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I couldn't figure out how to post a new comment, so I thought I'd tag this on to yours as it is a sign that open source has been embraced my much of the corporate world for years AND a certain hold out is scrambling to play catch-up (reminiscent of the browser wars, only this time there are 1,000s of 'Netscapes' who are already very well established and profitable, in place). Only a few of the numerous examples available: Google http://code.google.com/opensource/ Adobe http://opensource.adobe.com/wiki/display/site/Home IBM http://www-03.ibm.com/linux/opensource/ Yahoo! (MSFT is threatening to go to stockholders directly they want 'in' so bad) http://developer.yahoo.com/yui/ (all of these and more large, commercial, entities have open-source research and development projects and sponsor other open-source projects and programs) And, the 'icing on the cake' http://port25.technet.com/ Microsoft's recently launched Open Source site And, then there's the whole 'server' thing and Vista fiasco (those MSFT memos were a laugh riot).

Apparently, there's a rumor that there's a 0-day in Mac OS X, according to: http://blogs.technet.com/robert_hensing/archive/2008/03/27/and-the-mac-falls-within-10-minutes-on-day-2.aspx (Bias alert: The guy's a security researcher and employee for MS)

Stop letting off hot air on the dumbass article. See installing fedora core 8 on hyper-v . Even Ubuntu server is being used by people on HyperV. SUSE is supported in the sense of calling up MS's support desk and talking to them about it. But Linux distributions work just fine. This is just MS's way of telling people that they're on their own if they try other distributions(this is usually true for Linux servers anyway).

Misinformed blogger makes a flamebait article that reads like ex-lover's childish rant complete with doomsday threats and with a inflammatory headline, the 'editor' doesn't do any editorial work and the hundreds of misguided comments below will just bash on MS and earn insightful, informative and interesting mod points. Also, this will be repeated in the comments in other articles as the gospel truth because most people don't even RTFA, forget about actually seeing if there is a grain of truth in it. In other words, just another day on Slashdot.

If you really want to know about Hyper V, go here .

I suggest you all read this post by Gray Knowlton, the group product manager for MS Office, where he clarifies some of the more incendiary statements by the SFLC.

He make some pretty reasonable arguments, and calls the blatant bias against MS, when IBM and sun get a free pass even though their own version of the OSP has the same restrictions as MS. Very interesting to see the kettle lashing back at pot.

Are we even reading the same fucking articles???! I am tired of having to go back through the articles to cite them for you.

Most of the reviews(NOT from the salesmen) are linked so you can check them out if you really want to. Please read the article(s) before you comment again. Or I'll have to suppose that you're just a karmawhoring troll.

oh dear, didn't preview and stuffed up the link - well HERE is that dumb comic from microsoft. But I really don't recommend going there if you've looked at the force cartoons ... how much can you stomach???

That's funny.

He is making jokes about this Microsoft web page: Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Roadmap Clarification. That web page is the finest, the very finest baloney artistry:

"The past few months have been an amazing time for the SQL Server team as we gear up for the start of the global launch wave on February 27. ...

... "To continue in this spirit of open communication, we want to provide clarification on the roadmap for SQL Server 2008. Over the coming months, customers and partners can look forward to significant product milestones for SQL Server. Microsoft is excited to deliver a feature complete CTP during the Heroes Happen Here launch wave and a release candidate (RC) in Q2 calendar year 2008, with final Release to manufacturing (RTM) of SQL Server 2008 expected in Q3. Our goal is to deliver the highest quality product possible and we simply want to use the time to meet the high bar that you, our customers, expect.

"This does not in any way change our plans for the February 27 launch and we look forward to seeing many of you in Los Angeles and other events around the world."

Do I understand correctly? There is a "global launch wave" of the new SQL server version in Los Angeles on February 27, and people are traveling there for that event. But Microsoft won't actually deliver the new SQL server until 7 months later, or maybe after that? What is a feature-complete "CTP"? There is a childish ceremony celebrating the fact that programmers at Microsoft actually delivered something, called "Heroes Happen Here"?

However, that's a Microsoft Marketing person being sneaky and dishonest and living in a world of Microsoft Marketing fantasy. "To continue in this spirit of open communication..." Hah!

That's not what I was talking about in my grandparent post. I was talking about something even more scary than that: Microsoft Marketing Zombies say things that are completely irrelevant, and no one listens to them anyway. They are the undead. But everyone pretends that they are actually alive.

Microsoft is at least not killing Iraqis and pretending that killing Iraqis will make them less violent.

