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Do you have a source to back that up? I've never been able to find any information saying that Microsoft compiles their OS libraries with PGO. In fact, in their "Debugging in the (Very) Large" paper, they state that they even turned off frame-pointer omission, since it caused more headaches and didn't give them a noticeable speedup.
http://research.microsoft.com/apps/pubs/default.aspx?id=81176

Raymond Chen disagrees with you:
http://blogs.msdn.com/b/oldnewthing/archive/2005/06/01/423817.aspx
citing:
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=889654

According to http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/x4d2c09s(v=VS.100).aspx , there's no x64 --> x86 cross-compiler.

I have no idea what happens if I pass /MACHINE:X86, but I imagine it just invokes the 32-bit binary. If you can show that's not true, I know a large number of people who would give you a hug.

Here: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/5wy54dk2(v=VS.80).aspx

While I would agree that this is a sign of something curious in Firefox's code, http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/x4d2c09s(v=VS.100).aspx would seem to disagree with you on the MSVC compiler. In at least VS 2010, there's a x64 native versions of cl.exe.

Possibly not. But part of the reason is that it is not possible to set 64-bit IE9 as the default browser on Windows Vista or 7.

That, and no official releases of 64bit Firefox, Chrome, (Safari?) or Opera for Windows. So it's really a team effort to keep 64bit browsing off Windows.

An individual 32 bit process (IE the visual studio linker) is limited to 4GB of addressable memory.

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/aa366778(v=vs.85).aspx#memory_limits

In Windows 7, Microsoft created a wonderful tool to help you. It's called Problem Steps Recorder. Basically the user runs it and it snaps screenshots while the user reproduces the problem. There's a comment box allowing the user to type in comments like what they typed, what they expect, etc.

The best part? It emits output as HTML (!!!). Just send the zip file to the devs (it offers a handy email option), and it gives them repro steps and everything.

Wonderful utility. Even more wonderful is it can be used as more than just recording problem steps - you can record tutorials in it and post them online and stuff.

Except for where Microsoft themselves says no for 2008 in once place and gives a non-committal AFAIK while removing references to commercial publication from their FAQ.

Except for where Microsoft themselves says no for 2008 in once place and gives a non-committal AFAIK while removing references to commercial publication from their FAQ.

Except for where Microsoft themselves says no for 2008 in once place and gives a non-committal AFAIK while removing references to commercial publication from their FAQ.

Hmmm....

Well, 2008 could not be:

http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/Vsexpressinstall/thread/f280e5b7-f17a-4984-9b08-28c5449b6417

However, the moderators on social.msdn are saying "as far as I know, yes"

http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/Vsexpressinstall/thread/e471aff6-90fd-432b-8388-0d9a65a394b0

But it's not in the FAQ, and I can't find the actual license agreement.

Regardless, express is not the full compiler; it is a somewhat stripped down entry-level version.

Hmmm....

Well, 2008 could not be:

http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/Vsexpressinstall/thread/f280e5b7-f17a-4984-9b08-28c5449b6417

However, the moderators on social.msdn are saying "as far as I know, yes"

http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/Vsexpressinstall/thread/e471aff6-90fd-432b-8388-0d9a65a394b0

But it's not in the FAQ, and I can't find the actual license agreement.

Regardless, express is not the full compiler; it is a somewhat stripped down entry-level version.

Not complete (e.g., no ATL, MFC, some other core stuff).

None of those affect the metro style apps which use WinRT.

And binaries are not redistributable for pay

I couldn't find anything that agrees with this, in fact I found the exact opposite.

Not complete (e.g., no ATL, MFC, some other core stuff). And binaries are not redistributable for pay:

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hs24szh9.aspx

Tough to get cheaper then free.

If you don't want an application on the start menu, you can remove it from the list with two clicks.
Notepad does show up on the list, however this depends on whether you launch it a way a normal user would, through the start menu, task bar, explorer, etc. It can't just stick every executable that is ran as it would end up with a bunch of crap that gets loaded by other programs, for instance.

