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I find it amazing that, according to their press photos, The Zune's 320 x 240 screen is so amazing that it can display what appears to be five times the number of pixels it actually has.

Someone give those ClearType guys a raise!

...if it's any consolation, Microsoft gives out basic versions (pardon the pun) of Visual Basic (and other languages) free for download.

http://msdn.microsoft.com/vstudio/express/vb/downl oad/

Thanks,

Mike

Visual Studio Express is free. XNA Game Studio Express is free. Microsoft maintains the handsome Coding4Fun site.

Kid's Programming Language: Missile Command!

Introduction to Programming LEGO MINDSTORMS

Visual Studio Express is free. XNA Game Studio Express is free. Microsoft maintains the handsome Coding4Fun site.

Kid's Programming Language: Missile Command!

Introduction to Programming LEGO MINDSTORMS

Visual Studio Express is free. XNA Game Studio Express is free. Microsoft maintains the handsome Coding4Fun site.

Kid's Programming Language: Missile Command!

Introduction to Programming LEGO MINDSTORMS

Microsoft, apparently, has an automotive division. I just hope that they treat this software with more care than they do Windows. I don't really feel like having to hook my car up to the 'net every night to check for patches.

Thousands of pounds for a Windows IDE? I call bullshit on you. There's dozens of free alternatives, even from Microsoft themselves. Such as these - http://msdn.microsoft.com/vstudio/express/

You can also download the C++ compiler and tools for free from MS as well. Granted it's maybe not an open-source alternative, but I'll leave that to other people better informed - myself, I'll use the best (and most widely used) tools for the job, regardless of who publishes them.

If kids are interested in games specifically there's also the XNA Game Studio Express line, which I've used myself and is very nice indeed.

I don't unfortunately know anyone who's just getting into programming for the first time and needs some extra encouragement, but be sure that if I did I'd give them whatever help and advice they needed. The simple fact is, some people can do it and some people can't. Oddly enough some people are put off by the perceived complexity of the code, other people (such as myself the first time) find it addictive.

First off DirectX 10 is vista only.

DirectX 10 is Vista only because of dramatic and breaking changes to the API and the Vista kernel.

They're (at least partially) abandoning the Component Object Model of software programming - the idea that new interfaces are placed on top of old, leaving old code undisturbed by the new interface. For example, DirectX 9 was an additional interface added to the existing DirectX 8 monster, which was grafted onto the DirectX 7 classes, and so on. Since all the old interfaces were left untouched, DirectX 7 code runs just fine with DirectX 9 installed.

In order to make DirectX faster, they're scrapping the Component Object Model, eliminating the old DirectX 9 and previous interfaces. To avoid breaking compatibility with old games, these APIs will be emulated, but will no longer be included in DirectX. The leaner, meaner DirectX built upon the new Vista driver architecture allows revolutionary things like

• GPU timeslicing. Think of a miniature, multi-tasking operating system for your GPU that allows multiple drawing instructions to run in "parallel." Currently, if a rendering instruction (in OpenGL or DirectX) blocks the videocard (say, the texture it needs is compressed and has to be decompressed) rendering of the frame halts until it is completed. In a timesliced GPU, the videocard can "alt+tab" to the next drawing instructions and continue rendering the frame until the texture is decompressed and the block passes.
• Predicated rendering. This allows an "if" statement (a predicate) to precede normal rendering instructions, drawing them only if the condition is met. This means that sophisticated forms of hardware clipping are now possible - the GPU now knows to draw an enemy only if it's not concealed behind a wall, and draw the wall only if you're facing it, and the programmer doesn't have to write additional software for this behavior.

Wikipedia has a great article on DirectX - you should read it.

Second microsoft maintains a stranglehold on ATI and Nvidia by being in charge of the directX featureset.

DirectX is more popular than OpenGL in part because it's updated more frequently to reflect innovations in videocard hardware, such as fully programmable shaders. When a new tech comes along, DirectX incorporates it into it's next version so developers using DirectX can take advantage of the new tech.

Microsoft demands that a minimal set of features new in DirectX 10 be supported by videocards if those videocards want a DirectX 10 sticker on their display box. How horrible that videocards claiming to support DirectX 10 actually have to if they want the sticker.

