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If you can stick a meta-tag into the HTML generated by the application there is a one-line fix that will trigger IE7 rendering/DOM mode in later versions of IE for backwards compatibility. Here is a good overview of how it works, and how to manually trigger it, overriding doctype sniffing.

It's insane that a compiler, any compiler, needs 3+GB to "just" link [wikipedia.org] a whatever big number of object files into an executable.

Linkers haven't been "just linking" for a long time now. Please read about link-time code generation and profile-guided optimization - both are involved in this case.

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

Well maybe for some examples, not the ribbon though. The ribbon objectively IS better than the Office 2003 setup.

We know this, because Microsoft did an absolute SHITLOAD of user interface testing on this.

(link: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/jensenh/archive/2008/03/12/the-story-of-the-ribbon.aspx)

If Microsoft is indeed using tools like Google Analytics for applications they are completely ignoring what those tools tell them, Windows 8 is the windows mobile interface that everyone hates on a larger non-touchscreen. I predict that the FIRST thing anyone will do with windows 8 is shut that damn thing off.

Even though you claim to speak on behalf of everyone, so probably already know this, here is one example of how they are using what user telemetry tell them to informs design decisions. Here is another

If Microsoft is indeed using tools like Google Analytics for applications they are completely ignoring what those tools tell them, Windows 8 is the windows mobile interface that everyone hates on a larger non-touchscreen. I predict that the FIRST thing anyone will do with windows 8 is shut that damn thing off.

Even though you claim to speak on behalf of everyone, so probably already know this, here is one example of how they are using what user telemetry tell them to informs design decisions. Here is another

It's funny that you mention that. Jensen Harris's blog contains information about how his team used an internal Microsoft technology called SQM to do exactly that when designing the ribbon.

Link is here.

If you HONESTLY think they are gonna gut the ENTIRE UI before release day? here is a cookie to go with the koolaid you have been drinking. as for why show it to them?

Actually the Start tiles experience was redesigned due to customer feedback about the Developer Preview.

The concept is not going away, but the implementation is improving a lot before release.

Compare the design after feedback was taken into account to the earlier design

It was improved.

I know this may surprise you, but Microsoft relies on selling stuff to customers. As such, as a general rule (though not always, everyone messes up from time to time), they try to create products that customers want to buy. If they get feedback that something can be improved, and if it is possible to improve it given budget/time/etc, quite often it ends up being improved. Not always, but features have a cost to implement (both financial and in terms of human resources).

folks PUT UP with their cell phone, most don't sit there caressing the thing and they sure as hell don't want to spend their day in front of it!

Try talking to a younger demographic.

Also, if you are putting up with technology, try getting better technology.

In regards to the new start screen though, it is basically a simple evolution of the original Windows 95 flyout start menu that just now takes up the entire screen. It is a full screen start menu. Live Tiles are Desktop Icons that can display snippets of information, and that are easier to arrange in to meaningful groups.

Do either of those sound that bad to you? Does de-cluttering desktops (while still allowing users to put things on the desktop! Just making those things easier to organize!) really sound horrible? And why the hell not make the start menu full screen? It damn well should be, much better than the stupid small hit boxes that existed on the Win95 through WinXP start menus, and tons better than the seriously unusable start menu that debuted with Vista and continued on to 7.

Everything you wanted to know about Windows 8 file copy enhancements:

Improving our file management basics: copy, move, rename, and delete: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/b8/archive/2011/08/23/improving-our-file-management-basics-copy-move-rename-and-delete.aspx

Designing the Windows 8 file name collision experience: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/b8/archive/2011/08/26/designing-the-windows-8-file-name-collision-experience.aspx

Building robust USB 3.0 support: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/b8/archive/2011/08/22/building-robust-usb-3-0-support.aspx

Everything you wanted to know about Windows 8 file copy enhancements:

Improving our file management basics: copy, move, rename, and delete: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/b8/archive/2011/08/23/improving-our-file-management-basics-copy-move-rename-and-delete.aspx

