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I don't know whether you ever read Raymond Chen's blog. He's been a MS developer for many years and he often writes about the hoops they have to jump through to maintain backwards compatability, sometimes even to the extend of reimplementing bugs or implementing special memory allocation modes for specific software because they've broken rules. MS seem to take the view that when a user upgrades their OS and their old app doesn't work they tend to blame windows for breaking their program, even though in fact it may just be their software that relied upon undocumented behaviour, or hardcoded stuff they were supposed to do another way.

For example, one of the big problems they had in vista was that they created a new fast mode of copying files across a network in SMB, but because SAMBA had a buggy implementation which was installed on many NAS boxes and off the shelf storage systems they couldn't rely upon automatic discovery to enable this new feature by default. The effect was that they were prevented from extending their own technology by an unauthorised (and buggy) implementation which they had no control over, but because MS would get the blame if things started failing they held back the new method.

http://blogs.msdn.com/cwilso/archive/2008/01/22/i-feel-happy-too.aspx#7203075

They will already do this with HTML5 doctypes (and other unknown but well-formed doctypes), even in IE8.

http://blogs.msdn.com/cwilso/archive/2008/01/22/i-feel-happy-too.aspx#7203075

Doctype switches for new specs will not need the meta tag, according to the same buckaroo who wrote the blog post in TFA.

It's just too bad that Microsoft didn't learn this lesson. With their browser safely at 90%+ market share and no real competitors in sight, they stopped development (except for bug fixes, of course).

And only bug fixes that they considered critical -- security, crashers, etc. Nothing that would have fixed rendering bugs. And I don't just mean spec violations, I mean outright bugs that would make content disappear. When they did IE7, they combed the net looking for descriptions of known rendering bugs so they could fix them.

1. "Quirks mode" remains the same, and compatible with current content.
2. "Standards mode" remains the same as IE7, and compatible with current content.
3. If you (the page developer) really want the best standards support IE8 can give, you can get it by inserting a simple element. Aaron gives more details on this in his article.

Read it and weep, I know I did. (Last 3 paragraphs are the relevant ones.)

Last month Microsoft said that they do pass the Acid2 test. Mozilla hasn't made that claim for Firefox 2.

What's not to like? This tag allows the people that are writing horrible IE-only HTML/CSS in Visual Studio today to continue their business as usual. There is absolutely no incentive for these people to adhere to standards since the IE7 engine will be kept around for "a couple of web lifetimes" apparently (source). This effectively locks browsers other than IE out of these sites since they won't have this IE7 compatibilty.

Hooray, everybody wins. No, wait, the other one.

Everybody in both threads keeps asking "why not make Acid2 the default". I'm going to focus on this part rather than the rest of your comment (which is interesting). There are several reasons that don't need tinfoil hats in these three links:

http://blogs.msdn.com/ie/archive/2008/01/21/compatibility-and-ie8.aspx
http://alistapart.com/articles/beyonddoctype
http://alistapart.com/articles/fromswitchestotargets

It's not such an obviously bad solution. It's not necessarily the best solution, either. It's just a solution. One which allows a choice between backcompat (including write once and never worry about tweaking again) and tricky forwardcompat.

Also, see in particular this comment: http://blogs.msdn.com/ie/archive/2008/01/21/compatibility-and-ie8.aspx#7202029

There's a regkey to force IE8 standards mode on all sites (including ACID2).

Problem is that there are sites on corporate intranets and for small businesses all over the place that expect IE6 or IE7 behaviour from either all browsers, (or sometimes it sniffs for IE and feeds it a non-standards page). These people aren't going to be happy about adding standards compliance.

This solution means that everybody who renders fine in IE has to do absolutely nothing to update their webpage for IE8. They can if they want to, though. People who don't render fine in IE, well, they now have the workload to make it render reduced to one tiny server config or one line per webpage, their choice. When they make a new webpage, they can opt in with the one simple copy-paste line (yes, I know, OMG evil proprietary HACKS!!!). And then when IE9 comes out...any page compliant with IE8 and before still doesn't need to be touched to render in IE9. And so on and so forth.

