Slashdot Mirror

Then again, it might not be overclocking after all.

More relevantly, Microsoft has access to an enormous wealth of data about hardware failures from Windows Error Reporting. This paper has some fascinating data in it:

- Machines with at least 30 days of accumulated CPU time over an 8 month period had a 1 in 190 chance of crashing due to a CPU subsystem fault
- Machines that crashed once had a probability of 1 in 3.3 of crashing a second time
- The probability of a hard disk failure in the first 5 days of uptime is 1 in 470
- Once you've had one hard disk failure, the probability of a second failure is 1 in 3.4
- Once you've had two failures, the probability of a third failure is 1 in 1.9

Conclusion: When you get a hard disk failure, replace the drive immediately.

The Windows 8 privacy policy is pretty extensive. You can find it here: http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows-8/windows-8-privacy-statement

For each Windows 8 feature that collects data they include: what data they collect (including what, if any, personally identifiable information), how they use the data, and how you can opt in/out. You'll find that, at least as far as I have read (haven't read the whole thing... again it's extensive), the data they collect isn't sold or used for advertising, even within Bing.

Here is an FAQ about the CEIP.

The Windows 8 privacy policy is pretty extensive. You can find it here: http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows-8/windows-8-privacy-statement

For each Windows 8 feature that collects data they include: what data they collect (including what, if any, personally identifiable information), how they use the data, and how you can opt in/out. You'll find that, at least as far as I have read (haven't read the whole thing... again it's extensive), the data they collect isn't sold or used for advertising, even within Bing.

Here is an FAQ about the CEIP.

I'm guessing you've not used Visual Studio, SQL Server Management Studio, MS Office, Windows 8 or any other MS product. When you install an app that has ties to the "Customer Experience Improvement" stuff, there is a handy balloon at the bottom of your taskbar which invites you to click to opt out. If you dismiss the balloon, the icon in your systray stays there showing that you're collecting data.

I'm not sure how much more upfront you can get. Honestly. (And I opt out immediately for anything I use.)

Actually, it's off by default. It's an optional opt-in program.

VSS is the snapshot solution for NTFS, and of course it uses copy-on-write

Well. Maybe you better sit down in a comfortable chair and think about this a bit. From Microsoft's site: When a change to the original volume occurs, but before it is written to disk, the block about to be modified is read and then written to a “differences area”, which preserves a copy of the data block before it is overwritten with the change.

Think about what this means. It is not a "copy-on-write", it is a "copy-before-write". Gross abuse of terminology if anybody tries to call it a "copy-on-write", which has the very specific meaning of "don't modify the destination data". Instead, copy it, then modify the copy. OK, are we clear? VSS does not do copy-on-write, it does copy-before-write.

Now let's think about the implications of that. First, the write needs to be blocked until the copy-before-write completes, otherwise the copied data is not sure to be on stable storage. The copy-before-write needs to read the data from its original position, write it to some save area, then update some metadata to remember which data was saved where. How many disk seeks is that, if it's a spinning disk? If the save area is on the same spinning disk? If it's flash, how much write multiplication is that? When all of that is finally done, the original write can be unblocked and allowed to proceed. In total, how much slower is that than a simple, linear write? If you said "on the order of an order of magnitude" you would be in the ballpark. In face, it can get way worse than that if you are unlucky. In the best imaginable case, your write performance is going to take a hit by a factor of three. Usually, much much worse.

OK, did we get this straight? As a final exercise, see if you can figure out who was talking nonsense.

I concede that the terminology used by the MS article is misused. I don't think you're thinking the performance issues through though. You start with a file nicely laid out linearly on disk, and you take a snapshot so you can make a backup. Now you make a modification to the middle of the file and what happens? Suddenly the middle of the file is elsewhere on disk, and in the case of LVM this is invisible to the filesystem so no amount of defragging is going to fix it. This situation persists long after you have taken your backup and thrown the snapshot away. Of course this doesn't matter for flash but we're not all there yet. If BTRFS does snapshots using copy-on-write (correct definition) then this will be a problem too, although if BTRFS is smart enough it should be able to repair the situation once the snapshot is discarded.

VSS's way leaves the original data in-order on the storage medium. The difference area is likely on a completely different disk anyway so the copy-on-write (MS definition) could not be performed any other way.

