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I found it:
Windows server backup not exchange aware
We have decided to develop and release a VSS-based plug-in for Windows Server Backup that will enable you to properly backup and restore Exchange 2007 with a built-in Windows 2008 backup application.
While you will be able to backup and restore Exchange 2007 on Windows 2008, you should not expect feature parity with the Windows 2003 NTBackup experience.

The removal of NTBackup / its (known) inferior successor:
(Reasons listed there roughly boil down to, 1) most people get third party software; 2) ntbackup was never meant to be an enterprise solution; 3) we think optical media is the future and that tape sucks)

There are lots and lots of other posts on this. More to the point, the features you mention are brand new as of R2-- they were not there in the original release:
Windows Server Backup in Windows Server 2008 R2 includes the following improvements:
More flexibility in what you can back up. Windows Server Backup enables you to back up selected files instead of full volumes. You can also exclude files based on file type and path.

That is, you simply couldnt do this prior to R2, which, along with no tape and no exchange support, made it utterly fall off of my (and many others') radars as utterly irrelevant. Basically all of the cool features you mention simply werent there in the initial release-- it was a straight dumb "image the whole box or nothing at all" program, except it wouldnt even work if you had stuff like Exchange or HyperV and no VSS plugin.

Not only that, but even if I had noticed that release-- which TBQH i did not-- NTBackup was already such a disaster that I would be hesitant even now to return to something like WSB.

It sounds like your experience is mostly with Win Server R2 and above, which is fine; if thats true, just keep in mind that there are a lot of us with horror stories of NTBackup, and that WinServer2008 was not always as polished as it is now.

Sorry, but at least two of your points are factually incorrect.

* ReFS is lacking a few notable features, including file compression / encryption, sparse files, hard links, extended attributes, disk quotas, and others[1]. You could say that the only notable improvements over NTFS that it has would be much improved resiliency and higher capacity limits. You can't compare this to BrtFS. At all. The two aren't even in the same ballpark. ReFS is there to store millions of large files and managed bad blocks in a smart way without taking the volume offline. It supports little else.
* Dynamic access control can't even be compared to SELinux. SELinux can restrict a program to running from a certain location, it can restrict which ports in the TCP/IP stack it can/can't open, it can restrict which hosts a specific process can talk to, and yes, it can alter the fundamental view of the file system hierarchy based upon access levels granted. Dynamic access control is really just more complexity in the form of an ACL on top of the already present windows file system ACLs, and it impacts nothing outside of files[2]. Now, you can use claims (which dynamic access control is built upon, at least partially) to control other aspects of your environment, but that isn't "dynamic access control" as far as MS is concerned. Further, it really is another layer of complexity -- if your claims server (which is a web server(!)) goes down, you're losing access to stuff (but if you're a decent sized MS shop, this will likely not be an issue, as you're already maintaining decent uptime on your DCs). Then the file system level ACL comes into play again. It's going to be crazy stupid hard to diagnose a claims access issue in a large production environment, no matter what MS has done towards fixing these issues. Somewhat amusingly, dynamic access control isn't supported on ReFS at all [2].

Now normally I'd just trust you that you googled around to find this stuff, but you've got some powershell in your signature, which leads me to believe that you've done a bit more checking than the "stereotypical slashdot linux sysadmin" and this only goes towards scaring me a bit.

[1] http://blogs.msdn.com/b/b8/archive/2012/01/16/building-the-next-generation-file-system-for-windows-refs.aspx
[2] http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh831717.aspx

Hyper-V Server is still free.

(Although it should be noted article is misleading as well) Server 2012 Standard as well as Datacenter fully supports virtualization through Hyper-V. However, Standard edition is only licensed for running only two instances of _itself_ (actually more generous than the 1 physical, 1 virtual of current 2008 R2 STD licensing). Datacenter supports unlimited licenses. I am sorry, but I can only link directly to the PDF: http://download.microsoft.com/download/C/1/6/C1667DE0-EAC8-4DE7-BC47-E27DAE5B38D6/WS%202012%20Data%20Sheet_All%20Up%20Product%20Overview.pdf

Investing in one of THESE is a big help:

http://www.google.com/search?sclient=psy-ab&hl=en&site=&source=hp&q=%22DDos+Appliance%22&btnG=Search&gbv=1&sei=KYw7UI-4FsXs6wH3uIDoDw

Because DDoS/DoS CAN be stopped (Microsoft & Amazon are setup PERFECTLY vs. it in fact, read on below on that note)"

Protect Against SYN Attacks

FROM -> http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff648853.aspx

A SYN attack exploits a vulnerability in the TCP/IP connection establishment mechanism. To mount a SYN flood attack, an attacker uses a program to send a flood of TCP SYN requests to fill the pending connection queue on the server. This prevents other users from establishing network connections.