Standards will continue to evolve and be created and iterated, and no browser will fully support standards immediately upon their creation (unless there's some standards-incest, or the standard is ultimately lifted from one browser or another). This method allows IE the freedom to fully support new standards in the next version without worrying anymore about backwards-compatibility. Or they can half-implement it in one version and half in the next, or whatever. And if other browsers want to try this versioning on their software, they can. And if they don't, they don't have to. IE is apparently committed to, by default, not fucking up old webpages that worked on earlier versions. That doesn't have to be anybody else's priority; no other vendor is being "forced" to implement this. Code to standards, put IE on edge, and like every other browser it's forward-looking. And if it completely fails to take off, and IE marketshare drops to nearly nothing, then probably IE9 will just render in standards and drop the rest of it.

I think this could actually speed the adoption of standards. If IE8 works without breaking *anything* before, it can have a MUCH quicker adoption than IE7 did vis-a-vis IE6. The IEs, as we know, together still make up a majority of browsers visiting the majority of sites. But if a tonne of them are moving to IE8, then webdevs can code to standards, insert the IE8 tag, and everything will work on Firefox 3, Safari whatever, Opera whatever, IE8 (minus the bugs in all for all of those, which are hopefully minor). And if adoption still isn't quick enough, webdevs can say without shame to the people with IE7 to just upgrade their browser, it's old and deprecated, and they have *absolutely* nothing to lose and standards compliance to gain. Eventually everything is in standards, the 9 people who still use IE6 can't stand the web not working anymore and download IE8 (or Firefox or Opera or whatever), and here we are, compliant at last

Everybody in both threads keeps asking "why not make Acid2 the default". I'm going to focus on this part rather than the rest of your comment (which is interesting). There are several reasons that don't need tinfoil hats in these three links:

http://blogs.msdn.com/ie/archive/2008/01/21/compatibility-and-ie8.aspx
http://alistapart.com/articles/beyonddoctype
http://alistapart.com/articles/fromswitchestotargets

It's not such an obviously bad solution. It's not necessarily the best solution, either. It's just a solution. One which allows a choice between backcompat (including write once and never worry about tweaking again) and tricky forwardcompat.

Also, see in particular this comment: http://blogs.msdn.com/ie/archive/2008/01/21/compatibility-and-ie8.aspx#7202029

There's a regkey to force IE8 standards mode on all sites (including ACID2).

Problem is that there are sites on corporate intranets and for small businesses all over the place that expect IE6 or IE7 behaviour from either all browsers, (or sometimes it sniffs for IE and feeds it a non-standards page). These people aren't going to be happy about adding standards compliance.

This solution means that everybody who renders fine in IE has to do absolutely nothing to update their webpage for IE8. They can if they want to, though. People who don't render fine in IE, well, they now have the workload to make it render reduced to one tiny server config or one line per webpage, their choice. When they make a new webpage, they can opt in with the one simple copy-paste line (yes, I know, OMG evil proprietary HACKS!!!). And then when IE9 comes out...any page compliant with IE8 and before still doesn't need to be touched to render in IE9. And so on and so forth.

Standards will continue to evolve and be created and iterated, and no browser will fully support standards immediately upon their creation (unless there's some standards-incest, or the standard is ultimately lifted from one browser or another). This method allows IE the freedom to fully support new standards in the next version without worrying anymore about backwards-compatibility. Or they can half-implement it in one version and half in the next, or whatever. And if other browsers want to try this versioning on their software, they can. And if they don't, they don't have to. IE is apparently committed to, by default, not fucking up old webpages that worked on earlier versions. That doesn't have to be anybody else's priority; no other vendor is being "forced" to implement this. Code to standards, put IE on edge, and like every other browser it's forward-looking. And if it completely fails to take off, and IE marketshare drops to nearly nothing, then probably IE9 will just render in standards and drop the rest of it.