I use notepad on a daily basis for storing random bits of temporary information - never appeared in the menu. 'Remove from list' also doesn't work permanently. Example, I removed 'Section 8' just now along with a bunch of other stuff, the next time I open the start menu it's at the top of the list. I've played that game all of twice yet Thunderbird is opened constantly and doesn't appear. The feature is shit.

You don't have to use libraries if you don't want to. Explorer's starting location can be changed via the shortcut properties, it never changed itself for me, plus it seems to default to "My computer" when launched with Win+E anyway.

Try setting the shortcut to this. It was such a problem MS actually put it into a kb article... http://support.microsoft.com/kb/221878 - one would think copying the address and placing it in the 'Start In' box would work, but no that would be too simple.

you can disable the desktop peek feature of that region.

Thanks for this, I didn't know that.

Also, Windows doesn't give focus on mouse-over, so can just keep typing as you move the mouse all over the screen anyway.

Hun?

I disagree about the clutter, despite combining many different elements I think the ribbon manages to keep everything look nice and consistent. Or have you forgotten the mess of toolbars that came before it?

I guess it's good that you can make your own ribbon tabs with whatever buttons you want now...

How is different sized buttons, different shaped buttons, different colour schemes and styles keep everything looking 'nice' let alone consistent. I do remember the toolbars that came before, and I much prefer them. They could be customized, they were smaller so you could have more buttons at your fingertips, etc. They were also customizable the same way ribbons are. I look at something like this: http://www.sunflowerhead.com/msimages/DifferentLayouts-9-14-2005.png and my eyes just gloss over, there's too much to look at, no patterning, just a jumble of controls.

Really, you have a problem with buttons having descriptive text labels? Do buttons outside of the ribbon never have them?

*Looks at just about every browser, icon buttons no text*
*Looks at Adobe CS5 programs, icon buttons text only where sliders or input box controls*
*Looks at Skype, where text and buttons exist the text is integrated into the design of the button, not floating and wrapping below the icon*
*Looks at VLC.... nope no text, just icons!*
etc, etc, etc.

Descriptive labels are great - they were just much better as tooltip text.

Of course the ribbon uses more space than a menu, because it isn't replacing just the menu, but also the toolbars. You can google yourself for comparisons, but the ribbon typically takes up about as much space as a default set of toolbars, and much less than the 10-rows of toolbars horrors that you often see in the wild. The ribbon takes advantage of wide-screen monitors by creating a flexible layout that takes advantage of the winder windows by scaling its content. A bit more flexibility of being able ot put it on the side of the screen would be nice, admittedly.

The default size of everything above the document: Office 2003: 102px (2 toolbars) Office 2007/2010: 138px - as for 10 rows of toolba

I'm sure there are key commands in most shells, it's just that they're not apparent and nobody takes the time to learn them

Further, I still think your framing of the argument as "newbie" vs "advanced user", while well-intentioned, is misguided and inadvertently divisive.

As far as I'm concerned "advanced users" are those who look stuff like this up in order to figure out how the OS can best _augment_ them:
http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows7/Keyboard-shortcuts
http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1343
http://www.apple.com/macosx/whats-new/gestures.html

Users who don't bother, and just stick to what's immediately apparent, I consider "newbie/novice" level.

Advanced users will also know how to configure the Desktop UI so that they are able to do many things with it faster than the newbie/novice users can (it may take some pre-setup time to configure dock/taskbar, start menu, etc, but that is just one-time). 3rd party utilities don't count for this (otherwise you could just install a new desktop environment ;) ).

For example, in 9x/2K/XP(classic mode) I do stuff like this: http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=175866&cid=14627608

Some of that no longer works on Windows 7. So on windows 7 I take longer to do stuff that I used to be able to do in a split second. OS X feels even more crippling and primitive (if you ignore the looks factor).

