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That is only partially true. Sometimes you are limited by that 1 gig of memory you have in your video card and where it is mapped into memory by the PCI bus.

Dense reading but worth it if you want to understand how windows memory works.

http://blogs.technet.com/markrussinovich/archive/2009/03/26/3211216.aspx
http://blogs.technet.com/markrussinovich/archive/2009/07/08/3261309.aspx
http://blogs.technet.com/markrussinovich/archive/2008/11/17/3155406.aspx
http://blogs.technet.com/markrussinovich/archive/2008/07/21/3092070.aspx

A power user is an administrator who hasn't bothered to elevate their privileges yet...

When I hear about killbits, killbill comes in my mind. I don't know why though...

yes Office 2010 will run on Windows XP SP3, Windows Vista, and Windows 7.

I'd be pretty suprised if they're AV-tool doesn't handle "Malware" - considering Mark Russinovich of sysinternals works for Microsoft now, and was the one to discover Sony's Rootkit and provide the fix for it. Among the many other tools he has provided over the years and still updates regularly.
http://blogs.technet.com/markrussinovich/

actually this is a really poorly written article full of gross errors.

Volume Licensing(VL) is not the same as Software Assurance (SA).

OEM licenses die with a machine. VLs can be moved and reused as long as the new machine came with an OEM license. Think of VLs as a way to upgrade a limited and discounted OEM license.

VL customers can definitely use XP. Most enterprises have VL agreements in place. Those that don't should probably sack their IT department or switch to Linux.

Software Assurance which may or may not be included with a specific VL plan has numerous benefits including getting new versions of the software without paying anything extra i.e. you buy Vista VLs now with SA; when Win7 comes out, you get the upgrade to Win7 at no cost.

VLs can be outright purchases paid in full or you can "lease" the software as a subscription. Subscriptions are advantageous as you do not pay the full price of the software and it provides your IT and Finance department a consistent way to account for IT costs (think operational expenses vs. capital expenses).

Finally it a misconception that VLs are only good for large customers. VLs can be purchased for organizations with as little as 5 computers.

Comprehensive info on VL is here:
http://www.microsoft.com/licensing/default.aspx#tab_2

Here is a link to small business information:
http://www.microsoft.com/smallbusiness/buy/software/buy-software.aspx#waystobuy

Here is a link outlining Software Assurance Benefits (download the SA benefits chart PDF):
http://www.microsoft.com/licensing/software-assurance/default.aspx#tab_2

Here is a fine print detail for specific technology licensing.
http://www.microsoft.com/licensing/about-licensing/volume-licensing-briefs.aspx

My suggestion is you consider Microsoft's Open agreements.

If you have any questions, email me via my blog:
http://blogs.technet.com/tarpara

Ultimate Response:

Fuck their policy: http://blogs.technet.com/markrussinovich/archive/2005/12/12/circumventing-group-policy-as-a-limited-user.aspx

In short, if they don't whitelist each and every single executable that you're allowed to run, and each an every one of those programs respect policies and have no exploitable bugs, then you can defeat their policy (on Windows).

Happy hacking! :-)

I heard rumor that they will be disabling autorun in one of their future releases of Vista. Since it's not mentioned for SP2, I guess we'll be waiting for another update for Vista? http://blogs.technet.com/msrc/archive/2009/04/28/changes-in-windows-to-meet-changes-in-threat-landscape.aspx

The system-wide WebDAV isn't required. Exchange installs its own, separate WebDAV components, which are.

Yes, but the Exchange OWA webdav is different from the IIS webdav, and not vulnerable to this bug:

http://blogs.technet.com/srd/archive/2009/05/20/answers-to-the-iis-webdav-authentication-bypass-questions.aspx

Workaround #1: Turn off WebDAV
Turning off WebDAV might be a good option if you are not using it or can live without out until we have a security update available. You can find instructions at http://support.microsoft.com/kb/241520.

Source: http://blogs.technet.com/srd/archive/2009/05/18/more-information-about-the-iis-authentication-bypass.aspx

Did they give any configuration which is not at risk?

Yes, several: More information about the IIS authentication bypass

Worth noting that this only affects IIS 5.x and 6.x, which admittedly, accounts for the huge majority of IIS webservers, but IIS 7.x (Windows Server 2008 and above) are not affected.

http://blogs.technet.com/markrussinovich/archive/2008/02/04/2826167.aspx

XP hid the dialog before the copy was really finished. Vista changed this so you wouldn't pull out a USB key before the operation had finished.

