Slashdot Mirror

OEM system builder software packs are intended for PC and server manufacturers or assemblers ONLY. They are not intended for distribution to end users. Unless the end user is actually assembling his/her own PC, in which case, that end user is considered a system builder as well.

OK, I've exaggerated a little bit since this isn't a Google-sponsored thing, but Blingo provides prizes for using them as your search engine (and the search engine is of course run through Google).

Now if you'll excuse me, I've just gotten the facts and need to convert my server that I've been running on Linux the past year or so for absolutely nothing to Windows Server 2003, since it's less expensive in the long run ;-)

I'm a developer on the Windows CE team at Microsoft.

Microsoft offers a minimum of 5 years support for Windows CE. Beyond that you can get up to 5 more years support (at additional cost). Click here to read more about how we support Windows CE.

We're active on the newsgroups as well, as are many of the more experience developers who've used CE in their products.

I'm not familiar with ETX hardware, but we have excellent support for x86-based CPUs and the usual peripherals. You can even add device drivers to your build by dragging and dropping them from the catalog in our IDE. You can download our tools and most of the source code (even the kernel) here. It's a free 4-month trial, so please check it out.

Good luck with your project!

I'm a developer on the Windows CE team at Microsoft.

Microsoft offers a minimum of 5 years support for Windows CE. Beyond that you can get up to 5 more years support (at additional cost). Click here to read more about how we support Windows CE.

We're active on the newsgroups as well, as are many of the more experience developers who've used CE in their products.

I'm not familiar with ETX hardware, but we have excellent support for x86-based CPUs and the usual peripherals. You can even add device drivers to your build by dragging and dropping them from the catalog in our IDE. You can download our tools and most of the source code (even the kernel) here. It's a free 4-month trial, so please check it out.

Good luck with your project!

Unfortunately there's a lot of misunderstanding around this. IANAL, but I am a Windows CE developer at Microsoft.

The majority of the Windows CE source code is available (2.5+ million lines). It's free and there are no restrictions. Code includes:

  Explorer Shell

  HTTP Web Server

  SOAP and uPNP Protocol Implementations

  UPnP AV toolkit

  Infrared Data Association protocol

  Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol V6 Lite (DHCPV6)

  Wireless Network Drivers, including Bluetooth

  Kernel code

  File System

  Storage Code

  C run-time (CRT)

  Binary Rom Image file system

  Windows Sockets Interface (WinSock)

  Point to Point Protocol (PPP)

You just click a checkbox when installing the developer tools (which have a 4-month free trial).

The "NDA" is basically this (taken from our website): "In exchange for obtaining access to one of Microsoft's most valuable assets, Microsoft requests that customers respect our intellectual property and treat that intellectual property confidentially."

I.E., you don't publish the code - but anyone who wants to can download the source from us after accepting the EULA. The converse is that any changes YOU make to the code are yours. You needn't share them with anyone, including Microsoft (unlike the GPL but similar to BSD).

Here's an overview of the shared source license.

Here's more detail at www.microsoft.com, including a link to the full license

NOTE: there is also the "Premium" shared source license. This gets you even more code, but is only available to larger OEMs (I believe you have to ship 5,000 devices in the previous year to qualify).

The CNN piece is an opinion piece, and factually incorrect.

The first link above was by 'the Packet Rat' - not a great source, given that the author prefers anonymity.

The second uses a quote by a graphic artist as the only reference to Apple. Another opinion.

The third link is a tongue-in-cheek piece collating a bunch of 'death knell' reports printed about Apple over the years. Nothing to see there - Apple somehow survived despite the dire predictions of pundits across the industry.

Have a look at Apple's filings from NASDAQ, or find *real* news articles.

http://news.com.com/2100-1001-202143.html
"Analysts said that Microsoft's assurance of providing its latest applications on the Macintosh may be more important to the company's long-term viability than the $150 million investment."

http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/1997/aug9 7/msmacpr.mspx

http://www.allbusiness.com/periodicals/article/657 002-1.html

As an aside, when Microsoft bought those shares, they were around $26. I think when they sold three years later they made a pretty good profit.

http://www.pbs.org/cringely/pulpit/pulpit19970814. html
Even Cringely doesn't get on board this bizarre "Microsoft Saved Apple" theory!