VSS is the snapshot solution for NTFS, and of course it uses copy-on-write

Well. Maybe you better sit down in a comfortable chair and think about this a bit. From Microsoft's site: When a change to the original volume occurs, but before it is written to disk, the block about to be modified is read and then written to a “differences area”, which preserves a copy of the data block before it is overwritten with the change.

Think about what this means. It is not a "copy-on-write", it is a "copy-before-write". Gross abuse of terminology if anybody tries to call it a "copy-on-write", which has the very specific meaning of "don't modify the destination data". Instead, copy it, then modify the copy. OK, are we clear? VSS does not do copy-on-write, it does copy-before-write.

Now let's think about the implications of that. First, the write needs to be blocked until the copy-before-write completes, otherwise the copied data is not sure to be on stable storage. The copy-before-write needs to read the data from its original position, write it to some save area, then update some metadata to remember which data was saved where. How many disk seeks is that, if it's a spinning disk? If the save area is on the same spinning disk? If it's flash, how much write multiplication is that? When all of that is finally done, the original write can be unblocked and allowed to proceed. In total, how much slower is that than a simple, linear write? If you said "on the order of an order of magnitude" you would be in the ballpark. In face, it can get way worse than that if you are unlucky. In the best imaginable case, your write performance is going to take a hit by a factor of three. Usually, much much worse.

OK, did we get this straight? As a final exercise, see if you can figure out who was talking nonsense.

Tried to find some more information on this. First discovery: VSS stands for "Volume Shadow copy Service", not "Visual SourceSafe", as was my first association. :)

AFAICT he's saying pretty much what Microsoft is saying:

When a change to the original volume occurs, but before it is written to disk, the block about to be modified is read and then written to a "differences area", which preserves a copy of the data block before it is overwritten with the change. Using the blocks in the differences area and unchanged blocks in the original volume, a shadow copy can be logically constructed that represents the shadow copy at the point in time in which it was created.

The disadvantage is that in order to fully restore the data, the original data must still be available. Without the original data, the shadow copy is incomplete and cannot be used. Another disadvantage is that the performance of copy-on-write implementations can affect the performance of the original volume.

Do you have a newer reference?

Well, you're ignorant enough not to know what CalDAV is, yet still consider yourself knowledgeable enough to comment on the field, so I'd say that you're the natural target audience for trollish, flamebait headlines.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CalDAV#Implementations
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CardDAV#Implementations

http://www.microsoft.com/about/legal/en/us/IntellectualProperty/IPLicensing/Programs/ExchangeActiveSyncProtocol.aspx

Also note that ActiveSync requires an MS license to implement. Now that's lock-in.

I assume you are looking for a Linux solution, but Microsoft Mathematics really deserves a mention. It's a free-as-in-beer software which has nice graphing features and a smart equation solver. Something between a basic calculator and hardcore tool like MATLAB.

Windows Store does not require you to use its own in-app purchasing mechanisms, either. The 30% / 20% fee is only for in-app purchases implemented using the standard service, but you can just roll your own, and not pay a cent. From app developer agreement:

"In-App Commerce. You may elect to support purchasing options from within your app. You are not required to use Microsoft’s commerce engine to support those purchases. If you choose to use Microsoft’s in-app purchase commerce engine, purchases will be subject to the terms of this Agreement, including without limitation the Store Fee and licensing and roaming requirements."

Mouse events are not the only way to get mouse coordinates or button state - you can just directly ask the OS for the current state. The coordinates returned are relative to the screen, and can then be translated to window-relative coordinates. Sounds like IE is doing just that.

Oh, this crap: Windows server CALS There's typically ways around this for larger organizations through more expensive, but open licensing models. Never had to deal with it thankfully, also it's really hard to enforce for MS, so some people don't bother. You are technically right though, as per the MS licensing model, these are required.

Windows XP is on "extended support" until April of 2014. There are plenty of businesses that won't even think about upgrading to a later version until that deadline is only a few months off. Global market share for XP still 20 to 35%.

Client licenses, what? Are you talking about windows OS keys? Why would anybody think those are suddenly not required?

