Slashdot Mirror

Actually failing WGA will still allow critical updates to be downloaded, according to this kb article at least:

" Note The Automatic Updates feature is not affected by the WGA validation check. Therefore, you can use the Automatic Updates feature to make sure that you receive critical Windows updates."

They also have some useful forum posts about how to resolve issues in their WGA activation forum

I can fully understand that you'd be annoyed though...

but I hope they manage to make every single user pay for Windows, soon.

The thing is is you don't try to force users to pay by screwing your legitimate users. Instead of getting more people to pay you may drive them away. That's what they're doing to me. I've been buying and using PCs with Windows for almost 10 years but the next computer I get will be a Mac. If MS includes Activation in a product I won't buy it if I can get away without having it.

I don't know why this is moderated as a troll.

Windows Genuine Advantage already does 3 of the above mentioned things.

1) It will nag you if it thinks your not legitimate. We had a customer who had to buy an extra copy to get rid of the nagging.
2) It will prevent you from getting non-critical updates. There is a solution: http://windowsupdate.62nds.com/ (non IE browser required)
3) It will prevent you from installing add-on applications (just about any tool or utility from http://download.microsoft.com./

How it violates US monopoly laws to not provide you with support for a product you didn't buy?

Bugs aside, if the thing worked properly that's essentially what it would do. I have no qualms about Microsoft choosing not to provide support to people using pirated copies.

Your claims of it locking Office to the Windows platform are also unfounded, considering there's a Mac download site that doesn't require WGA...

Anyone with the extra scap around to build a custom PC would be more than willing to shell out $99 for WinXP Home. And if you bought your PC, then just throw in the restore disc.

Grandma will not spend thousands on a new Mac; she'll get the Geek Squad to install Windows.

Mom won't install Ubuntu; she'll drop a Benjamin on WinXP.

It's purpose is to enforce Microsoft's Intellectual Property Rights. And what right is that? There are really only two -- the right to be paid for Windows, and the right to not have to support Windows that has not been paid for.

Let's start with the first 'right': the right to be paid. Simply put, there is no such right. You won't find it anywhere in the laws of the United States. No one is required by law to buy Windows from Microsoft (certain public offices notwithstanding). While it is true that external factors (ease-of-use, company policy, etc) strongly compel purchasing decisions, those factors are not legal, and do not create a 'right' of payment.

Now, the second 'right': the right to receive support. Again, there is no such legal right. True, there are implied warranties of merchantability, but these can be expressly disclaimed by an EULA. Let's take a look at the XP Home Edition EULA:

15. LIMITED WARRANTY FOR SOFTWARE ACQUIRED IN THE US AND CANADA. Microsoft warrants that the Software will perform substantially in accordance with the accompanying materials for a period of ninety (90) days from the date of receipt. If an implied warranty or condition is created by your state /jurisdiction and federal or state/provincial law prohibits disclaimer of it, you also have an implied warranty or condition, BUT ONLY AS TO DEFECTS DISCOVERED DURING THE PERIOD OF THIS LIMITED WARRANTY (NINETY DAYS). AS TO ANY DEFECTS DISCOVERED AFTER THE NINETY-DAY PERIOD, THERE IS NO WARRANTY OR CONDITION OF ANY KIND.

YOUR EXCLUSIVE REMEDY. Microsoft's and its suppliers' entire liability and your exclusive remedy for any breach of this Limited Warranty or for any other breach of this EULA or for any other liability relating to the Software shall be, at Microsoft's option from time to time exercised subject to applicable law, (a) return of the amount paid (if any) for the Software, or (b) repair or replacement of the Software, that does not meet this Limited Warranty and that is returned to Microsoft with a copy of your receipt. You will receive the remedy elected by Microsoft without charge, except that you are responsible for any expenses you may incur (e.g. cost of shipping the Software to Microsoft).