Designing the Windows 8 file name collision experience: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/b8/archive/2011/08/26/designing-the-windows-8-file-name-collision-experience.aspx

Building robust USB 3.0 support: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/b8/archive/2011/08/22/building-robust-usb-3-0-support.aspx

Everything you wanted to know about Windows 8 file copy enhancements:

Improving our file management basics: copy, move, rename, and delete: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/b8/archive/2011/08/23/improving-our-file-management-basics-copy-move-rename-and-delete.aspx

Designing the Windows 8 file name collision experience: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/b8/archive/2011/08/26/designing-the-windows-8-file-name-collision-experience.aspx

Building robust USB 3.0 support: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/b8/archive/2011/08/22/building-robust-usb-3-0-support.aspx

There was an article here a couple of weeks ago about a browser plugin that managed your private keys and worked with webMail.

Good luck seeking permission to install that browser plug-in on all computing devices that you use, even if they're not full-size PCs. Wasn't Microsoft promising a plugin-free IE in the Metro environment of Windows 8? And good luck seeking permission to install that browser plug-in on all PCs that you use but do not own, such as a PC in the break room at work, a PC in the library, a PC belonging to a relative whom you are visiting, etc.

This has an interesting discussion on formatting issue. There was a lot of stuff in Win9x that sacrificed performance for compatibility. On the one hand it's kind of impressive that so much old stuff kept working, but it definitely held back Windows performance compared to contemporaries.

It does bite MS in the ass. Most 3rd-party shenanigans do; it's not often an MS conspiracy.

Have a look at Raymond Chen's blog, he's often had to deal with this nonsense: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/oldnewthing/archive/2003/08/28/54719.aspx

what possible issue could you have with ensuring secure boot is always able to be disabled by the user? What possible detrimental effect is that going to have on your future Windows 8 PC purchases, or MS itself, or any OEMs, or anyone else?

What kind if stupid shoolboy logic is this? There are plenty of things I don't care about. That doesn't mean that all of them *MUST* be in the contract or else MS is suddently evil.

is now suddenly some draconian "forcing them to do X and Y" and the most pressing issue facing pro-MS trolls at the moment?

Who says it is? People respond to comments. You should ask why slashdot wants to "suddenly" hype a non-issue turing it into yet another Us-versus-them comment troll fest.

After all, MS is insisting (seemingly on faith) that secure boot will always be able to be disabled. What is wrong with MS codifying what they say will happen anyway? There is no trade-off here - it's just a sentence or two added to a draft document that will match what mostly is already going to happen anyway. What exactly is the big deal?

Nobody has said that secure boot will always be able to be disabled. They simply don't care about any other OS other than windows.

"Microsoft does not mandate or control the settings on PC firmware that control or enable secured boot from any operating system other than Windows"

http://blogs.msdn.com/b/b8/archive/2011/09/22/protecting-the-pre-os-environment-with-uefi.aspx

Isn't that putting their money where their mouth is and defusing the whole issue? Or would they rather fuel the FUD and conspiracy theories?

LOL... so the problem here is that MICROSOFT who wasn't the one that started the conspiracy theory is to blame? Instead of the myriad of fretard blogs, slashdot ms-bashing, and other speculation from IT magazines? Are you high or something? Slashdot trolls and freetards alike feel that when nothing is written about specifically in a contract it implies that any possible conclusion out of the giant set of all possible conclusions in reality is equally probable. Thats the problem here. The defective brains of freetards.

I've had such a thing during my phone "pre-screening" interview at Microsoft as well. I gave the answer immediately, simply because I've seen that trick question before - and told the guy as much. Not sure what it was supposed to measure. Then again, other questions were about obvious stuff like explaining how virtual functions work. *shrug*

On the bright side, there was none of that stuff on the actual interview - only coding/algorithm tasks, with code written on the whiteboard. Probably because that part is done by people (developers and managers) from MS itself, not hired recruiters. And most people who actually do that kind of work understand how useless those riddles actually are in determining whether the candidate is any good.

