Slashdot Mirror

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/898073 = [IE6 crashes on] digest proxy authentication [to https sites] http://support.microsoft.com/kb/918005 = Battery power may drain more quickly [after unplugging or undocking] http://support.microsoft.com/kb/918837 = power management is turned off [after disabling WakeOnWirelessLAN] http://support.microsoft.com/kb/924078 = [error opening] Properties [...] for a network printer on [WinXP] http://support.microsoft.com/kb/924301 = AutoComplete feature [broken after following javascript link in IE6] http://support.microsoft.com/kb/925020 = [Lockup when using] USB device on a multiprocessor computer http://support.microsoft.com/kb/925240 = warning message [...] new password that does not meet the requirements http://support.microsoft.com/kb/925513 = Error code Winsock [...] "WSAECONNABORTED (10053)" http://support.microsoft.com/kb/926047 = [Misplaced] AutoComplete box [...] in Internet Explorer 6 http://support.microsoft.com/kb/926132 = ...WMI does not clear event registrations when the corresponding sink... http://support.microsoft.com/kb/926754 = STOP: 0x000000D1 (parameter1 , 0x00000002, 0x00000000, 0xf27b4e8e) http://support.microsoft.com/kb/926940 = SQL Server 2000 Service Pack 4 stops responding http://support.microsoft.com/kb/927291 = Dfsutil /import" command takes a long time to finish http://support.microsoft.com/kb/927493 = Winsock programs may exhaust the system's non-paged pool http://support.microsoft.com/kb/929620 = increased paging to the hard disk when you run an SAP R/3

These fixes are regressed, but they're not published on the public Knowledge Base:

"919757" "925290" "926305" "926513" "926583" "927197" "927436" "927893" "928194" "929066" "929759" "930620" "933452"

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/898073 = [IE6 crashes on] digest proxy authentication [to https sites] http://support.microsoft.com/kb/918005 = Battery power may drain more quickly [after unplugging or undocking] http://support.microsoft.com/kb/918837 = power management is turned off [after disabling WakeOnWirelessLAN] http://support.microsoft.com/kb/924078 = [error opening] Properties [...] for a network printer on [WinXP] http://support.microsoft.com/kb/924301 = AutoComplete feature [broken after following javascript link in IE6] http://support.microsoft.com/kb/925020 = [Lockup when using] USB device on a multiprocessor computer http://support.microsoft.com/kb/925240 = warning message [...] new password that does not meet the requirements http://support.microsoft.com/kb/925513 = Error code Winsock [...] "WSAECONNABORTED (10053)" http://support.microsoft.com/kb/926047 = [Misplaced] AutoComplete box [...] in Internet Explorer 6 http://support.microsoft.com/kb/926132 = ...WMI does not clear event registrations when the corresponding sink... http://support.microsoft.com/kb/926754 = STOP: 0x000000D1 (parameter1 , 0x00000002, 0x00000000, 0xf27b4e8e) http://support.microsoft.com/kb/926940 = SQL Server 2000 Service Pack 4 stops responding http://support.microsoft.com/kb/927291 = Dfsutil /import" command takes a long time to finish http://support.microsoft.com/kb/927493 = Winsock programs may exhaust the system's non-paged pool http://support.microsoft.com/kb/929620 = increased paging to the hard disk when you run an SAP R/3

These fixes are regressed, but they're not published on the public Knowledge Base:

"919757" "925290" "926305" "926513" "926583" "927197" "927436" "927893" "928194" "929066" "929759" "930620" "933452"

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb; en-us;814847

WSUS is about the best you can do with anything resembling reliability.

Ya, this is important to people, oh wait, most people would at the very least go to a freaking Hotspot or the library and slam the update on a Flash USB or CD... So why on hell did you download this via dial up again? :)

Note Volume Licensing agreements cover only Windows client upgrade licenses, not the full Windows client operating system. Customers must have a qualifying underlying operating system license before Volume License software can be installed.

