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The problem here is in fact that the search has come as an update for Windows, rather than a separate product. Looks like the people that are affected are auto-approving updates as they come, which more or less half the reason you'd use WSUS in the first place - to test patch deployments before releasing onto the network at large.

http://forums.microsoft.com/MSDN/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=2315860&SiteID=1

Automatic Updates is the quickest way of deploying patches to a computer, especially if an IT department has to maintain hundreds of those PCs.

You must not be an admin.

Fortunately, this just adds to the number of reasons to switch to Linux. :-)

Again, you must not be an admin. It's a job, not a hobby. When the powers that be tell you that they want certain software and that software isn't available on Linux that's the only reason you need not to switch. We serve the customers needs, not our own whims.

I knew it was a bunch of crap the first time
C'mon HDTV tuners? On a 360? I would maybe believe this if Microsoft didn't already have a product that does exactly what this "new" SKU would do.

It's nice to see them giving back.

If only Microsoft would give back on all the mods it has made to the Unix tools. Example: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/interopmigration/bb380242.aspx

"1) Don't download and run random crap - that goes for any OS."

By this, I assume you mean "don't run any third party software not written by Microsoft".

Because the minute you do, the Windows Registry is no longer reliable (if it even is with Windows itself, which is questionable in itself), and eventually either Windows, the third party software, or a combo of the two will hose the Registry, thus bringing Windows to its knees.

I don't know HOW many times that has happened to people I've worked with.

Over the last 9 years, I've been running Windows NT with a wide variety of third party software from a variety of sources, and have never had the problem you describe.

OTOH, I don't download random crap like the fad-du-jour screensaver or P2P software without investigating what junk it might come with first.

"2) Sit behind a decent firewall - that also goes for any OS."

Which lets the Microsoft firewall out. Use a third-party firewall that blocks outbound and inbound connections, and allows greater freedom of configuration - ooops, you just run into problem number one.

Tell me one useful feature blocking outbound connections gives you. Go on. Tell me one, and I'll believe there's a good reason to upgrade from the Windows firewall. But it doesn't seem to me that there is one. At best, it creates a slight impediment to information theft that is trivially circumvented by any attacker with a clue.

The reason Linux works and keeps working is simple: there is NO REGISTRY!

When's the last time you heard anybody on a Linux forum say, "Oh, your drivers are corrupted - reinstall?"

"Drivers" don't get corrupted. The Registry gets corrupted - regularly.

On Linux, you can have buggy drivers or misconfigured drivers. You never have "corrupted" drivers.

Strange. On windows, I've had buggy and misconfigured drivers, but have never had "corrupted" drivers, whether due to the driver file itself or the registry becoming corrupted. In fact, I've never seen the registry become corrupted at all. Not on my installations of Windows, or on the installations of any of my friends, my work colleagues, or my company's clients. It seems to be an extremely solid and well engineered piece of technology.

The same applies to almost everything else in Windows? When's the last time you heard somebody say they had a problem with a Linux "corrupted TCP/IP stack"? How many tools and utilities does Windows provide to "repair a corrupted TCP/IP stack?" How many do you find for Linux?

Again, I've never seen this happen, and bear in mind that I have worked in professional IT support for Windows networks. I'm not sure what the tools in question do exactly, but its worth bearing in mind that changes to settings in Windows networking are persistent (e.g., if I execute a 'route add' statement, that route is not forgotten when I reboot), whereas for Linux you'd need to modify configuration files to have the same effect. These "corrupted TCP/IP stack" recovery tools probably exist simply to remove broken configurations that have been created, probably by user incompetence. It's also worth noting that while MS acknowledge the possibility of a "corrupted TCP/IP stack", it seems this is only considered possible on win98 and me systems.

