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http://windows.microsoft.com/e...

For example, when you:

        install the Program, we may collect information about your device and applications and use it for purposes such as determining or improving compatibility,

        use voice input features like speech-to-text, we may collect voice information and use it for purposes such as improving speech processing,

        open a file, we may collect information about the file, the application used to open the file, and how long it takes any use it for purposes such as improving performance, or

        enter text, we may collect typed characters and use them for purposes such as improving autocomplete and spellcheck features.

I donno about you, but I'm not an MSDN subscriber or someone that's beta-tested Microsoft software in any official capacity, so I have no expectation to learn of this anywhere except to, "read about it in a blog."

No need for subscription. :)

A Neowin article happens to have the direct download links for the ISOs (x86-32 and x86-64) if you want to play around with W10TP in a virtual machine or a spare computer.

I donno about you, but I'm not an MSDN subscriber or someone that's beta-tested Microsoft software in any official capacity, so I have no expectation to learn of this anywhere except to, "read about it in a blog."

No need for subscription. :)

A Neowin article happens to have the direct download links for the ISOs (x86-32 and x86-64) if you want to play around with W10TP in a virtual machine or a spare computer.

Funny that you would say that because it actually doesn't do that since Windows 8.1

Applications not manifested for Windows 8.1 will return the Windows 8 OS version value (6.2).

This shouldn't be a problem with native applications. The relevant Win32 functions (GetVersionEx and the now deprecated GetVersion) for retrieving the running Windows version doesn't use the strings to begin with.

Looking at the github code strings, its likely something that can be patched/worked around in the JVM.

This shouldn't be a problem with native applications. The relevant Win32 functions (GetVersionEx and the now deprecated GetVersion) for retrieving the running Windows version doesn't use the strings to begin with.

Looking at the github code strings, its likely something that can be patched/worked around in the JVM.

GetVersionEx(Inout_ LPOSVERSIONINFO lpVersionInfo);
Returns the major and minor versions, build number, platform id, service pack major and minor, and the product type.

Deprecated as of Windows 8.1. Unfortunately, what appears to be the only remotely adequate replacement for it requires resorting to WMI.

GetVersionEx(Inout_ LPOSVERSIONINFO lpVersionInfo);
Returns the major and minor versions, build number, platform id, service pack major and minor, and the product type.

Deprecated as of Windows 8.1. Unfortunately, what appears to be the only remotely adequate replacement for it requires resorting to WMI.

MS already basically did that... In Windows 8.1 and later, GetVersionEx() lies about the version number (it returns Windows NT 6.2, aka. Windows 8.0) unless the developer has specifically marked the EXE as compatible with Win8.1: Operating system version changes in Windows 8.1 and Windows Server 2012 R2.

But this probably won't help with broken Java code though, since I'm sure Oracle will mark java.exe as compatible with Windows 9/10, and had MS not decided to jump to Win10, it would've returned "Windows 9" for os.name.

Windows does return integers. See the dwMajorVersion and dwMinorVersion members of the OSVERSIONINFOEX struct. This seems to be a Java-specific issue, or at least specific to Java programmers--for whatever reason, a lot of Java code checks the "os.name" property to determine the OS version instead of "os.version".

programming languages are lexicon agnostic. What uses human readable commands in Business English (ie pick a 4GL, any 4GL) in America uses the exact same commands in the same programming language using the same character set in China. Apart from that, as "Microsoft Windows" is a collective trademark http://www.microsoft.com/en-us... refer to recent and not-so-recent decisions across the planet in which Microsoft lost cases claiming sole TM rights on the generic term "Windows" as it describes a plurality of glass panels in a frame, it's (as in name, logo/device, etc) protected intellectual property. Makes it easier than coding for two hundred languages for every little thing: code once, translate the output if you need to using the common interface.

Realistically the damage that a USB device can do is fairly limited. If it set itself up as a keyboard and tried to execute commands you would very quickly notice what was happening on the screen in front of you. If you are really worried it isn't hard to lock most operating systems down to prevent new USB devices being auto-configured. Here's a guide for Windows: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-u...

Of more concern are Thunderbolt, Firewire and PC Card, because they both allow devices DMA access to your computer's entire RAM. Worse still Thunderbold and PC Card allow devices to execute code on the host, via an option ROM in the same way that internal PCIe/PCI cards do.

http://technet.microsoft.com/e...

Determine the Actual Size of the WinSxS Folder
Applies To: Windows 8.1, Windows Server 2012 R2

Dism.exe /Online /Cleanup-Image /AnalyzeComponentStore

That'll output the actual size of the sxs folder.