16. DISCLAIMER OF WARRANTIES. The Limited Warranty that appears above is the only express warranty made to you and is provided in lieu of any other express warranties or similar obligations (if any) created by any advertising, documentation, packaging, or other communications. Except for the Limited Warranty and to the maximum extent permitted by applicable law, Microsoft and its suppliers provide the Software and support services (if any) AS IS AND WITH ALL FAULTS, and hereby disclaim all other warranties and conditions, whether express, implied or statutory, including, but not limited to, any (if any) implied warranties, duties or conditions of merchantability, of fitness for a particular purpose, of reliability or availability, of accuracy or completeness of responses, of results, of workmanlike effort, of lack of viruses, and of lack of negligence, all with regard to the Software, and the provision of or failure to provide support or other services, information, software, and related content through the Software or otherwise arising out of the use of the Software.

That entire section on tracking licenses made me laugh. According to postings on their newsgroups, Microsoft's own support people can't answer questions consistently about some of their licensing policies.

Windows Small Business Server 2003 (SBS) uses Client Access Licenses (CALs) to control how many users or workstations can authenticate to the server at one time. If you don't have a CAL assigned to you or your machine, you can't connect to the server. SBS 2003 comes with 5 CALs, and you can buy up to 70 more.

But according to their own Licensing FAQ, there is no mechanism in SBS 2003 for tracking CALs. Some quotes:

"Q. How do I know which mode I have selected? A. For the first 5 CALs that come with the server, you should complete the CAL license document. There is a field for writing in whether you would like to choose per user or per device CALs." Yes, you fill in a blank on the paper EULA to "activate" the first 5 CALs. There's no way to enter the information into the system itself.

"Q. Does [SBS 2003] provide a mechanism to track and display how many user or device CALs are in use? A. [SBS 2003] does not provide a mechanism to track or display CALs.... [SBS 2003] will display only the number of CALs that have been activated."

"Q. How do I know I am in compliance? A. You will need to maintain records of what you have purchased, and how you have assigned the first 5 CALs that come with the server. [SBS 2003] does not provide an automated way to track CAL use." You are expected to write down a list of the users and devices to which you've assigned CALs.

With such sophisticated license tracking in their server systems, I can hardly imagine how well WGA will work for home users.

Visual Studio is now free.

http://msdn.microsoft.com/vstudio/express/

They also have TONS of video and print tutorials.

Office can be had for $150.

http://www.microsoft.com/office/editions/prodinfo/ students/default.mspx

And WinXP is around for between $50 and $150.

So, bare bones, you are looking at $200 to be legal. Or, you can spend a few weeks dealing with waiting for a WGA hack to come out.

Visual Studio is now free.

http://msdn.microsoft.com/vstudio/express/

They also have TONS of video and print tutorials.

Office can be had for $150.

http://www.microsoft.com/office/editions/prodinfo/ students/default.mspx

And WinXP is around for between $50 and $150.

So, bare bones, you are looking at $200 to be legal. Or, you can spend a few weeks dealing with waiting for a WGA hack to come out.

Here: New UI Beta 2. Looks good. Works fine on my laptop. You can see it yourself!. -OOo user.

Here: New UI Beta 2. Looks good. Works fine on my laptop. You can see it yourself!. -OOo user.

Why is this a nightmare? In order to avoid unnecessary workarounds MS eliminated ALL (yes, ALL) the workarounds used by client side devs to solve the core issues with regard to how MS renders CSS and HTML.

If you think Microsoft is letting down those who write web applications (particularly cross-browser ones) check the the AJAX features being demoed in Scott Guthrie's ASP.NET + Atlas Tutorial. Very impessive stuff - a cross browser AJAX app written in minutes.

When a website wants you to go through a bunch of hoops like WGA to download a file there's often a very simple way around that. You can probably find the URL on FileMirrors. If it's something popular like an IE beta it'll probably be on the front page so you won't even have to search. Oh, and here's a link to IE7BETA3-WindowsXP-x86-enu.exe.

"Deployment"? Who uses that word?

Er, all sorts of people. Even web developers and software engineers.

It's just a word meaning "put something in place and get it ready".

I don't think people assumed the worst as much as his website implied the worst.

Well yes, it might have implied the worst, but people were still pretty damn stupid to believe it's for real. I'm pretty sure the next person to nuke the world isn't going to put a nice Flash countdown up on the web.