The key factor we should all surely have been aware of, but which has escaped quite a number of us until now, is that: "Full operating system licenses are not available through any Microsoft Volume Licensing Program, Fact." So people who thought they were buying full operating systems via Microsoft volume licensing programs have actually been buying upgrades, and as Microsoft points out in a mailing unearthed by Linux and Main, "Some customers believe they can acquire full operating system licenses through their Microsoft Volume Licensing Program: Myth."

Nutria already gave some examples, but I've got more for you.

Tandy 1000, HP's 95LX (and 200LX) palmtop PC with DOS (the 200 had MS-DOS 5.0), the HP 1000CX DOS palmtop, some of the early IBM Aptivas, the HP model 110 line of desktops, the rather famous GRiDLite (my GRiD laptops all loaded DOS from hardrive -- always wanted a GRiDLite too though), the IBM EduQuest Model 30 and Model 40 (I have a few model 40s, but only one still boots -- into OS/2 Warp because I'm not using the on-chip DOS), the Sharp PC-5000 portable, the IBM PCJr, certain IBM PS/1 machines, the Tandy 2500 XL, and some others.

Also, Franklin, Commodore, TI, and Atari had systems with some form of OS in the ROM. Some Franklin systems had something called F-DOS in ROM which I think was mostly a ripoff of AppleDOS.

Notice that these examples are not modern hacks to try it out at home, but all commercially shipped systems from the late 1970s to early 1990s.

AMD and Intel still have documentation on DOS in ROM for embedded systems on their websites, and AMD even recommends Datalight's solution.

Now if we could just get XP SP3 before 2008... Service Pack Roadmap

WSUS

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsserversystem/updat eservices/default.mspx

This is silly. Someone who is utterly confident in their market will release a mediocre product without putting any real effort into it, simply because they don't feel the need, and it's expensive. Take, for instance, Microsoft and Windows. Why include all those new features in Vista, or optimize it, when you know people are going to buy it and put out the money for upgrades? So it crashes, so it breaks, whatever.

Right now, only fools are buying Windows Vista. With poor driver support and bugs galore, Vista is currently a terrible product. Did you know that Microsoft's own wireless keyboards and mice prevent the Vista screensaver from working http://support.microsoft.com/kb/911895/? But Windows doesn't have a lot of competition and Microsoft can market itself into more sales. With stiff competition, Sony cannot get away with it's mistakes.

Convenient for you to mention only the games that have some inkling of being ported, and also convenient to dismiss franchises that are massively popular on a global scale like Final Fantasy. And citing "credible rumor"?

All three games I mentioned as coming out on both consoles have been confirmed by their developers (Virtua Fighter 5 is being released a few months later on the Xbox 360). Final Fantasy has strong sales, but it is declining. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Best_selling_games/ Final Fantasy VII sold 10 million copies, VIII sold 6 million, X sold 5 million and X-2 sold 3 million. I wouldn't be surprised if XIII (for the PS3) sold only 3 or 4 million. Halo 2 sold 8 million copies and it didn't make the Xbox the winner of the previous generation. Many people may view the PS3 as an expensive Final Fantasy box. Others may pick up a Nintendo DS for classic Final Fantasy adventure as a cheap substitute for a PS3.

Fatal Inertia

Also coming to the Xbox 360, same day.

Ninja Gaiden Sigma

Third remake of the same game.

Hot Shots Golf 5

Who cares? I guess someone will buy it. I had to look this up on Wikipedia to find out what it was

Warhawk

This game is working out to be a total mess. They've elimintated the single player campaign for some reason and it's only reason for existance is to use the SixAxis controller's motion control

Killzone PS3

They tried to pass off pre-rendered footage as in game footage. The game started off as a lie. Maybe you have more faith in it than I do.

What exclusives does the 360 have again? Halo?

Mass Effect, Too Human, Blue Dragon, Gears of War, Lost Planet, Dead Rising, Forza Motorsports 2, Project Gotham Racing 4, etc.. You may not like any of these games, but it's certainly more than Halo 3.

