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Despite Hyper-V performing better[1] than VMware Server (VMware server is free) in some benchmarks , I'd still prefer VMware till Hyper-V improves its virtualization so that it works with Linux better WITHOUT having to install their probably still crappy (but not crap enough to reject) virtualization drivers.

Microsoft should also fix/improve the "remote management" bit for Hyper-V too.

Currently you practically have to use an unsupported tool ( http://archive.msdn.microsoft.com/HVRemote ) to try to get remote management working, and it still doesn't always work.

The alternative to that tool is consulting a 5 part series on some blog: http://blogs.technet.com/b/jhoward/archive/2008/03/28/part-1-hyper-v-remote-management-you-do-not-have-the-requested-permission-to-complete-this-task-contact-the-administrator-of-the-authorization-policy-for-the-computer-computername.aspx

With VMware remote management is practically already installed as part of installing VMware. No real big issue.

Sure you probably don't get the "Windows Domain" credentials stuff with VMware, but I don't have great confidence of successfully doing anything sophisticated in that area and still have hyper-v remote management work. Supposedly you "add this user to a group and give that group the permissions" and well it still didn't work, I still had to add specific user permissions. Maybe it takes time before it starts working (AD policy propagates), but if that's the case, I don't have time for that, nor time to waste on it _when_ it stops working for whatever reason.

So for these and other reasons if there are no other requirements (e.g. political reasons) , it'll be vmware and I'd just let the hardware take care of the 10% performance difference (Windows Server Enterprise licenses cost money too, so go Linux and spend more on hardware). If you're using virtual machines and that 10% is make or break you're doing it wrong anyway.

$89 - Win 7

Where are you finding a copy of retail Windows at that price? Microsoft says you can't use OEM Windows in a PC that you build for your own use.

Can you avoid a form factor that is is prone to escalate costs?

Sometimes I can't. If I'm going to be building a home theater PC, for example, I need a case no bigger than a typical game console. A Mac mini is comparable in size to a Dreamcast or Wii, while most PCs sold at Best Buy are far bigger than an original Xbox 360.

Can you tune your hardware to fit your solution rather than just being stuck with whatever Apple offers?

Building a PC from parts means you need the more expensive retail Windows, not OEM Windows.

this is entirely and precisely why distros such as debian go to such lengths to place GPG digital signatures on the downloads; why they go to such lengths to enact extensive GPG key-signing web-of-trust exchanges etc. etc.

And Microsoft has gone to considerable lengths to promote and strongly encourage the usage of code signing for installers of Windows software. In fact many if not most of the larger Open Source projects that have a large Windows community sign their code too.

The problem is that people are use to ignoring the security warnings from Microsoft, compared to most administrators (or root/sudo users) read and heed security warnings in Linux and *BSD package management.

this is entirely and precisely why distros such as debian go to such lengths to place GPG digital signatures on the downloads; why they go to such lengths to enact extensive GPG key-signing web-of-trust exchanges etc. etc.

And Microsoft has gone to considerable lengths to promote and strongly encourage the usage of code signing for installers of Windows software. In fact many if not most of the larger Open Source projects that have a large Windows community sign their code too.

The problem is that people are use to ignoring the security warnings from Microsoft, compared to most administrators (or root/sudo users) read and heed security warnings in Linux and *BSD package management.

I don't understand, what do I type into my IE to get to the project homepage?

http://www.microsoft.com/

Putty
Cygwin
Knoppix
CCleaner
Hijack This
Malwarebytes
A virus scanner running under Knoppix even if only to demonstrate to the owner of said computer that it is truly and fully fucked.
A Windows password reset tool
A backup program (this can be under Knoppix)
Gparted
Tools for killing Koobface
Windirstat - "my drive is full and I don't know why"

Etc.

A lot of that stuff is for people who insist "don't format the machine"

The real way to fix a Windows machine is to nuke and pave, as argued here: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc512587.aspx

--
BMO

If it makes things easier, there is a way to move the Documents and settings (c:\user) folder during a windows 7 install.

