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Please demonstrate one area in which Microsoft has innovated. Buying a startup and putting the polish on doesn't count.

Microsoft's BlueTrack preceded Logitech's Darkfield for at least 2 years? To certain extent, I think Kinect too. Microsoft did not invent the sensor, but they did a quite a lot of work to make it feasible and cheap enough for the masses

The camera sensor pieces used in Kinect appeared in many things, ranging from mars probes to remote UAVs to video games in arcades to smart bombs and more. The video arcade games even had the same functionality. MS just took it and made it into a cheaper computer connected webcam. That is not innovation. That's applying the copy and make it cheaper strategy.

Microsoft Research is the most depressing part of that whole company. There have so many great researchers and computer scientists working there and you hear very little from them. People who used to publish papers every year join up with MR and are never heard from again. It's a roach motel of computer scientists.

Obviously you do not track the academic conference and journals. Microsoft Research publishes a huge number of papers each year, dominating in many research areas. Here's a graph of their publication counts: http://academic.research.microsoft.com/Organization/20355/microsoft

If you read the Jargon file or read up on hacker lore from the '80s and '90s, IBM was the big, evil giant hackers despised for its unfair strong-arm tactics and lousy products. Microsoft stole that crown in the early '90s.

My perception of MS is actually improving.

1. The Netscape lawsuit actually did rein in some of their unlawful bullying. Yes, they got away with a slap on the wrist but the cost of the lawsuit convinced them to change their ways anyhow.
2. After the Vista debacle, Windows 7 is a better quality product than anything I've seen out of Redmond since MS-DOS 6.22.
3. Yes, Microsoft created the fertile environment for worms and enabled the black-hat underground for a decade. But by 2005, MS had changed its tune. Bill gates even said

   "Our primary goal is to improve security and safety for all our customers -- consumers and businesses, regardless of size ..."

So what I see is a company that is, too slowly, trying to learn from its mistakes.

As Microsoft loses primacy, it loses power. I wonder if it is also losing its capacity to do harm, and if a decade from now the MS-bashing will seem as quaint and misplaced as IBM-bashing does today.

Not that I like Microsoft, but to dismiss their work simply out of predjudice is silly.

Please demonstrate one area in which Microsoft has innovated. Buying a startup and putting the polish on doesn't count.

Microsoft's BlueTrack preceded Logitech's Darkfield for at least 2 years? To certain extent, I think Kinect too. Microsoft did not invent the sensor, but they did a quite a lot of work to make it feasible and cheap enough for the masses

Yes. Microsoft Research.

1.) I have a board with screws in it I wanted removed
2.) I need a screwdriver
3.) Does it MATTER who makes said screwdriver? No.

SAME AS THIS/EQUALS

A.) I have software I need to run to do LHC computations with portable source
B.) I need an Operating System to run said ported ware
C.) Does it MATTER who makes said OS @ that point? No.

* ANYONE who actually codes & has ported code between platforms realizes this much from above...

(They all/each do the same basic things - tools are tools + can be adapted to specific tasks (and yes, MS does license sourcecode to Windows NT-based OS too, just like Open Source Linux for the MOST part))

I do see Mr. Missing Matter's point - it IS logical, feasible, & possible... especially because of what's in my 'p.s.' below + the link there.

APK

P.S.=> So - is there a "Windows Screwdriver" for this? Sure is...

Windows for High Performance Computing -> http://www.microsoft.com/hpc/en/us/product/cluster-computing.aspx

So, there you go...

The fact the LHC folks elected to use Linux means they're probably looking to save monies where possible, AND, are most likely just folks that favor Linux!

Don't get me wrong (many of you often do): I don't "hate Linux"!

(Heck, I probably tried & ran it before many of you ever did in version 1.02 by Slackware circa early 1994 iirc, later in RedHat 6.0 around 1999, for all of Summer 2010 while I was in Europe using KUbuntu 10.04, & now I have a KUbuntu 12.04 laptop going here too - so, yes: Linux works for things too & even a KNOWN "Windows-Centric Fanboy" like myself gives it a go now & then...).

HOWEVER:

What do I dislike? FUD!

I hate FUD spread around regarding it vs. Windows such as "Linux = Secure, Windows != Secure" because one's used more (Windows) by FAR in both PC desktops + Servers combined & thus, presents a larger target for hacker/cracker/malware maker/botnet herder scumbags out there - better "ROI" for their efforts, & more "easy meat noob" type users who are NOT security conscious... what shoots Linux down even more here on THAT VERY FRONT, is ANDROID (Yes, it IS a Linux) - it's got holes appearing on it left & right for YEARS now almost daily!

On the security front? Not a SINGLE ONE of the OS' out there in mainstream usage without security hardening are as SECURE AS POSSIBLE "outta-the-box"/"oem-stock", period... that takes actual work above & beyond std. setup!

... apk

Microsoft has never been an innovative company. Never.

