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You use Windows.Gaming.Input

For one thing, Windows.Gaming.Input appears to require Windows 10 and will not work on Windows 8.1. For another, does Windows.Gaming.Input work with both Xbox 360/Xbox One gamepads and generic HID gamepads, or does it work only with Xbox 360/Xbox One gamepads?

You just need to use the Windows.Devices.HumanInterfaceDevice namespace and jump through some additional hoops.

What are these "additional hoops"? Because it appears I'm somehow failing to understand the API doc, which states: "The Windows.Devices.HumanInterfaceDevice API supports most HID devices. However, it blocks the top-level application collection represented by the following usage pages, to prevent conflict with other Windows APIs and OS behavior: [...] HID_USAGE_PAGE_GENERIC"

So? Register a background task which does exactly that. https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-...

I have to ask: Did you actually look at what is possible?

A "modern" application can access Xbox 360 game controllers through XInput. It cannot access generic gamepads through DirectInput because "modern" applications are forbidden to link to DirectInput, and it cannot access generic gamepads through the HumanInterfaceDevice API because HID_USAGE_PAGE_GENERIC is explicitly blocked "to prevent conflict with other Windows APIs and OS behavior."

Realistically, there are much bigger problems in this world. Let me give you an example.

Although I'm an AIX, Solaris and Linux sysadmin by trade, I want to improve my skills with Windows in order to broaden my employment horizons. Since I don't have that much experience with Windows, I thought I would try to get some Microsoft certifications. They're quite easy for anyone with a brain to get, from what I've heard.

While browsing around Microsoft's certification site, I found a link to a "free interactive map" showing the exams one must take in order to attain a Microsoft certification. This sounded great! It was just what I was looking for!

Then I found out it's actually one of those new-fangled Windows apps that requires Windows 8.1 to run. That does me no good, since I still use Windows 7!

Why the fuck would they do that? Yeah, I know they want us all to use Windows 8.1, but not all of us are in that position. I can't drop hundreds of dollars buying (no, I refuse to pirate it; that is sinful and wrong) Windows 8.1 just to run a free app!

Worst of all, when I look at the screenshots of the interactive Microsoft certification app, at the very top it has a "VIEW AS PDF" button! So the app itself can, if I am comprehending that correctly, export its info as a PDF!

Microsoft, why the fuck don't you just provide these PDFs for those of us who don't have Windows 8, and with Windows 10 on the horizon, probably never will?

This is an example of a real problem. What you're going on about isn't.

Well, Microsoft refers to it as Win64.

Win32 is essentially the same as Win16, with 32 bit pointers in a single address space. Win64/Win32/Win16 are all the Windows API with different memory models.

Disclaimer: I was programming these things in the 1980s and 1990s, which is why I'm getting hammered in another thread for pointing out that "PC" has always been used to refer to computers based upon the IBM PC architecture and its descendants, and no, Amigas were never PCs, even though they were personal computers. Youngsters these days. Tsk.

nobody wants a fullscreen IM app. that's the problem.

for a while they were pushing win8/8.1 users to the metro version, to tie them to the appstore.

on a related note the adware they delivered to shill windows 10 update is crashing on multiple people.. http://answers.microsoft.com/e...

and on an even more related note, skype fails shutting down consistently on my windows 8.1 pc. the desktop version that is, crashes every time on shutdown. EVERY SINGLE TIME. it has been updated multiple times without fix.

seriously, nobody doing serious work inside microsoft even was using the metro skype. it's impossible to integrate it into any kind of workflow.

Think

Oculus + HoloLense

I don't think this is as random as people seem to think it is

I thought MS was building this stuff in-house. What happened to HoloLens?

Turns out they were infringing on quite a few pants.

I thought MS was building this stuff in-house. What happened to HoloLens?

No argument there, but an entry level PC with no peripherals is $400 (or less) - sounds like a hefty

Ya know. I could have said that a new Mac mini with 10.8 GHz CPU, 16 TB of RAM and an infinite-sized quantum storage crystal cost two dollars, and your type would say "Is that all?" I can buy a computer with those specs for fifty cents.

Haven't we been down this road enough times?