For example, Eric Lippert - a senior developer in C# language team, and the guy who posts a lot of interesting stuff about C# language design on his blog, once wrote a hilarious tongue-in-cheek blog post about how Richard Feynman would approach such a riddle. Ironically, he used the very same riddle that was given to me in a phone interview...

Actually 5 will get you 10 when all is said and done it'll come down to a little thing called DirectX. As we all know DirectX 10 and 11 weren't backported to XP because they were calling parts of the new WPF that would have been a royal bitch to rewrite for XP (there is a hacked DirectX 10 beta for XP and i've tried it but frankly its buggy as hell) and i'm willing to bet my last dollar they are using DirectX to speed rendering and any video.

Bzzt. WPF for Vista and WPF for XP share the exact same codebase. My uneducated guess is that DirectX 10 not being backported to XP has something to do with WDDM.

For those of us that's seen the Metro UI, which i personally think is gonna bomb HARD as i've shown the screencaps to over 120 customer so far and have YET to get a SINGLE positive comment about Metro

You keep writing this. I swear I've read it about 15 times now. I'm sure Microsoft would like to know this, as it probably represents the most thorough and scientific market research they have available.

I only hope this will be the final nail in the coffin for the sweaty monkey and the board will make him 'pursue other interests' as he makes the Pepsi guy look competent

Personally I won't be bothered if Windows 8 makes it. As long as Metro can be disabled, it doesn't bother me at all. For tablets, it's probably the obvious choice. The Metro UI on WP7 is generally accepted to be quite functional (though I've never used it myself). As a retailer, it strikes me as odd that you'd wish failure on a product that has the potential to be a big seller itself, as well as a big driver of new hardware sales. Not that I'd defend Ballmer, I think he's made a general mess of things, as most short-sighted share-price-driven executive inevitably does.

Sounds like LLVM.

Eric Lippert's responce to that suggestion is "absolutely not". http://blogs.msdn.com/b/ericlippert/archive/2011/10/19/the-roslyn-preview-is-now-available.aspx

MS tried to throttle the startup programs in Vista so they don't all hit the disk at once, but reportedly gave up that idea in Windows 7:

http://blogs.msdn.com/b/oldnewthing/archive/2011/08/17/10196425.aspx

As far as coding resources, it doesn't have any in and of itself. All the GlobalGameJam is, is an event for people interested in game design to get together and build a game. What they do end up providing just by it's nature is programmers, artists, designers, sound engineers, and anyone else with a skill that can help in making games (and people without relevant skills that are just interested in games). Also, most of the games that come out of a thing like this are very small scale simple games. No real engine unless you decide to use something like Unity to make it. If it's something you are interested in, just sign up on the site (I think registration opens in November), list any skills you have, show up and have fun. As far as reference to a good simple graphics package, check out http://www.unity3d.com/ and http://create.msdn.com/en-US/education/tutorial/2dgame/getting_started/ Both are quite easy to use and have tons of great documentation and tutorials.

The menu is gone, plain and simple.

Clicking "Start" or pressing Win gets you to Metro home screen. That has icons for programs that you have installed, pinned as tiles (basically, when before something added icons to Start menu, it's now adding tiles to Metro home).

If you start typing while in the home screen, it'll start searching. This is basically the same as Start menu search in Vista/7 (and there the search field is also what has focus initially when you bring up Start menu) but with a new Metro-style UI, so at least I can reuse my muscle memory for Win + search term. Still, it's quite confusing, especially as Metro is full-screen, and so you don't see the desktop or currently open apps while searching.

If you hover mouse over the bottom left corner, you get a pop-up menu with a bunch of things, one of which is "Settings". This opens up the Metro-style control panel, which covers the most frequently used options. That has a link to full and proper Win7 Control Panel. In all honesty, it's easier to open it once and then pin it to the taskbar.

This all pertains to Win8 Developer Preview. Apparently, things will be changing somewhat in response to user feedback, but Start menu is not going back. This is a fairly detailed UX analysis of the new UI and why it's the way it is, but personally, I'm still not convinced that not giving me an option of using what I'm already used to is a good idea.