They came up with AJAX and prior to that Iframes, maybe you've heard of those?
Microsoft had the first console to feature an internal HD eliminating the need for memory cards for save games among other things.
Intellisense is amazing (it's an example of auto completion done well).
The scroll wheel on a mouse. The first optical mouse.
The first mouse featuring backwards and forwards buttons.
First mainstream ergonomic mouse.
While not the first, they're responsible for ergonomic keyboards (due making them affordable, just like PCs)
Teraserver (1998 a precursor to Google Earth)
Involved in the creation of the browser useragent
Video codec innovations which led to VC-1 being the premier codec for HD-DVD and BR discs.
Helped establish TrueType
ClearType
The Taskbar
Ability to alter compiled code while debugging it
Dynamic HTML desktops
Lots of small innovations in .NET that when combined equal large cumulative innovation.
XNA
Alt tab to switch between applications
Photosynth
Microsoft OneNote
First OS to have a 3D Sound api for games
Shadow Copy
Certainly that should qualify as an innovation.

They won the PC-DOS contract in 1981, overlaid it with Windows GUI 4 years later...Apple that were doing the innovating.....

By giving Xerox a bunch of stock in their company for access to their GUI technology, essentially buying technology just like Microsoft?

I know very few people write code in the first place, but I've never seen a workable system for entering a computer program through dictation. I searched Google for programming language dictation, and the impression I got from pages like this (disclaimer: decade old) was that it's not there yet. If it were there yet, there'd be a HOWTO or something in the first ten results. That's why when I work on personal programming projects on the bus commute to and from work, I do it on a 10" laptop.

You mean like ms12-020? There are lots of others too. Just Google "windows remote exploits"

" The following mitigating factors may be helpful in your situation:

By default, the Remote Desktop Protocol is not enabled on any Windows operating system. Systems that do not have RDP enabled are not at risk. Note that on Windows XP and Windows Server 2003, Remote Assistance can enable RDP."

a lease that ends [...] when the operating system leaves extended support

I'm pretty sure that the relevant law would require an explicit revocation date

And lawyers have figured out plenty of ways to work around the rule against perpetuities. I have observed that a major version of Windows leaves mainstream support five years after it is published or two years after the next major version is published, whichever is later. It leaves extended support five years after that. This means a single major version of Windows will be supported for about ten to twelve years, as seen on Windows lifecycle fact sheet. So the license for a computer program could be written to expire twelve years after the program's publication.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2719615

* And, there you go...

APK

P.S.=> So much for the article's statement of:

"attack that targets a flaw in Microsoft's XML Core Services, which remains unpatched. Unfortunately, the changes prove once again that the criminal economy online is alive and well."

To that?

Ahem: It's only "alive & well", IF YOU'RE STUPID... period!

(Sorry, I have to be as forthcoming as I can & blunt about that much!)

---

For FIREFOX Users:

Others here noted using NoScript - excellent idea, for FireFox users...

---

For OPERA Users:

Opera users have a "by site preferences" that allows users to BLOCK JAVASCRIPT ON ALL SITES (except for the "exceptions sites" that you create - Where you actually NEED it)

---

All of the above SHOULD "do the job" nicely, vs. these online idiots that create malware, easily, per ALL of the above!

... apk

I'm looking at the box here, and it says right here under "Minimum System Requirements", "Windows XP/Vista/7 (latest service packs) with DX 9.0c" or "Mac OS X 10.6.8, 10.7.x or newer". I don't see it claiming to support linux at all. Why would you buy something for an OS different than yours and demand that it work? Should I be pissed off I can't play this on my BeOS machine?

This isn't about supporting, it's about not banning.

Microsoft does not support you running Diablo III in 64-bit Windows either, but they don't invalidate your copy of Windows because of it.

they may take away the capability to disable it entirely

They already are taking it away on ARM based systems. "On an ARM system, it is forbidden to enable Custom Mode. ... Disabling Secure MUST NOT be possible on ARM systems" (page 122 of Windows Hardware Certification Requirements)

You're forgetting the days of the "Blue Screen of Death." That was pretty consistent.

Hey, you speak like that was in the past. This weekend I installed a (legal, purchased, licensed) copy of Windows 7 Home Premium onto my new machine so I could run games. I installed six games. None of them would run, and of those three failed with blue screens of death: Oblivion, Settlers IV, and Alpha Centauri. What makes that a particularly sour experience is that Oblivion, at least (haven't tried the other two), runs pretty well under WINE (some minor graphics problems, but it's playable).

Apart from that, Windows 7 cannot access the Internet, although Linux running on the same machine can, and although in Windows it can access the rest of my local network and the rest of my local network can access it. Because it can't access the Internet, my newer games won't run. Microsoft's support pages say the most likely reason is that my router is too old to support the modern wizz-bang networking of Windows 7, and they provide an online tool to test your router... but guess what, it only works with Internet Explorer, so if you need it you definitely can't use it, and if you can use it you definitely don't need it.

That's the level of thoughtfulness and quality I've come to expect from Microsoft.

Either you're terrible with computers (sounds like it), or you're trying to earn shill cash. I've had more kernel panics, lock ups, *nix FAIL in the past 10 years than BSODs. As a matter of fact, I haven't had a BSOD in such a long time, I don't even remember when I had one (probably approaching 10 years). I had a kernel panic a few weeks ago that locked up my sever and trashed the first few sectors of a RAID partition. I've NEVER lost files due to Windows. NEVER.

You're forgetting the days of the "Blue Screen of Death." That was pretty consistent.