I had occasion to rebuild my production system recently, so I upgraded it from XP to Vista, figuring I had to learn it some time. I actually found UAC not as bad as people make out. It's certainly irritating, but I could live with that because it finally makes it practical for a "power user" to run in a non-elevated account.
But, apart from that, I couldn't see anything that was an improvement. There's more eye-candy than XP, but since all the competitive OSes have better eye-candy than Vista, that's not a good thing to base a choice on. Look at http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/windowsvista/aa906027.aspx and see what MS say are the improvements in Vista. Nothing there for me.
But ... the new networking UI is hateful. I was on a trip, so I had to keep changing to use different (non-SSID broadcasting) WiFi networks, and it was terrible. Endless pain. After three weeks I'd had enough and downgraded back to XP.
YMMV, but for me an upgrade is clearly not a good idea, because it means I'd be paying to make my machine prettier, but slightly less useful. Except I'm going to have to upgrade sooner or later, because Microsoft are going to force me to. Eventually they'll stop supplying XP to the OEMs, they'll start making software that doesn't work on XP, and so on.

And this is where Microsoft have really screwed up, because, you know what? If I can't use XP any more, I'm disinclined to replace it with a product from the people who are taking XP away from me.
Sure, there'll be switcher pain if I go with Leopard or Gibbon instead. Maybe less than going with Vista. But at least Microsoft get to share a tiny part of that pain.

Try PowerShell, much better than cmd.exe http://microsoft.com/powershell

How freaking stupid can this get? The person that wrote the content at the link you provided knows NOTHING about what they are talking about, confusing terms, and not even 'getting' the context of what they are trying to argue. And you post links to technical articles you apparently don't even understand or you would realize how off track you were.

Here try this...
Instead of 'Volume Shadow Copy' introduced in WindowsXP/2K or 'System Restore' introduced in WinME and effectively in WindowsXP; Go look up 'Previous Versions', released in Windows 2003 Server and turned on by default on Windows Vista.

Previous Versions is NOT System Restore, and it is NOT Volume Shadow Copies.
http://technet2.microsoft.com/windowsserver/en/library/cfddaf10-24fa-4d6d-a34d-cfb84c5223781033.mspx?mfr=true

http://shellrevealed.com/photos/windows_vista/picture123.aspx

System Restore is an Application/OS restore tool, something OS X doesn't even offer.
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/using/helpandsupport/learnmore/systemrestore.mspx
FTA: (System Restore does not affect your personal data files!)

Volume Shadow Copies are a way to copy or backup 'in use' files, in basic terms.
And then go re-read the Volume Copy Service link 'you' provided, as it is another tool that OS and developers use, and is NOTHING the user ever deals with...

This is freaking stupid that Mac users can't even discuss the proper terminology or see a Vista user right click on a folder or document and bring up a 'time-line' of the folder and files, just like freaking time-machine on OS X.

Additionally...
Previous Versions is 'transparent' to applications unlike OS X that needs applications to be aware if they use 'special data stores', requires NO setup, and is working from the moment Vista is installed or the PC is turned on.

Previous Versions can be accessed in every Folder or File/Open/Save dialog box for every application running on Vista, all the way back to programs from Windows 3.1, and it works equally well on all of them.

A user can go back in the Vista Timeline on any file, folder, data store, etc. and all folders and files can be opened to view previous times, be dragged and dropped to the current time-frame.

Vista Previous Version also uses advanced FS level file and differential points so data is NOT stored 'as redundantly' as it is on OS X.

If OS X could have pulled off adding ZFS, they could have made time machine MORE like Vista with FS level snapshots instead of having to backup the files and folders to achieve a similar function.

Sadly, OS X's FS does not have the capabilities of ZFS or NTFS to do this, so data has to be actually backed up for Time Machine to work.

On Vista, there is NO Overhead of backing up 'Previous Versions' since it does work at the FS level. (See Vista doesn't technically have to copy the data each time a change is made, due to the way NTFS works. Go read more on this and ZFS to see why it is the only other FS that supports these types of transactions.)

Now I admit the OS X Time Machine interface is far more cooler than the Vista 'list' interface, but it is less functional, adds system overhead to maintain the backups,and wastes far more drive space.

So the functionality DOES EXIST in Windows, first appeared in the Windows 2003 Server Beta back in 2002, and has been around doing what Apple is just now catching up to in a less efficient way 5 years later. (4 Years if you count the Release date of Windows 2003 and not the Beta previews in 2002.)