As for winning side, on the contrary. I think everyone loses if they no longer are able to be augmented as much. From what I see you it is not impossible to have a Desktop UI that caters for novices, and still provides short-cuts for those who want further augmentation.

Well, except that Microsoft often changes keyboard shortcuts in their software in localized versions.

I can't really speak to localized versions but this seems like a separate issue. In the English version, nothing significant has changed with the key commands in the last ten years.

To your question about OSX and multiple windows: this can be done using Exposé, in as little as two steps: 1) invoke Exposé's "Show all windows" function (either by keyboard, designated mouseclick, gesture, or moving mouse to a designated screen corner), then 2) use mouse or arrow keys to select from thumbnails of windows, which are laid out in a grid instead of a cycling stack. It's not perfect, for instance it won't show windows for apps that are hidden/"minimized" (this may have changed in the latest OSX).

The other nice thing about OSX is that it's program/app oriented first, not task/window-based. The Exposé "all windows" mode is nice to have as a power option, but I almost never use it... jumping between programs with command-tab brings up all that program's windows, and 95% of the time the window I left at the top of a program's window stack is the one I want anyway (the other 5% of the time I command-` to cycle within the windows once I switch to that program).

I use Windows 7 at work, ungrouped windows. I put my taskbar on the screen's left because on a widescreen monitor, doubling-up the task bar on the bottom is a waste of space. This is very frustrating for a power user who also keeps lots of task windows open, though.

Once I get beyond the number of task buttons that'll fit into the vertical taskbar, it splits them onto two "pages". It's impossible to have more than one task column visible like you could in XP. A new task in a newly launched program will appear on the second page, forcing me to click back to the first page to access older tasks (no keyboard command to jump taskbar pages that I've found). And unlike XP, Win7 groups child tasks together even if they appear in the taskbar separately. Very annoying. And the whole reason I ungroup tasks in the first place is I want to not only switch tasks with a single click, but also MINIMIZE tasks with a single click.

Default Alt-tab behaviour in Win7 is also brain-dead. When I first hit alt-tab I get the task list, but if I haven't selected something inside a second, it does that Aero peek. Continuing to alt-tab at that point is useless when I have peek at 30 freaking windows. I disabled Aero peek to keep a proper task switching palette the whole time have alt held down.

Win-tab behaviour is also of limited use if you have more than a half-dozen windows open, it's a useless stack animation where you can't tell the contents of most windows until you've cycled it to the front of the stack.

Learn where menu and toolbar commands are in Office 2010 and related products
And complementing this. MS has a plug-in based interactive tool to map from the office 2003 menu to the Office 2010 ribbon. You can just click on the Office 2003 menu, and it will show breadcrumbs of where to find it in Office 2010 (and display it when you click on it)

Sorry, botched the link in my other post. Here is what I was referring to.

According to this: http://support.microsoft.com/gp/lifean45#sl5
Silverlight 5 will be supported for 10 years. Not many software vendors are prepared to do that.

So the core of your argument is that Microsoft made the Windows API object-oriented through .NET. Microsoft could just as well have 'cleaned up' the API with C++ and it would be just as awesome from that point of view, if not more so.

It's not quite as simple as that - doing it in idiomatic C++ (with templates and stuff) would make it hard to access from other languages.

But this is, essentially, what was done for Metro apps - have a look.

And, yes, you can access it from standard C++ or vanilla C, even though most samples use VC++-specific language extensions that make it easier.

What mistakes does our community make that lead to that?

I blame this one

;-)

As I understand it, you can search/filter either XML data streams, or a sequence of .NET objects. Would the way to accomplish this in .NET, then, be to have a commandlet that opens the source file and passes them through as .NET objects?

Indeed. The "extended grep" in PowerShell is the Where-Object (aliases where and ?). It works on a stream of objects; objects in PowerShell's extended type system actually being a superset of .NET objects which can also wrap WMI and COM objects.

