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Re:It affects some radio stations by Tech · 2006-11-02 11:21 · Score: 1 · on Prepared for Next Year's Time Change?

I found this knowledgebase article that deals specifically with this problem. It refers to all operating systems from Win98 onwards and talks about using the tzedit.exe utility I mentioned. It says you can get the utility by obtaining the Resource Kit for your operating system, but the one for Windows XP is well and truly hidden on the MS website; I couldn't find it. Judging by the KB article though, I am fairly sure the tzedit utility for Win98 will also work for XP. All it is doing is making a few registry changes, which appear to be the same on 98 and XP.

I also noticed there was a downloadable patch to correct for a DST change in Australia earlier this year when they changed the dates for the benefit of the Commonwealth Games which they were hosting. I think it is entirely probable that Microsoft will release a patch for XP to set the new daylight saving times in the USA before it happens. So you probably won't need to do those XP boxes manually, just the 98 boxes.

Re:Stupid, tired arguments by grand_it · 2006-11-02 09:51 · Score: 1 · on Surprises in Microsoft Vista's EULA

Actually, there are more versions of XP then two. Technically, there are four. Windows Media Center Edition and Starter Edition.

Don't want to play smart-ass, but technically there are 6 versions of Windows XP:

Windows XP Starter Edition
Windows XP Home Edition
Windows XP Media Center Edition
Windows XP Professional
Windows XP Professional for Tablet PC
Windows XP x64 Edition

Oddly enough, Microsoft website lists only five.

PS: Speaking of Vista versions, let's not forget Windows Vista N versions, or XP European Community Edition, now without Windows Media Player.

Users will ALWAYS be prompted to install IE7 by teridon · 2006-11-02 09:43 · Score: 1 · on IE7 Released As High-Priority Update

No user will be forced to install the update. According to this page, the user will ALWAYS be notified (even if the user has "automatically install updates") that IE7 is ready to be installed.

Licensing Out Today by Obsidian+Dagger · 2006-11-02 09:41 · Score: 0 · on Vista Gets Official Release Dates

The licensing skus are out effective today. Now the media kits probably won't be available until the Nov. 30 release date, this does mean the paper (aka artifical) release date is today. I received notice from D&H about this today and downloaded the MOLPERP pricelist from Microsoft to confirm this. If you want to get the file I mentioned, it is available at https://partner.microsoft.com/download/US/40018463 . You may need to be a Microsoft registered partner to access the file.

Ballmer announcement by Azul · 2006-11-02 09:22 · Score: 1 · on Microsoft To Announce Linux Partnership

Ballmer is going to be making the announcement at 2 p.m. PST. It's going to be transmited as a webcast in online (probably in a crippled patent-encoumbered file format). It seems a transcript will be posted 2 hours after it ends.

Ballmer announcement by Azul · 2006-11-02 09:22 · Score: 1 · on Microsoft To Announce Linux Partnership

Ballmer is going to be making the announcement at 2 p.m. PST. It's going to be transmited as a webcast in online (probably in a crippled patent-encoumbered file format). It seems a transcript will be posted 2 hours after it ends.

Re:In case anyone hasn't seen this... by Aranel+Alasse · 2006-11-02 08:53 · Score: 1 · on Surprises in Microsoft Vista's EULA

Yay! That was my main objection to Vista, so far.

While I'm posting, does anyone know what this means (from http://www.microsoft.com/genuine/downloads/faq.asp x#Question3Label):

Q: Will systems running Wine pass WGA validation?
A: Wine is an implementation of the Windows 3.x and Win32 APIs on top of X and Unix. When WGA validation detects Wine running on the system, it will notify users that they are running non-genuine Windows, and it will not allow genuine Windows downloads for that system. Users of Wine should consult the Wine community for Wine updates. It is important to note that Wine users, and other users of non-genuine Windows, can continue to download updates for most Microsoft applications from Microsoft application-specific sites, such as Office Update.

And another question I had: how often will Vista try to Validate itself? What if you don't have the internet on that machine? Would Validating involve calling MS every so often?

