Slashdot Mirror

http://www.microsoft.com/Windows/DirectX/productin fo/sysreqs/default.mspx
http://www.nvidia.com/object/win9x_81.98.html

Apparently.

Uhh, it still is

There is a patch for that: http://support.microsoft.com/?id=837910

Its funny, Microsoft advertises a free 1 year subscription to eTrust antivirus from CA on their own site

You think they'll keep doing that now? (eTrust bets OneCare by miles, imho)

I used to think so, too.

Try this.

Who's your buddy now? :-)

Do the .Net languages allow a decent functional "Mix 'n Match" capability? If so, I'd make sure the VB rewrite was in VB.Net (or are there VB.Net idiosyncrasies that would justify sticking with the old VB6?) and then I'd learn C# really well. At some point in the project some component might fall under the "this will really suck under VB, and we can tackle it much better by writing this piece in C#" which will let you get a toe-hold on the idea of using a better language.

.NET languages are all pretty much interoperable, so long as you make sure to build your assembly as CLSCompliant (which may limit usage of some language features). The main problem is that VB.NET is quite a bit different from VB6. For someone who's only ever done VB code, it's easier to learn VB.NET than C#, but for everybody else you may as well start directly with C#. In the past, I'd have advocated building your UI with VB and calling C++ COM objects for any heavy lifting. Now, I'd recommend you go C# and do everything there.

As for the tasks VB are not suited for (again, I only know VB6, not VB.Net) the biggest glaring omission in my experience was the lack of decent Regular Expressions, or Hash Tables / "Dictionaries"--unless you link to the VBScript/IE6 library like everyone used to. On the other hand, there are IMOHO problems with languages like Perl that make them bad for a number of solutions, but that hasn't stopped nutty fanatics from treating them like "golden hammers".

You get regular expressions and collections with .NET (though not as many different collections as in Java, unless you bring in the J# assemblies for your project). You also get generics, anonymous methods (anonymous delegates, lambda functions, closures, whatever you want to call them), and quite a bit more cool stuff, though I have no idea how well that's exposed through the VB.NET language. Even cooler than that, you could subversively write modules in a functional language like F# (a dialect of ML) and nobody'd know the difference from their VB.NET or C# environments. (yeah, you can do that with Java as well.)

.NET simply provides the programmer with the ability to program in the language they either know better or in a language that seems better suited to the job, without taking a performance hit, since they all compile to the same intermediate language.

.NET 2.0 takes this to even more extremes, in that, more toolbox items are available and virtually all of the components are data aware. Also, Visual Studio 2005 Pro includes a development IIS instance and SQL Server 2005 Express is included.

Check out the Visual Studio Website for more information.

YEah excellent post, I feel you on just about every point you brought up. On the subject of the shell , they released Windows PowerShell RC1 not too long ago here Its no bash, but its at least a promising move in the right direction for those of us chained to these tools.

According to Microsoft, DirectX 9.0b works with Win98.

The Gadgets thing always makes me laugh, welcome to 1986. I bet most Vista users will think that's innovation on Microsoft's part. I wonder why ideas like this didn't catch on the first time around?

From a marketing standpoint, this is the only way Microsoft is going to get a lot of people to buy their new OS.

I can only speak for myself but from what I've heard, Vista will offer few enhancements over XP that I really need in an OS. Better searching? I don't particularly need it, but Google Desktop. IE7? Not a chance, Firefox has me hooked and has many more features. "Gadgets"? No thanks, but Konfabulator (now Yahoo Widgets) if you wanted them.

Additionally, I'm still concerned about Microsoft's (and other companies') plan to control our PCs, even though we haven't heard a lot about it recently. So by the time Vista comes out, I'm likely going to move over to a Linux distribution, probably either Ubuntu or Gentoo, and this is really the only thing I might still want out of Windows: gaming.

This move smacks of Microsoft-brand lock-in, and it still won't convince me to move.

From a marketing standpoint, this is the only way Microsoft is going to get a lot of people to buy their new OS.

I can only speak for myself but from what I've heard, Vista will offer few enhancements over XP that I really need in an OS. Better searching? I don't particularly need it, but Google Desktop. IE7? Not a chance, Firefox has me hooked and has many more features. "Gadgets"? No thanks, but Konfabulator (now Yahoo Widgets) if you wanted them.

Additionally, I'm still concerned about Microsoft's (and other companies') plan to control our PCs, even though we haven't heard a lot about it recently. So by the time Vista comes out, I'm likely going to move over to a Linux distribution, probably either Ubuntu or Gentoo, and this is really the only thing I might still want out of Windows: gaming.

This move smacks of Microsoft-brand lock-in, and it still won't convince me to move.

From a marketing standpoint, this is the only way Microsoft is going to get a lot of people to buy their new OS.

I can only speak for myself but from what I've heard, Vista will offer few enhancements over XP that I really need in an OS. Better searching? I don't particularly need it, but Google Desktop. IE7? Not a chance, Firefox has me hooked and has many more features. "Gadgets"? No thanks, but Konfabulator (now Yahoo Widgets) if you wanted them.