The 360 is irrelevant. It hasn't been selling well

Is this Sony logic? The Xbox 360 has sold seven times as many consoles and the Wii has sold three times as many consoles. Both of Sony's competitors outsold the PS3. It's not a shortage either, I've seen PS3s available in any store that sells consoles. How is the PS3 going to dominate the market when it is behind and selling fewer consoles?

The Wii doesn't do HD, and that is big. It has a low network presence and low storage, so MMOs and the like are going to be limited.

If HD and networking is important, why not go for an Xbox 360? If HD isn't important, why pay for a PS3?

SP3 for Windows XP Professional is currently planned for 1H CY2008. This date is preliminary.

Right here

That's great! Your knowledge would be extremely beneficial to others. What is the product you are working on? Do you have a list of the problems?

Presumably the errors in XML case or spelling can be compared against the existing electronic schema (http://www.ecma-international.org/news/TC45_curre nt_work/TC45-2006-50_final_draft.htm/). In which case the schema obviously wins out, so I would see this as a minor typo that is easily fixed. In the case that Office couldn't read a document because an additional path component - isn't Office implemented with a different version of the schema (http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?f amilyid=15805380-f2c0-4b80-9ad1-2cb0c300aef9&displ aylang=en/)? In any case, flaws exist in software and documentation and always will.

I also assume you have sent your concerns to ECMA and Microsoft so that the specification can be improved if required. Is the issue that your concerns have been ignored?

Microsoft has offered the source code for some of their products under a Microsoft licence for a while including some games.

Licence details: http://www.microsoft.com/resources/sharedsource/de fault.mspx

From http://www.microsoft.com/technet/community/tnradio /bio/billhilf.mspx:

"Prior to joining Microsoft, Bill led IBM's Linux/Open Source Software technical strategy at a world-wide level for the Emerging and Competitive markets organization, in addition to his direct customer interaction as a senior enterprise architect. Bill has been involved with Open Source Software (OSS) for over twelve years, and is an IEEE Distinguished Visitor on the subject of OSS."

What have YOU done for OSS? You OSS zealots (particularly twitter) are doing more harm than good.

I am severely impressed with Illinois' capability of assessing a situation so quickly & flawlessly. They already claim an annual cost savings of U.S. $2.1 million [proprietarily locked DOC warning] for five years ($10.5 million total) by using Microsoft's technologies! Why am I impressed? Well, they didn't even have to try anything else out to discover this! If they did, this case study doesn't show any of it. That document (if you read it) only makes claims but backs it up with nothing. I laugh at the very idea of it being titled a "Case Study."

You know, where I work, if you make a statement like "would save our company $10 million" you kind of need to make a business case. A large part of the business case is having micro experiments & demonstrations & data to present to back up your business case. In fact, it's a lot like the scientific process where you present facts that prove your argument. Granted, it's not required to be that rigorous but you usually have to get those to agree with you through this.

If I were a tax paying Illini and that document was the only thing persuading me that my government should use Microsoft products, I would bitch. That's just me, though. I think precisely what this Joseph Campbell needs to do is a "science project" as he calls it. For some reason they're avoiding a "business science project" and I'm really questioning his motivation for circumventing that.

There is a Converter

It's kind of like .doc only with obfuscation and litigation clearly called out.

What you fail to realize is the published standard in this case is handcuffed to an arsenal of undocumented licensed components.

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

Q: Why doesn't the OSP apply to things that are merely referenced in the specification?

A: It is a common practice that technology licenses focus on the specifics of what is detailed in the specification(s) and exclude what are frequently called "enabling technologies."

Hmmm... So the specification alludes to closed and undocumented "enabling technologies" without specifying them OR licensing them. Same old Microsoft.

That ONLY applies to Windows 2000. All the rest is either an available dialog, or TweakUI (as well as the shift key). Plus in W2K's favour one can download and click on a reg file So really it is easier than your FUD would suggest.

XP is no longer a product that Dell and many other OEMs will install on the desktop for you, but you can still downgrade your license to run XP if you don't want Vista. http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?Fa milyID=4f4b3cfd-7f4e-46cb-8117-8275f7683d3f&Displa yLang=en

The problem from Dell's point of view is touched by the author.