And as for your incredulity at a 1.4 GHz, Dual-Core i5, let's take a look around:

Newly-offered Surface 3: $499. Intel Atom processor (and a whopping 64 GB of Flash). They won't even ADMIT the CPU clock speed!. Windows 8.1 (I think)

HP 20Z all-in-one PC: $369 (on sale). 1.4 GHz AMD CPU (um, slower than Intel). Windows 8.1

I can go on and on; but the bottom line is, yes, Virginia, people sell computers with 1.4 GHz CPUs (and worse!) all-the-time.

And the REAL bottom-line? They all still run WINDOWS, and isn't that the point?

another question is...does MS even have a newer "embedded" OS?

Yes, they do. There are several versions of Windows Embedded 7, Windows Embedded 8 and Windows Embedded 8.1 available depending on the needs/requirements.

If I remember correctly there was an embedded version based around the Vista kernel as well although I never saw it used on any actual devices.

According to the article you linked, "the S3 pricing tier the server is sitting comfortably with 13% CPU usage and just one instance". He also turned on auto-scale which will deploy more instances if needed (with Azure, auto-scale is turned off by default).

According to the Microsoft Azure rate card, an S3 instance is $0.2035/hr which is approximately ~$152 per month.

Assuming the application scales linearly (it appears to), 230,000 = 13% CPU (from the article you linked), the application is CPU-bound, and a server maxes out at 90%, it will cost him approximately $152 per 1.5 million users. Is this within a personal budget? Definitely.

You're confusing "extended support" (2020) with end of life - Jan 2015 http://windows.microsoft.com/e...

E

Hmm... Doesn't say "End of Life" anywhere on that page. And they still have not set a date for "End of Sales." So, nope...

There are the Asha model Nokia phones which are intended for the Indian market but there are also other cheap featurephones like the 105, 120 etc. which are sold here in the UK from Amazon and other sources either SIM-free or locked to carriers as PAYG. They are branded Nokia and, I presume, built by them.

"Sold here in the UK" does not necessarily imply "not built in India". The current 105 is another fine Microsoft product. I suspect it's built by Nokia at the aforementioned Indian facility; if not, it's probably built by Microsoft at one of the factories that Nokia did sell them.

You're confusing "extended support" (2020) with end of life - Jan 2015
http://windows.microsoft.com/e...

E

...then why not complement your end-of-life Windows 7 with an older version of Chrome or FF.

Windows 7 end-of-life is January 14, 2020.

This is nothing new. The Shared Source Initiative has gone on for years, and provides access to the source of Microsoft products to governments, OEMs, large customers etc.

The difference here is that they are providing it at what they call a "transparency centre", which I suspect is to minimise the danger of the source getting released to the public so we all can inspect the code.

... build a bomb.

No, wait. ... commit a felony:

Microsoft instruction for clearing browser history.

You'll get the same version as any other Windows 8.1
Windows 8 Phone -> Windows 10 Mobile
Windows 8.1 -> Windows 10 Home
Windows 8.1 Pro -> Windows 10 Pro

https://www.microsoft.com/en-U...

There's a free app in the Windows Store called "Microsoft Solitaire Collection", it's made by Microsoft and works just like the previous solitaires. I have it on my dinky little HP Stream laptop and it works perfectly.

Microsoft Solitaire Collection

In the linked article (here) there is a section about solitaire that indicates that an application will be available called "Microsoft Solitaire Collection" which will replace the existing application.

Some of the deprecated features include: Media Center, out-of-the-box DVD playback and USB floppy support, desktop gadgets, deferring updates (Home edition), old versions of Windows games, and Windows Live Essentials version of OneDrive.

If you have a USB floppy drive, you will need to download the latest driver from Windows Update or from the manufacturer's website.

If you have Windows Live Essentials installed on your system, the OneDrive application is removed and replaced with the inbox version of OneDrive.

Windows 10 Specifications: Feature deprecation section

In a separate FAQ, Microsoft says it is ''providing a free DVD playback app in Windows 10 for Windows Media Center users.''

Here Are the Features Windows 10 Will Remove When You Upgrade, Windows 10 Q&A: Will Windows Media Center be available in Windows 10?

Some of the deprecated features include: Media Center, out-of-the-box DVD playback and USB floppy support, desktop gadgets, deferring updates (Home edition), old versions of Windows games, and Windows Live Essentials version of OneDrive.

If you have a USB floppy drive, you will need to download the latest driver from Windows Update or from the manufacturer's website.