I can confirm this, having worked for a company that wrote backup software. While Microsoft does have some rules in place, they are not good enough. We had to make all kinds of exclusion rules to prevent backups of temp files, cache files, etc.

This means that a WinSxS folder that is 6GB costs around .90 Cents, and uses slightly more than 1 Percent of the drive.

I think you just don't understand what WinSxS is, how it works, and what the problem is that it is designed to address, suggest you start reading a bit more.

The reason the old Sxs assemblies need to be kept, is that installed software may require the usage of an old assembly.

Just because an update has superceded a certain library version, does not mean that all applications that still rely on it should be broken.

When you've got a 19 GB Win SxS folder on a 40 GB HDD (which is plenty for a server and expensive on Tier 0 SSD's) it's a serious issue. 19 GB is not ridiculous, it's not even usual for a 2 yr old server that's been updated regularly. 19 GB across 250 virtual servers is a serious waste of space. Even 6 GB is a massive costs in infrastructure. Not every update needs to keep dozens of updates. Fortunately Microsoft has addressed this problem (as of April this year, so relatively quick in Microsoft time) so that the WinSxS folder can be cleaned up.

Microsoft recently released an update to address this with the disk clean up utility. It has come in handy on both servers and workstations. http://support.microsoft.com/k...

This means that a WinSxS folder that is 6GB costs around .90 Cents, and uses slightly more than 1 Percent of the drive.

I think you just don't understand what WinSxS is, how it works, and what the problem is that it is designed to address, suggest you start reading a bit more.

The reason the old Sxs assemblies need to be kept, is that installed software may require the usage of an old assembly.

Just because an update has superceded a certain library version, does not mean that all applications that still rely on it should be broken.

The SxS assembly backups have a vital role, and they don't actually use as much disk space as you think, due to hard linking --- Windows Explorer gives you an impression that more disk space is consumed by this folder than actually is.

The reason is... various installed files throughout the system will be hardlinked here, causing an appearance that a lot of space is in use here, but in reality --- these hard links are just a second Zero-usage copy of files that are installed elsewhere.

Only a couple gigabytes worth of files that have been updated and no longer have other hard links here, should actually be considered usage of the SxS system.

Here is the kind of answer I do not want to hear: "The typical cost of hard drives is less than .15 Cents per Gigabyte. This means that a WinSxS folder that is 6GB costs around .90 Cents, and uses slightly more than 1 Percent of the drive. That's about the same cost as a large bag of potato chips. " (cite). Yeah, so? Maybe I'm on a laptop with a small SSD? Maybe it's a VM that I have a dozen copies of? Don't waste my resources and then try to talk me out of caring.

Right. A different AC posted this:

You're confusing windows version with IIS

Some IIS versions were indeed coincident with contemporary OS versions. However, you've identified some of the actual OS versions as reported by the (recently deprecated) Windows API GetVersionEx() function. The relevant version numbers for the WinNT family are listed in the MSDN documentation for the OSVERSIONINFOEX structure. At the time of this post, that list goes back to Win2000, which is version 5.0. Older WinNT versions and Win9x versions can be found in older MSDN documentation.

- T

Right. A different AC posted this:

You're confusing windows version with IIS

Some IIS versions were indeed coincident with contemporary OS versions. However, you've identified some of the actual OS versions as reported by the (recently deprecated) Windows API GetVersionEx() function. The relevant version numbers for the WinNT family are listed in the MSDN documentation for the OSVERSIONINFOEX structure. At the time of this post, that list goes back to Win2000, which is version 5.0. Older WinNT versions and Win9x versions can be found in older MSDN documentation.

- T

Why should MS decide what tablets and phones need as minimum hardware?

Not only minimum, but maximum as well. MS gets to decide the biggest screen size, the highest speed CPU that can run Windows - tablet edition, on a non-desktop form factor. MS does not want vendors selling full fledged Windows on tablet form factor devices even though it is technically feasible.

Hardware had to be compatible to sell bundled with Windows.

MS does not want to encourage vendors who also provide open source drivers with their hardware. In this day and age, if MS made a reference standard for writing drivers hat did not require any signing, many vendors would only be too happy to innovate.

MS's goal is not to promote innovation, but to restrict vendors from making PCs that can also run Linux flawlessly. Having lost the tablet and phone business to Linux and Android, MS wants to keep on stifling the Linux desktop for as long as they can. One way they do this is to give incentives to vendors that make only Windows compatible hardware. Also the driver signing and Windows Update gives them a lever to destroy any vendor who gets too cosy with the Linux world.

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-u...

From Vista and up, the hardware can be designed to give out intentional error messages that are ignored by Windows, and thus the hardware becomes unusable in Linux.