Vista RTM had some copy performance issues but SP1 fixed those, and during Win7 there was a significant focus on improving copy / move / delete performance.

I think the still haven't fixed the thing where Vista is limited to 100mbps if you are also playing audio.

They should have stuck with the BSD network stack. As many bugs as they inserted into it to make it vulnerable, it still would pass traffic at the full data rate.

So since Windows XP and OS X are more complex than AmigaOS, TOS and DOS were, they're more unstable? I don't think so.

A more complex OS has more avenues for failure, and indeed for glitch free media playback Windows will never be a perfect choice. That does not mean I think Windows - any version - is less stable than Amiga OS, because I don't.

Well I guess we should throw out all our modern OSs today and go back to the robust TOS!

Amiga OS was not created in a day. Along the way developers fixed bugs and improved stability, however Amiga OS was from the get go a more ambitious project than TOS. Historically more complex projects tend to have more issues that need to be resolved. Amiga OS 1.0 came out in 1985, 1.3.2 in 1989 (according to here). In contrast, TOS went from 1.0 to 1.04 in the same period - which was the last ST release.

If supporting multitasking inherently makes an OS less stable - even when an OS is only running one application - let's see your evidence for that?

Amiga OS still multitasks when running one application, TOS don't. That does not automatically mean TOS is more stable, but it is a complexity developers did not have to deal with.

Yes.
http://port25.technet.com/archive/2008/11/10/sun-to-distribute-live-search.aspx
Sun must be desperate for money?!

Didn't these programs used to produce Spaghetti with &nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp?

I'm on the next tree over from you, except I'm going even more basic with notepad, because I never got around to looking at emacs etc.

What is this "dynamic content" anyway? Some page with 7 comments of "nice page lulz"? Skip that, it offends my sense of style.

I'm not sure I get this whole "CMS" thing, since I have an 80-page design template. I only have about 7 of the max 40ish articles written anyway. (And "Article" is not the 4 paragraph junk we keep seeing here festooned with ads...)

I rather think some of the New Coke of the web should die out and let people go back to writing Classic articles. As an example (beyond my humble powers!) here is Mark Russinovich's blog.

http://blogs.technet.com/MarkRussinovich/

THAT's content.

But there is a constant monitor that evaluates if a content is protected or not, especially since as far as I remember the specification allows to protect only a portion of a file. Even if you are playing unprotected content, outputting it via analog and having no problem at all it does not mean that the DRM is inactive, only that the playback is not restricted "yet" and is monitored for a restriction request.

That is not how the system works.

Also you seem to forget the "Tilt Bits" which have been the bane of my early Vista experience, getting reset at every little voltage fluctuation in order to protect the "Protected Path".

Evidence ?

I would have thought that the network performance degradation when playing unprotected mp3s would have empirically proved that point for anyone interested.

It had nothing to do with DRM, nor was it specific to "playing unprotected MP3s" (which is some genuinely "empirical" evidence it was not DRM-related).

The Protected Path is only active when a playback app requests it. Vista does not sit there monitoring everything you do looking for stuff that's copyrighted - not only because it would be pointless (since the system has no way of identifying whether or not some random data stream is copyrighted), but also because of the insane overheads involved in doing so.

The file copying fiasco was an attempt at optimizing the copying performance by tweaking buffer sizes, memory usage, and caching behavior. In some cases it succeeded, in other cases it failed miserably. It was compounded by the fact that XP reported the file as finished copying even while there was still cache data to be written to the drive. There is an article on TechNet that describes it in detail.

Microsoft Norway was first out to support the campaign in an interview with Teknisk Ukeblad: http://www.tu.no/it/article200622.ece They also sent out a press release, and we posted it here: http://tekniskbeta.no/ms-stÃtter-ie6-saken/ Both links above are in English, but Norwegian developer THomas Hansen ran it through Google Translate and ended up with this: http://ra-ajax.org/microsoft-supports-the-war-against-ie6.blog Swedish Microsoft-managers also support the campaign: http://stephanielindberg.wordpress.com/2009/02/20/uppgradera-nu-det-har-gtt-mnga-internetr-sedan-2001/ http://blogs.technet.com/microsoftnyheter/archive/2009/02/20/var-med-i-v-rst-dningen-uppgradera-till-ie7.aspx Best regards, Anders Brenna Teknisk Ukeblad TU.no

It probably hasn't even occurred to them that the programmers ran their random name generator out a long way in advance, registered the domain in the name of some perfectly innocent third party long ago and that they're too late because launch day for downadup is tomorrow since they always kick these things off of the eve of a holiday weekend.