Then again, reading through this discussion, I'd have to say most of the posters don't have a clue what they're talking about in regards to active directory and the relevance of what samba supposedly did here. I'd still wait 1/2 a year to put it into a test environment & another year to go production. AD isn't something that can error out sometimes without consequence.

On that note, to all the businesses who can't / don't want to afford windows SBS, this should like getting free money. Otherwise AD is just a role on a modern windows server... Notice how this is not a stand alone server , 99% of the time it's better to leave it stand alone.

Also, another thing I was looking for from the article was MISMO, there is no mention of it, AD will not integrate right without it. Hopefully, those roles are handled properly if we were to integrate it with an MS AD server.

Unlike iOS app store developer agreement, the one for Windows Store has an explicit exemption for OSI-approved FOSS licenses, including GPL:

Your license terms must also not conflict with the Standard Application License Terms, in any way, except if you include FOSS, your license terms may conflict with the limitations set forth in Section 3 of those Terms, but only to the extent required by the FOSS that you use. "FOSS" means any software licensed under an Open Source Initiative Approved License.

And section 3 is as follows:

3. SCOPE OF LICENSE. The application is licensed, not sold. This agreement only gives you some rights to use the application. Application developer reserves all other rights. Unless applicable law gives you more rights despite this limitation, you may use the application only as expressly permitted in this agreement. You may not work around any technical limitations in the application; reverse engineer, decompile or disassemble the application, except and only to the extent that applicable law expressly permits, despite this limitation; make more copies of the application than specified in this agreement or allowed by applicable law, despite this limitation; publish or otherwise make the application available for others to copy; or rent, lease or lend the application.

So I don't think there's any issues with it being in the store. I mean, it would still be in a walled garden, but at that point, with the clause above rescinded, it would be purely a technical limitation that users can legally work around if they can, not a legal one.

Since we are being anal about this, it was win.com

Look at MS's financials

Yes those record-breaking earnings are so terrible.

In C# if you have no idea which exceptions to catch, you can always log or report the actual type, as in ex.GetType() and then do what you need to with that information. It is much more useful for me to run in debug mode, let the debugger stop on all thrown exceptions, and examine the type. You can either add that type to the types you catch, or fix the code so it doesn't happen.

Every catch block should have a generic Exception, which can do something with the specific exception type. If you know to look for specific ones, like timeout or network related ones, you have the option of adding those.

But I still don't understand the problem. If you want to know how to properly use a method, you should read the documentation. Go to msdn, type the class and method name, and at the bottom is a reasonable list of exceptions to expect. That isn't a waste of time.

If you write enough C#, you will learn which methods need specific handling for certain scenarios, and which ones halt all processing. "What's best to do" is always halt processing and clean up, unless you have a specific reason to take an alternate path, such as auto-retry.

Just one page at random, in case you haven't seen the exception list at the bottom of the page. Really simple to find.

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms584311.aspx

Visual Basic had:
On Error Resume Next

I last typed that when I was about 13...

The documentation shows a couple of valid uses for it.

With the ability to compile there is no "controlling what 'you' can and cannot do".

Except you need to explicitly tell OS X Mountain Lion to let you run 3rd party apps. Also, control means hardware AND software, and you certainly aren't in control of your Mac when it comes to hardware.

I mean, once I spec out a system from somewhere else that actually meets the same specification why do the prices always line up? I can't figure that one out either.

Well that is obviously just a lie.

Well, you have a point. I mean, its not like netflix is avoiding a linux release of its client, or Microsoft doesn't provide its Office Suite on Linux

What a dumb comment to make. Netflix currently can't release a Linux client because they need the DRM of Silverlight, which isn't available on Linux, and Microsoft publishes Office on Mac, so... http://www.microsoft.com/mac/products Plus I was referring to consumers, who could only benefit from more software being available on more platforms.

Posted as AC to avoid the lawyers, but here's the original before Microsoft threw buckets of money at him to avoid the bad press (or whatever happened):

Anyone who caught my previous post might already know that we recently released Great Big War Game onto Windows RT. If youâ(TM)re one of the teeny tiny crowd of people who just bought one of these devices, you can find one of the very small number of âoeproperâ games right here: http://apps.microsoft.com/webpdp/app/great-big-war-game/30f26b23-aa92-4fed-9273-099de3069616

A week after release we have made the princely sum of £52 in sales. Thatâ(TM)s not a typo. And despite this, and the fact that GBWG is one of only several halfway decent launch titles, Microsoft have confirmed they will not give us any promotional features or help us with visibility in any way.

