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As opposed to writing a nasty and error-prone script to attempt to transform the object into something you can use in Powershell, I suppose? One of the big advantages of text interfaces is that you can test it on the keyboard and screen. I can quickly and easily create test cases in my text editor, to create a test case for a binary object you must write another script, and risk making a mistake.

You don't know what you're talking about. I can test PowerShell stuff at the keyboard and screen. All commands have detailed documentation accessible from the command-line. You also never deal with binary data when working with objects.

An example of a common error is date formats. When I write a date in my text editor I know how I do it, "May 2, 2007", or "2/5/2007", or "2007/05/02", etc. When you have a binary object you have no way of knowing for sure the exact internal format you have used for the data. What if the person who sent you a binary file used two digits for the year and forgot to tell you? Binary data is much more error-prone than text.

The standard .NET DateTime object is used throughout PowerShell. While you've listed 3 different date-time representations (and there are many more throughout the world), PowerShell has exactly one standard representation in the DateTime object. I think your world would be more error-prone.

Why is what you propose any better than simply defining new flags on du? If you have to add a new method to du, you can just as easily add a new flag. Then you don't have to have wordy --method arguments everywhere, you use flags like "-x" on DU or other applications.

The PowerShell sort commandlet works on all objects, all object attributes, and all commands that generates those objects. Your proposal involves bloating every command for which you want to perform specialized sorting with special switches.

For example, the Get-Process commandlet returns .NET Process objects, which have over 20 attributes over which you can sort. I wouldn't want 20+ switches for sorting. Also, -member is optional, so you can do: get-process | sort PeakWorkingSet

Why is what you propose any better than simply defining new flags on du? If you have to add a new method to du, you can just as easily add a new flag. Then you don't have to have wordy --method arguments everywhere, you use flags like "-x" on DU or other applications.

The PowerShell sort commandlet works on all objects, all object attributes, and all commands that generates those objects. Your proposal involves bloating every command for which you want to perform specialized sorting with special switches.

For example, the Get-Process commandlet returns .NET Process objects, which have over 20 attributes over which you can sort. I wouldn't want 20+ switches for sorting. Also, -member is optional, so you can do: get-process | sort PeakWorkingSet

While I can't comment on any of the rest of it. (Yeah, I work for 'em)

I can offer a link to the download.microsoft.com page that pulls it for Vista. (all links are English x86, if you run English x64, you'll be able to navigate the download center by now).

Vista x86: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?Fa milyID=c6ef4735-c7de-46a2-997a-ea58fdfcba63&Displa yLang=en

XP x86: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/info.aspx?na=22 &p=1&SrcDisplayLang=en&SrcCategoryId=&SrcFamilyId= &u=%2Fdownloads%2Fdetails.aspx%3FFamilyID%3D6ccb7e 0d-8f1d-4b97-a397-47bcc8ba3806%26DisplayLang%3Den

WS03 x86: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/info.aspx?na=22 &p=2&SrcDisplayLang=en&SrcCategoryId=&SrcFamilyId= &u=%2Fdownloads%2Fdetails.aspx%3FFamilyID%3D10ee29 af-7c3a-4057-8367-c9c1dab6e2bf%26DisplayLang%3Den

Get it, use it!

  -- I worked briefly doing part of the steps of release management for this, so it's cool to see that people are enjoying it.

While I can't comment on any of the rest of it. (Yeah, I work for 'em)

I can offer a link to the download.microsoft.com page that pulls it for Vista. (all links are English x86, if you run English x64, you'll be able to navigate the download center by now).

Vista x86: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?Fa milyID=c6ef4735-c7de-46a2-997a-ea58fdfcba63&Displa yLang=en

XP x86: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/info.aspx?na=22 &p=1&SrcDisplayLang=en&SrcCategoryId=&SrcFamilyId= &u=%2Fdownloads%2Fdetails.aspx%3FFamilyID%3D6ccb7e 0d-8f1d-4b97-a397-47bcc8ba3806%26DisplayLang%3Den

WS03 x86: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/info.aspx?na=22 &p=2&SrcDisplayLang=en&SrcCategoryId=&SrcFamilyId= &u=%2Fdownloads%2Fdetails.aspx%3FFamilyID%3D10ee29 af-7c3a-4057-8367-c9c1dab6e2bf%26DisplayLang%3Den

Get it, use it!