If you have Windows Live Essentials installed on your system, the OneDrive application is removed and replaced with the inbox version of OneDrive.

Windows 10 Specifications: Feature deprecation section

In a separate FAQ, Microsoft says it is ''providing a free DVD playback app in Windows 10 for Windows Media Center users.''

Here Are the Features Windows 10 Will Remove When You Upgrade, Windows 10 Q&A: Will Windows Media Center be available in Windows 10?

Even that is misleading, because if say an app has a vulnerability that allows arbitrary code execution in its process then that code will be able to write to all the places the app is allowed to write to.

And on Windows you don't even need a vulnerability in one of the whitelisted programs. CreateRemoteThread will gladly give you an execution context in another process you have access to. From there you can LoadLibrary or CreateFile or whatever other evil things you might want to do.

I think that their exposing their ignorance: https://technet.microsoft.com/...

https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-...

My biggest gripe with some Powershell commands is that their defaults are not as time-tested as the near-equivalent *nix commands. Probably the best example is "get-winevent -log System" showing all of the events in the System log (which on a given system, might be as large as 4 GB in size).

Sure, that's functionally the equivalent of performing "sudo cat /var/log/messages", but of course one could run "sudo less /var/log/messages" and obtain the powerful features of less, such as forward and backward navigation, and not loading the entire file into memory (this is a key weakness of "get-winevent" in general; if its output is piped, it is forced to load everything, therefore forcing the user to use the "-MaxEvents (int64)" switch to limit to the newest X events... and this is also setting aside the fact that Windows sorts by newest events first by default, though this can be changed with the "-Oldest" switch).

The Windows event system in general is strange when looking back at it. You have the post-Vista API (accessible with "get-winevent" or the Event Viewer), and the pre-Vista API (accessible with "get-eventlog"). There are some event sources whose events aren't rendered properly (i.e.: the description of the event will read something like "The description for Event ID X in Source Y could not be found. It contains the following insertion strings: (text)" ( https://support.microsoft.com/... ). Some will render properly only in the post-Vista API, but not the pre-Vista API. Others will render properly only in the pre-Vista API, and not the post-Vista API. To my utter surprise and bafflement, event sources such as "Ntfs" and "mpio" fall into the category of rendering properly in pre-Vista API, but not post-Vista API... in Windows Server 2012. That's right, for some reason, the events of a couple of the most critical event sources could not be fixed.

Powershell is nice as a scripting language, but it's a bear as a command shell. There have been years of complaints of slow loading, especially on systems with high disk I/O activity and/or stalled disks (it doesn't even have to be the system drive; ANY stalled disk on a Windows system may cause Powershell to stall eternally until the system is rebooted; I've seen this for years, in Server 2008 as well as Server 2012). The main reasons why the Command Prompt hasn't been entirely supplanted is because it's lightweight, and has stood the test of time for over 2 decades in NT.

I recently changed careers from a mostly-Windows role to a mostly-Linux role, and it feels great to work with bash, even if I still haven't memorized most of the higher esoteric layers of shell scripting. It feels like the shell was designed for the OS, instead of being duct-taped into a jack-of-all-trades role. The way I log into a RDP-windowed Windows Server 2012 system is visual humor in itself: I right-click the taskbar to click "Task Manager", use it to open "File -> New Task", run "cmd.exe", maybe start Powershell off to the side, and don't EVER click on the Start corner (or button if it's 2012 R2) or the Charms bar. Control panel? Run "control". Computer management? "compmgmt.msc" still works. Search for a file? "dir /b /s" for it, or else creative uses of "find" will work. But don't EVER call up the abomination that is the Start Screen.

I just tried typing help copy on my computer and it worked, yet I don't have an msdn subscription. That said, help is not installed by default. From the equally free online version of Microsoft's documention:

Windows PowerShell 3.0 does not come with help files. To download and install the help files that Get-Help reads, use the Update-Help cmdlet. You can use the Update-Help cmdlet to download and install help files for the core commands that come with Windows PowerShell and for any modules that you install. You can also use it to update the help files so that the help on your computer is never outdated.

Finally, if you want to write help for your own Powershell code, just type help about_Comment_Based_Help for details on how to do this. No need to buy any licences.

Is that software written BY males, software written FOR males, or software written ABOUT males?

And to be a bit more serious, make sure you use this when accusing software of being malware; it's a pretty good reference:
https://www.microsoft.com/secu...

http://www.microsoft.com/en-us...