Additionally, I'm still concerned about Microsoft's (and other companies') plan to control our PCs, even though we haven't heard a lot about it recently. So by the time Vista comes out, I'm likely going to move over to a Linux distribution, probably either Ubuntu or Gentoo, and this is really the only thing I might still want out of Windows: gaming.

This move smacks of Microsoft-brand lock-in, and it still won't convince me to move.

It will run all these games with no problem! And obviously you'd never want to play anything else.

I know of several Highlevel-to-Lowlevel language translators (e.g. Java-toC, Oberon-to-C, you name it) that have been around for decades. Surely, you cannot get a patent for doing the same thing with a different language, can you. Can you?!?

Compiling something to JavaScript in the browser environment is about as obvious as compiling to C on Unix. Case in point, here are a few other X-to-JavaScript compilers pulled off the top of my head: Python, Prolog, Oberon, etc. Seems pretty obvious to me. Not that that has ever prevented the US Patent Office from granting a patent, of course.

Every major open source project has a complete list of bugs for all versions of their product for all to see

Also, Netscape would do this as well. See http://wp.netscape.com/eng/mozilla/4.0/relnotes/wi ndows-4.0.html

There is room for honesty in business. Just think about how customer support would improve if the users were accustomed to having a list of known bugs or issues and not bother with customer support for known issues with possible workarounds.

Now, check this out: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/811113/

That is the list of bugs "fixed" by Windows XP SP2, with no list of new bugs or issues that come with SP2. Now, look at the page carefully. I did not use IE to read the page, so that may have an affect, but even the knowledgebase release is buggy.

Just to get a grip of the number of bugs that were "fixed" by SP2, there are 827 listed on that page.

1) There are 4 "Summaries" at the top of the page.
2) Of the 827 bugs that were fixed, most come in the form of a URL like http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=812203 , but some are in the form of http://support.microsoft.com/kb/812203/ . Notice that both of those links go to the same information. But how in the world can this list that I would assume is computer generated have 2 different URLs? That is a sign to me that the company has little attention to detail.
3) At the bottom of the list, the List of fixes applies to Microsoft Windows XP Service Pack 2 (I thought this was SP2, not fixes to SP2). Also it must really, apply to Microsoft Windows XP Service Pack 2, because they listed it in a bulleted list 3 times. Along with 2005 Tablet edition.

These kinds of issues are why I simply do not use Microsoft products. They simply cannot seem to get even the basics right.

Every major open source project has a complete list of bugs for all versions of their product for all to see

Also, Netscape would do this as well. See http://wp.netscape.com/eng/mozilla/4.0/relnotes/wi ndows-4.0.html

There is room for honesty in business. Just think about how customer support would improve if the users were accustomed to having a list of known bugs or issues and not bother with customer support for known issues with possible workarounds.

Now, check this out: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/811113/

That is the list of bugs "fixed" by Windows XP SP2, with no list of new bugs or issues that come with SP2. Now, look at the page carefully. I did not use IE to read the page, so that may have an affect, but even the knowledgebase release is buggy.

Just to get a grip of the number of bugs that were "fixed" by SP2, there are 827 listed on that page.

1) There are 4 "Summaries" at the top of the page.
2) Of the 827 bugs that were fixed, most come in the form of a URL like http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=812203 , but some are in the form of http://support.microsoft.com/kb/812203/ . Notice that both of those links go to the same information. But how in the world can this list that I would assume is computer generated have 2 different URLs? That is a sign to me that the company has little attention to detail.
3) At the bottom of the list, the List of fixes applies to Microsoft Windows XP Service Pack 2 (I thought this was SP2, not fixes to SP2). Also it must really, apply to Microsoft Windows XP Service Pack 2, because they listed it in a bulleted list 3 times. Along with 2005 Tablet edition.

These kinds of issues are why I simply do not use Microsoft products. They simply cannot seem to get even the basics right.

Every major open source project has a complete list of bugs for all versions of their product for all to see

Also, Netscape would do this as well. See http://wp.netscape.com/eng/mozilla/4.0/relnotes/wi ndows-4.0.html

There is room for honesty in business. Just think about how customer support would improve if the users were accustomed to having a list of known bugs or issues and not bother with customer support for known issues with possible workarounds.

Now, check this out: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/811113/

That is the list of bugs "fixed" by Windows XP SP2, with no list of new bugs or issues that come with SP2. Now, look at the page carefully. I did not use IE to read the page, so that may have an affect, but even the knowledgebase release is buggy.

Just to get a grip of the number of bugs that were "fixed" by SP2, there are 827 listed on that page.

1) There are 4 "Summaries" at the top of the page.
2) Of the 827 bugs that were fixed, most come in the form of a URL like http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=812203 , but some are in the form of http://support.microsoft.com/kb/812203/ . Notice that both of those links go to the same information. But how in the world can this list that I would assume is computer generated have 2 different URLs? That is a sign to me that the company has little attention to detail.
3) At the bottom of the list, the List of fixes applies to Microsoft Windows XP Service Pack 2 (I thought this was SP2, not fixes to SP2). Also it must really, apply to Microsoft Windows XP Service Pack 2, because they listed it in a bulleted list 3 times. Along with 2005 Tablet edition.