So When are we planning to ship it?

* Mile Stone 1 (Feb 4, 2008): Available to OEM and Retail Channel

* Mile Stone 2 (Early March 2008): Vista SP1 Volume Licensing Availability

* Mile Stone 3 (Mid March 2008): Vista SP1 availability through Windows Update/MSDN/TechNet

* Mile Stone 4 (April 2008): Will be pushed via Automatic Update

http://blogs.technet.com/bpaulblog/archive/2008/02/06/shipping-a-high-quality-vista-service-pack-1.aspx

If you look at the timing of the original article, you'll find that it was posted on Friday. Basically, Microsoft caved in to pressure from that base. It was not something that was planned and the article is correct about the details when it was written. The link you provided is pointing to a timeframe after the first article was written.

Microsoft did not plan on releasing SP1 early to technet. The debate is accurately described and attributed. Microsoft's stance as described in the article is also accurate as of the time the article was written and posted. That Microsoft later reversed its position is something to be noted, but it is not "trivial or misleading" to post an *accurate* rundown of the argument which led to Microsoft's reversal. (Which had not even happened at the time the article was written).

Unless you can show that Microsoft had planned on an early release for this base, I think you might want to rethink your position. It was articles like the Computerworld article which led to the release, not any policy decision by Microsoft before there was a lot of backlash.

Here is the official announcement on the board that started the whole thing:

http://blogs.technet.com/technetplussubscriptions/archive/2008/02/04/technet-plus-sp1-availability-plan-of-record.aspx

"Now that we've made Windows Server 2008 available to all TechNet Plus subscribers there is a firestorm of questions about when will SP1 also be available for subscribers.

The current plan is that it will be available in mid-March, if that changes I'll let you know. In the meantime, please check out Mike Nash's blog post to learn more about SP1 and the timing of the availability.

Have Feedback? Leave a comment - I looking forward to hearing from you.

Thanks,

Kathy Dixon

TechNet Plus subscriptions"

It was not until the 11th - today - that a new policy was mentioned. Your own counterargument is based on a post made this morning - several days after the article you say is misleading was posted. How was the Computerworld article misleading? It was 100% accurate when written and anyone can follow the link provided in the article and verify that. How could they know that Microsoft was going to change their policy? It was a stupid policy and led to a backlash and that was the story. The story is now that Microsoft needed to be pressured to do what they should have done in the first place.

This gist of it is that Vista is not slower at file copy than XP, XP is lying to you when it says it's done. In fact it had a bunch of async copying left to do in the background, and if you tried to eject that USB drive you're gonna be waiting about the same amt of time on both OSes.

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

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

In case anybody is interest *why* Vista pre-SP1 seemed so much slower copying files than XP, and why post-SP1 for the most part fixes it, you should check out Mark Russinovich's blog post on the matter.

It's a very interesting read.

No, the real issue is that instead of processing tcpip at a lower priority than multimedia, it simply refuses to process more than 10,000 packets per second.

What happens is that tcpip processing occours as a 'deferred procedure call' which I think is in kernel mode. Anyway, such DPCs pre-empt multimedia processing which is a user-mode thread (even though multimedia processing is at high priority - DPCs preempt all threads but lose to low-level interrupt service.)

See http://blogs.technet.com/markrussinovich/archive/2007/08/27/1833290.aspx

Actually the "network/audio QoS" bug you talk about is not fixed in SP1. More tech details:

As explained in your link to Ed Blott's blog, although SP1 fixes lots of things, it still doesn't fix the MMCSS-related network throughput drop that was highly publicized 6 months ago ("slow network transfers when running Media Player").

Mark Russinovich, the MS developer who gave a very detailled explanation of the bug in his blog, never published a follow up to this bug, as he said he would when it will be fixed. The unanswered comments in his blog also confirm the issue is unfixed in SP1 [1].

In fact, the list of notable changes in Vista SP1 [2] mentions that the only thing they did appears to be a hack to manually hardcode the throttling behavior:

""" In SP1, PC administrators are able to modify the network throttling index value for the MMCSS (Multimedia Class Scheduling Service), allowing them to determine the appropriate balance between network performance and audio/video playback quality. """

Since Russinovich said the underlying problem is a high CPU usage caused by the DPC calls made by the network driver to receive the network packets, my guess is that they have to work around all those crappy Windows network drivers that don't implement standard interrupt mitigation techniques (like NAPI under Linux).

