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Windows Server 2003 Is A Small Step Forward

b17bmbr writes "According to eWeek, 'The release of Windows Server 2003 is a small step forward for the platform -- an effort that really should be considered Windows 2000 Server Second Edition. With the exception of Internet Information Services 6.0, there aren't any far-reaching or fundamental changes in the product.' And from CNet Microsoft prepares Windows Server ads, 'The ads are geared toward IT managers on tight budgets.' This is probably Microsoft's last chance to turn the tide and take mindset and market share from FOSS."

583 comments

  1. ms by xxblackice · · Score: 1, Troll

    isnt it ironic how most open source developers are supported by software corporations that make software for microsoft operating systems?

    1. Re:ms by drunk_as_in_beer · · Score: 0

      isnt it ironic how most open source developers are supported by software corporations that make software for microsoft operating systems?

      I guess... If you consider Java and Oracle apps to be software for microsoft operating systems..

      Sorry to break this to you, but Windows is dead.

      --
      --Drunk as in Beer
    2. Re:ms by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      No, considering that most open source projects run on microsoft operating systems.

    3. Re:ms by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

      Uh oh, don't say it's dead. It might give Windows the immortal powers of BSD.

    4. Re:ms by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      oh no! he speaks out against open source! Troll!

    5. Re:ms by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      No he doesn't. If he'd said "Open Source Sucks because it steals food from the mouths of little babies", then he'd be speaking out against OSS. As it is, he's talking nonsense.

  2. Oh no! by MisterFancypants · · Score: 5, Funny
    Microsoft's last chance?

    Oh no!

    Things don't sound so good for those poor guys at Microsoft! I better sell my stock!

    1. Re:Oh no! by The+Kryptonian · · Score: 3, Insightful

      I see that tongue planting firmly in your cheek, there. Seriously, though, Microsoft has three main businesses: enterprise software development tools, office applications and the desktop itself. Linux is taking a major chunk out of their server market, and slowly, inexorably the rest of their business will follow. They will either adapt or die. My guess is that they'll adapt, and take their new place to the left and just below the Throne of the Great Penguin. They're certainly not going to go away, but in about another five years, they're not going to be calling the shots anymore.

    2. Re:Oh no! by eenglish_ca · · Score: 4, Insightful

      No one can make such a predication, what if there is a new linux that gets developed that completely revolutionizes computer use. Linux is only 10 years old and look at the influence it has gained in that short period. I don't think that linux will be that last of the computer OS revolutions.

      --
      Checking out my form of escapism.
    3. Re:Oh no! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yes. This fross they speak of seems particularly scary. This is the time to bail.

    4. Re:Oh no! by Zeinfeld · · Score: 3, Interesting
      My guess is that they'll adapt, and take their new place to the left and just below the Throne of the Great Penguin.

      I was discussing the problem of BIND security the other day. I explained that things had been better for a long time until DNSSEC came along and a whole slew of completely unchecked code had just got jammed into the kernel. This led to the observation that unglamorous stuff like testing is something that it is realy hard to get people to do for OSS projects. Especially since there is something of a suck it and see toss it over the fence attitude. Why spend my time testing, the user bozos can do that!

      So before you nail stability and security to the mast as the colors of the good ship OSS ask yourselves if you really want to win the game on those terms. I remember asking the same thing of Netscape when they decided to take Microsoft on by inventing new features faster than Redmond...

      The interesting thing about Windows 2003 is the support for .NET. If you are running Web Services then you want Windows 2003. If you are not then well, any feature you are likely to need is likely to have been supported long ago. The PKI support is much improved.

      --
      Looking for an Information Security student project suggestion?
      Try http://dotcrimeManifesto.com/
    5. Re:Oh no! by sydb · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Depends what you mean by Linux. Kernel? Or GNU/Linux, operating system?

      There hasn't been a technical revolution anyway The revolution has been in licensing and using the Internet as a development environment. The technical work is all evolutionary, small steps.

      In proprietary software, you create the appearance of a revolution by giving something old a new name. You can't see the source so you can't see that it's nothing knew.

      So I wouldn't be surprised to see Linux around in 20 or even 30 years, and I'm sure DOS and VMS will be with us too.

      --
      Yours Sincerely, Michael.
    6. Re:Oh no! by Malcontent · · Score: 1

      Does anybody use BIND anymore? I thought by now everybody had switched to tinydns.

      --

      War is necrophilia.

    7. Re:Oh no! by pestihl · · Score: 1

      Yes, OH nO! This is surely going to cause it to snowing in Hell.

      Do you think on the last day Microsoft's doors are open the building while burn?
      Geeks gotta riot for that!

      --
      "What do you do with the mad that you feel when you feel so mad you could bite?" - Mister Rogers
    8. Re:Oh no! by jmorris42 · · Score: 2, Insightful

      A better reason to unload em is that they have lots of downside and darned little upside. Think it through. Their stock has been stagnant for several years and their whole business model is predicated on ever increasing revenues leading to an ever increasing stock price. The rising stock price allowed them to fund the bulk of their payroll with ever increasing stock options. Those options ain't worth shit these days and I'd bet it would take a couple of years back on the gravy train for the jaded rank & filers there to believe in becoming a millionare through options.

      Then there is the revenue problem. Once you are a monopoly there isn't much room to increase revenue through increasing market share and the natives are already restless after their first attempt to squeeze more money from their installed base with Licensing 6.0. So if revenue is going to be flat/down the only option left is greater efficency.

      But not at Microsoft because they are already too good in that dept. Their cost to produce the next rev of Windows or Office is already close to nill per copy so half of almost nill wouldn't make a big difference. Cut marketing and they are toast since the bulk of what they write off as marketing is shady deals to enforce the monopoly.

      That leaves their rightly feared cash horde. They can cause much mischief with that stash, but if you are expecting that to prop up their stock value you should think again. Exercise for the student: Go to your fav stock info site and find the number of shares of common stock outstanding and divide it into the approx $40 gigabux they claim in cash and short term investments. They have split their stock so many times that even 40 bil gets watered down real heavy.

      Are they doomed? Not likely, they long ago passed the size where a company is too big to be allowed to fail. But as IBM was once the mighty titan that dictated terms to the entire technology industry, Microsoft will also pass into being one among many peers.

      --
      Democrat delenda est
    9. Re:Oh no! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      .NET? What's that then?
      http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/4/2880 2.html

    10. Re:Oh no! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      English isn't your first language huh?

    11. Re:Oh no! by RoLi · · Score: 2, Insightful
      Well, "adapting to survive" and "being able to charge 80%+ profit margins" are 2 entirely different things.

      Will Microsoft survive? Sure.
      Will Microsoft lose their domination? Yes, they will, eventually.

      As an investor, I see Microsoft as a company that has very much to lose and not much to gain. (On the desktop, the only place where things are going reasonable well for MS, there is no room to grow and everywhere else they are losing. But also on the desktop, especially OpenOffice is starting to eat their MS Office)

    12. Re:Oh no! by RoLi · · Score: 0
      So I wouldn't be surprised to see Linux around in 20 or even 30 years, and I'm sure DOS and VMS will be with us too.

      Uh, I don't think so.

      Proprietary software eventually dies, free software lifes forever.

      I don't think they will make chips being able to run DOS or VMS in 20 years...

    13. Re:Oh no! by The+Kryptonian · · Score: 1

      In particular, I think the recent incident with the enterprise version of Office demanding registration every time it's started up, ending up with a complete lockout after the 50th try, is getting IT managers at least thinking about alternatives. It certainly isn't improving Microsoft's reputation, but whether this will push shops over into Open Office or Hancom Office is hard to determine. Newton's Third Law may prevail, despite the problems.

    14. Re:Oh no! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You obviously have no idea what you're talking about. IIS 6.0 buries any web server that is out there. Seems that UNIX people spend all of their time justifying these religious reasons why Microsoft products are so unstable and so unsuited to be servers. This isn't NT 4. The argument is ignorant and childish. The problem is that you have this preconceived notion that you should be able to act like a UNIX admin on a Windows Server, and the functionality isn't there. Boo hoo. Face it, it's all about ROI, and you can get a hell of a lot more bang for your buck running Server 2003 on an Intel-based server than going out and dealing with crap like huge Sun boxes (nevermind even the footprint in the datacenter), and don't start up the ridiculous Linux argument because that's just not an acceptable solution for many Enterprise level customers. Open source is a pipe dream and a nightmare in an Enterprise.

  3. What? No NextP? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
    Or whatever the next iteration of XP would be?

    XP++?

    XPsharp?? (that sounds like something you get from a $30 hooker...)

  4. pssh by pizza_milkshake · · Score: 4, Insightful

    This is probably Microsoft's last chance to turn the tide and take mindset and market share from FOSS.

    please. they have $30 billion in cash. i think they'll be able to buy some other chances.

    1. Re:pssh by bobbozzo · · Score: 1
      they have $30 billion in cash. i think they'll be able to buy some other chances.

      Sure, maybe they can start paying people to use their software.

      --
      Nothing to see here; Move along.
    2. Re:pssh by angle_slam · · Score: 5, Interesting
      they have $30 billion in cash.

      Hey, they only have $5.6 B in cash. The other $37.9 B is in "short term investments," according to Yahoo. :-)

    3. Re:pssh by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I find it very amusing that somebody rated your mention of "short term investments" as informative, rather than funny.

    4. Re:pssh by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yeah, ever wonder why they don't actually invest it so that they can win this "server market" thing ?

    5. Re:pssh by Hobart · · Score: 1
      This is probably Microsoft's last chance to turn the tide and take mindset and market share from FOSS.

      please. they have $30 billion in cash. i think they'll be able to buy some other chances.
      MICHIGAN -- Linux Information Minister, Commander Saeed al-Timothy, announced that the Free and Open Source Software projects were only mere weeks from toppling the IT hegemony of Microsoft Corporation (MSFT). The new Windows 2003 Server was described as "irrelevant" and "lacking any far-reaching or fundamental changes". He further sad that all Linux users were "now one front" against what he called "those aggressors."
      --
      o/~ Join us now and share the software ...
    6. Re:pssh by chris_7d0h · · Score: 1

      Still, judging by the financial records, MS still dwarfs what is seen as the industry's #1 gigant IBM.

      (From the same source as the parent post)

      MSFT 1Q
      Total Assets: $68,379,000,000
      Total Liabilities: $14,079,000,000
      (Total Worth: $54,300,000,000)

      IBM 1Q
      Total Assets: $83,056,000,000
      Total Liabilities: $60,005,000,000
      (Total Worth: $23,051,000,000)

      --
      In a society that believes in nothing, fear becomes the only agenda ~ Bill Durodié
  5. FOSS? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    used to be, people explained less common acroynms or linked to definitions. I miss that

    1. Re:FOSS? by SweetAndSourJesus · · Score: 5, Informative

      Free Open Source Software.

      Just a guess.

      --

      --
      the strongest word is still the word "free"
    2. Re:FOSS? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Free and Open Source Software

      where the hell have you been?

    3. Re:FOSS? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      FOSS may be easy enough to guess, but if it's not an everything2.com node, do me a solid and tell me, cause I'm slow

    4. Re:FOSS? by drunk_as_in_beer · · Score: 5, Informative

      FOSS = Free Open Source Software

      I think this is to clarify that is free, because there is the idea of nonfree open source software. Though I think nonfree may be considered "shared source" these days.

      --
      --Drunk as in Beer
    5. Re:FOSS? by GigsVT · · Score: 0, Troll

      Don't forget there's also nonfree as in BSD.

      --
      I've had enough abrasive sigs. Kittens are cute and fuzzy.
    6. Re:FOSS? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      BSD is free software, according to the FSF definition. What it isn't is copylefted - that is, guaranteed to always be part of a free system.

    7. Re:FOSS? by jsse · · Score: 5, Funny

      In fact, it's also a short form of "GNU/Free as in beer, Open Source avocated by EFF and FSF, Software", aka "GNU/FAIBOSABEAFS"

      *rimshot*

    8. Re:FOSS? by sbwoodside · · Score: 2, Informative

      Close. It's actually Free / Open Source Software. As in Free Software / Open Source Software.

      It's an acronym to assuage those people who for some inexplicable reason prefer "free software" over OSS. So we get FOSS. (Aside: Then of course there's FLOSS, Free / Libre / Open Source Software, which is popular amongst those who know some french, because Libre means "freedom" in french.

      (AsideAside: french actually has two words for free. One is libre, which means freedom. The other is gratis, which means gratis in english too. As in, beer.))

      The slash matters because FOSS isn't to differentiate with non-free OSS.

      Personally I just use OSS unless I know that someone from the FSF is listening ;-)

      simon

    9. Re:FOSS? by Jugalator · · Score: 3, Funny

      They should just call it BS for "Beer Software" to attract attention. :-)

      But then people would say stuff like "Red Hat is BS" which might be slightly confusing.

      --
      Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
    10. Re:FOSS? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Why are you people always talking about "free as in beer"? Is there some open-source beer around somewhere? I haven't seen any free beer in many years...

    11. Re:FOSS? by tommck · · Score: 1
      Aside: Then of course there's FLOSS, Free / Libre / Open Source Software, which is popular amongst those who know some french, because Libre means "freedom" in french.


      Though you are technically correct, "Libre" does mean "freedom" in French, the word was apparently taken from the Spanish "Libre", which means (you guessed it...) "freedom". :-)
      At least that's what my friend Brad says.

      T

      --
      ---- It puts the lotion on its skin or else it gets the hose again. It does this whenever it's told.
    12. Re:FOSS? by The+Troll+Catcher · · Score: 1

      Your friend is silly. They BOTH come from the Latin word 'liber', which means 'free'.

    13. Re:FOSS? by drunk_as_in_beer · · Score: 1

      Why are you people always talking about "free as in beer"? Is there some open-source beer around somewhere? I haven't seen any free beer in many years...

      Hmmm.. well.. I drink free beer every saturday. But I tip my bartender well for providing me with it.

      --
      --Drunk as in Beer
  6. so we are paying for a service pack? by narkotix · · Score: 5, Funny

    so all that money and time upgrading our reliable nt4/2k systems is only for iis6 and a pop3 service? hmmm glad my organisation is on volume licensing!

    --
    We played dungeons and dragons for 3 hours.....then i was slain by an elf
    1. Re:so we are paying for a service pack? by I+Am+The+Owl · · Score: 2, Funny

      Yeah, welcome to the existence that Mac users have been suffering through since 10.2. It's the wave of the future!

      --

      --sdem
    2. Re:so we are paying for a service pack? by boskone · · Score: 4, Informative

      Actually, you should see a huge ROI if you move from NT4 to 2003 with Active directory. Also, 2003 server will have fancy UNIX features like controlling/guaranteeing processor/mem to individual programs so you'll be able to take 6 old machines and roll it up into a 2 node, 8 way cluster. HUGE return on your investment from a manageability standpoint and also very flexible to add more servcies to it.

      I've been an MS hater for a long time (sellin' commercial UNIX solutions), but honestly, there is a lot of compelling tech wrapped up in this that will pay off big in SOME environments.

    3. Re:so we are paying for a service pack? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

      Since 10.2? Gee, the only thing I remember paying for is 10.2. 9.1 and 10.0 came with the computer; 10.1 I got free as a retailer with a mac up-to-date coupon; 10.2 I paid for, and apparently I'm going to pay for 10.3, but 10.2.1, 10.2.2, 10.2.3, 10.2.4, and what I'm running right now, 10.2.5, were all free. But I also paid for Windows 5.1 on an upgrade from 5.0 (Windows XP from Windows 2000), and from Windows 4.0 to 4.1 (Windows 95, 98), 4.1.1 (98 SE, $20 or so), and 4.2 (ME). (May have some of those numbers wrong, but you get the picture.)

    4. Re:so we are paying for a service pack? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

      I know MS clustering is supposed to work but after many lost message stores and corrupt mailboxes, $15k dollars for third party recovery software and troubleshooting (the MS recovery tools require a seperate unused server to restore the tapes to and required a MS quoted "unknown" amount of time for the recovery process), and over six hours hours of premium support phones calls to MS Support, THEY suggested that we move our Exchange servers over to 1 run/1 standby failover mode instead of using both at the same time with heartbeat failover.

      So much for the ROI from Groupwise.

      I am sure it could be configured either way and work fine but not without someone very experienced in this exact setup and to baby sit. Not really the person a 200 person or less organization can afford to pay full time. Oddly enough, that is exactly where MS is marketing these systems. There is no substitute for a highly knowledgeable administrator.

    5. Re:so we are paying for a service pack? by techno-vampire · · Score: 2, Insightful
      If you're getting so many UNIX features, why not just go to UNIX and be done with it?

      Yes, I know, there are always programs you can't do without and can't find in UNIX. There's also, of course, the problem of getting people to try something new. For many people, learning anything new is hard, and once they've done it, they don't want to do it again, so there's lots of resistance to change. However, all these new features look like Micro$lop's finally realized that they did it the wrong way in the first place, but don't want to admit it.

      I think the biggest problem for me is that all these shiny new features are still piled on top of all the existing Windows cruft. The old vulnerabilities are all still there, still unpatched, still waiting to be exploited. As long as a glitch in a display driver is still allowed to crash your server without warning, I'll stay away from anything built on NT "technology," TYVM.

      --
      Good, inexpensive web hosting
    6. Re:so we are paying for a service pack? by t0ny · · Score: 1

      Too bad everyone cant get free retailer upgrades...

      --

      Manipulate the moderator system! Mod someone as "overrated" today.

    7. Re:so we are paying for a service pack? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Well, since the only public updates since 10.2 have been 10.2.x, and all of those have been free, you obviously have bought 10.3. Why don't you tell the rest of us where you found it/

    8. Re:so we are paying for a service pack? by fodi · · Score: 1, Funny

      Eeek!! An IT salesperson... RUN!!

      Unless I can get a holiday for buying something from you, that is...

    9. Re:so we are paying for a service pack? by tres · · Score: 1

      What, was that $0.01 charge at CompUSA too much for you? :-)

      --
      Notes From Under *nix: blas.phemo.us
    10. Re:so we are paying for a service pack? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      *open "fight club" plane scene*
      you say: "Windows 4.0 to 4.1 (Windows 95,98)" and start explaining
      I stop you and say: Oh, I get it alright...you think you're clever...
      You reply: yea, I guess I am.
      I reply: how's that working for you?
      *close scene*

    11. Re:so we are paying for a service pack? by SN74S181 · · Score: 1

      Is MacOS from now on only going to converge it's version numbers, like TeX, which adds a digit with each release?

      They can't call a version eleven OS X, so maybe that's the plan.

    12. Re:so we are paying for a service pack? by SN74S181 · · Score: 1

      As long as a glitch in a display driver is still allowed to crash your server without warning,

      Most businesses with critical servers aren't going to be running buggy third-party display drivers on the machines. Haven't you heard about driver signing? This ain't NT 4.0 and you need to get over dragging in NT 4.0 issues. Makes you look like that's the last version of a MS product you worked with. Makes your arguement look tired and old.

    13. Re:so we are paying for a service pack? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Dude Windows 2k server was garbage. It was stable but most of the stuff it did was totally wrong, logging still wasn't quite right, and most of the features didnt work as advertised. I've spent a good chunk of time debugging these servers and they are INCREDIBLY complex to manage.

      Windows 2k3 however, is a totally different system. It comes installed as a blank slate (not even hardware video acceleration, or DirectX, or even SOUND is enabled by default!) ActiveDirectory finally now JUST WORKS, and IIS is easy to configure and does the job.

      All unessential services come disabled, and you go through easy steps to piecemeal assemble and configure your system. It actually works, whereas Win2k didn't.

    14. Re:so we are paying for a service pack? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It's funny you said that...
      Windows Server 2k3 comes with ALL HARDWARE MEDIA ACCELERATION OFF!

      That's right, Default Install: you get standard VGA driver, no DirectX enabled, and all sound drivers and services disabled. The standard VGA driver is VERY fast, esp considering the kind of stuff the UI needs to do doesn't need hardware accel.

      If you WANT you can click a few buttons and reenable DirectX, Sound, Hardware Acceleration, etc... Then you make your system POTENTIALLY slightly unstable, but if you want to use the server for other things, such as 3d Design Workstation and webserver, you can go right ahead.

      They got something right with Win2k3, you can't deny that.

    15. Re:so we are paying for a service pack? by techno-vampire · · Score: 1

      Hardware acceleration wasn't the problem with NT4. The drivers were loaded in Ring 0, for additional speed. Of course, this meant that the slightest problem with a driver blue-screened your server, but I guess Micro$lop didn't care. If they've stopped this for 2k3, all well and good. If nothing else, servers don't need fast graphics, DirectX or anything like that. Those are for workstations.

      --
      Good, inexpensive web hosting
    16. Re:so we are paying for a service pack? by techno-vampire · · Score: 1

      Agreed. Not only that, business critical servers should use the simplest drivers possible, as fast graphics and so on aren't important on a server. However, the statement was meant as a conditional. IF 2k3 still has this issue then I will distrust it. See?

      --
      Good, inexpensive web hosting
  7. Confused by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Who wrote this part:

    This is probably Microsoft's last chance to turn the tide and take mindset and market share from FOSS

    (it's in quotation marks, but not italicized...is it the submitter? The Slashdot editor?)

    1. Re:Confused by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Unlike the quote immediately preceding it, this line doesn't appear in the linked CNet article; so it's presumably an editorial comment.

  8. Not the first time they did that by West+Palm+Beach · · Score: 2, Insightful

    They took Windows 98 SE, dressed it up a bit, and called it Windows ME.

    It's lousy from a consumer standpoint, but enough people thought it worthwhile to buy it and make it profitable for Microsoft.

    It's not the most upstanding business strategy, but it still makes them money. And any business is not in it for the ethics, but about the cold hard cash.

    1. Re:Not the first time they did that by ergo98 · · Score: 4, Interesting

      They took Windows 98 SE, dressed it up a bit, and called it Windows ME.

      True but not true. Microsoft has a habit of releasing hundreds of little "upgrades" pieces at a time such that one doesn't even realize all that has changed: Compare a stock Windows 98SE machine with 98SE with updated Media Player, IE, Messenger, etc. At some point these teams have to derive revenue so they package all of the "free" upgrades together and make it a new OS. They are actually delivering a lot of value, it just happens to be devalued by the fact that it's free for older OS' as well.

    2. Re:Not the first time they did that by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

      Windows ME had a few major new features, the system restore (that actually works) comes to mind. All the underlying components were fresh, and it was a home OS. It made sense to release it as a new OS rather than call it Windows SE part 2 or something.

      Was there a reason to run out and get ME if you already had 98 SE? No. Just like there's no reason for me to run out and replace my slackware 8 based boxes with 9. Everything I use (samba, squid, etc etc) is already updated, my kernels are already 2.4.20, reiserfs is the only filesystem on my HDDs. But if I had to build them from scratch, I'd use 9.0 before I'd install 8 then go through upgrading everything.

      New machines should be put together with the latest patches. When it gets to the point that you install the base OS, then upgrade every single component and waste 3 days, it's time for a new product.

      So you can call it 2000 SE or whatever, but from the POV of building a fresh box, it just makes sense to get all the latest in one pass.

    3. Re:Not the first time they did that by JPriest · · Score: 1

      What about Linux distros like SuSE shipping and charging for a version release every 6 months? Compare that to the 2 year release schedule of Microsoft and it starts to put the price into perspective.

      --
      Saying Java is nice because it works on all OS's is like saying that anal sex is nice because it works on all genders.
    4. Re:Not the first time they did that by Metrol · · Score: 1

      ...starts to put the price into perspective

      Try upgrading 6 boxes. The licensing alone REALLY puts the price into perspective.

      --
      The line must be drawn here. This far. No further.
    5. Re:Not the first time they did that by Pharmboy · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Better yet, compare 95A with 95C. Even B had Fat 32, only 2gig partitions in A, Internet Explorer, major TCP/IP upgrade, and a whole lot more. I still love 95a's speed on a 2gig partition. scandisk in less than a minute of a full scsi 2gb fat16 drive, and none of the media fluff to slow you down. Its still my favorite version of windows, and I admin about a dozen boxes that are still running it, including a file server. Uptime in the months range. Now, image that simple but logical interface on a good Linux kernel....... (I have)

      --
      Tequila: It's not just for breakfast anymore!
    6. Re:Not the first time they did that by AndyChrist · · Score: 1

      No version of windows 9x can compare to 2000 for a workstation. I'm shocked that you manage to get months of uptime for a server. But if you got more than about 2 or 3 days for a workstation, either you're not using it right, or you're some kind of miracle worker.