If you go configure the cheapest possible PC you can at Dell's website, you can do it damn cheap y just about any measure.

But they try like heck to upsell you to something, anything, with a decent profit margin. Two of the biggest profit makers, in no special order are printers and cameras. At-home photography is a cash cow. HP isn't anything practically but an *ink* and paper company. Selling you a $500 PC with a $100 printer and $100 camera is a great sale to Dell because that $200 of add-on's is a whole different margin category than the PC. Plus it leads to years of sales opportunitis for ink, batteries, paper, etc.

So, when you say you had to research which printers worked well and which ones did not that should clue you into a big worry. Actually getting software that is the right mix of features/ease of use for a simple needs user is also a major concern. Selling a product which limits upsell potential for high-profit products is a really bad business decision.

I have no problem with Linux whatsoever, but hopefully Dell will think carefully about succumbing to the pressure from a highly selected, highly elite techno-saavy crowd who is probably not representative of the entire set of Dell customers. Selling Linux pre-loaded needs to be done carefully, with carefully crafted expectations. Nothing but nothing can damage the long term prospects of Linux than putting it unsuccessfully into the hands of the mass market. Literally nothing can undo the perception of a product as a cheap "knock off" of something else. It is the kiss of death for a generation or more to a good brand name.

Finally, though there isn't what I would call a great track record with MS, oddly enough, there is a certain stability to Windows in terms of release schedule. Even compared to other commerical OS'es, Windows moves at a glacial development pace. And when a new release happens it's a gigantic bang complete with lots of hype but also some carefully planning. Honestly, with Linux, it is entirely possible that a major or even minor release could have very large implications and Dell could be left holding the bag with it's customers. This could happen with MS, but Dell is a large enough customer that frankly pressure can be applied directly up the chain. A reasonable ancedote goes back a few years to when I used GNUCash everyday. It was nice. I was working off a desktop install that I had compiled mostly from scratch. It seems like suddenly the GNUCash people recommended not compiling yourself, and all the make scripts fell apart in my environment. They posted a message on the site about using a binary packages as the new norm, and here are all the ones we support. I ended up fixing the scripts myself, but that's not the point. Things are better now and I still use it everyday. But look at their FAQ page. Compare to the closest version of that page from MS here. This is a product that costs, essentially, $19 - $60 bucks, depending on the version. This type of difference in overall "polish" gets more and more pronounced all the time. And if it's that bad for Windows v. Linux, imagine how bad it is for OSX vs. Linux.

The open-source n Series desktops feature select popular models from the Dimension(TM) desktop, OptiPlex(TM) desktop and Dell Precision(TM) workstation lines available with a copy of the FreeDOS(TM) open-source operating system included in the box, ready to install. It is not a Microsoft operating system and is not qualified for Windows licensing use under any existing Microsoft Volume Licensing Program (OPEN, Enterprise, etc.) Customers interested in a Microsoft® Windows® solution should purchase a Dell desktop pre-loaded with Windows XP Professional.

1) Umm, that killer app must also run in Windows, or it's a bug in ReactOS (since they're trying to recreate Windows), no?

2) Windows 2000+ does have a Unix compat subsystem. It seems more NetBSD than Linux (uses pkg_add etc, NetBSD has Interix packages that you can use), and no X server just libs. I have no idea if they also emulate fork() or not though.

In the same vein, does it run Interix (Services for Unix / Subsystem for Unix-based Applications)? (It's like cygwin, but runs on top of the NT core itself rather than Win32)

That'd be interesting, even though as far as I can tell it's more NetBSD than Linux.

In the same vein, does it run Interix (Services for Unix / Subsystem for Unix-based Applications)? (It's like cygwin, but runs on top of the NT core itself rather than Win32)

That'd be interesting, even though as far as I can tell it's more NetBSD than Linux.

Typically Microsoft fires people below a certain management level in their mid 30s, to make room for younger staff.

get close to actually having the intellectual propery of Microsoft's upper management or founders, they'll find a reason to replace you.

Okay, this thread desperately needs a knowledge-injection.