Microsoft has published a complete list (in CSV form) of all the domain names that Conficker will try to contact through June 30, 2009. That's 249 of them a day, for a total of 113,500 domain names.

http://blogs.technet.com/msrc/archive/2009/02/12/conficker-domain-information.aspx

If you admin Windows desktops, I wouldn't invest too much in your plans for this weekend.

Why? The patch for this vulnerability was released four months ago, and the latest round of Windows Updates (a couple of days ago) include a scan & remove of Conficker.A and Conficker.B. As for the Autorun variant of this attack, Microsoft has published a KB article covering various ways to prevent it. Of course, if you don't have anyone working in your offices over the weekend, nobody's likely to come in and plug in infected USB devices.

Really? No problems with those particular tasks? video problems due to Vista's design are well-known, as well as numerous other performance problems such as file copying while listening to music.

And what is RA3? Red Alert 3? If you're wanting to run a program designed for WINDOWS you need Wine installed first. Linux isn't Windows, which is apparently very hard for lots of people (like you) to understand. After that, you just pop the disc in, and install. You might consider playing a better programmed game, though... even under Windows, the entire C&C series network code and performance sucks balls.

Right idea, wrong tool. Use the MS Sysinternal Process Explorer & Process Monitor.

To see how to do this step by step:
http://blogs.technet.com/markrussinovich/archive/2008/09/24/3126858.aspx
That's a blog article about Mark Russsinovich tracking down why his wife's Vista went into slow-mode all of a sudden. He tracked it down to two things, Flash bug in IE, and a COM add-in from some media software. But how he figured it out is a very cool story. Well documented.

A very interesting way to solve the case of a slow system by Mark Russinovich

http://blogs.technet.com/markrussinovich/archive/2008/09/24/3126858.aspx

Spot on Mr AC.

Mark Russinovich has a post regarding Kernrate and identifying CPU spikes:
The Case of the System Process CPU Spikes

(and i once had an issue with a wireless driver causing all sorts of slowdowns due to excessive DPC's so it's a good idea to check them)

Mark Russinovich has an enlightening blog entry called The Case of the Slow System that might serve as an example of how, if you are are one of the planet's top 10 Windows experts, you can, with persistence, luck, and the proper tools, solve one of the obscure problems that are slowing down your wife's computer. This particular case pertains to Vista, but the general techniques are applicable to XP as well.

"Several months after joining the Apache Foundation, Microsoft has made its first code contribution to an Apache project."

Corporations can not join the Apache Software Foundation (ASF). Microsoft became a "sponsor" of the ASF last summer, but only individual people can join the ASF.

This is also not the first time Microsoft has contributed code to an Apache project, pulling one quick example out of google...

http://port25.technet.com/archive/2008/10/14/microsoft-s-powerset-team-resumes-hbase-contributions.aspx

This works great if you have someone that keeps installing or running something you don't want them to... IE for instance.

Note the SZ value is what is inside the quotes...

1. Create a registry key with the name of the process you want to prevent to execute. Ex.: iexplore.exe

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Image File Execution Options\iexplore.exe

2. Under this new key you've just created, create a SZ value called "Debugger" and set it to the following value:

SZ Debugger = "cmd.exe /c echo %time% %date% >> c:\ExecBlocked.log"

That's it. You don't need to restart anything or reboot the machine. From now on you will not only be unable to run iexplore.exe as whenever you try to do it the file ExecBlocked.log will get the attempt to execute recorded with the date/time information.

To enable the process the run again, simply remove the registry key.

The beauty is that there is no path, so even if the user does an alternate install it catches the name of the EXE (in the example "iexplore.exe").

Stolen (well copied really... it's not missing or anything) from:

http://blogs.technet.com/marcelofartura/archive/2006/10/24/a-virus-infection-contolling-the-outbreak-tip.aspx

Enjoy!

Yes, so I read that they tried blank machine account passwords where Microsoft (indeed) uses a random password only known to the computer (and the hash in AD)...

For more information (just some google hits):

http://blogs.technet.com/asiasupp/archive/2007/01/18/typical-symptoms-when-secure-channel-is-broken.aspx
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc785826.aspx

Vista needed beefier hardware because it wasn't tuned to run on a 1GB machine with integrated Intel graphics.

We could go with that. W7 beta definitely runs OK on a 1GB machine with integrated Intel graphics.

It doesn't cover the slow file copy problem, though. Or the multimedia interfering with networking problem. Or the problem with the backdoor that listens over the Internet by default for authentication attempts despite the fact that best practice has for 10 years to by default not do that.

