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The replacement for MSDE, SQL Express does not have a governor. Its limited to a single CPU, 1GB RAM, 4GB maximum db size so, as others have said, the free Oracle product looks to be an answer to this.

SQL Express is pretty good for many small websites, especially for DotNetNuke sites or other ASP.NET stuff.

It's there, but they really didn't make much noise about it. I didn't even realize the tools were there until I found a webpage about it a few years back.

is one place to start.

Still, it'll be very nice to have real symlinks instead of shortcuts. It's what the shortcuts should have been all along.

Your understanding is wrong. You can do it quite easily using the built in command fsutil.

e.g.:

fsutil hardlink create target_file.ext source_file.ext

More information on the site of MS:

http://www.microsoft.com/resources/documentation/w indows/xp/all/proddocs/en-us/fsutil_hardlink.mspx

There are a lot of useful CLI commands in Windows but people usually don't bother to learn them.

Link to SQL Server 2005 Express.

Yes, it does support hard links and has since Windows 2K. Here's a link.

You mean like this; http://www.microsoft.com/athome/security/spyware/s oftware/default.mspx ?

It seems people are forgetting about the "almost there" aspects of NTFS 5 ..

NTFS junction points are useful for alternate mounting.
The point of some key Windows Services are built for exactly this purpose .. Distributed Link Tracking and Object Identifiers
Reparse points are handy too ... http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb; EN-US;q205524

NTFS is a great file system, you just need to read the documentation..

I'm no MS apologist, but SQL Server is an absolute dream by comparison - and there'e a free version too.

Some indicators that SQL does not have a bright future as a database interface for object-oriented programming languages:

LINQ/DLINQ
http://msdn.microsoft.com/netframework/future/linq /

Native Queries
http://www.odbms.org/
http://www.db4o.com/

What does Oracle have to offer in this direction?

Seeing the Gorilla drive the money out of the SQL stack is a strong sign that innovation is over.

They gave it the stupid name for it's free SQL, MSDE, or Microsoft SQL Server 2000 Desktop Engine. It has no UI, everything is done by vendor tools and CLI.
http://www.microsoft.com/sql/msde/default.mspx

I remember architecting a product to implement all unix based functionality in NT (IPC, memory mapped files, etc) and found NT40 to have that and more. Thats the time I really appreciated windows as a OS more mature than Unix.

The unfortunate part is people still think of DOS/Win95 code base when they think of windows. As a OS, W2K is much more mature in terms of the facilities they offer and as a filesystem, NTFS is way ahead.

Give me a feature in Unix and Im sure there is an equivalent in NT. Thousands of smart people working at Redmond are not idiots and millions of corporate architects proposing NT based solutions are not stupid either. They propose windows based technologies not just for looks (though end users do appreciate that).

I remember architecting a product to implement all unix based functionality in NT (IPC, memory mapped files, etc) and found NT40 to have that and more. Thats the time I really appreciated windows as a OS more mature than Unix.

The unfortunate part is people still think of DOS/Win95 code base when they think of windows. As a OS, W2K is much more mature in terms of the facilities they offer and as a filesystem, NTFS is way ahead.

Give me a feature in Unix and Im sure there is an equivalent in NT. Thousands of smart people working at Redmond are not idiots and millions of corporate architects proposing NT based solutions are not stupid either. They propose windows based technologies not just for looks (though end users do appreciate that).

I remember architecting a product to implement all unix based functionality in NT (IPC, memory mapped files, etc) and found NT40 to have that and more. Thats the time I really appreciated windows as a OS more mature than Unix.

The unfortunate part is people still think of DOS/Win95 code base when they think of windows. As a OS, W2K is much more mature in terms of the facilities they offer and as a filesystem, NTFS is way ahead.

Give me a feature in Unix and Im sure there is an equivalent in NT. Thousands of smart people working at Redmond are not idiots and millions of corporate architects proposing NT based solutions are not stupid either. They propose windows based technologies not just for looks (though end users do appreciate that).