Now take this information back to your Mac forums, and tell them they gave you crappy information and they have no idea what the hell they are talking about when it comes to comparing OS X and Vista.

How freaking stupid can this get? The person that wrote the content at the link you provided knows NOTHING about what they are talking about, confusing terms, and not even 'getting' the context of what they are trying to argue. And you post links to technical articles you apparently don't even understand or you would realize how off track you were.

Here try this...
Instead of 'Volume Shadow Copy' introduced in WindowsXP/2K or 'System Restore' introduced in WinME and effectively in WindowsXP; Go look up 'Previous Versions', released in Windows 2003 Server and turned on by default on Windows Vista.

Previous Versions is NOT System Restore, and it is NOT Volume Shadow Copies.
http://technet2.microsoft.com/windowsserver/en/library/cfddaf10-24fa-4d6d-a34d-cfb84c5223781033.mspx?mfr=true

http://shellrevealed.com/photos/windows_vista/picture123.aspx

System Restore is an Application/OS restore tool, something OS X doesn't even offer.
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/using/helpandsupport/learnmore/systemrestore.mspx
FTA: (System Restore does not affect your personal data files!)

Volume Shadow Copies are a way to copy or backup 'in use' files, in basic terms.
And then go re-read the Volume Copy Service link 'you' provided, as it is another tool that OS and developers use, and is NOTHING the user ever deals with...

This is freaking stupid that Mac users can't even discuss the proper terminology or see a Vista user right click on a folder or document and bring up a 'time-line' of the folder and files, just like freaking time-machine on OS X.

Additionally...
Previous Versions is 'transparent' to applications unlike OS X that needs applications to be aware if they use 'special data stores', requires NO setup, and is working from the moment Vista is installed or the PC is turned on.

Previous Versions can be accessed in every Folder or File/Open/Save dialog box for every application running on Vista, all the way back to programs from Windows 3.1, and it works equally well on all of them.

A user can go back in the Vista Timeline on any file, folder, data store, etc. and all folders and files can be opened to view previous times, be dragged and dropped to the current time-frame.

Vista Previous Version also uses advanced FS level file and differential points so data is NOT stored 'as redundantly' as it is on OS X.

If OS X could have pulled off adding ZFS, they could have made time machine MORE like Vista with FS level snapshots instead of having to backup the files and folders to achieve a similar function.

Sadly, OS X's FS does not have the capabilities of ZFS or NTFS to do this, so data has to be actually backed up for Time Machine to work.

On Vista, there is NO Overhead of backing up 'Previous Versions' since it does work at the FS level. (See Vista doesn't technically have to copy the data each time a change is made, due to the way NTFS works. Go read more on this and ZFS to see why it is the only other FS that supports these types of transactions.)

Now I admit the OS X Time Machine interface is far more cooler than the Vista 'list' interface, but it is less functional, adds system overhead to maintain the backups,and wastes far more drive space.

So the functionality DOES EXIST in Windows, first appeared in the Windows 2003 Server Beta back in 2002, and has been around doing what Apple is just now catching up to in a less efficient way 5 years later. (4 Years if you count the Release date of Windows 2003 and not the Beta previews in 2002.)

Now take this information back to your Mac forums, and tell them they gave you crappy information and they have no idea what the hell they are talking about when it comes to comparing OS X and Vista.

So the same feature that first appeared on Windows Server in 2003 and then on Vista is considered a security risk, especially because it is too 'easy' to use. [...] And now the same freaking feature in OS X is considered a 'security feature', and they claim it is even 'easier' to use than Vista's version?

Anybody want to address whether you can move "C:\Users" to its own partition - so you don't have to worry about losing profiles when you reinstall the OS?

Thought not.

See here for issues with even trying:

Biggest problem with backups on Windows - Documents and Settings. Why? Because if you try to back it up, you get errors because Windows has open files in there that you can't touch from within the OS.

Can you say STUPID? I knew you could.

Try backing up /home from within Linux. Problems? Nope.

Try reinstalling Linux with your /home on another partition - the preferred "best practices" setup on Linux. Problems? Nope.