These kinds of issues are why I simply do not use Microsoft products. They simply cannot seem to get even the basics right.

Well, they send us some food and some software. It's not really a financial aid as such, but I'm sure some creative accounting can turn it into some form of aid somehow...

> ...basic user applications probably don't matter in the scheme of things

Oh really? http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/FX010857991033.a spx

Every single product from MS has been a "me too" ripoff of one of their competitors.

Hmm.. I haven't seen any other verification tools that are comparable to Static Driver Verifier or PREfast. Please just remind me where they've ripped this off..

Every single product from MS has been a "me too" ripoff of one of their competitors.

Hmm.. I haven't seen any other verification tools that are comparable to Static Driver Verifier or PREfast. Please just remind me where they've ripped this off..

Vietnam (90%), Zimbabwe (90%), Indonesia (87%), China (86%), and Pakistan (86%). The countries with the lowest piracy rates were the United States (21%), New Zealand (23%), Austria (26%), and Finland (26%).

I'll wonder if they can see the common denominator among the piracy levels and these countries.

Looks to me like high piracy goes for less rich countries.

Wow, could BSA's issues have mostly to do with too expensive software, rather than a general evilness among people?

Naah, it can't be that simple, can it? :-p

Microsoft makes it almost impossible to figure out how licensing should work if you are a small or medium size business running their servers (outside of sending them blank checks every year for Software Assurance). I would venture a good portion of the "pirating" the BSA is complaining about involves confusion about regarding how many CAL's, and what kind of CAL's a business should have. Even Microsoft admits that CAL licensing can be a complicated area.

The windows disk administrator/manager writes a volume id to the boot/partition section of the partition. This is on both NTFS and Fat systems. This Volume id is 4 bytes and contains coded information to suggest a drive letter if it is availible and marked to do so.

Volume serial numbers don't contain any information. They are completely random based on the time. Although, admittedly, you could be talking about something besides the volume serial number, which is actually eight bytes, when you say 'volume ID', but I don't see anything else in the partition boot area you could be talking about.

With a logical Drive, The drive letter is stored in metedata near the end of the NTFS loader code. This system suggests the drive letter asignment to the IO manage which uses the mount manager when the partition information is read. If the drive letter is availible, It is then asigned to that volume.

I don't know what you mean, 'with a logical drive'. I think You're talking about the $Mft, which does indeed have something called $Volume, but that has the partition name and version, not a drive letter. Feel free to read what Microsoft says about it, and feel free to search for 'drive letter' in that document. (It is there, but not in reference to any information in the NTFS or partition.)

And just in case you were trying to assert it was the partition table the held the drive letters instead of the file system, look here and tell me in which of the 16 bytes that this data is stored. Partition tables are very very cramped.

This volume id is also mapped to a registry area HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\MountedDevices wich coresponds to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\DISK which solidifies the drive letter asignment if availible.

Well, duh. That's how partitions get drive letters. The operating system hands them out. DOS handed them out inflexibly, NT lets you move them around. They aren't stored anywhere on the partition or the drive the partition is on, which is rather my point, and hence they can NEVER transfer between XP installs.(1)

But, duh, that's so incredibly easy to test I don't know why we're even discussing this, and I know for a fact it doesn't work how you say, because I had a jump drive that was assigned to drive O or something on my computer, and took the first available one on every other one.

Seriously, Windows has a very ordered way for naming drive letters. It only gets complicated a little by what partition formats the OS version can see as well as any preformed lettering criteria. The first drive letter gets asigned to the first primary partition unless another partition on the first drive is marked active. the rest get asigned to the rest of the primary partition in the order the drivers for the device (NT ) is loaded. Then all logical and extended partitions get lettered and then finaly everything else in order of thier bus gets a letter.

I didn't say it assigned them randomly. I said they were assigned as, and I quote, 'picking the first one as the drives are enumerated in their fairly random order'. The order you just listed? First active partitions on the drive, then inactive primary ones, and then move on to the next drive and repeat? When finished, go back and do the logical ones? Then do all non-hard drives? Yup, that appears to be a fairly random order to me.

1) I did say 'machines' there, but actually if you move a disk with an XP install on it, duh, all the drive letter mappings move with it.

You don't know what you're talking about.

Microsoft Word files were designed as OLE2 file systems that allow for existing objects to be relinked in different parts of the file. So there's no need to "push the objects over" any more than your file system "pushes the files over".

http://www.microsoft.com/Presspass/press/2000/jan0 0/donationpr.mspx
http://charlotte.bizjournals.com/charlotte/stories /2003/08/18/daily27.html
http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/060505/sff021.html
http://news.zdnet.com/5208-1040-0.html?forumID=1&t hreadID=13766&messageID=275522&start=-1
http://www.indonesia-relief.org/mod.php?mod=publis her&op=viewarticle&cid=25&artid=1558
http://www.itjungle.com/two/two030106-story08.html

Wow, you're really stupid aren't you.

I can't wait to see how you spin that. But you will. A world of black and white is the only way your intellect can operate. Real world scenarios are just too much for people like you to process and understand, so you resort to dumbing everything down in a futile effort to pretend you're not overwhelmed.