See here:
http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_7-files/win7-how-do-i-move-user-folder-to-a-different/565f16a5-e5ed-43c9-8422-4f56aebb296e

There are benefits to a native PowerShell module, like discoverability, tab-complete, strong-typing, support for common and preference parameters, session variables (e.g.: "trust this SSH key for this session only"), object-oriented result sets, and a bunch of other things.

The elegant way to support SCP in PowerShell would be to write a PowerShell virtual filesystem provider. This would allow scripts to use all of the built-in PowerShell commands on the remote filesystem as if they were normal mounted drives. For example, dir, copy, and del, would all work. It's much easier writing a PowerShell provider than a full filesystem driver, so even for a complex user-mode protocol like SCP it wouldn't be too difficult. Similarly, the SSH key store could be treated like a virtual drive too, just like the built-in Certificate provider.

Alternatively, the even simpler solution is to do something like what VMware did for copying files onto ESXi servers, like Copy-VMGuestFile, and Copy-DatastoreItem.

SSH wouldn't be as easy to wrap, but I suppose it would be possible to create a set of commands such as Invoke-SSHCommand, Enter-SSHSession, and the like, with analogy to Invoke-Command and Enter-PSSession. The problem is that PowerShell doesn't really have a built-in concept of a non-PowerShell session, so a bit of wheel-reinventing would be needed to get a complete set of commands.

There are benefits to a native PowerShell module, like discoverability, tab-complete, strong-typing, support for common and preference parameters, session variables (e.g.: "trust this SSH key for this session only"), object-oriented result sets, and a bunch of other things.

The elegant way to support SCP in PowerShell would be to write a PowerShell virtual filesystem provider. This would allow scripts to use all of the built-in PowerShell commands on the remote filesystem as if they were normal mounted drives. For example, dir, copy, and del, would all work. It's much easier writing a PowerShell provider than a full filesystem driver, so even for a complex user-mode protocol like SCP it wouldn't be too difficult. Similarly, the SSH key store could be treated like a virtual drive too, just like the built-in Certificate provider.

Alternatively, the even simpler solution is to do something like what VMware did for copying files onto ESXi servers, like Copy-VMGuestFile, and Copy-DatastoreItem.

SSH wouldn't be as easy to wrap, but I suppose it would be possible to create a set of commands such as Invoke-SSHCommand, Enter-SSHSession, and the like, with analogy to Invoke-Command and Enter-PSSession. The problem is that PowerShell doesn't really have a built-in concept of a non-PowerShell session, so a bit of wheel-reinventing would be needed to get a complete set of commands.

There are benefits to a native PowerShell module, like discoverability, tab-complete, strong-typing, support for common and preference parameters, session variables (e.g.: "trust this SSH key for this session only"), object-oriented result sets, and a bunch of other things.

The elegant way to support SCP in PowerShell would be to write a PowerShell virtual filesystem provider. This would allow scripts to use all of the built-in PowerShell commands on the remote filesystem as if they were normal mounted drives. For example, dir, copy, and del, would all work. It's much easier writing a PowerShell provider than a full filesystem driver, so even for a complex user-mode protocol like SCP it wouldn't be too difficult. Similarly, the SSH key store could be treated like a virtual drive too, just like the built-in Certificate provider.

Alternatively, the even simpler solution is to do something like what VMware did for copying files onto ESXi servers, like Copy-VMGuestFile, and Copy-DatastoreItem.

SSH wouldn't be as easy to wrap, but I suppose it would be possible to create a set of commands such as Invoke-SSHCommand, Enter-SSHSession, and the like, with analogy to Invoke-Command and Enter-PSSession. The problem is that PowerShell doesn't really have a built-in concept of a non-PowerShell session, so a bit of wheel-reinventing would be needed to get a complete set of commands.

There are benefits to a native PowerShell module, like discoverability, tab-complete, strong-typing, support for common and preference parameters, session variables (e.g.: "trust this SSH key for this session only"), object-oriented result sets, and a bunch of other things.

The elegant way to support SCP in PowerShell would be to write a PowerShell virtual filesystem provider. This would allow scripts to use all of the built-in PowerShell commands on the remote filesystem as if they were normal mounted drives. For example, dir, copy, and del, would all work. It's much easier writing a PowerShell provider than a full filesystem driver, so even for a complex user-mode protocol like SCP it wouldn't be too difficult. Similarly, the SSH key store could be treated like a virtual drive too, just like the built-in Certificate provider.

