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That's nine managers and six developers. No wonder the team "hustles for resources." They're probably going broke paying management wages to sixty percent of the staff. It says three more people aren't pictured -- we can bet that two of them are more managers.

You're obviously not familiar with Microsoft position nomenclature. Of the names listed, there are three real managers -- the GPM, the PUM, and the Engineering Manager. You're confusing "Program Manager" and "Product Manager" as actual managers. They aren't.

Program managers "manage the program", not people -- they write specs, interface with customers, etc.

Product managers "manage the product", and are purely marketing. Again, they don't necessarily manage people.

Program managers and product managers are roughly on par with developers and test developers. They don't make the same big bucks as GPMs or PUMS.

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?fa milyid=144e54ed-d43e-42ca-bc7b-5446d34e5360&displa ylang=en "The Remove Hidden Data Tool" One of the girls upstairs in the PR department ran into the same problem today. It took all of three minutes on Google to find the solution to the problem.

I'm not going to claim to be any kind of expert on the subject, but I did bother to look at some of those exploits that turned up and I think you should double check your claim. For example, here's one posted by Microsoft. Are you claiming all of the exploits don't work and if so, why? Do you think IIS 6 is invulnerable?

or here http://microsoft.com/clearcase/repositories/IIS6/s table/src.
Username bill
Password gates

Along the same lines -- Is it so hard for these guys to use the MS provided plugin?

Okay, I just did a quick search and found out that you can't really turn off change tracking. You can hide it, of course, but it's still in there tracking. So the only way to get rid of those changes is to accept or reject each one individually. The information is here (this is for Word 2007, but I assume it's the same for previous versions as well). This is a silly and cumbersome thing to have to do, and you're right -- it makes it a bad way to distribute documents.

Now, the suggestions elsewhere around here that they simply standardize on PDF would solve everything, and they could still use Word if they're used to it. But posting .doc files (which has never seemed like a good idea in any area of business or government for countless reasons anyway -- why distribute something that can be so easily edited?) is rife with peril.

Try contoling the Metadata with a tool that even Microsoft provides for free. http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/help/HA011400341 033.aspx It can happen with .pdf as well: http://news.com.com/U.S.+military+security+defeate d+by+copy+and+paste/2100-1002_3-5694982.html Not sure about .odf

Yes, it has been implemented (sort of) -- in Windows 3.x. From MSDN: "The WM_COMPACTING message is sent to all top-level windows when the system detects more than 12.5 percent of system time over a 30- to 60-second interval is being spent compacting memory. This indicates that system memory is low. A window receives this message through its WindowProc function. This message is provided only for compatibility with 16-bit Microsoft Windows-based applications."

http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms632618. aspx

I guess modern systems just assume the memory is infinite ("if nothing helps, swap!")

What are you people talking about !?

Our standard is more standard than your standard. What sort of childish argument is this?

Look here where it states...

The work to standardise OpenXML has been carried out by Ecma International as part of an open, cross-industry collaboration via Technical Committee 45 (Ecma TC45), which includes representatives from Apple, Barclays Capital, BP, The British Library, Essilor, Intel, Microsoft, NextPage, Novell, Statoil, Toshiba, and the United States Library of Congress.

Most of the standards that get created these days have a major corporate backer from which the majority of the work in development of the standard has taken place. It becomes a standard when it is accepted by other representatives of the development community. Who better to offer standards on word processing formats than the #1 leader in word processing on the planet. Like it or not Microsoft is that leader, not Sun who is the major backer of Open Office. I think your whole argument is based on some childish inability to accept that.

I've worked with Office 2007 xml formats, they are extremely easy to work with very powerful and extremely accessible. Microsoft has actually astonished me with the fantastic work they have done and the way in which they have provided support for Office 2007 formats in Office 2000, Office XP and Office 2003. I think the days of forced migrations are genuinely in the past. People are going to move to Office 2007 and Open XML formats for one reason only and that is a genuine value added benefit. Specifically from Office 2007's tight integration and it's connectivity with Sharepoint. The format of Office 2007's documents is not going to be a motivation for upgrading.

I think Microsoft is taking the right approach and has the right attitude on this one and that your comments are totally based on emotional and heavily biased opinions.

What's wrong with this website?

Actually if that's the reason it's not that difficult, if you use the MSLU. However, I support any software publisher that drops support for the 9x SKUs. They all need to go away.

I disagree. I've followed this battle in pretty close detail. My observation is that Microsoft has only stood in the way of ODF being adopted to the exclusion of any other format. They seem to be perfectly happy with any case where ODF and other standards being allowed.