I love pointing out when you idiots are wrong.

Since I'm at home now, I have the link I talked about: Enjoy!. (Did not test link, my ftp-proxy is a bit flakey... I need to fix that when I have more time)

Maybe they need new code for those neat buffer overflows thay had to fix for JPEG in GDI+

What you describe is not different from the MS Office 2007 file format, XML files zipped together. You can check this out at http://www.microsoft.com/office/preview/itpro/file overview.mspx

I'd find it very hard to imagine a company that has done nothing but destroy every piece of intelectual property it aquires and continues to make money. Unfortunately I've seen it...

...so have I.

So have many other people.

You can query WMI for a variety of data using Perl, for example, to find out all the removable media drives in the system, then construct a diskpart script (particularly the command assign).

"This behavior occurs if you map a network drive to the first available drive letter after the drive letters for the local volumes and CD-ROM drives. When you install a new device or volume, Mount Manager, which assigns drive letters to volumes, does not recognize the mapped network drive and assigns the next available drive letter to the new device or volume. This causes a collision with the existing mapped network drive."

See the knowledgebase article New drive or mapped network drive not available in Windows Explorer

There is an addon to get the graphical configuration panels back. (Made by Microsoft themselves) Alas, I don't remember where to find it, but I'm sure a few googles will give you the answer. (I have the link in a bookmark at home)

Uhhh.. no. OSX 10.0 shipped in March of 2001, 10.1 in September of 2001 (about the time of XP) which means that since XP shipped, only 10.2, 10.3 and 10.4 have shipped, and when you consider that Microsoft diverted most of their resources from Longhorn to XP SP2, which shipped in 2004, they've really only been working on Longhorn in earnest for about 2 years, which largely just coincides with Panther and Tiger.

AAnd, if you notice, the amount of time it's taking apple to release each successive version of OSX is increasing. 6 months from 10.0 to 10.1, 11 Months from 10.1 to 10.2, 14 Months from 10.2 to 10.3, 16 Months from 10.3 to 10.4, and it's now been more than a year since 10.4 shipped and with the scheduled ship date of the end of the year, that means it will be at least 18 months until 10.5 hits (maybe longer). Although, it should be noted that Apple had significant work to do on 10.4 to introduce the intel version, so that's a mitigating factor.

And for the record, if you don't know what workflow is, maybe you should start here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Workflow

and then try:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/msdnmag/issues/06/03/Cut tingEdge/
http://msdn.microsoft.com/msdnmag/issues/06/04/cut tingedge/

Uhhh.. no. OSX 10.0 shipped in March of 2001, 10.1 in September of 2001 (about the time of XP) which means that since XP shipped, only 10.2, 10.3 and 10.4 have shipped, and when you consider that Microsoft diverted most of their resources from Longhorn to XP SP2, which shipped in 2004, they've really only been working on Longhorn in earnest for about 2 years, which largely just coincides with Panther and Tiger.

AAnd, if you notice, the amount of time it's taking apple to release each successive version of OSX is increasing. 6 months from 10.0 to 10.1, 11 Months from 10.1 to 10.2, 14 Months from 10.2 to 10.3, 16 Months from 10.3 to 10.4, and it's now been more than a year since 10.4 shipped and with the scheduled ship date of the end of the year, that means it will be at least 18 months until 10.5 hits (maybe longer). Although, it should be noted that Apple had significant work to do on 10.4 to introduce the intel version, so that's a mitigating factor.

And for the record, if you don't know what workflow is, maybe you should start here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Workflow

and then try:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/msdnmag/issues/06/03/Cut tingEdge/
http://msdn.microsoft.com/msdnmag/issues/06/04/cut tingedge/

What REALLY needs to happen is that third-party developers who write these steaming pile of shit programs need to be forced to use limited user mode.

My first thought was that they need to add it to their program, like Apple's Logo Program -- if your app doesn't run without admin rights, you don't get to show the Apple/Windows logo.

Turns out, this is already part of the Windows program. If something has a Designed for Windows XP logo, it can be run without admin rights. If you find a webpage that cares about such things, you'll note that this logo is absent from ItsDeductible.

I guess the "Designed for Windows XP" logo just isn't that valuable to people. Well, I actually knew that years ago, when I tried to install a wifi card and had to skip through dialogs saying Microsoft didn't approve of me using hardware that's too new. Yeah, like I'm going to go without wifi for 6 months while they go through the approval process.

Did I have a point? Uh ... only buy Windows software that was "Designed for Windows XP". Unless the program you want isn't. Whatever.

This is what I experienced and the same story I've heard from admin after admin who runs a mixed environment. How you got a different impression is my question. Have you ever administered a mixed environment with MS server products and other servers?

Well, I'm not an administrator but a developer. So I don't have firsthand experience with running MS Exchange in a multi-platform environment but I've seen fellow developers who are capable of doing almost everything with the Exchange API.
That API has been used to integrate with Notes and Groupwise and there nothing to prevent useing it to build a bridge to integrate with your OSS tool of choice if enough OSS developers see it as an itch to scratch. The same can be said about Sql Server, IIS with ISAPI and other products.