I did find the website horrifying. Not because I thought something bad was going to happen, but because it demonstrated just how dumb lots of people can be. If anybody thought this was the precursor to some kind of catastrophe, then they belong in a home being looked after by qualified professionals.

The obvious reason for the WGA tool needs to check in periodically with Microsoft is that at some point Microsoft may discover that an "authentic" properly licensed copy of Windows starts to be distributed by the warez kidz (or installed by some small computer store not properly paying Microsoft for the copies of XP) - and that original legitimate copy is then used to create unlicensed copies in violation of the EULA.

This would be similar to the notion of SSL certificates. Even though the certificate says it is valid, since it may at some point be revoked by the issuer (or the issuer may have its authority revoked), it is necessary to check the trust chain periodically, even though the certificate says it hasn't expired and tested as valid last time it was checked.

XP looks at serial numbers on the hardware (like the MAC id on the NIC card, serial# on the c: drive) to tie down a copy to a specific computer. Their mechanism recogizes that over time, people will replace hard drives, or maybe a NIC card.... but if "too many" of those identifying characterstics change at the same time, then they assume that the copy of XP has been moved/copied to another computer and forces a reactivation.

The EULA (section 13) addresses the issue of transferring your XP license to another computer:
"You may move the Software to a different Workstation Computer. After the transfer, you must completely remove the Software from the former Workstation Computer."

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/home/eula.mspx

Your XP license applies to one computer, not one person.

(I am not associated with MSFT - only a customer)

DTS that is included with MS-SQL Server 2000 is a good option. I have done a lot of this type of thing, and it is quick and easy with an ETL (Extraction Translation tool) like DTS.

I wish I could find and Open Source replacement for this tool.

This book has been very helpful
http://www.microsoft.com/MSPress/books/6525.asp

Brian Livingston's Windows Secrets has waded into the WGA mess with a fairly straightforward suggestion: Dump Windows Update. Along with that, he points to Microsoft's WGA unistall information in the KB article 92914. Note the KB article refers to the "pilot" version of WGA, so Things May Change.

MS has your point covered though. http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?fa milyid=95E24C87-8732-48D5-8689-AB826E7B8FDF&displa ylang=en

$sudo dpkg -i wdviewer.exe
Password:
dpkg-deb: `wdviewer.exe' is not a debian format archive
dpkg: error processing wdviewer.exe (--install):
subprocess dpkg-deb --control returned error exit status 2
Errors were encountered while processing:
wdviewer.exe

hey wait a minute. it's not working.

Here is the MS list of accessibility features in Word. Which of these are not available in OO?

MS has your point covered though.

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?fa milyid=95E24C87-8732-48D5-8689-AB826E7B8FDF&displa ylang=en/

• zoom for readability
• reading layout view
• keyboard shortcuts
• and don't forget scroll with your mouse

If you don't want to use the command line xcopy, then I suggest you download a copy of Synctoy from Microsoft.

Whitepaper: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?fa milyid=49818CF1-2287-40EA-8A6F-57BD8695F23D&displa ylang=en

Download:
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?fa milyid=E0FC1154-C975-4814-9649-CCE41AF06EB7&displa ylang=en

If you don't want to use the command line xcopy, then I suggest you download a copy of Synctoy from Microsoft.

Whitepaper: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?fa milyid=49818CF1-2287-40EA-8A6F-57BD8695F23D&displa ylang=en

Download:
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?fa milyid=E0FC1154-C975-4814-9649-CCE41AF06EB7&displa ylang=en

Windows XP Accessibility Utilities:

        * Magnifier--a display utility that makes the computer screen more readable by creating a separate window that displays a magnified portion of the screen.
        * Narrator--a text-to-speech utility that reads what is displayed on the screen--the contents of the active window, menu options, or text that has been typed.
        * On-Screen Keyboard--displays a virtual keyboard on the computer screen that allows people to type data by using a pointing device or joystick.

I have to strongly disagree that .Net, IIS 7, WinFX and UAC are the major selling points. I attended a Microsoft IT Professional launch event. I did not leave that presentation with a feeling that MS is neglecting the business market at all. Rather the opposite.
Source: http://www.microsoft.com/technet/windowsvista/defa ult.mspx

Yes, you have more versions for consumers than you have for business, but how many versions for businesses do you need. And Windows Ultimate contains everything of both versions. Its not unlikely that some businesses would choose that version if they need the bells, but most businesses want to turn off stuff not related to work.