ODF is not supported by MS in Word natively. Thus, ODF adoption usually means MS is losing a sale. Further, it means it is easier for their customers to migrate away from MS Office. You really don't think MS is doing anything to stop people from moving to ODF. You don't think they're offering price cuts to stop migrations away from MSOffice to say Openffice and ODF?

You answered argument with speculation and leading questions, and did not address my point at all. Regardless of whether or not ODF means potential lost revenue for Microsoft, Microsoft has not opposed ODF in any way other than when ODF is being proposed as an exclusive choice by an organization. Please address this point, not going off on something irrelevant.

Microsoft does not appear to be fighting the adoption of ODF, they are merely fighting the exclusion of other standards.

Open standards traditionally bring certain benefits including [...] All of these things are benefits MS would prefer their customers did not have

First, you are making a lot of assumptions there. Yes, perhaps Microsoft WOULD prefer their customers not have those benefits, but I guarantee you that Sun, IBM, and others would also prefer such things. They know, however, that they can't reasonably achieve those preferences, though.

The fact of the matter is that OXML provides all the beneifts you mention as well, so regardless of what Microsoft might privately prefer, they're offering otherwise.

The restrictions needed to get patent protection from Sun are the same as PDF from Adobe, you just have to follow the spec.

Which is precisely the same as with OXML.

http://www.microsoft.com/interop/osp/default.mspx

"Microsoft irrevocably promises not to assert any Microsoft Necessary Claims against you for making, using, selling, offering for sale, importing or distributing any implementation to the extent it conforms to a Covered Specification ("Covered Implementation")"

Technically, there is nothing stopping MS from releasing a new version of OpenXML and telling all current software vendors implementing it that they are no longer in compliance with the license since they implement the "old" version and shutting down each and every competitor. That is not the case with ODF.

Wow, what bullshit. If you'll notice above, the promise is issued explicitly "Office Open XML 1.0 - Ecma-376". Also notice the "irrevocably" above. Where do you come up with this stuff, anyways?

No, ODF is currently implemented by software from dozens of companies and no one company can stop another from implementing the spec. So long as they are following the spec there is nothing Sun can do, including releasing a new version of the spec, to stop someone like the WrodPerfect team from implementing it.

There are also a number of companies in the process of implementing OXML, including Apple and Novell. ODF has an 18 month headstart, however, and implementations besides OpenOffice are still largely in development..

As I pointed out above, nobody, not even Microsoft, can make anyone not implement OXML so long as the spec is followed.

Those were separate list items. Note the comma. OpenXML is encumbered by patents that can still be brought to bear.

No, it's not. The covenent prevents that.

Additionally, OpenXML is tied by trade secrets. Parts of the spec refer to trade secrets and copyrighted implementations of other works. For example, in some in

MS has been doing quite a lot of advertising over here of the use the London Stock Exchange makes of Windows server and MS-SQL:

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsserver/facts/cases tudies/lse.mspx

So I guess it's swings and roundabouts in the PR game.

Sure maybe you might miss a small target the first time with a standard touch screen, but it's not rocket science to try again.

I can see this being useful where targets are very small, and very densely packed on the screen.

According to the source I listed, 1GB is required for Aero-enabled editions. This is in line with Microsoft's own requirements:

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/products/windowsv ista/editions/systemrequirements.mspx

The minimums are lower in many cases, but I chose the recommended where more memory was required for standard features. (e.g. ME requires only 32 MB, but 64 MB is required if you want to run Windows Media Player.) I considered separating out different configurations, but I decided that it would simply obscure the point.

Why? It's not like they don't have 64-bit versions of Vista already.

As has been mentioned before on /. Microsoft will require signed drivers on their 64 bit OS

http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/system/platform/64bi t/kmsigning.mspx

Implications of this are:

1. Chilling effect to new devices.
2. Sets the stage for tighter DRM handcuffs.

From Microsoft's perspective these aren't bad things as they directly benefit Microsoft shareholders though, so I guess it's a wash.

There is a little more to vista than eye candy. Here is a 3-part article that discusses the changes that were actually made in the kernel of vista: http://www.microsoft.com/technet/technetmag/issues /2007/02/VistaKernel/default.aspx It's a good read and it convinced me that vista will be awesome as soon as all the bugs are gone.

with sites like Orb networks, you can already watch live TV at high FPS on your mobile phone. You can also already display your phone's view to any computer with remote display programs; it's just a matter of considering your computer as your TV, which many of us already do.

