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Well, some of them must have huge files collections. That's probably why Robocopy is made by Microsoft.

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=9d467a69-57ff-4ae7-96ee-b18c4790cffd&displaylang=en

• The files include extended attributes.
• You copy lots of files in a single operation.

Requesting a hotfix from MSFT support is pretty easy these days. Find the KB articles, go to this address, enter your email, the KB number, platform information, and they email you the hotfix.

It's a lot better than the old days where you had to get a support ticket opened, find a human, convince them there was a hotfix, and get them to provide you the bits somehow.

Win95, Win98, and WinME all can't handle more than 512MB of RAM anyways

SYMPTOMS
If a computer that is running any of the versions of Windows that are listed above contains more than 512 megabytes (for example, 768 megabytes) of physical memory (RAM), you may experience one or more of the following symptoms:

You may be unable to open an MS-DOS session (or command prompt) while Windows is running.
The computer may stop responding (hang) while Windows is starting, or halt and display the following error message:

Here is one of their suggested workarounds:

Reduce the amount of memory that is installed in your computer to 512 MB or less.

Here is their support article on it http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=KB;EN-US;Q253912&ID=KB;EN-US;Q253912

• GNOME http://library.gnome.org/devel/glib/stable/glib-Perl-compatible-regular-expressions.html
• Qt http://doc.trolltech.com/4.3/qregexp.html
• WxWindows http://www.wxwidgets.org/manuals/stable/wx_wxregex.html
• .Net http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.text.regularexpressions.aspx
• Java http://java.sun.com/j2se/1.5.0/docs/api/java/util/regex/package-summary.html

The underlying problem is a Windows OLE component memory leak. Microsoft has a hotfix for the issue at http://support.microsoft.com/kb/942435/en-us

This problem occurs if the following conditions are true:
  * The files include extended attributes.
  * You copy lots of files in a single operation.

CAUSE
This problem occurs because of a memory leak in the Windows OLE component. This memory leak is triggered by the way that Windows Explorer deals with the extended attributes of the files.

Of all things to criticize Microsoft for, I can't believe you'd stoop to making fun of them for registering trademarks for MS-DOS, MSDN, and MSN, or for using MSHOME as their default network name.

That's assuming that you were criticizing Microsoft and not the grandparent poster for using the shorthand that Microsoft uses for themselves. That'd be either ignorant or hypocritical, so I'm sure it must be the former.

Oh? Now I KNOW you haven't bothered to read it! For heaven's sake, do I have to spoon feed you? Here it is again, with the link embedded that you couldn't be bothered to look for in Gutmann's paper, RIGHT where I told you to look:

An excellent analysis from one of the hardware vendors involved in this comes from ATI, in the form of Digital Media Content Protection from WinHEC. This points out (in the form of PowerPoint bullet-points) the manifold problems associated with Vista's content-protection measures, with repeated mention of increased development costs, degraded performance and the phrase "increased costs passed on to consumers" pervading the entire presentation like a mantra.

Exactly! All they need are the private keys MS uses to sign the updates.. oh wait.

Again?
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/security/Bulletin/MS01-017.mspx

You forgot to multiply by the fraction of each file each person got from her.

The problem, which will come out soon, is that the laptop (and certain select other machines) were discounted if, and only if, you signed up for MSN for an X month term.

Same deal when you buy/bought certain Cisnet (and other) machines. In those cases, the machines were *usually* (but not always) labelled "AOL PCs" and the tiny print on the box, and/or on the ad circular stated you'd be signed up for AOL for a year, and that if you cancelled that contract, you'd be charged the discount given on the hardware.

As much as I hate MS, I doubt this is their fault - or even Best Buy's. The stuff is always clearly stated on the ads and signage (even if the person chooses not to read it, or the salesperson chooses not to read it to the customer for them).

I dont feel like digging, but here's a link to an older "rebate" for MSN signup with purchase of a system.

http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/features/2000/01-07msnrebateqa.mspx

Note this part...

Many places did the rebate instant at time of purchase, while activating the account. Some (CompUSA for instance) issued a rebate form.

Similar programs to that rebate program have been in affect for quite some time. MS - and every major retailer I have worked for or visited - has been very careful to ensure they use the provided signs and wording in their ads and promo stuff. Yeah, it's small print... but just like the small print in the warranty that says "spill damage is not covered" it does not matter whether you read it or not, and it isnt the responsibility of the salesperson to read the whole thing to you. The vendor's responsibility ends with having the correct signage up, and the correct wording (in this case, provided by MS and their legal team, perhaps in conjunction with Best Buy's) on the big price card and in the flyer.