Re:Why is the delay such a big deal? by default+luser · 2006-11-02 08:37 · Score: 1 · on Vista Gets Official Release Dates

Win9x emulation was added Windows 2000 SP2. The only difference between 2000 and XP is you have to turn it on under 2000.

To activate, follow these instructions.

Now you can right-click on older executables and there will be a compatibility tab.

Outdated by pdschmid · 2006-11-02 07:53 · Score: 1 · on Surprises in Microsoft Vista's EULA

The article is outdated. Microsoft changed the Vista EULA today. It now allows an unlimited number of transfers of the retail copy from one computer to another, instead of just one as the article still says. You can read more about this change at http://blogs.zdnet.com/Bott/?p=166 Or download the full EULA from http://www.microsoft.com/about/legal/useterms/defa ult.aspx I am glad that the pressure on Microsoft worked and they changed that license term!

Re:Vista EULA is on-line as ever. by freitasm · 2006-11-02 07:33 · Score: 1 · on Surprises in Microsoft Vista's EULA

Here's the Vista EULA: http://www.microsoft.com/about/legal/useterms/defa ult.aspx that you guys couldn't find: http://www.microsoft.com/about/legal/useterms/defa ult.aspx

Re:Vista EULA is on-line as ever. by freitasm · 2006-11-02 07:33 · Score: 1 · on Surprises in Microsoft Vista's EULA

Here's the Vista EULA: http://www.microsoft.com/about/legal/useterms/defa ult.aspx that you guys couldn't find: http://www.microsoft.com/about/legal/useterms/defa ult.aspx

The Benchmarking is for .NET 3.0 only (FUD) by Trevahaha · 2006-11-02 06:53 · Score: 3, Insightful · on Surprises in Microsoft Vista's EULA

There are only restrictions involved in posting benchmarks for .NET 3.0 . And these restrictions only require that you state what version you were using and the methodology you took. It doesn't have any restrictions on "bad" results or any attempt to stop people from reporting accurate results. They wrote these restrictions to prevent people from testing .NET on a 386 and then JAVA on a 3 GHZ and saying "See JAVA is faster!" and it's similar to the restrictions for .NET 1.1 and 2.0... it's just because it's bundled with Vista that it's now included with the Vista EULA.

Re:Huh? by Software · 2006-11-02 06:35 · Score: 1 · on IE7 Released As High-Priority Update

Just to be clear, nobody is being forced to upgrade. IE 7 is being force-downloaded only; the user will be prompted to install. From http://www.microsoft.com/windows/ie/ie7/automaticu pdates/default.mspx :

Automatic Updates will first notify you when Internet Explorer 7 is ready to install and then show a welcome screen that presents key features and the choice to accept, decline or postpone installation....

Upgrading will preserve your current home page, search settings, favorites, and compatible toolbars and will not change your default browser. You will be able to roll back to Internet Explorer 6 at any point by using the Add/Remove Programs utility in the Windows Control Panel. (To learn more about Automatic Updates please visit the Microsoft Security site.)

Personally, I downloaded IE manually (I know, I know) and installed it, but promptly uninstalled it when I found that iexplore.exe couldn't be launched with file:/// URLs. So I can vouch for the uninstall.

more of the same... by drew · 2006-11-02 05:48 · Score: 1 · on IE7 Released As High-Priority Update

As much as I was looking forward to the IE7 release, it turns out to just be more of the same stuff we learned to expect from IE6. Except, instead of dealing with the bizarre behaviors that we have spent six years learning, now we get all new bizarre behaviors. My favorite so far:

http://channel9.msdn.com/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=2435 73

IE7's feed handler starts with a mime sniff. It looks at the first 512 bytes of the XML and if it has a element, it then does believe it to be a feed. Since in your case this isn't an RSS or Atom feed, you get the error text.

You have two options.

1) You can turn off the feed view in IE (buried in Advanced options, IIRC).
2) You can add a large comment to the top of the XML to push the element out of the first 512 bytes. This may be difficult for you if you don't own the webservice in question.

The quote in question comes from the leader of the "Vista RSS platform, IE UX, and IE setup teams."