  -- I worked briefly doing part of the steps of release management for this, so it's cool to see that people are enjoying it.

While I can't comment on any of the rest of it. (Yeah, I work for 'em)

I can offer a link to the download.microsoft.com page that pulls it for Vista. (all links are English x86, if you run English x64, you'll be able to navigate the download center by now).

Vista x86: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?Fa milyID=c6ef4735-c7de-46a2-997a-ea58fdfcba63&Displa yLang=en

XP x86: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/info.aspx?na=22 &p=1&SrcDisplayLang=en&SrcCategoryId=&SrcFamilyId= &u=%2Fdownloads%2Fdetails.aspx%3FFamilyID%3D6ccb7e 0d-8f1d-4b97-a397-47bcc8ba3806%26DisplayLang%3Den

WS03 x86: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/info.aspx?na=22 &p=2&SrcDisplayLang=en&SrcCategoryId=&SrcFamilyId= &u=%2Fdownloads%2Fdetails.aspx%3FFamilyID%3D10ee29 af-7c3a-4057-8367-c9c1dab6e2bf%26DisplayLang%3Den

Get it, use it!

  -- I worked briefly doing part of the steps of release management for this, so it's cool to see that people are enjoying it.

The FOR command in the "legacy" Windows shell is pretty powerful, too. It even has horrible syntax, just like its UNIX fathers.

Yes, the legacy Windows shell sucks, but not as badly as most people assume. The NT shell can do a lot of stuff that most people don't even think to try. Great gobs of functionality have been added over the years, starting with Windows NT 3.5. And contrary to what many slashdotters think, the legacy shell on Windows NT-derived systems is not DOS, nor is it 16-bit. CMD.EXE is just another 32-bit or 64-bit process running on the NT kernel.

I hope this is not a dupe - I certainly was not aware....
...PowerShell is avlaibel for MS OS's older than Vista too:

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsserver2003/technol ogies/management/powershell/download.mspx

Be aware that runas does not provide the ability to launch an application with an elevated access token, regardless of whether it is a standard user with privileges like a Backup Operator or an administrator.

There are three parts to .NET: the VM/runtime, the APIs, and the compilers, so I'll address them separately.

The VM and runtime are just good technology. They are also standardized (through ECMA), Microsoft's implementation is reasonably efficient, and the design is at least as good as the competition (i.e. the JVM, and I'll vent on my pet peeve here when I say that making properties a first-class, reflectable part of an object/class is much easier to deal with than the JavaBeans method naming convention).

The APIs are, like any other system platform, huge. They are reasonably well-designed, however, and Windows.Forms is far nicer to program to than Swing or AWT (I haven't played with SWT or Qt's Jambi). Simply by virtue of being designed with the lessons learned from Java in mind, they avoid some of the pitfalls and backward compatibility issues that Java faces.

The compilers are decent (though I'm told that the Fortran compiler produces terribly inefficient code), but the important part is that there are compilers for a broad range of languages. C++, C# and VB.NET (which is really just a verbose dialect of C# with some additional gotchas) are there out of the box, but there is also an ML compiler (F#), a Ruby compiler (IronRuby, to be released with SilverLight), ECMAScript (available with SilverLight, but I think it might be right up there with C++, C#, and VB.NET), a Python compiler (IronPython), a COBOL compiler (available commercially if this is actually something you need, ugh) and more that don't come to mind right off.

That's the good technology part. The good for technology part is competition. Flash is good, but Flash being developed under competitive pressure from SilverLight is better. Java is good, but Java being developed under competitive pressure from .NET is better. Even if you have no interest in .NET's technology for itself, be glad that both Sun and Adobe have a vested interest in making their respective technologies better and more pleasant to use.