The facts don't fit your case, and the links you provide aren't solid enough to either. Microsoft didn't save Apple with their money. You could make a case that promising Office support saved Apple (and it's a much more solid case, to which I partially subscribe) but the money was irrelevant.

http://www.microsoft.com/resources/sharedsource/Li censing/WindowsCE.mspx

Free. Kinda levels the playing field.

From the MS site:

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/mediacenter/how tobuy/default.mspx

Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005 is only available pre-installed on computers sold by PC manufacturers. You can purchase a PC with Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005 pre-installed at retail consumer electronic stores, direct from PC manufacturers, or through online consumer electronics Web sites.

Only one problem, MS Explicitly says they don't sell XP MCE.

Even though I am not a fan of Microsoft products, they are giving out choices on what to buy. It is true that not everyone needs every software application from Microsoft. This is why 7 different packages will be ofered. From here you can click on the links to see the pricing, and what packages will be available, and with what applications included. Although, if you ask me, even the 'Basic' and 'Home and Student' options are overpriced.

Here A pricing sheet for the new suites.

Unjustified indeed!

P.S. This error was found because we were trying to burn a Word 2003 document, running on Windows XP. So outdated sw/os is not even an issue.

By default, Office Communicator 2005 will allow you to search for contacts out of whatever address book Outlook 2003 is using. This is usually based off of the Exchange GAL. However, there is a very rigged way to force update user's Communicator contact lists. There is a lot of information about doing this in the development guides here. From my experience, the only reasonable way to manage user's contact lists is to create an initial list of contacts, then every week append a differential list of contacts. There is some way to add in MSN/AIM/Yahoo users, but you have to pay Microsoft a monthly fee, provide them with your domain, and all of that traffic basically goes through some third-party central server.

Why, now that you mention it, yes.

You can open the Find Fast Control Panel icon to create additional indexes (for example, on a network drive), delete indexes, and set other options. Although you can use Find Fast in the Control Panel, Find Fast indexes Office documents automatically and requires no user interaction.

When you specify the type of documents to index in the Create Index dialog box, Find Fast includes the document types that are listed in the following table.

The new Office is called "2007 Microsoft Office System." It was first announced to the public on Jensen Harris' blog (he is one of the architects of the new UI). The official Microsoft announcement for the press can be read here. I don't like it much, but it looks like they use the old car manufacturer naming scheme. Does this mean that we can expect a 2008 Microsoft Visual Studio?

Theya re just different SKU's like earlier versions of office. Word docs from the enterprise edition will work just fine on the basic edition.

Here is the full information on versions. Anandtech also has pricing info.
http://download.microsoft.com/download/c/2/9/c2935 f83-1a10-4e4a-a137-c1db829637f5/OfficePackagingFS. doc

Looks like they added a couple of high end SKU's for enterprises. The only thing that annoys me about this is that the student teacher edition doesn't have outlook as it did for 2003.

I wonder why people are falling for this talk about "multiple versions" in Office 2007. The available retail versions of MS Office 2003, as listed on Microsoft.com

- MS 2003 Professional Ed.
- MS 2003 Standard Ed.
- MS 2003 Small Business Ed.
- MS 2003 Student & Teacher Ed.

And the versions of the upcoming Office 2007 as listed in the article

- Professional
- Standard
- Enterprise
- Small Business
- Home & Student

Guess what - all of one extra edition - "Enterprise" (Student & Teacher appears to have been rebranded as Home & Student). The way the article and the submission is written it would appear that multiple versions were the next best thing to sliced bread since, um, Office 2003?

What irks me is that MS should have free viewers for all their applications. That means you, Publisher. Imagine if you needed to buy Adobe Reader to be able to see a PDF. Acrobat would be dead in the water now.

I'd be willing to bet that most large companies have at least one person on their IT staff who participates in this type of community development system to create tools for their enterprise.