Personally, this is about the behavior that I would expect if I asked a second year college student on a summer internship to write the feed detection logic, and even then, if I was on the team I would have thrown it away and had someone else rewrite it. To see the RSS team lead not only acknowledge without a hint of embarrassment this as an intentional design decision, and on top of that to suggest with a straight face that stuffing your XML documents with unnecessary comments is a valid solution absolutely blows my mind.

Microsoft has learned absolutely nothing from 6 years of experience with Internet Explorer 6. Sure, they fixed a lot of long standing bugs, but they also completely ignored a lot of bugs that were not only known, but documented on their own site. For example, http://msdn.microsoft.com/workshop/author/dhtml/re ference/properties/name_2.asp

The NAME attribute cannot be set at run time on elements dynamically created with the createElement method. To create an element with a name attribute, include the attribute and value when using the createElement method.

The following example shows how to set the NAME attribute on a dynamically created A element.

var oAnchor = document.createElement("<A NAME='AnchorName'></A>");

Offshoring firmware is even worse by Animats · 2006-11-02 05:25 · Score: 1 · on Does Offshoring Threaten Combat Software?

Here's what scares me: The Intelligent Platform Management Interface (IPMI) and the Remote Management and Control Protocol. (RMCP). Many machines in the field implement these protocols in the network controller, independent of the operating system.

These are UDP-based protocols, on port 623. They can be sent from anywhere on the Internet; not just local machines. They provide total power over the target computer. Functions include:

Change boot device for next boot, including boot from network.
Turn machine on, off, or reboot.
Disable keyboard and user on/off switch.

Now that's control.

Supposedly machines come out of the factory with an empty set of IPMI remote management passwords in their nonvolatile memory. Supposedly. All it would take would be to slip in a password load somewhere before the machine reaches the customer, and the customer would never notice that they're 0wned. Even a complete reload of the OS won't fix this. You can switch the machine from Windows to Linux and still be 0wned. Or worse, the IPMI hardware could have a built-in password (perhaps for "factory test") that you couldn't even detect unless you knew it. Because all this remote management stuff is already there, it takes a very minor change to make large numbers of machines very vulnerable.

Run IPMItool and find out what machines will talk to you. Try not to reboot your whole server farm by mistake.

Re:As someone on FF 1.5 by Short+Circuit · 2006-11-02 04:58 · Score: 1 · on IE7 Released As High-Priority Update

Can I have some of what you're smoking?

Sure. You can download it here/a>.

Re:Monopoly leverage, indeed by Sepodati · 2006-11-02 04:57 · Score: 1 · on IE7 Released As High-Priority Update

As if anyone with a windows box has a choice in the matter.

There is a Toolkit to Disable Automatic Delivery of Internet Explorer 7 available. And surprise, surprise, it's not actually a link to Opera or Firefox...

---John Holmes...

Re:Hmm... by mshmgi · 2006-11-02 04:18 · Score: 1 · on IE7 Released As High-Priority Update

This tool ... http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?Fa milyId=4516A6F7-5D44-482B-9DBD-869B4A90159C&displa ylang=en

Toolkit to Disable Automatic Delivery of Internet Explorer 7
Brief Description:The Internet Explorer 7 Blocker Toolkit enables IT Administrators to disable automatic delivery of Internet Explorer 7 as a high-priority update via Automatic Updates and the Windows Update and Microsoft Update sites.

Much FUD by Anonymous Coward · 2006-11-02 04:17 · Score: 1, Informative · on IE7 Released As High-Priority Update

It's optional. "High priority" doesn't mean "forced". The user will see an installer appear and they can choose to install or not install IE 7.

There are also several other options from preventing the installer from even appearing. It's not much different from getting automatic upgrade notifications from Firefox or many other applications.

The details can be found here: http://www.microsoft.com/technet/updatemanagement/ windowsupdate/ie7announcement.mspx

I have to now wonder if we'll see a few dozen retractions in this thread as people realize they jumped to the wrong conclusions.

Re:Hello chaos by Mr.Sharpy · 2006-11-02 03:55 · Score: 2, Informative · on IE7 Released As High-Priority Update

For corporate environments (using Active Directory), Microsoft released a set of tools and information you can use to block the installation of IE7 from Windows Update. This information was made widely available to administrators of Microsoft networks. If you were (too late now) anticipating problems with the update, your domain administrator(s) should have use the IE7 blocker toolkit.