That said, I make my money programming Ruby on Rails on a Mac. Despite my previous experience with C, C++, Obj-C, awk, sed, Java, JavaScript, C#, VB.NET, ASP.NET, etc. (and only the .NET stuff on Windows), I'm just a spectator here unless and until I'm looking for a new job.

"Integrated across the Microsoft platform..."

I don't think that means what you think it means.

It does seem M$ is making some effort to take at least some portions of the .net framework to other systems:

http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/embedded/bb278106 .aspx

It even looks as if some companies are making dev boards with it:

http://www.embeddedfusion.com/default.aspx?id=76

In talking with them (M$) it seems that you pay to port this framework to whatever platform you would like to take the framework to. This is with or without an operating system.

Cheers,
    Bill

It does graffiti excellently and you've obviously never used it.

I don't want "graffiti;" I want better than (or at least equal to) Microsoft! You must have never used Windows Journal, because if you had, you'd know how genuinely amazing Microsoft's handwriting recognition is. I can write in my normal handwriting, I can write in cursive... Hell, I can even scratch out words as fast as I can without taking any care at all and it'll still recognize it almost 100% correctly! It's light-years ahead of graffiti.

Suck, completely unusable, slightly comparable and anger... now I'm starting to feel like I'm talking to some kind of hyperbolic M$ troll.

First of all, it sounds no worse than you doing your usual anti-MS ranting. Second, I've talked with you enough that you should know I'm not a MS troll. In fact, it absolutely kills me that this one particular aspect of the system keeps me from putting Ubuntu on my Tablet PC, because you're right in that Windows sucks compared to Linux in every other way.

Of course there are plenty of games available...

Ink games (like sudoku, crosswords, tic-tac-toe, and other pen-and-paper games)?

...as well as sticky notes and all that jazz...

Ink sticky notes (that you write, rather than type, on)?

KDE's PIM blows everything else away, so I'm not sure what applications you are after and where you get your quality standards.

KDE's PIM apps have Ink input? (Okay, granted, Windows PIM stuff doesn't have ink input either, but I think we can both agree that the goal is for Free Software to be superior to Windows, not merely equal to it.)

The little drawing program from GPE and KDE protable are both good. Inkscape, which ports from Debian, is better.

I don't recall ever saying I had a problem with drawing programs. However, it doesn't even matter because I don't get much cause to use them in my engineering or programming classes.

I imagine you've tried those note taking applications about as much as you have xstroke. All of these applications work with xstroke because xstroke just take the place of a keyboard and mouse when you want it to...

I'm not stupid, Twitter -- I know how xstroke works! It superimposes the stroke on a 3x3 grid, figures out which grid squares the stroke passed through in which order, matches that against a list of defined gestures, and outputs the corresponding text event (it's all described in the man page).

However, it's still vastly inferior (oops... there's that "trollish" language again!) to the Tablet Input Panel in Windows, which not only allows you to input single characters, but also allows you to input entire recognized sentences at a time. This is both faster and much more accurate, because it allows the recognition engine to match entire words (instead of single characters) so that you don't end up with l33t speak (i.e., recognizing the word "Slide" instead of the characters "$" "1" ";" "d" and "e").

I've watched people try to use one note don't think very much of it, but to each his own.

Were they using it to take handwritten notes, keep them organized (by class and topic), and search them? If not, then they were missing the point.

I still think it's easier to use paper and pencil for lecture notes and then to take a picture to get it onto the computer then mark it up with a keyboard.

Exactly, which is why I'm so concerned with being able to take handwritten notes on the Tablet PC and have them

I would correct you in this, seeing as the wikipedia entry is old and new earnings for both Microsoft and Apple have just come out this quarter. Let's play devil's advocate, assuming Apple adds 5000 employees and Microsoft adds zero, MS would have ~71,000, Apple ~23,000

The numbers go as follows. For the same fiscal quarter, Apple had revenue of $5.26 billion.
MS has more revenue at 14.40 Billion.

These numbers are from the companies' own SEC filings and press releases, NOT wikipedia (probably not a good place to get financial information).
You can find them at:
http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2007/04/25results. html?sr=hotnews.rss
http://www.microsoft.com/msft/earnings/FY07/earn_r el_q3_07.mspx

Now let's redo that calculation with our worst case scenario (for Apple) numbers.