Hey, you speak like that was in the past. This weekend I installed a (legal, purchased, licensed) copy of Windows 7 Home Premium onto my new machine so I could run games. I installed six games. None of them would run, and of those three failed with blue screens of death: Oblivion, Settlers IV, and Alpha Centauri. What makes that a particularly sour experience is that Oblivion, at least (haven't tried the other two), runs pretty well under WINE (some minor graphics problems, but it's playable).

Apart from that, Windows 7 cannot access the Internet, although Linux running on the same machine can, and although in Windows it can access the rest of my local network and the rest of my local network can access it. Because it can't access the Internet, my newer games won't run. Microsoft's support pages say the most likely reason is that my router is too old to support the modern wizz-bang networking of Windows 7, and they provide an online tool to test your router... but guess what, it only works with Internet Explorer, so if you need it you definitely can't use it, and if you can use it you definitely don't need it.

That's the level of thoughtfulness and quality I've come to expect from Microsoft.

My guess ist that Windows simply ignored it, so there never was a 61st second in a minute.

Well, if Microsoft's documentation of the SYSTEMTIME structure reflects the implementation, GetSystemTime() , the claim in that man page^W^WMSDN page that "The system time is expressed in Coordinated Universal Time (UTC)" nonwithstanding, cannot acknowledge the existence of a 61st second in a minute ("The second. The valid values for this member are 0 through 59.", as the SYSTEMTIME page says).

But, just as on UN*X, you have "counter" and "human-style label" times (time_t, struct timeval, struct timespec are examples of the former, and a struct tm as returned by, for example, gmtime() is an example of the latter, on UN*X), with the Windows versions of those being SYSTEMTIME and FILETIME respectively. That page on FILETIME says nothing about leap seconds - does it just keep counting over a positive leap second or does it stop or what? And, if it doesn't just keep counting over a positive leap second, does it just freeze for a while second, or does it slow down over some period of time so that it eventually syncs up, or what?

As for NTP, Microsoft has a page on "How the Windows Time service treats a leap second", which says

When the Windows Time service is working as a Network Time Protocol (NTP) client

The Windows Time service does not indicate the value of the Leap Indicator when the Windows Time service receives a packet that includes a leap second. (The Leap Indicator indicates whether an impending leap second is to be inserted or deleted in the last minute of the current day.) Therefore, after the leap second occurs, the NTP client that is running Windows Time service is one second faster than the actual time. This time difference is resolved at the next time synchronization.

(the author of which needs to be told what "inserted or deleted" implies - do they mean that, regardless of whether a leap second is inserted or deleted, the NTP client that is running Windows Time service is one second faster than the actual time?)

And then there's one more question: if there's anything in the NT kernel that deals with leap seconds, does any version have a glitch, as some versions of the Linux kernel do?

If not, then many of the other problems might not exist on Windows. This email from John Stultz, the author of the fix linked to in the previous paragraph, seems to indicate that at least some of the problems, if not all of them, stem from a kernel bug, so it might be that Java and company might be Just Fine on systems that don't have a kernel glitch of that sort (so they might work fine on at least some non-Linux systems, as well as on Linux systems with the bug fixed).

My guess ist that Windows simply ignored it, so there never was a 61st second in a minute.

Well, if Microsoft's documentation of the SYSTEMTIME structure reflects the implementation, GetSystemTime() , the claim in that man page^W^WMSDN page that "The system time is expressed in Coordinated Universal Time (UTC)" nonwithstanding, cannot acknowledge the existence of a 61st second in a minute ("The second. The valid values for this member are 0 through 59.", as the SYSTEMTIME page says).

But, just as on UN*X, you have "counter" and "human-style label" times (time_t, struct timeval, struct timespec are examples of the former, and a struct tm as returned by, for example, gmtime() is an example of the latter, on UN*X), with the Windows versions of those being SYSTEMTIME and FILETIME respectively. That page on FILETIME says nothing about leap seconds - does it just keep counting over a positive leap second or does it stop or what? And, if it doesn't just keep counting over a positive leap second, does it just freeze for a while second, or does it slow down over some period of time so that it eventually syncs up, or what?

As for NTP, Microsoft has a page on "How the Windows Time service treats a leap second", which says

When the Windows Time service is working as a Network Time Protocol (NTP) client

The Windows Time service does not indicate the value of the Leap Indicator when the Windows Time service receives a packet that includes a leap second. (The Leap Indicator indicates whether an impending leap second is to be inserted or deleted in the last minute of the current day.) Therefore, after the leap second occurs, the NTP client that is running Windows Time service is one second faster than the actual time. This time difference is resolved at the next time synchronization.

(the author of which needs to be told what "inserted or deleted" implies - do they mean that, regardless of whether a leap second is inserted or deleted, the NTP client that is running Windows Time service is one second faster than the actual time?)

And then there's one more question: if there's anything in the NT kernel that deals with leap seconds, does any version have a glitch, as some versions of the Linux kernel do?

If not, then many of the other problems might not exist on Windows. This email from John Stultz, the author of the fix linked to in the previous paragraph, seems to indicate that at least some of the problems, if not all of them, stem from a kernel bug, so it might be that Java and company might be Just Fine on systems that don't have a kernel glitch of that sort (so they might work fine on at least some non-Linux systems, as well as on Linux systems with the bug fixed).