The correct phrasing is:
That's not an iPad!

This is an iPad!

So brilliant programming languages do not permit eval($ENV["FOO"])?

Correct, because good programming languages don't have anything like eval().

Normally, in a decent programming language, if you're convinced you really need to execute unknown-until-runtime code, the first step is to get over your misconception. If you're unable to get over the misconception, then you do something like fopen('tmp.c'); fwrite... fclose, system('cc variousflags tmp.c'); system('tmp'); and then you spend the next few weeks worrying about how awful what you did was, and rethink your unnecessary "need" to run generated code.

eval() is not C or C++. It's Bourne Shell, and it's a necessary evil for a Shell language to have. That said:

• Java - http://docs.oracle.com/javase/...
• C# - http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-u...
• Python 2 - https://docs.python.org/2/libr...
• Python 3 - https://docs.python.org/3/libr...
• PERL - http://perldoc.perl.org/functi...
• Windows Powershell (via invoke-expression) - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E...
• and more - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E...

So what again was your point?

"IE, well ... treat IE like the thing you use for work when all else fails. Because there's always another exploit around the corner."
Meh, I don't recall ever having much of a problem with IE. On the topic, there is a whole "tracking protection" section under IE accelerators. I block most all of it with these 4 easy to add addons:

http://easylist-msie.adblockpl...
http://easylist-msie.adblockpl...
http://www.privacychoice.org/t...
http://ie.microsoft.com/testdr...

goto_fail is just a bug like every else. Its a major bug, yes, but its "only" a bug. There are more systemic issues.

PKI is broken. Diginotar was just one indident we know of. CAs can secretly give everybody any cert they want. We need a system where the CAs need have to publish their certs, and which itself can't forge. Certificate transparency only centralises this "tree of trust". We still need to give the tree a ground to stand on. This can be achieved by gossip protocols. With all these measures, we don't need CAs anymore. CA is a multi-million dollar industry, they won't like being obsolete.

Third point: Microsoft. They haven't added usable perfect forward secrecy until april 2014.

Fourth point: the users. They don't care, or other things are more important to them (stability, etc): Most of them don't update their browsers regularly. I don't critizise clicking away security warnings.

If you incorrectly believe that _everyone_ pays the US 35% corporate tax sure, the US has the highest corporate tax rate.

Microsoft in 2013 paid $5.1 billion in total US federal/state/local and international taxes. This is on $21.8 billion in net income. So they are paying about 23% on a global basis.

Microsoft paid out about $3.1 billion in US federal taxes, and $1.7 billion in foreign taxes, so despite making more profits oversees, Microsoft is paying more in US taxes than foreign taxes.

IllumiRoom is much better. Now if only Microsoft would hurry up and make it available as a consumer product.

http://research.microsoft.com/...

Maybe not Bash but my Windows 7 laptop has Microsoft's Unix Shell installed.
I rarely use it since I use more PHP CLI nowadays but the Linux scripts I have tried ran fine.

http://technet.microsoft.com/e...

Git doesn't make the list? I've been using zsh when I can, but I don't do a lot of scripting.

Windows could definitely use a good shell, and a good package manager. Add in some sanity regarding executable paths, drive letters, line endings, and tolerating other boot loaders, and it might start approaching a usable system. I'm pretty sure though that Linux will get gaming support in a relatively short time-frame, while Microsoft's sins will be fixed approximately never.

Why is this modded offtopic? Ah yes, because some define "Trustworthy Computing" as exclusively meaning a platform that has gained trust by the user. But you have to look at the whole picture. Security was always the first "pillar" of the "Trustworthy Computing" initiative. Protected execution and secure I/O were features Microsoft desperately wanted to incorporate into their code - the thinking being if the code couldn't be modified in ways the programmers never intended, then users *could* completely trust it. Palladium (or Next-Generation Secure Computing Base) was hailed as the holy grail of locked down code, and "Trustworthy Computing" was one of the buzzwords used by Microsoft to market it. That is, until the anti-TCP campaign made it not cool to use those terms anymore. Why not take a stroll over to Microsoft's website circa 2002 and let me know what you find: http://www.microsoft.com/resou...

It almost seems like an accident, though. They need to move to HTML5 because Microsoft supports its technologies like high school students support their relationships.

12 years for Win XP.

What is the difference between mainstream support and extended support?

Mainstream support --- Microsoft will offer mainstream support for a minimum of 5 years from the date of a product's general availability, or for 2 years after the successor product is released, whichever is longer. For example, if you buy a new version of Windows and five years later another version is released, you will still have two years of support left for the previous version.