(This is all based on Windows 2000/XP, I understand NT4 and Vista are similar, no promises for 9X.)

Windows stores time zone information in two places. One is what Microsoft calls the "time zone database". This is the collection of all the time zones that Windows knows about. It's kept here:

HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Time Zones\

Now, when you set or change the local time zone, Windows copies the appropriate time zone table from the above into:

HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Control\TimeZoneInfo rmation

The second location is what gets actively used for local time zone calculations.

So anyway, a lot of people (and it sounds like IntellAdmin might be among them) were updating the first location, but not the second. This typically manifests as clocks being wrong during DST (now), but going in and toggling the local time zone fixes it.

This is all described in excruciating detail in MSKB 914387, "How to configure daylight saving time for the United States in 2007".

There's an additional weirdness I've seen. I was patching some Win 2000 SP4 systems today (post-DST switchover). After installing the registry patches, the clock in the Explorer System Tray was still an hour off. But when I double-clicked the clock to bring up the Date/Time Control Panel, the correct time was displayed. Closing and restarting Explorer seemed to fix the problem.

Additional tip: You can cleanly close Explorer without logging off by clicking Start and then Shutdown to get the "Shutdown" dialog box, and then holding down [CTRL]+[ALT]+[SHIFT] and clicking the "Cancel" button.

Hope this helps,

okay first off as i stated there are a few THOUSAND links the link i noted was just the first "im feeling lucky" link
second if you do the same search with site:microsoft.com you get
http://www.microsoft.com/communities/newsgroups/li st/en-us/default.aspx?dg=microsoft.public.windows. vista.general&tid=edc5e5b0-f56a-49ec-9eef-9830d983 7a18&p=1

since a microserf would be required to dispell any errors (in fact if you read the above link a microserf does) NEXT

I'm one of those people who bought a laptop with Vista preloaded and I haven't had any problems. At all.
I haven't had any sleep issues, a couple programs I use aren't compatible, but nothing big. The only time I have seen a BSOD is in my screensaver.

I'm not Microsoft fanboy, but it seems pretty stable for my use.

Linked version with condensed summary. I wanted to find out more about some of them. Others may benefit too.

Ecto a blogging client (but the site seems to be down: try this for more info). Shareware, $17.95.
Transmit an FTP client. Shareware, $17.95
Sync Services -- comes with 10.4
BBedit text/html editor. $125, but worth it.
Missing Synch for Windows Mobile - synchronize with PDA/smartphones. $49.95/$39.95
OmniGraffle - diagramming / flowchart program. $79.95 / $149.95
ConceptDraw - another diagramming / flowchart program. $299
IChat AV - built-in to 10.4
AppleScript, Scriptdebugger - also built-in. No link. I'm getting lazy.
Microsoft Entourage -- part of MS Office.
Sketchfigher 4000 Alpha -- a game from the great Ambrosia Software. $19.00
TypeIt4Me - keyboard macro expander. $27
NetworkLocation - automatically trigger configuration changes depending upon where you are on the network (e.g., at home, work, etc.). $15
Apple Remote Desktop 3 - control / configure Mac systems remotely. $499 / $299 (unlimited / 10 systems)
MacLinkPlus - file conversion software (e.g., from WordPerfect documents to/from Word, and many others). $79
Parallels Desktop for Mac - virtualization software (e.g., run Win XP simultaneously with OS X). $79.
Remote Desktop Connection - connect remotely to a Windows desktop. FREE
Snap X Pro - screen / movie capture. $29
Boot Camp - dual boot Windows. I'm lazy.
PDF - Portable Document Format from Adobe? What?
Lingon - tool for making launchd scripts for 10.4.
Workgroup Manager - manage local systems - part of 10.4 Server.

---
Okay, a mildly interesting list. Here's a few more suggestions:

Cyberduck - FTP and SFTP client. Donationware.
VLC - cross-platform video viewer / transcoder.
Blender 3D - cross-platform 3D modelling / rendering.
Bookends - excellent bibliography software. $99
Celestia - cross-platform real-time 3D astronomy simulator.
Plot - a, uh, plotting / graphing program.
proFit - another plotting / graphing program, non-free. $95
WordService - adds a bunch of text reformatting tools to the Services menu, making them accessible in any program. The same page has a bunch of other useful and free services.