Alternatively, the even simpler solution is to do something like what VMware did for copying files onto ESXi servers, like Copy-VMGuestFile, and Copy-DatastoreItem.

SSH wouldn't be as easy to wrap, but I suppose it would be possible to create a set of commands such as Invoke-SSHCommand, Enter-SSHSession, and the like, with analogy to Invoke-Command and Enter-PSSession. The problem is that PowerShell doesn't really have a built-in concept of a non-PowerShell session, so a bit of wheel-reinventing would be needed to get a complete set of commands.

And Microsoft will continue to support Windows XP. It's just not going to be providing FREE support, you'll have to have a custom support agreement.

Custom support agreements can go on a LONG time

Windows XP was released in 2001. ... XP has not been sold on systems for years

Well, no. It was last sold in 2008 as standalone, and as OEM install in 2010. The last version is 5.1 in 2008, which is a lot more relevant than first version with retail software.
http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/products/lifecycle

So it'll be 15 years for XP embedded compared to 18 years for 3.x embedded.

Seriously, this is news now? Microsoft has this published on their website for some time now.

April 2014

which do you want, microsoft or an ISP?

ISPs: http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20071211/024003.shtml

Microsoft:http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,25448106?hilite=google
or: http://advertising.microsoft.com/windows-live-hotmail

love that last one where it goes:

Why advertise on Hotmail?
Through innovative ad technologies and rich media formats, Hotmail showcases your brand in a clean, uncluttered environment that gives your message supreme visibility to a targetable, web-savvy audience. And they pay close attention: Hotmail offers the second highest share of minutes (21%) in the email category.1 You can choose from one of several advertising categories for more refined targeting. See the Audience Profile tab for more information.

Or shall I continue? How about MS's deal with facebook, while facebook is also selling people's info?

Nice try anonshills. Where's your proof of google selling your personal info?

See subject-line, & these links:

---

Windows File Protection/System File Protection (WFP/SFP):

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/hardware/gg463455

---

* GOOD read for you, I think...

(Hey - It was for me also! Why? Well, I must be "gettin' OLD & SENILE", lol, because I thought it was only for Windows VISTA onwards & stated that here in this exchange with yourself, so - GOOD REVIEW FOR ME TOO!)

I used to know better... (talk about forgetting more than most folks know to begin with!)

APK

P.S.=> Anyways/Anyhow - That's there in Windows NT-based modern OS, vs. your theoretical rootkit attack possibilities you noted...

... apk

MS do have generic terms as trademarks and according to their Trademark page they did trademark "Windows". http://www.microsoft.com/about/legal/en/us/IntellectualProperty/Trademarks/EN-US.aspx

Aero
Arc
Conker
Fable
Georgia
Groove
Lips
Natural
Nina
Outlook
Rare
Sidewinder
Surface
Windows
Postbox (http://tess2.uspto.gov/bin/showfield?f=doc&state=4001:3q4qmv.5.41)


The reason they got those will likely be because they trademarked them for technology specific groups. When you apply for a trademark it doesn't just automatically apply to everything. My trademark for example only applies to one category. To apply to have a trademark cover everything would be insanely expensive and for generic terms like that probably impossible to get granted.

So I'm sure you can find other people with postbox trademarked but it will apply to something else. Apple's problem is they trademarked something generic that is an exact descriptor of the product. If they wanted the trademark 'Corner shop' or even 'App Corner Shop' they would have probably got it no questions asked.

WTF? Nobody said anything about Ballmer and what was said is common logic. if a machine isn't bricked it can be fixed, end of story. As someone that cleans PCs 6 days a week I can tell you this is a fact and while it is often faster to nuke it isn't the only way to get the job done.

For those that are infected, or are having to clean a friend or relative that is infected MSFT has a nice new free tool to help you out, I tripped over it a couple of weeks back on one of my favorite freeware sites and after giving it a go on a couple of infected boxes I must say they passed multiple subsequent virus scans totally clean. Kinda slow, but for a deep scan that is to be expected. the nice thing is it creates a bootable CD or USB stick so even if the machine is pwned so bad it won't boot you can get in there and clean it up.