Meh. Just one more example of why closed proprietary drivers suck :)

[1] http://blogs.technet.com/markrussinovich/archive/2007/08/27/1833290.aspx
[2] http://technet2.microsoft.com/WindowsVista/en/library/005f921e-f706-401e-abb5-eec42ea0a03e1033.mspx?mfr=true

Yeah, that particularly overly inflated number will be adjusted to have a sane estimate and performance in SP1.

It's true that pre-SP1 had issues with copying lots of small files in some situations, but most of the other performance problems were often perceived, not actual, problems, since XP did things like closing the copy dialog before it had actually written the last byte to disk, for instance.

From that site:

" bought to you by Microsoft and Seagate "

As posted somewhere deep down in the bowels of this discussion, you can view the RSS version. For the best reading effect, play Offsring's "Pretty Fly" while opening the link...

Because... I don't think too many real geeks will be revisiting the page. It reads a lot like those try-hard Christian comics that tell you how hip and cool they are in lieu of actually being hip or cool.

Stereotypical Asian female geek with binary-printed coffee cup:

http://blogs.technet.com/hhh_comic/default.aspx

Here is the RSS feed to bypass the need for Silverlight: http://blogs.technet.com/hhh_comic/rss.xml

No, it is because when audio is playing, the network is limited to 6000 packets per second, regardless of the cpu usage.

Oh, FFS. I really wish people would stop claiming that the audio/video VS network performance issues was a DRM issue. It's just simply not true, no matter which way you try to spin it.

Protective curtain? Microsoft's website is behind the Akamai Content Distribution Network, which is nothing to do with security - it's all about protecting the network from being crushed by the millions of users who hit it every day (the average specs on a Microsoft.com server are: Age: 4 years, Home: Seattle, Washington -- Home of the Seahawks!, Processor Cores: Quad, MultiProcessor: 4, Memory: 16 GB, Internal Drives: 8, Height: 4U - source: http://blogs.technet.com/windowsserver/pages/about-lone-server.aspx)

Microsoft uses the North Pole to obtain statistical information concerning Vista, as you can see by this photo all of Vistas security team are elves....

Apples and oranges. Windows Flaws are flaws in the operating system. Linux flaws are to do with the applications and the operating system.

Hence why they have less, you get no applications with their OS.

The report is here. Page 13 specifically describes how in the comparison he excluded applications from Red Hat such as gimp, OpenOffice, gcc that have no Windows counterpart.

Most Linux distros have a lot more software and contain more lines of code than Windows. Therefore, you'd expect more flaws in something like Ubuntu or RHEL.

The report is available here, and states that the comparison specifically excludes components from Red Hat such as server components, gimp, OpenOffice, etc:

Red Hat and other Linux distribution vendors add value to their workstation distributions by including and supporting many applications that don't have a comparable component on a Microsoft Windows operating system. It is a common objection to any Windows and Linux comparison that counting the "optional" applications against the Linux distribution is unfair, so I've completed an extra level of analysis to exclude component vulnerabilities that do not have comparable functionality shipping with a Windows OS. In short, I install a rhel4ws computer and: I excluded any component that is not installed by default, which includes all optional "server" components that ship with rhel4ws. I additionally excluded text-internet, graphics (the gimp stuff) and office (OpenOffice) and Development Tools (gcc, etc) installation groups. I used the rpm command to list out all packages that get installed and used that package list to filter vulnerabilities for inclusion. This process results in a Gnome-windows workstation that includes standard system management tools, Firefox for browsing, sound and video support, but excludes all server packages, as well as OpenOffice and other optional stuff that a Windows system wouldn't have by default.

It'd be nice if it listed the exact components installed on Red Hat, but at least it attempts to cull the component set to something more reasonable for comparison.

From the PDF

Page 12 - Windows Vista Fixed 36 vulnerabilities
Page 14 - Ubuntu fixed 406 vulnerabilities affecting Ubuntu 6.06 LTS.

Look how many vista have left to find!!

The choice is up to the user to set it the way they want it to work. There is no such thing as a MS update that automatically installs

Or you could read about it on the Security Vunerability Research and Defense blog at http://blogs.technet.com/swi/

Obviously MS didn't listen to feedback during the beta, as claimed by "Alan-Eaton(N-O-S-P-A-M-)@msn.com" at the bottom of the WHS blog: http://blogs.technet.com/homeserver/archive/2007/12/20/an-important-windows-home-server-knowledge-base-article.aspx

At least Outlook files (.pst) are unsupported on Network Shares, for various reasons:

Read

http://blogs.technet.com/askperf/archive/2007/01/21/network-stored-pst-files-don-t-do-it.aspx

I'll agree that a normal home user does not know this, but any IT professional that's working with Outlook should know this.