Vista is released in 2 versions for business that sort of redo how they've done things but still is similar. Vista Business is like Windows2000 Pro/XP Pro in a business enviroment.
The other, Vista Enterprise, is new as such but its really just the volume licence version of 2K/XP Pro with MUI built in (and not just as an extra), hardware encryption support and simplified deployment. Three important features they mention: Disk encryption, Virtual PC Express is just a limited edition of Virtual PC that allows you to run only one session at once and finally Unix subsystem built into it. You could get these features before from 3rd parties or as additional investments.
Source: http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/2006/feb0 6/02-26WinVistaProductsPR.mspx

I have to strongly disagree that .Net, IIS 7, WinFX and UAC are the major selling points. I attended a Microsoft IT Professional launch event. I did not leave that presentation with a feeling that MS is neglecting the business market at all. Rather the opposite.
Source: http://www.microsoft.com/technet/windowsvista/defa ult.mspx

Yes, you have more versions for consumers than you have for business, but how many versions for businesses do you need. And Windows Ultimate contains everything of both versions. Its not unlikely that some businesses would choose that version if they need the bells, but most businesses want to turn off stuff not related to work.

Vista is released in 2 versions for business that sort of redo how they've done things but still is similar. Vista Business is like Windows2000 Pro/XP Pro in a business enviroment.
The other, Vista Enterprise, is new as such but its really just the volume licence version of 2K/XP Pro with MUI built in (and not just as an extra), hardware encryption support and simplified deployment. Three important features they mention: Disk encryption, Virtual PC Express is just a limited edition of Virtual PC that allows you to run only one session at once and finally Unix subsystem built into it. You could get these features before from 3rd parties or as additional investments.
Source: http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/2006/feb0 6/02-26WinVistaProductsPR.mspx

Is that the box model problem that was sorted out in IE6, back in 2001?

This dll hooks the Flight Simulator app into the Active Accessiblity API which provides features for people with disabilities. While I haven't coded to the MS platform specifically for a very long time, unless something major has changed, it wouldn't be odd at all for parts of that API to be actually buried in the innards of IE. A very annoying MS trait, that; to bury parts of their APIs all over the place. Many things can be said of MS as a development platform, most of them bad from my perspective, but one thing it most definitely isn't is orthangonal.

That's not a FireWire controller. Oxford makes bridge chipsets from FireWire to ATA. A FireWire controller generally refers to the bridge between an peripheral bus and FireWire, e.g. PCI to FireWire. My advice: TI chipset. Accept no substitutes. In particular, though, avoid NEC from what I've read.

As for the performance problems, if you have SP2 and FW800 ports (or a controller that's FW800-capable under the hood but uses FW400 PHYs), make sure you install the FireWire hot patch from Microsoft or FireWire performance will seriously suck.

Beyond that, my guess is that you're running into fundamental limitations in the performance of a FAT-based filesystem when reading large numbers of files coupled with the fact that Windows treats FAT32 in a mostly synchronous fashion as far as I can tell, with minimal caching. Why? Because if you eject a floppy after the light goes off, folks expect it to not corrupt anything. They also expect it to not show contents of one disk when you switch them and insert a different one. Unfortunately, AFAIK, Windows is still stuck with that broken model as a result of broken hardware that few people even use these days. Maybe it will be better in Vista.... (And folks made fun of the Mac for its electric eject....)

Linux (or any other non-Windows OS for that matter) should smoke Windows even copying files between the same FAT32 drives because it does a lot better buffer caching and doesn't flush filesystem state to disk constantly. FAT32 is slower (by design) than other filesystems even on other OSes, though. If you want to keep running Windows, move to NTFS, which AFAIK doesn't suffer from this problem.

This is, by now means, a linux solution (flame away), but there is a great article on MSDN about a webcam project. Includes motion detection, wired/wireless, and a few other hacks.

Enjoy!