It is called Microsoft standalone system sweeper and is a really nice tool to add to your toolbox and is 100% free to those with a legal copy of Windows. it has a 32bit and a 64bit but one can burn both CDs on either OS, the bit refers to the infected system not the clean machine. It updates itself when you make the CD/USB, it cleans rootkits and bootbugs, and it don't cost a cent. MSFT should advertise it better but other than that after several uses I have no complaints.

Let me start by saying every time you boot your system on Windows 7, data is sent to Microsoft to check whether your are online and for internet connectivity.

Now although you probably never gave it a second thought. NCSI is an active tool used by Microsoft to lead Boscovich to these comments.

I am not sure if this has been posted on /. before however this url http://blog.superuser.com/2011/05/16/windows-7-network-awareness maybe makes Boscovich feel all warm and fuzzy inside as they can do more with NCSI and cut out botnets. This can be defeated as in the URL above.

Whilst I am on a roll, http://www.microsoft.com/industry/government/solutions/cofee/default.aspx is nothing special the commands in COFEE with some extra switches are;

arp.exe -a
at.exe
autorunsc.exe
getmac.exe
handle.exe -a
hostname.exe
ipconfig.exe /all
msinfo32.exe /report %OUTFILE%
nbtstat.exe -n
nbtstat.exe -A 127.0.0.1
nbtstat.exe -S
nbtstat.exe -c
net.exe share
net.exe use
net.exe file
net.exe user
net.exe accounts
net.exe view
net.exe start
net.exe Session
net.exe localgroup administrators /domain
net.exe localgroup
net.exe localgroup administrators
net.exe group
netdom.exe query DC
netstat.exe -ao
netstat.exe -no
openfiles.exe /query/v
psfile.exe
pslist.exe
pslist.exe -t
psloggedon.exe
psservice.exe
pstat.exe
psuptime.exe
quser.exe
route.exe print
sc.exe query
sc.exe queryex
sclist.exe
showgrps.exe
srvcheck \127.0.0.1
tasklist.exe /svc
whoami.exe

Awww how 31337 M$

first, there is no "X11 Windows"; it is the "X Window System (version 11)".

also all citations i can find indicate that you're wrong about the trademark. for one, look to the devil itself http://www.microsoft.com/about/legal/en/us/IntellectualProperty/Trademarks/Usage/Windows.aspx: "Windows is a registered trademark of Microsoft Corporation in the United States and other countries."

it's an abusive invalid mark and that's how they were able to sue (and decimate) lindows (now linspire). microsoft then settled because they knew they would lose if the case were carried through.

I hate you, I hate you, I hate you.

Not only did I think Self, that assertion about running Windows98 on a 286 sounds incorrect, I was sure that Windows95 and higher required the 386 protected mode instruction set, which in and of itself is painful, but I actually wasted time googling Windows98 system requirements, where I found this page at microsoft, which reads in part:

A personal computer with a 486DX 66 megahertz (MHz) or faster processor (Pentium central processing unit recommended).

Oh my god I hate you. Perhaps almost as much as I hate myself... but that's a different problem.

It's very likely Microsoft will never release anything that will satiate people who understand licenses and value freedom. Microsoft likes you to sign crazy NDAs for access to specs and source and ties their own developers and evangelists hands.

And yet here they are releasing the code without requiring crazy NDAs. That is not to say that they haven't required NDAs in the past (like when they have released the full code for Windows for specialised uses), but that doesn't mean that everytime they release some code that it get tied up in paperwork.

He couldn't hook the WP7 phone he had to the projector like he normally does because Microsoft's legal department took away the cable he had been using for presentations...

Why? Was there an actual legal reason behind this, or did someone just pinch his cable? It seems pretty unlikely that the legal department would prevent them from advertising a released product.

I have yet to see a windows version of Evolution.

It's been around for a while: http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/outlook/

What Win7 image are you using? I seriously didn't know Win7 came with an official option to put it on a usb stick for install. Also: How big does the stick have to be?