Third directX programmers tend to use microsoft editors.

So? And DirectX games tend to run on Microsoft Windows.

You can compile DirectX programs with any modern (read: after Windows 3.11) IDE.

The fact that developers don't and use Visual Studio implies that Visual Studio is a superior product. Go download the free express edition of your favorite compiler. It's a lot nicer, IMHO, than using GCC.

MIIS with foreign export (LDAP, flat file, Novell, etc) is like $25K per processor. However it is free between AD stores including Active Directory Application Mode (ADAM). One drawback is that you cant debug it with VS2005, you have to use older version. Even then I was not successful, the project has been de-emphazised so I haven't had a chance to set it all up again and reporduce the issue with M$ support.
What you might be able to do is combine the free MIIS and the *ix support in 2003 Server R2 to push passwords from AD to a *ix LDAP and sync the non-MS with the LDAP.
I wonder if they are thinking about this in the SAMBAv4 development. It'd be a kick to see them outfox M$ highway robbery.
MIIS FAQ http://www.microsoft.com/windowsserversystem/miis2 003/evaluation/faqs/default.mspx

They could then leave it up to game devs to support HD, Non-HD, or both.

This is the worst idea I've ever heard. The whole idea behind a console is control over your platform, and a single target. Any differences SHOULD NOT AFFECT GAMES, otherwise, you're just a Console-Wannabe Windows PC. :\

You're going to alienate your original fanbase, because eventually, guess what's going to happen? Devs are gonna get lazy and won't want to support both.

No, it'll purely for the use of Movies. Period. I don't think Microsoft is THAT dumb as to make a new version of the same console, that'll play different games. If/when they do, it'll be exactly what it is .. a new console. The XBOX 720 or what have you.

They'd do this purely to fight against Sony's bluray [movies]. For those of you who don't think MS has a vested interest in the HD-DVD vs bluray battle, think again. And yes, bluray will have java support.

I'll say it again: meanwhile, Nintendo sits on the sides of this battle merrily making, wait for it ... games. :)

The actual list of people getting sued.

with DX 10 "regulating" what features can go into the cards, MS wins.

Uh, DirectX is free. Writing DirectX problems with the free DirectX SDK is also, you guessed it, free.

Microsoft doesn't profit directly from DirectX. Instead, by making Windows a better platform for game development they, shock, get more game developers on Windows.

Also note that Microsoft doesn't decide what features can and can't go into a DirectX 10 card - it sets a minimum featureset for cards that want the sticker. How horrible that a card being marketed as supporting DirectX 10 has to support DirectX 10 functions. (Remember that DirectX emulates hardware functions your videocards lack, allowing games written for it to transcend specific videocards. If the videocard doesn't support any advanced texture, lighting, and whatever else features, you really have a DirectX 10 complaint CPU.)

"As someone who only lightly follows product releases, I look at both the media center ability of the 360, and the media center ability of the iTV. But it's only the iTV that's simple enough for me to understand how it works by just looking at a picture of the product."

Really? You can tell to work it just by looking at a picture of the product?

Why don't you buy a dedicated media center extender then instead of an XBox? They're cheaper and perform the identical function that iTV does. In fact, one could say Apple copied the idea. Here's a picture so that you can know how to use it:

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/mediacenter/ext ender/owner/default.mspx

Microsoft: From here: http://msdn.microsoft.com/vstudio/express/ It's free.

>Developer: "Cool, where do I get the compiler for VB or this .NET stuff?"
>Microsoft: "Well, you can make ASPs for free and stuff and almost everyone
>has IIS anyways ... but to make applications that do
>anything at all you need our libraries. You need to buy Visual Studio
>and we're afraid it's a bit pricey ..."

Uh, I think you meant:

Microsoft: From here: http://msdn.microsoft.com/vstudio/express/ It's free.

When you visit a Web page that uses a custom pop-up object, Microsoft Internet Explorer 6 closes unexpectedly and generates an error in the Mshtml.dll file. This problem occurs after you install security update 918899 on a Windows XP Service Pack 2 (SP2)-based or a Windows Server 2003 Service Pack 1 (SP1)-based computer. A hotfix is available if you are severely affected by this problem. Otherwise, we recommend that you wait for the next cumulative security update for Internet Explorer.