Apple 5.26 x 10^9 / 2.3 x 10^4 = $230K per employee (with 5000 added employees)
Microsoft 14.40 x 10^9 / 7.1 x 10^4 = $203K per employee

Those are your real numbers. Don't rely on wikipedia for everything- it's not a Bible.

http://www.microsoft.com/msft/reports/ar06/flashve rsion/10k_fr_dis.html

Mobile and Embedded Devices
Operating Income 2006 -- $2 Million profit
Operating Income 2005 -- $65 Million loss
Operating Income 2004 -- $237 Million loss

I don't think it will be too hard for the iPhone to be more successful than MS's mobile division.

Is that just an artifact of this being designed in 2000? At this point very few files on the average system would be smaller than this.

Actually you are wrong.

A FAST 2007 paper did a five-year longitudinal study of file system metadata within Microsoft. Keeping in mind then that this is highly workload dependent and probably rather OS dependent (though my experience is that this is probably even more true for Unix machines than Windows):

* It's hard to tell from the graph [you should be looking at fig. 3], but somewhere between 10-15% of files are smaller than 512 bytes

* About half of all files are smaller than 4K

Now, if you look at the *size* that those files take up vs. file system size [fig. 5], then it's essentially nothing. But the number of small files isn't going down; it's actually increasing as time goes on.

Um.... guys... this article is totally wrong and misleading.

Microsoft from the start has always intended .NET to be cross platform.

The CLI has been an open standard since day 1.

You can download the source code for the CLI here

If you don't believe Microsoft would ever do this, you simply haven't thought it through, or don't have a clue.

Allowing other operating systems to leverage some of the power of Microsoft's development platform only ensures that their development platform gains the most market share possible. It's always going to be the case that support for .NET functionality on other operating systems is going to lag behind that available on Windows. It will always be the case that to leverage Microsoft .NET to it's fullest you are going to need to spend money on Microsoft desktop operating systems and server systems. This basicaly means open sourcing .NET is going to increase revenue for Microsoft in the long term as people move to Microsoft systems to fully leverage all the functionality available in .NET.

Tell that to this guy... http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/exec/billg/defa ult.mspx

On Windows 2000 you need to hold shift to get runas to appear on the right click menu
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtechnol/windo ws2000serv/howto/seclogon.mspx

The permissive license does not have a viral clause. The MSPL is similar to a BSD style license. The community license does contain a viral license: comm license.

Yes, I'm sure that's the case. I mean, I'm going to choose a CLR, compiler and toolset written on Novell's dime instead of the Microsoft one released for free that is fully supported and tested for the past six years. Just like everyone uses half-assed implementations instead of J2EE when they go with Java. I'm sure that's what they're afraid of. After all, it's not like they didn't release an open source version of their own that also builds on OS X.

Or maybe I'm missing the point here - why exactly were they "trembling"?

If it's under the Microsoft Permissive License (Ms-PL), then it's being released under a BSD-like license with an explicit patent grant. I think that would really put to rest whatever remaining concerns people have have had about possible Microsoft patents on core CLR technologies.

More generally, I think Microsoft has really shown signs of change with the CLR, IronPython, and related technologies. Maybe they are starting to "get" it at least a little.

(However, Ms-PL isn't OSI-approved yet; what's up with that?)

It was cross-platform from the very start, Microsoft released Rotor for FreeBSD back in 2002.

Shared Source CLI Provides Source Code for a FreeBSD Implementation of .NET

Will this aid Mono development?

Is Mono still necessary?

What about the Windows specific API's? A lot in .NET Framework is, like System.Windows.Forms, and Microsoft.*.

Re: modify & write

Yep, it's not obvious what the difference is - I think write is a subset of modify. In fact you're only looking at a summary page there, which can used for quickly setting a whole bunch of security attributes. I suspect somebody thought modify as opposed to write was something that would be wanted enough that they created this item in this dialog. KB article 308419 tabulates the differences.

The license is Microsoft Permissive License, a BSD-style license.