If youâ(TM)re familiar with their new store, this means our app is forever consigned to the garbage bin, presumably earning us less than £52 a week in future. Even if that rate is sustained, it will take just under two years before we recoup the salary paid to the guy who did the port.

Apple regularly promote our apps. Android regularly promote our apps. Even RIM (Blackberry) regularly promote our apps. We enjoy working with those companies and itâ(TM)s nice to see them acknowledge that we bring them some small amount of additional value to their setup. Firms our size need a bit of a leg up, and we go out of our way to show our gratitude to the above for helping us out in this way from time to time.

Microsoft on the other hand clearly do not value us at all. Even whilst thereâ(TM)s almost nothing to promote, they will not feature our title for bizarre admin reasons. And this is whilst their store is empty and they need developers like us to fill their store far more than developers like us need them to pay us £50 a week.

Needless to say we will not be working with Microsoft again to bring any of our titles, old or new, to this platform. A snub is never a nice thing to receive, but when itâ(TM)s from someone who needs you more than you need them, itâ(TM)s doubly insulting. And itâ(TM)s not like weâ(TM)re cutting off our nose to spite our face â" even small indies can live without an additional £52 a week.

If other developers get this treatment, that store is going to look might bleak for a long time to come. Please take this as a warning. I know I sound bitter and twisted and thereâ(TM)s a reason for that â" I actually am. We have wasted a lot of time, resources and money on supporting this platform and all that happened was we got spat on.

If youâ(TM)re not familiar with Great Big War Game, hereâ(TM)s some reviews. Not many indie titles get accolades like this: http://www.rubicondev.com/gbwg/reviews.php and certainly none that youâ(TM)d expect a major platform holder to shun.

I hope this thing falls flat on itâ(TM)s face, but I do hope they donâ(TM)t take other developers down with them. We are fortunate enough to able to suck up the £6,000 it cost to do this port and move on, but other outfits may well not. Donâ(TM)t be one of them.

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows/windows-rt-faq

"Anyone who caught my previous post might already know that we recently released Great Big War Game onto Windows RT. If you're one of the teeny tiny crowd of people who just bought one of these devices, you can find one of the very small number of âoeproperâ games right here: http://apps.microsoft.com/webpdp/app/great-big-war-game/30f26b23-aa92-4fed-9273-099de3069616

A week after release we have made the princely sum of £52 in sales. That's not a typo. And despite this, and the fact that GBWG is one of only several halfway decent launch titles, Microsoft have confirmed they will not give us any promotional features or help us with visibility in any way.

If you're familiar with their new store, this means our app is forever consigned to the garbage bin, presumably earning us less than £52 a week in future. Even if that rate is sustained, it will take just under two years before we recoup the salary paid to the guy who did the port.

Apple regularly promote our apps. Android regularly promote our apps. Even RIM (Blackberry) regularly promote our apps. We enjoy working with those companies and it's nice to see them acknowledge that we bring them some small amount of additional value to their setup. Firms our size need a bit of a leg up, and we go out of our way to show our gratitude to the above for helping us out in this way from time to time.

Microsoft on the other hand clearly do not value us at all. Even whilst there's almost nothing to promote, they will not feature our title for bizarre admin reasons. And this is whilst their store is empty and they need developers like us to fill their store far more than developers like us need them to pay us £50 a week.

Needless to say we will not be working with Microsoft again to bring any of our titles, old or new, to this platform. A snub is never a nice thing to receive, but when it's from someone who needs you more than you need them, it's doubly insulting. And it's not like we're cutting off our nose to spite our face - even small indies can live without an additional £52 a week.

If other developers get this treatment, that store is going to look might bleak for a long time to come. Please take this as a warning. I know I sound bitter and twisted and there's a reason for that - I actually am. We have wasted a lot of time, resources and money on supporting this platform and all that happened was we got spat on.

If you're not familiar with Great Big War Game, here's some reviews. Not many indie titles get accolades like this: http://www.rubicondev.com/gbwg/reviews.php and certainly none that you'd expect a major platform holder to shun.