Microsoft has several different ways of licensing software and each one can use a different key even though they may look the same.

The key sticker on the laptop is obviously an OEM key and would likely require the appropriate OEM install files (OEM pressed XP disc/OEM pressed repair disc/recovery partition) to match. Contact the vendor to get these files.

Anyone that has a Microsoft pressed disc which contains both XP Home and Pro should understand this as these are distributed with an MSDN subscription. Truthfully, I can't say for certain that MS doesn't ship discs like this to OEMs or to corporate "open" license customers but the point remains the same; anyone who would come into possesion of these discs should be aware of this fact.

There are ways around this install incompatibility but I will not help you with that. My advice would be to read your MSDN license agreement and check out the marginally helpful FAQ or to destroy the disc if you do not have the right to use it.

Perhaps micro$oft would like a larger audience for their facebook page.

On October 19, 2004, Microsoft announced that its server software that is currently licensed on a per-processor model will continue to be licensed on a per-processor, and not on a per-core, model. This policy will allow customers to recognize more performance and power from Microsoft software on a multicore processor system without incurring additional software licensing fees.

On October 19, 2004, Microsoft announced that its server software that is currently licensed on a per-processor model will continue to be licensed on a per-processor, and not on a per-core, model. This policy will allow customers to recognize more performance and power from Microsoft software on a multicore processor system without incurring additional software licensing fees.

Windows is, for all for practical purposes, multiligual. Introduction to MUI (Multilingual User Interface)

APPLIES TO Microsoft Windows 2000 Service Pack 4 Microsoft Small Business Server 2000 Standard Edition

It appears the original discussion comes out of the TechNet Discussion Groups:

As of two minutes ago a search on http://search.microsoft.com/results.aspx?q=KB92095 8&l=2&mkt=en-US&FORM=QBME2 showed no reference to data corruption. Any tech journalists reading this?

http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=920958

http://www.microsoft.com/technet/security/Bulletin /MS06-049.mspx

http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=920958

http://www.microsoft.com/technet/security/Bulletin /MS06-049.mspx

The summary blurb is rather cryptic. MS06-049 is a patch to... what? Just Windows 2000 or XP too? And this was a patch for some vulnerability, assumedly? Which?

After a bit of research, here's what should have been included: MS06-049 was an elevation of privledge issue discovered in the kernel of Windows 2000 SP4 only. The patch for the issue, KB920958, appears to have a bug resulting in corruption of compressed folder.

The title is misleading as well. MS06-649 is the issue and KB920958 is the patch; the patch is what's causing the corruption, not the original issue.

The summary blurb is rather cryptic. MS06-049 is a patch to... what? Just Windows 2000 or XP too? And this was a patch for some vulnerability, assumedly? Which?

After a bit of research, here's what should have been included: MS06-049 was an elevation of privledge issue discovered in the kernel of Windows 2000 SP4 only. The patch for the issue, KB920958, appears to have a bug resulting in corruption of compressed folder.

The title is misleading as well. MS06-649 is the issue and KB920958 is the patch; the patch is what's causing the corruption, not the original issue.

Self signing doesn't work for x64 drivers. You must use a certificate from one of Microsoft's approved certificate authorities (e.g. Verisign).

See Digital Signatures for Kernel Modules on x64-based Systems Running Windows Vista.

Want to read something funny in retrospect? Read Microsoft's Press Pass interview released to combat the press coverage when iTunes for Windows came out: Q&A: Choosing a Digital Music Service for Windows Users.

It's one big advertisement given in the form of a staged interview with Microsoft's general manager of their Windows Digital Media Division. Revel in the humor as he gives choice quotes such as, "iTunes captured some early media interest with their store on the Mac, but I think the Windows platform will be a significant challenge for them." Or "With Windows Media 9 Series, you get faster starts, better quality music, and support for the most devices."

Tee-hee...

Well, I would not consider GTA as art, but some graphics really are art like projects for ImagineCup But those are more like demos, not games.

For a more specific example, here is a article (long read though) with code examples for creating a MCE plug-in which converts the default MCE recorded TV files (DVR-MS) into WMV files. There are similar tools for converting to MPEG, etc but this has the nice article explaining everything.