And if anybody at Microsoft from 1990 on had any clue, they would have looked at how UNIX did this simple stuff. It isn't rocket science, it's common sense and experience running an OS from the 1970's.

And Microsoft ignored all of it.

FY96* FY97* FY98* FY99* FY00* FY01* FY02 FY03 FY04 FY05 FY06 FY07
 
$9,050 $11,936 $15,262 $19,747 $22,956 $25,296 $28,365 $32,187 $36,835 $39,788 $44,282 $51,122
 
Net Income For Shareholders in Millions:
 
$2,195 $3,439 $4,462 $7,757 $9,408 $7,346 $5,355 $7,531 $8,168 $12,254 $12,599 $14,065

Also, where XP is nearing end of life, isn't it time to follow through with your promise to release a patch which will eliminate the need to activate Windows XP?

Do you have any examples of software that works in XP and needs rewriting for Vista?

How about Microsoft eMbedded Visual C++ 4.0? Released four years ago. Doesn't work in Vista. Apparently Visual Studio 2003 doesn't either. Windows Mobile 5.0 only came out a couple years ago, so if you want to target devices older than that, you're not going to be doing it on Vista.

Do you have any examples of software that works in XP and needs rewriting for Vista?

How about Microsoft eMbedded Visual C++ 4.0? Released four years ago. Doesn't work in Vista. Apparently Visual Studio 2003 doesn't either. Windows Mobile 5.0 only came out a couple years ago, so if you want to target devices older than that, you're not going to be doing it on Vista.

It has been replaced with something different Exchange Web Services which rather than being some Microsoft concocted protocol is compliant SOAP.

As far as Entourage goes in Office 2008 it is my understanding that it will do *native* binary MAPI. Even if it does not there is nothing to stop them using Exchange Web Services instead in the future. The WebDAV interface to Exchange is to go.

To disable LM and use NTLM only, read MSKB #147706. Ophcrack only offers LM hash tables for free, NTLM hash tables are $240.

wel guys, while most of us always bickering abt M$ 's stupid policies n its endless bugs in software, n all the stuff it doesnt do right....they do do a lot of R&D....and atleast in this case they had actually given the fundamental platform for this kind of products....

for more details...check out the mesh networking research .....
http://research.microsoft.com/mesh/

Ignore Net Avenger. This is the same tool that announced that NT had a BSD subsystem

I hope everyone isn't this stupid...

http://technet2.microsoft.com/WindowsServer/en/library/695ac415-d314-45df-b464-4c80ddc2b3bc1033.mspx?mfr=true

The current Unix subsystem for Windows NT (Vista/2003/Longhorn/XP) very much does have a BSD subsystem that runs 'side by side' the Win32/Win64 subsystem. Anyone that has even looked at the NT kernel architecture will understand how this works and why NT can do this.

Huh? According to Microsoft they security updates to pirated versions of Windows. Source: (click on "Will users of non-genuine Windows be blocked from receiving security updates?")

It also appears that the Malicious Software Removal Tool doesn't require validation either.

So you can run the same malware removal tools on pirated versions of Windows as well.

Huh? According to Microsoft they security updates to pirated versions of Windows. Source: (click on "Will users of non-genuine Windows be blocked from receiving security updates?")

It also appears that the Malicious Software Removal Tool doesn't require validation either.

So you can run the same malware removal tools on pirated versions of Windows as well.

Or the clipboard copy function can not distinguish between plain text, pictures, or embedded documents with macros. It simply pastes content, anything that can be put on the clipboard.

Ah, but it can distinguish between formats. Windows is not that stupid, actually... See Clipboard Formats on MSDN.

From that article:

A window can place more than one object on the clipboard, each representing the same information in a different clipboard format.

The problem is probably not DRM. Maybe the e-mail composing application wants to get text in the "best format" that it can handle --- which happens to be Word's format with all the probable embedded macros --- so it displays a warning. Probably it should opt for the second-best format that is provided by Word but has no executable content (probably RTF).

As horrible as Word's proprietary format is, there isn't any DRM involved in it. A closed format* that lets you do what the heck you like with it contains no DRM; it's plain irritating for people who prefer openness but it exerts no control over the data contained within. It would be preferable for Yale to release the minutes in plain text, or nicely formated HTML, or something.