To protect the network against SYN attacks, follow these generalized steps, explained later in this document:

Enable SYN attack protection
Set SYN protection thresholds
Set additional protections
Enable SYN Attack Protection

The named value to enable SYN attack protection is located beneath the registry key:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\TcpIp\Parameters.

Value name: SynAttackProtect

Recommended value: 2

Valid values: 0, 1, 2

Description: Causes TCP to adjust retransmission of SYN-ACKS. When you configure this value the connection responses timeout more quickly in the event of a SYN attack. A SYN attack is triggered when the values of TcpMaxHalfOpen or TcpMaxHalfOpenRetried are exceeded.
Set SYN Protection Thresholds

The following values determine the thresholds for which SYN protection is triggered. All of the keys and values in this section are under the registry key

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\TcpIp\Parameters

These keys and values are:

Value name: TcpMaxPortsExhausted

Recommended value: 5

Valid values: 0?65535

Description: Specifies the threshold of TCP connection requests that must be exceeded before SYN flood protection is triggered.

Value name: TcpMaxHalfOpen

Recommended value data: 500

Valid values: 100?65535

Description: When SynAttackProtect is enabled, this value specifies the threshold of TCP connections in the SYN_RCVD state. When SynAttackProtect is exceeded, SYN flood protection is triggered.

Value name: TcpMaxHalfOpenRetried

Recommended value data: 400

Valid values: 80?65535

Description: When SynAttackProtect is enabled, this value specifies the threshold of TCP connections in the SYN_RCVD state for which at least one retransmission has been sent. When SynAttackProtect is exceeded, SYN flood protection is triggered.

Set Additional Protections

All the keys and values in this section are located under the registry key

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\TcpIp\Parameters. These keys and values are:

Value name: TcpMaxConnectResponseRetransmissions

Recommended value data: 2

Valid values: 0?255

Description: Controls how many times a SYN-ACK is retransmitted before canceling the attempt when responding to a SYN request.

Value name: TcpMaxDataRetransmissions

Recommended value data: 2

Valid values: 0?65535

Description: Specifies the number of times that TCP retransmits an individual data segment (not connection request segments) before aborting the connection.

Value name: EnablePMTUDiscovery

Recommended value data: 0

Valid values: 0, 1

Description: Setting this value to 1 (the default) forces TCP to discover the maximum transmission unit or largest packet size over the path to a remote host. An attacker can force packet fragmen

It would be interesting to see the median cost savings, vs. average cost savings. For most, I'm guessing that the cost would be rather low - less than the cost of new hardware and setting the system up again if you lose it - but that you have some extreme outliers.

That said, for OS X, Red Hat Enterprise Linux (and similar for others, I'm sure) and Windows 7 it is trivial to enable.

Start with identifying the largest directories, the easiest way is probably to:
download diruse.exe from microsoft

Execute as diruse /S /M /, /L x:\ . This will: include sub-directories, display output in Megabytes, include the thousand separator, and log to .\diruse.log. Optionally, only look at directories over a certain size by specifying /Q:1024 (in this example, it would be a 1gig folder) and only log the directories exceeding your quota with /D.

Hash all of the files, compare hashes of the files in the largest directories (or directories exceeding your quota) against all of the files, if you have same filename, modified date, size, you probably have a dupe and can add it to the short list to do a full diff on.

Most of this has been suggested already, I just suggest adding the step of identifying the largest directories first, it'll probably make the overall process a little quicker.

Like this?

I'm pretty sure the 360 controller has been available for Windows for quite some time and Kinect is also now available for Windows.