Cool. Something interesting is that your test case doesn't work so well in IE6 either. Actually IE6 seems to have problems with innerHtml on SELECT elements as well. Of course according to Microsoft's definition of innerHtml it's a bug for them too, so I'm not trying to justify it in Opera by saying it's compatible to how IE implements it. But I thought that maybe some of the workarounds for IE mentioned in the knowledge base article might come in handy for you if you are running into this problem a lot.

Cool. Something interesting is that your test case doesn't work so well in IE6 either. Actually IE6 seems to have problems with innerHtml on SELECT elements as well. Of course according to Microsoft's definition of innerHtml it's a bug for them too, so I'm not trying to justify it in Opera by saying it's compatible to how IE implements it. But I thought that maybe some of the workarounds for IE mentioned in the knowledge base article might come in handy for you if you are running into this problem a lot.

For enterprise desktop deployment? Easy. ImageX/WIM.

Microsoft has a web site for this project. (Requires Macromedia Flash)

The building layout seems inefficient. There are only 19 general classrooms. The classrooms are perhaps a third of the building space. There's a big auditorium, with all the bells and whistles, including 100-seat sections on turntables. And of course there's a big "Interactive Learning Center". There's a "Food court", which seems to be lifted from a mall design.

It's also four floors with only two sets of stairs, which will probably be a headache. All the classrooms are on the upper floors.

One of the many M$ troll accounts that cloud around here challenged me to produce references to M$'s infamous Windoze source code national security claim swiftly followed by sale of said code to China and Russia. Of course, I'd love to trot that whole mess out again. Non free software exists on trust alone and M$'s performance there really shows what contempt they have for the US Government and their customers.The memory hole has not yet extinguished the information presented by eweek and Microsoft themselves. You can read it all yourself.

From eWeek, 2002:

"A senior Microsoft Corp. [Jim Allchin's] executive told a federal court last week that sharing information with competitors could damage national security and even threaten the U.S. war effort in Afghanistan. He later acknowledged that some Microsoft code was so flawed it could not be safely disclosed."

If you need to, you can always reference the anti-trust evidence, which is still published and available. The quotes in the article are more than enough for me.

A quick Google Search digs up all the articles here and a parade of Wintel rags falling over themselves to toe the party line. ZDNet echos Alchin again in 2004, a year after they had already sold out! Something called Neowin joins the chorus of woe that someone might look at the source code to W2k or NT4 and see how crappy it is. All as if any real hacker needed it.

The very next year, 2003, M$ announced sale to the highest bidding governments as noted above. Included was China and other friendly countries. But you know, Bill Gates it's just business buddies being chummy. Microsoft would never place the interests of Communist dictators over the rights and well being of their fellow citizens, would they?

The double talk going on at M$ was glaring and all of was bullshit. Access to the OpenBSD source code has not made OpenBSD less secure, it's made it better. The whole episode represented more perjury and a three year FUD attack on free software than it did treason, but you have to wonder what they really believe. Looking back, it's a low point in US corporate history that will only be made worse when they unravel like Enron did. The biggest lie of all is that the Microsoft Monopoly is based on anything more than mass delusion.

I ask you once again, do you trust Microsoft to do as they say? With your business? Code so crappy, it can't be shared but is shared with your worst enemies. If you do, you probably will tell me that Windows XP is easy to install, has good uptimes and other nonsense like that. I'm not sure anyone really believes anything other than Windoze is "good enough because I'm using it for one or two specific tasks." No, that's not good enough and Vista's imminent flop is a good chance to move on to something better. The market is filled with better contenders and M$ will not be missed.

One of the many M$ troll accounts that cloud around here challenged me to produce references to M$'s infamous Windoze source code national security claim swiftly followed by sale of said code to China and Russia. Of course, I'd love to trot that whole mess out again. Non free software exists on trust alone and M$'s performance there really shows what contempt they have for the US Government and their customers.The memory hole has not yet extinguished the information presented by eweek and Microsoft themselves. You can read it all yourself.

From eWeek, 2002:

"A senior Microsoft Corp. [Jim Allchin's] executive told a federal court last week that sharing information with competitors could damage national security and even threaten the U.S. war effort in Afghanistan. He later acknowledged that some Microsoft code was so flawed it could not be safely disclosed."