As for your ClamAV example I've seen a colleague integrate her custom antivirus tools with Exchange in a matter of weeks. Again the ClamAV guys should find no problem with Exchange integration if they want to do it.

Myself, I much prefer the freedom of having the source code/open formats but the 'normal programmers' who just want to get the job done will be more than happy with the API+tons of documentation that Microsoft provides. Freedom may be better but convenience sells :(

Don't underestimate the power of the dark side. This is an incredible release, it is not just a new operating system. The WPF, WCF and WinFX will change face of windows development, and indefinitely influence almost every other development platform.
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/windowsvista/eval uate/overvw.mspx

Totally. I mean, those three letters are so icky. *shudder* I'm with you, I also base my decisions on what products I use by whether I imagine I dislike any arbitrary sequences of letters that are in any way associated with the product. Much more logical than deciding on, say, features.

BTW, it used to be for "Least-Privileged User Account". Then for Vista it was reassigned to "Least User Access", and then renamed to "User Account Protection ", and now it's "User Access Control".

You are incorrect. There is no requirement for ActiveX installation of any kind within SharePoint unless you choose to use Office Web Components for some reason (and you wouldn't).

You may be thinking of some historical dashboard tools provided by Microsoft years ago.

The new 2007 version of the product has very, very good support for browsers of all kind (the 2003 variant is passable). Take a look at the new forms workflow component of SharePoint for example - support for Firefox, etc:
http://www.microsoft.com/office/preview/servers/fo rmsserver/highlights.mspx

Sure I can:

http://www.microsoft.com/mscorp/ip/tech/fat.asp

Yeah, Microsoft hasn't published any papers on image compression...

If you click on the "I accept this agreement and want to download the Windows Media Photo Specification" button, it submits "I accept this agreement and want to download the Windows Media Photo Specification", and should take you to http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/xps/wmphotodwn.mspx? . However, I didn't verify that.

Instead, I chose to look at the HTML, and manually submitted my own prefered value via manually entering the URL: http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/xps/wmphotodwn.mspx? I_Reject_The_Agreement_Terms_and_Suspect_Bill_Gate s_Blows_Goats. I also got taken to the download page. This page contains the notice "By installing, copying, or otherwise using the software, you agree to be bound by the terms of the license agreement.", and a download link to the actual specification document at http://download.microsoft.com/download/1/6/a/16acc 601-1b7a-42ad-8d4e-4f0aa156ec3e/WMPhotoSpec_v09.do c....

Oops.

Now, while I Am Not A Lawyer, I submitted my rejection of their license terms, so I'd argue in court I shouldn't be bound by them; and since this is a specification, and not itself software, I would also argue that the notice on the page I reached is moot. I suppose the case could be made that since Word macros are a turing-complete programming language, the word document is software, so I thought I'd look through using "less" to be on the safe side. Lo and behold, there is another license embedded:

"READ THIS! THIS IS A LEGAL AGREEMENT BETWEEN MICROSOFT CORPORATION ("MICROSOFT") AND THE RECIPIENT OF THE ABOVE REFERENCED MATERIALS, WHETHER AN INDIVIDUAL OR AN ENTITY ("YOU"). IF YOU HAVE ACCESSED THIS AGREEMENT IN THE PROCESS OF DOWNLOADING THESE MATERIALS ("MATERIALS") FROM A MICROSOFT WEB SITE, BY CLICKING "I ACCEPT", DOWNLOADING, USING OR PROVIDING FEEDBACK ON THE MATERIALS, YOU AGREE TO THESE TERMS. IF THIS AGREEMENT IS ATTACHED TO MATERIALS, BY ACCESSING, USING OR PROVIDING FEEDBACK ON THE ATTACHED MATERIALS, YOU AGREE TO THESE TERMS. IF YOU DO NOT AGREE TO THESE TERMS, YOU ARE NOT AUTHORIZED TO ACCESS, DOWNLOAD, USE OR REVIEW THE MATERIALS."

...followed by a bit more legalese, including that you're not allowed to remove the legalese and redistribute. This "license" strikes me as dangerously like a "license to read", which I'm sure various civil libertarian groups could have lots of fun with. I'd be amused to hear the opinon on a Real Lawyer (TM) as to how binding that would be. Anyone have Larry Lessig's phone number?

Of course, if someone at a unix command prompt incanted something clever (say, curl -o Bill_Blows_Goats.txt -C 8261 http://download.microsoft.com/download/1/6/a/16acc 601-1b7a-42ad-8d4e-4f0aa156ec3e/WMPhotoSpec_v09.do c — and don't forget to remove the Slashdot inserted spaces) the Microsoft server would only give them the meaty parts (albeit in a form even OpenOffice would probably gag on), and omit the license. I'd be amused to hear the opinion of a Real Lawyer as to how binding the agreement co

If you click on the "I accept this agreement and want to download the Windows Media Photo Specification" button, it submits "I accept this agreement and want to download the Windows Media Photo Specification", and should take you to http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/xps/wmphotodwn.mspx? . However, I didn't verify that.