Yeah, it wouldn't surprise me at all. The Software Assurance is issued in 3-year intervals, and since it was introduced in 2001, many companies have re-signed Software Assurance plans in 2004 and recently in 2006/2007. In fact, this was one of the driving factors behind The November '06 release of Vista: Microsoft quelled unrest in their biggest customers by releasing Vista before their Software Assurance plans ran out.

The fact is, very few companies are going to drop their Software Assurance contracts, and since every single SA contact comes with a Vista Enterpeise license (it is the only way to get one, according to Microsoft), I wouldn't be surprised at all if Microsoft counted every re-signed SA contract in their numbers.

I've been wondering this whole time where MS was getting their numbers, but now it all makes sense. What also makes sense is how Microsoft posted huge profits for this quarter: lots of re-signed SA contracts, plus SOME genuine sales of Vista (with new accounting practices, the entire profit from the sale is applied to only this quarter, instead of the software lifetime).

Actually, in a way it's better for MS if people buy their PCs with XP installed now. They make money now, and will nail them again when they are forced to upgrade to Vista (or its successor.)

FWIW, if you buy a PC with pre-installed Vista Business or Ultimate now, you are legally authorized to downgrade to XP, and can install Vista at any point in the future. Normally downgrades aren't allowed for retail or OEM products (only volume corp licenses), but they made this little-publicised exception for OEM Vista Business and Ultimate.

http://download.microsoft.com/download/d/2/3/d23b9 533-169d-4996-b198-7b9d3fe15611/downgrade_chart.do c

Because of this, I may actually buy some new PCs for our office this year, which I was loathe to do otherwise.

The Microsoft Technet covering comments on what the register calls "Vista's Long Goodbye".

Being a purist, I always considered Windows to be an "Operating environment" as it was once marketed rather than an "Operating System" because an operating system comes with a functional compiler. Certainly though, you don't have to be a purist to think that an operating environment should be able to move or delete files to be considered feature complete.

Transcript: http://www.microsoft.com/Presspass/exec/billg/spee ches/2007/05-15-2007WinHEC.mspx

We all know it's at least 90% OEM license sales. Businesses aren't buying them, they've just upgraded to XP. Consumers aren't buying it, that's why Dell had to offer Windows XP again. This means that they've made the majority of their sales already.

Official MS press release here.

I'll note that they specifically state "nearly 40 million Windows Vista licenses have been sold as of 100 days after its January launch."

I'm pretty sure that accounting rules don't let them claim upgrade certificates as "sold," and revenue recognition rules probably don't let them recognized shipments to resellers (which can be subject to return) as "sold," either.

I'm sure MS would never do anything illegal or immoral, such as pumping up numbers in a press release in violation of Sarbanes-Oxley or SEC, so those numbers must be correct!

BITS stands for "Background Intelligent Transfer Service" and is simply a way to download files using idle bandwith. It's fully documented in MSDN, see http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa362708. aspx, and among many things it's used by some browser downloading plugins (similar to DownloadThemAll) that enhance downloading of large files. It's not just used by Windows Update.

Do we need additional articles to state that a malicious program on a compromised machine could use FTP to download additional files? Or HTTP? Or BitTorrent? Or roll their own protocol?

Based on the article, it sounds like the only concern is that because BITS is a service (daemon in the Unix world), it means that firewalls or malware detection tools that attempt to block outgoing requests (which most don't; they block listening ports) may not currently detect this because it's not the malicious .EXE itself that's opening a port; it calls into BITS, which opens the port. However, the app still has to use a public API to instantiate the BITS object, so there's no reason such a program couldn't hook that as well.

Unfortunately the article summary (and headline of the BBC article!) completely misrepresents the issue and blows it way out of proportion. They are not Hijacking Windows Update. They're using a generic well-documented downloading service that also happens to be used by Windows Update simply because it enables WU to download updates without gobbling up all your bandwidth.

You should not set the Startup Type to Disabled. Disabling BITS may break applications, such as Windows Update, that rely on BITS to transfer files.

Even less dangerous if you're using Lynx! ;^)

I heartily agree with the spirit and content of your reply. Browsers are safe if configured properly. PEBKAC is the primary vector for most of this stuff, not a software company. ActiveX was an insecure design, as is .NET because of backwards compatibility, but if you whitelist in IE according to this document

http://www.microsoft.com/athome/security/online/br owsing_safety.mspx

and browse the "Internet Zone," not at "High" as suggested, but with a "Custom" setting where every feature but the HTML interpreter is shut down, you're pretty darned safe. Run Spybot S&D's Teatimer, with the HOSTS modifications and read-only enabled, and you're close to immaculate.