If you need to, you can always reference the anti-trust evidence, which is still published and available. The quotes in the article are more than enough for me.

A quick Google Search digs up all the articles here and a parade of Wintel rags falling over themselves to toe the party line. ZDNet echos Alchin again in 2004, a year after they had already sold out! Something called Neowin joins the chorus of woe that someone might look at the source code to W2k or NT4 and see how crappy it is. All as if any real hacker needed it.

The very next year, 2003, M$ announced sale to the highest bidding governments as noted above. Included was China and other friendly countries. But you know, Bill Gates it's just business buddies being chummy. Microsoft would never place the interests of Communist dictators over the rights and well being of their fellow citizens, would they?

The double talk going on at M$ was glaring and all of was bullshit. Access to the OpenBSD source code has not made OpenBSD less secure, it's made it better. The whole episode represented more perjury and a three year FUD attack on free software than it did treason, but you have to wonder what they really believe. Looking back, it's a low point in US corporate history that will only be made worse when they unravel like Enron did. The biggest lie of all is that the Microsoft Monopoly is based on anything more than mass delusion.

I ask you once again, do you trust Microsoft to do as they say? With your business? Code so crappy, it can't be shared but is shared with your worst enemies. If you do, you probably will tell me that Windows XP is easy to install, has good uptimes and other nonsense like that. I'm not sure anyone really believes anything other than Windoze is "good enough because I'm using it for one or two specific tasks." No, that's not good enough and Vista's imminent flop is a good chance to move on to something better. The market is filled with better contenders and M$ will not be missed.

Here's a link to a better document on how you can self sign those drivers to avoid this problem of buying a certificate: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?Fa milyID=311f4be8-9983-4ab0-9685-f1bfec1e7d62&Displa yLang=en

Read the paper called: Step by Step Guide to Device Driver Signing and Staging.doc

Maybe not... the GOOD Blue laser discs use the VC-1 codec (as opposed to MPEG2)... I have a copy of the T2 extreme edition which comes with a 2nd disc that has the movie in 1080p encoded using the WM9 codec (which IIRC is based on VC-1). It's just a regular old DVD-9, basically MS's poor early attempt at HD content through their WMVHD-DVD discs (there was about 10 of them total I believe). Anyway, I've got an Athalon 2600+ and a decent 512MB ATi card and I can't even come close to playing that disc, nor can I come close to playing any of the example HD WM9 videos on MS's website. Maybe it's because the video has been compressed to fit on a simple DVD9 so maybe thats why my machine chokes, but maybe it's just because it's no-where near powerful enough.

It also brings up another interesting question. If the VC-1 codec is powerful enough to fit a full-length feature film in 1080p on a mere DVD9 disc... why exactly do we need the new formats again?

If you're interested in trying these videos out on your own machine you can go to the WMVHD showcase The 720p videos played OK, they still stuttered every couple of seconds, but the 1080p stuff was just flat out unplayable.

Yea, clearly what I ment :-)

http://msdn.microsoft.com/directx/xna/faq/

Visual C# Express is free
XNA's Game Studio Express is free

Q: How much will XNA Game Studio Express/XNA Framework cost?
A: The XNA Game Studio Express tools and runtime environment for Windows is completely free. To develop, debug and/or play games on the Xbox 360 you will be required to purchase a XNA "Creator's Club" subscription on the Xbox 360 through Xbox Live Marketplace. The subscription is available in 2 options, $99 a year or $49 for 4 months.

This whole BR and HDdvd stuff is just dumb. Why do I want all new hardware to play some new bloated medium? You can already get 1080P content on DVD's..you just can't play it on a DVD player. Too bad the labels will never put HD on DVDs. http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/musi candvideo/hdvideo/coralreef.aspx

> it sure seems like way too many applications or mystery causes can take out Microsoft operating systems

They aren't 'mystery causes' to folk who can read crash dump output, or run kernel debuggers. They're either due to 3rd party kernel mode code crashes, hardware failure or (rarely) problems with Windows kernel subsystems.