'The software proved to be the stuff of a spy film: it can grab images of computer screens, record Skype chats, turn on cameras and microphones and log keystrokes.

Sure does but it would be a really old spy film.
This technet article is from 2002 and as far as I am concerned it is already ancient.

If your PC has a microphone, RATs can capture your conversations. If you have a WebCam, many RATs can turn it on and capture video—a privacy violation without par in the malicious-code world. Everything you say and do around the PC can be recorded. Some RATs include a packet sniffer that captures and analyzes every packet that crosses the PC's network card.

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd632947.aspx

I'll download a 30 day trial of VMware Workstation 9, then download and install Windows 8 Preview ISO DVD and see for myself before I bitch & moan about it on Slashdot. From linked article in the original post, lack of intuitive, user-friendly customization, as well as lack of advanced customization options is a problem, not an opinion.

Are you intentionally dense? This was even covered on fucking Slashdot.

First things first. *You* need to know what you're looking for. This is not optional. Make a high level list of the tasks/projects to be performed by the person you hire. Then do a little bit of research into how this is done (cf. http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd349801(v=ws.10) for starters). There's plenty of information out there. Focus on what you need.

Certifications are no substitute for experience. That doesn't mean that people with certifications are not competent. People get certifications for many reasons. People lie. People lie on their resumes (I'm not sure why, it never ends well) which is why it's important to test the skills they say they have.

Take that list of tasks/projects and the research you've done and prepare a set of questions based on both. Give the candidate a scenario and have them describe how they would create a solution. Have the candidate document, by him(her)self, how to perform specific tasks. Most of all, make the questions/scenarios *relevant* to the role you need them to fill.

Make sure all candidates are asked *exactly* the same questions. Compare their answers. Compare their relative comfort level with the role for which they they are interviewing. Most candidate resumes will be completely worthless. At least 50% of those that aren't are a pack of lies. Those folks are easy to spot and weed out.

The difficult part is figuring out who can talk the talk, but can't walk the walk. That's where having the candidate perform specific tasks (with full access to the resources they'd have while doing the job) with a specific time frame. These should be tasks you (or a competent Windows person on staff, if you have one) have done and determined how long it should take. It's not necessary to tell the candidate that you're timing them -- they know, or should.

Another point that doesn't get touched on very much is that they are interviewing you as much as you are them. Make your interview questions relevant and within the scope of the role for which they are interviewing. If you try to trick them or push too hard, you'll end up alienating the good ones (they'll walk away because they have the skills to get work where they won't be harangued).

There's much more of course, but if you don't already have the appropriate interviewing/management skills to figure that out then you're the wrong person to act as the front line hiring person. HTHAL

That's not necessarily true that they want as many as possible. For the Microsoft Certified Master/Architect tracks for example, there are so few of them in the entire world that Microsoft can list them all by name on one page, and most of them are marked with affiliation "Microsoft". This is probably because the exam isn't some theory on paper but a huge practical lab exercise, similar to CCIE (which are again rare).

(Amusingly, GoDaddy is one of the few companies in the US with SQL Server MCMs)

Keep trolling bro.

there are tens of thousands of Windows admins with MCSE (now MCITP) grade qualifications

It's back to MSCE again now. http://www.microsoft.com/learning/en/us/certification/mcse.aspx Those wheeled goalposts just won't stay put!

I remember the rumors that Windows 7 would have a UNIX run-time environment (or maybe I dreamed that).

Sort of. I think what you mean is: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc779522(v=ws.10).aspx

  Microsoft has gone back and forth several times with creating a more Unixy interface to their kernel. For example the XP version was: http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=274

I remember the rumors that Windows 7 would have a UNIX run-time environment (or maybe I dreamed that).

Sort of. I think what you mean is: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc779522(v=ws.10).aspx

  Microsoft has gone back and forth several times with creating a more Unixy interface to their kernel. For example the XP version was: http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=274

A quick look here:
  http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/security/bulletin/
Reveals about one security patch for .NET each month on average. All critical remote executable.

No, that's not a correct supposition -- quite the opposite, actually. All processors, including Intel X86, use microcode (or what IBM calls millicode) to a degree.