I quote:

Device Guard requires:

        UEFI Secure Boot with 3rd party UEFI CA removed from the UEFI database

Note the part that I bolded.

No more dual booting. The next step in the "destroy all others" is being taken. You will not be able to dual boot, even with the distros that tried to play along with the TPM shenanigans.

If you want control over your computing environment, it is paramount that you not upgrade to Windows 10. "Right to Read" will mostly likely come to pass, but the longer we delay it, the more chances we have to prevent it.

There are two tasks under TaskScheduler > Task Scheduler Library > Microsoft > Windows > Application Experience, "Microsoft Compatibility Appraiser" and "ProgramDataUpdater", that will continue to contact telemetry servers even if telemetry is disabled. These tasks run and phone home even if CEIP is opted-out of. Reproduce (on Win7 Pro) by:

1) Opt out of CEIP.
2) Remove patches 3021917, 3035583, and 3022345.
3) Set up your IDS to block/report rundll32.exe overnight, and observe logs.
4) Wait a day or two. You will see (failed, if you've blocked rundll32.exe from talking to the interwebs) DNS lookups to settings.data.microsoft.com and telecommand.telemetry.microsoft.com in both the IDS and in the Event Log.

The two scheduled tasks will continue phone home even if the above mentioned patches are uninstalled. You must manually disable the tasks "Microsoft Compatibility Appraiser" and "ProgramDataUpdater" in order to stop the phoning-home behavior.

There are two tasks under TaskScheduler > Task Scheduler Library > Microsoft > Windows > Application Experience, "Microsoft Compatibility Appraiser" and "ProgramDataUpdater", that will continue to contact telemetry servers even if telemetry is disabled. These tasks run and phone home even if CEIP is opted-out of. Reproduce (on Win7 Pro) by:

1) Opt out of CEIP.
2) Remove patches 3021917, 3035583, and 3022345.
3) Set up your IDS to block/report rundll32.exe overnight, and observe logs.
4) Wait a day or two. You will see (failed, if you've blocked rundll32.exe from talking to the interwebs) DNS lookups to settings.data.microsoft.com and telecommand.telemetry.microsoft.com in both the IDS and in the Event Log.

The two scheduled tasks will continue phone home even if the above mentioned patches are uninstalled. You must manually disable the tasks "Microsoft Compatibility Appraiser" and "ProgramDataUpdater" in order to stop the phoning-home behavior.

There are two tasks under TaskScheduler > Task Scheduler Library > Microsoft > Windows > Application Experience, "Microsoft Compatibility Appraiser" and "ProgramDataUpdater", that will continue to contact telemetry servers even if telemetry is disabled. These tasks run and phone home even if CEIP is opted-out of. Reproduce (on Win7 Pro) by:

1) Opt out of CEIP.
2) Remove patches 3021917, 3035583, and 3022345.
3) Set up your IDS to block/report rundll32.exe overnight, and observe logs.
4) Wait a day or two. You will see (failed, if you've blocked rundll32.exe from talking to the interwebs) DNS lookups to settings.data.microsoft.com and telecommand.telemetry.microsoft.com in both the IDS and in the Event Log.

The two scheduled tasks will continue phone home even if the above mentioned patches are uninstalled. You must manually disable the tasks "Microsoft Compatibility Appraiser" and "ProgramDataUpdater" in order to stop the phoning-home behavior.

I can't get the exact breakdown from microsoft's investor site, but my best estimate is that MS makes between 23% and 43% of it's revenue from OS sales and licensing. Office eats up another big piece of the pie, but together appear to still be less than half of total revenue (according to this site. MS has most assuredly has diversified and considers itself to be a "service" company these days (hence the push to the cloud and the huge increase in open source of code).

That's actually incorrect. Windows ran a customized openssl that is not vulnerable. http://blogs.microsoft.com/cyb...

That's talking about the Windows' builtin services don't run OpenSSL at all, they use their own SSL/TLS implementation, the article you linked even says that. However you can run OpenSSL on Windows and if you ran a version that had the heartbleed vulnerability it is just as exploitable on Windows as on Linux.

Licensed application end user license agreement

Microsoft End User License Agreement

Seems like a nice place for legislature to ask some tech savvy guys to specify what is absolutely needed for a regulation in an area.