More blocker toolkit info here

Re:Stupid questions by justice7 · 2006-11-02 03:46 · Score: 1 · on IE7 Released As High-Priority Update

http://www.microsoft.com/technet/updatemanagement/ windowsupdate/ie7announcement.mspx

Yes that is exactly what they've done.

Automatic Updates will only offer Internet Explorer 7 to users with local administrator accounts. Automatic Updates will notify all such users (including those with Automatic Updates configured to automatically download and install updates) when Internet Explorer 7 has been downloaded and is ready to install. The notification and installation process will not start unless and until a user who is a local administrator logs on to the machine. Users who are not local administrators will not be prompted to install the update and will thus continue using Internet Explorer 6.

Just get the blocker by NerdyJock · 2006-11-02 03:30 · Score: 0 · on IE7 Released As High-Priority Update

Thank goodness for the IE7 blocker. I pushed it out to all of my users, so they don't get via auto updates. You should investigate that for your IT illiterate family and friends. reasons for Blocking IE 7: 1) There are a lot of sites that don't work in IE 7 2) 2 out of 3 installs causes svchost.exe to take up 90-100% cpu, after intalling IE 7 3) IE is boaring

Re:More Work for us IT Types by dsginter · 2006-11-02 03:20 · Score: 1 · on IE7 Released As High-Priority Update

No it isn't. Just add a script to the regular batch.

Re:Shareholders by Skim123 · 2006-11-02 02:10 · Score: 1 · on Microsoft Considers Pulling Out of China

Well, shareholders are going to get their say at the 2006 shareholders meeting, in a way. Check out item #3, Shareholder Proposal #1 from the Microsoft Corporation 2006 Proxy Statement (you have to scroll down a ways). I'll summarize it here:

John C. Harrington, 1001 2nd Street, Suite 325, Napa, California 94559 has notified the Company that he intends to submit the following proposal at this year's annual meeting:

Whereas, human and labor rights abuses may be carried out routinely by many governments in countries in which our company conducts business;

Whereas, for example, according to the U.S. State Department, the totalitarian Chinese government continues to routinely, arbitrarily arrest, detain, imprison, torture, abuse, and deny basic human and labor rights to its citizens;1

Whereas, a U. S. State Department report on China in 2005 states, "There was a trend towards increased harassment, detention, and imprisonment by government and security authorities of those perceived as threatening to government authority. The government also adopted measures to control more tightly print, broadcast and electronic media, and censored online content. Protests by those seeking to redress grievances increased significantly and where suppressed, at times violently, by security forces.;"2

... <snip /> a lot of complaints against China <snip /> ...

Therefore, be it resolved, that the shareholders request that no later than January 1, 2007, our company will no longer sell products or services to any foreign government, or agency or department of any foreign government, including, but not limited to, the military and police, that knowingly can be used to deny basic human or labor rights pursuant to the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

Of course, the board doesn't think too much of this proposal. Immediately after that we have their analysis:

THE BOARD RECOMMENDS A VOTE AGAINST THIS PROPOSAL. We believe the availability of our products and services has increased the ability of citizens worldwide to engage in free expression and has helped transform the economic, cultural, and political landscape of nations throughout the world. We expect that continuing to provide software and Internet services in the countries in which we do business will over time promote greater social benefit than withholding our products from particular customers or markets.

Also check out Shareholder Proposal #2, which essentially says homosexuals are evil and that Microsoft should remove any mention of "we don't discriminate against sexual preference" from their equal opportunity policy. You'll be happy to know that the board recommends a vote against that proposal as well. Crazy shareholders!

Re:My vote goes to..... by Anonymous Coward · 2006-11-01 23:51 · Score: 0 · on Prepared for Next Year's Time Change?

300 million people, according to the latest figures. Which makes it the third-largest country in the world.

I think a less trollish way of putting it would be: "How is it different from all the other countries in the world with broken timezone support". Hell, the rules in the EU haven't been changed for 10 years, and Exchange still gets it wrong.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/196200
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/910268

Re:My vote goes to..... by Anonymous Coward · 2006-11-01 23:51 · Score: 0 · on Prepared for Next Year's Time Change?

