral gay nigger seed deep inside the kernel was indeed a full-time GNAA member.

"This is serious," goat-see began. This is a first event of such magnitude since GNAA opened its doors to new members in 1996. Until now, we were gathering new members by announcing our group information on a popular troll website, slashdot.org, but this is a whole new era. By injecting our holy gay nigger seed right into the Lunix kernel, we will be able to immediately collect thousands of members. "Make the most of the next six weeks," he added. "We will grow in numbers more than you can possibly imagine".

Insertion of the GNAA backdoor came right between the consideration of Novell to buy out the entire Lunix Kernel programming team, and will most likely positively affect the decision. By adding all the gay niggers working for Novell with the gay niggers developing Lunix kernel source, GNAA will be all-powerful and will begin plotting our next plans to add "backdoors" into the next favorite operating system, BeOS.

About GNAA:
GNAA (GAY NIGGER ASSOCIATION OF AMERICA) is the first organization which gathers GAY NIGGERS from all over America and abroad for one common goal - being GAY NIGGERS.

Are you GAY ?
Are you a NIGGER ?
Are you a GAY NIGGER ?

If you answered "Yes" to all of the above questions, then GNAA (GAY NIGGER ASSOCIATION OF AMERICA) might be exactly what you've been looking for!
Join GNAA (GAY NIGGER ASSOCIATION OF AMERICA) today, and enjoy all the benefits of being a full-time GNAA member.
GNAA (GAY NIGGER ASSOCIATION OF AMERICA) is the fastest-growing GAY NIGGER community with THOUSANDS of members all over United States of America and the World! You, too, can be a part of GNAA if you join today!

Why not? It's quick and easy - only 3 simple steps!

• First, you have to obtain a copy of GAYNIGGERS FROM OUTER SPACE THE MOVIE and watch it. You can download the movie (~130mb) using BitTorrent.
• Second, you need to succeed in posting a GNAA First Post on slashdot.org, a popular "news for trolls" website.
• Third, you need to join the official GNAA irc channel #GNAA on irc.gnaa.us, and apply for membership.

Talk to one of the ops or any of the other members in the channel to sign up today! Upon submitting your application, you will be required to submit links to your successful First Post, and

I am a network manager in a UK school. So I do have a little knowledge on this subject. If anyone wishes to read up on exactly what a 'Schools Agreement' license entails they can do so here and/or here. If you want to get a feel for how much this scheme costs a school have a look at this thread or this one on EduGeek.

After a few seconds to get to the Google page, the EULA states exactly in the first paragraph.. http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/sp2/proeula.mspx

"IMPORTANT--READ CAREFULLY: This End-User License Agreement ("EULA") is a legal agreement between you (either an individual or a single entity) and Microsoft Corporation or one of its affiliates ("Microsoft") for the Microsoft software that accompanies this EULA, which includes computer software and may include associated media, printed materials, "online" or electronic documentation, and Internet-based services ("Software"). An amendment or addendum to this EULA may accompany the Software. YOU AGREE TO BE BOUND BY THE TERMS OF THIS EULA BY INSTALLING, COPYING, OR OTHERWISE USING THE SOFTWARE. IF YOU DO NOT AGREE, DO NOT INSTALL, COPY, OR USE THE SOFTWARE; YOU MAY RETURN IT TO YOUR PLACE OF PURCHASE FOR A FULL REFUND, IF APPLICABLE."

Rejecting the contract at this stage means you have no need to read the rest of the EULA,and states explicitly that you are entitled to a refund, who you are entitled to a refund from, and as the court cases have shown, the refund is in fact applicable. So basically, if they don't give a refund, you are entitled to take them to court and enter a case where you as the end user will win.

No, they (the entertainment division) turned a profit because they back dated their $1B warantee into the last quarter, so this one looks much better. The next one will be bad again.

See here: http://www.microsoft.com/msft/earnings/FY07/earn_rel_q4_07.mspx
This quarter was closed BEFORE the announcement this summer.
ahref=http://www.news.com/2100-1014_3-6195058.htmlrel=url2html-21144http://www.news.com/2100-1014_3-6195058.html>

Wikipedia entry here (lots of interesting info), Microsoft's Windows Power Shell Page (formerly known as Monad) (has links to FAQs, documentation, sample scripts, and discussion blog, as well as downloads for XP, Vista, and Server 2003).