At least from what I've read about the past few generations of S/3x0 chips, millicode is more like PALcode on the Alpha processor than like traditional microcode, i.e. it's a combination of regular machine code and processor-specific instructions that access specialized registers etc., running in a special processor mode with (presumably) fast entry and exit, support for said processor-specific instructions (which presumably trap in either both "problem state", i.e. user mode, and "supervisor state", i.e. kernel mode), and its own bank of general-purpose registers (part of the "fast entry and exit"). Instructions implemented in millicode trap to millicode routines that implement them.

What IBM called "microcode" rather than "millicode" was implemented using processor-specific instructions completely different from the machine's instruction set (instructions often having fields that directly controlled gates).

(And then there's System/38 and the pre-PowerPC AS/400, where the processor instruction set was a CISC instruction set implemented using microcode, and where the compilers available to customers generated code in an extremely CISCy instruction set that the low levels of the OS translated into machine code and ran. For legal reasons - they didn't want to have to be required to make the low-level OS code available to "plug-compatible manufacturers", i.e. cloners - they not only called the microcode that implemented the processor instruction set "microcode" ("horizontal microcode", as it probably was "fields directly control gates"-style horizontal microcode), they also called the aforementioned low level OS code "microcode" as well, even though it ran from main memory and its instruction set was the instruction set that was actually executed in application code ("vertical microcode"), and had the group working on that code report to a manager in the hardware group. See Frank Soltis's Inside the AS/400.)

IBM knows it well. After all, they invented microcode/millicode in the System/360 in 1965.

"Invented", no; the paper generally considered to have introduced the concept was "Microprogramming and the Design of the Control Circuits in an Electronic Digital Computer", by Maurice Wilkes and J. B. Stringer, from 1953. S/360 may have been the first line of computers to use microcode in most of the processors (S/360 Model 75 was, I think, implemented completely in hardwired logic).

Very cutting edge -- so cutting edge I've got to crack open some engineering manuals to try to figure out what they've done, although they probably need to write those manuals.

Well, for the previous generation, there's Volume 56, Issue 1.2 of the IBM Journal of Research and Development has some papers on the z196, but, alas, not for free online. They may publish an issue on the zEC12 at some point.

According to Microsoft's 10 Immutable Laws of Security, "it's not your computer anymore" and you need to revert to a known-good state. This generally translates into a complete restore from backups or a reinstall. If you have a spare drive, it's probably easiest to just save an entire image of the bad drive (just to make sure you don't lose anything) and do a complete wipe. You can recover any needed data from the backup image (just be careful not to actually run any apps from that backup). A current AV installed on the fresh rebuild may be able to help remove some of the junk from the backup image as well, just make sure it doesn't accidentally "clean up" anything important. That should fix the PC itself, but there are other things you may want to consider as well (as suggested by others here).

Your dad may need some training/assistance regarding finances and private info. You'll want to reset any accounts that were accessed via the tainted PC (and any others you think could have been compromised by the infected PC). If he doesn't specifically need Windows, changing to Ubuntu or similar can inherently stop Windows-specific malware (including crap from well-meaning but incompetent remote techs, e.g. unnecessary software from the ISP). I set a previous girlfriend up with a laptop running Ubuntu, and was able to find Linux versions of pretty much any app she needed for what she wanted to do (web browser, office suite, iPod software, etc.). Linux may not do everything he needs, and it won't stop phone-based social engineering, but it can go a long way to help against malware.

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows/what-is-windows-defender-offline Download it on another machine, boot with it and clean up the mess. I will recommend installing the free Microsoft Security Essentials, and avoid using administrative login. Also not using any browser plugins will help as well.

They are, actually (at least in Vista and later, and for just directories as far back as 2K), but that's irrelevant.

If you set Samba to follow symlinks, it will present it to any client applications as though it were the actual file. So even old DOS-based Windows systems can handle it.

Here you go friend, they haven't released Win 8 in stores yet so there isn't a page with Win 8 but most likely same rules apply. For those that don't know how downgrade rights work you MUST buy a system with Pro or Ultimate, Basic and Home don't have downgrade rights. Now that system can be retail or OEM, don't matter, just as long as its Pro or Ultimate.

