Slashdot Mirror

Tahoma was made specifically for small-font-size menus and titles, not for large blocks of text (see here).

Keep the left and right sidebars in small-size Tahoma, but please please please change the article and comment text to Georgia.

Tahoma was made specifically for small-font-size menus and titles, not for large blocks of text (see here).

Keep the left and right sidebars in small-size Tahoma, but please please please change the article and comment text to Georgia.

Wrong.

I assume you're referring to Excel-97, which is used in various flavors from Excel 97 up to Excel 2002. This is a stretch to call a single format, since using some features in newer versions will create problems or at least inconsistencies when they are opened in other versions. Create a PivotTable in 2002 and then open it in 97, for example. This is the reason for the whole "compatibility check" that happens whenever you try to save a document in an older format than the latest one. Even 2000 and 2002 have things that will get lost in translation.

If I want to use Excel 97, I run the risk of "mangling" documents that I work on which come from people using newer versions ("what did you do with my PivotTables?!"); with each new version of Excel, features are included that break complete interoperability with past versions, even though they claim to use the same "format." The format might be good for data interchange in the roughest sense, but it doesn't preserve a complete workflow. Thus, any application claiming "Excel compatibility" must constantly update itself with the latest reverse-engineered updates, if it wants to be a viable alternative.

References:
Excel File Compatibility
How to recognize the difference among Excel 97 files, Excel 2000 files, and Excel 2002 files

The PC got a rootkit. It's not hard to figure out, because viruses often open backdoors to get even more infections, and the latest worms like phatbot use rootkit stealth techniques. I just wonder what botnet the PC ended up belonging to.

On the other hand, I stumbled upon Microsoft's Shared Computer Toolkit. It seems you don't need Vista to get your registry sandboxed after all.

IIS 6.0 Resource Kit Tools has an application called SelfSSL.exe that does everything for you to self-sign a certificate in IIS. It does work in IIS 5.1 as well (I used it last week) under WinXP. It was definitely possible before to self-sign a certificate in IIS, but this tool makes it a lot easier.

Here's some more places you can get Fedora with security updates conveniently added on:

* Click here
* or here
* or here
* and finally, here (Plenty of servers, so best performance!).

HTH!

BBC now have to common sense to now have Windows Media streams as well as Real, therefore set up one of your Windows 2003 servers with Windows Media Services 9 (http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/for pros/server/server.aspx), point it at the BBC stream and give the users the address of your local server... = profit!

...erm, or at least some leftover bandwidth while the matches are on.

Still doesn't solve the problem of ITV broadcasted matches though, therefore I'm sticking with encoding the stream from a TV tuner using Windows Media Encoder 9 (http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/for pros/encoder/default.mspx) to the server and letting the users connect a server broadcasting that stream on the LAN.

If you want to use the TV tuner idea you will need drivers with BDA support, anything certified for Windows Media Center will do the job a goodun.

Hope this helps some bandwidth fascists out there :)

BBC now have to common sense to now have Windows Media streams as well as Real, therefore set up one of your Windows 2003 servers with Windows Media Services 9 (http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/for pros/server/server.aspx), point it at the BBC stream and give the users the address of your local server... = profit!

...erm, or at least some leftover bandwidth while the matches are on.

Still doesn't solve the problem of ITV broadcasted matches though, therefore I'm sticking with encoding the stream from a TV tuner using Windows Media Encoder 9 (http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/for pros/encoder/default.mspx) to the server and letting the users connect a server broadcasting that stream on the LAN.

If you want to use the TV tuner idea you will need drivers with BDA support, anything certified for Windows Media Center will do the job a goodun.

Hope this helps some bandwidth fascists out there :)

I think "how many errors, not whether an error exists" is just as true for applications and programs written in any language or using any technology. What's so insidious about spreadsheets is their integrity and the difficulty to maintain that.

I'm not sure how many other spreadsheet vendors are addressing this, but MS certainly is trying. You might find this whitepaper interesting reading in this regard. Scroll down to the bit where it says "How the 2007 Microsoft Office System Can Help Address Compliance Challenges", it's mostly about content management using Sharepoint 2007 and the server-side spreadsheets using the new Excel Services tool.