The original article lists PDF, but no tools. While its true OS X native support makes PDF pretty easy to use, there's still some tasks that are awkward and some useful tools out there to do t

It seems you can enable msahci.sys after you've installed Vista: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/922976

• Transmission (Get the latest beta; the 'official' version hasn't been updated in awhile)
• VLC
• iTunes
• Seamonkey
• TextWrangler
• MS Word

That's all I can think of now.

While I can't say for sure how bad Windows Vista's sleep mode resuming is, I can say that standby issues aren't new.

In 2007 everyone (except Slashdot journalists) uses VMware.

If you support platforms not supported by VMware the closing of the compile farm is your smallest problem anyways.

You can even use the working(!) NFS client included in "Services for Unix" http://www.microsoft.com/technet/interopmigration/ unix/sfu/default.mspx to reliably communicate between a virtualized Windows and the host Linux system. You work with Linux switch to VMware running Windows and access the same code in Visual Studio without any problem.

Welcome to 2007...

End of story, Nothing to see... Good night!

Years of spyware, malware and virus headaches that affect Windows XP have pushed IT managers to scramble for new options they might not have considered in the past.

The learning curve and disparity of Linux distributions is too high for easy general office use.

Many corporate applications have been ported to W3-compliant Web services that are OS-agnostic.

The Mac platform has moved to Windows-compatible Intel chips, which are less expensive and more powerful than older PowerPC processors and make virtualization a viable alternative.

Mac enterprise administration has become more mainstream and interoperable with Active Directory

Microsoft's user and inventory LDAP database.

Active Directory is the backbone of most corporate environments and can be tied to everything IT-related, including IP phones, facilities access and, of course, computer security.

Because Macs work with Microsoft's directory

enterprise administrators can now more easily manage Macs alongside Windows machines.

Apple's consumer lineup is falling into the hands of business decision-makers and their families, and scoring well. What works well at home could do well at work.

All of Apple's machines are ready to move into the enterprise, depending on the job at hand. The company's simple and elegant product line, which is also highly customizable, will be Apple's entree to the business market -- if IT decision-makers can get over their prejudice against equipment that's traditionally been aimed at consumers.

As if there is just one distro of Windows.

Glad you're contributing today. Perhaps you could, I don't know, Google for what it is.

I have no intention of getting into a flame war with you, just wanted to point out that Googling for Groove returns nothing but dross, from the Microsoft site:

Office Groove 2007 is a collaboration software program that helps teams work together dynamically and effectively, even if team members work for different organizations, work remotely, or work offline. Working in Groove workspaces saves time, increases productivity, and strengthens the quality of team deliverables. Office Groove 2007 is just one example of how the 2007 Microsoft Office system helps teams and organizations collaborate more effectively.

Ummmm, right.

I had the same problem when wanting to find out what Sharepoint actually does (eventually had to take the online test drive). Same problem with this product, why would we Google for the marketdroid speak when we have the near-unique opportunity of hearing it from the people who're using it?!

Honestly, brow-beating people for not searching on Google is not often helpful.

As someone who is currently looking into creating an ODF Document Portal I would be very interested in hearing about the features of Groove that real users find useful.

Building an Emergency Operations Center on Groove and SharePoint

Groove {is} used by legions of organizations from GlaxoSmithKline to the U.S. Army. Being able to edit documents and then return them to a shared folder in one go is great. So is the fact that what you have on your computer is synchronized with other team members in real-time so, should your Internet connection be cut for whatever reason, the version will be updated when you come back online. And all this is done via encrypted files, making it very hard for an outsider to intercept and read them. Why Is the Internet So Unfriendly To Those Who Work in Teams?

It's exactly like rsync...if rsync was bundled into a browser file-saving interface, chat and web portal tool.

In other words, if you want to keep your job, get that chip off your shoulder and start reading.