That said downgrade rights are typically only good for two years after the release of the next version so if you are really worried about it and want to be ahead of the game personally I'd just pick up a copy of the Win 7 Family Pack, which can be found online for $100-$120 a box. That gives you three installs of Win 7 HP, 32bit or 64bit, which works out to around $40 an install. That way you can just ignore Win 8 completely and not give a shit, because its not like you have to activate all three keys at once. If you really need the Pro version you can always buy a couple of copies of it instead but I've found that other than AD support most of the Pro features are easily implemented with free software, such as a VirtualBox XP instead of XP Mode.

I think the reactions here are a little off base. First, SmartScreen is not a "new" technology, the only thing that is new is that it checks reputation for individual files as well as sites. Did we have similar articles about how Chrome/IE/Firefox/Safari is 'tracking' everything I do with its URL filtering technology? Maybe. Frankly I didn't care much for that idea either, but SmartScreen is the same exact approach taken to the file level: reputation-based file checking. Many antivirus and application gateway vendors are taking the same approach.

Secondly, it only applies *downloaded from the Internet*. There's nothing to indicate EVERY installed app is 'tracked', files downloaded from the Internet are checked against MS's reputation system. (Yes I know, almost everything is downloaded from the Internet). We see the start of this technology with the warnings that come up when a downloaded file is executed.

Third, I saw no indication that any specifics about the application such as application name (yes file name likely has this information), installation directory, what changes it makes to the system, etc. are transmitted. It likely is more along the lines of "hash xxxxxxxxxxxx downloaded from IP x.x.x.x, size x, type MSI'. Yes, MS will no doubt have a whitelist of known hashes for known application installers, so yes they probably will collect some sort of data from this. Now what really will happen with the data I can't say, but this isn't a case of MS building in overt 'tracking' technology any more than it was when Google's browser did it. Here's the FAQ on SmartScreen: http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows-vista/smartscreen-filter-frequently-asked-questions#

If you're running Windows 7, you're going to be limited to 192GB of RAM on Pro or Ultimate: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/aa366778(v=vs.85).aspx

Microsoft is more evil than Google ever was

Too bad even Microsoft cannot keep the colors in sync on their own homepage.

Of the four logos on the first page, plus the "official print" (in jpeg, mind you) logo, each of them used different colors. The green was most apparent (of course) and it is easy to see the difference between the images, but even the other colors differ.

No, whoever said that is right and YOU are wrong.

See, http://www.microsoft.com/oem/en/licensing/sblicensing/Pages/licensing_for_hobbyists.aspx#fbid=pku8zxVMZJP

"OEM System Builder Software - Must be preinstalled on a PC and sold to another unrelated party."

And if you read the actual license text (http://oem.microsoft.com/public/sblicense/2008_sb_licenses/fy08_sb_license_english.pdf) it specifically says you must install the software on a customer system, and defines customer system as one you sell.

No, whoever said that is right and YOU are wrong.

See, http://www.microsoft.com/oem/en/licensing/sblicensing/Pages/licensing_for_hobbyists.aspx#fbid=pku8zxVMZJP

"OEM System Builder Software - Must be preinstalled on a PC and sold to another unrelated party."

And if you read the actual license text (http://oem.microsoft.com/public/sblicense/2008_sb_licenses/fy08_sb_license_english.pdf) it specifically says you must install the software on a customer system, and defines customer system as one you sell.

Not illegal, but it does violate the system builder agreement.

See, for example http://www.microsoft.com/oem/en/licensing/sblicensing/Pages/licensing_for_hobbyists.aspx#fbid=pku8zxVMZJP

"OEM System Builder Software - Must be preinstalled on a PC and sold to another unrelated party."

And if you read the actual license text (http://oem.microsoft.com/public/sblicense/2008_sb_licenses/fy08_sb_license_english.pdf) it specifically says you must install the software on a customer system, and defines customer system as one you sell.

"Unless you were selling the PC the OEM license was never legal."
please, site me ONE piece of case law that says buying an OEM OS for your own hardware you build is illegal.

Just one.

"Never legal".. sheesh.

"Sure you could get it, but then you might as well pirate the OS."
That's quite a jump. Not surprising since it's built on a wrong statement, but still. Pay... MS gets money. Pirate. MS doesn't get money.