      Actually, you might put that on your resume: "Months of uptime with win 95a!"

      I agree to some extent though...95 > 98/ME

    7. Re:Not the first time they did that by ColaMan · · Score: 4, Funny

      *cough* wasn't there a fault in win95A (a timer glitch?) that only let it run for 49 days without locking up?

      And it took 2 years for anyone to notice because , lets face it, win95 got rebooted a whole lot more often than that because of all the other bugs.

      --

      You are in a twisty maze of processor lines, all alike.
      There is a lot of hype here.
    8. Re:Not the first time they did that by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Actually, the more boxes you put into the equasion, the cheaper Windows gets, because the big cost is the CALs.

      150 Users, 6 Servers:

      Windows 2003: $9600 covers all 6 servers and all the users for the entire six year support cycle.

      RedHat ES: $600 per year per server x 6 years -> $21,600

      In otherwords, Linux can be a shaft.

    9. Re:Not the first time they did that by dbrutus · · Score: 3, Informative

      The two offerings are not comparable. The MS offering gives you software, the Linux offering gives you support.

      If you were to actually be stupid enough to do this, the first time you had a problem with your MS setup you would be thrown to the wolves, otherwise known as per-incident support and you would land there without a support budget.

      For Win 2003 standard the support page is available here and in short it's $245 per incident and $1225 for a 5 pack.

      The problem with buying that 5 pack of incidents is that it's only good for win2k3 incidents. Unlike the RH support which covers many products, each prepaid pack is only good for the covered product.

      You get to have 48 incidents over 6 years (assuming prices do not change) or 8 incidents per year. RH does not set incident limits in its standard support contracts.

      If only 8 things go wrong per year in a 6 server MS shop in both server OS and server apps, you're having a very good year. To expect to have 6 very good years in a row is not very probable.

      The RH offering costs you $600 per year but each year you get updated to the then current major release. Since MS updates their OS about every 2 years, that's $6k of software cost that hasn't been accounted for to keep things even and that drops you down on the MS end to 4 incidents per year across the OS and the relevant enterprise applications you'll be running. Good luck on having two major OS upgrades over 6 servers and only having 4 incidents per year.

      Finally, before anybody starts whining about the free support options or MS' $99 online option they aren't comparable as RH is offering 4 hour support response time, not 24 hour and Linux forums exist with exactly the same price as the MS forums, free.

    10. Re:Not the first time they did that by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      And most users buy Windows via an OEM anyway. Better to get all the updates and bug fixes together.

      The big advantage is usually stability, as repeatedly patching an OS can cause other problems. Anyone remember trying to run IE4 under Win95?

    11. Re:Not the first time they did that by SonicBurst · · Score: 2, Informative

      If only 8 things go wrong per year in a 6 server MS shop in both server OS and server apps, you're having a very good year. To expect to have 6 very good years in a row is not very probable.

      I'm not going to argue the price issue, but I will say this. I currently run 19 servers: 5 NT 4 and 14 Win2K. About half of the Win2k used to run NT 4 and were upgraded to 2k, the other 7 were fresh installed. I've had 12 of them up and running since 1998, the rest came online in early 2002. In all that time, I have NEVER had to pay for an MS support incident. I did have to call them once for an issue with Exchange 5.5 SP4, but they didn't charge me since it was an issue with a security fix (which, btw, they never charge for support problems with security fixes).

      Now, I don't consider myself that lucky, so for someone running 6 servers to go a year, they shouldn't have a problem. Hell, most of my NT 4 servers had >1 year uptimes. So, I don't think it is uncommon for our shop (or any other) to go 4.5 years without a big issue. knocks on wood, and crosses fingers for next year or so :)

      I think the key is directly related to the competency of the sysadmin. Yeah, sure, any kid straight out of HS could probably get a Windows server up and running, but keeping them running and running well does take at least *some* skill and planning, just like it does in the Unix world. It isn't as simple as running the autoupdates or visiting Windows Update every week, but it isn't rocket science either.

      --

      Geek used to be a four letter word. Now it's a six-figure one.
    12. Re:Not the first time they did that by Markus+Landgren · · Score: 2, Informative
      *cough* wasn't there a fault in win95A (a timer glitch?) that only let it run for 49 days without locking up?


      Yes, it's 2^32 milliseconds, or 49 days and 17 hours. I ran my Win95 unpatched because I wanted to see it. One time I waited 48 days before I got some other "regular" crash. I never got more than 4 weeks uptime after that.
    13. Re:Not the first time they did that by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Windows keeps track of the number of milliseconds since last boot as a 32 bit unsigned value.

      2^32-1 ms = 49 d 17 h 2 m 47.295 s

      When the count rolled around to 0, win95 got VERY confused.

    14. Re:Not the first time they did that by 2short · · Score: 1


      Yeah, such a stupid bug. It's amazing the world didn't switch to linux right then. I mean, the supriority of the linux offering for the desktop eight years ago was... Oh. Right.

      Seriously though, while 95 was buggy as hell, that wasn't the main reason no one cared about uptime. Every night most 95 machines got, get this, turned off.

    15. Re:Not the first time they did that by larryleung · · Score: 1

      Well, linux had one just like that. It took us quite a while to figure out as well.

      I don't care to defend MS, but we should really spend less time flaming and instead focus on doing *better* than them.

    16. Re:Not the first time they did that by andcal · · Score: 1

      The two offerings are not comparable.

      That's like saying a dozen red apples aren't comparable with six green ones. They aren't equal or even analogous, but they are comparable, as long as you take into consideration what you are getting with each package.

      If you were to actually be stupid enough to do this, the first time you had a problem with your MS setup you would be thrown to the wolves, otherwise known as per-incident support and you would land there without a support budget.

      Huh? Are you saying that it's the software developer's responsibility to make sure each of its customers budget properly for support?
      Instead of trying to impose a one-size-fits all support package on every customer, Microsoft is allowing customers to determine what level and how much support they need. That's bad?

      The problem with buying that 5 pack of incidents is that it's only good for win2k3 incidents. Unlike the RH support which covers many products, each prepaid pack is only good for the covered product. The only pr

      Sorry, but that's just not true. A microsoft Pro level support 5-pack is valid for any Microsoft product. The only exception I am aware of is the retail version of CRM, since MSFT decided to keep Great Plains support seperate from the rest of its support group. And even if you call for support of the CRM SDK you got from MSDN, you can even use the aforementioned 5-pack.

      It certainly doesn't level the playing field, but it's not mentioned very often, so I will point out the fact that when you do shell out for any MSFT product, you get free access and support to fully-compiled hotfixes and service packs. Windows Update and Office Update make patch management for the OS and Office apps about as easy as anything in existence.
      IT level products can get similar automatic checking, with appropriate suggestions for patches with the Baseline Security Analyzer . If you have a problem applying a MSFT security-related patch, you get free assistance with that, too, if the policy hasn't changed recently.

      --
      --something witty
    17. Re:Not the first time they did that by bimmergeek · · Score: 1
      I would be willing to bet that the prices for RH technical support do not last. As OSS continues to make significant gains in market share - primarily on the basis of price to acquire - their call volume will increase as more companies jettison MS because ignorant CEO's buy into the blather that OSS is less expensive.

      IT departments will be burdened with learning OSS platforms and will need technical support to help them through their learning curve. Not only will RH have increased call volume but their cycle times will be longer because a greater percentage of their callers will not be as adept at managing the platform as those technicians whose companies were early OSS adopters.

      The costs of running a call center are driven by three key factors: levels of support, call volume and call cycle time. As these factors increase, staffing levels increase and consequently, so do the per seat or per call costs. This is why MS charges $245 per event.

      OSS mavens and clueless CEOs will watch OSS costs of ownership climb in both tangible and intangible terms. Though the cost to acquire and license OSS technologies is certainly lower than MS solutions, there are longer-term factors of cost that are ignored by most OSS hype: the cost of fewer technicians capable of skillfully deploying robust OSS solutions because OSS lacks ubiquity, the cost of retooling the skillsets of existing IT staff, the cost of lost IT staff productivity because of the inevitable learning curve of new technologies, the complexity of mixed environments as companies migrate from Windows to OSS and the cost of lack of interoperability between OSS end-user solutions (e.g. Office vs OSS suites), to name a few.

      CEOs will mandate their IT teams implement OSS without looking at these factors of total cost of ownership and after a significant investment in OSS, will realize that the TCO of OSS is not what was promised.

      I am fascinated by the orgy of buzz that is growing around OSS. It's remarkably similar to the internet growth of the late 90'swhere people believed the illusion that services can be provided for free or significantly lower than traditional channels. As we've painfully observed, this model cannot be sustained in a capitalist economy. The bottom line is that money and profit must exist or businesses, like Red Hat Linux, will cease to exist. Mandrake bears witness to this economic reality from which OSS is not immune.

      The OSS model of cheaper/free is not sustainable beyond a certain point. OSS is lean and mean and free because it hasn't achieved a strong level of demand. As the false promise of cheaper lures more and more companies to move to OSS, the OSS developers and businesses will find their costs increasing and they will find that a $245 charge for a support phone call makes a hell of a lot of sense. In fact, because they lack the infrastructure to support increase volumes and cycle times, their costs per call could very well be more than $245 per incident.

      I think a lot of OSS idealists and clueless CEOs are in for a rude awakening in five years.

      --
      -Everyone laughs at lemmings but no one ever wants to admit to ever being one.
    18. Re:Not the first time they did that by dbrutus · · Score: 1

      I'm very glad that you have managed to avoid calling Microsoft. Your situation, in my experience, is atypical.

      My illustration was somewhat artificial as was the grandparent. With a Windows expert, it is possible not to have *any* support calls. Then again, it is just as possible to have the same experience with Linux. In that case the appropriate strategy is to go without support contract on both platforms.

      The proper costs in that case would be $9600 for Windows licencses and $0 for support and $0 for Linux licenses and $0 for support, a cost saving of $9600.

      The unfairness of the grandparent is that it was comparing apples to oranges, software licenses with no support compared to major ongoing support costs.

    19. Re:Not the first time they did that by dbrutus · · Score: 1

      It's the responsibility of the purchasing agent for the company to solicit bids from vendors that cover approximately the same thing. In this case that would either be $9600 and $0 for a software only bid or a bid that would include software and an appropriate level of support for *both* options.

      The fault is not with Microsoft but with the grandparent who is simply not pricing things properly.

      It's been awhile since I purchased a support 5 pack and made a simple mistake (sorry about that).

      One thing that hasn't been covered is that RH doesn't force you to purchase $600 support for each server either. It's possible to download the current version of the software, install on your own, upgrade on your own, and end up 6 years later with a vastly improved software product without ever sending a penny to Red Hat.

    20. Re:Not the first time they did that by dbrutus · · Score: 1

      Apache has achieved >60% market penetration on exactly the model of free and cheaper. A PAtCHy server was a user led series of patches to the NCSA server and has long eclipsed its parent code.

      As the number of eyeballs looking at a particular piece of code goes up, the number of people who actually analyze and test it will also rise, though slowly. This reduces, not increases support costs as the amount each savvy volunteer has to expend drops.

      The number of bugs in a piece of code is static. Because the source is open, perhaps one in a thousand will be willing to, able to, and annoyed enough to fix a particular bug. This is something that Microsoft simply can't permit with its codebase so you end up being told that your crucial bug just isn't going to be fixed anytime soon and you can't fix it either.

      Any IT project can be implemented badly and not provide the ROI that was promised. Microsoft projects are not immune to this rule and neither are Linux or Mac projects. Incompetence is the ultimate cross-platform reality.

      IT staff that is not hobbled by incompetence will create SAMBA servers for file and print and save money on meat and potatoes tasks first. Web servers will soon follow, with database and app servers with their trickier migrations will follow later. Desktops will come last, if at all.

      The ubiquity of Linux will drive people to retrain on linux support much as they retrained on MS in previous years. Shortages lead to higher compensation and new entrants that drive compensation down. The labor force is not a static thing.

      There are real ROI savings to be had, not least because old hardware that would have to be retired on Windows can do useful work using Linux.

    21. Re:Not the first time they did that by Pharmboy · · Score: 1

      No version of windows 9x can compare to 2000 for a workstation. I'm shocked that you manage to get months of uptime for a server. But if you got more than about 2 or 3 days for a workstation, either you're not using it right, or you're some kind of miracle worker.


      2k is ok, but I am stuck managing some really old boxes. They still work perfectly however. Pentium 100-166, with 16 to 32mb ram, upgraded 1gb drives. They are still pretty fast if you set them up the way I have. First, no sound card. Next, strip out everything out of the control panel that resembles media support, everything. (we dont need media, or so I say). Only use win95a, only use fat16 (only choice with A anyway). I have tried B and C, but they are not as stable as A. The server WAS an IBM 325, ppro 200 with 64mb ram (files and printers) with uw40 scsi drives. Just replaced after 4 years of being on 24/7 (never crashed) with a Dell 1400SC, still win95a (drivers was a bit tricky) with uw160 scsi drive carved into 2gb fat16 drives (lots of them) Its a 1.1ghz p3, with 256mb ram. Part of it is good ram, good servers, etc. means fewer errors (all ecc/registered ram) and part of it is because I have everything stripped out. I don't run anything but a very old version of NAV (updated weekly). I don't run any utils, no cleansweep, NOTHING. Not even a clock in the bar or the AV icon. Blank for a screensaver.

      It really does run as I stated, plenty fast, super stable. I mean, after manually ripping through the OS, there isn't a whole lot left except the kernel and netbios networking. No restrictions on how many computers I can connect. Windows 95 defaulted to 10 users max, but its a simple setting in the network settings to support all you want, but you have to do it on ALL the workstations. 100mbit ethernet card throught a decent DLink 100 switch, 24 port.

      The real problem is security, which it has absolutely none, but the 95 server doesn't have tcp/ip enabled, and the entire system is behind a good Linux firewall anyway :) Plenty of folks will say its crazy to run a system this way, and I do plan a major change this summer, but it has served us well. It the same basic system since 1996, just upgrading here and there. (486/66 server, to the ibm325, to the dell 1400sc).

      This isn't for everyone, but we use the network for invoices and internet access only. We are also using a 16 bit windows version of peachtree designed for 3 users, with an average of 8 to 10 users at the same time. Cheap ass boss.

      --
      Tequila: It's not just for breakfast anymore!
    22. Re:Not the first time they did that by Pharmboy · · Score: 1

      cough* wasn't there a fault in win95A (a timer glitch?) that only let it run for 49 days without locking up?

      Not that I am aware of, or it was fixed, since it has been running this stable for us for years now. As I told someone else, its a very stripped down install, with all media potential stripped out. I just know how it runs for us. I mean, its still windows and sucks for a lot of reasons, but it is what it is.

      --
      Tequila: It's not just for breakfast anymore!
    23. Re:Not the first time they did that by Pharmboy · · Score: 1

      *cough* wasn't there a fault in win95A (a timer glitch?) that only let it run for 49 days without locking up?

      And it took 2 years for anyone to notice because , lets face it, win95 got rebooted a whole lot more often than that because of all the other bugs.


      Another quick note to address your comment after I reread my own parent. I meant uptime in months on the SERVER only, not the stations. I didn't make that clear. Some of the stations do have sound cards and more crapola because the users install shit. I don't allow it on the server, which runs OMG smooth, because of that fact.

      --
      Tequila: It's not just for breakfast anymore!
  9. tight bugets... by DanThe1Man · · Score: 1, Funny

    'The ads are geared toward IT managers on tight budgets

    Thats like Hersey trying to advertise in Epopea.

    1. Re:tight bugets... by bastard01 · · Score: 1

      do you perhaps mean ethiopia?

    2. Re:tight bugets... by SweetAndSourJesus · · Score: 1

      I'm sure he means Hershey, too.

      Slashdot, home of the quickly typed, un-spellchecked post.

      The comments are pretty bad, too.

      --

      --
      the strongest word is still the word "free"
  10. IIS Text Configuration Files by ender81b · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Did anyone else find it really interesting that IIS now has text based configuration files. I only have passing expierence using IIS but one of the biggest headaches I have heard from people who use it alot is the fact that IIS is a real pain to configure among multiple machines.

    Anyone here run IIS and used these new text based conf files and can comment on them?

    1. Re:IIS Text Configuration Files by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

      nothing that apache hasnt had forever!

    2. Re:IIS Text Configuration Files by questionlp · · Score: 5, Insightful

      It currently is a bitch and a half to get web sites setup exactly the same way across multiple web servers in a farm behind a load balancer without the use of third-party utilities (IIS Export is really nice and isn't too expensive... Google it for more information). Also, if you have web servers that are not in a domain and you want to restore the IIS metabase on a rebuilt system... good luck. Even with some help by Microsoft, the process is very painful and isn't perfect either. Instead, we had to use IIS Export to migrate all of the sites from one server to the rebuilt server. Not a fun task to do for over 50+ sites.

      Having text-based configuration files would be a godsend for people in such a situation! It would also make creating an restore image of a server much easier since you only have to update the web content to the latest version in production.

    3. Re:IIS Text Configuration Files by ergo98 · · Score: 2, Informative

      Really all they've done is made the underlying metabase database an XML database rather than proprietary, though it really wasn't difficult before to propagate metabases among machines before. Microsoft still recommends that you leave the xml file alone and instead either use the administration tools, or the powerful IIS administration components for programatic changes.

    4. Re:IIS Text Configuration Files by Jeff+Fisher · · Score: 5, Informative

      No kidding, We run 10 IIS webservers and were experimenting with load balacing -- it was a complete failure. IISsync is suppose to work great; however, it didn't work at all like Microsoft said it would. Half the time it wouldn't even start to sync and then if it did, it would hang at the end. I know the fun of using IIS Export, we had a machine crash and had to transfer 600 sites or so to another machine.

    5. Re:IIS Text Configuration Files by Jeff+Fisher · · Score: 1

      How did you do this without difficulty? The metabase is nothing but needless headaches. I run 10 busy IIS webservers and want to kill myself everytime I have to touch the metabase.

    6. Re:IIS Text Configuration Files by questionlp · · Score: 1

      IIS Sync failed for us as well, but in a domain-less environment, it crapped out and nearly cause the source server to implode... not to mention the destination server.

      IIS Export is a near god-send for such situations... but it still isn't has great as being able to copy httpd.conf from one server to another along with the web store (or the web store could just be a clustered NFS server or servers connected to a SAN with mirroring or striping). I wonder if it will be anywhere close to being that easy with IIS 6.0 (something I doubt right now).

    7. Re:IIS Text Configuration Files by Mundocani · · Score: 5, Informative

      The configuration files in IIS 6 are XML documents, which are reasonably easy to view and modify. The files can be stored anywhere, unlike the old backup files which had to be in a particular directory in order to be used. The files also seem more robust -- the old-style backup files didn't always import into a clean install correctly, but I haven't had any problems with importing the new files.

      Multiple sites can be stored in a single file, which is pretty handy. I was only able to import one site at a time though, which makes re-loading the server a bit painful if you have multiple sites on the same server.

      Being text based makes it much easier to review configurations for errors and allows me to now use Perforce to track my changes with simple diffs. I wish more software used text based configuration files!

    8. Re:IIS Text Configuration Files by Achronos · · Score: 3, Informative

      What they did was put the IIS metabase (which used to be a binary file) into an XML file. It is all very slick...

      IIS 6 really is a big deal for Windows... IIS 5 is a steaming pile of crap compared to Apache, but IIS 6 seems really promising. I'll hold out my opinion until I actually use it though... but it can't get much worse than IIS 5.

    9. Re:IIS Text Configuration Files by sheldon · · Score: 3, Informative

      "How did you do this without difficulty?"

      adsutil is really pretty painless to use from a script. The metabase entries are pretty well documented thru MSDN, and one can usually use metaedit to learn more about how things change, etc.

      What is it that you are trying to do? I imagine it might be a bit more difficult if you are trying to make changes thru the UI on one machine and then propogate that through... There are some utilities for that purpose.

      But if you know exactly what changes you want to make, and then script those changes...(which you really should be doing anyway so you can rebuild your config from scratch if needed) it is trivial to execute that script against 10 different servers.

      If you want help with configuring and managing IIS let me know. Just drop an email to anything at sodablue.org.

    10. Re:IIS Text Configuration Files by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      How about IIS 4? That was much much worse than IIS 5.

    11. Re:IIS Text Configuration Files by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

      "powerful IIS administration components"???

      Or do you really mean complex, proprietary tools requiresd by a proprietary configuration database -- whereas a text file or two would have sufficed *quite* nicely?

      [The combination of Apache *and* Tomcat is easier to automatically configure than IIS!]

    12. Re:IIS Text Configuration Files by shird · · Score: 1

      One of the problems with text files and advantages of the registry is per key access control lists. Plus the registry keeps a nice central location, optimised for access by all programs - with a structure desigined for multiple users etc.

      Files are ok, I can see the advantages of doing a simple diff, but with the right tools, the registry makes a lot more sense. Being able to export all your application and system settings through a single interface is pretty good - its just a bit complicated for the average user.

      --
      I.O.U One Sig.
    13. Re:IIS Text Configuration Files by CerebusUS · · Score: 1

      adsutil has some rather important limitations, however. The most major of which I discovered when trying to script the install of a website with 15 host headers. It only took 9 of them.

      all the adsutil work I end up doing is always called from perl scripts anyway (I'm ever so much more comfortable with it than I am with wsh) so I'm looking forward to being able to simply not call adsutil and mkw3site any more.

    14. Re:IIS Text Configuration Files by CerebusUS · · Score: 2, Funny

      IIS 6 really is a big deal for Windows... IIS 5 is a steaming pile of crap compared to Apache, but IIS 6 seems really promising. I'll hold out my opinion until I actually use it though... but it can't get much worse than IIS 5.

      Sure it can! IIS4 :-)

      As an admin, what's the most noticable improvement from IIS4 to IIS5?

      you can sort the list of websites. What the hell were they thinking?

    15. Re:IIS Text Configuration Files by Malcontent · · Score: 1

      Wow now that's what I call innovation. Before you know it all those OSS projects will start using text files too.

      --

      War is necrophilia.

    16. Re:IIS Text Configuration Files by jedidiah · · Score: 2, Insightful

      That's the problem with a psuedo-database. The "right" tools suddenly become remarkably more complex and harder to debug. A "single interface" can easily be applied to configuration files if there is a unifying standard. The need for a "single interface" doesn't require a single datastore. This is one of the rather nice aspects of a "real database".

      As far as "multiple users go". That too can be wrapped around standardized, human readable files. Although most metadata will be specific to a particular user and there's no compelling reason to burden a centralized system with data only relevant to a particular user.

      Also "it's a bit complicated for the average user" is an absolute show stopper for an OS marketed to users expected to be morons.

      --
      A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
    17. Re:IIS Text Configuration Files by BFKrew · · Score: 1

      I agree it was interesting, and I must admit I thought it was a backward step to be honest!

      As someone who's used IIS and Apache a fair bit, one thing I always preferred was the fact that IIS was easier as editing a text file is not as simple as editing a config panel. I am just not sure why they have taken this step when everything else they are doing is based on the MMC.

      On the whole though it isn't too bad although I think it may scare a few people at first. Perhaps the most irritating thing is when you make a typo and it won't recognise it in Visual Studio but on the whole, it's fine.

    18. Re:IIS Text Configuration Files by ostiguy · · Score: 1

      The problem with your statement is that IIS 6.0 uses a binary metabase, not the registry....

      because...

      drumroll please....

      The IIS dev team decided that the registry wasn't quick enough. But then they hatched another binary format monstrosity, the metabase.

      ostiguy

    19. Re:IIS Text Configuration Files by bjb · · Score: 1
      Did anyone else find it really interesting that IIS now has text based configuration files.

      Interesting. Now if Windows would only come with some half-way decent text manipulation programs, it would make sense! Right now you either need to install UWin, MKS or Cygnus to get a decent grep-like utility. In Windows, you have the "find" command. No comparison; it does the same job, but the output obviously was meant for human consumption, not text parsing. Of course you could write a program to parse it, but you have to do a little extra work.