I think this could actually speed the adoption of standards. If IE8 works without breaking *anything* before, it can have a MUCH quicker adoption than IE7 did vis-a-vis IE6. The IEs, as we know, together still make up a majority of browsers visiting the majority of sites. But if a tonne of them are moving to IE8, then webdevs can code to standards, insert the IE8 tag, and everything will work on Firefox 3, Safari whatever, Opera whatever, IE8 (minus the bugs in all for all of those, which are hopefully minor). And if adoption still isn't quick enough, webdevs can say without shame to the people with IE7 to just upgrade their browser, it's old and deprecated, and they have *absolutely* nothing to lose and standards compliance to gain. Eventually everything is in standards, the 9 people who still use IE6 can't stand the web not working anymore and download IE8 (or Firefox or Opera or whatever), and here we are, compliant at last

Look at this: http://blogs.msdn.com/ie/archive/2008/01/21/compatibility-and-ie8.aspx#7202029

There's a regkey setting to force IE8 in standards mode.

Somebody could just mirror the download site with a simple installer that sets that regkey and then calls the real installer, thus distributing IE8 standards-only-mode.

I'm just glad that they actually recognise real HTTP headers. I've complained in the past about the fact that Microsoft seemingly ignores the fact that http-equiv is only a poor workaround for web developers that can't transmit headers properly, and real HTTP headers are the proper way of doing it.

I'm happy they incorporated this mechanism instead of further extending doctype switching, which was just a poor hack that has caused all sorts of problems in the years since it was first introduced. I suggested a mechanism similar to the one they will use in Internet Explorer 8 years ago, I could never understand why this wasn't introduced sooner.

I'm just glad that they actually recognise real HTTP headers. I've complained in the past about the fact that Microsoft seemingly ignores the fact that http-equiv is only a poor workaround for web developers that can't transmit headers properly, and real HTTP headers are the proper way of doing it.

I'm happy they incorporated this mechanism instead of further extending doctype switching, which was just a poor hack that has caused all sorts of problems in the years since it was first introduced. I suggested a mechanism similar to the one they will use in Internet Explorer 8 years ago, I could never understand why this wasn't introduced sooner.

Crispin Cowan is the designer and primary author of AppArmor, a kernel service which implements a mandatory access control system.

Or IE8

http://blogs.msdn.com/ie/archive/2007/12/19/internet-explorer-8-and-acid2-a-milestone.aspx

...now what about this one? And this one?

You see, some of us look beyond one article. Some of use can see larger trends by doing so. And in this particular case, some of us are fully aware that telecommuters factor into the equation.

It's kinda cool how this "thinking" stuff works... you should try it sometime. ;)

It's not the "what I want to see" that I deal in, it's the "what I'll very likely end up seeing" that needs paying attention to.

(we now return you to your regularly scheduled attempts at "fanboi" bashing)

/P

Heres hoping they make it available on XP and don't require Geniune Advantage too. All this bitching about standards drives me nuts. The web is "only" ~15 years old as far as us civi guys as users(more like 12 in mainstream use). In the early days people were looking for ways to get things done, MS made extensions to HTML, Netscape had their own thing etc. What would you rather have MS come out with IE 6 say and kill every website that assumed you'd be viewing it using IE or have them remain compatible? Any standardization process is slow and painful, it just is. Heck processor architechure never standardized over big endian little endian, no one agrees on a lot of networking stuff (TCP timeouts for example), etc, etc. People coding for IE want IE to work the way they learnt how to use it.

Standards will be good, but it will also break things that rely on IE (we have several web portals at my work that only work on IE6 or earlier). Upgrading would be painful and costly (the software interfaces to a PACS and various other multimillion dollar peices of medical software) not something you want to stop working when you need a doctor.