Ignoring you silly illegal argument, the OEM license with MS states:
"2. Unopened OEM System Builder packs (1-, 3-, or 30-packs) can be distributed to other system builders by themselves. Note that they must remain unopened so the receiving system builder can accept and be bound by the break-the-seal license agreement that is affixed to the pack."

http://www.microsoft.com/oem/en/licensing/sblicensing/Pages/licensing_faq.aspx#fbid=JaepAj7P0w2

To be honest, I don't understand why Microsoft doesn't just give away Windows for free as a loss leader. It sounds like they're headed toward selling software via the Microsoft store a la Apple's app store and Google Play, in which case they'll be getting a cut of all software sales. I can understand selling some kind of "business connectivity" package that contains the domain connectivity bits that companies require at a premium. They're even getting into the hardware retail business, as well as hammering hard on search (thus data mining and advertising), online services, console gaming, etc.

With their main operating system competitors a company that sells its OS as part of its hardware package (Apple) and a loose conglomerate developers that give away their operating system--and most of their productivity software--completely free (as in speech and beer), it just seems like it would be a smart move by Microsoft to completely embrace its alternative revenue streams and make a play to get legal copies of its core OS--and its connectivity to its software store where the real money is now--on every desktop, laptop, and tablet in the world. How many users, presented with the option of buying the MacOS upgrades for $20 or $25 a pop, would be mighty tempted to install Windows 8 on their Macs for free instead, especially if they know they won't have to pay for any more MacOS or Windows upgrades down the line? Microsoft could very well steal a chunk of market share from Apple on their own hardware.

The most frequent justification I see from Linux users (myself included) for using Linux is, "You never have to pay for upgrades to get the latest and greatest version again." Yeah, the free software is nice, but you can get free software (many times the exact same software--Firefox, LibreOffice, GIMP, Audacity, etc.) for Windows. Yeah, the principles behind open source are admirable--and make no mistake, I would continue to support them--but most average schmoes really couldn't care less that they can download and compile their own OS source code, and wouldn't have a clue how to go about it even if they did care.

From a purely business standpoint, I really think that giving Windows away for free is the best long-term strategy for Microsoft, and it would be perceived as a bold and welcome move by the industry as well as draw in a bunch more users who would then earn Microsoft money via software sales, advertising, and online services.

I think the retail version of Office allows you to install it on more than one personal computers as well. Whereas the OEM version is only licensed for a single computer.

http://www.microsoft.com/About/Legal/EN/US/IntellectualProperty/UseTerms/Default.aspx

If you read the terms for Office 2010 Home/Student edition for example, it says:

INSTALLATION AND USE RIGHTS.
a. One Copy per Device. You may install one copy of the software on one device. That device is the âoelicensed device.â
b. Licensed Device. You may only use one copy of the software on the licensed device at a time.
c. Portable Device. You may install another copy of the software on a portable device for use by the single primary user of the licensed device.
d. Separation of Components. The components of the software are licensed as a single unit. You may not separate the components and install them on different devices.
e. Alternative Versions. The software may include more than one version, such as 32-bit and 64-bit. You may install and use only one version at a time.

Which with A and C, you can install it on your primary computer as well as a portable device (that's two). I've seen others that allow for additional installs (I want to say three is typically the max, but I don't have a firm example).

This has apparently been known about a for while in some developer communities. The first result in a Bing search for "windows 8 hosts file" returns a MSDN post from Sept 2011 identifying the problem.

You cherry picked with the bomb, a comparable error screen would be

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Sad_mac.png

Only place i ever saw a table for what the codes meant was in the someones mac bible, and yes there was variation in the mac's but they still had complete control and had the option/opportunity/ability to test and verify every configuration.

I didn't cherry-pick anything. I just clicked the first or second link that came up. I think your tinfoil hat is restricting the bloodflow to your brain. The "bomb" was ONLY available AFTER MacOS was up and running. Not so the "Sad Mac", which ONLY happened during POST, and had NOTHING to do with the OS, since there wasn't one yet.

A Sad Mac screen was ALWAYS a HARDWARE failure. COMPLETELY DIfferent animal. And I think I've only seen ONE of those "in real life" since 1983... If you've seen more than that, you had a Mac with a hardware issue, period.