I guess that's an "unintended consequence" of Bill Gates donating the Gates Computer Science Building (http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/1996/jan 96/stanford.mspx)...

Your reply indicates fully that you fail to understand the implications of Transitive Trusts, TPM or their inherent properties as specified. Please refer to http://download.microsoft.com/download/5/D/6/5D6EA F2B-7DDF-476B-93DC-7CF0072878E6/TPM.doc for information on how TPM can be used to remotely administer machines via policies and other controls. Your privacy as a consumer could very well be at risk...

An important aspect of TPM administration is to enable the enterprise to opt-in to TPM technology in large deployments, yet give administrators the tools to control the exposure of personally identifying information (PII) with high granularity. Microsoft is providing a mechanism within Group Policy for administrators to curtail the use of TPM commands that might reveal privacy-related data about a user or workstation.

Quote derived from the above linked document. Paranoia aside, I believe the documentation alone gives cause for concern. Given that there is a capability provided via TPM for remote administration via Transitive Trust mechanism, you'll no doubt agree that the implications quoted above are worthy of concern. I understand that this is a bit O/T with respect to Certs it does fall in line with Apple's current trust mechanisms in place in OSX. Thank-you in advance for RTFM before future maligning commentary.

Microsoft does it. Going to https://licensing.microsoft.com/ in Firefox asks whether or not you want to trust the certificate.

The US military does it. Going to https://www.mol.usmc.mil/ in either IE or Firefox asks if you want to trust the cert.

I'm not sure about IIS, but openssl certainly has a mechanism for signing your own ssl certs, as do load balancers with ssl acceleration support. Commercial, "trusted" ssl certs seem to be useful primarily for preventing security warning popups.

From my own experience with Equifax (currently GeoTrust & soon to be Verisign thanks to acquisitions and consolidation) I know that it took them years to get their root certificate added into the Java keystore. Any application using a not-very-current version of the jdk will still generate errors when faced with GeoTrust certs. Buying certs from a smaller CA with less penetration into end-user keystores can be little or no better than signing certs yourself.

From my viewpoint, the only two viable options are paying top dollar for the certs that will work for most people or signing your own. Which option to go with is largely a budget issue.

-DaveU

Windows Live Local (google earth wannabe)

Are you sure you don't mean "Windows Live Local (updated version of Microsoft's TerraServer)"? TerraServer has existed since at least 2000. Or maybe you mean "Windows Live Local (online version of Microsoft's MapPoint)", which has existed since at least 2001?

Or do you really mean the product developed by KeyHole, which Google acquired in 2004?

For anyone else who wants to verify for themselves, you check the Office 2003 schemas (web or download). The only binary types are the expected ones (picture, icon, movie, etc.).

If you're annoyed by the embedding of base64-encoded media, Office 2007 improves by using the Open Packaging Conventions format, which is basically a zipped collection of XML files and resources. Try it: Save any Office 2007 document and rename to .zip to view the contents. Content is stored in XML files, embedded images and fonts are stored in their own files.

For anyone else who wants to verify for themselves, you check the Office 2003 schemas (web or download). The only binary types are the expected ones (picture, icon, movie, etc.).

If you're annoyed by the embedding of base64-encoded media, Office 2007 improves by using the Open Packaging Conventions format, which is basically a zipped collection of XML files and resources. Try it: Save any Office 2007 document and rename to .zip to view the contents. Content is stored in XML files, embedded images and fonts are stored in their own files.

For anyone else who wants to verify for themselves, you check the Office 2003 schemas (web or download). The only binary types are the expected ones (picture, icon, movie, etc.).

If you're annoyed by the embedding of base64-encoded media, Office 2007 improves by using the Open Packaging Conventions format, which is basically a zipped collection of XML files and resources. Try it: Save any Office 2007 document and rename to .zip to view the contents. Content is stored in XML files, embedded images and fonts are stored in their own files.

Nope, not an oxymoron on this occasion.

Microsoft Research put a web server on a mobile phone several years ago, back when I still worked for them.