My guess ist that Windows simply ignored it, so there never was a 61st second in a minute.

Well, if Microsoft's documentation of the SYSTEMTIME structure reflects the implementation, GetSystemTime() , the claim in that man page^W^WMSDN page that "The system time is expressed in Coordinated Universal Time (UTC)" nonwithstanding, cannot acknowledge the existence of a 61st second in a minute ("The second. The valid values for this member are 0 through 59.", as the SYSTEMTIME page says).

But, just as on UN*X, you have "counter" and "human-style label" times (time_t, struct timeval, struct timespec are examples of the former, and a struct tm as returned by, for example, gmtime() is an example of the latter, on UN*X), with the Windows versions of those being SYSTEMTIME and FILETIME respectively. That page on FILETIME says nothing about leap seconds - does it just keep counting over a positive leap second or does it stop or what? And, if it doesn't just keep counting over a positive leap second, does it just freeze for a while second, or does it slow down over some period of time so that it eventually syncs up, or what?

As for NTP, Microsoft has a page on "How the Windows Time service treats a leap second", which says

When the Windows Time service is working as a Network Time Protocol (NTP) client

The Windows Time service does not indicate the value of the Leap Indicator when the Windows Time service receives a packet that includes a leap second. (The Leap Indicator indicates whether an impending leap second is to be inserted or deleted in the last minute of the current day.) Therefore, after the leap second occurs, the NTP client that is running Windows Time service is one second faster than the actual time. This time difference is resolved at the next time synchronization.

(the author of which needs to be told what "inserted or deleted" implies - do they mean that, regardless of whether a leap second is inserted or deleted, the NTP client that is running Windows Time service is one second faster than the actual time?)

And then there's one more question: if there's anything in the NT kernel that deals with leap seconds, does any version have a glitch, as some versions of the Linux kernel do?

If not, then many of the other problems might not exist on Windows. This email from John Stultz, the author of the fix linked to in the previous paragraph, seems to indicate that at least some of the problems, if not all of them, stem from a kernel bug, so it might be that Java and company might be Just Fine on systems that don't have a kernel glitch of that sort (so they might work fine on at least some non-Linux systems, as well as on Linux systems with the bug fixed).

My guess ist that Windows simply ignored it, so there never was a 61st second in a minute.

Well, if Microsoft's documentation of the SYSTEMTIME structure reflects the implementation, GetSystemTime() , the claim in that man page^W^WMSDN page that "The system time is expressed in Coordinated Universal Time (UTC)" nonwithstanding, cannot acknowledge the existence of a 61st second in a minute ("The second. The valid values for this member are 0 through 59.", as the SYSTEMTIME page says).

But, just as on UN*X, you have "counter" and "human-style label" times (time_t, struct timeval, struct timespec are examples of the former, and a struct tm as returned by, for example, gmtime() is an example of the latter, on UN*X), with the Windows versions of those being SYSTEMTIME and FILETIME respectively. That page on FILETIME says nothing about leap seconds - does it just keep counting over a positive leap second or does it stop or what? And, if it doesn't just keep counting over a positive leap second, does it just freeze for a while second, or does it slow down over some period of time so that it eventually syncs up, or what?

As for NTP, Microsoft has a page on "How the Windows Time service treats a leap second", which says

When the Windows Time service is working as a Network Time Protocol (NTP) client

The Windows Time service does not indicate the value of the Leap Indicator when the Windows Time service receives a packet that includes a leap second. (The Leap Indicator indicates whether an impending leap second is to be inserted or deleted in the last minute of the current day.) Therefore, after the leap second occurs, the NTP client that is running Windows Time service is one second faster than the actual time. This time difference is resolved at the next time synchronization.

(the author of which needs to be told what "inserted or deleted" implies - do they mean that, regardless of whether a leap second is inserted or deleted, the NTP client that is running Windows Time service is one second faster than the actual time?)

And then there's one more question: if there's anything in the NT kernel that deals with leap seconds, does any version have a glitch, as some versions of the Linux kernel do?

If not, then many of the other problems might not exist on Windows. This email from John Stultz, the author of the fix linked to in the previous paragraph, seems to indicate that at least some of the problems, if not all of them, stem from a kernel bug, so it might be that Java and company might be Just Fine on systems that don't have a kernel glitch of that sort (so they might work fine on at least some non-Linux systems, as well as on Linux systems with the bug fixed).

Actually no it's not... Linux has that already and it works just fine, anyone who has gone through the pain of getting flash player to work before the x64 port can tell you. This is actually more similar (albeit with more restrictions) to setting the /LARGEADDRESSAWARE:NO option on the linker in Visual C++. An option you'll notice that comes with a significant warning about interoperability. Microsoft solved this problem by making pointer handling the developer's job, this meant that they could continue to use x86-64 libraries without an issue but all malloc operations would return addresses that are safe to sign extend.

The benefit on windows is that you:

1. Use less ram on an x64 bit OS than a corresponding x86 application would, this is because you won't have x64 threads for each x86 thread you have going, and won't have to load the thunking DLLs
2. In theory could interop with x86 code since your pointers are safe, however this is not supported

You mean like ms12-020? There are lots of others too. Just Google "windows remote exploits"

It's not showing much profit even now. You can go and see for yourself. Biggest profit their Home & Entertainment division turned in recently was $1.3bil last year - Windows turned in $13bil same year, for comparison. This quarter it is $229mil in red again, with total for 9 months at half the last year's number. Summing over XBox 360's generation they lost about $1.5bil on this.