Instead, I chose to look at the HTML, and manually submitted my own prefered value via manually entering the URL: http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/xps/wmphotodwn.mspx? I_Reject_The_Agreement_Terms_and_Suspect_Bill_Gate s_Blows_Goats. I also got taken to the download page. This page contains the notice "By installing, copying, or otherwise using the software, you agree to be bound by the terms of the license agreement.", and a download link to the actual specification document at http://download.microsoft.com/download/1/6/a/16acc 601-1b7a-42ad-8d4e-4f0aa156ec3e/WMPhotoSpec_v09.do c....

Oops.

Now, while I Am Not A Lawyer, I submitted my rejection of their license terms, so I'd argue in court I shouldn't be bound by them; and since this is a specification, and not itself software, I would also argue that the notice on the page I reached is moot. I suppose the case could be made that since Word macros are a turing-complete programming language, the word document is software, so I thought I'd look through using "less" to be on the safe side. Lo and behold, there is another license embedded:

"READ THIS! THIS IS A LEGAL AGREEMENT BETWEEN MICROSOFT CORPORATION ("MICROSOFT") AND THE RECIPIENT OF THE ABOVE REFERENCED MATERIALS, WHETHER AN INDIVIDUAL OR AN ENTITY ("YOU"). IF YOU HAVE ACCESSED THIS AGREEMENT IN THE PROCESS OF DOWNLOADING THESE MATERIALS ("MATERIALS") FROM A MICROSOFT WEB SITE, BY CLICKING "I ACCEPT", DOWNLOADING, USING OR PROVIDING FEEDBACK ON THE MATERIALS, YOU AGREE TO THESE TERMS. IF THIS AGREEMENT IS ATTACHED TO MATERIALS, BY ACCESSING, USING OR PROVIDING FEEDBACK ON THE ATTACHED MATERIALS, YOU AGREE TO THESE TERMS. IF YOU DO NOT AGREE TO THESE TERMS, YOU ARE NOT AUTHORIZED TO ACCESS, DOWNLOAD, USE OR REVIEW THE MATERIALS."

...followed by a bit more legalese, including that you're not allowed to remove the legalese and redistribute. This "license" strikes me as dangerously like a "license to read", which I'm sure various civil libertarian groups could have lots of fun with. I'd be amused to hear the opinon on a Real Lawyer (TM) as to how binding that would be. Anyone have Larry Lessig's phone number?

Of course, if someone at a unix command prompt incanted something clever (say, curl -o Bill_Blows_Goats.txt -C 8261 http://download.microsoft.com/download/1/6/a/16acc 601-1b7a-42ad-8d4e-4f0aa156ec3e/WMPhotoSpec_v09.do c — and don't forget to remove the Slashdot inserted spaces) the Microsoft server would only give them the meaty parts (albeit in a form even OpenOffice would probably gag on), and omit the license. I'd be amused to hear the opinion of a Real Lawyer as to how binding the agreement co

If you click on the "I accept this agreement and want to download the Windows Media Photo Specification" button, it submits "I accept this agreement and want to download the Windows Media Photo Specification", and should take you to http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/xps/wmphotodwn.mspx? . However, I didn't verify that.

Instead, I chose to look at the HTML, and manually submitted my own prefered value via manually entering the URL: http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/xps/wmphotodwn.mspx? I_Reject_The_Agreement_Terms_and_Suspect_Bill_Gate s_Blows_Goats. I also got taken to the download page. This page contains the notice "By installing, copying, or otherwise using the software, you agree to be bound by the terms of the license agreement.", and a download link to the actual specification document at http://download.microsoft.com/download/1/6/a/16acc 601-1b7a-42ad-8d4e-4f0aa156ec3e/WMPhotoSpec_v09.do c....

Oops.

Now, while I Am Not A Lawyer, I submitted my rejection of their license terms, so I'd argue in court I shouldn't be bound by them; and since this is a specification, and not itself software, I would also argue that the notice on the page I reached is moot. I suppose the case could be made that since Word macros are a turing-complete programming language, the word document is software, so I thought I'd look through using "less" to be on the safe side. Lo and behold, there is another license embedded:

"READ THIS! THIS IS A LEGAL AGREEMENT BETWEEN MICROSOFT CORPORATION ("MICROSOFT") AND THE RECIPIENT OF THE ABOVE REFERENCED MATERIALS, WHETHER AN INDIVIDUAL OR AN ENTITY ("YOU"). IF YOU HAVE ACCESSED THIS AGREEMENT IN THE PROCESS OF DOWNLOADING THESE MATERIALS ("MATERIALS") FROM A MICROSOFT WEB SITE, BY CLICKING "I ACCEPT", DOWNLOADING, USING OR PROVIDING FEEDBACK ON THE MATERIALS, YOU AGREE TO THESE TERMS. IF THIS AGREEMENT IS ATTACHED TO MATERIALS, BY ACCESSING, USING OR PROVIDING FEEDBACK ON THE ATTACHED MATERIALS, YOU AGREE TO THESE TERMS. IF YOU DO NOT AGREE TO THESE TERMS, YOU ARE NOT AUTHORIZED TO ACCESS, DOWNLOAD, USE OR REVIEW THE MATERIALS."