So the handy dandy window listing the 100's of updates you are missing to keep your WinXP machine up-to-date just popped up over the weekend. No clue why. After seeing this slashdot story, I scrolled down and saw "Windows Internet Exploer 7.0 for Windows XP". I read the details and the last line says:

"This update includes Windows Genuine Advantage Validation."

I guess so few people are "choosing" to install their spyware that they now they are bundling it with other stuff? This is AFTER Microsloth said they weren't going to do such a thing:

http://blogs.msdn.com/ie/archive/2007/10/04/internet-explorer-7-update.aspx

      Marc

In this video http://channel9.msdn.com/Showpost.aspx?postid=314874 (590MB WMV to download) of Brian Beckman explaining the difficult physics of driving games, he demonstrates that it's now possible to achieve something similar by simulating some of the particles (in a sense) in a car rather than using abstract models of how wheels work. He shows a slide in the video with "Future = better simulations through simpler physics and more horsepower" on it.

....because VBA for Office on Windows is here to stay: http://blogs.msdn.com/excel/archive/2008/01/16/clarification-on-vba-support.aspx.

But that's not an interesting story is it since we can't bash MS anymore. Anyway, why let the truth get in the way of a good story!!

Support for VBA won't go away in Office for Windows. http://blogs.msdn.com/excel/archive/2008/01/16/clarification-on-vba-support.aspx

TR1 is not in VS2008. It will be available as a "Feature Pack" at a later date ("first half of 2008"); only a beta is available at the moment. Also, see the FAQ on the beta for more details on the TR1 implementation, such as a list of what's not supported and why.

TR1 is not in VS2008. It will be available as a "Feature Pack" at a later date ("first half of 2008"); only a beta is available at the moment. Also, see the FAQ on the beta for more details on the TR1 implementation, such as a list of what's not supported and why.

Well, if IE 8 actually is standards compliant when it launches, all Firefox will have to do is catch up to IE and Opera and become standards compliant, too. Although ActiveX will still remain a thorn in the side of any non-IE browser.

[After reading just the story title] It's about time! They laid me off back in '99 five minutes after we RTM'd Win2k, and they're only just now getting around to apologizing? Well, better late than never, I suppose.

[After reading TFA] It is refreshing to see such a direct and honest explanation and rationale. Even if it isn't exactly front page news, it's much better than the typical PR-filtered triple-speak that tends to get the press. A good reminder that the developers != the company.

Thanks, David. If more decision makers at Microsoft were to take a similar approach to problems, even if just internally, I think the corporate image could be improved. Whether there's time to turn the ship around before it hits the iceberg*, I don't know, but it would be an interesting thing to watch.

*Yes, I know the engine reversal and attempt to turn was what doomed the Titanic. It's a complex analogy, with layers of irony and humor.

This whole article is summarizing Microsoft Launching it's Open Value Subscription in the US and in Canada.

According to some of my own research, in which I went to the following websites:

http://blogs.msdn.com/mssmallbiz/archive/2008/01/01/6933535.aspx
http://www.microsoft.com/licensing/programs/open/openvalue.mspx (note, this site is confusing.)
http://www.sellsoft.ie/microsoft_osl.html (much better description, but third party site)

I found out that the whole Open Value Subscription program is essentially a third option for those seeking to purchase site licenses for Microsoft Software. This option would allow you to run Microsoft software for a three year period, after which you have three options:

1) Discontinue use of the software
2) Renew the subscription for three more years
3) Purchase the license outright (a.k.a. buy the right to run the software on a permanent basis on your computers.)

At first glance, this looks all fine to me. However, the only thing I'm worried about is what conditions might come with the license... will Microsoft attempt to force organizations to upgrade in order to renew their subscriptions? (This would be a great way to force businesses to switch to Office 2007/Vista...)

The summary uses the acronym "SMB", which is used in TFA, and is also used on the linked Microsoft blog. At no point does anyone define this term or give enough contextual clues for it to be obvious.