It is YOU that is either cherry-picking, or ignorant. I'd vote the latter.

As for the availability of the "Bomb IDs", they are/were readily available on the internet, at your local User Group (remember those?), etc. In fact, in astonishing example of "continuing support", Apple STILL publishes a list of the System Error IDs, and their explanations, as well as a series of support pages regarding the "Sad Mac" Codes, and their explanations! It wasn't until later that Apple had the ROM space to put in explanations (like in the example I provided), instead of just "ID= -39", etc.

The Sad Mac codes were a bit more arcane; but seen so seldom that they almost always meant a trip to the repair shop, anyway...

Wouldn't that "restricted range of hardware" also apply to those who obeyed the Hardware Compatibilty List for NT? I seem to remember something about that... I have pesonally seen BSODs on many NT-based systems that did not stray one iota from the HCL. Now what?

Hosts was always an unsupported system file hack

Where do you get this idea from? Hosts files are a common part of the IP stack of various operating systems. Microsoft has been using hosts files at least since Windows 95. They are fully supported and documented.

ahem...

"Universal ASIO for all or better with near zero-latency sound output."

Just to inform you Microshaft has been actively trying to eliminate ASIO for one hell of a long time.... they did not allow for ASIO drivers in their VISTA launch ...but very quickly retracted after ever audio pro on the planet screamed bloody murder.

W7 and Server8 allowed for ASIO at release to make sure that every studio, tv and radio station on the planet would not just rush out and buy Mac Pro servers. Just think if all of a sudden Microsoft lost every sale of NT based media servers.. this almost occurred with the release of Vista and until service pack one no-one in the audio industry even considered upgrading.

It will be interesting if the core W8 audio api is all that you can code to.

I have delved into the core specs of the windows hd audio api and essentially they are a not very well disguised ASIO clone. I would not at all be surprised if again they try to co-opt the Steinberg audio standard and disallow rt process drivers other than ones written to the Windows core API... The bastards in Redmond are nothing if not consistent in screwing over the competition.

The added cost is only if the user switched certain versions say from Vista basic/Home as part of the downgrade. Read for yourself from MS themselves. If the user got Vista Ultimate, they got downgrade rights. However many OEMs I remember strongly urging consumers (or were forced by consumers) to offer XP.

And when does Win 7 expire?

In less than 7 and a half years.

Windows 8 will presumably expire 10 years after it becomes generally available.

And when does Win 7 expire?

In less than 7 and a half years.

Windows 8 will presumably expire 10 years after it becomes generally available.

"Buy Windows 8 or your computer will be unsafe to use in less than 7 and a half years."

For what it's worth, Windows Vista "expires" on 4/11/2017 and Windows XP "expires" on 4/8/2014. That's less than 20 months away, folks.

I think he does mean 150GB: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windowsazure/ee336245.aspx#dcasl

Windows Azure SQL Database provides two database editions: Web Edition and Business Edition. Web Edition databases can grow up to a size of 5 GB and Business Edition databases can grow up to a size of 150 GB.

Here are some benchmarks - which might be out of date:
http://blogs.microsoft.co.il/blogs/applisec/archive/2012/02/02/windows-azure-benchmarks-part-13-sql-azure-read-throughput.aspx
http://blogs.microsoft.co.il/blogs/applisec/archive/2012/02/08/windows-azure-benchmarks-part-14-sql-azure-write-throughput.aspx
http://blogs.microsoft.co.il/blogs/applisec/archive/2012/02/13/windows-azure-benchmarks-part-15-sql-azure-read-latency.aspx
http://blogs.microsoft.co.il/blogs/applisec/archive/2012/02/16/windows-azure-benchmarks-part-16-sql-azure-write-latency.aspx
http://blogs.microsoft.co.il/blogs/applisec/archive/2012/02/22/windows-azure-benchmarks-part-17-compare-storage-types-performance.aspx

The performance might have increased since.