...followed by a bit more legalese, including that you're not allowed to remove the legalese and redistribute. This "license" strikes me as dangerously like a "license to read", which I'm sure various civil libertarian groups could have lots of fun with. I'd be amused to hear the opinon on a Real Lawyer (TM) as to how binding that would be. Anyone have Larry Lessig's phone number?

Of course, if someone at a unix command prompt incanted something clever (say, curl -o Bill_Blows_Goats.txt -C 8261 http://download.microsoft.com/download/1/6/a/16acc 601-1b7a-42ad-8d4e-4f0aa156ec3e/WMPhotoSpec_v09.do c — and don't forget to remove the Slashdot inserted spaces) the Microsoft server would only give them the meaty parts (albeit in a form even OpenOffice would probably gag on), and omit the license. I'd be amused to hear the opinion of a Real Lawyer as to how binding the agreement co

If you click on the "I accept this agreement and want to download the Windows Media Photo Specification" button, it submits "I accept this agreement and want to download the Windows Media Photo Specification", and should take you to http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/xps/wmphotodwn.mspx? . However, I didn't verify that.

Instead, I chose to look at the HTML, and manually submitted my own prefered value via manually entering the URL: http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/xps/wmphotodwn.mspx? I_Reject_The_Agreement_Terms_and_Suspect_Bill_Gate s_Blows_Goats. I also got taken to the download page. This page contains the notice "By installing, copying, or otherwise using the software, you agree to be bound by the terms of the license agreement.", and a download link to the actual specification document at http://download.microsoft.com/download/1/6/a/16acc 601-1b7a-42ad-8d4e-4f0aa156ec3e/WMPhotoSpec_v09.do c....

Oops.

Now, while I Am Not A Lawyer, I submitted my rejection of their license terms, so I'd argue in court I shouldn't be bound by them; and since this is a specification, and not itself software, I would also argue that the notice on the page I reached is moot. I suppose the case could be made that since Word macros are a turing-complete programming language, the word document is software, so I thought I'd look through using "less" to be on the safe side. Lo and behold, there is another license embedded:

"READ THIS! THIS IS A LEGAL AGREEMENT BETWEEN MICROSOFT CORPORATION ("MICROSOFT") AND THE RECIPIENT OF THE ABOVE REFERENCED MATERIALS, WHETHER AN INDIVIDUAL OR AN ENTITY ("YOU"). IF YOU HAVE ACCESSED THIS AGREEMENT IN THE PROCESS OF DOWNLOADING THESE MATERIALS ("MATERIALS") FROM A MICROSOFT WEB SITE, BY CLICKING "I ACCEPT", DOWNLOADING, USING OR PROVIDING FEEDBACK ON THE MATERIALS, YOU AGREE TO THESE TERMS. IF THIS AGREEMENT IS ATTACHED TO MATERIALS, BY ACCESSING, USING OR PROVIDING FEEDBACK ON THE ATTACHED MATERIALS, YOU AGREE TO THESE TERMS. IF YOU DO NOT AGREE TO THESE TERMS, YOU ARE NOT AUTHORIZED TO ACCESS, DOWNLOAD, USE OR REVIEW THE MATERIALS."

...followed by a bit more legalese, including that you're not allowed to remove the legalese and redistribute. This "license" strikes me as dangerously like a "license to read", which I'm sure various civil libertarian groups could have lots of fun with. I'd be amused to hear the opinon on a Real Lawyer (TM) as to how binding that would be. Anyone have Larry Lessig's phone number?

Of course, if someone at a unix command prompt incanted something clever (say, curl -o Bill_Blows_Goats.txt -C 8261 http://download.microsoft.com/download/1/6/a/16acc 601-1b7a-42ad-8d4e-4f0aa156ec3e/WMPhotoSpec_v09.do c — and don't forget to remove the Slashdot inserted spaces) the Microsoft server would only give them the meaty parts (albeit in a form even OpenOffice would probably gag on), and omit the license. I'd be amused to hear the opinion of a Real Lawyer as to how binding the agreement co

If you click on the "I accept this agreement and want to download the Windows Media Photo Specification" button, it submits "I accept this agreement and want to download the Windows Media Photo Specification", and should take you to http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/xps/wmphotodwn.mspx? . However, I didn't verify that.

Instead, I chose to look at the HTML, and manually submitted my own prefered value via manually entering the URL: http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/xps/wmphotodwn.mspx? I_Reject_The_Agreement_Terms_and_Suspect_Bill_Gate s_Blows_Goats. I also got taken to the download page. This page contains the notice "By installing, copying, or otherwise using the software, you agree to be bound by the terms of the license agreement.", and a download link to the actual specification document at http://download.microsoft.com/download/1/6/a/16acc 601-1b7a-42ad-8d4e-4f0aa156ec3e/WMPhotoSpec_v09.do c....

Oops.