Dude, you can run it now in apple.

The second problem is that keyboard shortcuts don't work. Well, they kinda do (same way Ribbon always handled Office2003 shortcuts), but the menus won't open. If you're looking on the screen rather than at the keyboard as you're typing, it just feels wrong.

The second problem is that keyboard shortcuts don't work. Well, they kinda do (same way Ribbon always handled Office2003 shortcuts), but the menus won't open. If you're looking on the screen rather than at the keyboard as you're typing, it just feels wrong.

You really, really shouldn't tell shortcut keys. As a lot of people have said, they have changed. And worse than that, they are extremely inconsistent even with Microsoft applications. One of the most used (by me) is find (usually ctrl-f - but not always) and find-next (f2/ctrl-g/...).
See http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms971323. aspx (at the end).

Well, the situation is can be worse in Linux, but it is definitely no excuse - Linux applications are not done by one company.

I agree.

But you can save documents in any format. It doesn't have to be .docx and if you know you're going to be switching back and forth between computers (like I do, just save it as .doc or you can get the handy file conversion tool http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?fa milyid=941b3470-3ae9-4aee-8f43-c6bb74cd1466&displa ylang=en

We'll see. And, RegFlushKey is a possible way to force immediate registry writes:

Not recommended, but I never stated it was: I only stated it is possible to force an immediate registry write using them.

(Configuration Manager does first to dirty/changed flag items via an array/buffer, and then to .log mirrors and to disk in the hives, anyhow, as to changes programs makes say, when they resize or reposition a window (for next load, and saving state), or when installers add new keys/values, to disk), see here:

http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms724837. aspx

"The RegCloseKey function does not necessarily write information to the registry before returning; it can take as much as several seconds for the cache to be flushed to the hard disk. If an application must explicitly write registry information to the hard disk, it can use the RegFlushKey function. RegFlushKey, however, uses many system resources and should be called only when necessary."

In a nutshell!

How is that wrong? It was exactly as it was explained to you, how RegKeyFlush works, and when plus how, overriding the Configuration Manager's lazy-write mechanism!

ALT-E-S does NOT work in Oulook 2007 when editing email messages even though Outlook 2007 uses Word as its email editor. Microsoft's webpage on the topic:

Use access keys from Office 2003 in Ribbon programs
http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/outlook/HA100860 491033.aspx

Note: In Microsoft Office Outlook, menus and toolbars are still part of the main window of the program. However, in open items such as e-mail messages, the access keys have been replaced with the Office Fluent Ribbon.

Thank you! While everyone is going on about Altiris (gag) and SMS, there's a completely free solution, and its already present in your domain!

Just use Group Policy and Veritas WinINSTALL LE (free and included with your windows server CD).

Everything you need to know is here:

http://www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtechnol/windo ws2000serv/howto/winstall.mspx

Free and easy, no muss no fuss.

• Banking authorities CA`s
  
• A Consumer advocacy group CA

Microsoft has setup interactive guides on their site that show you where commands are in 2007. You can find them half way down this page. The guides should help you get the ball rolling.

Those charts look pretty hot to me. Did you look at the chart in the page? http://www-128.ibm.com/developerworks/opensource/l ibrary/os-perlgdchart/pie_step1_step2.gif
). Anti-aliased lines and text :]

Let's compare this to what I'd get if I asked most professionals for a chart. (These were the first ones from google). The lack of anti-aliasing hurts one's eye, these all look like they're from 1995.
http://support.alphasoftware.com/images/XD_Interac tive_Pie_Chart.gif
http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa192481. odc_vststockallocation2003_fig03(en-us,office.11). gif
(the second one is 3d)

And in response to your comment
> When will open source advocates learn to delegate the graphic design aspect of their work to professionals? if only the programming types in charge of these projects would admit they're better at making code than graphics.
You seem to have missed the point. The article is about free software that can be used by professional and non-professional alike to create some hot graphics. Perhaps you're referring to the ugliness of the original tux logo? It's not 1995, and developers aren't resigned to producing their own graphics. If you look all free software houses pushing their brand use professional designers. Think of the firefox logo (2004)
http://www.hicksdesign.co.uk/journal/branding-fire fox
or of ubuntu and gnome's curves, and check out the tango project http://tango.freedesktop.org/
Desktop linux has never looked so sexy.