It may not be what most people think of when they talk about open source, but I'd say it's an example that is too often ignored.

If we default-deny email, we have the state that Meng Wong sold his reputation to Microsoft for: SenderID keys. Meng developed the "SPF" model of publishing a list of hosts or domains allowed to send email for a domain in the TXT record for that domain. It's fast, it's lightweight, and it's incredibly useful against forged email that constitutes so much of phishing and of spam right now. Implementations exist for sendmail, postfix, and MS Exchange.

Then he sold out to Microsoft, who created a new version of SPF incorporating their SenderID system described at http://www.microsoft.com/mscorp/safety/technologie s/senderid/default.mspx. That system uses per-host, purchased from Microsoft, encrypted header keys that are patented, not part of any SMTP specification, require you to receive the whole message instead of merely the "FROM" line of the first connection to send the email so they're much slower and more burdensome for the mail receiver. The encryption creates issues shipping the software to certain countries, and the patents are so burdensome that the authors of Sendmail and other open source software tools are unable to incorporate them.

The result is that the only mail servers and mail clients which will incorporate such filtering are Microsoft's: it is unusable by anyone else. Meng basically sold out to Microsoft to get this, but the approach of using user identifying keys for the email is consistent with his claims in the article that we need a whitelist only system.

The problem with it is that if you buy a key from Microsoft, you then have a license to spam. And any machine with such a license to hack means you also get a license to spam. In fact, in the latest analyses I've seen, the presence of a SenderID key in email is a very strong indicator that it is in fact spam, so simply filtering any email that contains it is an easy way to block mail that is almost entirely spam.

See "Mixing Managed and Unmanaged Code" in http://msdn.microsoft.com/msdnmag/issues/01/07/vsn et/

http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url= /library/en-us/memory/base/virtualfree.asp

i don't see anything restricting you to only freeing the last page you allocated!

now of course you would need a smart malloc that tried to group new allocations together when memory usage wen't down so that entire pages could actually be released but with a good allocator things should not be anywhere near as dire as you make out

If this goes wrong it will be horrifying. All your data locked up. MS' ultimate tool to control exactly what you do with your computer. MS Technet on the new scheme

Q. What does the announcement about Intel-based Macs mean for Virtual PC for Mac?

A. Virtual PC for Mac Version 7 is still the best emulation solution for users who have PowerPC-based Macs, but it does not run on Intel-based Macs. We are working with Apple to determine the feasibility of developing Virtual PC for Mac for Intel-based Macs. Virtual PC for Mac is highly dependent on the operating system and hardware and will require additional development to run on Intel-based Macs.

That's about Windows Media Connect which can be used on a standard XP computer to stream pictures and music. No Media Center or Vista required for that. Unfortunately, though the protocol involved here supports video streaming as well, the Xbox 360 is crippled so it'll only stream video from a media center.

And that's not just HTTP... the Xbox 360 functions as a media center extender and uses RDP and a secondary channel for audio/video. So for Linux video streaming in the future, my eye is on xrdp.

According to Microsoft, it's just HTTP.

Mac software that streams to an XBox360 was just released, so the Linux stuff can't be too far behind.

Looks like I haven't kept up with this one. It was patched a while ago

Not just MS was afflicted with this

Actually this link suggests that major mobile vendors will be providing the upgrade for free for all phones that have WM 5.0. If the experience is anything like the upgrade I recently did on my MPX-220, it will be painless and an easy download off the website.

http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/2006/feb0 6/02-12GlobalPartnerSupportPR.mspx

That workaround actually is necessary because even when "ssl" is enabled on the client it first must use a http initial session, NOTE a non-ssl session. And I quote: "The Microsoft-Server-ActiveSync and Outlook Mobile Access virtual directories cannot access the contents of the user's mailbox if the Exchange virtual directory is configured to require SSL." from : http://support.microsoft.com/Default.aspx?kbid=817 379#XSLTH3121121124120121120120 What a joke. Maybe two versions from now they will get it close to where RIM is, which by the way has a device firewall on each RIM on by default.