Score a win for Best Buy and MS.

Force of habit here, but I work tech support for an unnamed company who has ocassional similar problems. So, I might as well put in my 2 cents:

Microsoft actually has something called the Windows Installer Cleanup Utility for this sorta problem:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/290301

Not sure WTF it does other than it seems to be some sort of interesting VBsctipt to fix similar problems. Good luck!

It's not really that hard.

You can still use Python, wget, and throw in some com bindings for your python.

Then use the COM automation for the windows firewall.

Would probably take 1-2 hours the first time for me to do that. Much less after that.

Mind you, some of the interfaces arent as clean to the Unix'y eye as the iptables solution. MS automation tends to be more oriented towards a programmer or an SA with strong programming skills. Unix automation tends to be more oriented towards an SA with minor coding skills but an interest to poke around. Lower barrier of entry on the unix side, cause things tend to be a little simpler.

(assuming I'm understanding from the quick link what the 'self-updating firewall rules' are doing)

OK here what really grinds my gears. This is taken straight off of MS website: "Privacy: We believe that people have the right to not receive unwanted communications. We also believe that people need to be able to trust that their personal information is used appropriately--and that any use of that information provides specific value to them. Business Practices: We strive to maintain the highest standards in our business conduct, to ensure integrity and transparency in all of our business practices, and to address society's ethical, legal, and commercial expectations." Wow! what a load of crap http://www.microsoft.com/mscorp/twc/default.mspx

1. Applications running in the POSIX framework of Windows NT were second-class citizens running in a sandbox: they could not start Windows applications or DLLs, call Win32 functions, communicate over the network, or use memory-mapped files. I take a cynical educated guess that these restrictions had something to do with making it impossible to run apps that use X11 within the built-in POSIX framework.
2. As of Windows XP, Microsoft replaced the old NT POSIX framework with a downloadable component called Windows Services for UNIX (SFU, formerly Interix), which removed some of these restrictions. But SFU is not compatible with Windows XP Home Edition.
3. Windows Vista Ultimate includes a new version of SFU. It's still not in the Home Basic or even Home Premium edition.

http://technet2.microsoft.com/windowsserver/en/library/797e56e1-a611-4f36-8bfe-99f8e6af26cf1033.mspx?mfr=true

FTA - "How can I be sure that updates are safe to install?

Windows uses Secure Socket Layer (SSL) to encrypt the transfer of system information and updates between your computer and the Windows Update Web site. Each file that you download using Automatic Updates has a digital signature from Microsoft. Digital signatures are designed to ensure the authenticity and integrity of signed files. Automatic Updates will not install files that do not contain the correct digital signature."

So, what's the price for the Microsoft support contract? Compare apples to apples now. The software is free on the linux side. The support isn't. The software and support aren't free on the Microsoft side, so pull the numbers for Microsoft to offer the same level of enterprise support to a server deployment.

From: http://download.microsoft.com/download/7/3/9/739c7ab3-25c4-4b8c-9680-81ae10573b9d/BearingPoint.doc
(Microsoft's pricing study against linux)

I can sometwhat determine in their "Detailed Microsoft Pricing" that their "Essential Support" for a small deployment is $8000/year, for "Premier Support" you're talking $50,000. For clarity, for the server deployments they were talking about, that was $300/license on the essential and $100/license on the Premier since it was a larger deployment. So add that to you $799.

Put that in your pipe and smoke it.

Hey, now that we are at it, it was not long since Microsoft embraced our beloved Tux!, yup, I just stumbled upon Tux in MSDN, and guess what, it is used as a benchmark for Windows (they use a really high mark as benchmark no?).

it was MS SourceSafe and their documentation on how it does/doesn't work with their other products is a joke. Everything is a marketing doc and it turns out that it couldn't do what my buddy wanted it to do. He asked them about it and they said it could. BTW, I was there for all 8 hours.

Ahhh, yeah. SourceSafe is pretty crappy. It's really only appropriate for very small teams with very simple needs. Unfortunately, alot of not-too-savvy shops use it because it ships with the rest of the tool stack, and for these kinds of groups, it generally works 'good enough', so they never try anything different. These also tend to be, in my experience, the sorts of groups who dont do alot of process and release management. Very ad-hoc shops, in other words.

Specifically:

it was MS SourceSafe and their documentation on how it does/doesn't work with their other products is a joke.