NTFS 5.0 and on always had this feature and more. It is a pity people use FAT32 which doesnt support any of these features like reparse points, junctions and more http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url= /library/en-us/fileio/fs/reparse_points.asp

Well, there are reparse points (http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/en-us/fileio/fs /reparse_points.asp), which can act like symbolic links, but they only work on directories. There seems to be a program called Junction Link Magic here to make them.

Ha ha ha. Hilarious!

http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/en-us/fileio/fs/ createhardlink.asp

To be honest, I'm surprised it's only been there since Windows 2000.

If junctions only work on directories then you'd want to look at the CreateHardLink API (available in Win2K/XP/2003) which works only on files. You can create up to 1023 links to a single file using this API.

I suppose that anyone in the computer tech/repair shop industry might appreciate tools like Rootkit Revealer right now.

Hopefully Microsoft's project that hasn't been released yet will show up soon. They also have a few hints to detect rootkits installed on a system including two Slashdot links.

Hooray for AOL.

We've had good results using Sharepoint (hey, you said you were using Microsoft products) to track documents, schedules, tasks, todo lists, etc. It's not as robust as a full source control system like Subversion, but it works well for management stuff (bonus: it's all web-based, so you don't need a local client or enlistment). For binary files like Word or Project files, you really need a method of locking the file. SVN and CVS are really geared towards concurrent changes in text files that are mergeable, so they're not so great for binaries.

Sharepoint is also really useful for lists. In fact we tracked our last release entirely through Sharepoint, from building task lists to release schedules, tracking bug counts and resolution rates, etc. I'm sure there are other solutions out there besides Sharepoint, but Sharepoint is what I have experienced. For example, it shouldn't be difficult to find or write a web interface to Subversion or CVS that will eliminate the need for managers to run enlistment updates just to make sure they have the latest version of a doc. Of course developers should continue to have local enlistments, as they're more efficient that way.

On the other hand, MS Word itself doesn't implement IAccessible for the main document window (the interface is used by MS Narrator for example):
"If you need to use text-to-speech functionality with Office programs, you may need to obtain a more robust, third-party Text-to-Speech program" - see http://support.microsoft.com/kb/252435/EN-US/

your premise is flawed; the new ms format is fully documented, and public. After reading this article you will most likely change your mind, that is if you are intellectually honest. We both know you are not so you will continue to spread FUD, but I thought I would give you a link to you let you have confirmation that you are just spreading FUD.

Microsoft Office Open XML (June of this year, before the MA CIO's decision, and the basis of Office 12)
http://www.betanews.com/article/Microsoft_Opens_Of fice_File_Formats/1117692086

"Microsoft offers open and royalty-free documentation and licenses for the Microsoft Office 2003 XML Reference Schemas" That is from the first paragraph.
http://www.microsoft.com/office/xml/default.mspx

"I have heard that Microsoft recently revised the patent license terms for the Office XML Reference Schemas. Why did Microsoft revise these license terms?"

Dude. This is Microsoft we're talking about. I don't care if they "want to keep with their antitrust agreements," in fact, that would probably be a very convenient argument for them. With a price of $299.99 for a SINGLE INSTALLATION of XP Pro, I can't afford to even bother wth them. In my mind, their product is not worth NEARLY that much. Think about it, you can get a decent new computer for around $500; do you really think that the cost of the operating system should be half of that?

Wait, wait, wait. Your telling me in Soviet Russia computers' secure humans while in America humans' secure computers?

Shit, those Soviet Russians must have really smart computers to be able to do this crazy stuff.

While you Americans must have really dumb computers that even really dumb humans' can secure.