Agreed that PHP needs a major cleanup, but the resultant product probably shouldn't be called PHP 6

I agree entirely.. try some of these forks: http://www.ruby-lang.org/ http://www.python.org/ http://www.java.com/ http://www.microsoft.com/net, http://nodejs.org/

They are actually good for a change!

Yeah, the thing is the shells that have taken this form (since Windows 3.11) over the years usually were administer by someone else and presented you with the few options you were supposed to use.

At Ease

Novell Application Launcher

Tiotha

AOL Kids

iOS

Microsoft is probably planning to distribute Metro apps exclusively through their online store. So they are adopting the user interface used when controlling what the user may run. They do this for the money, let's not pretend there is any other reason.

I really hope apple keeps this option!

Yeah, the thing is the shells that have taken this form (since Windows 3.11) over the years usually were administer by someone else and presented you with the few options you were supposed to use.

At Ease

Novell Application Launcher

Tiotha

AOL Kids

iOS

Microsoft is probably planning to distribute Metro apps exclusively through their online store. So they are adopting the user interface used when controlling what the user may run. They do this for the money, let's not pretend there is any other reason.

I really hope apple keeps this option!

So how were they spying on us to figure this out? [...] To say that most everyone isn't using a Start button would mean they were snooping on our activities.

No need to guess, it's the Customer Experience Improvement Program. This is turned off by most experienced users for the privacy reasons you mention, and blocked by group policy at most companies. So Microsoft is getting a sample that is heavily loaded with the most inexperienced Windows users.

Who the hell is their focus group?

Everyone that chose to activate the feature in Windows 7 http://wfp.microsoft.com/FAQ.aspx I think we have all seen the popup asking us to participate, but I always decline.

Microsoft is already commited to supported Windows 7 professional till 2020.

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/products/lifecycle

Ok, clue me in. I really need to know this. Why would I make a Metro app, which only runs on Windows 8, especially a client/server app as described in TFA, when I can make a web app that runs in any environment that has a web browser?

Presumably, you'd write a web app that runs in any environment, then tweak it so that it doubles as a Metro HTML5 app - perhaps so that it can, say, integrate with Win8 address book and email apps - while still working in a browser.

Can anyone point me to something indicating what information the EU feels Microsoft should have provided but did not provide? (or information competitors of Microsoft believe Microsoft should have provided but did not provide?)

The spec documents at http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd208104(v=prot.10) seem to cover a lot of the things that competitors might want access to so whats missing?

"In the Linux method, only those parts of the program that get executed are ever loaded into memory, and the program can start running long before any of the rest of it is loaded into RAM." - by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 27, @09:53AM (#40466707)

"It's important to note that PE files are not just mapped into memory as a single memory-mapped file"

FROM -> http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/magazine/cc301805.aspx

Right - AND, even try the test below... you'll see that. It's sort of like how DLL's load (which I KNOW do not load the ENTIRE BODY of the DLL - only the portions you need, right into the calling process' memory space).

---

"Now yes, both methods eventually result in executable code being copied to RAM." - by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 27, @09:53AM (#40466707)

Exactly - that's exactly my point in a nutshell... but, I'm not sure if you have the paging part right in Windows, next:

---

"However, the first method, in a VM system, results in that executable code being then copied to disc again (when the process is swapped out of memory.)" - by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 27, @09:53AM (#40466707)

Afaik - It's not literally COPIED BACK & REWRITTEN TO DISK - because there's no NEED for that (code's the same & there - it'd load up ONLY PARTS IT HASN'T LOADED YET, or that got "paged out of memory" if not in immediate usage)...

E.G. - When it "grabs" things off disk, that's for portions that have been "paged back" BUT DON'T ACTUALLY GET WRITTEN - that has the potential to modify the executable too, by the by (it is merely just referenced/re-referenced), but read in again as needed/when needed, if paged 4kb @ a time...

---

"In the Linux system, the executable code isn't copied to disc, because it's already on a disc." - by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 27, @09:53AM (#40466707)

That's what I've said above... same, same, same - afaik! It makes TOTAL sense is why... & afaik? That's HOW Windows manages it with executables, because again - DLL's are similar in nature & ONLY LOAD WHAT IS NEEDED FROM SAID LIBRARY (not its ENTIRE body) into the calling process' memory space...

---

"In the first method, the entire program is loaded before being executed." - by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 27, @09:53AM (#40466707)

Ok, a test for you (because this I've done before) - check the running Working Set size (& other memory columns in taskmgr.exe once you select them to be visible) - open a multi-form program, if you have one - not MDI or TABBED, but one with multiple windows (not about boxes either).

Then, start flipping thru the screens it doesn't have loaded on startup - you'll see the process size change as you do it - it's doing what you state Linux does, albeit, in Windows too...

Here - this'll prove my point on it better than I can say it:

"It's important to note that PE files are not just mapped into memory as a single memory-mapped file"

FROM -> http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/magazine/cc301805.aspx

(Just like what I described DLL's do - portions load ONLY THAT YOU NEED, not the ENTIRE BODY).