      --
      Never hit your grandmother with a shovel, for it leaves a bad impression on her mind...
    20. Re:IIS Text Configuration Files by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Hmm... Exercise 1.

      Open up Win2k/XP command line,
      type findstr /?

      Extra credit if the head gets out of your ass.

      You can use all kinds of scripting utilities that are built into windows (Windows Scripting Service, multiple languages :-) )

      Also what's so bad about installing Cygwin and GREP? Ever check out the Windows Server Resource Kit? Just because it didn't come on the original install CDs doesn't mean it's not available.

      The only advantage Linux has in that respect is that all the tools are on that nice RedHat CD and they install by default, but what if you don't want grep for your system? Search through the gazillion packages in RH for the GREP one, and remove it, unleasing dependency hell until you're blue in the face.

    21. Re:IIS Text Configuration Files by Pfhreakaz0id · · Score: 1

      UMMM.. I'm too lazy to read thru the comments, so maybe someone else has already said this, but did you ever just use vbscripts (or some other scripting language installed that uses the wscript host, like jscript or even activePerl) and just use scripts to set it up? I had to do this for an installer for a server product that needed several web roots set up in highly specific ways (including permissions, virtual roots, etc.). Like using any other com objects, you had to spend a day or two with the objects to get used to the object model they were using, but it wasn't too bad.

    22. Re:IIS Text Configuration Files by sheldon · · Score: 1

      If adsutil has limitations, then you can certainly go right down into the core of LDAP and issue the instructions yourself.

      I'm sure there is a way to do this with ActivePerl, but then I have no interest in learning perl.

    23. Re:IIS Text Configuration Files by Mundocani · · Score: 1

      It's not that I'm longing for applications to use text configuration files as their own internal/runtime format. It's the ability to import and export the configuration via text files that I find so appealing. I don't especially care if, after importing a configuration, the application stores it in the registry or a metabase or whatever. I just like being able to export the configuration and review it in its entirety in human-readable form.

    24. Re:IIS Text Configuration Files by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Ah, the racist Sodablue from Activewin speaks. The right-wing extremist who thinks Ann Rand is great and that Microsoft can do no wrong. Not to mention that fact you how you crap on linux daily at activewin.

      Fuck you douchebag. I'm going to make your life here a living hell.

    25. Re:IIS Text Configuration Files by sheldon · · Score: 1

      "I'm going to make your life here a living hell."

      You're going to install Linux on my desktop?

    26. Re:IIS Text Configuration Files by pod · · Score: 1

      Yeah, we had something like that as well, using Perl on NT actually, with the Win32 modules. Automatically provisioning from a central client db, turning off and fixing permissions for several class Cs worth of virtual hosts spread over 4 machines. Instead of having basically a full time person creating webs and changing passwords al day long, we just scheduled the scripts to do it automagically every couple of hours. There is some pretty good command line support for IIS (even IIS 4 and 5 that we were using), you just gotta dig through some docs and help pages and get used to the metabase and the data model. It's just like any other task. Only losers and Linux bigots would just give up and say it's impossible because it's M$ Windoze.

      I imagine with IIS6 and VB scripts this task would be even easier to accomplish, I just didn't feel like learning all that stuff, and wanted to reuse our existing Linux/Apache provisioning infrastructure and code.

      --
      "Hot lesbian witches! It's fucking genius!"
  11. 'The ads are geared toward (IT?) managers on.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

    I dont think so.
    It will be:
    'The ads are geared toward (IT?) managers on....
    CRACK

  12. Smells like Windows ME by oaf357 · · Score: 1

    Hmm... why does Microsoft continue to make relatively minor updates "major" version changes? Didn't they learn their lesson with Windows ME? It makes money but really drives people who are tired of playing their silly game.

    1. Re:Smells like Windows ME by JJahn · · Score: 1
      Learn their lesson from ME? If anything the lesson is, consumers will buy upgrades that don't change much. Me made them plenty of money and probably was cheap to develop.

      Why not try it again?

    2. Re:Smells like Windows ME by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Actually, WinME upgrade sales were very poor. It did as well as any Windows with OEMs.

  13. Some bits on Windows Server 2003 by questionlp · · Score: 5, Interesting

    It seems that Microsoft is learning a bit from their mistakes with Windows 2000 by not enabling everything under the moon by default or leaving the default settings to be so open and ripe for exploiting. That and additional support for NUMA, better clustering supports (or so Microsoft says) and supposedly new features in Active Directory to make life a little easier (again, something Microsoft is touting).

    As with Windows XP, it seems that Microsoft will be making additional components and add-ons available throughout the life of the product, including an updated version of SharePoint Team Services (which has been renamed to something I can't remember now) and currently unnamed components.

    Personally, I think Windows Server 2003 is the latest salvo Microsoft has launched to get people out of Windows NT 4.0... just like how Windows XP was the latest salvo to get people out of Windows 9x/ME. It's an incremental step up from Windows 2000, but a much bigger step up from Windows NT 4.0.

    That's my $0.01.

    1. Re:Some bits on Windows Server 2003 by questionlp · · Score: 1

      Forgot to mention, it looks like Windows Server 2003 will bring a form of DRM to networks via Rights Management Services (as stated in a previous Slashdot article).

    2. Re:Some bits on Windows Server 2003 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      That's probably the most compelling reason for companies to upgrade. (And it's an add-on pack which is nice, I like how Win2k3 installs very little by default.)

      As much as you hate DRM in the consumer space, in the corporate space it makes life very nice for the average corporation. No more emails accidentally leaked onto the company's public webserver, or people getting access to documents they shouldn't have had access to.

      It doesn't stop whistleblowers, (just take a photo of the screen), but it does help stop accidental information leakages. It's a nice little warm fuzzy thing to have.

  14. tight budgets??? by vrmlknight · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Wouldnt it be cheaper for an IT manager on a tight budget to stick with 2000 Server rather than 2003 Server. I know I dont need it and I have a tight budget. We have most of our infrastructure already upgraded to win2k server at-least the stuff that will be migrated over. We will not be upgrading to 2003 server but rather get it as it comes preloaded on any new servers we buy.

    --
    This must be Thursday, I never could get the hang of Thursdays.
    1. Re:tight budgets??? by questionlp · · Score: 1

      Excluding hardware upgrade costs and licensing, I'm guessing that Microsoft is saying that Windows Server 2003 is more stable and scalable so that you can run multiple critical applications and services on one larger server instead of a myriad of less expensive servers (where have we heard this before?)... a form of consolidation I guess.

      Will it work in reality? I won't be too optimistic about it until I really see it in action.

  15. Re:IT managers on tight budgets? by 1010011010 · · Score: 0, Redundant

    Linux is for cheapskates

    I.e., Microsoft's market. Microsoft on the high end? Please.

    They're being squeezed from the top and bottom, and they'll soon resort to defending their market share in court. Microsoft's never been about better software -- just dominance.

    --
    Napster-to-go says "Fill and refill your compatible MP3 player", which is a lie. It's not MP3. It's WMA with DRM.
  16. Too late! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Back in Jan '00 it was at $60 - now it's about $25...

    1. Re:Too late! by cookd · · Score: 1, Redundant

      Remember, there was a stock split in there somewhere... :P

      --
      Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana.
    2. Re:Too late! by bigberk · · Score: 1, Insightful

      Back in Jan '00 it was at $60 - now it's about $25...

      That would make it "a good time to buy".

    3. Re:Too late! by Pharmboy · · Score: 5, Informative

      had a 2:1 split on Feb 18. still worth less since those $60 shares would be worth relatively $30 each, and MSFT closed $25.50 today.

      --
      Tequila: It's not just for breakfast anymore!
    4. Re:Too late! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      That $60 is split-adjusted. The actual price in Jan '00 was $120.

    5. Re:Too late! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      i guess.

      unless it's going to $20.

    6. Re:Too late! by Waffle+Iron · · Score: 3, Insightful
      That would make it "a good time to buy".

      MSFT P/E == 28.98. That's high for a producer of a commodity product. OSes and office suites aren't rocket science anymore.

    7. Re:Too late! by benna · · Score: 1

      I don't know I have ever seen a tech stock with a p/e that high before.

      --
      "It is not how things are in the world that is mystical, but that it exists." -Ludwig Wittgenstein
    8. Re:Too late! by Guppy06 · · Score: 1

      "That's high for a producer of a commodity product. OSes and office suites aren't rocket science anymore."

      Must be all that money they're making on Xbox sales.

    9. Re:Too late! by TopShelf · · Score: 1

      A commodity??? Hardly - if you could slap any OS into a particular box and run the same applications, you might be able to call it a commodity. Regardless of whether you consider it "rocket science" (which is itself pretty old hat now), an OS is far from being a commodity. What do you think that whole antitrust trial was about? The fact that the OS basically locked users in to a variety of other MS products...

      --
      Stop by my site where I write about ERP systems & more
    10. Re:Too late! by Waffle+Iron · · Score: 1
      To be more precise, I meant that their market is fast becoming a commodity. The alternatives are becoming more viable each day. Even if they aren't totally plugin compatible, they cheapen the value of an OS and Office suite in the view of customers. Add to that the fact that there is no room for further exponential growth in the PC market, and you're looking at a mature company, not a growth stock.

      It's true that they are maintaining a very high barrier to entry today. However, when the intrinsic value they're protecting with their barrier is minimal, the situation becomes unstable. There have been many examples in the past where a market dominator is quickly dethroned once they make a mistake maintaining their position. Today, Microsof'ts best hope for maintaining their market share and profit margins is to change the architecture of PCs to lock customers in at the hardware level. They're trying to do this now; we shall see if the public accepts this move.

  17. Windows to compete with Linux...? c'mon. by mattmcal · · Score: 2, Informative

    Infoworld says, Ironically, Microsoft is touting its Windows server platform as a cheaper alternative to Linux. "We really feel that we deliver some unique value in terms of dependability, manageability, and performance relative to open-source products," Oldroyd said.

    1. Re:Windows to compete with Linux...? c'mon. by bucketoftruth · · Score: 1

      Dependability!? Microsoft? I wonder what they mean by "unique"? Unique as in a one legged dog, pathetic and prone to crashing. I say this as someone who has to manage win2k servers every day. It's always a breath of fresh air every time I see '[root@mail root]#'. Ahhhh.,

    2. Re:Windows to compete with Linux...? c'mon. by TeraCo · · Score: 1

      Have you ever stopped to consider that you're not very good at Windows administration? If you're administering Windows 2K servers that aren't getting hundreds of days uptime per cycle, you're not very good at it.

      --
      Not Meta-modding due to apathy.
    3. Re:Windows to compete with Linux...? c'mon. by zCyl · · Score: 1

      If you're administering Windows 2K servers that aren't getting hundreds of days uptime per cycle, you're not very good at it.

      Since when does someone have to be a "good" administrator in order to not have their systems crash? Shouldn't operating systems be stable out of the box? There is a definite tradeoff between maximizing security and default features, but reliability and high uptime should be intrinsic to the system.

    4. Re:Windows to compete with Linux...? c'mon. by TeraCo · · Score: 1
      Well, I was attributing 'good administrator' status to people who know not to load bad drivers, can replace failed hardware, and can diagnose the BSOD messages and fix what caused them.

      That's right folks, if you get a BSOD, you shouldn't just say 'oh well', and reboot. You should fix the problem instead. I mean, how many people notice the oil light on their car is light, so they stop and restart the car to try and fix it?

      --
      Not Meta-modding due to apathy.
    5. Re:Windows to compete with Linux...? c'mon. by jedidiah · · Score: 1

      1) Loading bad drivers should never be an issue on well supported hardware. If you are bothering with a commercial OS, why are you not running well supported (by some hardware vendor) hardware?

      2) See point 1. After initial burn in, failed hardware should not be an issue on a serious production system.

      3) A production quality server OS should simply not BSOD.

      --
      A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
    6. Re:Windows to compete with Linux...? c'mon. by more+fool+you · · Score: 1

      that only works when the bonnet is not welded shut, with a large sign that says "bonnet is alarmed"

    7. Re:Windows to compete with Linux...? c'mon. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      So, windows is not as easy to use as Linux? True, but why does MS and MS-advocates then claim that windows is userfriendly?

    8. Re:Windows to compete with Linux...? c'mon. by RoLi · · Score: 1
      Have you ever stopped to consider that you're not very good at Windows administration?

      Hehe, exactly that's what I've been thinking.

      Actually, I'm a pretty lazy admin, too. I don't read any security mailing lists, patch maybe twice per year and invest probably about 5 hrs/month tops to administer my servers and clients (1 remote webserver, 2 office servers in 2 different offices (file, mail, news, web), 2 desktops), I've just got better things to do.

      With Windows, I would have been hacked/infected at least 5 times in the last 3 years, but with Linux I haven't had a single security problem and no crashes at all.

      Face it: No matter what Microsoft tells you: Administering a Windows box is at least twice as time-consuming as administering a Linux box - no matter if server or desktop.

    9. Re:Windows to compete with Linux...? c'mon. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Hmm if you haven't had a single security problem in 3 years then I guess you haven't been keeping your patches up to date.

      In 3 years, plenty of SSH patches, Apache patches, Sendmail, Bind, WU-FTPD patches. Lots, and lots, and LOTS of security patches for Linux.

      Lots, and Lots of patches for Windows as well. But what 5 hacks would you have had on Windows? Code-Red and Nimda both had patches out MONTHS before the exploits, SQL Slammer as well.

    10. Re:Windows to compete with Linux...? c'mon. by TeraCo · · Score: 1
      1) Loading bad drivers should never be an issue on well supported hardware. If you are bothering with a commercial OS, why are you not running well supported (by some hardware vendor) hardware?

      Because just because hardware is well supported doesn't mean that occasionally a bad driver release will slip through. Both of my BSOD's have been because of a bug in the NVIDIA drivers, are you trying to say that their cards aren't well supported?

      2) No, it's not. That was my point.

      3) Just like linux should never kernel panic? If you're running code at a kernel level, and it fails, then you've got a BSOD/kernel panic.

      The solution? Make sure all of your kernel level code doesn't fail. XP does a pretty good job at maintaining it's end of the bargain, it's up to you to ensure that you're not loading up anything problematic into that privledged user mode.

      --
      Not Meta-modding due to apathy.
    11. Re:Windows to compete with Linux...? c'mon. by TeraCo · · Score: 1

      Use is not the same as administer. Also, I wouldn't say that windows is any easier or harder to administer then linux. You just need to know how to do it.

      --
      Not Meta-modding due to apathy.
    12. Re:Windows to compete with Linux...? c'mon. by TeraCo · · Score: 1
      So you're saying that because it's closed source, you shouldn't bother learning how to administer it then?

      Fair enough, just don't cry about how Windows blue screens all the time because you can't be bothered learning how to fix it.

      --
      Not Meta-modding due to apathy.
  18. If it Quacks� by X-wes · · Score: 2

    I doubt anyone comfortable with alternative operating systems would have bothered enduring WinME in the first place... For all of our sakes, let's hope you're right on this one.

  19. Innovation by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

    Another fine innovation from Microsoft.

  20. Improvements (from an insider) by Saint+Stephen · · Score: 5, Informative

    I stopped working at Microsoft in January, after being there from June 2000. I was there during the whole "Whistler" cycle

    Kernel improvements:

    * Low-Fragmentation Heap: People use SmartHeap because NT heap serializes and sucks. LFH heap uses heap-per-processor on SMP.
    * Desktop Limit: Remember "running out of resources" before running out of memory in Win 3.1? The 32-bit analog of that limit (higher but still there) is STILL in Windows, even in XP. This keeps you from spawning thousands of processes IF those processes use any functions from user32.dll. They did some lazy registering of U/I threads vs. kernel threads that makes the limit less painful.
    * Gigabit ethernet, zero-copy networking stuff. Don't know as much about this but that it's much better.
    * Unisys ES7000 32-way blows f'ing chunks on W2K. It doesn't suck as much on 2K3 (NUMA API).
    * Tons of other perf tuning adjustments, mostly to make SQL Server run better. All SQL Server-TPC-winning numbers have been on 2K3 betas for the last year or more.
    * Junk like that. Dumb-ass bug fixes. It really is a better kernel, but it still sucks. As someone who now loves Linux, my honest assessment of the situation is, at best, the whole Linux (in its current state, mostly usability drawbacks) vs. Microsoft (usable as hell but stagnant due to lack of competition) is a draw. But Linux has more promise because its fresher and interesting. MS wins in business because business likes staid "comfortable" not necessarily better technology.

    1. Re:Improvements (from an insider) by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Flamebait

      What was your job at MS? Your previous posts are VERY anti-microsoft. What exactly are you comparing the NT kernel to when you say it sucks?

    2. Re:Improvements (from an insider) by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative
      * Tons of other perf tuning adjustments, mostly to make SQL Server run better. All SQL Server-TPC-winning numbers have been on 2K3 betas for the last year or more.

      This statement is interesting to me, since I keep a eye on TCPC. I looked at the most recent results for non-clustered performance. I could be wrong, but I compared the results of the top three. #1 for non-clustered is a Fujitsu setup solaris 8 server from 2001. The Fujitsu setup used BEA tuxedo to schedule and handle the transactions. The microsoft setup by NEC used the clients to schedule the transactions. That is a fairly large difference and doesn't provide the same level of reliability or recovery. If a client dies, all the transaction on that server are gone and that doesn't provide state replication of the transaction across multiple clients. Scheduling the transaction on the client makes sense to reduce the load on the server, but it's a totally different architecture and isn't a one-to-one comparison. To effectively provide 99% reliability and recovery with the NEC setup is will be significantly harder because the clients now have to provide full clustering and state replication.

      Although it's great that SQL Server has improved, the response time of the NEC system is 3x slower than #3 IBM. Another important fact is the NEC server was loaded up with 512Gb of RAM. The fujitsu system from 2001 only has 256Gb of RAM. It's no wonder the NEC system did so well. They simply loaded the entire database into memory. How much does that system cost? According to the summary 5,619,528.00.

      If you're spending that much money, why would you even consider a non-fault tolerant architecture?

    3. Re:Improvements (from an insider) by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      What kind of car do you drive again :)

    4. Re:Improvements (from an insider) by Saint+Stephen · · Score: 2, Insightful

      I guess all my pro-Microsoft / Linux sucks posts got scrolled off the list. All of the information I listed is public knowledge, read the literature.

      It's accurate that I'm anti-MS now. I always thought they were evil but hell I'm evil too, so you go where the winners go. I think Linux is a winner now, that's why I'm in this camp for a while. Later it will be something else...

    5. Re:Improvements (from an insider) by Saint+Stephen · · Score: 5, Interesting

      I forgot to answer your other question:

      The "NT kernel series" sucks when you try to port Unix-style thread or process per client model server software to it, because of the process limit I discussed and the VMS-like heaviweight processes. The ideal # of concurrent executing threads on 2K3 is one per processor, SQL Server and Exchange are modeled on this.

      windows performance is like walking on a razor's edge: stray but a little and fall in the wayside. The amount of investment required to get performance is not commensurate with the payoff. This does not imply that I have found another kernel which doesn't suck!

    6. Re:Improvements (from an insider) by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
      Are you serious about that The ideal # of concurrent executing threads on 2K3 is one per processor, SQL Server and Exchange are modeled on this.

      I was wondering why the MSDN docs on SQL Server 2K recommended 4 worker threads for a 4 CPU system.

    7. Re:Improvements (from an insider) by sheldon · · Score: 1

      "The Fujitsu setup used BEA tuxedo to schedule and handle the transactions."

      And the NEC setup used COM+ to schedule and handle the transactions.

      I don't see what difference you are trying to point out. Both used PC based clients, the BEA Tuxedo transaction manager was running on those clients, not on the database server. Transactions are handled at the database level, but are coordinated at the app server(either by something like Tuxedo or COM+).

      "Scheduling the transaction on the client makes sense to reduce the load on the server, but it's a totally different architecture and isn't a one-to-one comparison."

      It doesn't appear to me that you understand the architecture. Can you point me to the page in the document that seems to indicate that they are fundamentally different?

      "It's no wonder the NEC system did so well. They simply loaded the entire database into memory. How much does that system cost? According to the summary 5,619,528.00."

      Whereas the Fujitsu solution cost $10.8 million, twice as much. Which leads into the $/TpmC which was $12.98 for the NEC and $28.58 for the Fujitsu.

      That's one of the fundamental aspects of the TPC benchmarks, the cost comparison. Yes, the truth is you can load up a Intel based server with more memory for half the price of a comparable Sun box.

      "If you're spending that much money, why would you even consider a non-fault tolerant architecture?"

      In what way is it fault tolerant? Section 3 of both reports discusses ACID, where the D refers to Durability... which then goes into discussion of what happens during loss of power and so on.

    8. Re:Improvements (from an insider) by sheldon · · Score: 1

      Fascinating, I came to a realization back in 1997 that Linux was a long term loser, and Windows NT a long term winner. There was a time back in around 1999 where there was a question, but I've seen nothing coming from the Linux camp in the past 3 years which suggests any long term viability.

      I'm curious what you see differently?

      Although from your posts it sounds like you hold some personal grudge over your employment.

    9. Re:Improvements (from an insider) by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I sincerely doubt this guy worked for Microsoft. For one, you don't work for a company you even remotely hate later (unless you were fired). Second, and more importantly, he wouldn't be able to reveal any of this because of NDAs. I imagine most of this is bull.

    10. Re:Improvements (from an insider) by f00zbll · · Score: 2, Interesting
      Both posts don't seem to be too accurate. Here is the definition from the full disclosure.

      The performance metric reported by TPC-C is a "business throughput" measuring the number of orders processed per minute. Multiple transactions are used to simulate the business activity of processing an order, and each transaction is subject to a response time constraint. The performance metric for this benchmark is expressed in transactions-per-minute-C (tpmC). To be compliant with the TPC-C standard, all references to tpmC results must include the tpmC rate, the associated price-per-tpmC, and the availability date of the priced configuration.

      I could be wrong, but I believe the durability refers to the database, not transactions in the queue. A transaction that is queued but is never sent doesn't count. Again I could be wrong, I don't claim to be an expert.

      Whereas the Fujitsu solution cost $10.8 million, twice as much

      That price is from 2001. I don't know what the current price is, but it should be cheaper right. Both posts fail to mention the network for the NEC test was 2gigabit ethernet, whereas the fujitsu and IBM used 100mbit ethernet. You think that makes a difference? Again, here is the excerpt from the disclosure for NEC.

      Queuing Mechanism The queuing mechanism used to defer the execution of the Delivery transaction must be disclosed.
      The client application processes submitted delivery transactions to named pipe delivery server software running on the client machines. There was a single delivery server with multiple execution threads running on each client machine. These delivery servers were responsible for processing deliveries queued to the named pipe and submitting them to the database server. The source code is listed in Appendix A.

      I could be reading this wrong, but it seems to imply SQL Server only ran the transaction. It doesn't manage the Queue. COM+ manages the queues on each client. Here is the disclosure from #3 IBM for how scheduling was done. I can't find the section for fujitsu.

      The Delivery transaction was submitted using an RPC call to an IBM Websphere Application Server Enterpri se EditionVersion 3.0, Encina interface transaction manager (TM) . Websphere returns an immediate response to the calling program and schedules the work to be performed.

      Unless I'm reading this wrong. In IBM's setup, the management of the scheduling is performed by the server with Websphere. Both posts seem to have missed some important details. Is there a difference? Read the disclosure and decide for yourself. They are definitely not equal architecturally.

    11. Re:Improvements (from an insider) by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Not everything is under NDA. There's no really sensitive information in his post, though it's still more informative than 99.9% of the posts here. Just details and opinion.

    12. Re:Improvements (from an insider) by Saint+Stephen · · Score: 2

      Because threads have to go to sleep sometimes. If a thread blocks on I/O, that's a context switch, which is less efficient than letting a thread run to the the end of its Quantum. "Cache thrashing." Of course, you have to do some I/O, but all things being equal, it's better (in Windows) if that doesn't happen.

      The "ideal # of threads is 1 per processor" is a quote straight from the Windows kernel perf team, but you have to take it in context.