System Requirements from the website http://www.microsoft.com/games/pc/age3.aspx

        Microsoft Windows XP (OEM version of XP Home is $75)
        PC with 1.4 GHz equivalent or higher processor
        256 MB of system RAM
        2 GB available hard disk space
        32x speed or faster CD-ROM drive
        64 MB video card with support for hardware transformation and lighting required
        Sound card, speakers or headphones required for audio
        Microsoft Mouse or compatible pointing device
        56.6 Kbps or better modem for online play

A system that meets or exceeds the above:

CPU 60.00 AMD Sempron64 2500+
HS/Fan 0.00
Motherboard 75.00 DFI nF4X Infinity
RAM 35.00 512MBB DDR400 RAM
Video Card 45.00 Radeon 9100 from AllStarShop.com
Hard Drive 48.50 Seagate Barracuda 7200.7 40GB
DVDROM 20.00 LITE-ON 16X DVD-ROM Model SOHD-16P9S
Case 34.99 Foxconn 3GTW001-W-HP350
sound 0.00 On board
lan 0.00 On board
Monitor 0.00 used 17"
Keyboard 12.00
Mouse 13.00 MS Optical
speakers 29.00 Logitech X-230
floppy 2.99 Used
OS 74.99 Win XP Home (OEM)
                      450.47 + Shipping

I make the Rash assumption that you can scrounge a monitor. Lots of people are switching to LCD. Its a good time to be looking for a free CRT. All prices are from NewEgg except the Video card which is from AllStarShop.com. Further I assume that you will be using the onboard LAN for network play. Failing that the same person who donated the monitor could reasonably be expected to have a modem that hasn't been used since he or she got broad band internet some years ago.

No, it's called MSDNAA.

I was amazed to learn that as a CS student I could download Windows XP, 2003 server, etc. for free.

Finally, just about ANY mouse is going to require this software to make use of the fourth and fifth buttons, because mouse makers don't make their own Mac drivers.

Well, it's true that some mouse makers don't make their own Mac drivers, but the big ones do: Microsoft, Logitech, Kensington.

That said, you're right that these "drivers" are pretty much unnecessary. Any USB mouse will work fine on a Mac; the only real issue is that in Mac OS X, buttons 4 and higher can only be used for Exposé and Dashboard commands. These drivers (or something like USB Overdrive) let you assign other commands to those buttons.

I had issues running sharepoint with web other applications running on the same install of IIS. But there are ways around it.

1. Make sure to exclude the path to your other web applications, in the sharepoint administration
2. Look at this article for web.config modifications that will allow sharepoint and .NET apps to co-exist.

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb; en-us;837376

Thanks for the specifics. If you would like you can open up feature requests on the MSDN Product Feedback Center for us to remedy some of the outstanding issues that remain in VS 2005. It's located at http://lab.msdn.microsoft.com/productfeedback/.

Maybe this will make them feel better?

But when it's found "Hey, calling this function with these arguments causes a crash", why *isn't* fixing the function the first thing that comes to mind?

Logically your right, but Microsoft is a marketing machine. They would rather you buy another ISA server so they can profit from defects. http://www.microsoft.com/isaserver/default.mspx

A huge unidentified virus is approaching the Computer. It was made in the far past by another life than the human race, and occupied and inhabited by a vicious exploit in the long period. In order to save the Computer, the strongest Windows patches go into action.

The fact of the matter is that C# will never be able to erode Java's dominance since it is not cross platform.

bull-SHIT.

here's the source for a C# compiler made available from MICROSOFT that compiles out of the box on FreeBSD and OS X. http://msdn.microsoft.com/net/sscli. Its called ROTOR.

Remember our favorite tech-book publisher? Here's an O'Reilly article explaining how to compile and begin using ROTOR: http://www.ondotnet.com/pub/a/dotnet/2002/03/27/ge ttingstarted.html

Here's an O'Reilly book on how to use the Shared Source CLI: http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/sscliess/

http://www.microsoft.com/events/2005launchevents/s st.mspx
From the site:

Complimentary software when you attend.