Google found this in .0032 seconds.

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/magazine/dd535816.aspx

Not only do they have instructions but there is also a video with walk-through steps.

Now when you install Linux, you arrive at a machine ready to go. With office and internet applications already installed. When I install any version of Windows I will still need to install drivers and applications afterwards.

Drivers? Maybe for the video card but for the most part most generic devices have drivers installed by default so they can work. If you need to gain extra abilities of the hardware (sound cards, printers, scanners, etc) you will need to install additional drivers but guess what, you would have to do that for LINUX also, and you better hope your vendor supports it or else you're SOL. Oh I am forgetting Wireless cards, but hey, those have tons of problems on LINUX already let alone Windows.

As for the software point you made. Any OS will need additional software installed, and frankly the software that comes with LINUX although free is not widely used, and what happens when you need to use something that is Windows specific? Well now you need to install WINE and pray that it works without an issue, or you need to dual-boot.

I will say up until Windows 7 we had a lot of reasons to hate Microsoft, but since then they have greatly improved the experience. Their installation is easy, they offer free Anti-Virus software, and their OS is very stable. LINUX might be a good alternative but its not without its problems.

You'll be hard pressed to come up with more than a few hundred MB of email in a year, the size of an average PowerPoint, I guess.

I do support for a number of businesses, and it's not at all uncommon to find people with upwards of 30,000 messages left in their inbox, easily taking up a few GB. I used to see Acer laptops shipped with FAT32 filesystems, and Outlook would break down severely when their .PST or .OST files hit the 4GB file size limit. Not to mention, accessing data in a huge Outlook data file gets pretty slow, so there are legitimate reasons not to treat your Inbox like a full-blown filesystem.

So move it to different folders ("Sales Leads", "Projects", whatever). And archive it.

Even archiving has it's drawbacks with Outlook. Archive files are created on the user's local hard drive, so no backup copies are created automatically. Relocating to a network share, for example, is not supported.

I always tell people if they have file attachments they want to keep, save them in a proper filesystem outside their e-mail program, in a location where they'll be backed up.

You are most certainly welcome! Having to fix Windows boxes 6 days a week one tries to find ways to make them easy to use, hard to break, and reliable. Not always easy, especially with certain versions (Vista oh how I hated thee) but with a handful of tools one can make Windows a nice reliable OS.

The easiest way I've found is to use a combination of WSUS Offline so you don't have to wait on Windows Updates (If you have a server with a Fat32 partition you can just keep it there and update it once a month, easy peasy) and Ninite which makes it easy to give users, even if they are in another state, clean and malware free software. I would recommend Avast and Sumatra and Klite, the rest according to your users interests, and finally although it isn't free I can't recommend highly enough TuneUp Utilities as it is even more handy and useful than Norton utilities was in the days of DOS. Nice thing is its automatic, every three days it'll clean the cruft and make sure the drives aren't fragmented.

With these handy dandy tools it is easy peasy to setup a clean machine and keep it that way. For a browser I would suggest Comodo dragon, as it is based on Chromium but has some nice extra security features like better SSL validation. Finally if you DO come across one already pwned MSFT has a nice free system sweeper that will give you a CD to boot from that will wipe out the latest bugs. But if you added TuneUp (truly awesome BTW) and a nice selection of software from Ninite along with Avast Free you're talking maybe an hour and a half from start to finish, and after which they shouldn't need you for anything. I have customers running 8 years now, the only thing I do is hardware upgrades and blow out the fans. The key with Windows is a little time at the start saves a LOT of time down the road.

I want to know how they can still, at the very least, poison their own profile.

Because they can write to their own profile? Because they can write to their own registry hive (Windows\currentversion\Run)? Because they can set up their own scheduled tasks? There are tons of ways that trojan malware can auto-start on a machine. And before you mention anything about Linux: ~/, .bashrc/.tcshrc, cron. Sure, you can put /home on another partition and mount it noexec, but not a lot of home users are going to do that, and of course Windows has Software Restriction Policies

Most of these programs don't install, in the traditional sense. They copy themselves to %userprofile%\AppData. There are ways to protect a system from that but it's not easy to set up and still allow for all the oddball programs your users need.