    13. Re:Improvements (from an insider) by Saint+Stephen · · Score: 2, Interesting

      My personal opinion is that, in the early days of Windows, there was a vibrant shareware community. I always used to supplement my Windows desktop with this or that little highly useful bit of shareware. In the last few years, it has become "all Microsoft." While I was there, I would naturally run W2K Advanced Server, SQL Enterprise, VS Enterprise, and Office Pro and my desktop, because the licenses were free to me! (Probably $20,000 worth of software on all my PCs). I was always depressed that my desktop was "Microsoft-pure," and wondered what it is about such a system of events that this is so.

      If I bear a personal grudge, it is rooted in wonderment as to why such a situation came to pass, and why the vibrant shareware community experience is now to be found in open source. I dunno. If I seem "mad at Micrsoft," that is a human failing of mine, I apologize, but it is rooted in a real experience I lived.

    14. Re:Improvements (from an insider) by nija · · Score: 1

      I wouldn't say that. I currently work for a company I hate. :P

    15. Re:Improvements (from an insider) by jon_c · · Score: 1

      Not to disagree with you, but to help clear something up, what do you mean when you say "Unix-style thread or process per client model". I've never seen any text that says it's a good idea to have 1-1 process/thread client model, whether on unix or windows. From my understanding its even worse to follow this modem on Linux as it threads are heavier.

      -Jon

      --
      this is my sig.
    16. Re:Improvements (from an insider) by jedidiah · · Score: 1

      Linux ran well and robustly on NT-class hardware in '97 and has only gotten better since this. Meanwhile, other Unix vendors have labored to improve Linux as well.

      OTOH, Microsoft continues to act as the desktop monopoly preventing NT from exploiting the full potential of it's VMS heritage. Microsoft gave up all dellusions of merging their desktop and server OS lines, I would be less skeptical about NT.

      What sticks out in my mind from '97 is what a pig 3.51 turned into after you patched it with the NT4 UI upgrades.

      --
      A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
    17. Re:Improvements (from an insider) by Otis_INF · · Score: 1

      MS DTC (Microsoft Distributed Transaction Coordinator) manages the transactions which span more processes, across machines. You can see this as a P2P program, it communicates with the other MS DTC instances on other machines if parts of a distributed transaction are executed there. This means that a transaction started in a client application which rolls through tiers down to the sqlserver machine, both on the client and the server a MS DTC instance is running and coordinating the part of the transaction running on their boxes. It coordinates commiting the distributed transaction acros all the servers enlisted in the transaction.

      If the client started the transaction on the server by an RPC, only on the server the MS DTC is started and only on the server there is a COM+ transaction, not on the client. However, I don't think that was the case. I think, and if I read your post correctly, you assumed this too, that on the clients software was running which initiated the transaction locally and which was rolled down to the server and back and which was coordinated by the transaction coordinator tuxedo or COM+ (which uses DTC). So client-server communication IS necessary in both situations.

      So to me the end result counts: what kind of setup is faster (because both need client - server communication) and the SQLServer setup is very fast for the money it costs.

      --
      Never underestimate the relief of true separation of Religion and State.
    18. Re:Improvements (from an insider) by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Huh? You have to context switch at the end of the quantum anyway, so how is waiting for the quantum to expire more efficient than just not scheduling that thread if it is blocked or sleeping?

      Did I miss an important peice of information in all of this? :)

    19. Re:Improvements (from an insider) by RupW · · Score: 1

      While I was there, I would naturally run W2K Advanced Server, SQL Enterprise, VS Enterprise, and Office Pro and my desktop, because the licenses were free to me! (Probably $20,000 worth of software on all my PCs).

      No - because that's your dev box rather than your enterprise server.

      You just need licenses for your desktop OS and Office plus MSDN Universal. (Go 'Microsoft Certified Partner' and it's cheaper still.) True, its then economic to lose Advanced Server from your desktop but you can use an MSDN licence to run Advanced Server test machines.

    20. Re:Improvements (from an insider) by f00zbll · · Score: 1
      MS DTC (Microsoft Distributed Transaction Coordinator) manages the transactions which span more processes, across machines.

      I'm no expert in Microsoft technologies, but the page on MDTC says this:

      MS DTC is not recommended for replicating a database for decision support or high availability. Microsoft recommends that you use the data replication services provided with your relational database application. For more information, see Data Replication for Decision Support.

      I agree the result is what counts, and each technology has it's strengths and weaknesses, but as the quote from MSDN states, replication of state across n clients should use DRDS. My point is people should know the technology before they report on it. Claiming one solution is cheaper is the least of my worries if lost transaction means the sytem just lost 20 million. Ultimately it's up to the developer to choose the right solution, but reality is CTO tend to make that decision. Very few CTO's understand technology at a low level and have the ability to see exactly what the trade offs are.

    21. Re:Improvements (from an insider) by Darren+Winsper · · Score: 1

      I think he means keeping the thread busy until the end of its quantum. A thread blocking before the end of its quantum leads to more contex switches per second, meaning more overhead and lower performance.

    22. Re:Improvements (from an insider) by sheldon · · Score: 1

      "but as the quote from MSDN states, replication of state across n clients should use DRDS."

      Why are you trying to confuse data replication and transaction coordination?

    23. Re:Improvements (from an insider) by sheldon · · Score: 1

      "I always used to supplement my Windows desktop with this or that little highly useful bit of shareware."

      This is your own failing, not anything inherent to the community.

      My desktop is very well supplemented with highly useful bits of shareware. Ultraedit, filesync, VMware, etc.

      "If I bear a personal grudge, it is rooted in wonderment as to why such a situation came to pass, and why the vibrant shareware community experience is now to be found in open source."

      Open source is a larger community on Windows than it is on Linux.

      Again, you really didn't answer my question. What about Linux gives it any appeal?

    24. Re:Improvements (from an insider) by sarabob · · Score: 1
      "Open source is a larger community on Windows than it is on Linux."

      No. Shareware is a larger community. Everyone in the windows world wants paying for their (stopwatch|file patcher|sync engine|scheduler). On linux it's typically free, and you get the source to play with too.

      Look at how much source code you can get from any of the big OSS sites (freshmeat, sourceforge etc) vs tucows & download.com. There's possibly as many useless guff on both of them, but at least newbies and students can get hold of the code and play with it, which is how most of us learned (or at least improved) to code in the first place.

    25. Re:Improvements (from an insider) by sheldon · · Score: 1

      "No. Shareware is a larger community. "

      No. Open Source.

      "Everyone in the windows world wants paying for their (stopwatch|file patcher|sync engine|scheduler). On linux it's typically free, and you get the source to play with too."

      Sounds like you need to get up to speed with reality there buddy.

      "Look at how much source code you can get from any of the big OSS sites (freshmeat, sourceforge etc) vs tucows & download.com."

      You might want to check out the number of packages on sourceforge available for Windows. Now realize that is only a small part of what is available in total.

    26. Re:Re:Improvements (from an insider) by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
      Why are you trying to confuse data replication and transaction coordination?

      maybe the parent post was trying to make the point that using COM+ to manage transaction queue isn't the same thing as having Websphere manage the transaction queue. One is much more server heavy and the other is more client heavy. Or maybe the point of the parent post is that with websphere you can setup a cluster, which replicates the queued transactions and therefore provides better failover. If the quote from the parent post is true, wouldn't it imply that DRDS would be needed to make sure queued transactions have failover?

      I've worked on IIS handling E-Commerce with SQL Server. One problem we had was the connection pool was exhausted too quickly, which resulted in "place order" commands to time out. The temporary solution to that was to write the order to a text file. Then we have a batch command that runs every 15 minutes to check if there's a difference between the flat file and the order table. If there was, it would insert it. So once it gets to the database it's fine right. What happens if you can't even connect in the first place?

    27. Re:Improvements (from an insider) by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      /me points at the MS troll and laughs. "Look everyone" /me says, "its a MS troll"

    28. Re:Improvements (from an insider) by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Well, it is just that I know a former MS programmer and he doesn't say ANYTHING bad about MS. It isn't that he refuses to acknowledge when some alternative may be better, but he always presents both sides of the argument, and is VERY intelligent - not the kind of person who would post something like "Saint Stephen" posted.

      I posted AC because I don't like posts that may be offensive credited to me.

    29. Re:Re:Improvements (from an insider) by sheldon · · Score: 1

      "The temporary solution to that was to write the order to a text file. Then we have a batch command that runs every 15 minutes to check if there's a difference between the flat file and the order table. If there was, it would insert it. So once it gets to the database it's fine right. What happens if you can't even connect in the first place?"

      Sounds to me like you don't understand how to do asynchronous processing under the Microsoft architecture.

      Hint: MSMQ with triggers

    30. Re:Improvements (from an insider) by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You run away faster from the argument than the Iraqi military.

    31. Re:Re:Improvements (from an insider) by f00zbll · · Score: 1
      Sounds to me like you don't understand how to do asynchronous processing under the Microsoft architecture.

      AC did say "temporary" right. Obviously using a messaging system is better approach, but what if you don't have a couple months to re-write the transaction processing? How are you going to temporarily fix that problem while a redesign and rewrite is happening. How do you deal with problems when they arise, or are you one of those programmers who never make a mistake and design a system perfect the first time :) I don't remember Microsoft recommending MSMQ with IIS in 97-99 for IIS. If memory serves me correctly, their recommendation was to use MTS. I have no idea why AC didn't use MTS. I've never used it myself, but I did do some research to figure out if MTS provides state management, which it doesn't or didn't back in 98. I believe MSMQ is going to be replaced by BizTalk, which is supposed to be a more robust and implements pub/sub architecture fully with better extensibility.

      In the java world you can use a variety of techniques, but the most common is to use a transaction server like BEA Tuxedo or IBM transaction server. Other possible approaches is to use an EJB container like Websphere or weblogic. Both can be used with Java triggers, which can utilize a messaging server that implements JMS. By the way, if MSMQ is the solution to event driven transaction processing, then why is there SQL Server notification Service?

      You seem to have a chip on your shoulder there.

    32. Re:Re:Improvements (from an insider) by sheldon · · Score: 1

      "You seem to have a chip on your shoulder there."

      You're right. I have a real difficult time reading posts from people who are clearly clueless.

      Hint: Biztalk uses MSMQ

    33. Re:Re:Improvements (from an insider) by f00zbll · · Score: 1
      Hint: Biztalk uses MSMQ

      Saying biztalk uses MSMQ doesn't seem to clarify the differences and how biztalk will provide better scalability. If I'm not mistaken, MSMQ is a system level messaging service that is used by windows apps right. So obviously it should use MSMQ, but lets not confuse system level messaging system with network messaging systems which have to provide a different level of service, which includes multiple transport protocols and huge latencies. A common technique is to use MSMQ in a multi-threaded apartment fashion right. Transaction comes in, a thread is created to generate a message ID. A response is immediately sent back to the requesting app for retrieval later on. The query is then sent to ADO.NET. Once the query/transaction is complete, the result is published to the queue. The requesting application then has to go and get the result from the queue.

      You probably have more experience with MSMQ, since I consider myself a newbie with it. But MSMQ is a messaging system and not a transaction client, which is why the NEC TCPC setup had a COM+ transaction scheduler. Past projects that I've worked on used clients to schedule the transaction on windows, because doing it on the server rapidly reaches performance limit. By distributing it on the clients, the server hosting SQL Server only does transactions. That's all fine right. But the point I was trying to make in previous posts is not all situations lend themselves to that work flow. Say for example a process has several transactions and all of them have to go through for the transaction to be valid. If the transaction are scheduled on the client and the COM+ component is not stateful, which application is responsible for rolling back all the transactions and all their dependencies?

      EJB is often mis-used, but that is one area where an application server provides a standard mechanism for handling complex processes. The applications I've worked on required connecting to multiple databases with mixed data models. Therefore each insert/update is slightly different and the data has to be massaged for each query. Is the NEC TCP setup valid? Sure it is, but for a specific set of processes. It's not well suited to complex transactions where one application has to maintain transaction integrity across multiple databases and updates. Scheduling transactions with a client is well suited for atomic processes that do not have complex dependencies. I've never tried to do that with COM+, but from my limited knowledge, it would much harder with .NET COM+ than with Tuxedo, Weblogic or Websphere.

  21. Ahhh... upgrades by asdfx · · Score: 5, Funny

    I cannot enumerate the advantages that Windows Me had over 98. I'm sure 2003 will show the same level of advancement over 2000.

    1. Re:Ahhh... upgrades by nutbar · · Score: 1

      The reason you cannot enumerate them is probably because there weren't any.

    2. Re:Ahhh... upgrades by GlassUser · · Score: 1

      ERROR: DIVIDE BY ZERO

    3. Re:Ahhh... upgrades by KillerHamster · · Score: 1

      The logo screen was waaaay cooler. I can't wait to see what they've done with Windows Server 2003.

    4. Re:Ahhh... upgrades by Night+Goat · · Score: 1

      Ah, that made my day. Great comment.

    5. Re:Ahhh... upgrades by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
      I cannot enumerate the advantages that Windows Me had over 98
      Hehe. I can only think of one: no stupid-ass limit of 256 active sockets. Win98 couldn't handle running most P2P stuff, cause the TCP stack would bomb out after an hour or so of running through sockets. ME had no problem keeping Bearshare up for a week on end, and was otherwise just fine so long as you were careful to disable all the System Restore crud.

      [Yes, I know the limit was technically tweakable via the registry in 98, but g-d help the poor soul who set it above 256.]
  22. Incremental is not always bad by nurb432 · · Score: 2

    People run their business off windows.. They don't want radical shifts..

    They want what runs now, just do it better.

    This ( arguably an improvement or not.. ) does just this.. its an incremental upgrade..

    Not that *I* care personally either way, but its how a lot of the business world works.. and they dont like suprises..

    --
    ---- Booth was a patriot ----
    1. Re:Incremental is not always bad by SatanicPuppy · · Score: 1

      I've never met a business that went to the next upgrade up. I would expect more people to migrate from NT 4.0 to 2003 than people from 2000 to 2003.

      I mean, these guys have finally gotten all the bugs ironed out after those awful slammer patches, and everything is running smooth, and they're going to throw it all away? For what? Incremental advances? MS ALWAYS breaks compatibility. ALWAYS. Hell they do it with patches sometimes.

      At this point, I'm only going to move off W2K when I get all my damn VB apps ported to php, and then I'm going to shake that crappy OS like a bad case of the clap.

      Just my opinion

      --
      ad logicam Claiming a proposition is false because it was presented as the conclusion of a fallacious argument.
    2. Re:Incremental is not always bad by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You know what, that is so very, very well put!

      For years, the Windows guys would come around asking what new features I would like to see. And my answer always was... " NONE, just make what's there work right!" and the next version would come out with more hideous eye candy, menus that (looked like to me) had been delberately scrambled so that you didn't know where anything was anymore and, underneath it all, the same bugs, inconsistencies and errors that were in the last version.

      Now, don't get me wrong; Win2003 may be great! I'll just never know. For server tasks I use Linux now. For desktops, I am moving to Linux. I just can't play the upgrade game anymore; I got work to do!

    3. Re:Incremental is not always bad by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful
      I just can't play the upgrade game anymore; I got work to do!

      And yet, you're apparently willing to play the Dependency Hell game, not to mention the hours required to make anything work the first time. And then there are the kernel upgrades every other Wednesday and the futile attempts to find any non-pre-pre-alpha products that actually work. Good luck getting that work done.

      Sounds like linux astroturfing bullshit to me. Where do they find you people?

    4. Re:Incremental is not always bad by knowledgepeacewi · · Score: 1

      dependency hell is only for people who can't develop better solutions for themselves.

      If you can't code or write scripts then do the next best thing.

      search Freshmeat for RPM and you'll find many solutions to save you.

      autoupdate
      aptRPM
      etc.

      Or failing that googling will find you: Ximian Red Carpet
      or Redhat Up2date

      Whining is never the answer. Take a big breath. Think about the problem. Educate yourself. Make some decisions. Do some work.

    5. Re:Incremental is not always bad by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Haha and you think PHP is the pinnacle of security?

      PHP has had more exploits/holes in it than that damned Rutan ship posted earlier had portholes.

  23. Is Microsoft using Linux? by cyber_rigger · · Score: 0, Offtopic
    1. Re:Is Microsoft using Linux? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      The site a1204.ms.a.microsoft.com is running AkamaiGHost on Linux

      That's an Akamai cache server, you stupid shit.

    2. Re:Is Microsoft using Linux? by ceejayoz · · Score: 2, Interesting

      You've posted a couple obscure servers with Microsoft.com hostnames - I fail to see what that proves? The big sites are all still run on Windows (including IIS6/Win2003 on Microsoft.com).

      http://www.netcraft.com/whats/?host=msn.com
      http://www.netcraft.com/whats/?host=hotmail.com
      http://www.netcraft.com/whats/?host=microsoft.com

    3. Re:Is Microsoft using Linux? by jroysdon · · Score: 1

      Server: AkamaiGHost

      Duh, they're just loading images and other static content from Akamai for faster load times as Akamai has colocations all over.

      Although, I've got to admit it's rather funny to see this.

    4. Re:Is Microsoft using Linux? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Please expain why Microsoft needs this.

    5. Re:Is Microsoft using Linux? by cyber_rigger · · Score: 1

      Doesn't Akamai offer Windows based hosts? Microsoft should insist on their content being on Windows based servers. :^)

    6. Re:Is Microsoft using Linux? by acoustix · · Score: 2, Funny

      " Doesn't Akamai offer Windows based hosts? Microsoft should insist on their content being on Windows based servers."

      They would be it would be too expensive.

      --
      "A plan fiendishly clever in its intricacies"- Homer Simpson
    7. Re:Is Microsoft using Linux? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Uhm, because it's cost effective?

      Because microsoft doesn't need to purchase and support a fucking HUGE farm?

      derp?

    8. Re:Is Microsoft using Linux? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Shouldn't Microsoft use a farm that runs Microsoft products?

    9. Re:Is Microsoft using Linux? by cyber_rigger · · Score: 1

      They would be it would be too expensive. Microsoft could give them the license for free. :^)

    10. Re:Is Microsoft using Linux? by Nameles · · Score: 1

      they're akamai links, if you read, i betcha akamai uses linux...

    11. Re:Is Microsoft using Linux? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      How about your server farm runs all the same product. Same OS, same version of all software. Please don't cry when there is a security vulnerability, remote DoS, whatever, and your entire network goes down.

    12. Re:Is Microsoft using Linux? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      So why are Microsoft telling everyone who'll listen that a Microsoft solution is the only way to go?

  24. Biggest release EVER!!!! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    CNET quotes Microsoft's Tom Pilla as saying:
    "...the launch is the largest server operating system unveiling in Microsoft's history, reaching more than 200,000 customers around the world through 173 events in 61 countries."

    It sure is interesting how every release that Microsoft makes is always the BIGGEST EVER! Sales numbers (and perceived numbers) are so incredibly important to them that they continually invent new counting techniques. For example, they recently started counting boxes sent to stores and licenses sent to ISVs rather than counting actual sales. What's next?

    If the impression is not out that there is strong demand for their products, the pressure to upgrade diminishes. If there is little adoptation, then there will be correspondingly slow availability of new software. Early adopters be damned.

    So this will be, certainly, their biggest release ever. Next release will be bigger yet. And no doubt, the release after that will be (astonishingly) their biggest even still! And eventually their releases will be so big that every person on the planet has purchased three copies of windows each. Yet somehow Linux installation keeps growing... Interesting indeed.

  25. Um, no by cscx · · Score: 5, Informative

    I am running Windows Media Services 9 on Windows Server 2003 RC1. It is simply awesome as a streaming media solution. First of all, if the client is a WMP 9 client.... there is no buffering! Instant start (on broadband only, naturally). Plus, you get a ton of configuration options on the WMS9 side. You can insert adverts automatically, apply all sorts of access control on the media (IP based, user/pass login, DRM, whatever you please).

    The new IIS 6 comes in a super-secure default setup... allowing only .htm and .txt files to the outside world unless you go into the server configuration and edit this explicitly.... did I also mention that IIS 6 now stores its data in XML (similar to Apache directives) which can easily be exported to other servers if you're cloning or making a server farm.

    Plus it's pretty damn stable. My server has been running for about 60 days now... and it handles a decent amount of traffic.

    I like the new Remote Desktop/terminal services. You can remote to the actual server console now, instead of starting a new TS session. The OS itself also seems faster than Windows 2000. I'm running it on a PII/350 w/ 256 MB ram and it screams.

    It also comes with that HTTP.SYS kernel serving thingee for IIS, but I'm a strict believer that a web server doesn't belong in the kernel (this applies to Linux too).

    So far my experiences have been all positive. How bout everyone else?

    1. Re:Um, no by edrugtrader · · Score: 2
      The new IIS 6 comes in a super-secure default setup...


      DAMN. so much for hacking IIS anymore. maybe i'll take up golf.
      --
      MARIJUANA, SHROOMS, X: ONLINE?! - E
    2. Re:Um, no by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      sounds like you've been waking off to to many windows media player porn videos...

    3. Re:Um, no by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      DAMN. so much for hacking IIS anymore. maybe i'll take up golf.

      As long as he thinks ANY os/application can be 'super secure', you won't have a chance to touch those clubs.

    4. Re:Um, no by The+Bungi · · Score: 2, Interesting
      The OS itself also seems faster than Windows 2000. I'm running it on a PII/350 w/ 256 MB ram and it screams.

      Yep. This was actually surprising to me - i thought it would be a bit slower on the same hardware than W2K server. But yes, it is faster (or maybe it's the fact that it's a newer box with less accumulated crud =)

      Everything else is just icing on the cake, especially IIS 6.

    5. Re:Um, no by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Hey, put away those spiked shoes! You can STILL hang out here and make "fun" of things you don't understand! It works for the rest of the 'Herd.

    6. Re:Um, no by Tackhead · · Score: 4, Funny
      > I am running Windows Media Services 9 on Windows Server 2003 RC1. It is simply awesome as a streaming media solution. First of all, if the client is a WMP 9 client.... there is no buffering! Instant start (on broadband only, naturally). Plus, you get a ton of configuration options on the WMS9 side. You can insert adverts automatically, apply all sorts of access control on the media (IP based, user/pass login, DRM, whatever you please)

      *blink*

      Advertisements built into music/videos? DRM? Locked to IP or user/pass combinations?

      You're either astroturfing for Microsoft, or are using some definition of the word "awesome" of which I was previously unaware.

    7. Re:Um, no by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
      1) Learn to spell.
      2) Fuck off.

      Pick two.

    8. Re:Um, no by cscx · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Sorry to bust your (communist) bubble, but someone needs to pay for bandwidth and various streaming media stations. In case you haven't noticed, advertising provides a means to do this in the age of the internet. Sorry, bub, this isn't PBS -- no one's gonna call up and pledge. If you can't find a means to cover your operational costs you'll be out of business in no time.

      Regardless, these are *features* that are optional. It's nice to know that they're there if you need them. So quit trolling with your GNU/Jihad about "information must be free!" That's sure a nice utopia to live in but come down to earth and enjoy something called the "real world."

      Although someone complaining about optional available features on Slashdot doesn't surprise me in the least.

    9. Re:Um, no by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

      That DRM you're so in love with has been cracked wide open, y'know.

      Now go away, and tell your bosses to stop trying to combine session keys with MACs. You don't get something for nothing.

    10. Re:Um, no by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      buh... pot? kettle? black?

      Is somebody excessively making fun of Microsoft lame? Yes. Is somebody shilling excessively for Microsoft also lame? Yes.

      The thing is though, since Slashdot seems to be relatively in favor of the former, your post has a strong look of astroturf. Go home.

    11. Re:Um, no by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      But how about screenshots? Does it look just as boring as 2k, or do we get the XP looks? (No, not the default one, but some of the skins from the net are pretty nice).

      I'm currently stuck on 2k server on my desktop at work, wanting XP, but XP Pro's Terminal Serviced suck, it's more like a cheap copy of VNC, wich takes over the screen instead of allowing one to run multiple things at once. Will 2k3 have a real Terminal Services, or just that VNC clone?

    12. Re:Um, no by cdf123 · · Score: 1
      ...The OS itself (win2k3) also seems faster than Windows 2000. I'm running it on a PII/350 w/ 256 MB ram and it screams...