* Now, you know that Windows does it the exact same!

APK

P.S.=> Interesting discussion, but I *think* you'll find that Windows does the SAME THING (& mainly because it makes sense) - & if you find it doesn't? I'd be VERY surprised... apk

"In the Linux method, only those parts of the program that get executed are ever loaded into memory, and the program can start running long before any of the rest of it is loaded into RAM." - by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 27, @09:53AM (#40466707)

"It's important to note that PE files are not just mapped into memory as a single memory-mapped file"

FROM -> http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/magazine/cc301805.aspx

Right - AND, even try the test below... you'll see that. It's sort of like how DLL's load (which I KNOW do not load the ENTIRE BODY of the DLL - only the portions you need, right into the calling process' memory space).

---

"Now yes, both methods eventually result in executable code being copied to RAM." - by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 27, @09:53AM (#40466707)

Exactly - that's exactly my point in a nutshell... but, I'm not sure if you have the paging part right in Windows, next:

---

"However, the first method, in a VM system, results in that executable code being then copied to disc again (when the process is swapped out of memory.)" - by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 27, @09:53AM (#40466707)

Afaik - It's not literally COPIED BACK & REWRITTEN TO DISK - because there's no NEED for that (code's the same & there - it'd load up ONLY PARTS IT HASN'T LOADED YET, or that got "paged out of memory" if not in immediate usage)...

E.G. - When it "grabs" things off disk, that's for portions that have been "paged back" BUT DON'T ACTUALLY GET WRITTEN - that has the potential to modify the executable too, by the by (it is merely just referenced/re-referenced), but read in again as needed/when needed, if paged 4kb @ a time...

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"In the Linux system, the executable code isn't copied to disc, because it's already on a disc." - by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 27, @09:53AM (#40466707)

That's what I've said above... same, same, same - afaik! It makes TOTAL sense is why... & afaik? That's HOW Windows manages it with executables, because again - DLL's are similar in nature & ONLY LOAD WHAT IS NEEDED FROM SAID LIBRARY (not its ENTIRE body) into the calling process' memory space...

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"In the first method, the entire program is loaded before being executed." - by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 27, @09:53AM (#40466707)

Ok, a test for you (because this I've done before) - check the running Working Set size (& other memory columns in taskmgr.exe once you select them to be visible) - open a multi-form program, if you have one - not MDI or TABBED, but one with multiple windows (not about boxes either).

Then, start flipping thru the screens it doesn't have loaded on startup - you'll see the process size change as you do it - it's doing what you state Linux does, albeit, in Windows too...

Here - this'll prove my point on it better than I can say it:

"It's important to note that PE files are not just mapped into memory as a single memory-mapped file"

FROM -> http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/magazine/cc301805.aspx

(Just like what I described DLL's do - portions load ONLY THAT YOU NEED, not the ENTIRE BODY).

* Now, you know that Windows does it the exact same!

APK

P.S.=> Interesting discussion, but I *think* you'll find that Windows does the SAME THING (& mainly because it makes sense) - & if you find it doesn't? I'd be VERY surprised... apk

Or why a guest network shouldn't have active directory controlling it?

Well, if you have a directory-enabled application on your guest network (and heaven knows many of them are these days) you could still implement Active Directory Lightweight Directory Services to service such a beast. I'm not saying you're wrong about the guy (and certainly your production directory shouldn't be exposed like that), but there are ways and situations where that's not only appropriate, but desirable.

Actually, the Standard Edition will do this you just need to set up the connection strings to point to both servers.

Automatic failover with an sql mirror requires a third server, the witness. If the sql client can't reach the primary server, but can reach the backup server, the client asks the witness.

For VS 2010, C++11 (then 0x) implementation was actually better than g++. It looks dated today because g++ has more frequent releases and it didn't take it long to catch up and overtake. Ditto for Clang.

For VS 2012, yeah, it's lagging behind, mostly because a lot of time was spent on C++/CX language extensions for Metro. They did update existing features to be spec conforming - e.g. lambdas were previously implementing draft semantics which have changed in the FCD, so those were updated to match the latter. It also adds a bunch of minor stuff like range-for and strongly typed enums, and a good chunk of new libraries (most notably atomics, threads and futures). Here are the details.

There is talk about doing a separate release later on specifically for VC++ to catch up with C++11 support. If you care about that, rather than just seeing it as an opportunity for some MS bashing, please add your vote here (I did).

For VS 2010, C++11 (then 0x) implementation was actually better than g++. It looks dated today because g++ has more frequent releases and it didn't take it long to catch up and overtake. Ditto for Clang.

For VS 2012, yeah, it's lagging behind, mostly because a lot of time was spent on C++/CX language extensions for Metro. They did update existing features to be spec conforming - e.g. lambdas were previously implementing draft semantics which have changed in the FCD, so those were updated to match the latter. It also adds a bunch of minor stuff like range-for and strongly typed enums, and a good chunk of new libraries (most notably atomics, threads and futures). Here are the details.

There is talk about doing a separate release later on specifically for VC++ to catch up with C++11 support. If you care about that, rather than just seeing it as an opportunity for some MS bashing, please add your vote here (I did).