Don't just learn about the new software. Walk away with it. Come to the Special Edition Launch 2005 event, and you'll receive a copy of SQL Server 2005 and Visual Studio 2005 as a token of our appreciation.*

Admission is free.

To Register for the Best of Visual Studio Ready Launch, visit www.msdnevents.com/launch.
To Register for the Best of SQL Server Ready Launch, visit www.technetevents.com/launch.

        *Offer only good to registered launch event attendees. Must be present at event to receive software packages or vouchers for software redemption. Limit: one offer per person, while supplies last. The software may not be resold and is not redeemable for cash. Taxes, if any, are the sole responsibility of the recipient.

They did. If slashdot had actually posted the *proper* FA instead of a reporters' write up of it people would know this:

http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/2005/oct0 5/10-27ZombiePR.mspx

"Microsoft investigators intentionally created a zombie computer, quarantined it to prevent it from actually sending spam messages, then carefully watched it for 20 days while investigators tracked and traced all Internet communications through the infected computer."

"Then again, much of the Windows code was created long before the terms "DoS" or "buffer overflow attack" came into existence."

Really?

Buffer overflow attacks have been known for well over 20 years, and while DoS is new, the concepts are not new. If you can still get your hands on it, take a look at the source of FWTK, written by Marcus Ranum (http://www.dreamwvr.com/fwtk.org/fwtk/docs/docume ntation.html) for an example of people have known how to write defensive code for a long time.

Now, I think there is a grain of truth to the idea that MS is most attacked because 90% of the computers run Windows. However, the codebase of Windows XP is from the 21st century, particularly since they've released SP2 in the last year, which contained significant upgrades to all of Windows.

Especially since this was written after the time that MS announced (http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/features/2002/ feb02/02-20mundieqa.mspx) they were looking at all their old code to focus on security.

So all things considered, either MS fibbed about reviewing all the code to make it more secure, or they don't know how to do it very well. The idea that attacks on code are something that have only come about since the AOL moved to the internet seems a bit misguided.

Well you can order sp2 discs from microsoft free of charge: http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/downloads/updat es/sp2/cdorder/en_us/default.mspx But it is true that most people who dont already have it or know about the free order are not going to be bothered to go through the hassle to get it free.

You should get VC++ Toolkit 2003 then.

http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/t357fb32. aspx

64-Bit Platform Support
Access Control List Support
ADO.NET 2.0
ASP.NET 2.0
Authenticated Streams
COM Interop Services Enhancements
Console Class Additions
Data Protection API
Debugger Display Attributes
Debugger Edit and Continue Support
Detecting Changes in Network Connectivity
Distributed Computing
EventLog Enhancements
Expanded Certificate Management
FTP Support
Generics and Generic Collections
Globalization Imp.
I/O Enhancements
Manifest-Based Activation .NET Framework Remoting 2.0
Ping class
Processing HTTP Requests from Within Applications
Programmatic Control of Caching
Security Exceptions
Serial I/O Device Support
Serialization imp.
SMTP Support
Strongly Typed Resource Support
Threading Improvements
Trace Data Filtering
Transactions namespace
Web Services imp.
Windows Forms-Related Features
ClickOnce Deployment
Application Settings
New Data-Binding Model
New Windows Forms Controls
-DataGridView
-ToolStrip
-MaskedTextBox
-Windows Forms SoundPlayer
-ListView control now supports three features provided by Windows XP and the Windows Server 2003 family: tile view, grouping, and drag-and-drop item repositioning.
-ListView, TreeView, and ToolTip controls now support owner drawing
-WebBrowser control
-*LayoutPanel controls
-BackgroundWorker component
-Asynchronous Pattern for Components
XML-Related Features

Excuse the trollish comment, I couldn't resist... Now that I caught your attention, you might like to know this. Remember this thing called "read consistency", and how important it is to get it implemented both correctly and efficiently (MVCC) in order to achieve this other thing called "scalability"?