I couldn't be arsed. I run Firefox because it's, to my belief, as secure as the circus I described above with far less trouble. "It's the lack of glaring design flaws." should be its slogan. ;^)

But you can secure IE just as well. It just takes some work and a bit of intelligence.

--
Toro

You mean these guidelines?. They pretty easy to find; searching for "Vista Ux Guidelines" will do the trick for you.

jZnat,

You might find http://support.microsoft.com/kb/929605 interesting. It just skims the surface, but kinda explains where that memory goes.

Kompressor

I didn't recognize the name at first. Bill Hilf did a Slashdot interview a while back. He is currently Director of Platform Technology Strategy at Microsoft. Before that he was Senior Enterprise Architect at IBM.

He talks about being hired by Microsoft as an expert in Linux-based systems. Near as I can tell, he is a glorified network administrator.

As for his comments, stating that the Free Software movement is dead because Linus has a job speaks volumes about his ignorance on the topic.

Bill Hilf is General Manager of Platform Strategy at Microsoft. This guy:
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/community/tnradio /bio/billhilf.mspx

Slashdot interviewed him about two years ago. The first question is possibly the best.
http://interviews.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/0 8/08/1247220&tid=109&tid=11&tid=106

I don't know how much you're joking, but I really didn't know who Bill Hilf was. I'll give you one guess which company he works for.

This is my first post and I don't really understand all the rhetoric. ODF is reverse engineered OpenOffice binary format and OpenXML is reverse engineered Microsoft Office format. Both formats have patents associated with them. However, in both cases the patent owners will not sue people who create applications that write documents stored in the formats (http://www.oasis-open.org/committees/office/ipr.p hp and http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/products/HA10205 8151033.aspx). For many years Microsoft was told that they should open up and publish the Office formats and when they do they are criticised. What is the problem with having 2 official formats. Whatever, happens the market is likely to ensure that OpenXML is the defacto standard which means this who arguement seems a bit hollow.

Remove the acrotray entry from all the registry {HKLM,HKCU}\...\Run keys that list it

Or did you mean "how do I return my nerd badge?"? /grin

I'm actually surprised this didn't come sooner. At the very least, I've known MS, IBM and Apple (and should I even mention IP Innovation, the patent troll that sits on several Xerox patents and suing Apple over tabs) have numerous UI patents either cross-licensed or violated by everyone under the sun.

I've seen a dozen or two other patents mentioned on Slashdot over the years and know of a few more cases, as well, so this is not a surprise.
MS has its sticky patent fingers everywhere - UI elements, some parts of RSS news feeds, numerous graphical features (which are probably paid for by card manufacturers), some parts of font rendering (e.g. Cleartype, which can be added into freetype), application embedding, networking, filesystem and probably so many others it would take pages to talk about them all. Some of these patents may be frivolous and probably all but unenforcible outside of Marshall, TX, like the SMB/CIFS ones (which are not used as described in Samba and likely obsolete).

If we really want to have fun, Microsoft badly violates these patents, but then again, so does Linux (but if IBM needed grounds to sue by, there are a couple nasty ones there). I doubt Apple will ever sue over their skinning patent, but that would really suck.

Microsoft doesn't need to sue to kill OSS projects - they could start off by sending a threatening cease-and-desist letters to the projects violating the patents and hope they voluntarily kill the project. If that wasn't enough, they issue a patent infringement lawsuit and get an injunction on the author(s) and have their ISP shut them down. Then its a matter of follow-through and do a cease-and-desist on hosting sites.

    At least MS can't heavy hand it like Paramount did to a shareware author I knew in college (the game was a mac only trek game - I think Net Trek) - they basically sued the living crap out of him (he told me they asked for some ridiculous amount - I think millions of dollars - for use of the license) and then settled out of court including destruction of source and removal of the game from all servers (he was not allowed to talk about the settlement as part of the settlement, so I only know obvious).

And some people can't.

Microsoft Research Cambridge have their SenseCam project aimed at, for example, those in the beginning stages of Alzhimers (sp?) Along with the camera they have MyLifeBits to manage, categorise and search. At the moment SenseCam takes snaps every 30 seconds. A live feed is a much more interesting idea.

And some people can't.