But yeah, not running on bog standard hardware - that's a nit some people would pick.

I reckon the biggest bit of it resides here

Scheduler in Vista also performs worse than on XP (so MS had to resort to such hacks: http://blogs.technet.com/markrussinovich/archive/2007/08/27/1833290.aspx [technet.com] ).

Saying this with the link you provide pretty much discredits anything you continue to say.

You have no idea what you are talking about...

Here:
http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,2845,2302499,00.asp

Make sure you read the PCMark, then click Next to go to the Gaming Page. Vista outperforms XP in every test. (The only test it is a couple of points behind is the synthetic 3DMark.)

And this is SP3 - the fastest XP compared to Vista.

So go on again about how horrible the scheduler is in Vista, I am guessing you don't even know what a scheduler does and especially I know you don't know how it works in NT.

If you want to put your hands over your ears and eyes and keep screaming, "Vista is slower", try clicking your heels together too, it is as likely to make it true and take you to Kansas.

The Vista is slower myths need to stop and the idiocy behind them is really getting annoying.

Vista _IS_ slower.

It can pull some tricks, but at the end of the day it IS slow.

For example, its audio stack is just HORRIBLE. Some functions work more than 100 _times_ slower than on XP ('protected' audio path and all that...).

Scheduler in Vista also performs worse than on XP (so MS had to resort to such hacks: http://blogs.technet.com/markrussinovich/archive/2007/08/27/1833290.aspx ).

Filesystem performance (which already is more than 10 _times_ slower than on Linux) in Vista is also hit because of overhead of transactional NTFS and more complex stack.

That's all objective and measurable.

Yes, trivially easy because almost all of the policies are implemented in userland programs rather than being enforced at the kernel level...

Two simple examples....

cmd.exe will bring up a message saying the command prompt is disabled, but the cmd.exe process is actually running and displaying that message, the kernel has not prevented execution but rather the cmd.exe program itself is checking... try running command.com instead because it doesn't implement that check. You can also modify cmd.exe to not perform the check and achieve the same result, the kernel will do nothing to stop you.

Registry editing is similar, the graphical regedit tools won't run but the commandline reg.exe will, you can again modify the regedit binaries or use a third party editing tool.

Some more info can be found with a quick google search, eg:

http://blogs.technet.com/markrussinovich/archive/2005/12/12/circumventing-group-policy-as-a-limited-user.aspx

What about the network transfer problems while Media Player was trying to deal with DRM issues?

http://it.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/08/26/1628200

Ok, so it's not actually a DRM issue.

My two cents? Vista SP1 is on par with XP SP3 in almost every benchmark. Win7 runs fine in 512MB RAM and outperforms Vista in almost every benchmark.

I still prefer Debian.

to switch to Direct3D rather than to rewrite the application using .NET and WPF

You don't have to rewrite to access WPF or .NET. There are tons of easy ways to tap the features of WPF from a classic GDI or WinForms project, with less work than recreating a blit operation in DirectX like you are doing.

Additionally, have you looked at Direct2D?
http://blogs.technet.com/thomasolsen/archive/2008/10/29/introducing-the-microsoft-direct2d-api.aspx

Good Luck...

That is incorrect: http://blogs.technet.com/dataplatforminsider/archive/2008/12/10/sql-server-2005-sp3-now-available-for-download.aspx.

But before you hit "Flamebait" and censor me into oblivion, LISTEN. Seriously. This is why 2009, 2010, 2011 and 2012 are NOT going to be the "Year Of The Linux Desktop"... because all the freetards (to quote Fake Steve) can do is just copy the two big names in the industry.

Alright. Tell ya what - let's ignore the fact that this is flamebait. We'll just gloss over that and pretend like this is honest conversation.

If you're going to quote someone, feel free to use their real name. "Fake Steve" is Daniel Lyons. Not only eos this journalist excel in the flamebait style that you enjoy, he's been incredibly wrong in his opinions and prognostications. Considering the source, "freetard" is a badge of honor.

So let's get to the sliver of meat in the middle of all this gristle. Originality. We've heard that one before. Heck - Microsoft has heard it plenty of times before too. But the kicker here is that it doesn't matter. Think about that for a minute.

No. Really. Listen. Let it sink in.

Originality goes hand in hand with "innovation" - another Microsoft buzz word. The thing is, Microsoft is hardly the bastion of either. And they don't have to be. Nobody cares about originality.

Well - OK, I admit that's a loaded statement. We're all abuzz about new features. And things do change. But drastic changes aren't always good and they're rarely welcomed.