I hope this thing falls flat on it's face, but I do hope they don't take other developers down with them. We are fortunate enough to able to suck up the £6,000 it cost to do this port and move on, but other outfits may well not. Don't be one of them.

Here's my usual picture to end on.

http://www.rubicondev.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/bgifdhad.jpg"

I don't think HOSTS did it, but LMHOSTS could be loaded from a server you can reach
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc751132.aspx

In theory on a VPN it could follow you.

Revisionism. It gives a bad taste.

Microsoft also unified the computer market with Windows back in the 1990s. Before that, it was sheer chaos and incompatibility. Windows and FAT32 gave the world a standard.

Microsoft unified the computer market with MS-DOS back in the eighties. This stiffled inovation for over ten years. In the nineties there was with Linux a serious Free contender. Microsoft never (or perhaps rarely) gave the world a standard, they thrived on idiots like you who think that every fart of microsoft by virtue of being blessed by the mighty Bill or Steve sets a standard.

While many people dislike it, Microsoft Office was the first complete and integrated office suite to include all the functions needed in an average office.

Never heard of Forefront/Aston Tate's Framework from 1984? It still exists.

It took it some years to get good, but now it's the standard.

Microsoft pushes and bribes it's own practices into "standards", you're gullible if you believe that "standards"=standards.

Windows 95 gave us real multitasking at a time when you could freeze a Macintosh by holding down the mouse button. Come to think of it, the 'softies have done a lot of good things.

I don't know where to start with this one. Let's just say that you have a verry narrow world view if you think MS Windows and Mac OS were the only operating systems around.

And then there's Microsoft Research

Hahahaha, MS Research is a playground for great names so that they are cheerful and harmless and out of the way of the program managers.

and Microsoft Press.

OK, your first serious argument, MS Press did produce some awesome things. I hope MS pays you for mentioning their Press division.

Revisionism. It gives a bad taste.

Microsoft also unified the computer market with Windows back in the 1990s. Before that, it was sheer chaos and incompatibility. Windows and FAT32 gave the world a standard.

Microsoft unified the computer market with MS-DOS back in the eighties. This stiffled inovation for over ten years. In the nineties there was with Linux a serious Free contender. Microsoft never (or perhaps rarely) gave the world a standard, they thrived on idiots like you who think that every fart of microsoft by virtue of being blessed by the mighty Bill or Steve sets a standard.

While many people dislike it, Microsoft Office was the first complete and integrated office suite to include all the functions needed in an average office.

Never heard of Forefront/Aston Tate's Framework from 1984? It still exists.

It took it some years to get good, but now it's the standard.

Microsoft pushes and bribes it's own practices into "standards", you're gullible if you believe that "standards"=standards.

Windows 95 gave us real multitasking at a time when you could freeze a Macintosh by holding down the mouse button. Come to think of it, the 'softies have done a lot of good things.

I don't know where to start with this one. Let's just say that you have a verry narrow world view if you think MS Windows and Mac OS were the only operating systems around.

And then there's Microsoft Research

Hahahaha, MS Research is a playground for great names so that they are cheerful and harmless and out of the way of the program managers.

and Microsoft Press.

OK, your first serious argument, MS Press did produce some awesome things. I hope MS pays you for mentioning their Press division.

Are you saying that one can't use keyboard shortcuts in Windows 8.

Really, you seem to be making a moutain out of a mole hill. My monitors aren't even 24 inches away from me and my laptop screen is less than 10 inches from my hands.

And, as near as I can tell, Windows 8 is geared towards touchscreen devices, specifically tablets and laptops. We all have seen the slow death of the desktop computer, culminating with the all-in-one, which is effectively a deskbound laptop.

Innovation is generally incremental. The iPod was not the first MP3 player; they just perfected it. The same is true of many MSFT products.

Microsoft just made the first FULL desktop OS capable of running on all devices including touch based tablets, and you find that to be a bad move?

Microsoft also unified the computer market with Windows back in the 1990s. Before that, it was sheer chaos and incompatibility. Windows and FAT32 gave the world a standard.

While many people dislike it, Microsoft Office was the first complete and integrated office suite to include all the functions needed in an average office. It took it some years to get good, but now it's the standard.

Windows 95 gave us real multitasking at a time when you could freeze a Macintosh by holding down the mouse button.