Doesn't the Azure SQL Server get throttled?
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/10420721/sql-azure-throttling-the-effect-of-indexes
http://social.technet.microsoft.com/wiki/contents/articles/3507.windows-azure-sql-database-performance-and-elasticity-guide.aspx#SQL_Azure_Engine_Throttling

So basically it's nice till you really have to use it then you get throttled- the last I checked it didn't take that many rps to get throttled, has that changed already? If you could shard things so easily with federation you might as well use the azure table and blob stuff. Many people like to use SQL DBs for stuff that doesn't shard well, and "NOSQL" for the shard stuff.

From what I see they are still playing catch up with Amazon. The service isn't that stable yet. Don't bet your job/project on it, unless Microsoft is paying you $$$$$$ for it. AND you don't mind spending hours publishing, redeploying your stuff and hoping for the best. Even Microsoft doesn't know why their stuff sometimes doesn't work.

Maybe in 2 or 3 years time, they'd be a serious contender. They are trying very hard to add features and improve things.

p.s. And Azure only works 365 days a year, so beware of leap years... I guess when they said 24 x 365 they weren't joking ;).

It could be worse though, in .NET if you run out of stack, you don't even get the exception - it just exits.

You do get a StackOverflowException, actually. The catch - pardon the pun - is that it's a "magic" exception type that cannot be caught by user code, since .NET 2.0. So in practice it's only there for debuggers.

For a Microsoft shop, MCPD may have some weight for those early in their career.

He probably meant impossble for anyone not being Microsoft. There is, for example a tag called autoSpaceLikeWord95 standing for Emulate Word 95 Full-Width Character Spacing; and there is more.

That's a pretty old blog post... it's from 2007, but ISO 29500-1 wasn't officially standardized until 2008. IIRC, the issues he's talking about were problems with the draft standard that MS submitted. They were cleaned up for the final spec. The real ISO standards cost $$$ to get, but a quick Google search shows that MS has documented autoSpaceLikeWord95 as:

9.7.3.4 autoSpaceLikeWord95 (Incorrectly Adjust Text Spacing for Specific Unicode Ranges)

This element specifies adjustments (detailed below) which should be applied to the spacing between adjoining regions of non-ideographic and ideographic text when the autoSpaceDE (Part 1, 17.3.1.2) and autoSpaceDN (Part 1, 17.3.1.3) elements have a value of true (or equivalent). This algorithm typically results in the following:

• An increase in the inter-character spacing added between non-ideographic and/or number characters and certain full-width characters
• No inter-character spacing between non-ideographic and/or number characters and certain half-width characters

Typically, applications apply additional spacing between ideographic and non-ideographic characters/numeric characters when the autoSpaceDE / autoSpaceDN properties are applied. This element, when present with a val attribute value of true (or equivalent), specifies that applications shall apply the following adjustments to this logic:

• Characters in the following Unicode ranges should be treated as ideographic, even though those characters are full-width forms of non-ideographic text: U+FF10–U+FF19, U+FF21–U+FF3A, and U+FF41–U+FF5A. [Note: This results in the unnecessary addition of space. end note]

• Characters in the following Unicode ranges should be treated as non-ideographic, even though those characters are ideographic: U+FF66–U+FF9F. [Note: This results in the omission of the intended additional space. end note]

While Microsoft locks into contracts with educational institutions it's a nice change to see this sort of thing happening.

Now hand in your sarcasm badge, Sir!

For a good read on this problem, I highly recommend the Fourth Paradigm: http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/collaboration/fourthparadigm/ .

This is a free ebook download from Microsoft and uses a variety of leaders in data driven science to write chapters about a variety of scientific disciplins and what "big data" means to them. The first chapter is especially enlightening! Blurb about the book:

Increasingly, scientific breakthroughs will be powered by advanced computing capabilities that help researchers manipulate and explore massive datasets.

The speed at which any given scientific discipline advances will depend on how well its researchers collaborate with one another, and with technologists, in areas of eScience such as databases, workflow management, visualization, and cloud computing technologies.

In The Fourth Paradigm: Data-Intensive Scientific Discovery, the collection of essays expands on the vision of pioneering computer scientist Jim Gray for a new, fourth paradigm of discovery based on data-intensive science and offers insights into how it can be fully realized.

Haven't heard of much else from Microsoft Garage than Mouse Without Borders. Does anyone have any other examples?