I see a regulation that spells out exactly what is required, a third or more of it is patented technology, and it can be bought from any good software vendor. Do you really want the government specifying what software is necessary? (I have some surplus Cover Oregon software for sale, cheap, BTW.)

It is cost of doing business.

The cost of having an easy, convenient credit system is abuse. If you want to be able to call someone up and order stuff using just a few words over the phone, and have it sent where you are and not just where someone can steal it off your front step, then there will be people who can take advantage of that.

Write a better one (does 4++ million records in ~ 30min) yourself then in GUI form with COMPLETE built-in whitelist filter vs. false positives (like blocking antivirus/antispyware companies which protect you falsely, search engines, etc.) + the ability to remove the TONS of bloat from 10 different custom hosts files data producers... go for it!

Are you kidding? I gotta break this apart

4++ million records in ~ 30min

I don't think I could find a sort method that slow if I tried to on purpose. Even using C# in LINQPad (hardly the fastest):

var strings = new List<string>(4000000);

for (int i = 0; i < 4000000; i++)
        strings.Add(System.IO.Path.GetRandomFileName());

Stopwatch sw = new Stopwatch();
sw.Start();
strings.Sort();
sw.Stop();
sw.ElapsedMilliseconds.Dump(); // 10000 ms

On my system it takes about 10 seconds every single time. Generating the random strings takes almost as long. 30 minutes!? Ha Ha Ha!

in GUI form

Oh, wow, let me break out the Visual Basic. This could take all night.

built-in whitelist filter vs. false positives

Since HOSTS can't whitelist domains, I assume you mean removing some domains from the craptastic lists you download? Easy Mode.

the ability to remove the TONS of bloat from 10 different custom hosts files data producers

I can't decide what's funnier -- that you go on and on about "security" and yet blindly trust random third parties who serve up such crappy HOSTS files that you need to "remove bloat" -- OR that you think doing a unique sort on a list of strings is difficult.

This thread has been a great read and it's always fun to see APK get poked and prodded. My favorite bit is his complete inability to understand dynamic domains, or wildcard DNS. I've lost count of the number of people that have tried to explain these concepts, all for naught.

Posting as AC so I don't get stalked again by APK -- been there, done that and he's finally leaving me alone.

For the record, I also don't like Metro on a desktop PC.

That said ... Metro was optimized for touch and keyboard (but definitely not mouse). Type to search is usually faster than drilling through the Start menu with a mouse if you go more than a menu or two deep. Old-school shortcuts like alt-tab to switch windows and alt-F4 to close the current window are still there. If anyone cares, here's a list -- http://windows.microsoft.com/e... . We're going back 30 years or so, but I believe that some of those shortcuts go all the way back to WordStar (ctrl-c to copy, for instance).

FWIW, I don't think it's Metro that MS bungled, but rather how the plain old desktop, Metro, and settings were intermingled, especially in 8.0. Metro is fine for what it is: a UI designed for single / double-tasking media consumption. The default full-screen view is slick for Netflix and YouTube, while the default Mail and Calendar apps are good enough for my mom, but horrible for work needs. My biggest gripe is that the default apps for image viewing, the calculator, user settings and so on were all Metro apps -- even when launched from the desktop. One of the absolute stupidest things I've ever seen on a PC was day 2 or 3 with 8.0. I was writing an email in Outlook and wanted to double check some math. I fired up the calculator and was presented with a 22" fullscreen 4 function calculator that completely obscured the numbers I wanted to check.

Throw in how some OS settings were only available in Metro ... and, yeah.

But my issues with Metro were, by and large, focused on how I kept on being punted into it even when I most definitely did not want to be.

As for the icons? I think MS is simply going for consistency across the different flavours of device (phone, tablet, desktop). As 8.1 stands right now, it has two sets of icons, one for desktop, one for Metro. With 10's move towards windowed Metro apps, it doesn't really make much sense to maintain multiple sets of icons -- that lack of consistency, in and of itself, I believe, is poor UI design.

See subject: A proof there I have been

Uh, what? Parse error

Clue: You won't even SAY WHERE YOU WORK yet YOU CLAIM you are a "security engineer"??? LMAO - No, don't think so.

Ha, I don't want you harassing me at work, idiot.