      I have a win2k server on a P-pro/166 with 256M of ram and it screams too. Wait a minute... I think I can hear it now...
      "Kill me! Kill me now!!!"

    13. Re:Um, no by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      u now uve hit the correct nerve when all they have to tell you is two lern to spel.

    14. Re:Um, no by cscx · · Score: 1

      It has the XP explorer, but it ships with the themeing features disabled. If you want them (which you don't on a server) you are welcome to turn them on, I guess.

      It comes with full blown terminal services + the XP 'remote console control' version of TS. The only difference is that you can run the terminal server client with the /console switch, which will alllow you do it remote-desktop style; however, you can also use standard-UNIX-style (create a new concurrent connection) terminal services.

  26. A step in the right direction by vivek7006 · · Score: 1
    IIS adds a number of Unix-style playing cards to its hand in
    this release, including text-file-based configuration, much tighter
    security defaults, user-level instead of administrator-level privileges,
    and a kernel-mode HTTP request handler and cache.

    Just wait for their next killer release.

    1. Re:A step in the right direction by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yes, and this is a great example of how well OS plays in the community. No problem stealing graphics from MS' site, no problem having a deceptively similiar website. Just think about this site every time you wonder why you can't write to an NTFS partition. Coming soon: www.redhate.com, brought to you by Microsoft! HAHAHA (hah)

    2. Re:A step in the right direction by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The also have no problems being a parody.

      You'd have hoped that after all these years everyone would be able to spend at least two seconds looking at the site and figure it out, yet the world keeps bringing us the next moron. I mean really, how fast can your family breed, for christs sake?

  27. One really cool feature (IMHO) by friday2k · · Score: 1

    are Software Restriction Policies (SRP). These policies allow an admin to manage software execution based on for example the hash of the binary. AFAIK they were first introduced with Windows XP (see here).

  28. Re:IT managers on tight budgets? by The+Kryptonian · · Score: 2, Funny

    Come to think of it, that IS pretty funny. How the hell do they expect to out-cheap "Free"? Once again, they're fulfilling their destinies by being the IT industry's comic relief.

  29. A few more updates they don't touch on by Archfeld · · Score: 5, Informative

    like say clustering up from 2 node max to 12 nodes, addressable memory support up to above 64 GB, 64 bit OS support, NIC load balancing, TRUE DEVICE ADDRESSING (ie no drive letters)for extended SAN support, and from what I hear a .8 version of a connectix vm system, plus features like BUILT IN document license management, full remote control support. The primary reason we're moving is for the extended clustering support.

    --
    errr....umm...*whooosh* *whoosh* Is this thing on ?
    1. Re:A few more updates they don't touch on by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Gee, I prefer playing ball on real grass to playing on

      ASTROTURF!

      Built in document license management? I'm a sysop, and frankly scarlett, I DON'T GIVE A DAMN.

    2. Re:A few more updates they don't touch on by sheldon · · Score: 3, Interesting

      You forgot all the additions to file server management like Volume Shadow Copy Service.

      New version of MSMQ with a bunch of added features. New enhancements to the COM+ application server side to enhance performance and stability. etc.

      Ability to deploy the server using RIS and other similar TCO improvements. It's also faster on the same hardware.

      It's a fairly extensive evolutionary change. It'd be like going from Redhat 5.0 to Redhat 9.0. Yeah it doesn't look different, but looks are deceiving.

    3. Re:A few more updates they don't touch on by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
      Oh, so YOU don't care! Well, Jesus, where's my phone; I'm certain that Mr. Gates will want to know immediately about how one of the linux zealots doesn't care about an aspect of his product! I should also probably remind him to stop sending his minions here to correct the ignorance that flows forth around Slashdot like babyshit. God knows, anyone who doesn't immediately slag Windows before acquiring an ounce of knowledge MUST be a hired goon!

      To summarize: plz die tx. And, your collection of 386SXs doesn't make you a sysop.

    4. Re:A few more updates they don't touch on by Archfeld · · Score: 1

      Don't get me wrong I think the whole concept is SCAREY, but MY BOSS just loves it. Imagine if we could push by GPO an expiration that was imbeded in the document, so that it would self destruct 90 days after creation...it makes info security nearly WET themselves in anticipation.

      --
      errr....umm...*whooosh* *whoosh* Is this thing on ?
    5. Re:A few more updates they don't touch on by mibus · · Score: 1

      Yeah, RH5.0 -> 9.0 had very few visible changes.

      Except a desktop environment that wasn't just FVWM + a few clunky Tk-based tools, anti-aliasing, 3D support, a graphical installer, <insert random development since 1998 here>.

      Hell, 5.0 thought it was cool they had Netscape 4. I still have my boxed set with the "Includes Netscape 4.x" in my bedroom :-)

      Don't get me wrong, 5.0 was cool. But 9.0 is VERY visibly different.

      Yup, nobody would notice if you went from OS9 to OSX either. :-P

    6. Re:A few more updates they don't touch on by SN74S181 · · Score: 1

      Red Hat 5.0 Sucked.

      Extremely badly.

      There were binaries broken all over.

      But I came to it from a long time on Slackware, and having done a little experimenting with Red Hat 4.3 which was a MUCH better and far less buggy release than 5.0.

      5.0 bit a lot of people in the ass.

      Ancient history, tho, and O.T.

    7. Re:A few more updates they don't touch on by mousse-man · · Score: 1

      You can deploy Win2k server via RIS with a few hacks. The Minasi book about Win2k describes how.

    8. Re:A few more updates they don't touch on by rnd() · · Score: 1

      RH 5 came with WindowMaker and GNOME/KDE. So you are wrong.

      --

      Amazing magic tricks

    9. Re:A few more updates they don't touch on by mibus · · Score: 1

      RH5.0 didn't, which was the original point (IIRC). 5.1 came with GNOME 0.13, 5.2 came with 0.20 and/or 0.30.

      IIRC - but 5.0 had _no_ GNOME whatsoever, definately. Gtk, maybe... ;-)

      I can still remember using GNOME on 5.1 - I couldn't get KDE to work properly, and I'm still using GNOME mostly because of that :-)

  30. If your an IT manager on a tight budget... by Blacklotuz · · Score: 2, Funny

    LINUX!

  31. Re:What? No NextP? by randomdef · · Score: 1

    I read that it is suppose to be UX, User Experience. I dont make an claims to its validity.

  32. super by scot_sd · · Score: 5, Funny

    good thing IIS has proven itself both secure and stable. otherwise, this could really be an issue:

    IIS adds a number of Unix-style playing cards to its hand in this release, including text-file-based configuration, much tighter security defaults, user-level instead of administrator-level privileges, and a kernel-mode HTTP request handler and cache.

    hackers, start your engines...

    1. Re:super by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Linux now has (in perpetual beta, like everything else linux) kernel httpd acceleration too. Hackers, start your engines!

      How lame, all this anti-MS crap just drives home the point that the average "computer geek" doesnt know squat fuck all about computers.

    2. Re:super by AnimeFreak · · Score: 0

      It is optional, if anything. It poses less of a threat to Windows NT than Linux, though.

    3. Re:super by scot_sd · · Score: 4, Informative

      I can see how moving a service like this into the kernel could have stability implications, but you didn't say anything about that

      You obviously didn't read the first line of my post, so here it is again:

      good thing IIS has proven itself both secure and stable. otherwise, this could really be an issue

      I could have sworn that 10th word is stable, my bad.

      Concerning security, you're partially correct. Running the HTTP stack in kernel mode doesn't make it inherently less secure. It does allow any subsequent exploit to run without any of the protections built into the OS, though (don't even try to tell me that that won't happen, either. network stack code is notoriously susceptable to buffer overflow). Want to destroy the partition table? Easy, just access the drive directly. Access kernel data structures? Sure, kernel memory is wide open. Pass bullshit to the hardware to try and get it to fail? OK, the system bus is yours. And, I could be wrong, but I'm fairly sure that kernel level access is all that's required to update the system bios, which could be especially nasty. Finally, causing a system crash is trivial, as the OS is no longer able to kill/deny the HTTP stack process when it trys to do something it shouldn't. But, isn't that stability and not security?!? The truth is that it, and virtually all the other things I brought up, are BOTH. A lack of stability is a security risk and vice versa, as anyone who has suffered a ping-of-death style DOS attack will gladly tell you.

      Honestly, I don't hate Microsoft. As you noted, they have been extremely successful and I respect that. It just urks me that they seem entirely willing to unleash bug ridden code without much thought for what happens when said bugs are used to compromise a substantial chunk of the systems on the net. Running an application level network protocol stack in the kernel is just one of many examples of this. Another good one was their narrowly thwarted attempt to allow any user process access to raw IP sockets in XP, which would have exponentially increased the difficulty in dealing with DDOS attacks. Even a little forethough on their part on issues like this would go a long way, and it's a sham that they don't use it.

      Hope I answered your question.

    4. Re:super by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny
      Another good one was their narrowly thwarted attempt to allow any user process access to raw IP sockets in XP, which would have exponentially increased the difficulty in dealing with DDOS attacks. Even a little forethough on their part on issues like this would go a long way, and it's a sham that they don't use it.

      hahahahhh, grc kiddie

    5. Re:super by jsse · · Score: 1

      kernel-mode HTTP request handler and cache

      That's rather interesting. An IIS developer told me under the influence of beers that IIS is fast(it is, hold you flamethrower) because it resides in the kernel just like khttp. Now this 'new feature' sound like a new mechanism to recursive call on itself to me, or restate what it's already done. :D

  33. This is probably Microsoft's last chance...? by JessLeah · · Score: 5, Interesting

    "This is probably Microsoft's last chance to turn the tide and take mindset and market share from FOSS."

    Where I live (NYC area), it seems like if anything, MS technologies are getting a BIGGER grip on things. Virtually every new job out there, it seems-- and this includes jobs whose titles include the word "Unix"-- demands experience with ASP/IIS/VB/VC++ and other MS programming and server-side products... Perhaps it's just my imagination, but I am not so confident any more in the rankings posted on www.netcraft.net ... Sure, 2/3 of the Web sites out there are running on Apache, but are they the bottom 2/3 of the Web? Increasingly, it's looking like the companies Where The Money Is are requesting more and more MS stuff. And that scares me.

    My boss, who before taking the helm of the little dot-com I work for used to work with "big money" firms all the time (and was the CEO of a national chain or three at one point), refers to the work I do with Linux and Unix as "your silly little programs". Her attitude towards MS is that it's "The Industry Standard(TM)" (you can almost hear the "(TM)" at the end) and therefore that we will use it wherever it is The Standard, case closed, no questions asked. I am lucky that in her case, she has not extended this groupthink to the server room... yet. You can bet that within a few years, we will migrate away from our current servers (Solaris on UltraSPARCs) to Windows at this rate. The sort of pro-MS dronery one hears nowadays from businesspeople is nothing short of alarming.

    It's depressing; I've been looking for a job as a Unix SA, and I swear I've actually seen one or two job postings for "Unix SAs" where it says "MCSE is a plus"... and I might have been hallucinating, but I think I even saw one that said "MCSE required"... In NYC, it seems like all of the big-money companies (financials, telcos, etc.) are all gung-ho about Windows, and it's hard to find a "virgin" Unix SA job... that is, one where you can't find words like "MCSE", "ASP/IIS", "VB" or "VC++" in the "Required" and/or "Preferred" lists.

    1. Re:This is probably Microsoft's last chance...? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      The reason you see so many employment adds for these technologies is because (1) they keep having to fire the incompetents they hired the first time around and (2) the incompetents they fired are the ones who recommended that technology that they paid big $$$'s for and are now stuck with.

    2. Re:This is probably Microsoft's last chance...? by dfj225 · · Score: 1

      Well I think that no matter what job you look at, you will have to deal with some amount of Windows boxes. While Linux or Unix might be arguably better for a server, Windows is still the king of the desktop and workstation. I like Linux and think that its great, but I wouldn't replace Windows with it for my primary desktop.

      --
      SIGFAULT
    3. Re:This is probably Microsoft's last chance...? by JessLeah · · Score: 1

      And you posted this as an Anonymous Coward... why? :)

    4. Re:This is probably Microsoft's last chance...? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Most of those ads are placed by Human Resources staff who have no idea what those acronyms mean. They just put them there because the ad dept. says it's a good idea or they see them in other ads. These are the same people requiring 10 years experience in web programming...

      The IT Managers don't write the ads, unfortunately. So, of course, the company never atually gets what it wants.

    5. Re:This is probably Microsoft's last chance...? by Master+Bait · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Times are hard. All the good jobs are occupied and the lousy jobs go begging. That's why you see so many MS sysadmin jobs open.

      --
      "Only in their dreams can men truly be free 'twas always thus, and always thus will be."
      --Tom Schulman
    6. Re:This is probably Microsoft's last chance...? by sheldon · · Score: 1, Offtopic

      "Your area of the country also tends to vote Democrat, so don't use that area of the country as a good barometer of wise decision-making."

      Weird. I always thought an economy showing growth was considered a good thing.

      Vote Republican! Prosperity is boring!

    7. Re:This is probably Microsoft's last chance...? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Troll

      My boss, who before taking the helm of the little dot-com I work for used to work with "big money" firms all the time (and was the CEO of a national chain or three at one point), refers to the work I do with Linux and Unix as "your silly little programs". Her attitude towards MS . . .

      WTF does a woman know about computers, anyway . . .

      Mod me up, you know it's right.

    8. Re:This is probably Microsoft's last chance...? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      That would be a "yes sir" as they are bending over to take it up the ass from bill gates himself.

    9. Re:This is probably Microsoft's last chance...? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
      Oh, PERIOD! Well, you must SURELY know what's what if you're willing to make such embarassingly stupid blanket statements. Statistics everywhere show that Windows isn't losing appreciable ground in any area that it currently dominates, but THEY don't use the PERIOD.

      Yawn. Another day, another mindless linux fanboy.

    10. Re:This is probably Microsoft's last chance...? by j0217995 · · Score: 0

      I agree, I think Linux is wonderful for the things it can do and also Windows for the things they do.

      If I was given the chance to design an IT solution for a company with no technology I would choose MS. Why? Exchange simple as that. Find something that can replace Exchange and Outlook and you found the way to kick MS out of the workplace.

      In fact an ISP I worked for ran Exchange for its internal mail and qmail for its customers simply for the calendaring, tasks and other stuff found in Outlook and Exchange.

    11. Re:This is probably Microsoft's last chance...? by JessLeah · · Score: 2

      Not funny.

    12. Re:This is probably Microsoft's last chance...? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I don't what your situation is, but I moved to the NYC area from the Bay Area because of the giant sucking sound out there.

      Times are still hard, but I'm doing substantially better around NYC as someone who will not touch Windows. (Which I had to do in my last full time position.)

      Contract unix development and administration in NYC is alive and, if not well, better than other parts of the nation.

      Just one geeks experience.

    13. Re:This is probably Microsoft's last chance...? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      With 2/3 of the websites running Apache, the other 1/3 requires the remaining 90% of the work.

    14. Re:This is probably Microsoft's last chance...? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Um, well, if it wasn't obvious, I've fired people for no real reason other than personal dislike. That can cost you legal bills.

    15. Re:This is probably Microsoft's last chance...? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yup, it's all personal, unixboy. Keep telling yourself that.

    16. Re:This is probably Microsoft's last chance...? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      I totally agree with this mofo, but you know if didn't most AC he would be modded down as troll.

      WTF do women know about business? The entire bureaucratic nightmare that is the modern corporate culture is a female creation so they can all feel safe and secure and wanted. Meanwhile, nothing gets done. Sort of like a woman's life.

      They may THINK they are creative and intelligent and special... but do they actually contribute anything of value? 99% of the time, no. 35 years of the modern feminist movement and we can't have one brilliant female artist, composer, software engineer, etc... Down with the matriarchy!

    17. Re:This is probably Microsoft's last chance...? by Snowpony · · Score: 1
      WTF does a woman know about computers, anyway . . .

      Obviously more than you do if that is your sole argument. Maybe you might want to read up on the subject sometime. There have been many leaders in the IT industry that have been female - maybe you should look some up?

      --
      Snowy Angelique Maslov - http://www.snowy.org/
    18. Re:This is probably Microsoft's last chance...? by insomaniac · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Actually I can't think of coming back to windows as my primary workstation platform. Not because I don't like MS. (which I don't but that is not the reason)
      The real reason why I prefer a UNIX workstation is for all the apps/features windows doesn't have like ssh-agent, icewm, mutt, x over ssh forwarding, ultimate customization, powerfull CLI and powerfull CLI apps, standards compliance (I so HATE developing web apps for IE, it chokes so badly on the simplest CSS) and other things.
      Sure no normal to moderatly advanced user would understand my setup and its not userfriendly. But the thing that matters is that it is ME friendly and windows doesn't do that for me.
      And before anyone asks, I'm a sysadmin/coder who doesn't need much more besides mplayer, xmms, gkrellm, (g)vim, mozilla, aterm, nethack, freeciv and the occasional zsnes session. I don't need all those state of the art games because I'd rather sit in the pub than buy/play games.

      P.S. I'm posting this using mozilla on FreeBSD 4.8 ;)

      --
      The way to corrupt a youth is to teach him to hold in higher value them who think alike than those who think differently
    19. Re:This is probably Microsoft's last chance...? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful
      Thank you for backing up the parent point, "snow pony". Three women mentioned for 2002, none of whom I've heard of, only one of which has a technical position (the other two are "manager" and "CEO").

      I see feminists are so desperate to point out their relevance to technology that they make their own site just for them. How cute! Are they called "witi" because they know how to laugh at themselves?

      Since, as usual, a feminist is bad at supporting even her own case, I'll help you out: Lovelace and Hopper. These were two people who didn't make a big deal about having no dick, but just got on with the job, and as such were recognised as "practitioners" rather than "angry feminists".

      Similarly, successful men just get on with the job rather than explaining their achievements in terms of having no tits. Content of character/mind, not colo(u)r of skin or shape of reproductive system, see?

    20. Re:This is probably Microsoft's last chance...? by swb · · Score: 1

      Well I think that no matter what job you look at, you will have to deal with some amount of Windows boxes. While Linux or Unix might be arguably better for a server, Windows is still the king of the desktop and workstation.

      I think this is true, although I'd take it a step further, and presume that there's probably a number of places that are running hybrid operations -- Win2k systems where the desktop integrates to the server room, and UNIX variants where there's little or no direct linkage to the desktop.

      You can probably split the difference on applications. MS developers are less expensive, but the cost is made up in licensing and infrastructure. UNIX developers are more expensive, but you make up that difference in licensing and infrastructure, especially if you are using an x86 Free UNIX.

    21. Re:This is probably Microsoft's last chance...? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      hard to get anything done when thier nature is to suck cock and spread thier legs so as to enduce a male to procreate....

    22. Re:This is probably Microsoft's last chance...? by bimmergeek · · Score: 1
      This post captures beautifully the reality of OSS against MS. I can almost hear the throaty "ugggghh" coming from the bodies of OSS Idealists as they are hit with the economic realities of ubiquity, functionality and integration.

      OSS shares the same hubris of Steve Jobs and Apple. Clearly, Apple had a superior design that end users loved. But Apple ignored the economic realities businesses consider: where is the real value in paying $1000 more for an elegant box that does word processing and spreadsheets the same way as the less-elegant, clearly inferior Windows box? There is none. Consequently, the great majority of businesses chose similarly functional and less expensive PC clones. The superior product lost irrecoverable market share because it approached the marketplace with values that were not shared by the marketplace (i.e. cool design instead of functionality).

      OSS Idealists think the world ought to be enamored with how great Linux is. But the world doesn't give a s*hit because the ratio of end users to technology geeks is biased greatly toward the end user. End user acceptance and economic sensibility are important factors which drive ubiquity. The unavoidable reality of the power of networks is that as acceptance and ubiquity grows, the power of the network grows as well.

      Ubiquity has incredible value to both the end user and the business manager. Neato keen advantages of OSS that issue forth no shortage of geek orgasms don't matter to businesses because businesses don't exist to implement neato keen technology. Technology exists to support a business' ability to generate revenue and profit. Because businesses are about making money and making money is increasingly about connecting more people to purchase opportunities, ubiquity in the back office is extremely valuable to business managers. This is why the job postings you bemoan require MCSE skills. OSS is ostensibly superior to MS but where OSS has failed is in delivering a value position that is compelling to business managers. This is why your passion for Linux is marginalized as a "silly little program:" it holds no true business value for her because it doesn't help her make money. Ubiquity helps her make money and OSS lacks this.

      As I have predicted in past posts, I still believe that OSS is a short time away from hitting a wall beyond which it cannot simultaneously move and continue the promise of cheaper/free. As the internet bubble collapse and Mandrake Linux attest, this model cannot be sustained in a capitalist economy.

      --
      -Everyone laughs at lemmings but no one ever wants to admit to ever being one.
    23. Re:This is probably Microsoft's last chance...? by Snowpony · · Score: 1
      Thank you for backing up the parent point, "snow pony". Three women mentioned for 2002, none of whom I've heard of, only one of which has a technical position (the other two are "manager" and "CEO").

      You really do need to look further into the history of those "managers and CEOs" instead of taking a cheap shot obviously based the limited amount of information you could gleam from a single web page.

      Julie Estrin (CEO of Packet Design) holds a B.S. Degree in Math and Computer Science from UCLA and an M.S. in Electric Engineering from Stanford University.

      Dr Caroline Kovac holds a Ph.D in Chemistry; and was the head of IBM Research efforts in computational biology.

      Like most people of recognition; they have moved up the corporate ladder into executive positions through thier experience and drive.

      There is very little publicity of most female technical leaders except when grandstanding takes place (and most people have learned to see through that dribble anyways). You mentioned Lovelace and Hopper. Both notable women of computing; but considering the time period they come from - I think trying to label them as an alternative to feminism when the feminist movement had not even undergone it's major revival until Hopper was well into her 50s (and Lovelace was deceased for over a centuary) to be a touch out of context don't you think?

      I do love how you labelled me as a feminist when merely trying to give you an informed opinion. Gynophobic are we? I am the last person I would consider to be a feminist. However I also know I am a highly technically minded individual; the company I work for recognises this year after year and relies on my skills to solve technical problems.

      I do my job and do it well. I don't go running around and demand recognition for my work. You might just find there are many quiet achievers such as myself in the world. Considering you took the time to actually list a few noteworthy technically minded women from history; is it that hard to conclude that there are women like them still around?

      --
      Snowy Angelique Maslov - http://www.snowy.org/
  34. "FOSS" by OldMiner · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Being a small bit of a geek, I think myself qualified to say whether a term is esoteric or not, and I must say, I've never seen FOSS in my life before. My first thought was "How is my local tourist goods shop suddenly competing with Microsoft on a global scale?".

    Free Open Source Software (FOSS). Thanks, that's what I want. More adjectives. And, once more, have them all thrown into an acronym I can't recognize. That's not going to encourage cliquishness or scare away people who might otherwise be interested.

    I even thought to look at E2 to see if the obscure FOSS had been noded. If it had been, a little link could have at least been provided to make this more accessible. Nope. Then again, I remember reading something in the Slash CVS which mentioned the E2 linking (with those little question marks) was broken.

    --
    You like splinters in your crotch? -Jon Caldara
  35. Heh. Tight budgets. by SatanicPuppy · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I guess they were bound to do that, with the tech sector in the toilet, but really. Microsoft? Easy on the pockets?

    I've never failed to raise an eyebrow with an open source pitch simply by quoting the customer what the microsoft liscensing would require for the project, and comparing it to what I would charge for the whole deal, which is usually about the same. The only way a MS shop could compete is if they installed their crappy equipment for free.

    Install it cheap, make your money off the service contract, and watch your competitors go broke trying to undercut you.

    Life is sweet.

    --
    ad logicam Claiming a proposition is false because it was presented as the conclusion of a fallacious argument.
  36. Maybe it's me... by chriso11 · · Score: 4, Funny

    Am I the only one that thought "IT depts are on tight budgets BECAUSE of Microsoft"?

    Ironic....

    --
    No, I don't trust in god. He'll have to pay up front, like everybody else.
  37. Ignorance by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    It really shocks me how the stupid people come out of the wood work when slashdot posts a story about Microsoft. Let me clear a few things up:

    1) Microsoft doesn't expect many people to upgrade from Win2k. It's a damn reliable OS only released 3 years ago. Very few people will upgrade to Win2k3.