After thinking about it for a minute, I figured out that it must mean "small and medium business", but given that SMB has many definitions, especially in the tech field, would it have been so difficult to just expand the acronym and explain the context? Instead of "...launched a SMB program..." why not "...launched a new licensing program targeted at small and medium-sized businesses..." Yes, it requires a few more words, but we're no longer in an age of trying to squeeze a certain amount of information onto sheets of physical paper.

I understand the need for acronyms and tech-lingo in specialized discussions (I'm a geek, after all)... but when reporting it doesn't hurt to provide context!

As some of the other posters have pointed out, you don't understand LaTeX. Moreover, it doesn't sound as if you understand Word either. Here (from a Microsoft blog) is the completely asinine method of numbering equations in Word 2007. Equation numbering just happens in LaTeX. Microsoft has blown off technical word processing for 20 years and this is what they come up with? What a joke.

Your complaint is completely unfounded. The Ribbon has excellent keyboard navigation and it is more discoverable than ever before. You just need tap the one magic key, ALT, and then it is a breeze to learn and use.

See here:
http://blogs.msdn.com/microsoft_office_word/archive/2007/01/04/keyboard-shortcuts-keytips-and-comics.aspx

Huh? How does the ribbon do anything to open source competitors? Believe it or not, I actually find it useful as well! But I guess that's just luck, because somehow their patent is keeping down the poor open source developers.

Wow, two fallacies in as many sentences. First, why can't they fix this issue AND add DRM? Do you think it would result in a fix faster for every developer to focus on ONE problem? I sure as hell don't. More isn't always better. Second, you assume that the people "bribing" ISO members are even coders at all. If that happened, it sure as hell wasn't anyone with talent to fix the bug in the KB article.

It doesn't need money because people give away their time on it for free. Anyone that wants to help can, vs. MS where you actually have to be an employee to contribute. Also, when did Linux become a company? Do you even really know what Linux is? I'm starting to wonder if you're some 12 year old kid spouting from his mom's basement.

Ahh, back to the false dilemma. You can focus 100% on bugs because 1) there are probably always bugs, but they may only affect 0.00001% of cases and 2) you can't possibly know about all bugs just by looking at the code, they have to be discovered. Again, you sound like a 12 year old; at the very least you're not a professional software developer.

"Internet Explorer can no longer display JPEGs."

Via the Cross-Platform CLR. Honestly I think the way the CLR was designed was intended for cross platform from the start. Maybe this is me being a "sucker" for M$'s schemes or too optomistic Sure, M$ would like to have the OSopoly forever but some of their employees have got to be realistic people.

Damn MS and their versioning! There will be no Silverlight 1.1, its been renamed to 2.0.

This started with the .Net framework version; 3.0 should really be 2.5, 3.5 should be 3.0.. argh!

I'm probably setting myself up for a some abuse here, but has anyone other than myself tried out Office 2007 (which is available at my workplace)? I'm curious what the general consensus was - or even some personal anecdotes... Personally, after getting over a bit of a learning curve, I've actually found the whole context-sensitive ribbon system to be pretty innovative, and I actually prefer it now to older versions. I recall a similar concept used in CorelDraw, where specific toolbars would change based on which particular drawing tool was currently in use, and what type of objects in the drawing were selected.

http://blogs.msdn.com/jensenh/archive/2006/08/22/711808.aspx

I've read some documentation (some interesting videos too, but I can't seem to find them) on the justification for the shift in thinking - about how, for example, the explosion in the sheer volume of functionality makes packing every single function into a static menu structure somewhat impractical. To be honest, when I look at some other modern applications with their enormous menu systems, I'd actually have to agree.

While one may or may not argue the benefits / drawbacks of a specific implementation such as Office 2007, I think an interesting point of discussion is the growth of dynamic interfaces in general - that is, interfaces that adapt to the context of the current work that is being done, to display the functionality most important to a user based on that specific context. Adaptability may even be appropriate, as a computer learns what tasks a user attempts in specific circumstances, and then adjusts itself to try to make accomplishing those tasks easier in fewer steps.