It's not like Linux stops you from running "rm ~ -rf". You don't need root to run that. This is the equivalent. It doesn't destroy the system. It's not particularly invasive. It does, however, completely mess with user data (toggling the Hidden bit or moving the data is common for these rogue applications, as is automatically running on login). I've never understood why sysadmins think you need root access to damage a computer system. The data is the irreplaceable part, and users - for obvious reasons - have read/write access to their own data.

I see a big difference between a company that sets some ethical standards but doesn't always live up to it and a company that doesn't have any.

Yeah, the difference is your perception, claiming to have some sort of standards or not doing so has nothing to do with actual conduct. If anything, corporations tend to publish ethical standards as a form of damage control after getting caught. Go look at any other large evil corporation, it'll have a neat claim of that sort: Microsoft, Monsanto ...

hello_tt.sys

(Disable that using the disable command from Recovery Console, THEN, reboot to RC again, & use fixmbr to restore a normal bootsector (because it's no longer being "protected" by this driver anymore than from overwrite))

FROM -> http://www.microsoft.com/security/portal/Threat/Encyclopedia/Entry.aspx?Name=Trojan:Win32/Popureb.E

APK

P.S.=> Despite the jackasses (countertrolling & tomhudson) down modding my posts, this was meant to help other techs combat this thing & with good intentions from myself - despite the trolls around here!

... apk

hello_tt.sys

(Disable that using the disable command from Recovery Console, THEN, reboot to RC again, & use fixmbr to restore a normal bootsector (because it's no longer being "protected" by this driver anymore than from overwrite))

FROM -> http://www.microsoft.com/security/portal/Threat/Encyclopedia/Entry.aspx?Name=Trojan:Win32/Popureb.E

APK

P.S.=> Despite the jackasses (countertrolling & tomhudson) down modding my posts, this was meant to help other techs combat this thing & with good intentions from myself - despite the trolls around here!

... apk

hello_tt.sys

(Disable that using the disable command from Recovery Console, THEN, reboot to RC again, & use fixmbr to restore a normal bootsector (because it's no longer being "protected" by this driver anymore than from overwrite))

FROM -> http://www.microsoft.com/security/portal/Threat/Encyclopedia/Entry.aspx?Name=Trojan:Win32/Popureb.E

APK

P.S.=> Despite the jackasses (countertrolling or tomhudson) down modding my posts, this was meant to help other techs combat this thing & with good intentions from myself - despite the trolls around here!

hello_tt.sys

(Disable that using the disable command from Recovery Console, THEN, reboot to RC again, & use fixmbr to restore a normal bootsector (because it's no longer being "protected" by this driver anymore than from overwrite))

FROM -> http://www.microsoft.com/security/portal/Threat/Encyclopedia/Entry.aspx?Name=Trojan:Win32/Popureb.E

APK

P.S.=> Despite the jackasses (countertrolling or tomhudson) down modding my posts, this was meant to help other techs combat this thing & with good intentions from myself - despite the trolls around here!

hello_tt.sys

(Disable that using the disable command from Recovery Console, THEN, reboot to RC again, & use fixmbr to restore a normal bootsector (because it's no longer being "protected" by this driver anymore than from overwrite))

FROM -> http://www.microsoft.com/security/portal/Threat/Encyclopedia/Entry.aspx?Name=Trojan:Win32/Popureb.E

APK

P.S.=> Despite the jackasses (countertrolling & tomhudson) down modding my posts, this was meant to help other techs combat this thing & with good intentions from myself - despite the trolls around here!

... apk

Why waste money? Facebook and MS have been pals for a long time already. Do you know that all thirdparty ads on FB pages are served exclusively by Microsoft? Or that Bing integrates FB in search results? Or, on Windows Phone, guess which social network is automatically integrated into the contact list?

You left out some details about bounds checking that deserve some notice:

According the the C++ Standard, std::vector::operator[] does not do bounds checking -- if you want an exception to be thrown, use std::vector::at(). As an aside, I which they would have switched which one does checking and which one doesn't, but it is the way it is.