    2) Major changes in a server OS are generally not a good thing. Incremental improvements are best when you're dealing with such a huge mission critical product. That's the main reason Win2k Server didn't replace NT4 machines overnight.

    3) Microsoft expects many NT4 systems to be upgraded. Lots of people were weary of upgrading to Win2k Server but now they have a second generation AD and many other improvments over NT4. NT4 to Win2k3 is a big upgrade, well worth the cost.

    1. Re:Ignorance by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
      1) Microsoft doesn't expect many people to upgrade from Win2k. It's a damn reliable OS only released 3 years ago.
      What about Win98 vs. Win2k Pro? There were only two years difference there and they're drastically different operating systems. Same with Win95 vs. Win98 actually.

      This is really a very small upgrade compared to those improvements and I can't help but think that a lot of people will upgrade hoping for a huge improvement and end up with only slight improvements.

      I swear, numbering software by years is one of the greatest marketing gimmicks ever. With version numbers a lot of people might not feel the need to upgrade "psh... I've got 3.0 and it's got most of what I need, and they're only on 4.0 now". But now once it's actually DATED people feel they're behind the times -- "I'M STILL USING WINDOWS 95!?!?!? THAT WAS 8 YEARS AGO!!! AND THEY HAVE WINDOWS 2000 NOW!!!!".
  38. that article sucked. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
    talk about lazy writing. Could the reporter by more lazy and provide fewer details? IIS 6.0 will be a nice upgrade with better .NET framework integration, but it's still far from providing High Availability Web hosting.

    Does anyone have concrete proof of .NET scales better. I don't mean some stupid benchmark. We're talking real production systems that can handle 40 concurrent dynamic page requests averaged over a 24 hour period. That doesn't count static images or files. We're talking pages that get data from multiple databases, performs some fairly sophisticated business logic, and then renders the page. Having worked with MapPoint.NET, I can say from first hand experience, it's slower than the non SOAP version of MapPoint.

    Anyone gonna bite?

  39. I'd love to tell Microsoft to go pound sand, but.. by gcalvin · · Score: 5, Interesting
    This is probably Microsoft's last chance to turn the tide and take mindset and market share from FOSS.

    I'm pretty high up in the IT food chain in a medium-sized (300 PC users, half-billion USD annual revenue) company. We've been using Linux in several mission-critical roles for over five years, and I'd love to cut Microsoft loose altogether, but I just don't think I can do it yet. A few of the reasons:

    1. There's still no match for the Exchange/Outlook combination for integrated email, directory, shared folders and calendaring.
    2. A lot of needed third-party software is still Windows-only (think UPS WorldShip, ADP, etc.).
    3. A lot of web sites, including several we must use because of business relationships, are IE-only.
    4. Many of our users live and die by Excel, which means macros, which means VBA.
    5. Word .doc format is still lingua franca for business, and the FOSS alternatives aren't quite there yet.
    I'm sure no fan of Microsoft's licensing terms and general business practices, but I sure don't see them as being on their last legs. As much as I hate "Embrace, Extend and Eliminate", I have to admit it works, and my job is to keep the business running, not to fight political battles.
  40. Re:IT managers on tight budgets? by JanusFury · · Score: 1

    Time is money. If the cheapskates already have windows, chances are they won't want to spend time (and possibly money) moving to linux, learning linux, and porting any custom software.

    Sure, linux is free, but it's not quite that simple for some people...

    --
    using namespace slashdot;
    troll::post();
  41. That's good news for me by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I was getting a bit scared that the muslims would take over the world, but after reading your post it looks like the megacorporations are the ones who will rule the world after all.

    1. Re:That's good news for me by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I was getting a bit scared that the muslims would take over the world, but after reading your post it looks like the megacorporations are the ones who will rule the world after all.

      Yea, didn't ya read? We won the war. Now we are back to bashing corporations instead of muslims again.

  42. Not a bad thing if they improve without bloating by tcc · · Score: 4, Interesting

    The new terminal service client is nice, 24 bits support, full encryption, Group Policy applicable to Terminal Service Clients loging to the server... nice little addons.

    The web server edition is also nice, cheaper than buying a full blown server just to serve web page, with full support of COM+ and Terminal server remote administration (on a funny note, win2003 server web edition has a "win 2000 skin" default... the start menu is "winXP-like" but the windows and all that I was was like win2000 :) Guess I am not the only one who hates XP's bloated interface.

    Reading on their website, they make a big deal about the Group Policy editor, Didn't see it in action yet but that's one place they'd have plenty of room to maneuver; I hate active directory in current win2k server. Even with all patches applied, there's always that little thing somewhere hidden in some documentation deep somewhere that if you toggle on without being exactly sure on all the 2nd-effects of that action, you get burned. I have a hard time imagining somebody actually deploying an active-directory structure with remote offices and centralized servers with let's say 10 locations 50 servers and 5000 clients with some weird problems I've experimented recently, I can see why people are affraid of moving from NT servers and are always waiting for the second itteration of a technology before deploying it.

    If activ directory is better in 2003 (which it should be) and there's less bugs, I won't mind upgrading it since I don't have a gazillion servers on site. The web edition is a nice add-on in their portfolio, again, depending on the final price it will sell for.

    The only thing that would potentially make me NOT upgrade is that stupid activation crap. You're legit, you bought it, there's plenty of hacked keys or cracked version going around so if someone decides not to be legit, it's a no brainer..., if my system crashes or I have weird problems, the last thing I want is to be on the phone waiting for the right to "reactivate" my license while everybody will think "he needs tech support because he doesn't know what the problem is" :). of course ghosting the machine helps, but if you want to upgrade your raid and add more ram, and you change network card to a gigabit for example, blam? no thanks; as much as I like the NT environment more than Unix, there's a limit to be masochist :) Hope microsoft won't be stupid on this one (well web server edition at least).

    --
    --- Metamoderating abusive downgraders since my 300th post.
  43. Wrong... by fbg111 · · Score: 1

    They're spending all that $30 million bribing kiddies to buy Xbox (and suing all thousand Linux-on-Xbox projects the world over). There's nothing left over for Windows Server, so this really is their last chance!

    --
    Flying is easy, just throw yourself at the ground and miss. -Douglas Adams
  44. Upgrade issues. by cybrchld · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I took a 2 day hands on class on 2003 server. Microsoft was demonstrating all the new features 2003 comes with and one of them was that you could rename the domain or forest on the fly. but it would break a few active directory applications such as SQL 2000 and exchange 2000 when the class presenter came out from left field and nearly floored everyone when he said "since were on the exchange subject be aware that you can not run exchange 2000 on windows 2003 server". You would need a mix server environment which will then not allow some of the new features work, or wait for exchange titanium to be release at the end of the year.

    1. Re:Upgrade issues. by mrscott · · Score: 2, Informative

      Which is why a careful analysis is required before moving forward with any upgrade -- especially of the server OS. Exchange 2000 doesn't run on Windows 2003, but Exchange 2003 will. So you wait for Exchange 2003 and only upgrade your non-Exchange servers before that. Not really anything to be floored by.

    2. Re:Upgrade issues. by JJahn · · Score: 1

      Ouch, I hope that trainer just didn't know what he was talking about. Because if you can't use Exchange 2000 on this new server (and IMO Exchange is one of MS's only strengths over Linux now) that would be a large number of people who will hold off upgrading, if they ever do.

    3. Re:Upgrade issues. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

      You don't get it. The instructor didn't know what he was talking about - really there is no issue here. Exchange 2000 is just like another application server. Sure it can't run on Windows Server 2003 but it can run fine on a Win2000 member server in a Win2003 domain - thats the approach that I know a lot of customers are taking

    4. Re:Upgrade issues. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      This is not surprising. Exchange 2000 relies on IIS to provide underlying services like SMTP. Since IIS was supposedly rewritten from the ground up it stands to reason that it would break some applications. It probably breaks Sharepoint and a few other apps as well.

  45. Try Hacking my windows 2003 Server by chameleonanonymous · · Score: 1, Flamebait

    Address : www.dbcodegen.com only open port is 80 IIS6 Prize Money : $100 US winning entry - must replace the homepage with your contact so taht prize money can be paid. Ricky

    1. Re:Try Hacking my windows 2003 Server by cranos · · Score: 1

      Oh that was a good idea. Not only will the machine be hacked but it'll suffer a good old Slashdotting as well.

    2. Re:Try Hacking my windows 2003 Server by Pharmboy · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Address : www.dbcodegen.com only open port is 80 IIS6 Prize Money : $100 US winning entry - must replace the homepage with your contact so taht prize money can be paid. Ricky

      $100 bucks huh? Either you are wanting people to work (hack) at slave labor prices, thus doing your dirty work on the cheap, or you only have $100 worth of faith in a product that costs alot more.

      If someone just needs the $100, I could use some help this saturday spreading mulch and chainsawing several large trees here at the house. Pays cash. Bring gloves and a lunch. Beer provided afterward.

      --
      Tequila: It's not just for breakfast anymore!
    3. Re:Try Hacking my windows 2003 Server by GigsVT · · Score: 1

      No one is going to take your challenge, because there is nothing on the site that indicates the site owners consent to such action. No one is going to risk being sued to win $100.

      --
      I've had enough abrasive sigs. Kittens are cute and fuzzy.
    4. Re:Try Hacking my windows 2003 Server by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Ricky,

      Your server is secure but you can't program to save yourself.

      Here is your web.config file, with various items of interest contained within.

      -------------

    5. Re:Try Hacking my windows 2003 Server by Quill_28 · · Score: 1

      Where do you live?

    6. Re:Try Hacking my windows 2003 Server by crisco · · Score: 2, Funny

      Mmm, beer and chainsaws. Great Combination! I'll be there to watch.

      --

      Bleh!

  46. Duh...what is FOSS? by mackstann · · Score: 1

    Well, if OSS is "open source software", what are some terms that start with an f that are commonly associated with OSS? Free software? Duh! Free/Open Source Software. I thought computer nerds were supposed to be good at figuring things like this out. It took me all of 2 seconds to realize it.

  47. Try Hacking my windows 2003 Server by chameleonanonymous · · Score: 0, Redundant

    Address : www.dbcodegen.com only
    open port is 80 IIS6
    Prize Money : $100 US winning entry - must replace the homepage with your contact so taht prize money can be paid.
    Ricky

  48. One Small Step by Lord+Sauron · · Score: 4, Funny

    One small step for security, one giant leap for MS stocks.

  49. NT 6? by mojowantshappy · · Score: 1

    Is Windows Server 2003 considered NT 6 yet? Just curious about their version numbers.

    --

    This page was generated by a Barrel of Circus Midgets, and that is the way I like it!!!

    1. Re:NT 6? by spells · · Score: 3, Informative

      Nope.

      5.2.3790

    2. Re:NT 6? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      No, it is Windows NT 5.2

  50. This is daft... by Ciderx · · Score: 1

    So, if Windows Server 2003 is just a not-very-radical update to Windows 2000, does that make Linux 2003 a not-very-radical update to Unix 1970?

    1. Re:This is daft... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yes clearly 3 years of adding code to the existing Windows 2000 code base at Microsoft is the same as 23 years of development by about 100x more programmers than Microsoft has..

      Moron.

  51. on a small plus note, by sstory · · Score: 1

    I'm glad to see they're keeping for now the year-based naming convention and calling this Server 2003. Most product names are somewhat random. Often they are an opaque large number with strange incrementing i.e. the 80386 followed the 80286--don't even get me started on the motorola chip numbering. Year-based product naming has several good qualities: you automatically know where the product fits in the series, you automatically have a rough idea how old the tech is, and it's infinitely simply extensible.

    1. Re:on a small plus note, by geekoid · · Score: 1

      and you have no idea how big of a change it is, because onething MS doesn't wan't you to know is how little things change.

      --
      The Kruger Dunning explains most post on /. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect
    2. Re:on a small plus note, by sstory · · Score: 1

      You could say that about any product named via any common method, so that criticism is not relavant to the naming system.

  52. Puhleeze! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    If it's Microsquish it's gotta be bad huh? Ok, so they are a big bad monopoly using closed-source software. Your opinion is closed!

    Granted, Windows has its share of bugs; Linux does too. Given the amount of code between the two systems, I'll wager that Windows has less bugs per code than Linux.

    Our enterprise uses it exclusively on our servers and workstations. And it works well.

    I'm looking forward to the 64-bit version for our 64-bit Oracle database server.

    1. Re:Puhleeze! by benna · · Score: 0, Flamebait

      Um what exactly is a "code". I think you mean LINES of code. And if you do you are wrong. Linux has far fewer bugs than windows. Its just that on linux you find out about them and with microsoft they cover them up as long as they can.

      --
      "It is not how things are in the world that is mystical, but that it exists." -Ludwig Wittgenstein
    2. Re:Puhleeze! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Um what exactly is a "code". I think you mean LINES of code.

      I'm guessing his 'enterprise' is located in Redmond, Washington.

  53. Ummm by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

    "This is probably Microsoft's last chance to turn the tide and take mindset and market share from FOSS"

    Yep, if this fails, their market share is going to fall from 95% to 94.9%. I hope they have enough money saved up to weather the storm.

  54. negative connotation by TheRealRamone · · Score: 1

    FOSS makes me think of "FOSS-ILE"! who the hell started using this acronym? the MSFT FUD Dept?

  55. windows 2003 as a desktop by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    I've been running windows 2003 as a desktop for a couple weeks, and am really liking it. It comes with virtually everything disabled by default, and all the security stuff maxed. The main reason I moved over is cause I read an article here a while ago stating that microsoft had actually tried to release an OS with as few bugs as possible, and if I remember correctly the bug count is somewhere low like 100 or less (obviously this is known bugs only, I'd bet it's way higher). After the install I found it had everything XP had, themes, directx, everything. Believe it or not, games performed better on win2k3 server than on winXP. I had both installed for a couple days, and did some other comparisons like memory usage, etc, and it turned out it uses WAY less. My 7 month old XP install used 400mb of virtual memory and 250 physical memory with no programs running, while 2k3 used 100 of each. That is a HUGE difference. It also boots alot faster as well. I haven't found any incompatibilities yet, so I'll be keeping this as my desktop. I do run a server on linux, and will definately keep it that way simply due to resources difference.

    1. Re:windows 2003 as a desktop by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      > I've been running windows 2003 as a desktop for a couple weeks, and am really liking it.

      It appears I'm in exactly the same position; I also like it as a desktop and it does indeed perform better than other Windows versions.
      The only problem I had was when I had to change my date for an application and forgot to change it back when rebooting. On startup, it informed me that the time trial had expired... Format and reinstall was the only option to get it running again.

    2. Re:windows 2003 as a desktop by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      250MB physical ram on startup? thats a lot of stuff installed and running in the background. not suprising a fresh OS is running faster and more stable...

    3. Re:windows 2003 as a desktop by pmz · · Score: 2

      Who let the MS 'turf kiddies out of their pen?

  56. a quick guide by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    italics w/ quotes - usually quote from linked article
    italics w/o quotes - submitter's words
    plain text - editor's comments

  57. I see little difference by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

    And all those incremential Linux distos are, naturally, huge steps forward--but the minute MS refines one of its products for release and calls it a new version, it's the work of the Devil.

    1. Re:I see little difference by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yeah, nobody has to "consider" upgrading in linux!!! It's free and the support contracts don't question the version you are using as far as i know.

      You have to think twice, end *evaluate* when you need to give MONEY!!!

  58. Re:IT managers on tight budgets? by drunk_as_in_beer · · Score: 1

    Sure, linux is free, but it's not quite that simple for some people...

    That's actually kinda comforting.. Because when Linux expertise becomes high in demand (which is happening), there will be a short supply.

    --
    --Drunk as in Beer
  59. Re:I'd love to tell Microsoft to go pound sand, bu by letxa2000 · · Score: 2, Informative
    years, and I'd love to cut Microsoft loose altogether, but I just don't think I can do it yet. A few of the reasons:

    Try Win4Lin. This is what allowed me to migrate finally to Linux. Win4Lin is kind of like a "light" version of VMWare that only costs $89, and I presume there would be volume discounts available if you migrate your whole company.

    Point is, Win4Lin lets you run virtually every business-critical Windows program there is. I use it to run Word, Excel, Powerpoint, VB6, VC++, Quicken, Quickbooks, PaintShopPro, Metrowerks Codewarrior (for Palm development). Multimedia apps, such as Windows Media and RealPlayer, both work under IE under Win4Lin.

    Win4Lin is a great way to incrementally move away from MS. First you install Linux and Win4Lin throughout the enterprise, freeing yourself from Microsoft OS's. Then, as time goes on, you'll find that need fewer and fewer of the apps you thought you "needed" under Windows. I have Win4Lin for the applications I listed above but, to be honest, I use them very seldomly. But Win4Lin is a great idea for a company that would like to free itself from MS licensing but can't "risk" going cold-turkey.

    Heck, try all your enterprise Windows apps on a single Linux machine with Win4Lin. If it doesn't work, oh well. If it does... Ready, set, deploy! :)

  60. The most important update is probably: by SonicBurst · · Score: 4, Informative

    The new stand alone Active Directory (application mode AD, as it is called) for apps that require directory service but don't really require a full blown domain. That change alone is worth a major rev. level.

    There is also the "restore from media" option that lets you build *new* DCs from the system state backup of an old DC. Previously, you couldn't do that, and bringing up a new DC meant running dcpromo and replicating all the data from the various domains. Big deal you say? An HP IT department had to sync a new DC that was also a global catalog over a WAN line. It took 3 DAYS just for the replication. Obviously this will save some serious amounts of time.

    --

    Geek used to be a four letter word. Now it's a six-figure one.
    1. Re:The most important update is probably: by Mr_Cheeky · · Score: 0

      Three days? Looks like that static inheritance on the ACL's will get you every time...

    2. Re:The most important update is probably: by Slime-dogg · · Score: 5, Interesting

      They also stuck an http listener at the kernel level. It doesn't do anything except listen for http requests, and line up those requests in a queue. It is this way so that if IIS is restarted, clients are not disconnected.

      The other difference (available in win2k) is the .NET ASP handling. Since ASP.NET pages are very much like java servlets, they become objects that can be handled in a separate process, on a separate machine. This is basically a clone of those J2EE Application Servers, but with .NET integrated to the core into the OS, the performace difference is astounding.

      I'm no MS fan, mind you, but they've taken the J2EE idea, and refined it for performance benefits. When you make some benchmarks, side by side with code that's exactly the same, you'll see that .NET is probably much faster than J2EE. Sorry... but the JVM is running with lower process priority than .NET, and does not have the integration that .NET has.

      Some say that integration is a bad thing. Some say it is a good thing. Me? I really don't give a shit now. I used to be all for the separation of code, drawing a distinction between the System and the OS proggies. I admire the Unix philosophy of stringing together a bunch of tiny programs to accomplish something more complex. I've also seen the performance benefits of an integrated system (monolithic kernel anyone? ahem), and why not take it a step further. As long as MS is there to blame for their security problems (which there will be plenty, undoubtedly), I don't see why people should turn down their product. It's built for the sole purpose of serving web pages very quickly, and very reliably.

      I think MS finally pulled their heads out of their asses and realized that they weren't getting anywhere with the shitty-assed ASP, nor were they going anywhere with a server that cut everyone's connection if something went wrong. I like statefulness, I like the technology of J2EE. I also think that MS put a lot of effort into making .NET server (oh whatever, 2003) a very competitive product. All they have going against it is their reputation, and the fact that they have next to nothing as far as market share in the web server business.

      --
      You need to restart your computer. Hold down the Power button for several seconds or press the Restart button.
    3. Re:The most important update is probably: by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      The thing is .NET doesn't run at the kernel level. There is no integration into the 'core os', its just another runtime making win32 API calls.

      What makes .NET so fast is:
      1) MSIL is designed for optimization, and to be compiled not interpreted. Several features of the IL, inferring types from stacks, etc, allow you to make some great improvements in perf.

      2) MS has a HUGE team of developers working on high speed, high quality JITs that are using some of the latest ideas in compsci. In-line optimizers also optimize code on the fly, so the longer your program runs the faster it gets. (You can see this if you make video processing loops, etc.)

      3) This huge team of developers gets more bang for their buck than from, say, IBM, because MSIL is easier to optimize. IBM has made some INCREDIBLE advances to Java performance, but Java's stack assembly is so much harder to optimize that IBM's team has to work a lot harder for the same gains.

      (IBM has some incredible scientists though, and these guys really made Java viable on the performance end.)

  61. GUI by SHEENmaster · · Score: 0

    I've found Micros~1's complete dependence upon GUIs to be one of its biggest drawbacks. You can't just hop over to a windows box through telnet/ssh/rlogin to edit IIS's config file or play some music.

    Linux/UNIX and to a lesser extent OS X have the unique ability to be used on a varied range of hardware and access methods.

    To get this back oon topic, does M$ admit that 2k3server is just a minor upgrade like they did with XP(aka NT 5.1) upgrades from 2k(aka NT 5.0)?

    --
    You can't judge a book by the way it wears its hair.
    1. Re:GUI by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      That is a total myth. I can telnet to a windows box open EDIT and write a small WSH/WMI script that will play music for me or edit the IIS configuration. Oreilly put out a great book on Win2k commands and MS just released a really cool book on administrative scripting. Maybe you should check those out before you make more uninformed comments about windows dependence on a the GUI.

    2. Re:GUI by t0ny · · Score: 1
      I doubt it: they probably dont see a reason to lie about their product just to make a bunch of angry-at-the-world, pimply faced, college student linux users happy.

      If you want to know whats new, there is an abundance of information on all things Microsoft.

      And you CAN do just about anything you want remotely (without a gui), but it does take planning to impliment. Everything you need is with the downloadable Resource Kit Tools.

      Most Slashdotters (and managers as well) dont realize there is more to maintaining MS networks than point and click.

      --

      Manipulate the moderator system! Mod someone as "overrated" today.

    3. Re:GUI by sheldon · · Score: 0, Flamebait

      "You can't just hop over to a windows box through telnet/ssh/rlogin to edit IIS's config file or play some music."

      Is it because you can't, or just because you don't know how?

    4. Re:GUI by TeraCo · · Score: 1

      No, but you can use VNC, or their built in remote control thingo, if it's any good. The CLI isn't dead, but jesus, quit talking about GUI's like they're a contagious disease.

      --
      Not Meta-modding due to apathy.
    5. Re:GUI by boskone · · Score: 1

      dunno all hte details, but they are aiming at Linux/UNIX from what I can see. There are additional console tools that are much more powerful than in previous windows versions.

    6. Re:GUI by SN74S181 · · Score: 1

      I, for one, couldn't live without the tab completion (or any number of other meta-keys can be set up to trigger completion) that can easily be enabled for the Windows 2000 command prompt if you install and mess with the TweakUI Control Panel element. It sure as heck isn't a scripting prompt like /bin/bash or /bin/csh but there is a lot that's been added since command.com.

      A lot of the good stuff in Windows these days can be attributed to the pressure being put on Microsoft by the Unix competition. Which is really good for anybody who has to use the MS stuff. I'd sure as hell hate for Microsoft to only be competing with Novell like in the old days.

    7. Re:GUI by arkanes · · Score: 1

      There are a LOT of things you can't do remotely, even with the resource tools. Try unloading an isapi plugin from IIS so you can install a new verion. Huge pain in the butt when you're developing. Inability to overwrite libraries or applications that're loaded in memory is a big weakness of Windows, imo - it's probably the biggest single cause of rebooting at installations (with 2k/XP, at long last, you can do almost everything else except install new low-level hardware drivers without a reboot).

    8. Re:GUI by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Who needs TweakUI? Just do a cmd /? and read how
      to do all of that yourself.

    9. Re:GUI by defaulthtm · · Score: 1

      Or you could just edit
      HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\MICROSOFT\COMMAN D PROCESSOR\CompleteionChar
      or
      HKEY_CURRENT_USER\S OFTWARE\MICROSOFT\COMMAND PROCESSOR\CompleteionChar
      and set the value to 9 in (I believe) every version of windows (certainly in all of the NT /XP lines) and you can tab along happily

      --
      K
    10. Re:GUI by t0ny · · Score: 1
      ok, I was exagerating a bit when I said you can do everything, but there is a lot. Also, now you can work on the server in a terminal session with its ability to have one admin session.