Come to think of it, the 'softies have done a lot of good things.

And then there's Microsoft Research and Microsoft Press.

Innovation is generally incremental. The iPod was not the first MP3 player; they just perfected it. The same is true of many MSFT products.

Microsoft just made the first FULL desktop OS capable of running on all devices including touch based tablets, and you find that to be a bad move?

Microsoft also unified the computer market with Windows back in the 1990s. Before that, it was sheer chaos and incompatibility. Windows and FAT32 gave the world a standard.

While many people dislike it, Microsoft Office was the first complete and integrated office suite to include all the functions needed in an average office. It took it some years to get good, but now it's the standard.

Windows 95 gave us real multitasking at a time when you could freeze a Macintosh by holding down the mouse button.

Come to think of it, the 'softies have done a lot of good things.

And then there's Microsoft Research and Microsoft Press.

How EXACTLY are they "restricting it artificially" pray tell? If you want an XP license today you can get software assurance, an MSDN, or just buy a retail copy, that is three different ways to get XP right there.

1) I'm speaking generally, MS is just an example.
2) I'm not only talking about today but also about the future. Even if something is available today, tomorrow it may not be.
3) Re XP:
(a) AFAIK, software assurance is not for individuals and I'm not even sure that XP will be available indefinitely via this path.
(b) MSDN subscription only provides a restricted license. Quote from http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/subscriptions/cc150618.aspx: "Using the software in any other way, such as for doing email, playing games, or editing a document is another use and is not covered by the MSDN subscription license. When this happens, the underlying operating system must also be licensed normally by purchasing a regular copy of Windows such as the one that came with a new OEM PC." In addition, as in (a), I'm not sure that the products will be available indefinitely via this route.
(c) I know no place where individual consumers can still officially buy retail copies of XP other than used ones (that is, in strictly limited quantities). In addition, according to the Civil Code of my country, importing software is an additional right, absent by default, that must be specifically given by the rights holder, so the routes for getting software are even more limited.

Moreover, the physical availability of software for sale and running activation servers (that I did NOT mention at all) was not my point anyway. A company shouldn't be forced to stock all software and run activation servers indefinitely. Whan I mean is that I should be LEGALLY entitled to buy a new product but install an analogous obsolete product instead (even copied from a friend or downloaded from torrents) and install a crack removing activation if activation server aren't running anymore.

As far as verifying the claims goes, try Glassdoor. Of course, it's still a matter of trust, but it'd have to be a pretty huge conspiracy to skew the results there. In practice, comparing what I've seen there to anecdotal evidence from coworkers and friends in several big companies, it seems to be pretty accurate.

It's hard to say what the best venue is for someone fresh out of college, but beyond that it's mostly networking. I found that LinkedIn helps a lot, too. And, of course, the good old fashioned writing letters to any prospective employers and asking if they have open positions. For big guys (which is where you usually want to be if you want a stable 6-figure salary), they generally have their own public listings online, where you can find something of interest and apply right away:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/jobs
http://www.apple.com/jobs/us/index.html
http://www.google.com/about/jobs/
https://careers.microsoft.com/search.aspx ...

Cost of living in Puget Sound is relatively high, though probably not as high as SF, from what I've heard. I'm paying $1300 in rent for a 1-bedroom apartment in Redmond, but it's literally 10 minutes walking distance from my office, so they charge some premium for that. Also don't forget that there's no state income tax in WA, which comes up to a hefty difference at the end of the year.

(By the way, Google also has an office in Kirkland, WA these days, and they seem to be growing it rapidly and are constantly seeking to hire more people.)

Also we're at the verge of a netbook-caliber tablet crash where everyone realizes they all suck and stop buying them. They're too fragile, they don't have a DVD drive, they're harder to type on, the screen is tiny, they get dirty with fingerprints, they don't run 99% of software ever written, everything they do on it is designed to cost money, the browsers don't display pages correctly, the battery life is a lie, most don't have USB flash drive capabilities, they don't work with the majority of printers, and it's difficult to do meaningful work on them in any way shape or form. That's actually slightly more cons than netbooks and they went from boom to flop in approximately 2 years.

With the exception of the fingerprints/dvd issue, the Surface Pro solves all of those issues. If you're right, it looks like Microsoft might be on to something.