So lets just check I've got this right. You buy a new PC with a legal copy of XP installed. You format and repartition installing both Linux and the legal copy of Windows that came with your machine. Now because you don't want to let XP use the internet for about a minute at some point in the next 30 days (or call and tap in numbers) you fire up a keygen, generate a VLK and use that instead of your COA.

But in answer to your question,
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb; en-us;Q328874
detailing just how to change it.

I installed it because Boundschecker needed a scripting debugger, which came from Microsoft.com, which in turn required I install their genuine advantage first.

http://www.google.com/search?q=microsoft+script+de bugger

(Notice it says 'Validation required' then takes you to their WGA page.

Now I know it's installed, but it's not showing up in the add remove software, or add remove Windows components. I don't see why Microsoft should be told which days I'm at my workstation and what software I'm using, so how do I uninstall it?

The only thing that looks suspicious in the 'Add/remove software' is KB893803, but the web page that links to doesn't say what it is.

http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=893803

I search the new and find wgatray.exe and sure enough there's a wgatray.exe, but it doesn't let me delete it. Yet wgatray.exe doesn't show up in processes on the Task window. WTF? Is it a hidden process or something else?

There is a problem in Windows XP SP2 with firewire transfer. Albeit that it could be numberous small files creating problems but it should be faster than 100mbps ethernet. Try this blog regarding Windows XP SP2 Firewire Slowness for a link to the KB and a links to few other work arounds or just go direct to the KB article.

Cripes! I take it you've not seen those ads with people wearing dinosaur heads? That convinced my team to upgrade.

First of all, I'm confused by what you mean when you say it's only using 10% of bandwidth. 400Mbps, means you're gonna get something like a max of about 40 Megabytes per sec transfer. (remember, 8 bits per byte, plus some overhead) Are you seriously only getting 4 MB/s?

As far as copying faster. You might want to try robocopy from the Windows 2003 resource kit or xxcopy. I've tried xxcopy and it seems to buffer things well, such that I can do a sustained 25 MB/s or so when backing up files to my 500 Gig USB 2.0 external drive.

The explorer method of copying seems to have a lot of overhead, and doesn't buffer the transfers well. At least not with lot's of small files.

Microsoft never guarantees that Windows is fit for any particular purpose.

Microsoft and its suppliers provide the Software and support services (if any) AS IS AND WITH ALL FAULTS, and hereby disclaim all other warranties and conditions, whether express, implied or statutory, including, but not limited to, any (if any) implied warranties, duties or conditions of merchantability, of fitness for a particular purpose, of reliability or availability, of accuracy or completeness of responses, of results, of workmanlike effort, of lack of viruses, and of lack of negligence... (see http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/home/eula.mspx, scroll down to secton 16)

It's not Microsoft's problem if Windows doesn't live up to your expectations of what is fit to use as a PC operating system. You're lucky they bothered to write bits to the install CD at all, they weren't even contractually obligated to do that.

Keep in mind that I am NOT a programmer. Merely speculation here. In my understanding of rootkits is that they install themselves as a part of the operating system (Kernel Level) instead of a rogue program (Subsystem or User Space) taking advantage of Software holes or Poor User Rights admin. That being said, I know that LSASS.exe's default NTFS permissions are FULL CONTROL for Admin, System; and Read/Execute for Power users. With Virtual technology there would be two instances of all required system processes. Further, in the Virtual OS, you have Virtual Access to the Hardware within a Seperate Memory block. Now as a Rootkit, I would have to determine what user rights are currently in place, and which instance of LSASS is the Host or Real Mode OS. I could then use the guest OS to emulate NTFS permissions and further re-write Registry keys undetected. The cryptographic services then has to be fooled on either OS depending on what the programmer hopes to accomplish. Essentially, a rootkit on a guest OS would be more like a Nightmare virus. It would also have the potetnial to do more damage to either OS. Some helpful resources may be: Security Config and Analsis MMC. This is helpful when using templates. http://www.microsoft.com/windows2000/en/advanced/h elp/default.asp?url=/windows2000/en/advanced/help/ sag_SCMwhatis.htm MRT: Malicious SOftware Removal Tool http://support.microsoft.com/kb/890830 Further Check out RootKit Revealer and Autoruns @ http://www.sysinternals.com/ These should all be helpful running in the proper OS. I know this isn't meant to be a support article, however, some out there may have no clue as to where they should search for help. there are a number of other sites that could be listed and probably should be, but I'm refraining from going further as to maintain the scope of this Article.