Here's more about why it's a bad idea from the MS performance team: http://blogs.technet.com/askperf/archive/2007/01/21/network-stored-pst-files-don-t-do-it.aspx

Much of the technology in the XO is developed using open source technology licenses that make it difficult for engineers employed by commercial software companies like Microsoft to work directly on the project. For this reason, we also had to follow a complicated process to figure out interfaces for many of the XO's hardware components and to deal with some of the hardware bugs they were reporting in their design process in order to make progress on our port. All of this slows us down, but that's OK given our overall shared mission here.

Microsoft is on the right track with UAC

Oh no it's not. UAC is not a security feature. I don't know what it is, security is not it.

"processes running in the sandbox are running as you, and so can read and write any files, Registry keys, and even other processes to which your account has access. That caveat creates major gaps in the walls of the sandbox and malicious code written with awareness of the restricted environment could take advantage of them to escape and become full administrator."

http://blogs.technet.com/markrussinovich/archive/2007/02/12/638372.aspx

"Are you sure?" is not security. Linux, BSD's and OSX are dramatically better online user systems. It's just so much easier when you deal with a well designed system to begin with.

The display subsystem ... is laden with DRM. Microsoft checks with the RIAA before it shows you anything. See other comments in this story.

Apologize to the baby jesus!

Drop activation. At the very least, go back to offering a corporate version which doesn't require activation. Activation makes it hard to manage lots of machines, image them, and I don't need my computer going into "reduced functionality" because of an error".

Any decent multi-function server should be able to add the KMS functionality to it to track and update all the workstation and server licenses with zero upkeep other than setting it up and adding or removing licensing when needed. And a MAK key can be reserved for all laptops, so you have to have a 2nd image for laptops with that key, big deal.

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/windowsvista/bb335280.aspx

Improve imagine support and booting from external drives. For a model to copy, watch how easy it is for someone to copy their whole OSX install to an external USB drive using Carbon Copy Cloner, and then to immediately reboot and run the copy on the USB drive, or boot that USB drive on *any* Mac without needing to reconfigure anything or install drivers.

Oh please. There are so many imaging options with Vista it could easily get "more" confusing if they added another one (you can use a thumb drive as an answer file during unattended installs if you want, but that's a pretty pointless exercise). Their "microsoft deployment" (formerly BDD 2007) is almost too granular in its ability to create images preloaded with everything you want on a fresh image, plus the update to WDS (formerly RIS) lets you boot straight to an image library so you don't have to look like a first year helpdesk tech plugging in your silly thumb drive to reimage a machine.

http://blogs.technet.com/msdeployment/

Add it to your RSS feeds so you can get some MS dogma to complement your /. indoctrination.

Hmmmm... I'd be fired there within a minute. I think one of their marketing chicks is hot.... And normally, I don't fall for blondes.

ask Microsoft!

http://it.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/08/21/1441240
http://blogs.zdnet.com/hardware/?p=724
http://blogs.technet.com/markrussinovich/archive/2007/08/27/1833290.aspx

Read all about it on the WSUS Product Team Blog: http://blogs.technet.com/wsus/archive/2007/10/25/wds-update-revision-follow-up.aspx

Below is the MS response posted on Technet. Reading between the lines, MS is admitting that they inappropriately marked this update as a revision to the previous WDS installations.

From http://blogs.technet.com/wsus/default.aspx. (fixed the formatting this time)

WDS revision update, expanded applicability rules, auto-approve revisions
Posted Thursday, October 25, 2007 3:58 AM by WSUS

Some customers have reported that update package for KB917013 was being deployed to WSUS clients without having approved the update for installation on their WSUS servers. The original update release, released February 2007 as an optional update, was only applicable on systems which had a version of Windows Desktop Search installed. The recent update Revision 105, had the applicability logic expanded to be applicable to all systems regardless if a prior version of Windows Desktop Search was installed, IF of course, approved in the WSUS Administrative UI or via Administrator-set auto-approval rules.

The initial update would have only been installed if the update had been either auto, or manually approved, and if the applicability criteria was met on the client (that WDS was installed). For some customers, because the original update was approved for install, but because of the previous applicability rules to apply only to clients which had WDS installed, the update was not actually installed.

So what happened with this revision and why did it seemingly deploy itself to all systems in my environment? WSUS by default is set to auto-approve update revisions to minimize administrative overhead and make sure distribution "just works". Keeping in mind, revisions are only titled as such, when metadata or applicability rules of an update package change, never the binaries. Revisions are also of course only auto-approved via this setting, if the original update is approved.