300 million people, according to the latest figures. Which makes it the third-largest country in the world.

I think a less trollish way of putting it would be: "How is it different from all the other countries in the world with broken timezone support". Hell, the rules in the EU haven't been changed for 10 years, and Exchange still gets it wrong.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/196200
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/910268

Re:aka Corporate version by Jugalator · 2006-11-01 23:38 · Score: 1 · on Vista Gets Official Release Dates

I'd recommend against going on about these "corporate versions" as that will just confuse people into believing they work like the infamous Windows XP "Corporate Editions" (which is often warez-speak to refer to the Volume License Key edition of Windows XP Professional). The reasons for this nitpicking of mine are:

- Windows Vista won't share Windows XP's Volume Licensing model. In Vista, instead of VLK's, there are MAK's and the difference is not just in the name.
- There'll be a Windows Vista Business Edition and a Windows Vista Enterprise Edition and these have quite varying features.

So "business aka corporate version" isn't really telling much about what version you're talking about.

Re:It affects some radio stations by Tech · 2006-11-01 23:37 · Score: 2, Informative · on Prepared for Next Year's Time Change?

The original Win98, as I recall, came with a timezone editor on the original CD although it didn't install by default. I'm not sure whether it was included on the Win98SE CD, but if not the older one would probably still work. The program you're looking for is tzedit.exe and a quick search of the CD should show whether or not it is there.

Otherwise, Googling "timezone editor" came up with what looked like several alternatives and a link to a Microsoft KB article http://support.microsoft.com/kb/317211 which doesn't address this specific problem but does talk about using the timezone editor for another purpose, implicitly stating that there is a timezone editor available for many versions of Windows, and presumable also Win98SE.

It should be pretty simple to make the appropriate changes. It should be pretty simple for someone to automate the process too. I might even have a go at it myself even though the change doesn't affect me at all (being in the UK).

Re:Daylight savings changes isn't a big deal by Curmudgeonlyoldbloke · 2006-11-01 23:15 · Score: 1 · on Prepared for Next Year's Time Change?

> And if Microsoft can have a patch for two states and one territory in a relatively small country, then they can have a patch for
> the vast majority of their home country...

I wouldn't bet on it, they screwed some people in Europe up since the move to "last week in October" from "fourth week in October":
http://www.support.microsoft.com/kb/910268

Still, I'm not aware of any planes falling out of the sky because someone turned up to a meeting an hour late...

Re:Why is the delay such a big deal? by omicronish · 2006-11-01 19:31 · Score: 1 · on Vista Gets Official Release Dates

The project originally consisted of the "pillars of Longhorn"--Aero, Indigo, and WinFS. The first is shipping in less than what was promised (Microsoft once claimed it was a temporary theme and that improvements were forthcoming), and the last two were canceled.

"Indigo" was not cancelled. It's the code name for what became Windows Communication Foundation, which is alive and well.

Re:Very interesting by guabah · 2006-11-01 17:31 · Score: 1 · on Viral Fossil Brought Back To Life

the rest is junk DNA which has a lot of interesting stuff like alternate versions of genes, commented out ideas, and coded critters like this one that sit in your DNA like "sunken ships".

Just like some software projects we know about.

Re:It looks like you're trying to cast a ballot... by LostCluster · 2006-11-01 14:59 · Score: 1 · on E-voting State By State

Diebold actually licensed the clippy AI from Microsoft for that one.

Actually, they'll give the technology behind Clippy to anybody who wants to play with it.

Re:Microsoft Embedded Marketing by kjart · 2006-11-01 14:21 · Score: 2, Insightful · on Windows CE 6 Arrives Complete with Kernel Source

Wow, you both seem to be trolling. The Microsoft Shared Source Licenses are actually quite simple to read and easy to understand. The GPL is actually far more complex, imho.

Re:Coming Zune? by I'm+Don+Giovanni · 2006-11-01 12:25 · Score: 1 · on Windows CE 6 Arrives Complete with Kernel Source

It's still running WindowsMobile, I believe. Specifically, the Portable Media Center flavor.
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsmobile/help/portab lemediacenter/default.mspx

The current version of Portable Media Center is PMC 2.x, which Toshiba Gigabeat uses. According to the Zune blogs, Zune doesn't run PMC 2.x, it runs it's own thing, but I assume that Windows Mobile is used underneath, particularly the kernel.