I don't? My ware UPDATES DAILY dimwit (every 12 hours automatically) & more if you do it manually often as you like (every hour if you want, defeating even DGA's stupid) & blocking them, ala:

You can run your update as often as you like, but malware reverse engineers are not providing you an up-to-the-minute list of all DGA domains. Even if they did, you wouldn't get the domains until the malware had already connected up for its C&C of the hour. Hosts files are a bad strategy for modern botnets because techniques like DGA were designed to defeat static blocklists.

That's why real antimalware vendors like Damballa don't rely on a static DNS blocklist, much less a hosts file on the OS.

YOU SAYING THAT WON'T BLOCK A DGA ENDPOINT or C&C? Wrong... hosts block *ANY* host-domain/subdomain name! ANSWER THAT SIMPLE QUESTION!

I already answered this question - NO. You didn't believe me and called it "hypothetical bullshit," so I provided 4 lines of Python that trivially bypass hosts files.

You can't corrupt bypass my hosts file by the way.

Another parse error, but yes, malware can trivially disable your hosts file or the windows firewall.

Again: DID I SAY HOSTS STOP EVERYTHING? Never. Show me WHERE I HAVE ok? I never have once. Nothing by itself does.

You keep claiming hosts files stop botnet communication, which is clearly not true.

I've proven I have TONS OF GUIDES FOR THAT even PAID FOR ONES I WROTE that actually work (with testimonials too)

No, you provided one dead link that may have hosted 1 guide 7 years ago. And that was a site for AMATEURS to submit their text files, and win a $100 prize if their amateurish text files were accepted.

YOU PROVIDED THE PEFECT EXAMPLE with your doubtless STOLEN Python code example - UAC + WFP + Windows Firewall cuts those off, detecting them, BEFORE THEY CAN DO DAMAGE, stupid!

Uh, no, the malware disables all that. When a PC has been infected, the malware will disable a series of Windows security features (Windows Defender, Windows Firewall, User Account Control), Windows Update, and remove the ability to install other antivirus software.

Windows Firewall can block by IP (TCP/UDP), port, vs. *any* threat really w/ hosts combined with it!

Yeah! That's how they blocked the Ramnit botnet! OH wait, once that malware is installed it "will disable a series of Windows security features (Windows Defender, Windows Firewall, User Account Control), Windows Update, and remove the ability to install other antivirus software." Windows firewall FTW!

You've spent HOURS 'scouring the net', days actually, looking for *ANYTHING* you can stooge, to make that "not true"

Nope, took a 3-minute Google search to find that. Kinda like the Python code that bypasses your hosts file!

it's a pretty simple phone but it has a battery that has a 39 days standby time and 20 hours of talk. of course these numbers depend on if you are in a place with a few or lots of overlapping cell tower signals.

check it out: http://www.microsoft.com/en/mo...

Nokia 1616 with a 1020mAh battery lasts more than ten days.

I've been using Windows 8/8.1 since release and have never seen an error message like that. It's more likely a virus or hardware problem with your computer.

Well, if YOU haven't seen it... [facepalm]

https://answers.microsoft.com/...

1.) Microsoft shows memory fragmentation causes Exchange Server 2003 (& prior versions) problems a lot (which memory optimizers stop, & even Dr Russinovich + Arstechnica even admit they can stop memory fragmentation)!

*******

Mark Russinovich - "Having contiguous available memory can improve performance in one case: when the Memory Manager, to maximize the behavior of the CPU memory caches, uses a mechanism called page coloring to decide which page from the free or zeroed page list to assign to a process."

Mark Russinovich - "Developers of RAM optimizers also claim that their products defragment memory. The act of allocating, then freeing a large amount of virtual memory might, as a conceivable side effect, lead to blocks of contiguous available memory"

*******

XADM: The Extensible Storage Engine Database Engine Contributes to Virtual Memory Fragmentation Exchange 2000 Server, like many large scale programs, may experience virtual memory (VM) fragmentation. Over time, the server may not perform well, & you may not be able to mount storage groups because of VM fragmentation. http://support.microsoft.com/d...

XADM: You Experience Excessive Virtual Memory Fragmentation on a Heavily Loaded Exchange Server Your Microsoft Exchange 2000 Server computer may experience virtual memory fragmentation at a much greater frequency than you expect. As a result, you may have to restart the Exchange 2000 computer more frequently than you expect.

http://support.microsoft.com/d...