C++ has always been a supported target language for .NET applications.

Not C++, C++/CLI, which is a superset. You can compile ISO C++ (or rather the subset that VC supports) to managed code, but you won't be able to access managed libraries without language extensions, or author your own types that are accessible from other managed languages.

In any case, this is irrelevant, because Metro C++ apps are not managed - they're pure native; and C++/CX (the new set of language extensions to target WinRT) is not C++/CLI, despite syntactic similarity.

And HTML5/JS are effectively layers on top of .NET in Store applications (you can access .NET constructs from them)

You seem to be assuming that all the WinRT APIs are managed - they're not. You can access them from managed code because they're projected there, yes, and WinRT does use .NET assemblies to store its metadata, but they're all implemented in native C++ (yes, including Windows.UI.Xaml). So when you access those APIs from a C++/CX application, there's no managed code involved at all - it's 100% native on both your side and the library side. Similarly, for HTML5/JS, they've made their own projection of (a subset of) WinRT that has a direct interop boundary between JS and native - there's no managed code there.

This is a more detailed explanation of the relationship between WinRT and .NET that may clear some confusion.

Just because Microsoft has to support PCs that don't have secure boot doesn't mean they can't force machines that do to be Microsoft only.

UEFI can't tell that Windows 7 is a Microsoft operating system because Windows 7 doesn't carry a UEFI Secure Boot signature. Therefore, end users exercising downgrade rights will have to turn off Secure Boot to use Windows 7. And the page about downgrade rights implies that downgrade rights appear to cover the last two major versions: Windows 8 licensees can downgrade to 7 or Vista, and Windows 7 licensees can downgrade to Vista or XP. So Microsoft will more than likely allow end users to turn off Secure Boot until Windows 9 is no longer available, and that page states: "Note that end user downgrade rights will be available through the sales life cycle of Windows and Windows Server operating systems, which is up to two years after the launch date of a new version." So companies concerned about the Secure Boot problem have until two years after the launch of Windows 10 to plan their migration to hardware with a drawing of a penguin on the box. This could be seven or eight years from now.

The Windows 7 downgrade option can end tomorrow

From the page about downgrade rights: "Downgrade rights are an end-user right, documented in the Software License Terms that customers accept upon first running Windows software." If the Software License Terms are in fact a contract, then they bind Microsoft just as much as they bind the end user.

Just because Microsoft has to support PCs that don't have secure boot doesn't mean they can't force machines that do to be Microsoft only.

UEFI can't tell that Windows 7 is a Microsoft operating system because Windows 7 doesn't carry a UEFI Secure Boot signature. Therefore, end users exercising downgrade rights will have to turn off Secure Boot to use Windows 7. And the page about downgrade rights implies that downgrade rights appear to cover the last two major versions: Windows 8 licensees can downgrade to 7 or Vista, and Windows 7 licensees can downgrade to Vista or XP. So Microsoft will more than likely allow end users to turn off Secure Boot until Windows 9 is no longer available, and that page states: "Note that end user downgrade rights will be available through the sales life cycle of Windows and Windows Server operating systems, which is up to two years after the launch date of a new version." So companies concerned about the Secure Boot problem have until two years after the launch of Windows 10 to plan their migration to hardware with a drawing of a penguin on the box. This could be seven or eight years from now.

The Windows 7 downgrade option can end tomorrow

From the page about downgrade rights: "Downgrade rights are an end-user right, documented in the Software License Terms that customers accept upon first running Windows software." If the Software License Terms are in fact a contract, then they bind Microsoft just as much as they bind the end user.

I found the documentation here:

But Windows can also terminate a suspended app at any time to free up memory for other apps or to save power. When your app is terminated, it stops running and is unloaded from memory.

So I'm not crazy :)

I suppose it is simpler to believe in some kind of wild conspiracy theory than it is to believe that Microsoft listened to its customers and fixed things.

Yes it is.
  http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows-8/meet/

There are two reasons I ran the test. First, as I said, for shits and giggles. To see what it would break if I was forced to update like the poor sods stuck on XP for whatever reason. Second, because we are already seeing things for Windows 7 beginning to die. An example is the gadgets. Going to: http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows/downloads/personalize/gadgets reveals what we will see more and more.