Computers are becoming more and more powerful, and it should be an interesting challenge to try to package all this functionality in a way that doesn't overwhelm users with more and more complex interfaces.

Answer me honestly: Does PulseAudio have that feature because they heard it would be in Windows Vista? Honestly, now, please give me an answer.

Because if PulseAudio implemented the feature after seeing that it was in a Longhorn beta, or hearing stories of Microsoft developing it, then I'd say "that thing that Microsoft is doing" is a pretty good definition. (At least as far as this case goes.)

A better example would be something that Microsoft or Apple *hasn't* done. Do you have one?

For legacy reasons, an implementation using the 1900 date base system shall treat 1900 as though it was a leap year. [Note: That is, serial value 59 corresponds to February 28, and serial value 61 corresponds to March 1, the next day, allowing the (nonexistent) date February 29 to have the serial value 60. end note] A consequence of this is that for dates between January 1 and February 28, WEEKDAY shall return a value for the day immediately prior to the correct day, so that the (nonexistent) date February 29 has a day-of-the-week that immediately follows that of February 28, and immediately precedes that of March 1.

Unbelievable! So... I have egg on my face, but Microsoft has far more on theirs. So I did a little digging, and it seems that Microsoft are spinning this like crazy. Brian Jones, a program manager in Office, actually has the temerity to blame Lotus 1-2-3 for the problem. Quite frankly, I'm amazed. If you don't believe me, read it yourself. Firstly he quotes this Microsoft KB article.

His justification is that it would break all the existing spreadsheets...

If we decided to fix this bug and shift each date value down by one, how many spreadsheet formulas out there would we break? Here's a really simple example, where the following function that had worked in previous versions would no longer work:

=IF(TODAY()=39013, "Due Today!", "Not Due Today!")

Amazingly, he then states that "We not only wanted to create an open format that folks could build solutions on top of, but we wanted the format to be something that our customers would actually use... otherwise what's the point? We didn't want this to just be another optional format that only some people would use, it's the new default format and we hope that all of our customers will use it."

When he was openly questioned about it, he said the following:

Sinleeh,

I wish it were as simple as you and Ben suggest, but it's not. We can't just tell our customers that they are idiots.

Especially when that are doing something that has been supported since the first version of Excel shipped. I'm sorry but that's just not an option.

Again, this format is designed to fully support the existing base of binary documents out there. It's not a format that's designed to be the format to end all other formats. It's fully documented so that anyone can use it, there is nothing that depends on a particular operating system or office application. Remember though that it's an open standard that was designed to be fully compatible with the existing set of extremely valuable documents. If you build the ultimate general file format and no body uses it, what's the point? Our customers would never use the formats if they broke existing formulas.

There is no way we can predict what people are doing in their files and with their formulas. If you take the date 12/10/2004 in both Excel and in OpenOffice and you format that date as a number, you get "38331". So are you suggesting we should change this so that in the new file formats 12/10/2004 is now equal to 38330 instead?

The only inconsistency comes into play for 2 months (from 1/1/1900 to 3/1/1900). It sounds like you and Ben are suggesting that that inconsistency (which is super easy to workaround) is bad enough to actually cause real pain to customers either by breaking their existing formulas, or even worse, by mak

For legacy reasons, an implementation using the 1900 date base system shall treat 1900 as though it was a leap year. [Note: That is, serial value 59 corresponds to February 28, and serial value 61 corresponds to March 1, the next day, allowing the (nonexistent) date February 29 to have the serial value 60. end note] A consequence of this is that for dates between January 1 and February 28, WEEKDAY shall return a value for the day immediately prior to the correct day, so that the (nonexistent) date February 29 has a day-of-the-week that immediately follows that of February 28, and immediately precedes that of March 1.

Unbelievable! So... I have egg on my face, but Microsoft has far more on theirs. So I did a little digging, and it seems that Microsoft are spinning this like crazy. Brian Jones, a program manager in Office, actually has the temerity to blame Lotus 1-2-3 for the problem. Quite frankly, I'm amazed. If you don't believe me, read it yourself. Firstly he quotes this Microsoft KB article.