Now, while I Am Not A Lawyer, I submitted my rejection of their license terms, so I'd argue in court I shouldn't be bound by them; and since this is a specification, and not itself software, I would also argue that the notice on the page I reached is moot. I suppose the case could be made that since Word macros are a turing-complete programming language, the word document is software, so I thought I'd look through using "less" to be on the safe side. Lo and behold, there is another license embedded:

"READ THIS! THIS IS A LEGAL AGREEMENT BETWEEN MICROSOFT CORPORATION ("MICROSOFT") AND THE RECIPIENT OF THE ABOVE REFERENCED MATERIALS, WHETHER AN INDIVIDUAL OR AN ENTITY ("YOU"). IF YOU HAVE ACCESSED THIS AGREEMENT IN THE PROCESS OF DOWNLOADING THESE MATERIALS ("MATERIALS") FROM A MICROSOFT WEB SITE, BY CLICKING "I ACCEPT", DOWNLOADING, USING OR PROVIDING FEEDBACK ON THE MATERIALS, YOU AGREE TO THESE TERMS. IF THIS AGREEMENT IS ATTACHED TO MATERIALS, BY ACCESSING, USING OR PROVIDING FEEDBACK ON THE ATTACHED MATERIALS, YOU AGREE TO THESE TERMS. IF YOU DO NOT AGREE TO THESE TERMS, YOU ARE NOT AUTHORIZED TO ACCESS, DOWNLOAD, USE OR REVIEW THE MATERIALS."

...followed by a bit more legalese, including that you're not allowed to remove the legalese and redistribute. This "license" strikes me as dangerously like a "license to read", which I'm sure various civil libertarian groups could have lots of fun with. I'd be amused to hear the opinon on a Real Lawyer (TM) as to how binding that would be. Anyone have Larry Lessig's phone number?

Of course, if someone at a unix command prompt incanted something clever (say, curl -o Bill_Blows_Goats.txt -C 8261 http://download.microsoft.com/download/1/6/a/16acc 601-1b7a-42ad-8d4e-4f0aa156ec3e/WMPhotoSpec_v09.do c — and don't forget to remove the Slashdot inserted spaces) the Microsoft server would only give them the meaty parts (albeit in a form even OpenOffice would probably gag on), and omit the license. I'd be amused to hear the opinion of a Real Lawyer as to how binding the agreement co

If you click on the "I accept this agreement and want to download the Windows Media Photo Specification" button, it submits "I accept this agreement and want to download the Windows Media Photo Specification", and should take you to http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/xps/wmphotodwn.mspx? . However, I didn't verify that.

Instead, I chose to look at the HTML, and manually submitted my own prefered value via manually entering the URL: http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/xps/wmphotodwn.mspx? I_Reject_The_Agreement_Terms_and_Suspect_Bill_Gate s_Blows_Goats. I also got taken to the download page. This page contains the notice "By installing, copying, or otherwise using the software, you agree to be bound by the terms of the license agreement.", and a download link to the actual specification document at http://download.microsoft.com/download/1/6/a/16acc 601-1b7a-42ad-8d4e-4f0aa156ec3e/WMPhotoSpec_v09.do c....

Oops.

Now, while I Am Not A Lawyer, I submitted my rejection of their license terms, so I'd argue in court I shouldn't be bound by them; and since this is a specification, and not itself software, I would also argue that the notice on the page I reached is moot. I suppose the case could be made that since Word macros are a turing-complete programming language, the word document is software, so I thought I'd look through using "less" to be on the safe side. Lo and behold, there is another license embedded:

"READ THIS! THIS IS A LEGAL AGREEMENT BETWEEN MICROSOFT CORPORATION ("MICROSOFT") AND THE RECIPIENT OF THE ABOVE REFERENCED MATERIALS, WHETHER AN INDIVIDUAL OR AN ENTITY ("YOU"). IF YOU HAVE ACCESSED THIS AGREEMENT IN THE PROCESS OF DOWNLOADING THESE MATERIALS ("MATERIALS") FROM A MICROSOFT WEB SITE, BY CLICKING "I ACCEPT", DOWNLOADING, USING OR PROVIDING FEEDBACK ON THE MATERIALS, YOU AGREE TO THESE TERMS. IF THIS AGREEMENT IS ATTACHED TO MATERIALS, BY ACCESSING, USING OR PROVIDING FEEDBACK ON THE ATTACHED MATERIALS, YOU AGREE TO THESE TERMS. IF YOU DO NOT AGREE TO THESE TERMS, YOU ARE NOT AUTHORIZED TO ACCESS, DOWNLOAD, USE OR REVIEW THE MATERIALS."

...followed by a bit more legalese, including that you're not allowed to remove the legalese and redistribute. This "license" strikes me as dangerously like a "license to read", which I'm sure various civil libertarian groups could have lots of fun with. I'd be amused to hear the opinon on a Real Lawyer (TM) as to how binding that would be. Anyone have Larry Lessig's phone number?

Of course, if someone at a unix command prompt incanted something clever (say, curl -o Bill_Blows_Goats.txt -C 8261 http://download.microsoft.com/download/1/6/a/16acc 601-1b7a-42ad-8d4e-4f0aa156ec3e/WMPhotoSpec_v09.do c — and don't forget to remove the Slashdot inserted spaces) the Microsoft server would only give them the meaty parts (albeit in a form even OpenOffice would probably gag on), and omit the license. I'd be amused to hear the opinion of a Real Lawyer as to how binding the agreement co