Change often comes in small steps. And originality is also often small, but admittedly novel, alterations of ideas that came before. That's often pushed as the nature of Open Source. But it is really the nature of the IT Industry as a whole. "Innovation" not withstanding.

That doesn't mean that original ideas aren't welcomed. But simply that they're not as important as some pundits would make them out to be. They never have been.

Incidently, while we're proping up the "two big names in the industry" and panning OSS it might be worth noting that even Microsoft is learning from OSS (heck - they already use GPL software). You see - building on the state of the art. It's not just an OSS idea.

Mark Russinovich's comments on the subject: http://blogs.technet.com/markrussinovich/archive/2008/02/04/2826167.aspx

Modding but....

http://blogs.technet.com/mmpc/

Also, if you have the latest MS updates, try Start/Run/MRT.exe which is an MS product that scans for malware/rogue/rootkit software.
Looks like MS is taking things a lot more seriously.
Free 3rd party products for this sort of stuff are available: Try http://www.malwarebytes.org/rogueremover.php for your kit.

There's lies, damned lies, then using statistics to prop up the notion that your favourite OS is the most secure

Now where does that leave us?

Some of it blew over my head, but other bits were very interesting. In the article, he explains physical, paging, and virtual memory usage - and my favorite, the only REAL way to calculate what the size of your paging file should be! (How many opinions have you read on that one?!)

If you're curious, here is the short version of how to calculate your needed paging file size:

1. Open all of your normally used applications with your typical data set,
2. Open Task Manager to the Performance tab
3. Look at the Commit Charge (K) Limit
4. Subtract the amount of your physical memory from this number
5. The result is basically all you need for a paging file.

Hope that helps! I suggest you read the rest for more info on this approach.

That's virtual address space, not RAM.

http://blogs.technet.com/markrussinovich/archive/2008/07/21/3092070.aspx

Dont forget virtual memory also allows process isolation (aka protected mode) to happen. In 32-bit environment, each process gets its own copy of 2GB of virtual memory or 3GB if they are compiled with /3GB flag.

x86 system are designed in this way so they could not corrupt each other accidentally. In practice, you can have any program crashing as often as it wants, without bring down the entire system.

Also, when they say "Windows reserves 2/3GB of memory for user mode process" or "Windows reserves 1GB of memory for kernel space", it means that is the absolute upper limit for memory usage. You should read it as "each process cannot allocate more than the 2/3GB limit, trying to do so will result in 'Out of Memory' exception", rather than "That process exclusively own the 2/3GB, nobody else can use it".

Mark has a good explanation about this. http://blogs.technet.com/markrussinovich/archive/2008/11/17/3155406.aspx

Here is the blog post by Mark Russinovich which explains the issue with 4Gb on 32-bit Windows in more detail.

Here are two great posts by the famous Mark Russinovich, they may give some insight:

- http://blogs.technet.com/markrussinovich/archive/2008/11/17/3155406.aspx
- http://blogs.technet.com/markrussinovich/archive/2008/07/21/3092070.aspx

Here are two great posts by the famous Mark Russinovich, they may give some insight:

- http://blogs.technet.com/markrussinovich/archive/2008/11/17/3155406.aspx
- http://blogs.technet.com/markrussinovich/archive/2008/07/21/3092070.aspx

I find this blog the most informative of all thing windows internals http://blogs.technet.com/markrussinovich/ He explains it better that anybody

From Mark Russinovich's blog (SysInternals.com) -- an excellent description of Windows memory categories and their limitations; and tips on sizing the page file:

• Pushing the Limits of Windows: Virtual Memory

Either he/she thinks "Virtual Memory" is the same thing as paging

Physical memory, virtual memory, address space, and paging files are some of the most misunderstood things your average computer "expert" deals with. When it comes to Windows, few can probably explain why only 3GB of 4GB physical RAM shows up on a 32-bit system. Fewer even can probably define the difference between "virtual memory" and "paging file".

I highly recommend any Windows users or administrators read Mark Russinovich's latest blog entry Pushing the Limits of Windows: Virtual Memory . It goes over all these things and describes the difference between virtual memory, committed memory, and why it really is important to have a paging file, even on that system with 8GB of physical RAM. Should be required reading for any Windows admin.

See Mark Russinovich's (author of SysInternals tools) blog that describes how windows uses memory resources,

Pushing the Limits of Windows - Virtual Memory:
http://blogs.technet.com/markrussinovich/archive/2008/11/17/3155406.aspx

Pushing the Limits of Windows - Physical Memory:
http://blogs.technet.com/markrussinovich/archive/2008/07/21/3092070.aspx