Microsoft Research Cambridge have their SenseCam project aimed at, for example, those in the beginning stages of Alzhimers (sp?) Along with the camera they have MyLifeBits to manage, categorise and search. At the moment SenseCam takes snaps every 30 seconds. A live feed is a much more interesting idea.

I'm reading only one thing, Microsoft (tm) admitting FOSS software is great. And they want a piece of it. Sadly enough FOSS people tend to hate m$ because of all the evil things they do. Like having WGA phone home every day. Not to mention all the US law that windows(tm) falls under, which makes it an economical risk for other countries. Novell got $$$ out of the deal, the FOSS people that mattered, - possible exception being miguell- left. It's an empty shell now, microsoft is getting desperate. Furthermore Suse uses RPM,hah. It's as simple as this. Microsoft does not have a patent, on "opereating systems". Anything that makes sence to have been patented will be invented around. But Microsoft will not dare to make the list of patents known. Like SCO all they have is some idle thread. linux and windows are entirely different operating systems. Linux has in the past done it's best to avoid patents that make sence. For example SeH(structured exception handling) which is in all lightlyhood better than the signals used in linux, was not "ripped" because of these issues. Email programs would infringe 15 pattents. Tell me how xmail manages that ;). most of those however will be UI? can you really patent a "reply all" button? (Let me save the courts some work) No. There are Billions of lines of opensource software, we only infringe 235 pattents of microsoft? Let microsoft make a list of 235 things opensource software should be allowed to do, and then let the courts decide. Ofcourse this won't happen. All they want is to send some stupid press releases out. They are desperate, they should have though of 235 ways to make Vista not suck so badly. Tell me how can you screw up copy and move of files http://forums.microsoft.com/TechNet/ShowPost.aspx? PostID=1358057&SiteID=17 write a browser that anno 2007 only needs this to overwrite arbitrary files http://www.milw0rm.com/exploits/3892 ... Windows just doesn't make sence anymore. The dumbed down UI with poor performance was great in the earlier days of IT, but it didn't evolve right. Sorry. One more thing, are they going to sue, all those african/south american childs who are just now recieving their XO's (OLPC) ? How's that for being evil?

Huh?

Um, I would like to see your reference material; yes, IE was an offshoot of Mosaic, but it's been established that IE came from Spyglass. MS was to give a percentage of the revenue of sales of IE back to Spyglass, and that they screwed Spyglass over by charging nothing for the use of IE, resulting in as little money as possible going back to the original developers. Spyglass of course, tanked.

Please, try to take the 4 minutes it took me to search, vet, and link material for your claims - it'll help everyone out, including you.

Pixel and vertex shaders are a whole new ball game. There's a lot of text on my screen. All of it drawn from truetype fonts. A truetype font is basically a series of bezier curves. Microsoft Research released a paper a few years back where each of these curves was approximated to a triangle. A vertex shader program then inspects each of the rendered triangles and corrects the error between the triangle and the bezier. This allows an entire font to be uploaded to the GPU and rendered at any resolution with very little CPU load or RAM usage (compare this with Apple's hack of just storing a table of glyphs in the video RAM, which doesn't scale very well).

Pixel shaders can be used for a lot of things. With pixel shaders you can perform a lot of convolutions in hardware, giving some nice effects. You can use a pyramid algorithm to perform a number of things, like bi-cubic filtering, blurring, etc in a fraction of a second.

Sure, you could do a lot of these on the CPU, but the GPU is going to do them a lot faster, and probably use less power (important for mobile users).

Even without needing the 3D support, it's useful to have all of the features working correctly. Power management is a big one, since the kernel needs to be able to save the state of the GPU somewhere before turning it off, and Linux uses a lot of hacks to try to avoid needing to do this.

For Windows, the default answer for deploying configuration is Group Policy. With the Group Policy Management Console you can back up your GPOs and store them in your version control system. Alternatively, you can use a specialized Group Policy version control and troubleshooting product like Group Policy Manager from Quest which allows offline editing and testing before deployment to your production environment.

You can actually extend Group Policy to your *nix and Novell machines as well using Vintela Group Policy (a part of Vintela Authentication Services), which also has features to allow your *nix machines to use your Active Directory accounts. If you use it in combination with Group Policy Manager, you can back up the *nix specific settings alongside the rest of your GPO. Also, the integration allows you to diff different versions of your *nix settings alongside the rest of your GPO.

[Disclaimer: I am a developer on the Group Policy Manager team at Quest. While I'm proud of my product, I'm not any kind of official spokesperson for my employer.]