Re: Any reasonable rich guy

http://blogs.msdn.com/b/oldnewthing/archive/2009/11/23/9927055.aspx

For the consoles - you have to pay thousands to get a developer license, and then the console company decides whether to accept you. If you're a company without a track record in games, they'll reject you. Then you need to pay thousands more for the developer kit.

Except for the Xbox 360, where anyone can buy a Windows PC, a developer license from Microsoft for $99 and start developing and release their stuff on the Xbox Live Arcade Indie channel.

No, they use SLM.

Your knowledge is at least 11 years out of date. I used to work at Microsoft (left several years ago). We switched from slm to Source Depot (Perforce fork) in about 2000. In addition, Google tells me that many teams are using VSTF (not SourceSafe 2010, which doesn't exist). It's not clear whether any of them are using the revision control part of TFS (hence replacing sd) but I imagine at least some of them are doing so, given that TFS has existed at least 6 years.

How much does it cost to import ten plus years of VSS data? If it could be done, I'd definitely be interested in switching to something better supported (read: FOSS)...

There are a number of free options you can try, which again you can find via Google, for example: http://www.google.com/search?q=migrating+from+sourcesafe+to+subversion. Indeed, this was one of the first questions on Stack Overflow: What's the best way to migrate from VSS to Subversion? Of course, you can also choose to make your SourceSafe instance read-only and simply check in a new copy into svn and start from there.

Chrome does in fact ask me when I try to download potentially unsafe file formats (in my case, DMG files =) ), prompting me whether to keep or discard.

Chrome decides based on the file format. IE's filter is more fine-grained, deciding based on the reputation of a particular downloaded executable file (identified by its hash value?) or, in the case of a digitally signed executable, the reputation of its publisher. Microsoft's advice for building an application's reputation (source 1; source 2) involves buying into the Authenticode CA racket, which can prove expensive for an individual student or hobbyist developer.

There are smart ways of achieving the same effect:

Orange pays actors to sand in line for the iPhone:

http://channel9.msdn.com/Forums/Coffeehouse/423221-Orange-Pays-Actors-To-Stand-In-Line-For-The-iPhone

I disagree with much of what he said, but this point is actually easy to corroborate:
See -- C++ Renaissance at Microsoft, Craig Symonds and Mohsen Agsen: C++ Renaissance, and What does the latest "C++ Renaissance" mean?

This doesn't mean they're abandoning C#, however.

The funny thing is that when Windows 95 came, they announced that the PC wouldn't boot into a command line. The original DOS command line would become a virtual machine like DOS box.

Are you implying that isn't what happened? Windows 95 only used DOS as a bootloader-- as soon as Windows was loaded, it ran DOS in a virtual machine from then on. Here's the process as described by Raymond Chen: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/oldnewthing/archive/2007/12/24/6849530.aspx

Now you might argue that using DOS as a bootloader means your computer "boots into DOS" first before Windows, but that's just being pedantic.

Probably not. Here is how Win8 looks today. Now that's still a pre-beta, with various debugging and diagnostic stuff enabled, so memory use will likely go down a little bit further for RTM - perhaps even below 256Mb. But that's for the OS, and you would want apps as well.

(here is how the same looks on Win7)

Probably not. Here is how Win8 looks today. Now that's still a pre-beta, with various debugging and diagnostic stuff enabled, so memory use will likely go down a little bit further for RTM - perhaps even below 256Mb. But that's for the OS, and you would want apps as well.

(here is how the same looks on Win7)

The Black Viper list is pretty good, but the reality is that from Win7 on, the list of OS services that's enabled is the set which won't break something (if you read Black Viper's list they point out what breaks with each service disabled).

And I've not yet figured out how to convince Google Chrome to stop auto-updating (and I don't want to stop flash from auto-updating, flash and pdf are the two biggest vectors for malware out there). I just wish their auto-updaters respected the user and recognized that they should. Larry Osterman wrote an article about this a couple of years ago: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/larryosterman/archive/2007/08/20/applet-mitigations-updaters.aspx

Everyone in their usability tests.