      And yes, I do realize this is the lazy mans way out, but at least the problem is starting to be addressed. They have made a LOT of progress if you look at where they started from. Lets face it, LanMan just plain SUCKED. Im glad that now, with Active Directory and Windows 2000 (and beyond) we can finally start to jettison the LanMan and NetBIOS stuff. It will probably take a bit more time to finally rid us of all of that, because they cant totally ditch backward compatibility. But someday, our children will no longer have to toil under the shadow of NetBIOS!!!

      --

      Manipulate the moderator system! Mod someone as "overrated" today.

  62. Try Hacking my windows 2003 Server by chameleonanonymous · · Score: 1, Interesting
    I really want to see how good Windows 2003 is. So hack away. Address : www.dbcodegen.com

    only open port is 80 IIS6

    Prize Money : $100 US winning entry - must replace the homepage with your contact so taht prize money can be paid.

    Ricky

  63. will pay off big in SOME environments by djupedal · · Score: 2, Funny

    .....like the finance dept. in MS HQ?

    Wouldn't you also agree that for those looking to move from NT4, that they could also see a big ROI if they moved to OSS instead? If yes, why would you try to sell a MS solution here, without mentioning that?

    1. Re:will pay off big in SOME environments by boskone · · Score: 1

      I've read quite a few whitepapers/case studies on the subject, and it looks like MS has a stronger ROI than OSS in many cases.

      Granted, most of these are biased by whoever is paying for them, but I'm not sure that OSS is clearcut "cheaper" anymore when you figure in all the costs of admin and support. I'm not saying unequivocally the MS or commercial UNIX is either. What's newsworthy to me is that I think MS truly DOES have a good story to tell this time around (for the first time ever in my opinion). We'll see how it all plays out in real world deployments, but it looks pretty strong from what I've seen.

    2. Re:will pay off big in SOME environments by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Think of it this way, the biggest cost you have in medium and big iron is not software. If i'm buying a 10,000 dollar server, 2000 bucks for software licenses, the guy im paying to set it up costs more.

      That's why Linux isn't cheaper. Medium and Large companies don't go out, buy cheapo beige box, and install linux. Nor do they go out, buy an HP/COMPAQ/DELL and install linux. They get a professional system that has been tested from a vendor, and is certified to run certain versions of Linux.

      If they can't find a company doing that, they have to pay someone internally (or externally) to do that for them. They go out, buy the Dell server, install Debian/Gentoo/RH9/whatever, configure it, figure out the quirks, find out it crashes every 5 minutes unless you apply a raid patch, write up a document and create system images, and now have a viable, stable, high performance system.

      But you had to pay someone to do integration testing. (Internally or externally.) Windows 2k3 server (just like Solaris, HP-UX, etc.) gets its integration testing from the vendor, so all-in-all its not licenses that cost the $$, but the integration testing.

      So you buy your linux boxes from companies that do integrated solutions, such as IBM, or HP. You still had to pay HP or IBM to do the integration testing and so Linux is no longer clearly the cheaper solution.

  64. Re:Not a bad thing if they improve without bloatin by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    wtf do you need 24bit support in terminal services for ?

  65. also ... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    AMD 64-bit apps if you know the reg key to enable it and get your hands on the compiler etc.

  66. airline budgets! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I'll bet American and United and Delta are just going to jump at this upgrade. Imagine what they'll save migrating the reservations systems from whatever they're on now. And I'll bet Dow has tunzobucks to spend on new systems. And GM is just rolling in the dough. And Toyota can convert their dealers info systems to something that has a traceable responsibility when something goes wrong.

    Not.

  67. FOSS is such a sh*tty name by TheRealRamone · · Score: 3, Funny

    What kind of moron chooses the root of the word "fossile" as the name of a movement trying to develop technology?

    1. Re:FOSS is such a sh*tty name by oogoliegoogolie · · Score: 1

      What's exactly is a fossile? I did a search and only results in french came back. Is a fossile like when you only have one fossil?

    2. Re:FOSS is such a sh*tty name by benna · · Score: 1

      You are kidding right? If not slashdot has reached a new low.

      --
      "It is not how things are in the world that is mystical, but that it exists." -Ludwig Wittgenstein
    3. Re:FOSS is such a sh*tty name by pmz · · Score: 1

      What kind of moron chooses the root of the word "fossile" as the name of a movement trying to develop technology?

      Actually, it isn't totally inappropriate, because UNIX and GNU have their origins in the ages of the dinosaurs. Linux is newer, perhaps originating during the age of early humans. Given some of the controversy occuring lately, we may be entering the Dark Ages, soon. Personally, I can't wait to get a parrot and sail the high seas, but that's still twenty years or so away. Oh well.

  68. Remember Red Hat was at $125 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
    Seems I remember RHAT being at about the same in the same timeframe. And it closed at $6.14 today.

    Hmmmm.

    Free-taggin'...it's cooler that way.

  69. Get a free copy of it right here. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

    Get a 180 day Windows Server 2003 Evaluation Kit at this link

    The following items are included in the Windows Server 2003 Evaluation Kit:

    Windows Server 2003, Enterprise Edition, RTM CD
    Windows Server 2003 Resource CD
    A unique Product Key (required for installation)
    Links to additional Web-based documentation

    The Evaluation Kit is available only in English when you order it from this Web site. Localized versions may be available in other locales. We will add international Web site links as they become available.

    There is no fee for the Windows Server 2003 Evaluation Kit. As a special promotional offer, Windows Server 2003 Evaluation Kits will be shipped at no charge to customers in the United States, through July 31, 2003. (However, fees will apply if customers choose to receive their shipment via express methods.) Orders from outside the United States are subject to shipping charges and may be subject to import duties and taxes. When ordering from this site, you are considered the importer of record and must comply with all laws and regulations of the country/region in which you are receiving the shipment.

    Product Activation

    A Product Key is included in the Kit. Product activation can be completed online or by telephone within 14 days of installation and is required for continued use of the software. Detailed instructions and Microsoft's privacy statement are displayed during the installation of the product.

    Support Options

    The Windows Server 2003 trial software is provided as a convenience only. For assistance, consider the following support options:

    Windows Server 2003 Support Center.

    View up-to-date support information, including Microsoft Knowledge Base articles, frequently asked questions, how-to guides, and support WebCasts on the Microsoft Product Support Services site.

    Windows Server Community.

    Get answers to questions about Windows Server 2003 from newsgroups, explore technology centers, or find out about upcoming events and chats.

    Windows Server 2003 on TechNet.

    Find information about deploying, managing, and optimizing your Windows Server 2003 installation.

    Training and Certification

    Visit the Windows Server 2003 Training and Events page to see what classes, technical books, and interactive training software for Windows Server 2003 are available.

    1. Re:Get a free copy of it right here. by RedshiftMD · · Score: 2, Informative

      Though it doesn't say anything thing definite, the request for a billing address would indicate that this is not free.

    2. Re:Get a free copy of it right here. by nyseal · · Score: 1

      Maybe they'll accept PayPal!

      --
      [SIG] Remember Mattel handheld games?
    3. Re:Get a free copy of it right here. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Well, duh, you have to pay them for shipping and handling somehow! They're not just going to let you download it over the Net for free...

    4. Re:Get a free copy of it right here. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Media and use of content of Media is free for limited time use - shipping is not. The billing address if for shipping.

  70. ARCHRIVAL Is Heading Up The Midwest Campaign by WebWiz · · Score: 0, Troll

    My brother works for the company that is heading up Microsoft's Midwest Windows 2003 Server Campaign. They are called ARCHRIVAL - Check them out here: http://www.archrival.com

    WebWiz

  71. Why does this always turn into Windows vs. Linux? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Interesting

    An MS Engineers point of view:

    Win2k3 is a nice upgrade...I say this because it includes a lot of the things that people ASKED Microsoft for from Win2k.

    - Resultant set of GPO available without using GPRESULT (GUI reporting MMC. cool if you've ever have the problem of tracking down GPOs)
    - Rename a domain & not have to rejoin all workstaitons
    - Nice new volume utilities - VSS (volume snapshots)
    - IIS 6.0 - a little more secure (it's still not APACHE)

    but to compare this type of OS to Linux isn't fair. You really can't EVER compare the two.

    - Linux requires really learning and living Linux, and I haven't really seen any training seminars/tracks dedicated to learning LINUX (ok, now you bastard nitpicky people are going to name places where they have them, but the fact is that they're not widely available)
    - Linux doesn't have a tool for a unified directory. MS doesn't have it 100% there, or even 75% for that matter, but they're trying.
    - Linux as a desktop is clunky...average users won't be able to deal with it, and AVERAGE USERS make the difference when it comes to LINUX OR NOT. We can be as asmart as we want with Linux, but they have to use it to do work, and the work drives the OS.

    I happen to be more than a little familiar with Linux, and it's just not there. It's fun, it's different, and I HATE the way that MS bullies users into licensing and upgrading (I have clients who run NT4.0 happily and have to upgrade b/c support for it is being cancelled in July). BUT -

    before linux can be accepted as MS has been accepted, they need to stop having so many FLAVORS OF IT. Can't you band together yet??? Getit together and SLAY this goliath. Until then, stop complaining. Linux is making it more difficult ot take seriously be having so many flavors.

    (and STOP before you flame that...you know that everone that loves LINUX loves their flavor of LINUX and not just LINUX.)

    Anyone else care to comment? I'm interested. if you're going to flame, keep it to yourself unless you can back it up.

  72. Microsoft Is a Monopoly by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Why then are you surprised by the obvious?

  73. Tight budgets make MS a nonstarter. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I am working with a client right now who is in MS licensing hell - an old vendor sold illegal copies of everything MS to them and now they want to implement a host of tools to manage a manufacturing plant. MS is impossible the OS and office suite alone from them will cost $1500 CAD$ per machine! On top of everything else that needs to be done there just isn't the cash to pay for this. Sure it will take alot of work inhouse to move to Linux but it will be friendly on the companies cash flow.

    The cost of breaking out of the MS platform is initially high in man hours but once its done its done - right now the only price I'd pay for MS software "solutions" is free to about a Canadian Dollar.

  74. Windows Server 2003 by sciwhiz007 · · Score: 0, Troll
    The reasons Microsoft profits from its products are:
    • Many users haven't heard of alternatives
    • Most users fall for Microsoft's marketing gimmicks
    • Most uers fall for it when Microsoft takes a product, polishes it, then resells it at triple the price.
    • Most users think that every computer comes built-in with a nice windozey interface that has an explorer where you can see some cute drive icons: A:, C:, D:
    • Microsoft has money. It has the money, and the strength to push its might on to hardware manufacturers. It also has its own advertising machine, as said before. And lastly, it has the ability to bulldoze the competition quite easily.
    Seriously, when is the last time Microsoft has made a drastic change to its system? And, how many users have heard of OpenOffice? Microsoft has been pretty good at its game, hasn't it?
    --
    Read my journal here.
    1. Re:Windows Server 2003 by M.C.+Hampster · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Hmm, ok, I'll bite:

      Many users haven't heard of alternatives

      Not true. I've heard of plenty.

      Most users fall for Microsoft's marketing gimmicks

      What marketing gimmicks exactly? I love Windows XP. It works perfectly for me. It has quite a bit of the software I use built in. I love the interface, and if I didn't, I could go back to the Win2000 interface, which I also love. I've used UNIX and I hate it. I will say, I'm going to give Linux a try soon though.

      Most uers fall for it when Microsoft takes a product, polishes it, then resells it at triple the price.

      Name a Microsoft product that this ever happened to.

      Most users think that every computer comes built-in with a nice windozey interface that has an explorer where you can see some cute drive icons: A:, C:, D:

      Um, I hate to break it to you, but most do. Now I realize what you are trying to say is that most don't understand the OS is actually seperate from the computer, but still, most new computers do come with Windows, so I think what you said is kind of true, no?

      Microsoft has money. It has the money, and the strength to push its might on to hardware manufacturers. It also has its own advertising machine, as said before. And lastly, it has the ability to bulldoze the competition quite easily.

      This is true. :-)

      Seriously, when is the last time Microsoft has made a drastic change to its system?

      Um, Windows XP was a drastic change to the OS over WinMe/98/95. At least in my opinion.

      --
      Forget the whales - save the babies.
    2. Re:Windows Server 2003 by LightningTH · · Score: 2, Informative

      [quote]
      Um, Windows XP was a drastic change to the OS over WinMe/98/95. At least in my opinion.
      [/quote]

      Actually, Windows XP was an upgrade from Windows 2000 which was an upgrade from Windows NT 4. So, in reality, Windows XP was not a drastic change as it was just upgraded from 2000 and never came from the 9x line.

    3. Re:Windows Server 2003 by TheRealRamone · · Score: 1
      "Name a Microsoft product that this ever happened to."

      uh..... qdos?

      --TRR

      "uhh, that's ignor-ahh-mus" -- love and death

    4. Re:Windows Server 2003 by sciwhiz007 · · Score: 1

      When I say many users, that doesn't include every single one. The majority doesn't mean or even IMPLY 100%. Go ask people around you, those who are non-technically inclined. Not surprisingly, MANY people have not heard of alternatives at all. Technically-inclined people would have naturally heard of alternatives because they are into that kind of stuff.

      Microsoft has taken old products and polished them so many times. Explorer, DOS, and the Windows GUI are only a few examples!

      And by the way, you are welcome to love Windows XP and hate UNIX.

      --
      Read my journal here.
    5. Re:Windows Server 2003 by M.C.+Hampster · · Score: 1

      Windows XP Home is the newest consumer level OS introduced by Microsoft. For the consumer, this means it is the "upgrade" from Windows ME. Yes, it was based Windows 2000, but it is quite a departure from it.

      --
      Forget the whales - save the babies.
    6. Re:Windows Server 2003 by sciwhiz007 · · Score: 1
      Here's a response:
      What marketing gimmicks exactly?

      Well, have you ever seen Microsoft's advertisements or their web site regarding their new, latest products? Take Office XP, for example. They were talking about smart tags and a new extensible architecture. But were the smart tags really something of use?

      The primary reason why Microsoft profits is because it has the money, and because a lot of consumers do not know any other options, and think it is perfectly normal for their computer to crash occasionally.

      If you give me the example of Windows XP not crashing often, what percentage of the population really uses Windows XP? Not everyone, in fact only a small portion of the population owns the latest and greatest computers running Windows XP.

      Also, the reason why Microsoft's software, and proprietary software is popular, is because people often find ways of obtaining the software through illegal channels. Although the law is trying to stop this, it is an uphill task to completely eradicate software piracy. If everyone had no other option other than buying Microsoft's software, I think the percent of the population using Windows/Office will be much, much lesser.

      Name a product that this has ever happened to.

      As I said earlier, and I repeat myself, Internet Explorer (which was originally Spyglass' browser), the Windows GUI, why even DOS itself. All these products were not ORIGINALLY designed by Microsoft. They were either bought by MS, or were ideas that were copied from other software companies. Unfortunately, when the small companies try to retaliate, it has proven quite tough for them to win. There's nothing much you can do when you are up against a huge, monopolistic behemoth.

      Another problem is Microsoft's closed approach to most of its products, and formats. If a user creates Office documents at his workplace, he is literally forced to use Office at home in order to make sure there's complete compatibility. This is because, as you all know, of Microsoft's closed document formats. Once Microsoft has control over Office, it automatically forces the user to use Windows, because Office works best on it. Office v.X (for the Mac) is a joke compared to Office XP, and it doesn't even come close to offering all of the features in the Windows version. Hence, you have a consumer lockdown cycle. Once Microsoft makes a change to its format, its customers are forced to make upgrades, through legal/illegal means. Once Microsoft has monopolized the OS market, software companies are forced to develop primarily, or even entirely for Windows. When users see that all their products work only on Windows, they automatically are attracted to it, and are helpless even if it crashes regularly, because no other platform supports all the proprietary formats they use every day.

      This is why Microsoft is able to sustain such huge profits.

      --
      Read my journal here.
    7. Re:Windows Server 2003 by The+Bungi · · Score: 0, Troll
      Like Linux was an upgrade from Minix.

      Next!

    8. Re:Windows Server 2003 by The+Bungi · · Score: 1
      And by the way, you are welcome to love Windows XP and hate UNIX.

      How interesting. So you assume that anyone who finds Windows XP usable, interesting or fun to use must, by definition, hate all other operating systems?

      If you want to be a zealot, that's all fine and dandy. But don't make the mistake of assuming everyone else is, too.

    9. Re:Windows Server 2003 by M.C.+Hampster · · Score: 1
      As I said earlier, and I repeat myself, Internet Explorer (which was originally Spyglass' browser), the Windows GUI, why even DOS itself.

      Here is your original quote:

      Most uers fall for it when Microsoft takes a product, polishes it, then resells it at triple the price.

      That's the kind of example I'm asking for. Personally, I don't feel "gouged" too often by Microsoft, except maybe if I had to purchase Office. But even then, the ugprades aren't that expensive. Of course, the amount of new features in newer versions of Office is obviously not worth the money.

      As for proprietary formats, I would like to see more open formats used by Microsoft, but it's not as if it is impossible to write something that can open and create Office documents. But you are correct in saying that Office is one of the main reasons that Microsoft is still on top. It's a huge cash cow that makes them a ton of money.

      --
      Forget the whales - save the babies.
    10. Re:Windows Server 2003 by sciwhiz007 · · Score: 1

      It's not as if it is impossible to write something that can open and create Office documents.

      Yeah sure, it isn't that hard is it? I am sure you will agree that reverse engineering formats is a VERY tedious and hard process. Especially when the company changes the format every once in a while. Do you know how much trouble the Linux NTFS project went through to reverse engineer the NTFS file system? If you're interested, please check out how they were able to do it. Not making a format, or a technology open, or not releasing documentation on it, (at the very least) hurts the software industry, and consumers as well. For Microsoft, this is great isn't it? They don't have to release documentation, no one forces them to, and they get to keep all the secrets of the Windows API to themselves. Other than money, what more could a software giant want?

      You asked for an example. Although off the top of my head, I can't think of an example that exactly fits the definition "triple the price", I do have what I consider to be a fairly good example. Take Windows 2000 and Windows XP for instance. I can comfortably say, I am fairly experienced in both the operating systems, especially Windows 2000. You must agree with me, that the differences between these two operating systems are not very great. Some people would not agree with me because to them it LOOKS entirely different. But hey, other than that, are there a lot more differences? According to me at least, no.

      But, Microsoft expects users to pay close to $ 200.00 USD to upgrade to this completely new, full featured version. Frankly, after using both these operating systems, I find that upgrade price ridiculous. The new features certainly do NOT justify the price. Just for an upgrade, that price is completely absurd.

      Coming back to Office, even if it is easy to create a program that can write and open Office documents, what about slightly more advanced features such as text-boxes? I don't know if you have experience with OpenOffice, but OpenOffice does not display all text boxes created in Word. Also, numbering and bulleting isn't always the way it was intended to be when you transfer between applications. The problem isn't writing or reading the Office formats. The problem is when you transfer files between the two suites. You can't exactly blame the OpenOffice group. They've only been at it for 2 years! See what the creation of closed file formats can do?

      One more point I forgot to make last time, sorry if I am bringing up something new. The inclusion of Internet Explorer and it being chosen by default as the default browser isn't exactly fair. Why? Because users tend to think that is the only browser that they can use. That's their link to the internet. You might say, "Well the users can always check out other browsers if they're interested." Sure, that's fine, but sad fact is, most don't. You are welcome to check statistics if you want, but IE is the most popular browser out there. What does this mean? Web designers are forced to focus mainly on making their web pages work on IE. If you don't know, IE isn't exactly a standard-compliant browser at all. This means web pages created using the standards may not look the same in IE, and hence web designers have to customize their web pages to work on IE. Some web designers ignore other browsers all together, and this creates a problem. You have a vicious cycle again. Users don't know other browsers exist, and hence they use IE. In response, web designers create more and more web pages exclusively for IE. In response to that, the users trying to switch to other browsers, don't, because most "IE-designed" web pages display poorly on non-IE browsers. Once again, you have the problem of Microsoft not following web standards, or even trying to switch to open, standard formats.

      If you're tempted to say that IE might be popular because it's a great browser, you're welcome

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      Read my journal here.
    11. Re:Windows Server 2003 by sciwhiz007 · · Score: 1
      If you want to be a zealot, that's all fine and dandy. But don't make the mistake of assuming everyone else is, too.

      Hmm, what makes you say I'm a zealot? All I was doing was responding to what he said that he likes Windows XP and didn't like UNIX. It was meant to be a gesture, not an insult, at all. Believe me if you please. I really find it hard to understand how you extrapolate that I think that all Windows XP users (those who enjoy it) by definition, hate all other operating systems. What makes you think that I assume everyone else is a zealot? If you like an operating system, go ahead and use it, who am I to question you? I never even hinted that fact in my post (or any part of it) at all. That wasn't my aim, sorry if you misunderstood it.

      If you still think of me as a zealot, I don't mind. But I think you must think twice before labeling anyone a zealot just due to a single sentence. One line can have more than one meaning or intention you know...

      --
      Read my journal here.
    12. Re:Windows Server 2003 by M.C.+Hampster · · Score: 1

      I don't mean to say it's easy to reverse engineer a file format, file system or network protocol. And like I said, I do agree with you that it is obviously in Microsoft's interest to keep those formats closed. I'm trying to rememeber how we got on to that subject... :-)

      You must agree with me, that the differences between these two operating systems are not very great. Some people would not agree with me because to them it LOOKS entirely different. But hey, other than that, are there a lot more differences? According to me at least, no.

      I could come up with a list that shows how different the two really are. Many of them are "under the hood" so to speak but realize that they had to take Windows 2000 and make sure it ran most Windows ME/9X programs without messing everything up. They did that pretty darn well in my opinion. As for the price, if you want the professional version, then yes, the upgrade was $199, but for the home version the upgrade was $99. That's not really much more than say purchasing a commercial Linux distro, and for the most part, they didn't have to do nearly the work to come up with the Linux product as Microsoft had to to develop Windows XP.

      Also, you will notice that the full price and upgrade price for Windows as new versions come out doesn't really change from year to year. That's why I took you to task on the "triple" the price. I don't really see Microsoft raising their prices in the last 10 years. In fact, when you account for inflation, many of their products probably cost less than they use to.

      As for the diversion into IE, I don't have problem with you bringing it up. First off, the inclusion of IE into the OS, along with it being the default is to the benefit of the consumer in my opinion. Not only do they not have to worry about downloading a browser, or purchasing one, but the componentized (new word?) setup of IE makes it very easy for programmers to develop applications that use parts of IE and not have to worry about them not being their. I think incorporating the Web browser into the operating system is the next logical step for the OS. And as for crash statistics, I can't remember the last time IE crashed on me in Win2000 at work or WinXP at home. Honestly. If you really need to go back to Windows 95 to make your point about IE, I don't think it's a very strong one.

      --
      Forget the whales - save the babies.
    13. Re:Windows Server 2003 by sciwhiz007 · · Score: 1

      they didn't have to do nearly the work to come up with the Linux product as Microsoft had to to develop Windows XP.

      Honestly, the amount you get by paying 99 dollars for a commercial Linux distro is MUCH MUCH more than what you would get from a Windows box. In fact, most modern Linux distros (not server editions, of course) cost only about 30 - 50 bucks, depending on the distro and your location. Also, you get a LOT for what you pay. Moreover, almost all versions of these distros (in most circumstances, i.e.) can be downloaded free of cost. What about the documentation? It's available in pdf/html format. One of the main reasons Distro companies charge for their OS is due to the cost of packaging, printing books, etc. The amount these companies ship in one box without paying over 30 - 50 bucks is amazing. Most distros offer good tech support, including speaking on the phone with customer service. Fortunately or unfortunately, I've had experience with Microsoft tech support, and it certainly could be better. In fact, correct me if I'm wrong, don't you have to pay to speak to them?