For Windows, the default answer for deploying configuration is Group Policy. With the Group Policy Management Console you can back up your GPOs and store them in your version control system. Alternatively, you can use a specialized Group Policy version control and troubleshooting product like Group Policy Manager from Quest which allows offline editing and testing before deployment to your production environment.

You can actually extend Group Policy to your *nix and Novell machines as well using Vintela Group Policy (a part of Vintela Authentication Services), which also has features to allow your *nix machines to use your Active Directory accounts. If you use it in combination with Group Policy Manager, you can back up the *nix specific settings alongside the rest of your GPO. Also, the integration allows you to diff different versions of your *nix settings alongside the rest of your GPO.

[Disclaimer: I am a developer on the Group Policy Manager team at Quest. While I'm proud of my product, I'm not any kind of official spokesperson for my employer.]

I have proof
Disclaimer: The above link contains offensive material, and should not be followed if you have medical conditions or an IQ over 110 as it could be harmful.

...the money on videogames has always been made on game sales and licensing. I am by no means saying "Game makers shouldnt make a profit!" Im saying "They dont need to make more of a profit. They dont need to be making a profit coming and going."

Nintendo has always sold their hardware at a profit. This is nothing new. If they can profit both coming and going, and still sell every single console they can push out of the factory, why not? Nintendo is a business, not a charity. They exist to make money.

Frankly, I'm glad to see them so profitable. I want to see them stick around. I like their approach to gaming these days.

If Nintendo is making profit on console sales now, then why do they still need to completely control all licensing for the system?

Maybe... because that's how things are done in the console business? If you want a platform for games development that doesn't charge licensing fees, you know where to find it.

Don't get me wrong here, I'm not saying that WINE isn't a great piece of software, or that no one should install it because it hinders the development of native Linux applications.

All I'm saying is that for mass distribution of Linux on Dell computers, it shouldn't be included for precisely the reasons that Mark stated. I'm saying that because it's not a primetime player yet, it would cause more harm than good at a critical point in the determination of desktop Linux's feasibility.

If someone wants or needs it, they should install it, period. But it should be what Mark is indirectly saying it is: A tool to be used only when needed for specific circumstances, not a part of the core functionality of Ubuntu. It's just not that good yet.

But since I haven't mentioned it yet, yes, I also think that a side benefit of this is that now there will be a larger base of Linux users out there, developers will be encouraged to write more cross-platform or even Linux-specific software. Even Microsoft isn't stupid; if profits on the Office cash cow look like they're going to fall and the future of Windows starts looking shaky, it's entirely within the realm of the possible that we will see Office for Linux. Microsoft releasing Office for non-Windows platforms is not unprecedented.

Damn are you on the money. Thanks.

Marshall Phelps - senate testimony on patents http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/exec/mphelps/07 -26-05PatentTestimony.mspx

Marshall Phelps - Novell http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/11/06/microsoft_ novell_analysis/page2.html

Marshall Phelps - Sun Microsystems Cached

Marshall Phelps - Precursor to Novell/Microsoft http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/03/25/ec_erects_ toll_booth/

Marshall Phelps - on the register http://www.google.com/search?&q=Marshall+Phelps+si te%3Atheregister.co.uk

Marshall Phelps - on slashdot http://www.google.com/search?&q=Marshall+Phelps+si te%3Aslashdot.org

Marshall Phelps - on IBM.com http://www.google.com/search?&q=Marshall+Phelps+si te%3Aibm.com

Marshall Phelps and Richard Stallman in the same search http://www.google.com/search?&q=%22Marshall+Phelps %22+%22Richard+Stallman%22

Reminds me of that Stephen King flick, Needful Things.

This has apparently been dealt with, from what I'm reading.

http://blogs.technet.com/wsus/archive/2007/04/28/u pdate-on.aspx

http://www.microsoft.com/technet/community/newsgro ups/dgbrowser/

You don't need to upgrade to Vista to get IE7, you can download it from http://www.microsoft.com/windows/downloads/ie/geti tnow.mspx. If you use Firefox rather than IE6 and so have no particular reason (interface etc.) to want to use IE6, that's even more reason to drop it in favour of 7: since MS, in their Infinite Wisdom, tied IE so tightly into various parts of Windows, security holes in IE can and do affect other parts of the OS (as the rendering engine in the help system, many common email apps, etc.). IE6 is pretty much a liability (see: TFA) -- if usually you use firefox, there's no reason to have it lurking on your system longer than necessary.

FYI, The VS team recommends running elavated all the time.
http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/vstudio/aa972193. aspx