The MS blog post discussing this specifically mentions a requirement that there is no programmatic control of secure boot policies. If it were possible to add certificates while the OS is running, it would be easier for malware to add those certificates themselves.

Sure, you could include dodgy.exe in an email and give moronic users instructions how to right-click to save it to disk, open a file manager, go find the file on disk, then double-click on it to execute it, but thanks to human laziness very few people are going to go to all that trouble just to see the naked photo, and quite a few will probably remember being told never to do such a thing anyway.

Users can do a surprisingly technical number of things in order to see Dancing Pigs. Let me describe in general the steps one had to take in order to do something a while back. First they had to download an executable, then run that executable. Click a few buttons. Then they had to tap a little bit, then find and download PuTTY and a SFTP client. Download another file, then use the SFTP client to transfer that file. Finally, log into PuTTY and execute a bunch of commands.

And what did I describe? How to jailbreak an iPhone in the 2.x days and download and install the modified installer file to run pirated apps. And enough people did it that they left OpenSSH running with default password because none of the tutorials said to change the password. Which lead to an iphone virus that simply ssh'd itself around.

Facebook spam relies on users copying and pasting raw javascript.in order to post to feeds.

And it happens on Android as well - people install alternative stores to pirate Android apps, or download torrents of apps of unknown quality, leading to Android based botnets and such. And everyone who claims to read every single permission before tapping install is lying - again, users "want that app" so they'll tap install blindly. The permissions box is just a fancy version of "This file was downloaded off the Internet. Only run trusted files. Do you wish to run it?" dialogs that Windows and OS X has.

You don't need to prevent a user from being able to run apps, you just need to restrict default behaviors for apps, provide the user with information on how much an "expert" thinks they should trust software, and tell the user in clear and simple terms when the app wants more privileges and exactly what those privileges are. Finally, you need to present this in a usable interface. Apple is already heading down this route with both iOS and OS X. In OS X 10.7 apps are sandboxed by default, although I haven't seen a single report as to if this trojan works within the sandbox, breaks out of the sandbox, or simply fails entirely on Lion.

Users do not read dialog boxes. What you presented is a fancy dialog box, but that's all it is. The Android permissions system works only for tech savvy users. Those who don't will just click "Install" without reading the list at all.

If you default "no" several permissions, the app can say "I need X permission. Please enable it." and you'll find the user will do it.

It's called the Dancing Pigs Problem. The user will NOT care about security - they will do whatever it takes to run the app.

In fact, as Facebook users have shown they will basically be the attack vector.

Yes, the days of the honor system virus are here. There's no way to protect the user without going to some walled-garden approach. They will open security holes if some app tells them to.

This is especially prevalent on ways for the users to get stuff for free. Offer pirated software and the user will download all sorts of crap.

Here, if you don't believe me, check this image out or this post on the BUILD blog.

@Jose Pedro Of course Windows is usable without secure boot -- just like the post stated :-)

How secure boot works with any other operating systems is obviously a question for those OS products :-) We focus our boot loader on Windows and there are a number of alternatives for people who wish to have other sets of functionality.

Just take a look at this image.

That's all you need to know.

In Summation: There is a genuinely good reason for enabling secure boot (malware prevention - genuine malware prevention, not just some underhand tactic that's masquerading as malware protection) and as long as your OEM isn't a dick, you should be able to disable it much like how you can disable features in your BIOS today. The decision to remove that ability is down to the OEM, not Microsoft.

again, another instance of overblown fear-mongering FUD on slashdot.

from horse's mouth:

For the enthusiast who wants to run older operating systems, the option is there to allow you to make that decision.

you will notice that we designed the firmware to allow the customer to disable secure boot

OEMs are free to choose how to enable this support and can further customize the parameters

That's a whole lot of assertions based on precisely no evidence. No statements from Microsoft. No actions by Microsoft, other than their intention to use UEFI. In fact, if one can disable UEFI in hardware after boot, that would render the issue moot. Is MS also going to strongarm manufacturers to exclude that feautre?