His justification is that it would break all the existing spreadsheets...

If we decided to fix this bug and shift each date value down by one, how many spreadsheet formulas out there would we break? Here's a really simple example, where the following function that had worked in previous versions would no longer work:

=IF(TODAY()=39013, "Due Today!", "Not Due Today!")

Amazingly, he then states that "We not only wanted to create an open format that folks could build solutions on top of, but we wanted the format to be something that our customers would actually use... otherwise what's the point? We didn't want this to just be another optional format that only some people would use, it's the new default format and we hope that all of our customers will use it."

When he was openly questioned about it, he said the following:

Sinleeh,

I wish it were as simple as you and Ben suggest, but it's not. We can't just tell our customers that they are idiots.

Especially when that are doing something that has been supported since the first version of Excel shipped. I'm sorry but that's just not an option.

Again, this format is designed to fully support the existing base of binary documents out there. It's not a format that's designed to be the format to end all other formats. It's fully documented so that anyone can use it, there is nothing that depends on a particular operating system or office application. Remember though that it's an open standard that was designed to be fully compatible with the existing set of extremely valuable documents. If you build the ultimate general file format and no body uses it, what's the point? Our customers would never use the formats if they broke existing formulas.

There is no way we can predict what people are doing in their files and with their formulas. If you take the date 12/10/2004 in both Excel and in OpenOffice and you format that date as a number, you get "38331". So are you suggesting we should change this so that in the new file formats 12/10/2004 is now equal to 38330 instead?

The only inconsistency comes into play for 2 months (from 1/1/1900 to 3/1/1900). It sounds like you and Ben are suggesting that that inconsistency (which is super easy to workaround) is bad enough to actually cause real pain to customers either by breaking their existing formulas, or even worse, by mak

http://blogs.msdn.com/oldnewthing/archive/2007/02/15/1683851.aspx

Everything else follows from backwards compatibility with that.

a competitive product?

1) Since when has google used a AARD code in a Operating system to instill FUD for a user to purchase an alternate OS? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AARD_code
2) Since when has google informed a user to remove a competitors program upon installation/upgrade of a new one? http://blogs.msdn.com/oldnewthing/archive/2005/12/20/505887.aspx
3) Since when has google forced install GGA (Google Genuine Advantage) software to frisk and accuse a user of being a thief when their not? http://blogs.msdn.com/wga/archive/2007/08/27/update-on-validation-issues.aspx
4) Correct me if I'm wrong, but google has't put yahoo, msn, ask jeeves out of business by bundling their service with computer manufacturers. Computer makers can bundle all or none except when they bundle Windows (Windows Live).

Microsoft stopped being a software company back in 1991. They are now a an exclusive Windows only monopoly protection company. Just like the contract they signed with (CBS), they are old and busted (MTV).

Silverlight is a copy of flash (but won't work on my cell phone). .Net is a copy of Java (but doesn't have a native compiler and doesn't work outside of a WinCE phone). Live office is joke compared to Google. My tweens (and their friends) want their computers/cell phones/ipods just to work regardless of the computer. Microsoft doesn't get this.

Microsoft assumed that they would steal away Ad dollars (UK Pounds, French EU etc) from google by being Microsoft. They don't understand yet that the Microsoft brand name is tainted and means squat for most of the world. Their not Coco-Cola for sure. They have brand recognition for being un-secure, BSOD, RROD (xbox360), and greedy.

In the USA a Microsoft ex-attorney is allowed to be head of the Microsoft DOJ oversight commission (Government). Hopefully the EU wont have a Microsoft employee overseeing their Microsoft anti-trust suit (Anyone can be bought by a company with ill-gotten $40 billion in the bank.

Microsoft is not evil. Just greedy. They forgot about making computer software thats simple and easy (Apple). Somehow they forgot that they were computer programmers, not Windows programmers.