A cow-orker (or should that be core-searcher? named Kai Rannenburg did the dirty deed. Kai left MSR shortly before I did. Chase down to Kai's exp-rojects at http://research.microsoft.com/security/ for more information.

Paul

Since the specs for Vista is a minimum 40GB with 10GB free
 
That's only the specs to be declared "Vista Premium Ready". The "Windows Vista Minimum Supported System Requirements" are a 20GB HDD, so your partition is probably fine. I'm willing to bet the HD requirements are inflated and you won't even need that much.

It's the one application I can't live without. Ever try to copy and paste from one "rich" app to another? Notepad to the rescue! It strips off that font color / background color / font size in a flash. Oh, and don't get me started about calc. I love that thing. I stopped hunting for my calculator somewhere in the 90's and never looked back.

Besides, it's more like (cut 'n pasting with calc: (40-15)= ) 25 GIGS!

My router/switch supports snmp so it was just a matter of setting up a tool to grab the data from the router and graph it. Something such as MRTG for linux or PRTG for windows. So I'm actually monitoring the switchport this computer is plugged into, not the computer itself, although you can install SNMP software directly on both Windows and Linux workstations to do the monitoring if you're network hardware doesn't support it. Installing the SNMP agent on Windows is fairly straightforward, although I've never had to use it. http://www.microsoft.com/resources/documentation/w indows/xp/all/proddocs/en-us/sag_snmptopnode.mspx? mfr=true

1) I'm a man fanboy.
2) Have been for years.
3) Rand MS bash (Internet deplorer)
4) Sadness for Apple's decline.
5) Mac not so insanely great for games
6) Win 95 better for games.
7) Enough of a fanboy to buy 2nd hand mac to play command & conquer.
8) Bah! Enough, this article is boring....

Sure, here you go... how about Microsoft's championing of TPM use (hardware explicity motivated by DRM), and BitLocker, a system that Microsoft says is for *your* security, but is actually about storing content that you will not be able to access except by "Trusted" apps?

The entire basis of Windows was rearchitected to provide these features, and they are only the beginning... since Microsoft's next moves are towards controlling every single use of your software ("renting"), a system which relies on DRM (and DRM hardware).

Apparently they do this, see "File System and Registry Virtualization":
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/windowsvista/secu rity/uacppr.mspx

(Actually, the whole document is interesting if you want the PR overview of teh security changes.)

Because obviously there's no message board based support for windows that's free.

For instance there's definately not a wide variety of free forums and Over 2000 free newsgroups or anything.

Because obviously there's no message board based support for windows that's free.

For instance there's definately not a wide variety of free forums and Over 2000 free newsgroups or anything.

Huh? I thought that was a feature of my new, Windows Powered Luxury Sedan?

Well, I thought this was pretty odd too, until I remebered about one of the Vista 'features' that Microsoft were pushing a while back.

Microsoft are developing a competitor to PDF, codenamed 'Metro', that allows all the same functions as PDF as well as being integrated with the Vista printing system (much like Mac OS X's 'Print as PDF'). They also demonstrated it (I think at WinHEC 2005) printing direct to 'Metro-enabled' printers with a noticeable quality boost. They later renamed the format 'XPS' and it is present in the current Office 2007 builds.

I think this is typical style Microsoft FUD to make it look like Adobe wants them to drop PDF, when actually, it's MS that wants rid of PDF in order to promote its XPS format. Despite PDF's strong foothold, integration of XPS within the widest used operating system and widest used office suite could change things. I reckon this is MS saying "sorry, not our fault you have to use our format!".

Didn't Win98 have a downloadable content app over PBS signals? Ah yes, WavePhore's WaveTop. Since all the links on that page now go to parking "search pages", I guess that one didn't work out very well.

if not, then what would have happened if Snow had put this agreement up as a EULA in more fancy legalese and claimed for violation of contract?

* lon3st4r *

1) Monkey-boy said in TFA "...Microsoft has returned $87bn to shareholders through buybacks and dividends since 2001,...", so you should've already seen the money.

2) U.S. CS students should cheer up only in proportion to the amount of that R&D budget that's going to be spent here. MS has 6 research labs, and 3 of them are located overseas. And MS is now moving crypto research from their Redmond lab to their India one.