With the expanded applicability rules, and the WSUS default setting to auto-approve new revisions, it may have appeared as if this update was deployed without approval. The initial version of the update would have had to have been approved, and the "auto-approve revisions" option on (by default) in order for this revision to have also been approved and deployed.

To Recap:

- The initial February 2007 release had to be purposely checked/approved by WSUS admins for distribution, because it was an Optional update.
- All subsequent metadata-only revisions to that WSUS admin approved February 2007 release would then also be automatically approved for distribution.
- The initial February approval is retained throughout the life of the update, regardless of revision.
- That said, We will be tightening the criterea for Revisions so that auto-approval of revision behaivors are more predictable and of similar scope as the originial approved update, as we appreciate the confusion this behaivor caused.

Thanks as always for your feedback to make our product s and processes work for our customers.

Bobbie Harder

PM, WSUS

Below is the MS response posted on Technet. Reading between the lines, MS is admitting that they inappropriately marked this update as a revision to the previous WDS installations. From http://blogs.technet.com/wsus/default.aspx. WDS revision update, expanded applicability rules, auto-approve revisions Posted Thursday, October 25, 2007 3:58 AM by WSUS Some customers have reported that update package for KB917013 was being deployed to WSUS clients without having approved the update for installation on their WSUS servers. The original update release, released February 2007 as an optional update, was only applicable on systems which had a version of Windows Desktop Search installed. The recent update Revision 105, had the applicability logic expanded to be applicable to all systems regardless if a prior version of Windows Desktop Search was installed, IF of course, approved in the WSUS Administrative UI or via Administrator-set auto-approval rules. The initial update would have only been installed if the update had been either auto, or manually approved, and if the applicability criteria was met on the client (that WDS was installed). For some customers, because the original update was approved for install, but because of the previous applicability rules to apply only to clients which had WDS installed, the update was not actually installed. So what happened with this revision and why did it seemingly deploy itself to all systems in my environment? WSUS by default is set to auto-approve update revisions to minimize administrative overhead and make sure distribution "just works". Keeping in mind, revisions are only titled as such, when metadata or applicability rules of an update package change, never the binaries. Revisions are also of course only auto-approved via this setting, if the original update is approved. With the expanded applicability rules, and the WSUS default setting to auto-approve new revisions, it may have appeared as if this update was deployed without approval. The initial version of the update would have had to have been approved, and the "auto-approve revisions" option on (by default) in order for this revision to have also been approved and deployed. To Recap: The initial February 2007 release had to be purposely checked/approved by WSUS admin s sfor distribution, because it was an Optional update. All subsequent metadata-only revisions to that WSUS admin approved February 2007 release would then also be automatically approved for distribution. The initial February approval is retained throughout the life of the update, regardless of revision. That said, We will be tightening the criterea for Revisions so that auto-approval of revision behaivors are more predictable and of similar scope as the originial approved update, as we appreciate the confusion this behaivor caused. Thanks as always for your feedback to make our product s and processes work for our customers. Bobbie Harder PM, WSUS

Windows Update issued an update to the Malicious Software Removal Tool which cleaned computers infected by the Storm Worm. Citation here. So, you've got malware that sends out spam and DDoSes PCs, and "malware" that may install a desktop search update depending on the configuration of WSUS. I personally see the former as the bigger problem.

I hope that soon this story will be covered on his blog. Previously he described other weird things happening during file copy procedures, as well as the Vista network performance issue. Hopefully, his story will provide enough low-level details for the hungry minds.

I hope that soon this story will be covered on his blog. Previously he described other weird things happening during file copy procedures, as well as the Vista network performance issue. Hopefully, his story will provide enough low-level details for the hungry minds.

http://blogs.technet.com/mu/archive/2007/09/28/issues-installing-updates-after-repairing-xp.aspx

its cool. you can take the tinfoil hats off again... just don't let them out of your sight, you might need them again shortly.

Yes. Yes it does. From Microsoft's open source labs, no less.

http://port25.technet.com/pages/windows-media-player-firefox-plugin-download.aspx

Firefox works just fine, you probably need to install WMP 11 and the following plugin... http://port25.technet.com/pages/windows-media-player-firefox-plugin-download.aspx
Spiralfrog is slow as hell right now but it does seem to work. WMP is pretty confusing to get the music to my Creative Zen Vision: M but it does work.