Extended support --- Microsoft will offer extended support for either a minimum of 5 years from the date of a product's general availability, or for 2 years after the second successor product (two versions later) is released, whichever is longer.

Windows lifecycle fact sheet

WinCE still exists and is active. It's just been rebranded to Windows Embedded Compact

In spite of the re-naming, I bet it still makes people wince...

WinCE still exists and is active. It's just been rebranded to Windows Embedded Compact

? Are you trying to tell me that GDI wasn't directly accelerated in pre vista, non win9x OSs?

Because I believe you to be strongly mistaken. From the windows 2000 XDDM reference, GDI functions Implemented by printer and display drivers:

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-u...

You will notice that everything from font rendering to curve drawing, path filling (yes with xor), you name it _CAN_ be implemented although only a small subset is required. _BUT_, I would say that most were implemented by the better hardware manufactures for the common video resolutions.

You will also notice that the documentation has been updated and says "The functions documented in this section are implemented by printer drivers and by drivers in the Windows 2000 display driver model, but they are not implemented by drivers in the Windows Vista display driver model." This is also directly noticeable in GDI benchmarks between the two OS's (especially when run on slower CPU machines, or while monitoring CPU usage). There are also a fair number of youtube ( for example https://www.youtube.com/watch?...) videos of people showing things like the scrolling speeds in explorer on XP vs vista. 7 improved the situation slightly, but as of a few years ago the benchmarks I remember seeing were still strongly tilted in XP's favor if one monitors CPU usage during the benchmark.

My first instinct is to recommend iPad -- I got my parents one and they haven't booted the Windows machine in years, the dial-up aspect of that could be tricky (you would need a router that dials out via modem -- it's doable, but might be more complex and assumes the presence of a mail client on the iPad that talks to the ISP ... hopefully it's POP or IMAP, but without specifics it's hard to know. But if you must use Windows, it's not an impossible situation. You just need to know where the knobs and switches are, and enable them.

A lot of other modern stuff is going to not work well with the dialup option.

For the purposes of the discussion, I'm assuming they are on Windows 7. If they aren't on Windows 7, they need to get there, at least. If they are still on XP that just sucks because a lot of the below stuff isn't there.

Parental controls:
I have children and have done a fair bit with the parental controls. In this case, instead of the parental controls being used for kids you would be using them for your parents, which also works. To enable the parental controls, you create a username for your parents as a regular (limited) user. This will prevent them from doing a lot of stuff right off the bat, like installing software. You also should make sure that UAC is enabled. You can create a Admin user for yourself. Once you have set that up, you can download the remainder of the controls from https://familysafety.microsoft... , and then control the user account for your parents. You can control what is accessed on the Internet, if they can download stuff, programs they can run, etc.

You can also do a LOT with Group Policy. Type gpedit.msc at the Run Window and lock down everything you don't want them to change. You can lock down the Desktop, among other things.

Windows also has the ability to send a Remote Assistance request via email or as a file attachment, which uses Remote Desktop to allow screen access and control. Given that you are going to be doing this over dialup to some other part of the world, you can set your client appropriately to minimize bandwidth utilization by dropping the amount of colors being shipped back, not showing the desktop, etc -- it's all under the "Experience" tab of the Remote Desktop client, and I've successfully used it over some pretty slow connections with decent results -- it will outperform VNC in many areas, especially screen refresh time since you can cut out a lot of the unnecessary stuff.

If you are going to do the above, get it sorted out on the beginning of your next visit since when you lock stuff down it's not hard to be too tight and stop stuff from working that should actually be working.

Diskettes use yet another "megabyte" equal to 1024×1000 bytes.

Footnote:

Microsoft (2003-05-06). "Determining Actual Disk Size: Why 1.44 MB Should Be 1.40 MB". Article ID: 121839. Microsoft. Retrieved 2007-07-07. "The 1.44-megabyte (MB) value associated with the 3.5-inch disk format does not represent the actual size or free space of these disks. Although its size has been popularly called 1.44 MB, the correct size is actually 1.40 MB."

It just so happens that I was *right* in the *wrong context*. Dick.

Its a sysinternals tool, called "Desktops". Apparently it works on XP, as well. http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/cc817881.aspx

It is very limited, however. You cannot drag windows between virtual screens.

For those who think the only problem is bad programming, see Leslie Lamport's analysis: http://research.microsoft.com/... Some race conditions are built into the real world.

From Microsoft's press release:

Under the terms of the agreement, Microsoft will acquire Mojang for $2.5 billion. Microsoft expects the acquisition to be break-even in FY15 on a GAAP basis.

They expect this to pay off in a year.

It is not just for "product placement", though.