It is the only thing that is directly visible...but with windows that's all that there is, eycandy and features that still aren't there.

Perhaps you missed the substantial amount of documentation available that describes the new features:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/windowsvista/reference/d efault.aspx
etc.

"Network Stack Improvements
The Windows Vista TCP/IP and HTTP stacks have been re-architected and re-implemented for improved performance, reliability, security, and extensibility. Support has been added or greatly improved for the IPv6 (scheduled for beta 2), IPSec, IDN, and RSS protocols. Kernel-mode access greatly improves the performance of the HTTP and Windows Sockets protocols. Significant improvements have also been made in the areas of wireless networking, quality of service (QOS), and Windows Firewall."

Ref: http://msdn.microsoft.com/windowsvista/reference/c ommunications/default.aspx?pull=/library/en-us/dnl ong/html/communication_infrastructure.asp#communic ation_infrastructure_topic3

I see that you conveniently ignored the minimum supported system requirements page linked from the page you provided. It lists:

• Processor 800 MHz 32-bit (x86) or 64-bit (x64) processor
• System Memory 512 MB
• GPU SVGA (800x600)
• HDD 20 GB
• HDD Free Space 15 GB
• Optical Drive CD-ROM drive

I actually run Vista on an old 1.7GHz Dell with 512 MB of RAM and a GeForce MX 64 MB video card. Vista fits in ~5 GB of space, and the system is quite usable. So please don't treat the requirements you listed as OS-only requirements; they factor in applications and additional features as well.

From here:

Internet Explorer 6 includes support for server certificate revocation, which verifies that an issuing CA has not revoked a server certificate...

To enable server certificate revocation, in the Internet Options dialog box, click the Advanced tab, and then select the Check for server certificate revocation check box...

Internet Explorer 6 includes support for publisher's certificate revocation, which verifies that an issuing CA has not revoked a publisher's certificate. To enable publisher's certificate revocation, in the Internet Options dialog box, click the Advanced tab, and then select the Check for publisher's certificate revocation check box.

The VeriSign screw up was made worse because their certificate didn't indicate a CDP (CRL Distribution Point) from which IE could have automatically downloaded the updated CRL. From Microsoft's security bulletin:

Every certificate should provide a piece of data called the CRL Distribution Point (CDP) - this data indicates the location from which the CRL can be obtained. The problem is that VeriSign code-signing certificates don't provide CDP information. As a result, even though VeriSign has added these two certificates to its current CRL, it's not possible for systems to automatically download and check it. Our update compensates for this omission in the VeriSign certificates.

From here:

Internet Explorer 6 includes support for server certificate revocation, which verifies that an issuing CA has not revoked a server certificate...

To enable server certificate revocation, in the Internet Options dialog box, click the Advanced tab, and then select the Check for server certificate revocation check box...

Internet Explorer 6 includes support for publisher's certificate revocation, which verifies that an issuing CA has not revoked a publisher's certificate. To enable publisher's certificate revocation, in the Internet Options dialog box, click the Advanced tab, and then select the Check for publisher's certificate revocation check box.

The VeriSign screw up was made worse because their certificate didn't indicate a CDP (CRL Distribution Point) from which IE could have automatically downloaded the updated CRL. From Microsoft's security bulletin:

Every certificate should provide a piece of data called the CRL Distribution Point (CDP) - this data indicates the location from which the CRL can be obtained. The problem is that VeriSign code-signing certificates don't provide CDP information. As a result, even though VeriSign has added these two certificates to its current CRL, it's not possible for systems to automatically download and check it. Our update compensates for this omission in the VeriSign certificates.

Your description sounds like you may have been bitten by the PIO/DMA bug in WindowsXP, it's exactly what happened to my laptop and I was ticked, thought I'd have to go through a huge re-install, and given what I have on my laptop that's a full day I can't afford to lose right now, especially considering I'd have to get all the re-install media from IBM that I don't have. Anyway, I found the information, fixed the HD settings, and the thing is back like day 1 for me, now about 400 days in.