Firstly, you need to make sure there is a paper process which people can run by if the kit fails. Business continuity doesn't always require a massive DR strategy especially in your market area. If the kit does go pop, your staff need to be able to work instantly - paper is the best and did for years before computers came along.

However from a technical POV, speaking from 15 years experience running SQL Server instances, there's no cheap solution that works reliably. Hot standby (HA mirror) is the best approach for your scenario. It's probably a good idea to host it in another DC to isolate larger failures.

Info here: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb934127(SQL.105).aspx

Backups with a powershell restore script can be pretty easy to use once you get them setup. As always, if you go the "backup" method, make sure you test your backups sometimes and your full restore procedure to make sure it works. It's not fun to find a problem with them when it really matters.

Replication is a pain to deal with. You could just use a failover cluster.

Have you really ever had problems with SQL Server crashing before? What version? What kinds of workloads? Did you tell Microsoft?

Don't bother with clustering, use Mirroring or AlwaysOn Groups instead.

Have you really ever had problems with SQL Server crashing before? What version? What kinds of workloads? Did you tell Microsoft?

Don't bother with clustering, use Mirroring or AlwaysOn Groups instead.

You may want to look at what they are doing with avalibility groups. You can avoid the shared storage with avaliblity groups and could cut your hardware costs a bit. assuming you your software support SQL 2012. Link http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff877884.aspx

You may want to look at what Microsoft is doing to lock you in with availability groups.. You can avoid industry standard practices, cut your hardware costs, and increase the fuck out of your licensing costs--assuming you throw-down a dump truck full of cash to a developer to re-write your app to take advantage of the new lock-in capabilities of SQL 2012.

You may want to look at what they are doing with avalibility groups. You can avoid the shared storage with avaliblity groups and could cut your hardware costs a bit. assuming you your software support SQL 2012. Link http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff877884.aspx

> 1. "use strict;" is not a hack, but an official part of ECMA-262 v5 (and it should be mandatory for dev environment and should be mandatory OFF for release). And it can't be on by default for fear of breaking old and shitty code.

Putting a string in the global namespace because the language lacks pragmas is a hack.

> 3. Modern JS engines optimise the numerics well enough. You can also use typed arrays for performance - if you're writing performance sensitive JS code, you're probably doing it in an environment that supports them, anyways.
That's why I mentioned WebGL. I am quite familiar with Uin8Array, Float32Array, and all the other typed arrays etc. The problem is ... let's see who supports this / WebGL:
  [x] Firefox
  [x] Chrome
  [x] Safari
  [x] Webkit
  [-] Gee, Thanks Microsoft for supporting this only in IE10 which is only available on Windows 7.
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/br212916(v=vs.94).aspx

"Fuck You Microsoft" /with apologies to Linus.

FSF has no grounds to sue Microsoft, even if this is deliberate. Microsoft has no monopoly or close to it in the webfilter arena. Microsoft isn't secretly mucking with dns or some other blatantly illegal action. Client corporations voluntarily elect to use Microsoft's security software to control their own traffic. MS makes no claims that it is 100% accurate. Additionally, MS has procedures in place to correct a misclassification. And even if they didn't, there's no standard by which third-party private web filters are actionable, other than say, breach of warranty of fitness for a particular purpose. But in that case, the proper plaintiff would be Microsoft's customer, not FSF.

Oh, FSF might lose some donations? How is that MS's problem? FSF's suing Microsoft is like advertisers suing the makers of NoScript and Adblock for depriving them of eyeballs.

No IDE here, but if all what you want is discover new territories, you'll just need an editor. Apart from PowerShell, there is another decent scripting language on Windows, which is JScript. That's a Javascript implementation allowing to access system resources through "ActiveXObjects". Example:

var fso = new ActiveXObject ("Scripting.FileSystemObject");

Have a look at MSDN for reference about this object and others, then browse it, and various blogs, while happily writing your scripts in whatever editor is present on your machine. By the way, they will run on any Windows system, even XP. The drawback is that interfacing to DLLs is often impossible when it hasn't been provided by MS.

Then, you might want to explore Javascript as a functional language - a usable Lisp in my opinion...

Not all native applications. The company I work for still has a few. The organisation I worked for before had a few ActiveX only solutions.

Fair enough.

Everywhere I've worked has used Outlook.

Outlook Web App

World of Warcraft doesn't run in a browser

I'm afraid it does

and only has official clients for Windows or a much more expensive alternative.

If you are referring to OS X, you are gravely mistaken:

Windows 7 for $72 - $239

OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard for $29,
OS X 10.7 Lion usb drive installer for $69,
OS X 10.7 Lion App Store download for $29.99, and
OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion for $19.99

Photoshop doesn't run in a browser.

Photoshop in a browser. and here's 9 more alternatives of varying complexity and ability.

AutoDesk doesn't run in a browser and: "Note: The Autodesk Design Review Browser Add-in does not support scripting or automation in the browser because Firefox and Chrome do not support COM controls." - Windows only restrictions on their browser plugin.

Autodesk in a browser. Of the particular plugin of which you speak, that is true. But since you last looked, they have made a new, different, web based CAD application that indeed allows you to create, edit and use the familiar tools of the native application.

Hardware drivers don't run in a browser and again the alternatives don't always support hardware as well as Windows does - look at the criticism of both NVidia and AMD this week for worse support for Linux than Windows.