DRM is much more evil. DRM tries to control how you use your data. Or, if you believe the vitriol spewed forth from Microsoft, Sony, Apple etc, DRM tries to control how you use their data that they've only issued you a license to use within certain limited parameters.

* Closed in terms of free-as-in-speech. Anyone can use the format in a free-as-in-beer sense under a covenant which Microsoft promise not to sue ... http://support.microsoft.com/kb/840817/en-us# ... If you believe them. ;)

"... even Chuck Bigelow's Lucida has been supplanted."

I just tried the Consolas font, and I like it better than Lucida Console, my previous favorite font for programming.

Here's how to get the fonts: Download Microsoft Powerpoint Viewer. It is 25 Megabytes. View the file, PowerPointViewer.exe, in WinZip or another archive viewer, such as the excellent, free, open source, Windows, Linux, OS X, 7-Zip. Then view the file inside the archive, ppviewer.cab. The fonts are inside the .CAB file.

The reason IBM is outta the game is because OS/2 was originally available for IBM only (makes sense, it WAS developed by IBM)

Or, rather, by IBM and a certain other company, the fact that they've obliterated it (and Xenix) from their annoyingly Flash-ridden history (unless I missed it) nonwithstanding.

The reason IBM is outta the game is because OS/2 was originally available for IBM only (makes sense, it WAS developed by IBM)

Or, rather, by IBM and a certain other company, the fact that they've obliterated it (and Xenix) from their annoyingly Flash-ridden history (unless I missed it) nonwithstanding.

Licenses to use these fonts in other applications on up to five computers can be purchased from Ascender Corporation for $35 per font, $120 per font family, or $300 for the whole set.

Press release

Really good command line? They're working on PowerShell

No I am NOT an MS fanboy. I'm posting this so that bash will be better than this by the time it rolls out (well you can download it for vista, but since I'll never run Vista I can't tell you first hand if it's any good.

The thing that always amazes me about Windows is not how half-assed it is, but how half-assed it is given the amount of resources that Microsoft has to throw at the problem.

Actually, it's not surprising. It's probably some kind of corollary to Brooks' Law, but at a certain point, more resources don't help, and in fact make it worse.

MS actually does have some pretty nice command-line tools for dealing with drivers, like DevCon. It'd sure be nice if it came with Windows, but truth is that for the average userbase, it'd be like handing chainsaws to paraplegics.

I do find it odd how they just refuse to update things like paint or notepad. You know that's gotta be a frequent request from customers.

1. Download the PowerPointViewer.exe from the link in the article.
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=048DC840-14E1-467D-8DCA-19D2A8FD7485&displaylang=en
2. Open a DOS window, go to where the PowerPointViewer.exe file is, and create a directory called test.
3. Type the command "PowerPointViewer /extract:complete-path-to-test-folder"
4. Using WinRAR, look into the CAB file and extract all font files.

If you're too lazy to do that, try this link:

http://technical-writing.dionysius.com/resources/vista-fonts.zip

They look beautiful on my current monitor, and are a big improvement. All hail the new better standard.

"""This page explains how to get hold of them 'legally':"""

Ok, then click the link to download powerpoint viewer and what do you see?

You may use the fonts that accompany the PowerPoint Viewer only to display and print content from a device running a Microsoft Windows operating system. Additionally, you may do the following:

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=048DC840-14E1-467D-8DCA-19D2A8FD7485&displaylang=en

I guess it depends on what you define as legal (is a EULA legal for example).

The Consolas font is a phenomenal mono-spaced font, and I've been using it for a year or more. You can download it from MS for free but it's an exe file. Once installed though you could easily, say, move the TTF file over from your Windows virtual machine to your "real" system and have access to it there. :)

You sir are a nub. http://www.microsoft.com/windows/WinHistoryDesktop.mspx

Remember, "Windows 7" is just a code name like Longhorn (Vista/Server 2008), Whistler (XP/Server 2003), Millennium (ME), Memphis (98), Chicago (95). Marketing will probably call it something else by the time it's released. Still, some speculate that the return to numeric code names signifies something larger with the recent leadership change, mainly the moving of Steven Sinofsky from Office (where code names have always been numbered) to Windows.