Knowledge base article on the bug

I thought windows already had with suspend to ram, or is sleep like windows hibernate? I use suspend to ram on my desktop and laptop and its pretty near instant on. As in it beats the lcd screen's annoying logo display that takes a second or so. People just need to know it exists more.

It has both, but I've only rarely gotten one of them to work.

I have a Dell Precision M70 with factory-installed Windows XP (for my current contracting job).

- If I choose "Hibernate", most of the time it sits there for several seconds, clears the screen, and then comes back, waits a little longer, and shows an error message that reads "Insufficient System Resources Exist to Complete the API" -- whatever the fuck that's supposed to mean. (It has a 60GB disk and 2GB of RAM. I can't imagine what kind of "resources" it needs, if this isn't enough.)

(Yes, after some Googling I found that Microsoft knows about this, and it'll be better in SP3 -- but they recommend not installing the hotfix until then. You actually need to call them on the phone to get the hotfix right now. Ha! I've tried calling Microsoft before.)

- If I choose "Suspend", it waits for several seconds, and then goes blank. But then when I try to turn it on again, it reboots.

- If I close the top, it blanks like Suspend, but again, when I try to wake it, it reboots.

I thought Dell was supposed to be one of the better PC makers, and Windows XP Professional SP2 is supposed to be the latest and greatest Windows. This is what the gp poster meant by 'when they get it to fucking work'.

Fortunately, my personal, non-work machine is not a Windows PC...

A Windows Vista Premium Ready PC includes at least:
Which in English means recommended configuration.

+1 GHz 32-bit (x86) or 64-bit (x64) processor.
Not too bad for modern machines, but this is starting to get crazy for just an OS

+1 GB of system memory.
I know a few gamers still running 512 MB and most systems are still coming 256/512 as the default.

+A graphics processor that runs Windows Aero.
+128 MB of graphics memory.
So like 90% of machines that the big three sell will not run Aero? Most still default to 64MB or built-in cards and right now most people do not want/need more.

+40 GB of hard drive capacity with 15 GB free space.
This is nearly 10x the install for XP pro. Does anyone else find this a bit crazy?

+DVD-ROM Drive
With a 15GB install, I damn well hope it install off of a DVD and not a CD-ROM or I might die switching out CDs.

This is just plain silly for an OS. And I am supposed to play games on top of all this? I love how more and more system resources are being hogged away by Windows. I have already verbally committed to Windows XP being my last Windows OS. M$ has done enough for me to ensure, despite the headaches it might cause, my relatives whose computers I support will be running Linux when XPs support runs out.

I think many of the features of the OS are over-hyped. Some of them (IE7, WMP11, etc.) will be available to XP anyway. Some of these features are also things that either OS X or Linux (or sometimes both) have had for a while. They eye-candy hardly impresses me either. I have gnome as pretty as I want it, and I have no complaints. I really did not like the XP visual changes that much and a lot of people I know still use the traditional appearance and old-style Start Menu.

While I will commend Microsoft for trying to add security, it is almost too little too late. I also do not like the "cost" of upgrading either. There are two many requirements that make older PCs out of reach for running even a trimmed down version of Vista. It seems like these requirements have grown almost exponentially from 2K->XP->Vista. BTW, my sources for Vista's Requirements and XP's.

A Windows Vista Premium Ready PC includes at least:
Which in English means recommended configuration.

+1 GHz 32-bit (x86) or 64-bit (x64) processor.
Not too bad for modern machines, but this is starting to get crazy for just an OS

+1 GB of system memory.
I know a few gamers still running 512 MB and most systems are still coming 256/512 as the default.

+A graphics processor that runs Windows Aero.
+128 MB of graphics memory.
So like 90% of machines that the big three sell will not run Aero? Most still default to 64MB or built-in cards and right now most people do not want/need more.

+40 GB of hard drive capacity with 15 GB free space.
This is nearly 10x the install for XP pro. Does anyone else find this a bit crazy?

+DVD-ROM Drive
With a 15GB install, I damn well hope it install off of a DVD and not a CD-ROM or I might die switching out CDs.