BTW, Zune isn't a "rebranded Toshiba Gigabeat", though one could say that it's derived from it. Zune has a slicker UI, as the Wi-Fi, supports more audio and video formats, etc.

It's a real pain in the... by Acer500 · 2006-11-01 12:24 · Score: 1 · on Prepared for Next Year's Time Change?

Well, for those of us using Windows stuff (hopefully for nothing important :) ), Microsoft has a tool called tzedit which you can use to specify a custom timezone/edit a timezone, so you can specify daylight savings time.

Then you have to export the registry keys and deploy them to all relevant computers (I used group policies).

Here's the relevant example for my country (which is entirely inconsistent in its use of DST), just replace Uruguay with whatever country you're in:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/886775

Re:Which MS license is it under? by cbhacking · 2006-11-01 12:03 · Score: 1 · on Windows CE 6 Arrives Complete with Kernel Source

Except for the restrictions regarding legal action, the Ms-PL (Permissive License) seems sort of BSDL-like. You're allowed to edit the source, you're allowed to redistribute it, and you're even allowed to close it (redistribute it sans source). You're not allowed to take credit for the original version and the software is licensed "as-is".

IANAL but I think the main difference between the Ms-PL and the BSDL is the Ms-PL term 3B:

If you bring a patent claim against any contributor over patents that you claim are infringed by the software, your patent license from such contributor to the software ends automatically.

Re:Wow ... by Anonymous Coward · 2006-11-01 11:35 · Score: 0 · on Windows CE 6 Arrives Complete with Kernel Source

(last I looked, MSDN Universal was around $2500).

It's been a while then :-) MSDN Universal was replaced with MSDN Premium when they released VS2005 a year ago next week.

Old Universal subscribers got a Premium subscription with one of the "VSTE-for" products thrown in.

Re:Wow ... by Anonymous Coward · 2006-11-01 10:28 · Score: 0 · on Windows CE 6 Arrives Complete with Kernel Source

You can get a demo copy of platform builder to build images to run on an x86 pc. http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?fa milyid=486E8250-D311-4F67-9FB3-23E8B8944F3E&displa ylang=en

Re:My experience... by Clever7Devil · 2006-11-01 10:07 · Score: 1 · on A List of Linux Migration Stories?

Personally, I don't find the support from a megalo-corporation like Microsoft that comprehensive. I consider myself a Windows Power-User, and I still put much of that knowledge to practice at work; however, I didn't get this way by reading Help files.

The options for Joe Computer-User are not vast:

He can try to wade his way through the contents of Microsoft's included manuals and help files. The problem here being that even if he knows what the problem is, and what questions he needs answers to; the solution is rarely easy to locate.

He can try to contact Microsoft technical support. (Slashdot users will, I hope, find the humor in the links under the "Latest support news" heading. http://support.microsoft.com/) If he manages to get a response from someone who knows what they're talking about, without sitting in front of his computer they will likely only solve the symptoms.

If he knows someone that is "one of those techy people" he can impose on them for assisstance.

Or, if he's like many home-users, he can call the "Computer Guy" to come to his home and fix the real problem. These "Computer Guys" are not short for work.

For the majority of home users, the migration to Linux would not be all that painful. The only difference my household noticed when I migrated the laptop was that it had new games. (Damn you Frozen-Bubble! How many hours have you stolen WoW from me on the shoulders of my girlfriend?)

What makes the difference in Linux is that the popular distros have a thriving community built up around them that respond to even the most "Noobish" queries surprisingly quickly. You don't need to be a master of the shell to succeed with Linux. Beyond that, the problems that just don't exist in comparison to Windows are endless.

My apologies to the OP for not addressing his question, but I felt that this needed a response. And to Jim, FreeBSD is a great solution. I do not believe, however, that it is a solution that caters as well to normal users as Gnu/Linux. I normally agree with your points, thank you for being such an active contributor to our community.