Keep in mind that I am NOT a programmer. Merely speculation here. In my understanding of rootkits is that they install themselves as a part of the operating system (Kernel Level) instead of a rogue program (Subsystem or User Space) taking advantage of Software holes or Poor User Rights admin. That being said, I know that LSASS.exe's default NTFS permissions are FULL CONTROL for Admin, System; and Read/Execute for Power users. With Virtual technology there would be two instances of all required system processes. Further, in the Virtual OS, you have Virtual Access to the Hardware within a Seperate Memory block. Now as a Rootkit, I would have to determine what user rights are currently in place, and which instance of LSASS is the Host or Real Mode OS. I could then use the guest OS to emulate NTFS permissions and further re-write Registry keys undetected. The cryptographic services then has to be fooled on either OS depending on what the programmer hopes to accomplish. Essentially, a rootkit on a guest OS would be more like a Nightmare virus. It would also have the potetnial to do more damage to either OS. Some helpful resources may be: Security Config and Analsis MMC. This is helpful when using templates. http://www.microsoft.com/windows2000/en/advanced/h elp/default.asp?url=/windows2000/en/advanced/help/ sag_SCMwhatis.htm MRT: Malicious SOftware Removal Tool http://support.microsoft.com/kb/890830 Further Check out RootKit Revealer and Autoruns @ http://www.sysinternals.com/ These should all be helpful running in the proper OS. I know this isn't meant to be a support article, however, some out there may have no clue as to where they should search for help. there are a number of other sites that could be listed and probably should be, but I'm refraining from going further as to maintain the scope of this Article.

You might find this press release from a couple days ago kind of interesting.

http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/features/2006/j un06/06-27WGA.mspx

It discusses the history of WGA, the licensing, the server-side communication, etc, as well as what they changed in the update that was released on the 27th.

Here you go.

Firewire is crippled in Windows by default. You need the patch here to restore functionality.

You think people are going to be migrating in droves to Linux? Give me a break, people won't be moving to Linux. They'll find a hack for Windows, they'll buy Windows, or more than likely they'll just buy a new PC that comes with Windows legally bundled.

I wonder if you read the article. It says that even people with factory installed Windows or legitimate disks had problems. Here's one:

I sent my Compaq Presario notebook for service repair, and it fails the WGA check. I have a legal version of windows xp professional on it. But I have no way to correct this problem.

Following some of the links in the article I found others like it, wherein the owner sent in the unit for factory repairs and when they got it back because of WGA it didn't run, even with a license key. It's not all just because it's running pirated software. As for myself, I've been using various Windows versions exclusively for a few years, but the next computer I get will be a Mac. One reason is Windows Activation. If I buy something I shouldn't have to prove I bought it, innocent before proven guilty sort of thing.

I have Windows update set to download and then prompt before installing. WGA did not auto-install itself. However, the KB900485 update did install itself without prompting. I just found out about it from the shutdown message. One friend said that it also installed without prompting on his computer. I did a search and found that it installed for some other people too.

I have Windows update set to download and then prompt before installing. WGA did not auto-install itself. However, the KB900485 update did install itself without prompting. I just found out about it from the shutdown message. One friend said that it also installed without prompting on his computer. I did a search and found that it installed for some other people too.

Just thought that you guys might wanna know that Microsoft has came up with an article on removing WGA.

http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=921914If this is Microsoft's intent, then why do they have this?

I'm unsure of the interaction of multiple low-priority applications. For instance, what happens when I have Shareaza, Folding@home, and Norton Anti-virus all running in the background at lower priorities? If one is slightly lower than the others will it get muscled out completely?

Potentially, yes, but usually no. This has actually been covered before.

Priorities in Windows is a bit special. First of all you must know that processes (applications like F@H or Shareaza) are merely "umbrellas", and that the actual execution is done in threads. Each process has at least one thread.