This is just plain silly for an OS. And I am supposed to play games on top of all this? I love how more and more system resources are being hogged away by Windows. I have already verbally committed to Windows XP being my last Windows OS. M$ has done enough for me to ensure, despite the headaches it might cause, my relatives whose computers I support will be running Linux when XPs support runs out.

I think many of the features of the OS are over-hyped. Some of them (IE7, WMP11, etc.) will be available to XP anyway. Some of these features are also things that either OS X or Linux (or sometimes both) have had for a while. They eye-candy hardly impresses me either. I have gnome as pretty as I want it, and I have no complaints. I really did not like the XP visual changes that much and a lot of people I know still use the traditional appearance and old-style Start Menu.

While I will commend Microsoft for trying to add security, it is almost too little too late. I also do not like the "cost" of upgrading either. There are two many requirements that make older PCs out of reach for running even a trimmed down version of Vista. It seems like these requirements have grown almost exponentially from 2K->XP->Vista. BTW, my sources for Vista's Requirements and XP's.

A monthly subscription software as a service model won't work that well, especially if microsoft is dumb enough to actually charge their monthly(or yearly, whatever) fee for windows itself. I don't think microsft would ever be that stupid but, things can change.

make software that doesn't suck and have a million things wrong with it

OK, this questions definitely has flamebait written all over it. Here are the quick answers.

• Tell the boss that VB6 is end-of-lifed, equivalent to starting a new project for Windows '98 systems.
• Tell the boss that VB.NET is fully supported by MS, provides the same basic functionality (and more). VB.NET will be a language for the future.
• Ignore the illusion that C# is different from VB.NET, they are different languages with about 98% of the same functionality.
• Investigate upgrading possibilities. I know the boss wants you to rewrite software, but this is actually rarely the case. Check out the MS site for tons of docs on upgrading from VB to .NET. You'll probably find that you can rewrite pieces one-at-a-time and still keep a stable system.

On a related note, VB is a not really a language, it's a RAD tool. The goal of VB code is to quickly produce a working product. I've worked with a few n-tier VB apps, but the language really peters out at this point (you end up "faking" inheritance just to get things working)

Friendly tips when you move to .NET

• Start working with VS 2005 and .NET 2.0 (skip VS 2003)
• Buy a VB.NET book and read it. If you know VB and you've worked with OO languages, then a quick read-through will tie things together.
• Share your newfound .NET knowledge with your co-workers and your boss, this will help to make him comfortable that you're not butchering his baby.
• Grab the Data Access Application Block from MS (gotdotnet may have a better one). ADO.NET Datasets are very different from ADO Recordsets. Using the DAAB will help the transition and will likely save you some time.
• When you're rewriting the VB application, start with a framework and look for similar / inherited objects and functionality. VB doesn't have true inheritance and is very prone to spaghetti code. Putting code / logic in the right places will likely be the toughest part of the rewrite. Do it first, save grief later.

VB used to be kind of bad, and it's still sort of verbose. But VB.Net is kind of good, and the next VB (VB9, codnamed Orcas), for which there is a technology preview out now, positively frickin' awesome!

I know, it seems strange that a VB iteration is actually great, and nobody was more surprised than me, but try it out, leave your preconceived notions at the door, and I promise you'll see how cool it really is!

One of my absolute favourite languages so far. Type inference, XML as first class values (including XML syntax!), static typing everywhere it's possible, dynamic typing where it isn't, "strong duck-typing" etc. etc.
As I said, the syntax is still kind of verbose, but I can live with that. VB9 owns C# 3.0.

Download the tech previews here: http://msdn.microsoft.com/netframework/future/

It's no more interpreted than machine code is interpreted, if you don't want it to be. Yes, you can leave your application in MSIL and have it JITed when you fire it up, but who would do that for an executable? If you want your .Net app to be completely native, just run it through NGEN and it produces a binary for your platform.

We all know that when Joe Average buys his new Dell/HP/Whatever sometime in 2007 it will come preinstalled with Vista. Plus MS will cease support for XP forcing upgrades as it gets more bug prone than ever.

You assume everyone is going to be buying a new PC in 2007. Most Joe Average's already have a PC. MS will end support for XP two years after Vista is available. XP has been getting more and more stable since its release. You act as if software rots, and more and more bugs will be introduced into a system where they weren't before.