Well it turns out SQL-Server 2000 implemented read-consistency via locking, which means that it can never have the scalability of Oracle (or even Postgres, which also uses MVCC) in OLTP scenarios.

Oracle introduced the use of MVCC in version 4, 1984 !!! (ask Tom Kyte). Finally, MS has caught up. It'll be interesting to see how the implementation performs.

They blocked the spam from being sent:

http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/2005/oct0 5/10-27ZombiePR.mspx

Microsoft hasn't yet taken Visual C++ 2005 Express Beta 2 from their web site. You can still download it for free:

http://lab.msdn.microsoft.com/express/visualc/defa ult.aspx

Gregg

The limits are not all that severe. Very few people will be likely to actually need to upgrade to a more advanced version. Check out the differences here. Personally, I won't need anything the Express editions can't offer. It has also been said that, while the boxed version of Express will be $49, the download version will be free (although this has not yet been officially confirmed). Unlike the older versions of MSVC (for instance), which had the optimising compiler only in the professional edition, the express editions seem extremely capable. While this will likely decrease MS' revenue stream from the VS line, it can be an important factor in keeping people on Windows.

The changes are listed in the SDK documentation:

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?Fa milyID=fe6f2099-b7b4-4f47-a244-c96d69c35dec&Displa yLang=en/

But a short list would tell you that they added generics and partial classes. The IDE is indescribably efficient at knowing what you want to type using its internal Intellisense functionality. It's sort of a catch-22...it's faster to write code, but if you don't know how to code, it's faster to write bad code.

The higher versions of the IDE include Rational type products like bug-tracking, a new enterprise source control tool, and methodology infrastructures (you can force your team to follow certain rules for coding, checking in code, completing documentation).

The "Express" versions will be $49 so if you want to play around and see what all the fuss is about, that would be the easiest way to go.

Personally this is all wonderful, but the really good bits will come next year when Windows Communications Foundation is completed, which is a framework of WS-* API's that will nearly completely hide xml web service details from the developer and allow for all of the higher end web service functionality.

You can say .NOT all you want, but if you write a few programs in Visual Studio .NET 2005 with C# 2.0, you'll be crying when you go back to Eclipse/J2EE.

Those limits are not as severe as you might think. All editions contain the same compilers. Many (if not most) developers won't run into the limitations. The ones that do are probably doing software development for companies that already have MSDN subscriptions anyway. Check out the differences here

Main changes for C# are support of parameterized types (generics), support for partial classes (a class can be split across two files, so, for example, machine generated code lives in one file, and human tweaked or written code lives in another), and support for nullible intrinsic types (so that, say, a bool can be either true, false, or null... an int can either have a value or be null, where 'null' is distinct from all other possible values).

There are also new globalization/localization features, new security features, new liberary routines, new classes in the .net class framework, etc.

There is also new support for "edit and continue" in the IDE for allowing changes when in debug mode and then continuing with the changes taking effect, rather than having to stop, recompile, and restart to pick up the changes.

Here's a link with more info

The .NET Framework is free: http://msdn.microsoft.com/netframework/downloads/u pdates/

Visual Studio 2005 and SQL Server 2005 Developers Edition have been on Usenet for the past 6 hours now... :-)

Personally, as a student, Im looking forward to Visual Studio Express editions. You can still grab the Express betas for free. From what I hear, the price point for the final version will be under $100. I think this is a great move by Microsoft. Now millions of students will have access to a cheap, industry standard IDE to code in. What could be better? Not sure when the final versions will be released, but hoping Nov 7 as well.

If MS really wants the .Net Framework to be adopted by the end user (note I didn't write 'developers'), they should make any installation issues a breeze.

They have, it's called ClickOnce.

4. You are given the full configuration and details of any ETC file in a MAN file or part of the documenataion project. There isn't a help file included with the OS for the registry nor is it available on the Manufacturer's website.

Registry Reference

For non-microsoft software you would obviously have to rely on information from the source of the software.