Visual C++ has an extension to do bounds checking on operator[]. Compile with _SECURE_SCL 1, which is the default. When an access goes out of bounds, the program will terminate. You can set another macro if you want an exception to be thrown, however.

I' think that Visual C++'s behavior is completely acceptable according to the standard (which only requires undefined behavior). However, it makes some C++ programmers uneasy because it's adding overhead to a very common operation that will often be found in inner loops (and with the safe option readily available). Hopefully the compiler can eliminate most of the checks by detecting loop bounds or somesuch.

Another detail about vectors: I've repeatedly heard that you can't use vectors when interfacing with C functions, as they operate on normal arrays. This isn't the case: just pass in the address of the first element (&vect[0]). Yes, this behavior is backed by the standard. The only caveat I'm aware of is that you have to be careful when doing anything to the vector that would cause it to move around in memory (such as call push_back() when it's already full) -- but that's already true of C arrays created with malloc().

However, there is one good reason to use C arrays in C++: when you need a small array allocated on the stack. As of C++0x, however, you should be using std::array for this purpose instead. The only other factor to consider are VLAs, which aren't part of standard C++ and I don't think Visual C++ supports them anyway.

I am never going to trust your party invitations again.

This is Slashdot, what is that "party invitation" thing that you are talking about? :-)

it's no less crazy to map broadcast of the signals as equivalent to sending out invitations.

Hiding SSID is not a solution:

Therefore, using non-broadcast networks compromises the privacy of the wireless network configuration of a Windows XP or Windows Server 2003-based wireless client because it is periodically disclosing its set of preferred non-broadcast wireless networks.

If one person is going to map receiving the signals as equivalent to entering

Don't know about that. However imagine that there is a car in front of your house, on a public road. The car's occupants point microphones at your house, where you and your wife have very private conversations. The car is parked there for hours, if not days. What would be your action? Will you do nothing, or perhaps you will call 911? Note that you "broadcast" audio waves as you speak, and those waves easily penetrate walls of typical US houses, them being cheap plywood and drywall.

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc512587.aspx

Jesper M. Johansson, Ph.D., CISSP, MCSE, MCP+I

Security Program Manager
Microsoft Corporation

You can't clean a compromised system by patching it.

You can't clean a compromised system by removing the back doors.

You can't clean a compromised system by using some âoevulnerability remover.

You can't clean a compromised system by using a virus scanner.

You can't clean a compromised system by reinstalling the operating system over the existing installation.

You can't trust any data copied from a compromised system.

You can't trust the event logs on a compromised system.

You may not be able to trust your latest backup.

The only way to clean a compromised system is to flatten and rebuild. That's right. If you have a system that has been completely compromised, the only thing you can do is to flatten the system (reformat the system disk) and rebuild it from scratch (reinstall Windows and your applications).

Plus I've had Microsoft hosted Exchange for almost 2 years now and can't remember a single outage.

I call bullshit. I have had BPOS with my company for almost a year and have experienced several outages (I am keeping track because this was upper managments call against the advice of IT):

22 June 2011
http://www.networkworld.com/community/blog/microsoft-confirms-bpos-cloud-outage
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/06/23/bpos_outage/

10-13 May 2011
http://www.katacinta.net/cinta/microsoft-online-outage-may-10/
http://www.techworld.com.au/article/386384/outage_hits_hosted_exchange_customers/
http://www.infoworld.com/d/cloud-computing/hosted-exchange-customers-hit-service-outages-981
http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9216697/Microsoft_explains_recent_hosted_e_mail_outages

6 March 2011:
http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/onlineservicesexchange/thread/7017abf4-a9d9-4c08-85ac-f66912124493/
19 October 2010
http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/onlineservicesannouncements/thread/e72e8707-7457-4737-b246-2598769e54cf/
3 & 7 September 2010 & 23 Aug 2010
http://www.zdnet.com/blog/microsoft/microsoft-bpos-down-for-90-minutes-second-outage-in-a-month/7302
http://mcpmag.com/articles/2010/09/10/microsoft-reports-major-bpos-outages-slas-affected.aspx
http://blogs.technet.com/b/msonline/archive/2010/09/08/meeting-your-and-our-own-expectations.aspx
http://www.zdnet.com/blog/microsoft/microsoft-apologizes-for-spate-of-recent-online-services-outages/7337

Plus I've had Microsoft hosted Exchange for almost 2 years now and can't remember a single outage.