Please mod this guy up!
With virtualisation tech going the way it is, taking this approach should be a no-brainer. There may be a performance hit but the potential for sandboxing that this approach offers may actually make running legacy apps in this way SAFER than using the original OS or building the same old cruft into the core of the new OS.

I seem to recall that Microsoft Research was working on an OS based on similar sandboxing concepts - Singularity http://research.microsoft.com/os/singularity/

I've been playing with video using Microsoft Portrait on my Sprint Mogul (HTC Hermes, a PocketPC phone) for a while now. It works pretty well. Skype has better sound quality, but Skype for Mobile doesn't seem to be doing video yet.

The OEMs can't complete by providing, say Firefox and advertising that their bundle is more secure than their competitors. Dell could chose firefox and HP could chose opera or whatever. They can't because MS is still stronarming them.

Sure they can bundle Firefox or Opera. Take a look at the Windows Principles. These principles are the same ones that mean Dell can ship Linux on PCs without affecting their business with Microsoft (except to the extent that pricing is based on volume of Windows licenses shipped). In addition, the Windows Principles are not tied to particular court rulings. For example, protocol documentation for interoperability was already part of the design process for future versions of Windows, regardless of the recent EU ruling.

I don't understand how this 'patch' would cause WGA to fail, as this is just a hook into the system that cleans up a call to ShellExecute(). It isn't like a patch to an existing DLL or something that would cause checksums to fail on your system.

Anyway, I'm glad to see that somebody tried to do something because of Microsoft's inaction. There are people out there that are forced to use Windows and this patch could definitely help hold them over until Microsoft gets their crap together. This patch just registers a DLL and a hook into the system, easily installed and easily removed (assuming it doesn't actually bork your system).

Anyway, Microsoft would be stupid to fail WGA on people if anything is hooked into the system (think of Antivirus scanners, sysinternals tools (which were only recently acquired/purchased my MS), and other system utilities and hooks)

With my Exchange Disks, I had a separate disk for Outlook included. From http://www.microsoft.com/mac/products/entourage2004/entourage2004.aspx?pid=exup2004:

Note: Organizations with Exchange Client Access Licenses can use one Microsoft e-mail client for each CAL owned. Microsoft e-mail clients are Entourage for Mac users and Outlook for Windows users.

I'm actually really excited about this. We've got a demo running here. We installed it on a two year old notebook and everything just worked. Pointed Evolution to our Exchange server, and it just worked. Which IMHO is key, I love to hack things just as much as the next guy, but if I have to hack things just to get them to work the first time, its a major turn off.

It's got a slick UI and the package manager is well done.

Add in support from Dell.

All that is missing now is a really awesome developer environment.

me neither, maybe you could try to spam me...here is my address
mailto:billgates@microsoft.com

Microsoft's self service hotfix page @ https://support.microsoft.com/contactus2/emailcontact.aspx?scid=sw;en;1410&WS=hotfix

"Reference use" means use of the software within your company as a reference, in read only form, for the sole purposes of debugging your products, maintaining your products, or enhancing the interoperability of your products with the software, and specifically excludes the right to distribute the software outside of your company.

Umm.

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=3A1C93FA-7462-47D0-8E56-8DD34C6292F0&displaylang=en
http://www.dotgnu.org/
http://www.mono-project.com/Main_Page

OK. I'd like to put Vista on my Atari 800.

Oh! You mean I get to pick what kind of *Windows* PC I want to run on.

The irony here is that Gore along with Clinton rejected Kyoto when they both were in office, but now both embrace it now that they are out of office and cannot do anything to get it passed. In the same way Microsoft embraces open source, but rejects GPL and BSD licenses, and use their own open source license to control how their code and software are used. I would not be at all surprised if Microsoft releases Singularity as a MS-Open Source operating system to compete with Linux sometime in the near future, as an alternative to Windows and control how Dell, Gateway, HP/Compaq, IBM, etc use and distribute Singularity on brand new PC systems.