I don't see how this matters, but you got me! I can't find any browser based hardware drivers.

Face it. You and your hysterical friend below are wrong. Windows is entrenched. It's the 21st century mainframe. It might go away eventually but we're stuck with it for now and for a long time to come. There is no realistic alternative to it. That's realistic, not just another OS with a GUI and an slightly worse office suite, but an OS that can run whatever people want and need it to. That is Windows largely.

I think you might be a little out of touch... stuck in 2002 perhaps.

These days, that Windows is still most popular among commercial installations is, again, incidental. All it takes is a progressive CIO or CTO to unseat Windows from any particular installation. It is a desktop... it is not essential. Any desktop will do.

Mac OS X is great but the devices it runs on are far more expensive than Windows machines. No corporation will be spending twice as much on computers that won't run all their software and Mac home users tend to have a Windows machine/partition as well.

I don't know why this myth keeps getting perpetuated. Feature for feature, Apple's hardware is always proven to cost within 10% of the competition or less. This is

Depends whether it came with "Home" versus "Professional", or whatever crazy market segmentation they're trying these days.

In any case, I'm with the prior poster: the amount of crapware that comes with a typical "out-of-the-box" laptop vendor these days is ridiculous and undermines the whole experience. On a new laptop, a friend of mine had 99 tasks running after boot to the Windows desktop. We were able to almost halve that by uninstalling various junky software tools that they were never going to use. It's insane. And some of it is infested in there pretty deeply and it took Autoruns to disable. Yes, Autoruns is a cool program, but it's symptomatic of how bad the problem is. Even when you want to get rid of some of the crapware they don't make it easy.

Now... how much [RAM] will the Surface Pro have? If MS was on the ball, with the times, had business smarts and understood their customers, an ABSOLUTE minimum of 4 and preferable 8 GB...

They don't list it on the spec sheet, but I believe during the launch they said the ARM version would have 1GB, and the Intel version would have 2GB. So, that falls under your:

2gb+ MS thinks people run one app at a time because frankly that is all Ballmer can handle.
1gb MS can't even start up task manager to see how much its OS gobbles up.

You're absolutely right, though, 2GB won't be enough. What surprised me most were the microSDXC card support, and the weight of the device. 903 grams for the Intel version is extremely heavy for a tablet, and I suspect that's without the keyboard flap. The microSDXC card is definitely a plus, though. With the spec supporting 2TB cards, this tablet could last a long, long time (perhaps to Microsoft's detriment).

The option to easily disable uefi secureboot _should_ be there on every and each motherboard (desktop, server or laptop)... If manufacturers would just say disabling will be there always, this whole issue would just go away.

Here you go: an assurance *by Microsoft* that the option to disable secure boot will always be there on non ARM system.

MANDATORY. On non-ARM systems, the platform MUST implement the ability for a physically present user to select between two Secure Boot modes in firmware setup: "Custom" and "Standard". Custom Mode allows for more flexibility as specified in the following:

a) It shall be possible for a physically present user to use the Custom Mode firmware setup option to modify the contents of the Secure Boot signature databases and the PK. This may be implemented by simply providing the option to clear all Secure Boot databases (PK, KEK, db, dbx) which will put the system into setup mode.
b) If the user ends up deleting the PK then, upon exiting the Custom Mode firmware setup, the system will be operating in Setup Mode with SecureBoot turned off.
c) The firmware setup shall indicate if Secure Boot is turned on, and if it is operated in Standard or Custom Mode. The firmware setup must provide an option to return from Custom to Standard Mode which restores the factory defaults. On an ARM system, it is forbidden to enable Custom Mode. Only Standard Mode may be enabled.

18. MANDATORY. Enable/Disable Secure Boot. On non-ARM systems, it is required to implement the ability to disable Secure Boot via firmware setup. A physically present user must be allowed to disable Secure Boot via firmware setup without possession of PKpriv. A Windows Server may also disable Secure Boot remotely using a strongly authenticated (preferably public-key based) out-of-band management connection, such as to a baseboard management controller or service processor. Programmatic disabling of Secure Boot either during Boot Services or after exiting EFI Boot Services MUST NOT be possible. Disabling Secure Boot must not be possible on ARM-systems.

Source: http://download.microsoft.com/download/A/D/F/ADF5BEDE-C0FB-4CC0-A3E1-B38093F50BA1/windows8-hardware-cert-requirements-system.pdf

This has been known for a while, so why won't the issue go away?

Seems to me adding features to the package system that can determine and possibly correct such things (ie, closing Firefox or Thunderbird) would be the better way to go rather than force me to have to reboot.

You mean something like this?

In the case of Firefox it may seem simple to just stop/start the application when updating. But what about an application which is more rich on transient state, uncommitted/unsaved state such as word processors, drawing programs, accounting/invoicing etc. Wouldn't it be nice if the state was not lost just because of an update, or at least restored after the update?

Only the application knows what state it holds in memory and how to save it. I believe that the "during-boot" point of installation is due to the fact that the state of applications at that time is very, very well-defined (and in none). It is the second best solution, but barring a higher-level OS service like the Windows Restart Manager (and applications which adhere to those conventions) the at-boot installation may the the only way to guarantee installations not disrupting system state.