The common way in PowerShell to "grep" using where is indeed to read the source as objects. For example to read from an XML document you would cast it to the built-in [xml] type (which is really a wrapper around the .NET System.Xml.XmlDocument type) and then pass select nodes through the where cmdlet.

My sig is an example of a PowerShell command which reads slashdot RSS feed, parses it as xml, selects the "items" xml nodes, filters away the biased postings by kdawson and finally displays the description property in a list.

Just wait until Microsoft sees your post and we'll have eeegrep.

No, it would be called Where-Object and have two built-in aliases called where and simply ?.

And then you would be able to write something like ps | ?{$_.cpu -gt 10}

The problem with this "more frequent release" model is that it is going to push businesses to some other OS. The company I work for should have just about completed the process of preparing to migrate to Windows 7 by the time Windows 8 comes out.

Oh please, enough with the FUD. Microsoft guarantees a minimum 10 years of support on professional/enterprise versions. Check it out, extended support will end in 2020. What else are they going to move to that offers longer support? If your answer to that is "Linux, because they have the source code and can support it forever" you've been listening too much to RMS.

Based on this page, I was under the impression that XNA required at least Shader Model 2.0, and I'm not sure what shader model the Intel GMA in the cheapest piece of dung Dell supports.

Microsoft says you're wrong - Vista (32 and 64 bit) are supported, as is Server 2008 (32bit, 64bit, and R2).

Server 2008 ? Care to tell me how many consumers use Server 2008 on their home computers ? Licensed software, not illegal installations. I'd bet the number is way way less than even that of the 1% of linux users. A complete non issue.

As for Vista (32 and 64 bit). You have got to be kidding me.
No one gives a fuck about Vista, even the Vista users upgraded to Windows 7 as soon as possibile. Windows 7 has more market share than Vista and that's saying something.

My point still stands, IE9 is mostly used by Windows 7 users, while the big big majority is still on XP (so either IE6 may god save their souls, IE7/8) or Chrome, Opera or Firefox.

I'm talking on a purely tecnical level. IE9 is not bad (maybe a little better than Firefox but way behind Opera), but since its limited to Windows 7

Microsoft says you're wrong - Vista (32 and 64 bit) are supported, as is Server 2008 (32bit, 64bit, and R2).

ftp://ftp.microsoft.com/Softlib/index.txt

Vodka!

Stash right on MS server

ftp://ftp.microsoft.com/Softlib/MSLFILES/

for the quikerest WORD EXCEL more

When I say "we", I actually mean it. See the profile.

And trust me on this: if any developer in Office (or other product division) tries to use an undocumented Windows API, they'll have someone from legal knocking on their door real soon. It's a very, very big no-no in the company. I know, because it's actually part of things like code reviews and such. Simply put, no-one wants to be the guy responsible for another multibillion dollar fine in EU or other places which actually take such things seriously. For the same reason, a lot of previously undocumented protocols are now documented here and/or here.

So, no, you don't have to worry about MS apps unfairly competing with third-party ones by using some undocumented magical "make it better" APIs these days.

When I say "we", I actually mean it. See the profile.

And trust me on this: if any developer in Office (or other product division) tries to use an undocumented Windows API, they'll have someone from legal knocking on their door real soon. It's a very, very big no-no in the company. I know, because it's actually part of things like code reviews and such. Simply put, no-one wants to be the guy responsible for another multibillion dollar fine in EU or other places which actually take such things seriously. For the same reason, a lot of previously undocumented protocols are now documented here and/or here.

So, no, you don't have to worry about MS apps unfairly competing with third-party ones by using some undocumented magical "make it better" APIs these days.

$1m spent on iPads only comes to ~2,000 iPads at most (assuming the cheapest model at around $500 each). According to Microsoft's handy little Capacity Planner (Exch 2010), it shouldn't take but perhaps (very rough calc here) 5 or 10 servers at most to handle that, unless they're also allowing every school employee to latch on their personal gear as well.

I'm guessing that something's missing from the story here...