From Microsofts press release on the deal:

The agreement provides Microsoft with the rights to create exclusive interactive experiences through products such as Xbox One and Surface, transforming the way fans will experience the NFL in the years to come. The NFL on Xbox will provide fans with an all-new viewing experience through innovations around Skype and Xbox SmartGlass; an all-new, innovative fantasy football solution allowing fans to view players and live competition side by side on a single TV screen; and a personalized NFL destination featuring information about the players, teams and games fans care about most. Xbox also retains the exclusive rights to extend these interactive experiences to tablets, enabling fans to use Xbox SmartGlass technology to enhance game day.

So MS has also licensed the rights to use the NFL brand, clips etc. (could be 3D instant replay on the xbox, streaming over Skype?).

And exclusive rights for tablets. Could be a driver for Surface uptake.

And also this:

As part of the partnership, Surface by Microsoft branding will appear on NFL sidelines in unique ways, including on the hoods of the official on-field NFL instant replay stations. As part of the relationship, Microsoft will be granted the following designations:

The instant review stations are in view during some of the most tense situations of a game, with a lot of attention. Surely, that is worth money.

400.000.000 is a lot of money. I have no idea if it is too expensive or not. But it does cover more than the right to equip the sidelines with tablets.

Go to Azure website and read the terms of service they are crystal clear that law enforcement has access. I don't know what they said in private but I do know what they've said in public. They have never claimed that the US group that administers Azure doesn't have access to everything on Azure. This is the reason they sell Azure pack: http://www.microsoft.com/en-us... . That way a company can use Azure technology and Microsoft doesn't have Azure.

The article linked seems odd since it certainly has Microsoft saying the opposite of the truth. The author is probably misunderstanding something. For example confusing Azure technology with Azure cloud service.

But the mobile app will still autoplay if it detects it's on wifi instead of cell data network.

Which would hurt the owner of a Wi-Fi AP with a satellite or cellular uplink. Or does the Facebook respect the operating system's provision to mark an SSID as being metered? (In Android 4.4 "KitKat", it's Settings > Data usage > overflow > Mobile hotspots. There's also a feature for this in Windows 8.)

Well, one third of Microsoft workforce is employed in the Washington (Puget Sound) department.[1] I bet that includes thousands of Windows developers which produce tremendous value.

The C# GoTo statement is pretty uncommon to see in use:

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-u...

Wrong, there is a compatibility pack that can be installed. http://www.microsoft.com/en-us...

Been there, done that, 30 years ago.

Every Windows driver with WHDL certification has passed the Microsoft Static Driver Verifier, which is a proof of correctness checker. Passing means that the driver won't blow away the rest of the OS with a bad pointer, subscript error, or other fatal error. Since Microsoft started requring this in Windows 7, Windows OS crashes have been way down.

About 5% of verifications either require too much time or too much memory. Any formally undecidable program would hit one of those limits. If it's that hard to tell if a driver has a bug, they assume the driver has a bug.

So there. Solved problem in practice.

So now we have "Windows" isn't "Windows" argument? Look, Microsoft has kept the basic features of "windows" including how the user interface operates all the way though from 3.1.1. They have brought along a lot of baggage in the process. People, users, administrators expect that the next version will work much like the current one. I remember the jump to NT, what a mess. But Microsoft had no choice but to break a lot of expected behavior though the years, many times for security reasons, but they bring a lot of the baggage along and are forced into compromises in security in the effort to keep their user base. They couldn't just make the changes they needed to, or a lot of folks would have bailed to Linux, which had the security, and wasn't in need of change.

Yes, "Windows XP" wasn't the next version of the "Windows ME" codebase and doesn't have it.

Similar UI != same code base
just like
React OS != Windows XP

Server OS != Desktop OS

Server use cases and audience != Desktop use cases and audience

Compare CentOS with Windows Server.

If you want a further locked down machine and featureless default install, there's Windows Server Core.

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-u...

Compare Ubuntu(not Ubuntu Server) with Windows 8.

It's like me complaining that Linux comes with Amazon ads preinstalled and uploads search keywords to Canonical(like it does in Ubuntu) while Windows comes with a heavily restricted browser that doesn't even run JavaScript or download files without a lot of tweaking(Windows Server).

Get it?

You need tools that futz with low-level stuff and insert hooks into the process, like procexp.

Having to use tools that do things that you'd ordinarily associate with rootkits isn't really a good answer.

And svchost.exe can host the DLLs for multiple services at once... you can't kill the process without killing all of them. A terrible design, compensating for the heavyweight nature of Windows processes.

Here: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-u...

Yup, good news from Microsoft about Quality App Stores that never reject clearly bogus apps.