Enjoy,

a competitive product?

1) Since when has google used a AARD code in a Operating system to instill FUD for a user to purchase an alternate OS? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AARD_code
2) Since when has google informed a user to remove a competitors program upon installation/upgrade of a new one? http://blogs.msdn.com/oldnewthing/archive/2005/12/20/505887.aspx
3) Since when has google forced install GGA (Google Genuine Advantage) software to frisk and accuse a user of being a thief when their not? http://blogs.msdn.com/wga/archive/2007/08/27/update-on-validation-issues.aspx
4) Correct me if I'm wrong, but google has't put yahoo, msn, ask jeeves out of business by bundling their service with computer manufacturers. Computer makers can bundle all or none except when they bundle Windows (Windows Live).

Microsoft stopped being a software company back in 1991. They are now a an exclusive Windows only monopoly protection company. Just like the contract they signed with (CBS), they are old and busted (MTV).

Silverlight is a copy of flash (but won't work on my cell phone). .Net is a copy of Java (but doesn't have a native compiler and doesn't work outside of a WinCE phone). Live office is joke compared to Google. My tweens (and their friends) want their computers/cell phones/ipods just to work regardless of the computer. Microsoft doesn't get this.

Microsoft assumed that they would steal away Ad dollars (UK Pounds, French EU etc) from google by being Microsoft. They don't understand yet that the Microsoft brand name is tainted and means squat for most of the world. Their not Coco-Cola for sure. They have brand recognition for being un-secure, BSOD, RROD (xbox360), and greedy.

In the USA a Microsoft ex-attorney is allowed to be head of the Microsoft DOJ oversight commission (Government). Hopefully the EU wont have a Microsoft employee overseeing their Microsoft anti-trust suit (Anyone can be bought by a company with ill-gotten $40 billion in the bank.

Microsoft is not evil. Just greedy. They forgot about making computer software thats simple and easy (Apple). Somehow they forgot that they were computer programmers, not Windows programmers.

Enjoy,

See Raymond Chen's explanation:

http://blogs.msdn.com/oldnewthing/archive/2006/08/14/699521.aspx

• x86 processors have been able to access 36-bit physical address space for a long time now (since the Pentium Pro?), but many motherboards flat out don't support it
  
• Even when they do, the OS needs to turn it on explicitly. Windows needs to be started with the /PAE switch to extends its physical address space
  
• Even with PAE in place, the virtual space is still 4GB per process.
  
• And out of the box, Windows limits user virtual address space to 2GB; getting more requires the infamous /3GB switch
  

• x86 processors have been able to access 36-bit physical address space for a long time now (since the Pentium Pro?), but many motherboards flat out don't support it
  
• Even when they do, the OS needs to turn it on explicitly. Windows needs to be started with the /PAE switch to extends its physical address space
  
• Even with PAE in place, the virtual space is still 4GB per process.
  
• And out of the box, Windows limits user virtual address space to 2GB; getting more requires the infamous /3GB switch
  

Just for all those who think that IE doesn't leak memory:

"It's possible to set up a ciricular reference that prevents cleanup, and this leaks memory in IE."

http://channel9.msdn.com/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=9204

The point simply being that there are almost certainly circumstances under which ANY browser leaks memory. The circumstances likely aren't the same, of course, which is part of the problem and why different people have different experiences.

In the end, those who claim that a given browser leaks memory really need to provide DETAILS. Not just "running it for any significant time" or some such BS. Real details of pages visited and actions taken on those pages. If there's a leak, it'll be reproducible. So log your visits (hey, "history") and try figuring out which ones are causing the problem.

To see if the leaking is related to Javascript, try turning it off once you have found a reproducible case (which might be a huge list of sites of which only one might be the actual offender).

Network LOD? They do some nice things with voice over network and reliability, but still most of the work is for the coders. Check http://blogs.msdn.com/shawnhar/ for the network posts.