And to the original poster, there is NOTHING like this in the open source environment unless someone developed an OpenOffice plugin for creating dynamic drupal sites and sharing seamlessly with a Jabber client.

If you're serious about design by contract, you need to use a language that supports it. Eiffel does, of course, and so does "Spec#", Microsoft's verifiable variant of C#, but other than that, "support" is a collection of half-baked add-ons that don't provide any strong assurances.

If you're going to take object invariants seriously, you have to take object invariance seriously. Objects can't be allowed to change other than when control is inside them, and when control is inside the object, no public method of the object can be called. This means you have to be able to catch cases where object A calls object B which then calls a public method of A. The invariant of A isn't established at that point, and so, calls into A are illegal. This strict notion of inside/outside is fundamental to class invariants, but many so-called "design by contract" approaches gloss over it. You need a way to explicitly say "control is now leaving this object temporarily" when calling out of an object, and the object's invariant must be true at that exit.

Threading and locking have to be handled in the language. The language needs to know which locks protect what data, or invariants aren't meaningful.

Then there's the problem of how to express an invariant, entry, or exit condition. Are quantifiers provided, or what? How do you talk about concepts like "forward and back pointers of the tree must be consistent"? There's known formalism for that sort of thing, but it's not something you can express cleanly in, say, C or C++.

Without smarts in the compiler, run time checking tends to be too expensive. The compiler needs to know that member function F can't change member variables X and Y, and therefore, invariants concerning X and Y don't have to be rechecked. Without optimizations like that, you end up rechecking everything on every call to every access function.

I'd like to see more design by contract, and I'd like to see it work well enough that when something breaks, you know which side of the interface to blame. I used to do proof of correctness work, and it's quite possible to do this. But you can't do it in C or C++; the languages are too loose. It's been done well for Modula and Java, and a DEC R&D group had a very nice system going just before Compaq canned DEC's Palo Alto research labs. The rise of C killed off verification work; the decline of C may bring it back.

Wasn't it 2.5 million? Checking...

According to Microsoft's press archive, 2 million sold as of April 6 last year. I don't know, maybe we sold a half million this year. It's possible. I think Molyneux said in a recent interview that it sold 2.5 million, but I don't want to go searching for it.

So, Microsoft charged you a different price than they have listed?

Go to the source. Microsoft has a link hereBottom line is there are some SUS and WSUS updates, but no critical IE or OS component updates this month.

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

Not sure what's so difficult.

Now, post me a comparison of ALL current linux distros in a nice chart like this.

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/products/windowsv ista/editions/choose.mspx You're welcome.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/914387

Doesn't look very hard coded to me...

You obviously don't work in an enterprise.

These last 2 weeks have been crazy. Monstrous. Patches for Windows, patches for Exchange, patches for Outlook, patches for Java, patches for Oracle, patches for Act, patches for Blackberries, patches for Treos, patches for that weird-ass cell the COO uses and no one else does. Patches to replace patches. Patches to undo the damage other patches have made. I firmly place blame on the software companies for waiting this long to sort things out, but this says it all: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/914387 NINETEEN REVISIONS. That's the most for an MS KB article ever.

Yes, there are zero-day vulnerabilities out there. However, considering the potential trainwreck that's going to happen Monday, no admin in their right mind would install new patches on Tuesday. No admin worth their salt would do so anyway: usually you wait a few days for the early adopters to fish out the bugs and MS to release any new versions. You let your security hardware and software (which has barely needed to be patched) deal with any potential problems. That's just smart business sense.

For those of you admining a handful of servers, serving basic stuff like webpages, laughing at the work some people have to do for this, that's great. Enjoy yourselves. For the rest of us with a real workload: hundreds of servers and tens of thousands of desktops, all with software on top of software that may or may not be compatible with each other patchwise, this last few weeks have been a living hell. A couple people getting their Word documents hosed is nothing compared to payroll systems not working, trade systems coughing up blood, etc. I'll hand that responsibility off to Symantec and friends -- I've got more important stuff to worry about.

Here's the Open Specification Promise; I don't see any mention of HD Photo. If it is really included, can someone provide evidence?

Yes!