I'm not aware that it has any integration capabilities with anything other than the dev environments made by MS. You've basically got the API where other things can hook into it, IVSS and MSSCCI. The former is all com stuff, so easy to consume, though the documentation is fairly crappy. The latter is (I believe) the api used to make a new provider, which I think you need to setup as a VSIP, which is free if you dont want dedicated tech support.

But other than that, I dont think there's much in the way of 'integration' with other MS products. There's even (IIRC) some real caveats to hooking it into your AD to use network logins.

Still sounds to me like the guy didnt do his research, but hey, I wasnt there. I think most of us who have been around in the MS world for a while know that VSS is pretty crappy, and doesnt do much, and what it does, it doesnt do well, so would be looking for an alternate solution.

If you want to maintain the API and semantics of VSS, you can use SourceGear Vault, which maintains the api and the way VSS works, but uses a real database on the backend, and is much more reliable and contains many integration points.

Oh, for some reason, those guys would not tell me what software configuration management(SCM) package they are using at Microsoft. The way they laughed on the phone at my question lead me to believe it was not something they tell people and it's not a Microsoft product.

It's all second or third hand, but my understanding is that many years ago, MS bought source rights to a high-performance commercial product (something like Perforce) and have been modifying it to their own needs internally for many years. Not too surprising I guess, they have fairly unique needs. The combination of the size and monolithic-nature of their windows systems, combined with the way they do their development.

Anyways, I've found that people who make their living on Microsoft are Microsoft to the bone. Hardly worth attempting to tell them about something new/interesting in OSS because if it ain't MS, it doesn't exist. They'll be happy to wait 5-10 years to get it from Microsoft.

Well, always nice to slip in an insulting generality to a population that uses a different toolset than you do, but hey, thats what /. is for, right?

I've got a better (and probably more accurate) generality for you to arbitrarily divide up the population with. It's still pretty silly, but is a much more useful theoretical basis to model populations with.

1. Those who arent technology professionals, and use only what they know, and cant even be bothered to learn about the industry as a whole, and let vendors/consultants/etc be their technology professionals so they dont have to.

2. Those who develop the internal skills and staff to be technology professionals, in at least one subset, without relying on external consultants or vendors.

Now there's nothing inherently wro

They released the fonts under a license which allowed redistribution. Which people are continuing to do, per the terms of the license. See here to download, if you're not using debian: http://corefonts.sourceforge.net/ Or, review the license here: http://www.microsoft.com/typography/fontpack/eula.htm

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/q276304/

Can you say what software it is, or if not, at least what kind of software it is?

Some types of software need to dig deeper into the system and require special privs (debuggers, some a/v stuff, systems programs, etc). Those can be much harder to debug without really getting your hands dirty.

Even if you dont think it'll have an effect, put pressure on them to fix their software to work without UAC prompts on Windows. If they're making money off the software, then its the right thing to do.

Regmon

Filemonj

I'll warn you though it can be a pain to do this troubleshooting, and it can be time-consuming. Both regmon and filemon produce a fairly low signal-to-noise ratio, and can be hard to read. Use the filtering and searching tools within the apps.

Can you say what software it is, or if not, at least what kind of software it is?

Some types of software need to dig deeper into the system and require special privs (debuggers, some a/v stuff, systems programs, etc). Those can be much harder to debug without really getting your hands dirty.

Even if you dont think it'll have an effect, put pressure on them to fix their software to work without UAC prompts on Windows. If they're making money off the software, then its the right thing to do.

Regmon

Filemonj

I'll warn you though it can be a pain to do this troubleshooting, and it can be time-consuming. Both regmon and filemon produce a fairly low signal-to-noise ratio, and can be hard to read. Use the filtering and searching tools within the apps.

It sounds like your problem was caused by Windows XP because it doesn't understand GPT. Bootcamp sets up a GPT/MBR hybrid disk partition, and thats what Windows boots from on your Mac.. Linux, Solaris, and Mac OS X can understand GPT. 64-bit Win XP supposedly can, but from here it sounds like it might not expect GPT on an external disk. I don't think Windows would be able to boot off a target mode disk either unless you had another EFI machine to put it on. 64-bit Win XP or Vista on two different Macs would be a great experiment.

It so happens that even Microsoft is violating this patent directly (EXE link warning) http://download.microsoft.com/download/whistler/Install/2/WXP/EN-US/DeskmanPowertoySetup.exe

Depends on what you think it means.