Not all old games will work on Vista

This is true, but I'm willing to bet that 95% of games that run on XP will run on Vista. Do you also slam MS when they don't break backward compatiabilty because of a security hole?

a few new/popular ones will be patched after launch if there are more sales to be had or if there isn't a sequel planned for release soon.

If a game didn't sell well, why would they support it very long?

Pretty much the same story as on the 360 (not many games been added to their backward compatibility list since it first appeared - most of them new games with support written in from day one).

Um, the 360 hasn't been out that long, has it? And why would a game studio add support for the 360 when they know people still have the original Xbox which they can play the game on. You're blaming MS because companies aren't re-releasing the same old crap on the newer platfrom, which requires them (I'm inferring from your statement) to update the code? What a shock!

Microsoft lost interest in you playing games on your PC when they came up with the XBOX. Apart from a few niche games that wouldn't translate to the format - Flight Sim, Age of Empires, etc.

You start off by telling us MS will only release DX10 on Vista to force gamers to upgrade. Then you tell us that MS doesn't care about gaming on the PC. Which is it? DX isn't going anywhere anytime soon; they are continuting to release a managed DX API so that .Net programmers can use DX. They wouldn't put all that effort in if they didn't care about gaming on the PC. Its odd they they've already commited to Halo 2 (or was it 3?) on the PC (for Vista only), but they don't care about gaming on the PC.

In all fairness, this differs from the old VB runtime just how?

Currently there are 3 versions of the .NET Framework. v1.0, 1.1 and 2.0. I would assume any newer Windows installation at least comes with v1.1 by default, which most current .NET-applications depend on. Oh noes! I have to click "Windows update" and wait 30 seconds! My, oh my.

As for "refusing to install it". How zelous can you get? Do you refuse to install Sun's JVM as well? Yes, I see you think java ain't a real platform as well. Do you refuse to install perl or php when you write web-applications as well?

Now let me tell you about the real world: If an application does useful stuff, and uses a framework that cut development time to a tenth, that is not just a real application, but anyone remotely interested in costs will find that framework great. So will probably most realworld developers who care about getting stuff done without wasting their time on rewriting the same generic code 50 times per project.

Since it sounds like this is a product that will be used outside of a controlled environment (ie withing a specific company, you know what you are running the app on), then you are asking for a technical support nightmare.

"Install the .NET Framework version 2.0 available at Windows Update or download it from this link.". Yeah, that was, like, you know, the worst of technical support nightmares.

I know this is slashdot, but I can't believe this zealous rubbish got mod'ed "Insightful" and not "Troll".

And it is RIP there since 31 March 2005.

You've got it backwards. We prefer the Mac's interface because we think a certain way, not the other way around. You, on the other hand, are already an admitted PC user, and unlikely to find Mac OS X a good fit for your personality. Instead of switching to the Mac and in the process contributing to the ruin of a platform for Mac-type people, why don't you do everyone a favor and just stick to an OS that thinks the same beige, square way you think?

Mod the parent up.

This is the *huge* issue, that will make or break your decision.

If it's VB6, run for the hills. It's end-of-lifed.

VB.NET is a great place.
You'll be able to leverage all of the .NET platform pieces (ASP.NET, SQL integration, WinForms, Avalon, etc).
You'll be able to mix-n-match C# code.
There is continuing investment in the language and tools. There's already a page dedicated to VB9 with some awesome features I wish were going to be in C#.

If you're betting on a Windows environment, VB.NET is a great place to be.

Your first choice should be "Are we going to bet on .NET?".

If the answer is yes, VB.NET vs. C# vs. Managed C++ is a secondary call.

That's sort-of technically correct, but not right. You don't need the interpreter, but you do need the VB6 runtime libraries. And they're both located in the same dynamically loaded module, msvbvm60.dll. While it still contains the "Visual Basic Virtual Machine" required to run the p-code, if you natively compile the program it simply is used as a container of the resources VB programs require. The p-code executor is not used.

The knowledge base has this article which doesn't describe it very well, but kind of hints at how it works.