The Ars article was a lot less 'chicken little':

And while it is still a rumor it can probably be taken as a fact that disabling this feature (if made possible by the manufacturers) will likely cause Windows to not star

According to this post on msdn.com, that would appear to not be true. MS claims to support legacy BIOS as well as allow dual booting. They don't specifically mention Linux, but I don't think that was an intentional slight.

Not to mention which, since the last round of DOJ suits, MS has seemed to stay away from blatantly anticompetitive tactics. And this would probably be the most blatant they've ever done, if they were to do it.

Basically, while I like to bash MS as much as the next guy (as long as you're not the next guy, apparently), do you have absolutely ANYTHING to back up some rather bold claims?

The one good thing about Microsoft is that they tend to stick to what they started.

Unless you're using Virtual Earth.

The Size of Things

"Because the Ribbon consolidates the UI into one space, it pushes the document down in the window a bit--giving the illusion of there being less space than there really is."

People are notoriously bad about doing eyeball approximations of size. Our instincts produce results contrary to reality, because we are subjective, not objective observers. It's why you can serve a drink in a tall, skinny glass, and people will assume they are getting more liquid than the same amount served in a short, fat one.

guys, stop confusing this with SaaS, the Java compiler API, GCC plugins, etc...

Just watch the damn video!

wait, the java compiler API will give you data-flow analysis on the code you give it?

no, the java compiler API is a thin wrapper around the compiler driver. little more than popen() with some support for file redirection.

Roslyn is a whole new beast.

just watch the video and learn.

wait, GCC has a library that allows you to compile code on the fly, inspect the syntax and symbols of the results, load it into the calling process and execute it?

Here's the code from the video (42:00):

static void Main (string [] args) {
        ScriptEngine engine = new ScriptEngine ();
        Session session = Session.Create ();
        engine.Execute ("using System;", session);
        engine.Execute ("int Sqr(int x) { return x * x; }", session);

        var f = (Func<int, int>) engine.Execute ("new Func<int, int> (Sqr);", session);

        for (int i = 0; i < 10; i ++)
                Console.WriteLine (f(i));
}

if GCC can do something like that, i'd love to see it.

http://channel9.msdn.com/Events/BUILD/BUILD2011/TOOL-816T

You haven't named any flaws in JavaScript as a language

This question keeps coming up in every Slashdot story mentioning JS. Frankly, I'm sick and tired of having to re-type it over and over again. I'll just keep linking to this post from now on.

there are a lot of things that JavaScript does really well. Try doing what an asynchronous XMLHttpRequest does in Python, or Java, or pretty much any other language.

What, you've never used an asynchronous API in other languages? I guess then that you don't know that some of them have a single standardized API that is shared beween all async operations (rather than some ad-hoc, slapped-together design for one very narrow use case). And some even have extensive support for async operations in the language itself.

Coz if they did MS would sue, sue and sue again.

Pure FUD. The PowerShell specification was released under the Community Promise specifically so it could be implemented on other platforms.

In this day and age, if the OS+hardware combo is stable (hmmm....), you can elimininate most of your startup times with suspend/hibernate functionality... saves power and effort in the long run. All this newfangled quick-boot crap seems to be basically a glorified hibernation resume. Not a bad idea, but while it may be new to MS Windows, the concept of loading the functional parts of a system directly into ram from an image is certainly not. It's also a bit less lame than I make it sound... http://blogs.msdn.com/b/b8/archive/2011/09/08/delivering-fast-boot-times-in-windows-8.aspx

According to http://blogs.msdn.com/b/b8/archive/2011/09/13/welcome-to-windows-8-the-developer-preview.aspx you can keep on coding in c+ + or c#
They might show more things this week

Any ideas on if .Net will work on/will be advanced in Windows 8?

Yes and yes. From Sinofsky's blog:

"We will show the brand new tools that allow you to code Metro style applications in HTML5/JavaScript, C/C++, and/or C#/XAML. The investments you have made as developers in all of these languages carry forward for Windows 8"

So, basically, .NET is still there, and it gets full access to all Metro APIs.