> I wonder what 3rd party drivers and apps are being loaded on these 'critics' machines and causing them to say that MS Vista RC1 crashes and hangs are fewer than expected IN LESS THAN 7 DAYS?

To name a few: Antivirus. Parental Control. IDS. IT Provisioning and Monitoring. (Keep in mind that Windows runs on much more diverse environments than desktop Linux or Macs, and that Vista's architecture for most k-mode apps is new to this release and this is the time for 3rd party k-mode app vendors to do final testing; thankfully the new arch minimizes both debugging and the amount of code to test).

Microsoft disabled raw socket support in XP SP2 to prevent exactly those types of attacks as outlined by the grc site.

http://www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtechnol/winxp pro/maintain/sp2netwk.mspx

"This change limits the ability of malicious code to create distributed denial-of-service attacks and limits the ability to send spoofed packets, which are TCP/IP packets with a forged source IP address."

Not so FUD after all.

here:

For free, with XNA Express, you can only target the Windows Platfrom.
If you want to use the Xbox 360 it's 99 a year for the "Creator's Club" membership, but you can only produce "non-commercial" games...

I've always thought there's something a bit Gödelly about this, along the lines of "Any sufficiently complex system can never be secure".

E.g. I added a new hard drive, and left it downloading a vast 55GB set of files by FTP from the UK over my shiny new 2Mbit connection. Since the machine at the other end is ADSL, it's a very slow process. When I try and watch a DVD, I'd get a BSOD. Figured the drive was bad, so I checked the SMART data. Can't see the drive at all, motherboard has a Sil3112 and the the shitty SATA drivers manage to fumble the SMART command so they always go to drive 0 even if you ask for drive 1. The two drives are in non raid mode, and I'm using the non raid drivers, so I should be able to do this, but all the tools I have return drive 0 data for both drives.

Flipped the drives around. Now I see SMART data for the new drive on both drives. SMART data looks ok - no reallocated sectors for example. Got the Debugging Tools for Windows and WinDbg'd the dump - csrss.exe had aborted and the system bug checked since it needs csrss.exe. Looking in the log, csrss had aborted due to an IO error, STATUS_INSUFFICIENT_RESOURCES. Elsewhere in the error log I can see references to running out of non paged pool. Figured that the SATA driver had a leak. Turned on pool tagging, left it FTPing with PoolTag from the DDK running. I can see the lots of non paged pool being allocated to tag HidC, the Hid class driver.

I bought a cheap USB remote control, a Trust NB-5100P. At least on my system, it seems to Hid Class driver to use lots of memory. It's pretty dramatic, a K per second. Over 24hours day I ended up with 57MB of non paged memory to just this driver. If I stop the system tray applet, the memory is freed instantly.

So it looks like once I got the new drive and started to leave the machine on for several days pulling the files, I could get to the point where it run out of non paged pool and died. Now I only turn on the Trust control panel applet when I'm watching video.

Who's at fault here

1) Trust for making the stupid applet which uses vast amounts of a extremely precious resource. Note that the HID class driver isn't leaking - if you turn off the trust applet the memory is freed. Trust have managed to bring down the system from user mode though.
2) Silicon Image for making a driver that misroutes IOCTL_SMART_*
3) Me for buying Trust/Silicon Image stuff and expecting it to work properly.

A quick google search finds:

http://forums.microsoft.com/MSDN/ShowPost.aspx?Pos tID=98910&SiteID=1

So, at least in Vista, the answer will be no.

> This job description specifically does NOT include the necessity for the kernel to barf on "illegal operations" performed by 3rd party apps

Because, of course, God knows 3rd party apps cannot run in kernel mode.

I've seen a lot of machines run XP, and all the bluescreens I've encountered have been due to a bad wifi card driver written by a company that had gone bust, and an IT department sniffer app (Centennial's Discovery) that would run once a day and invariably blue-screen if a virtual PC was running at the same time.

(And these things are pretty easy to troubleshoot if you bother to look at the crash log files, heck there's even a tool for it these days.)

Windows Vista RC1 has been made available to the general public, with keys available here.

There are various websites that report this build is far more stable than previous versions, but as Microsoft themselves have said "quality will continue to improve. We'll keep plugging away on application compatibility, as well as fit and finish, until RTM"

These builds are set to expire on June 1st 2007