Patches are failure you know. They have unwanted side effects that break production systems. The best thing you can get is a system so thoroughly attacked that it no longer has new vulnerabilities against it that are viable. Then don't upgrade.

While this theory has some merit, in the context of Windows 2000 it is not applicable. There is at least one known vulnerability in Windows 2000 that was not patched: http://securitywatch.pcmag.com/top-threat/284393-microsoft-not-patching-tcp-ip-vulnerabilities-on-windows-2000-and-xp and http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/security/bulletin/MS09-048#section3

The Surface Pro does include touch support - 10 point multitouch, in fact. It happens to also have an active digitizer to support pen input. It can do both.

The fact that you didn't know that implies that you really have no idea what you're talking about.

http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/news/exec/bod.aspx

Yeah. Lots of organizations skipped Vista. And I believe many will skip Windows 8. Quotes from a recent customer's IT bunch: "Vista?" "What's that?", "There's no such thing" "Does not exist"... It's either Windows XP or Windows 7. Heck they have one Windows XP 64 bit machine but no Vista (or Windows 8).

Just like Vista there may be many Windows 8 license sales, but that does not mean many organizations will actually be installing Vista or Windows 8. See: http://www.microsoft.com/oem/en/licensing/sblicensing/pages/downgrade_rights.aspx
Microsoft can say they sold Windows 8. The customer installs Windows 7. Both sides are happy.

Are these people not aware that you can downgrade to Windows 7 at any point?

MSSQL has had opt-in snapshot semantics in lieu of locks since 2005. Locks are still there because sometimes they're better, and because behavior is different enough that things may break when moving between the two, but personally I much prefer the sanity of snapshots.

You can configure MSSQL to use MVCC ( http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms177404(v=sql.105).aspx ) , it performs worse in some scenarios[1], but you don't get lots of deadlock problems which can also reduce performance.

Apparently MSSQL does it by using the tempdb which seems a bit kludgy... But I guess if you can put the tempdb on fast storage it might perform better.

MSSQL works better than MySQL but is often more painful to use than postgresql. For example with MS SQL you can't use column aliases in a "GROUP BY",

I have to say SQL Management Studio is nice (esp the full versions). But psql isn't that bad since Postgresql is not that annoying :).

I sometimes process data in Postgresql then insert the resulting output to MSSQL when it happens to be faster and easier to do the processing in Postgresql - regex matches, etc.

[1] http://sqlblog.com/blogs/linchi_shea/archive/2007/10/05/performance-impact-the-potential-cost-of-read-committed-snapshot.aspx

or possibly even free, to ensure that 'Windows Blue the next OS that everyone installs

Not free, but Ad-Supported. This is of course, a great idea, unlike Windows 8 where you still have to pay for ...oh, wait.

I'm also excited about the UI changes, can't wait for the first leaked Windows Blue Screen shot.

Support for XP ends April 8th, 2014, not 2013. FYI. We actually had to roll out another phase of XP upgrades to 2014 because of cuts to our operating budget - so I know the date very well.

According to the Microsoft Lifecycle page, you will have support for Windows 7 until 2020.

since [Windows 98] was a 16/32bit hybrid that gave devs practically bare metal access to the OS they were able to do hacks that they couldn't even do under DOS.

Then why can't they run in something like VirtualBox that allows userland code to run at full speed but emulates the "bare metal access"? Even Windows 7 Pro came with a coupon for a copy of Windows XP to run in Virtual PC at no extra charge. The historical problem with VirtualBox has been with games requiring 3D acceleration, but by the Quake III era when 3D cards were popular, Windows 2000 was coming out.

so I can add the company name to the list of people to avoid

Microsoft

Not free I will grant, but you can use this link: https://om.one.microsoft.com/opa/Validation.aspx?StoreID=b19f4ce9-dfcb-44e4-9abe-1c9dfbad47d0&LocaleCode=en-us&JavaScriptOn=yes

Not that the average user you reference has any business reinstalling their O/S. With extra steps like needing chipset drivers, Joe Average doesn't have the resources or experience to do the job. If they do, they're not average.

Final comment... a few minutes of Google searching results in MD5/SHA hashes for known MS media. So... grabbing ISOs from non-MS sites isn't as dangerous as it seems.