I call bullshit. I have had BPOS with my company for almost a year and have experienced several outages (I am keeping track because this was upper managments call against the advice of IT):

22 June 2011
http://www.networkworld.com/community/blog/microsoft-confirms-bpos-cloud-outage
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/06/23/bpos_outage/

10-13 May 2011
http://www.katacinta.net/cinta/microsoft-online-outage-may-10/
http://www.techworld.com.au/article/386384/outage_hits_hosted_exchange_customers/
http://www.infoworld.com/d/cloud-computing/hosted-exchange-customers-hit-service-outages-981
http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9216697/Microsoft_explains_recent_hosted_e_mail_outages

6 March 2011:
http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/onlineservicesexchange/thread/7017abf4-a9d9-4c08-85ac-f66912124493/
19 October 2010
http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/onlineservicesannouncements/thread/e72e8707-7457-4737-b246-2598769e54cf/
3 & 7 September 2010 & 23 Aug 2010
http://www.zdnet.com/blog/microsoft/microsoft-bpos-down-for-90-minutes-second-outage-in-a-month/7302
http://mcpmag.com/articles/2010/09/10/microsoft-reports-major-bpos-outages-slas-affected.aspx
http://blogs.technet.com/b/msonline/archive/2010/09/08/meeting-your-and-our-own-expectations.aspx
http://www.zdnet.com/blog/microsoft/microsoft-apologizes-for-spate-of-recent-online-services-outages/7337

All developers considering using Direct2D (or rather DirectWrite) should first read this doc page, and tattoo DWRITE_RENDERING_MODE_CLEARTYPE_GDI_CLASSIC on their forehead.

Remember, every time you render a glyph in DWRITE_RENDERING_MODE_DEFAULT, I kill a kitten. And eat it. With no mustard.

A better question is, why Mozilla devs don't let users disable that "pixel perfect" rendering bullshit - DirectWrite certainly allows you to do so.

Back when Visual Studio 2010 was in beta, there were numerous user complaints about the same issue (disclaimer: I'm the guy who created that Connect ticket, but the ticket itself is an aggregation of numerous blog and forum posts, and obviously I didn't upvote it 161 times by myself).

And guess what? It was mostly fixed in final version. Still not pixel-for-pixel the same as GDI rendering - you can't get that from DWrite - but in terms of contrast it's very close.

Why IE9 didn't do the same is a mystery, but why Firefox chose to follow suit is simply beyond my comprehension. It's like there's some sort of conspiracy against those of us who prefer our on-screen text crisp and clean, not all blurred Apple-style...

At the very bottom of this page it mentions fantastic news: the removal of the 31 style sheets limit!

In Internet Explorer 9 and earlier, there is a limit of 31 style sheets per webpage. There is also a nesting limit of four levels deep for style sheets that are linked using @import rules.

In IE10 Platform Preview, this limit has been removed.

IE9 does finally support border-radius, but I know it doesn't support text-shadow.

Here's a comparison between IE versions:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc351024(v=vs.85).aspx

Unfortunately, it doesn't matter how well new versions of IE support new standards. The masses won't be using it until they buy a new computer that already has the latest version pre-installed. Most of them are too terrified of breaking their computer to proceed with the upgrade they're prompted with through Windows Update.

If you have font issues, please note Microsoft just released a hotfix that improves font rendering:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2545698

You might also want to look at:
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=667989

Only from Vista onwards. Although it is possible to disable autorun in XP, it has to be done on every individual station - you can't do it via group policy.

According to KB 967715 it can be done in 2000/XP/2003 and newer via GPO's in the domain.

If you're infrastructure is running Server 2008 and your clients are running Vista or higher you can already prevent unauthorized devices from being installed via Device GUID. See here: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb530324.aspx Of course, it's not completely bullet-proof but it's definitely better than letting anything be installed on any workstation.