Sorry, 5-10 servers to handle a mere 2000 clients?

Look, I'm not going to be so foolish as to claim that there's a really viable FOSS alternative to Exchange. (There is, but it requires a fundamental change in how IT operates, which makes it unrealistic for 'enterprise' IT.) But still, can we not admit that requiring that kind of hardware for a simple thing like data synchronisation, email and event handling is a little absurd?

I could be wrong in my assumptions, of course, but it seems to me that 2000 clients, each sync'ing, say, every half hour and transferring a nominal amount of data, shouldn't be a heavy load at all. Assuming an even distribution from minute to minute (which, admittedly, is not what happens in real life), you'd be looking at one or two transactions a second, each with a duration of... what? Say, 3-4 seconds? With 5 servers (again, for simplicity's sake, assuming an even distribution), that's about 1 session at a time.

The systems programmer in me wants to scream that that's absurdly wasteful.

But... I'm open to counter-arguments. Can anyone point to any empirical data that can make a reasonable case for these resource requirements?

Agreed. If they only used one Exchange server holding all the roles, that was the problem right there. You can do that with a Microsoft SBS box, but it doesn't scale and there is a user limitation defined for a reason. Exchange is designed to have its roles delegated to other servers for load balancing and scalability. Technically this problem is easily solvable. It's getting additional funding that will be the hard part. Namely, additional MX records created and additional Exchange servers rolled out. Oh, and they may need more ISP bandwidth.

Here a some examples in how to implement Exchange per MS.

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd979781(EXCHG.140).aspx

$1m spent on iPads only comes to ~2,000 iPads at most (assuming the cheapest model at around $500 each). According to Microsoft's handy little Capacity Planner (Exch 2010), it shouldn't take but perhaps (very rough calc here) 5 or 10 servers at most to handle that, unless they're also allowing every school employee to latch on their personal gear as well.

I'm guessing that something's missing from the story here...

I notice their stock price is still lower than it was in 2001.

I'm no expert, but Microsoft shares split 2 for 1 on Jan. 27, 2003. Does your comparison take that into account?
This info was Scroogled from http://www.microsoft.com/investor/Stock/StockSplit/default.aspx

Windows allows you to mount a filesystem pretty much just as the unixoid systems do (maybe slightly more confusing due to the fs root usually being associated with a certain physical drive/partition but that's just naming conventions...).

http://support.microsoft.com/ph/14019

However, even tech-literate people seem to be largely unaware of this feature.

WTF? Anyone who really wants to do some entry level programming can use HTML and Javascript, which have become really, really powerful. Hell, Microsoft even released a HTML5 demo of Windows Phone 7 and it runs beautifully on the iPhone.

The iPhone has some of the best open web standards support, and Apple is leading the way by trying to make all their latest and greatest tricks (CSS effects and all) into published standards anyone can take advantage of. Anyone bemoaning the loss of Hypercard is ignoring a brazillian other options.

Using ProfilesDirectory to redirect folders to a drive other than the system volume blocks upgrades. Using ProfilesDirectory to point to a directory that is not the system volume will block SKU upgrades and upgrades to future versions of Windows. For example if you use Windows Vista Home Premium with ProfilesDirectory set to D:\, you will not be able to upgrade to Windows Vista Ultimate or to the next version of Windows. The servicing stack does not handle cross-volume transactions, and it blocks upgrades.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/949977

Microsoft User State Migration Tool + Microsoft Deployment ToolKit + Sdelete http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb897443

You should be able to backup the profile, load the OS and run a zeroing delete on all "empty space" on the drive.

The only way you can argue that the updater isn't at fault is if you are going to blame the exploit that installs the malware? But by that definition, a manufacturer would never be assigned any blame for vulnerabilities, it would always be the person doing the exploiting. Does that make sense? Try this: "Microsoft bears no responsibility for any holes in Windows, even when it knows about them and doesn't fix them. The blame lies entirely with the exploit." Do you still agree with this logic when the manufacturer of the system is Microsoft, rather than Apple?