If you opted-in for the Customer Experience Improvement Program, then it records a bunch of data about your system and how you use it and uploads it to Microsoft.

A couple of key points:
1) It's opt-in, so it's not sending data unless you said to do so.
2) It's anonymous. It does not collect any information that can be used to identify you.

http://www.microsoft.com/products/ceip/en-us/default.mspx
http://windowsvistablog.com/blogs/windowsvista/pages/windows-vista-service-pack-1-beta-whitepaper.aspx

I hate to say it, but you really need to yell at your college for sticking with VS2003. VS2005 is available from MSDNAA, which is what I assume you meant by "partnered with MS through MSDN."

However, schools choose on an individual basis which software packages are available.

Q: What products are supported?
A: We are supporting Visual Basic 6.0, Visual FoxPro 9.0 and Visual Studio 2005 Service Pack 1 with the Visual Studio 2005 Service Pack 1 Update for Windows Vista.

You're referring to PIE (Pocket Internet Explorer. Tastes bad, not to be confused with Apple PIE or Apricot PIE).

Details page: http://www.microsoft.com/windowsmobile/microsoftprograms/iemobile.mspx.

It's ultra basic. No popup support, no Flash, no ... wait a minute... can I get it for Windows XP?

Win32 doesn't support forking, but the NT kernel does. For that matter, by far most of the expense of starting a Win32 process on Windows is due to Win32 subsystem overhead, including compatibility database lookups, not the kernel. SFU processes (that belong to the POSIX subsystem) and native processes (that belong to no subsystem) are MUCH cheaper, and incidentally support true kernel level copy-on-write fork.

Cygwin doesn't use the kernel's fork support because Cygwin is built upon on Win32. SFU can because it runs parallel to Win32.

I think it is somewhat more expensive...

It's a lot more expensive. Some numbers MSR came up with while working on their research OS Singularity put process creation on Linux at ~700,000 cycles, just over 1 million on FreeBSD, and just under 5.4 million cycles on XP. Here's one source; slide 23.

I'm not arguing against your main point; I'm just pointing out that there is actually a huge difference between process creation time on the different systems.

A quick check by signing into WinQual confirms... there is no fee whatsoever involved in WHQL certification of self-tested products.

Microsoft disagrees

From microsoft's own site: http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/winlogo/VistaLogofaq.mspx

Q. Are fees involved in the logo program testing?
A. WHQL charges a nominal fee to review the testing logs that you submit. See the WHQL Testing Fee Schedules and Payment Instructions in the WHQL Policies information available at http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/whql/policies/default.mspx.

A quick check by signing into WinQual confirms... there is no fee whatsoever involved in WHQL certification of self-tested products.

Microsoft disagrees

From microsoft's own site: http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/winlogo/VistaLogofaq.mspx

Q. Are fees involved in the logo program testing?
A. WHQL charges a nominal fee to review the testing logs that you submit. See the WHQL Testing Fee Schedules and Payment Instructions in the WHQL Policies information available at http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/whql/policies/default.mspx.

A fairer comparison would be among Netware permissions and POSIX or Windows ACLs.

I'd just like to add that on Windows, you can actually play multiplayer even with the FREE membership to GfW Live. For example, with Halo 2 PC, the Silver features are: Achievements, Game Server Browser/Multiplayer, Voice Chat, Text Chat, Friends List (and the associated matchmaking with your friends). With the Gold subscription, that adds... well, Matchmaking. Specifically the system which goes to behemoth efforts to pit you against opponents that suck/rock as much as you do at the game. [reference: http://www.microsoft.com/games/halo2%5D

I don't see what's so evil about Live on Windows.

There is the new Word 2007 Viewer : here. they also have them for Excel, and PowerPoint.

We need to keep an eye on this to ensure that the practice doesn't spread to other sites. It could make browsing very annoying.

there's also the free compatibility pack available here for earlier versions of word.

M$ has has a compatibility pack that allows you to open MSOOXML on earlier Office versions. No need to upgrade yet.

Link to read some more info.

Windows terminal services sessions are encrypted with 128-bit RC4. The Remote Assistance feature utilizes WTS. The shared secret (the password) is used to protect the terminal services session key, so password strength is an issue.

I'll grant you that VNC sessions are not encrypted, but that's true on Linux as well. You need to use an SSH wrapper (also possible and just as easy on Windows as it is on Linux), or a VPN of some sort.

Try running a harddrive activity utility to track down the app accessing your platters. It will probably turn out to be 3rd party. Process Monitor should do it.