And that is exactly why this is a monopoly. You see, Microsoft does allow others to play their file types, the specifications for the file formats are fairly open. You see, WMA is a subtype of ASF, documentation for which you can download here. And this is obviously a logical move as Microsoft does not develop hardware. And it sure as hell wouldn't fend off iPods playing their file format as long as Apple would pay to use it. But Apple does not allow (as far as I've managed to read in the posts) implementing and playing of their formats by their competitors. What I'm trying to say is, that AFAIK, Apple will not allow Creative to develop a direct iPod comptetitor (because it won't allow them to play the music they purchse on ITunes) -- which is a monopoly.

Cool that it can run... but... where exactly would IIS come from in that case? I mean legally...
http://www.microsoft.com/ntserver/nts/downloads/re commended/NT4OptPk/default.asp (that's a link to download 4. You can upgrade to 5. 6+ require server to run on)

Choices this person has:
1. Run a free web server on his current platform (which in the large majority of cases will be XP home edition)
2. Upgrade to a version of his platform that comes with a webserver
3. Change to a different platform that comes with a webserver

(1) All of the following are free and usable. I recommend Apache:
Apache
OmniHTTPd
IIS

(2) ... Sure. Windows XP Professional. You should be using it anyways, home sucks.

(3) ... yeah, if you are a linux zealot. Properly configured windows box is secure. I see no reason to switch just to serve up web pages as a hobby, and for the target audience (you were talking about people running WINDOWS XP HOME after all) that is a pretty big step.

My in-depth study* of internet flame wars have shown that the root causes can be traced to these four men: 1 2 3 4

As a fun game, can you guess which one thinks he is the Son of God? (Hint: There is more than one answer.)

*By "in-depth study", I mean smart-ass remarks I thought up over my morning coffee.

We recently had an issue in which Microsoft Office included unlicensed IP (according to a court settlement). Microsoft did not require us to patch existing installations, rather simply protecting our use via the settlement, agreeing to require future installations to include the patch. This seems like a case in which indemnifications worked (although they could have offered some compensation for the extra work - it's cheaper than litigation). For background, see http://www.microsoft.com/windowsserversystem/facts /topics/ipi.mspx.

How do the OSS indemnification plans stack up? Have there been any significant cases involving IP indemnification?

Well without being able to read the actual article, I can say it would have to be a load of bullocks as anyone with any understanding of the net would know we've said yes already. A lot of the most interesting content on the net is already delivered via embedded active-x controls embedded in the browser e.g flash, windows media player, real media player, etc etc.

It is true though that this is a security nightmare, which is why many organisations with exceptionally tight security but a need to access the net have banned these controls. Saying no isn't the only solution though...

Those who have been developing with Microsoft .NET for a few years would know all about Code Access Security which has been at the core of Microsoft's .NET Framework from beginning with the one aim in mind; to make it possible for applications to run with limited priveleges (controlled by an administrator) in a partially trusted environment such as being run from an app or control from a local intranet server or from a server on the internet.

Congratulations - your content-free post, peppered with ersatz macho bluster and spelling errors, has been rated even higher. Does this prove your theory that crap gets rated highly?

The original point the poster made warrants discussion - he actually attempted to address the question, unlike yourself; you seem to be obsessed with the Slashdot moderation system, frankly, who cares if his post gets rated high or not?

The design of such a system is important, and the people who brought you net send possibly aren't the ones you want to trust in creating a global network. Good design is important, and admitting that is the first step towards producing secure networks. Yes of course this is common sense if you've thought about the subject, but unfortunately most people haven't. Shame the original article is such a one-sided rant with very little factual information, because it could be an interesting discussion.

PS
I don't think anyone advocating BSD can be accused of getting 'sheep' to follow them - most of the people reading this page are using Windows to do so.

I am sure that Microsoft's anti-virus/anti-spyware uses less CPU and memory, what with all the undocumented Windows features which were mysteriously used in their software.

Did you forget? They were ordered to document all the undocumented APIs they'd been using, and they did just that.

There are some really useful things in there. I don't know how I ever managed to write a decent Windows program before I had access to PathYetAnotherMakeUniqueName().