Windows 7 Ultimate EULA

26. LIMITATION ON AND EXCLUSION OF DAMAGES. You can recover from Microsoft and its suppliers only direct damages up to the amount you paid for the software. You cannot recover any other damages, including consequential, lost profits, special, indirect or incidental damages.
This limitation applies to
- anything related to the software, services, content (including code) on third party Internet sites, or third party programs; and
- claims for breach of contract, breach of warranty, guarantee or condition, strict liability, negligence, or other tort to the extent permitted by applicable law.
It also applies even if
- repair, replacement or a refund for the software does not fully compensate you for any losses; or
- Microsoft knew or should have known about the possibility of the damages.

Emphasis added.

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/ee417691(v=vs.85).aspx#_1.4 - basically to get the badge on it, microsoft require support if one plugs an xbox 360 controller into the PC to work in the game.

I still don't understand why a windows computer is used for fileserver purposes. Something embedded with for example an ARM processor on it sounds must more robust and energy efficient to me.

Sometimes you want features. I suspect Linux has equivalents to these, but maybe not quite as easy to set up:

DFSR multi-master file replication

BranchCache for file caching either on your Win7 machine or distributed Win2k8R2 servers

I still don't understand why a windows computer is used for fileserver purposes. Something embedded with for example an ARM processor on it sounds must more robust and energy efficient to me.

Sometimes you want features. I suspect Linux has equivalents to these, but maybe not quite as easy to set up:

DFSR multi-master file replication

BranchCache for file caching either on your Win7 machine or distributed Win2k8R2 servers

"That part is true, but it only affected some computers (anecdotally, about half). It appears to be at root a bug in the timer chip on the motherboard, which in turn tickled a bug in Win9x. Hardware that lacked the bug would NOT crash at the 49 day mark". by Reziac

Is this billg talking, cause he's also able to selectively distort the historical record when it suits him too.

" Symptoms: After 49.7 days of continuous operation, your Windows-based computer may stop responding (hang).
Cause: There is a problem with the timing algorithm in the Vtdapi.vxd file.

Resolution: For Windows 95, For Windows 98" link

The windows client uses the API call GetTickCount() to get the current uptime. The value returned by that function can't be larger than 49.7 because elapsed time is stored as a DWORD value.

"Air Traffic radio control system crashes every 49.7 days"

Ok, these links should work:

http://lmgtfy.com/?q=windows-live-sync-with-windows-7-mobile-phone+site:Microsoft.com
http://lmgtfy.com/?q=disable-synchronizing-contacts-windows-live+site:Microsoft.com
(first link in search results)

Unfortunately even MS staff does not link to fm but just answers in prods, so still no knowledge base article.

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsphone/en-us/privacy.aspx#windowsliveid

Agreed, the article blows on tech details. Between the Gates-bashing and the Linux/Win95 wars in this thread, there's been a severe lack of technical discussion. Then again, it's Slashdot.

In a nutshell, it seems that name space extensions (NSE) allowed you to leverage using the Windows File Explorer to represent things that weren't really files and directories at all. Details here. Perhaps Novell was layering a document management system (or networked document management system) on top of NSE's.

If WP was managing the documents for something like a law or medical office where it's fairly easy to drown in folders and files, this would be a great selling feature and yeah, NSE's might be a good shortcut to that representation. But you'd think that when MS withdrew the feature a clever engineer could just emulate the Explorer's representation of objects that they'd worked so hard to build already to feed to Explorer's NSE. It wouldn't be the first time someone's re-invented that wheel, for sure. Hell, if I were that engineer, it might be something I'd already have around for testing. When you play in someone else's sandbox, you'd better be prepared for them to take their best toys and go home; at least there's always sticks and rocks to play with.

Any way you slice it having something like that sink your word processing software is possible, I guess, but only if you're position was already tenuous.