Threads are issued a priority level ranging from zero (lowest) to 31 (highest), which is calculated based on the priority class of the process and the priority level of the thread within the priority class of its process.

The Idle _thread_ priority level is a bit special. Unlike the other levels, it "overrides" the priority class of the process. So if a high priority process has an idle priority thread, the thread's priority level is still 1 (lowest, 0 is reserved).

Most PC's have just one processor, but lots of threads that needs to do work. In order for them to appear to work "at the same time", the OS allows each thread to execute for a short period of time (called a time slice, around 20ms on Windows XP I belive). It then allows another thread to execute.

In order to determine which threads gets to run, it picks one of the highest priority threads in a round-robin fashion. If none of those require CPU time, it checks the next-highest priority level. And so on. However, if a lower priority thread is executing, and a higher priority thread becomes active, the system immediately ditches the lower priority thread, regardless of how much of it's timeslice it has had, in favour of the higher priority thread.

Ok this got a bit lenghty, but the deal is this: Assume you have your game running at normal priority, and assuming it does not lower the priority of its threads (a reasonable assumption). You also have F@H running at idle priority (which is the default setting). This means that F@H will only execute when your game is not requesting any CPU time. For instance if it must wait for data from the harddisk. The instant the game is ready to use the CPU, the F@H client will be ditched and your game will be catered.

So the only thing you have to worry about performance wise, is the memory it uses. However if the game sucks up all the CPU, not letting the F@H client have any, Windows will swap out all of the F@H clients memory, so the impact should be minimal.

I'm unsure of the interaction of multiple low-priority applications. For instance, what happens when I have Shareaza, Folding@home, and Norton Anti-virus all running in the background at lower priorities? If one is slightly lower than the others will it get muscled out completely?

Potentially, yes, but usually no. This has actually been covered before.

Priorities in Windows is a bit special. First of all you must know that processes (applications like F@H or Shareaza) are merely "umbrellas", and that the actual execution is done in threads. Each process has at least one thread.

Threads are issued a priority level ranging from zero (lowest) to 31 (highest), which is calculated based on the priority class of the process and the priority level of the thread within the priority class of its process.

The Idle _thread_ priority level is a bit special. Unlike the other levels, it "overrides" the priority class of the process. So if a high priority process has an idle priority thread, the thread's priority level is still 1 (lowest, 0 is reserved).

Most PC's have just one processor, but lots of threads that needs to do work. In order for them to appear to work "at the same time", the OS allows each thread to execute for a short period of time (called a time slice, around 20ms on Windows XP I belive). It then allows another thread to execute.

In order to determine which threads gets to run, it picks one of the highest priority threads in a round-robin fashion. If none of those require CPU time, it checks the next-highest priority level. And so on. However, if a lower priority thread is executing, and a higher priority thread becomes active, the system immediately ditches the lower priority thread, regardless of how much of it's timeslice it has had, in favour of the higher priority thread.

Ok this got a bit lenghty, but the deal is this: Assume you have your game running at normal priority, and assuming it does not lower the priority of its threads (a reasonable assumption). You also have F@H running at idle priority (which is the default setting). This means that F@H will only execute when your game is not requesting any CPU time. For instance if it must wait for data from the harddisk. The instant the game is ready to use the CPU, the F@H client will be ditched and your game will be catered.

So the only thing you have to worry about performance wise, is the memory it uses. However if the game sucks up all the CPU, not letting the F@H client have any, Windows will swap out all of the F@H clients memory, so the impact should be minimal.

If you want more information then go straight to the source:

http://www.microsoft.com/genuine/downloads/FAQ.asp x?displaylang=en

Scroll down to 'What is the Windows Genuine Advantage Notifications program?'. They're saying it's opt-in and anyway regardless of genuine status users will not be denied access to critical security updates - nothing is mentioned of their disabling your computer. That's not to say the story can't change in the fall, but that's not the current story.

Just a simple example, in Unix a tape streamer behaves just like a file, the handful of file-related system calls, each with just a few parameters, apply to many devices including tapes. VMS has special system calls for tapes, for disks, for files, for terminals etc. etc.