• F# -- a functional language:
  F# combines type safety, performance, and scripting with the advantages of running on a on a modern runtime, Microsoft Research said. It supports interactive scripting like Python and the strong type inference and safety of ML. F# can access.Net libraries and database tools. A nice language, no doubt, but nothing innovating here. This is a conglomeration of other languages.
  
• Digital Watermarking -- The term was coined back in 1993. Rico Malvar seems like a pretty smart guy, but this is an improvement on an old idea.
• HotMapRemarkable? Actually no. Showing what portions of an interactive map are the most active by color-coding the map may be interesting; maybe even unique. But to say that this is a real innovative idea would get you a chuckle.

They do have MSVDM. I have it installed, but don't use it since it's sort of a bolt-on hack (no easy way to move an existing window to a new workspace, for example).

It's available with 1st party software. It's kind of lame, but it does the job.

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/downloads/powertoys/xppowertoys.mspx

The update is "supposed" to ship with an uninstaller. I say supposed to, because it has failed in all instances that I have tried it. There's also supposed to be a directory which contains an installer, but just as conveniently this hasn't been present on any of our workstations.

As usual, the resolution I found came from a random user on a message board: http://forums.microsoft.com/MSDN/ShowPost.aspx?PageIndex=3&SiteID=1&PageID=3&PostID=301681

Download and extract this file: http://www.2daytech.com/$NtUninstallKB917013$.rar

Run the file spuninst\spuninst.exe with Administrative privileges. Let it do its thing and you'll be prompted to restart. It should be gone at this point.

If anyone has a better method let me know.

There are three parts of Windows Desktop search that I can see

1. WindowsSearch.exe
2. Windows Search Service
3. Windows search Deskbar

To disable #1 you can create a software restriction policy. Follow the instructions for creating a Hash Rule here. Using a hash is best because it will work no matter where the application is launched from though you may have to update the policy if someone installs a newer version. More info on Software policies can be found here

You might not actually want to disable #2 because I'm not sure yet if it was installed by Desktop search 3.01 or if it was originally part of XP. XP has an indexing service that's turned on by default and is used by the normal search box. I've never had much problems with it before but I also never use it so I turn it off. You'll have to decide for yourself.

1. Click Computer Configuration, click Windows Settings, click Security Settings, and then click System Services.
2. Right click on "windows search" and select properties.
3. Check the box for "Define this policy setting" and then select Disabled.

For #3 I'm not sure yet how to disable it but I'm pretty sure the most it would take is a custom ADM file with the proper registry edits. Not sure what those would be yet but shouldn't be too hard. It also might just go away when you disable #1.

Business users should be headed for the exits.

Or, they can centrally manage what updates are sent to their machines like many businesses do today with WSUS.

According to the CIA World Factbook, the biggest exports are:

agricultural products (soybeans, fruit, corn) 9.2%, industrial supplies (organic chemicals) 26.8%, capital goods (transistors, aircraft, motor vehicle parts, computers, telecommunications equipment) 49.0%, consumer goods (automobiles, medicines) 15.0% (2003)

Although "computers" is on the list, "computer software" is not and other subcategories are sufficiently narrow that I think it would be if it were significant (eg "motor vehicle parts" and "automobiles" are counted seperately). Boeing is in there via "aircraft", but Hollywood doesn't seem to be listed unless you count "organic chemicals" as meaning Britney's drug-fueled butt.

Even if MS's entire $44 billion revenue in 2006 was from outside sales, they'd still only make up about 4% of total exports. I think that MS and Hollywood are pretty high on the list of visibility, but in raw numbers they don't seem to be all that important to the economy, at least not to the point that we should bend the rest of it to their will.

Well on my computer the update downloaded and installed itself - even though I made a point NOT to click on the install updates button. The good news is that all you need to do is go to Add/Remove programs to get rid of the thing: http://forums.microsoft.com/MSDN/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=301681&SiteID=1