Why so sour, AC?

Microsoft is building a new set of tools for managing small business, based on the same concept as WSUS. It's called System Center Essentials and it's probably what you need. http://www.microsoft.com/systemcenter/sce/default. mspx

What you're really looking for is Systems Center Essentials. It is a combination of WSUS, SMS and MOM rolled up into one. It's targeted towards companies that have "a computer guy" or two, but not the resources to implement full-blown versions of SMS & MOM. It's currently offered as a release candidate, so its official release is coming soon. http://www.microsoft.com/systemcenter/sce/

I was going to say the same... anyway for those that don't know how to use google TweakUI can be found here.

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/downloads/power toys/xppowertoys.mspx

The option to change the search is under 'explorer' on the side menu, scroll down and find "use classic search".

cloning XP partitions? Use sysprep!
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/302577

You can create administrative installs for virtually all installations and use GPO's to install the software to the XP machines - works for Win2k and newer.

No cost, and not too tough to learn.

This link is to a Win2k install but is pretty much the same. http://support.microsoft.com/kb/314934

Spent several years using the Altiris Deployment Server product to install software packages in a ~4,000 user site. It worked quite well; you install the Altiris Client on each computer you want managed (there's an automated remote install, or it can be done manually, or via logon script, or whatever works for you), and then you can perform a ton of actions on the client computers from the Deployment Server console--installing packages, removing packages, power on (via Wake-on-LAN) and power off events, hardware & software inventory & reporting, all kinds of stuff. The packages you install will generally be MSIs, created yourself with something like Wise Package Studio or from regular off-the-shelf software with a transform of your own making applied post-install.

Microsoft's SMS is also a fine option and competes with Altiris; while Altiris comes with a lot more pre-configured features out of the box, SMS is just as extensible and has the same leg-up over Altiris that most MS products have over competitors--seamless integration into the host OS and domain.

You want to write windows programs? Last I checked you had two compiler options anymore: Microsoft and Microsoft. Even the cost of visual basic is going to be close to $100 US.

Uh, Free Microsoft Visual Express, Free Python on Windows, Free Ruby on Windows, MinGW...

If you run Windows on OLPC, I'd go for Windows XP Embedded.

You want to write windows programs? Last I checked you had two compiler options anymore: Microsoft and Microsoft. Even the cost of visual basic is going to be close to $100 US.

Uh, Free Microsoft Visual Express, Free Python on Windows, Free Ruby on Windows, MinGW...

If you run Windows on OLPC, I'd go for Windows XP Embedded.

i) Use a filtering proxy (like Proxomitron) to remove sponsored ads from search engine sites. Or, ignore these ads.

ii) The very trite - patch your software! The exploited MS IE hole was patched over a year ago.

From the fine article:

If someone clicked a booby-trapped sponsored link they were the ad would redirect their browser through URLs that attempted to automatically download a virus program (MSO6-014) onto their computers before passing them along to the actual sites that were advertised.

The problem is that so many people use a crappy browser that allows the attacks. Malicious people are going to put their stuff on the web and that's not Google's fault. To top it all off, Google is doing a better job fighting the problem than Microsoft's own search.

The further away you get from M$, the better off you are.

From the fine article:

If someone clicked a booby-trapped sponsored link they were the ad would redirect their browser through URLs that attempted to automatically download a virus program (MSO6-014) onto their computers before passing them along to the actual sites that were advertised.

The problem is that so many people use a crappy browser that allows the attacks. Malicious people are going to put their stuff on the web and that's not Google's fault. To top it all off, Google is doing a better job fighting the problem than Microsoft's own search.

The further away you get from M$, the better off you are.

Lots of companies have been using it for a long time.

I have used a prize optimization solutions based of MS SQL Server back in 2005
http://www.microsoft.com/industry/retail/solutions /priceoptimization.mspx