(& 10 more I can supply on request. Earlier, I cite more in the way of examples here showing in how much VM fragmentation (which memory optimizers stop) negatively affects Exchange Server 2003 & previous models of it. I can provide those again upon request should they be required. I have earlier in this thread.)

----

2.) Microsoft producing clearmem.exe (which its description IS "Clear Memory" even in Windows Server 2003 reskits) & is in its default commandline, just another memory optimizer (as this article's author calls them)! DESCRIPTION (verbatim, from Microsoft's resource kit website) = Clearmem.exe: Clear Memory Not a "testing tool":

*******

Mike Rowe-Sarft - "Clearmem is *not* a fixing system, it is a tool for developers & testers." - Anonymous User - April 04, 2005

*******

(Point #3 right after this one shows otherwise as well as Microsoft's OWN DESCRIPTION of said program above.)

----

3.) Also how memory optimizer apps can unfreeze lagged/frozen memory starved apps, such as how Microsoft's own Clearmem.exe unfroze apps & was cited from MS as being useful here:

http://support.microsoft.com/d...

"WORKAROUND You can run Clearmem.exe to recover from this problem. The Clearmem utility flushes the section used as file cache, thus the file object in question is dereferenced by running Clearmem."

Above all - If these tools of this nature are "useless" as Dr. Mark Russinovich claims? Why then does Microsoft, the inventor of this OS family, include clearmem.exe (a memory optimizer, albeit a bit crude in console/DOS commandline/character mode design & not nearly as feature-laden & automated) in their current resource kits for said OS' & since the NT 3.5x days no less? (&, before anyone tries the "they are unsupported by Microsoft", newsflash - it does not mean they don't work, they do. It's that Microsoft's technical support reps are not required to know them in detail or how to use them etc.)

* That's ONLY the start of how I schooled him... Ask him about how I said "Hector..." AFTER all that & he RAN (vs. Achilles).

From http://windowsitpro.com/system...

ASK!

1.) Microsoft shows memory fragmentation causes Exchange Server 2003 (& prior versions) problems a lot (which memory optimizers stop, & even Dr Russinovich + Arstechnica even admit they can stop memory fragmentation)!

*******

Mark Russinovich - "Having contiguous available memory can improve performance in one case: when the Memory Manager, to maximize the behavior of the CPU memory caches, uses a mechanism called page coloring to decide which page from the free or zeroed page list to assign to a process."

Mark Russinovich - "Developers of RAM optimizers also claim that their products defragment memory. The act of allocating, then freeing a large amount of virtual memory might, as a conceivable side effect, lead to blocks of contiguous available memory"

*******

XADM: The Extensible Storage Engine Database Engine Contributes to Virtual Memory Fragmentation Exchange 2000 Server, like many large scale programs, may experience virtual memory (VM) fragmentation. Over time, the server may not perform well, & you may not be able to mount storage groups because of VM fragmentation. http://support.microsoft.com/d...

XADM: You Experience Excessive Virtual Memory Fragmentation on a Heavily Loaded Exchange Server Your Microsoft Exchange 2000 Server computer may experience virtual memory fragmentation at a much greater frequency than you expect. As a result, you may have to restart the Exchange 2000 computer more frequently than you expect.

http://support.microsoft.com/d...

(& 10 more I can supply on request. Earlier, I cite more in the way of examples here showing in how much VM fragmentation (which memory optimizers stop) negatively affects Exchange Server 2003 & previous models of it. I can provide those again upon request should they be required. I have earlier in this thread.)

----

2.) Microsoft producing clearmem.exe (which its description IS "Clear Memory" even in Windows Server 2003 reskits) & is in its default commandline, just another memory optimizer (as this article's author calls them)! DESCRIPTION (verbatim, from Microsoft's resource kit website) = Clearmem.exe: Clear Memory Not a "testing tool":

*******

Mike Rowe-Sarft - "Clearmem is *not* a fixing system, it is a tool for developers & testers." - Anonymous User - April 04, 2005

*******

(Point #3 right after this one shows otherwise as well as Microsoft's OWN DESCRIPTION of said program above.)

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3.) Also how memory optimizer apps can unfreeze lagged/frozen memory starved apps, such as how Microsoft's own Clearmem.exe unfroze apps & was cited from MS as being useful here:

http://support.microsoft.com/d...