I am sure that Microsoft's anti-virus/anti-spyware uses less CPU and memory, what with all the undocumented Windows features which were mysteriously used in their software.

Did you forget? They were ordered to document all the undocumented APIs they'd been using, and they did just that.

There are some really useful things in there. I don't know how I ever managed to write a decent Windows program before I had access to PathYetAnotherMakeUniqueName().

Precedent? Interesting how you immediately jumped on Firefox and didn't consider any other possible causes, of which there are many, such as spyware inserted as a layer between the system and TCP/IP.

Why didn't you tell the original poster to just try the page with Internet Explorer? I mean, their system is otherwise clean, and while I too would hesitate to get them to open a suspicious site with it, they could simply crank the security to full and be equally protected, assuming they had all their patches.

Sounds like you had a solution waiting for a problem, and this one didn't quite fit but you threw it in anyway.

To the original poster: What are the sites showing this issue? It might be that they are actually using Unicode characters that your system isn't setup to recognize. In any case, try reinstalling Firefox. If that doesn't resolve the issue, try reinstalling TCP/IP; try the easy way first, and if that doesn't fix the issue, try the harder way. Being that you're running AOL, you will probably have to reinstall that as well for both of these methods, as it sometimes uses its own drivers.

PS: You should post messages requesting help in a forum appropriate for them. Slashdot is not a good place to request support, usually (as evidenced by your 100% Off Topic moderation). Check out Experts Exchange for one such forum, though you may have to pay for the points to ask questions. You should also take a look at How to Ask Questions the Smart Way by ESR, as posting questions on the internet (esp. to volunteers) is somewhat different from calling technical support.

You are an ignorant idiot. Windows NT's performance scaled decently on an 8-way system back in 1998, and the datacenter edition supports 32 processor configurations right now. More specialized versions are available for larger systems, I believe.

They still charge per installation on the desktop and CPU on the server not by the core. And there weren't dual core desktop machines when XP came out, there's no reason they won't be behind the curve by more than their usual margin when it comes to quad-core aware Vista versions. But hey, it's not like I've never said anything without thinking, I'd be posting at 1 ;)

MS should have no trouble scaling Windows up to four - eight cores in the next iteration.

They shouldn't because they are already well beyond that with their Datacenter Edition:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/888732/en-us

Currently Microsoft charges per CPU, not core http://www.microsoft.com/licensing/highlights/mult icore.mspx. As we begin to see 4-core and 8-core CPUs, how long will it be until Microsoft begins charging per core?

Here's a link to the actual discussion. Looks like this has been corrected with the latest definitions.

You may not only be recieving spam but your domain might be used to send spam.
Your domain doesn't even have a SPF record.

See SPF Record Wizard and instructions on how to add SPF record to your domain.

Google vs Microsoft.. Allways the same deal.


Get a look on :
Microsoft Live Custom Domains http://ideas.live.com/programpage.aspx?versionId=1 1b1081d-cfb0-4511-acb5-55db6b49f7de
And
Microsoft Office Live http://www.microsoft.com/office/officelive/default .mspx

Let's go for a new battle..
Round 1
Fight!

tssss

No, that's the Online Spotlight that has been shipping with Media Center for a while now. It has nothing to do with Apple's version of desktop search. It's not even remotely similar.

Something I just noticed on the official MS Vista website; http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/presskits/windo wsvista/images/image017.jpg Are they copying Apple's Spotlight right down to the name?!

I clicked on "penguins in the arctics" and couldn't find anything about advantages of Linux.

This page might be the one you are looking for though.

I've developed a "rule of thumb" - always load on PC's the version of windows that was available for purchase when that type of hardware was common (with one exception - no hardware is suitable for WindowsME)

As Vista isn't out yet, I wouldn't recommend running Vista on any hardware that's currently around. If you do - then prepare for a performance hit.

Yeah sure there are user interface improvments. but I write most of those off as "new skins". Some of the things I'm looking forward to - in about two years when I can afford new hardware - are

• Better handling of new features in graphics cards
• Making use of new features in SATA
• Improved deployment methods for business