"WORKAROUND You can run Clearmem.exe to recover from this problem. The Clearmem utility flushes the section used as file cache, thus the file object in question is dereferenced by running Clearmem."

Above all - If these tools of this nature are "useless" as Dr. Mark Russinovich claims? Why then does Microsoft, the inventor of this OS family, include clearmem.exe (a memory optimizer, albeit a bit crude in console/DOS commandline/character mode design & not nearly as feature-laden & automated) in their current resource kits for said OS' & since the NT 3.5x days no less? (&, before anyone tries the "they are unsupported by Microsoft", newsflash - it does not mean they don't work, they do. It's that Microsoft's technical support reps are not required to know them in detail or how to use them etc.)

* That's ONLY the start of how I schooled him... Ask him about how I said "Hector..." AFTER all that & he RAN (vs. Achilles).

From http://windowsitpro.com/system...

ASK!

1.) Microsoft shows memory fragmentation causes Exchange Server 2003 (& prior versions) problems a lot (which memory optimizers stop, & even Dr Russinovich + Arstechnica even admit they can stop memory fragmentation)!

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Mark Russinovich - "Having contiguous available memory can improve performance in one case: when the Memory Manager, to maximize the behavior of the CPU memory caches, uses a mechanism called page coloring to decide which page from the free or zeroed page list to assign to a process."

Mark Russinovich - "Developers of RAM optimizers also claim that their products defragment memory. The act of allocating, then freeing a large amount of virtual memory might, as a conceivable side effect, lead to blocks of contiguous available memory"

*******

XADM: The Extensible Storage Engine Database Engine Contributes to Virtual Memory Fragmentation Exchange 2000 Server, like many large scale programs, may experience virtual memory (VM) fragmentation. Over time, the server may not perform well, & you may not be able to mount storage groups because of VM fragmentation. http://support.microsoft.com/d...

XADM: You Experience Excessive Virtual Memory Fragmentation on a Heavily Loaded Exchange Server Your Microsoft Exchange 2000 Server computer may experience virtual memory fragmentation at a much greater frequency than you expect. As a result, you may have to restart the Exchange 2000 computer more frequently than you expect.

http://support.microsoft.com/d...

(& 10 more I can supply on request. Earlier, I cite more in the way of examples here showing in how much VM fragmentation (which memory optimizers stop) negatively affects Exchange Server 2003 & previous models of it. I can provide those again upon request should they be required. I have earlier in this thread.)

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2.) Microsoft producing clearmem.exe (which its description IS "Clear Memory" even in Windows Server 2003 reskits) & is in its default commandline, just another memory optimizer (as this article's author calls them)! DESCRIPTION (verbatim, from Microsoft's resource kit website) = Clearmem.exe: Clear Memory Not a "testing tool":

*******

Mike Rowe-Sarft - "Clearmem is *not* a fixing system, it is a tool for developers & testers." - Anonymous User - April 04, 2005

*******

(Point #3 right after this one shows otherwise as well as Microsoft's OWN DESCRIPTION of said program above.)

----

3.) Also how memory optimizer apps can unfreeze lagged/frozen memory starved apps, such as how Microsoft's own Clearmem.exe unfroze apps & was cited from MS as being useful here:

http://support.microsoft.com/d...

"WORKAROUND You can run Clearmem.exe to recover from this problem. The Clearmem utility flushes the section used as file cache, thus the file object in question is dereferenced by running Clearmem."

Above all - If these tools of this nature are "useless" as Dr. Mark Russinovich claims? Why then does Microsoft, the inventor of this OS family, include clearmem.exe (a memory optimizer, albeit a bit crude in console/DOS commandline/character mode design & not nearly as feature-laden & automated) in their current resource kits for said OS' & since the NT 3.5x days no less? (&, before anyone tries the "they are unsupported by Microsoft", newsflash - it does not mean they don't work, they do. It's that Microsoft's technical support reps are not required to know them in detail or how to use them etc.)

* That's ONLY the start of how I schooled him... Ask him about how I said "Hector..." AFTER all that & he RAN (vs. Achilles).

From http://windowsitpro.com/system...

ASK!

Make sure you pay Microsoft for each Windows XP VM that you use. Note that you cannot buy those directly. You may need to examine the "right to downgrade" option of the EULA. With Windows 7 Ultimate, Microsoft offers XP mode that uses some VM features that could help.