      And, if you say, "Well these distros don't have to do nearly the amount of work Microsoft has to.", each distribution offers a HUGE number of customized features in order to attract users. Although some people are against Red Hat, let me use it as an example. Red Hat recently included its own interface/theme known as BlueCurve. As soon as you look at it, it's quite clear that they put a lot of work into it. In fact, I speak from experience. Due to BlueCurve, GNOME applications run wonderfully on KDE, and vice versa. Also, the interface changes are minimalized. Hence, users can switch between the two without having to adapt to too many changes. Trust me, and if you're interested, check it out. In fact, when you buy a distro, you get basically everything you'll ever need for your work. Don't tell me that that's the case with any of Microsoft's Windows products.

      As for IE, I am certainly not going to go back to Windows 95, as I know it's not a strong point. But however, remember that a significant part of the population still uses 95/98/Me, where IE isn't great. Also, to tell you the truth, I run Windows 2000 on another partition, and I have had quite a number of experiences where IE has crashed to my disappointment. It usually happens when I try to access an FTP server that's down (not online, whatever). I see a message, "Server name could not be resolved, then IE stops responding. Obviously, I have no other option other than giving the three-finger salute (Ctrl-Alt-Del :-) (And yes, if you want to know if I keep my system up2date, yes.) Anyway, that was only one instance where IE repeatedly succeeds to crash.

      Coming back to the main point about IE, I don't mind most users liking IE, or using it. I was only talking about the problem of most users using a browser that isn't standard-compliant and what that does to the web and standards in general. In fact, integration of the browser is not a bad idea, and I agree with you on that point. (If you're familiar with KDE, it does sound a bit like Konqueror being both a file manager and a browser, right? :-)

      Maybe you're right about the upgrade price for the Home edition not being too expensive. But take Windows XP Professional itself as an example. The full version, here in Canada, costs us 450 - 499 CAD (you could convert that I guess :-) I am just not able to justify that price for what you really get along with the OS. In fact, whether you accept it or not, one of the main reasons why Windows XP is so popular is 1. Stability has certainly been improved 2. Games run better and crash less frequently and 3. (most importantly) the interface looks much nicer compared to the previous versions of the OS.

      However, if you as a user are only interested in having a better interface, he/she can check out Object Desktop. A

      --
      Read my journal here.
    14. Re:Windows Server 2003 by sciwhiz007 · · Score: 1

      Sorry I failed to say this before, but before labeling someone a zealot, you should at least read through what they generally say. If you make the effort to read through my posts, you can clearly see that I'm not an impassioned bigot who hates Microsoft products because they are created by Microsoft. In fact, I am even ready to commend the company for facilitating the placement of a computer in so many homes around the world. My arguments against Microsoft are fairly justified, and hopefully the tone and content of my posts reflect that. I don't think I would classify as the classic, stuck-up person who hates a company due to no reason. And once again, I don't HATE Microsoft. All I am doing is speaking out against its policies, not being a zealot.

      --
      Read my journal here.
    15. Re:Windows Server 2003 by M.C.+Hampster · · Score: 1

      I'm glad you summarized because I'm rather busy IRL and don't have a lot of time to respond.

      Linux distros offer a lot more value for what you pay compared to Windows.

      I very much disagree with this. While Linux distros may include a lot of third party utilities that will help get work done, that doesn't mean that they offer a lot more value. This is your opinion. My opinion is that I get a lot of value out of Windows. Let me repeat, I will be running Linux soon so I can get some experience with it, but from what I hear from people I know who run Linux and from what I see in conversations around here, it's just not as easy to use as Windows. Again, your opinion may differ, and mine may change when I actually run Linux, but from the limited experience I have with it (and UNIX), Windows is a lot easier to use. There is a HUGE value for me in not having to do anything to get Windows to work. At home, I rarely have to futz, play with, or configure anything. It just works.

      Linux distros offer a huge number of custmoizations to their version, as well as up to 400 pages of documentation, 6 CDs with software, all for only 30 - 50 USD.

      So? I don't need huge amounts of customization of my OS. I realize that many people around here like that, but I really don't care. And again, I can't remember I've the last time I had to look up something in documentation to get something in Windows (the OS, not programs in it) to work.

      Tech support offered for Linux distros is amazing compared to what Microsoft offers (again, this is from real-life experience)

      I wouldn't be surprised if this is true. I don't know what kind of support you get when you just individually purchase a copy of the OS, with Windows or Linux. However, I can tell you at work, with our support agreement, I've had no problems with Micrsoft support. They've always been pretty helpful with problems that I've had to deal with. IBM is a completely different matter...

      I certainly don't mind IE being integrated into the OS. All I'm saying is web standards are hurt, and other browsers (which may be far superior in a way) are never given a chance.

      Never given a chance? Because someone may actually have to get the browser somehow and then install it? At least that kind of stuff is fairly simple in Windows... ;-)

      The full version price for Windows XP is ridiculous compared to Linux distros, for instance, where you have next to everything configured and ready to use.

      And who has really had to guy the full version in the last 10 years? Yes, it is rather expensive to buy a full version of WinXP pro, but most people who want or need WinXP pro qualify for the upgrade.

      One of the main reasons for XP being popular is its interface

      Again, so? Why is that a bad thing? Windows XP is extremely stable (as was Win2000), the interface is consistent. It's very easy to use. I never have to worry about compiling, or library dependencies, or anything like that to get programs to work (unless I'm coding of course).

      As for Microsoft going to XML formats for Office. I would advise you to take a look at an XML document saved from the newest version of Office and compare it to a document saved from OpenOffice as XML. Honestly, when I've compared the two, Microsoft's document structure looks a lot "easier" to work with than OpenOffice.

      --
      Forget the whales - save the babies.
    16. Re:Windows Server 2003 by sciwhiz007 · · Score: 1

      It is always interesting to note that our difference of opinion on this topic, is mostly because of what we use our computers for. I develop a lot, and I find the Linux environment very suitable for my development purposes. Although I am not sure what you use your machine for, I am sure Windows must be satisfying your needs, and I have no problem with that.

      In terms of support, when you purchase any software (individually, not as a company with a support agreement), as far as I know and out of experience, you only get online support by means of e-mails and messages. You do have to pay for direct, person-to-person customer service (this is as far as I know and was true the last time I checked). To be fair, even Linux distros only offer direct person-to-person customer service for a period of 30 to 90 days, depending on the distribution you buy.

      I never have to worry about compiling, or library dependencies, or anything like to get programs to work.

      I disagree. In the open source world, (specifically the Linux world), there is a growing trend to providing binaries of all programs in the form of RPMs or DEBs, depending on the specific platform you are using. Although until a few years ago, RPMs had to be installed through the command line, nowadays, double-clicking them will open a small window, that does a complete installation for you, including adding shortcuts to your main menu. Of course, because it is open source, you always have the option of obtaining the source and compiling it for yourself. But virtually all major open-source programs, including Mozilla, OpenOffice, Tcl, the X server, KDE, etc. all have binary distributions that hardly require any technical expertise to install. What you said does not hold true so much any more. Yes, a few years ago, virtually everything had to be compiled, etc. Why, now you even have a kernel configurator in KDE to configure and tweak the kernel graphically if one wishes to do so. So you see, the Linux world has changed a lot even in just a few years.

      In terms of documentation, I don't mean troubleshooting manuals, etc. I mean documentation that gives you information on security, tips on optimising your system. Although installation guides are provided, the big distributions have wonderful, fully-graphical installers that do all the groundwork for the user, and even a complete newbie needs to know virtually nothing about installation itself.

      In terms of the full version, many people need full versions if they ever need to re-install their system from scratch. I don't know about you, but me, and most of the people I know have to reinstall Windows every once in a while (about once or twice a year). This is either because our system gets too cluttered with all our files and programs, or because we encounter problems with our computer/operating system. Well we could always install our original full version, then upgrade once again to Windows XP, but that might not even be possible in some cases. One more reason why I, and many others, like to do a clean re-install is because Windows, over time, tends to store too many system files, and temporary files that are next to impossible to find and get rid of. Well, I could always use commercial programs like Window Washer (which I do) to clean my system tracks, but it's far from being perfect. So for people like us, if we intend to buy an OS, we usually tend to go for the full version. And personally, I would be surprised if a person started out with Windows 95 and has only upgraded all the way to Windows XP (although I certainly don't mind if they choose to do so).

      By saying given a chance, I don't mean that people are blocked by a mysterious magic force from downloading and installing another browser. All I'm saying is, the creation of IE as the default browser hurts web standards and other browsers (I have already explained why it hurts other browsers) Maybe the fault is in the users for not finding out about other alternatives, but since I do not have any

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      Read my journal here.
    17. Re:Windows Server 2003 by M.C.+Hampster · · Score: 1

      I appreciate the discussion. I don't think either of us are zealots, and it makes having a conversation much easier.

      And for the record, I am a developer. And I have recently had more experience developing in a UNIX environment and I must say, I kind of liked having to build my own make file for GCC, rather than just having a Visual C++ project file that I know nothing about. That's actually the reason I'll be installing Linux at home soon.

      Anyway, I do appreciate it. I think some of my perceptions regarding Linux may not be true anymore with the latest distro's. I'll give it a try as soon as I can get a spare box.

      --
      Forget the whales - save the babies.
    18. Re:Windows Server 2003 by sciwhiz007 · · Score: 1

      Yes definitely. The problem is, in most forums and discussions, the people are impassioned zealots who do not have any information to back up their arguments. A good argument is one in which each side has the respect to acknowledge the strengths of the other side.

      Anyway, good luck, and hopefully you'll enjoy working with Linux and find it a pleasant experience.

      --
      Read my journal here.
  75. Re:I'd love to tell Microsoft to go pound sand, bu by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Problem solved . . .

  76. $52,931,000,000 is essentially equal to cash. by Futurepower(R) · · Score: 1


    Microsoft's $52,931,000,000 is Total Current Assets, but that is equal to cash when within a few months. People who buy and sell things for billions of dollars don't quibble over a few months. It takes that long to arrange a sale, anyway.

    Making small changes in a product and calling it a new product is an abusive, misleading business practice, in my opinion. Microsoft did that with Windows Milennium. Windows 2003 Server seems to have real changes.

    Here are a few more abuses: Reasons to Avoid Microsoft. (More than 200 in one year!) In case your boss is uncertain, this abuse list will help educate him.

    1. Re:$52,931,000,000 is essentially equal to cash. by t0ny · · Score: 3, Interesting
      Here are a few more abuses: Reasons to Avoid Microsoft [lugod.org]. (More than 200 in one year!) In case your boss is uncertain, this abuse list will help educate him.

      Pretty interesting web site. I guess the basic premise is that every problem that MS fixes is listed as a "Bad Thing (tm)" on that site.

      Quite an original take on the anti-MS agenda- havent seen that one done before, like on, say, Slashdot, on like, well, every day.

      --

      Manipulate the moderator system! Mod someone as "overrated" today.

    2. Re:$52,931,000,000 is essentially equal to cash. by OSgod · · Score: 1

      Sour grapes by has beens and companies who have no product and no marketing departments.

    3. Re:$52,931,000,000 is essentially equal to cash. by tripout · · Score: 0

      Well, by your reasoning, linux and OSS has got to be the most abusive, misleading party there is. What's new in Linux that we didn't have 10 years ago? And yet, it gets regurgitated every 3 months by some asshat developers sitting around stroking their weenies. OSS is for wankers.

    4. Re:$52,931,000,000 is essentially equal to cash. by jedidiah · · Score: 1

      If I couldn't download that latest version for FREE, you might have a point. Plus, you don't have to worry about SBA stormtroopers and their overhanded licensing audits.

      Free Software isn't particularly interesting, it's just a method for inserting competition back into a market decimated by a monopolist.

      --
      A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
  77. Familiar by mdw162 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I know this has been said before, but it seems almost everyday Windows become more Unix-like (cleaner, faster, more stable, better) while Linux becomes more Windows-like (less stable, slower, more bloated and less stable [why is is that the 2.2 kernels are generally considered more stable than the 2.4 series?]). With current predictions showing PDAs are going to overtake desktops in the next few years, the Linux community has to concede the desktop market to Microsoft and move on. Servers are is where Linux/Unix strength is. It just always seems to me Linux is playing catchup to Microsoft on the desktop while MS is learnig from their mistakes and trying to move forward.

    1. Re:Familiar by zandermander · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Whatever, WinCE is going to have to get into a lot of "PDAs, smartphones, consumer electronics devices and other information appliances" if it's to achieve the kind of growth eTForecasts is predicting. There's certainly no sign that the PDA market will grow that fast, and we suspect the consumer electronics world will favour low-cost Linux.

      Sorry to rain on your parade but seems to me that the Register doesn't believe these current predictions.

      But then, 67.43% of all statistics and predictions are pulled out of someone's bung hole anyway. We should revisit this prediction in, say, 10 years.

    2. Re:Familiar by mcrbids · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Reply or mod... Reply or mod... Augh spit! I'll bite...

      the Linux community has to concede the desktop market to Microsoft and move on

      PHP-GTK is a byproduct of a "Windows-like" toolkit (GTK) meeting a definitely server-based language. (PHP)

      The result is quite impressive. I can use the same codebase for file i/o and communications on the Windows clients as on the Unix server, giving me guaranteed 100% compatability.

      This is a natural for Web services and network-based software!

      I welcome the improvements with Gnome 2.x, even though it A) will make the toolkit bigger (and thus, somehow, more "bloated") and B) for a while, less stable while the kinks are worked out.

      If the gnome guys give up on GTK to become Samba developers, and Gimp becomes a thing of the past, I'd be sorely pissed. But, one of the blessings of open-source is that it's very unlikely to happen. Once open-source codebases become substantial enough, somebody inherits the base and carries on.

      Witness the PostgreSQL team over the past few years. It's been turned over several times, and in the process, it's become a much better product! Lately, there's another "pay for service" company that's taken control of the site and codebase, we'll see what they do to it.

      Nobody can argue that Linux is giving up on servers - it's just not. 2.4 not as stable as 2.2? What kind of hooey is that? 2.2 sucked at any load average above 2.0 - I've seen 2.4.x systems handle a load average of 35 and more while still being reasonably responsive.

      That's not an improvement?

      Microsoft has beat down the competition by commoditizing part of the computer industry - the hardware.

      Linux takes this one step further, by commoditizing the software, too. Every new developer who picks up Linux is one more person who adds a bit to the overall formula, and that's one more area that Linux is steadily improving in.

      If it didn't work this way, Linux wouldn't be the force it now is.

      It'll only get stronger.

      Viva la Linux!

      --
      I have no problem with your religion until you decide it's reason to deprive others of the truth.
    3. Re:Familiar by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Especially coming from the historically biased Register :)

    4. Re:Familiar by IamTheRealMike · · Score: 2, Informative
      I know this has been said before, but it seems almost everyday Windows become more Unix-like (cleaner, faster, more stable, better) while Linux becomes more Windows-like (less stable, slower, more bloated and less stable [why is is that the 2.2 kernels are generally considered more stable than the 2.4 series?]).

      Wait. So, while Windows is getting better, Linux is becoming more like Windows, but is getting worse? No matter how hard I try, I can't reproduce the mental backflips necessary to figure that one out.

      You can't have it both ways, either Windows is getting good and Linux is therefore going to get good as well, or Windows is bad, and as a result Linux will be bad also.

      I also don't see the stability thing. The main problems these days are related to bugs in X, which are the only real stability issues I have. Even the software is pretty stable I find (at least, the software I use is).

      the Linux community has to concede the desktop market to Microsoft and move on.

      Except the Linux community wants a good desktop, more for themselves than anything else, and that isn't going to stop. There's nothing to concede. Go check out the latest OSDN survey of free software developers, you'll find that "beating proprietary software" ranks at the bottom of motivations.

      It just always seems to me Linux is playing catchup to Microsoft on the desktop while MS is learnig from their mistakes and trying to move forward.

      So they're both moving forward then. OK. That's probably true. What is more interesting to ask is, which is moving forward quicker? If Microsoft is moving forward faster than Linux, then Linux will never match up to Windows, indeed, you'd expect people to stop using Linux and go back to Windows. If it's the other way around, then you'd expect Linux to be rapidly maturing next to Windows, and more people to be leaving Windows and using Linux.

      Now, maybe where you live it's different, but what I see is lots of the latter, and not much of the former.

      I also see Wine catching up with Windows, which is more interesting. Wine has been able to run simple programs perfectly for a long time, and nowadays it can run even quite complex apps like Office, FoxPro and Internet Explorer. Of course new APIs are being introduced all the time, but Windows has a lot of inertia so we won't need to support them for many years.

      I think you are needlessly pessimistic.

  78. BIND code in the kernel? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Exactly how familiar are you with all of these issues?

  79. Me neither by BoomerSooner · · Score: 1

    That's why I use Linux on the server side and OS X (Unix with a great GUI) on the desktop. Unfortunately I'll have PC's too for the forseeable future as I support software on them and enjoy playing video games.

  80. Re:What? No NextP? by dbrutus · · Score: 1

    UX? No, MS marketing is sure to put a * in the middle.

  81. Big Deal! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Microsoft may have ~$40 billion or so in cash, but they have 10 billion shares outstanding (yes that is "b" as in billion)! For exact values check Yahoo Finance.

    For the arithmetically challenged, that is the princely sum of $4 dollars a share.

    In plain words, if Microsoft declared a special dividend of $4 dollars a share, they would have no cash left!!!

    This is called a pyramid scheme! The number of shares outstanding is growing faster than the cash, so the cash per share seems to be trending to zero, believe it or else!!! A year ago when I checked, their cash was ~$6 per share.

  82. The best enhancement must be.. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    24 bit colour terminal services, it's SO cool maan (yeah like, we don't need Citrix anyway).

  83. Fiscal Discipline by nfsilkey · · Score: 4, Informative

    'The ads are geared toward IT managers on tight budgets.'

    Lets see...
    Samba as a PDC/BDC : cost of hardware
    Apache as a webserver : cost of hardware

    Microsoft as both : cost of hardware and obscene license fees.

    Take Economics 101. :)

    1. Re:Fiscal Discipline by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Insightful

      Don't forget about costs related to implementation and support. It is often quicker to get a Microsoft-based solution up and running than an equivalent Linux-based solution.

      Then there are costs related to support. UNIX/Linux specialists often bill at higher rates than MCSEs (good if you have solid experience in that line of work, bad if you're on a tight IT budget). It can also take more planning and vendor support to design/implement a Linux-based solution. Every peripheral company is supporting Windows, but Linux support isn't quite universal.

      The bottom line is often pretty much a wash, and then the decision-makers go with whatever they are most comfortable with...

    2. Re:Fiscal Discipline by jsse · · Score: 1

      Microsoft as both : cost of hardware and obscene license fees.

      Microsoft as both : cost of hardware and obscene license fees recurrently.

      (painful fact I face here)

    3. Re:Fiscal Discipline by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Not quite :)...

      "Linux is only free if your time has no value".

    4. Re:Fiscal Discipline by antiher0 · · Score: 1

      Cost of switching for:

      Integrated directory authentication service: cost of wasted wages on Linux admin work + cost of WS2k3
      Solution guaranteed to be supported for at least 7 years: cost of wasted wages on Linux admin work + cost of WS2k3

    5. Re:Fiscal Discipline by sirshannon · · Score: 1

      I took economics 101. $400 for MS Web Server 2003 doesn't seem "obscene" to me. The cost of the Standard Server may be, but not the web edition.

    6. Re:Fiscal Discipline by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      er...yeah, your forget an additional cost to Samba and Apache:

      - cost of a more expensive and snotty *nix admin.

      Windows Admins, at the high end of the food chain, are typically 40% less expensive and have 90% less attitude.

      If you had actually taken Economics 101, you would have learned that nothing is free, and that you have to look at the full cost of a product (including it's human support) before making the choice to buy it.

  84. Your forgettign.... by sickboy_macosX · · Score: 1

    The only reason I would use Win 2003 Server is because I can FINALLY change Domain Names on the fly, when I am doing a server reload and my domain needs to be different.

    --
    --- /* In Soviet Russia, the Mac OS X kernel panics you! */
  85. Re:IT managers on tight budgets? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

    There is a market that Microsoft is having absolutely no luck at all breaking into. It is geeks who want control of their own systems. In the big scheme, that market is tiny. However, the problem is that the products that serve that market can be reproduced almost for free for everyone else. That's the secret behind open source. It isn't free. The people writing it are doing a lot of work. But copying is free, and to encourage project participation, the licenses permit it. Even if MS manages to squeeze open source out of the rest of the world, it will continue on its own. If GNU, Linux, *BSD, Apache, Perl, MySQL and all the rest withered and died, the idea could be reborn in new software. And because the existing code is out there, not everything has to be built from scratch. The mascot of the OS movement should not be the Linux penguin, FSF Gnu, or BSD Daemon. It should be a hydra. Cut off a head, and three more grow back!

  86. Economics Lesson for Stupid! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    We are in a recession!

    In a recession, EVERYBODY IS A CHEAPSKATE, especially CFO's (unless they work for the next Enron)!

  87. the author: this is a small part of a bigger pkg by Timothy+Dyck · · Score: 5, Informative

    To give some context, this is a short column I wrote for this week's (4/21/2003) eWEEK news package on Windows Server 2003. It's short because of print space limitations. The whole collection of related news articles in this week's issue is at http://www.eweek.com/category2/0,3960,1034194,00.a sp.

    Next week, eWEEK is publishing an eWEEK Labs review of the product. In that package, there are six pages of copy covering Windows Server 2003 overall security changes, IIS 6.0, 64-bit Windows, Active Directory changes, file and print changes, development, and storage and SAN changes.

    Thanks,
    Tim Dyck
    eWEEK Labs West Coast Technical Director

  88. It's a Huge Step Forward for Admins.. by Jarhead1972 · · Score: 4, Informative

    In short the benefits are for the admins (no, not the idiot IT guys who manage to correctly install Win2k at least 80% of the time) The benefits are found in the scriptable administration. Task scheduling from script works correctly. The funky WMI to SNMP to Perfmon counter crap is gone providing scriptable interfaces via WMI to standard and preformatted counters. The holes in ADSI administration if IIS are fixed. Add to that a journaling filesystem with the ability to do point in time recovery over the network (what, didn't the article mention a flavor of journaled network file system?) Oh, what, you didn't even know they existed. You'd be really amazed at what a real admin can do with Win2k and not Win2k3. But most don't look, they are too busy trying to get their new open source browser to run correctly on the latest patched up version of their open source os of choice. I agree with premise of the article, but not the content.

    1. Re:It's a Huge Step Forward for Admins.. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Actually knowing how WIndows works will get you banned from Slashdot.

    2. Re:It's a Huge Step Forward for Admins.. by Maxamoto · · Score: 0

      Uh huh. And what is /. going to do when TCPA enabled routers from Cisco and Juniper start dropping packets from non-trusted operating systems, namely Linux? What, you didn't know this was in the works? You still believe Microsoft is simply going to go away without a fight? The scrappy upstart that kicked IBM's ass? Well, okay. Never underestimate the power of denial though =]

      --
      "Your CPU came with a keyboard? What kind of ghetto deal is that?" -McSuede
  89. Glowing testimonial from former windows usr by the-build-chicken · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I did (replace windows as my primary)...about the time mandrake 9.0 was release...windows crashed, and took everything with it...I spent weeks trying to recover the data (thank god for cvs or the baseline would have been screwed too). I had mandrake 8 on another machine, so I thought I'd give it a go on my primary, go 100% linux. At the beginning, I thought I'd have to re-install windows, I just didn't see how it would be possible to not have one windows machine around, but I have to tell you, I haven't looked back since...I'm more productive and a hell of a lot more stable. I don't stress nearly as much as I used to about the state of my systems and the change over was really quite painless. I'm now slowly converting the company I work for to the same way of thinking.

    1. Re:Glowing testimonial from former windows usr by dfj225 · · Score: 1

      I don't know what version of windows you were using on your box, but mine runs XP and I can say that I love its stability, and the only time its ever crashed on me was when I installed a driver which didn't work. For a workstation I would imagine that Linux would rock; but as far as my personal home desktop goes, I can't say the same. I enjoy playing games in Windows as well as some of its more polished features such as being able to connect to my digital camera without ever having to install a driver. These are the kind of things that I miss when running linux. Personally, without more support from hardware manufacturers I don't think linux will ever quite be on the level of windows for a personal home desktop.

      --
      SIGFAULT
  90. Windows is SOOOOOO Oreck by deadfishhotmail.com · · Score: 1, Insightful


    Windows is so dumb, it is like so dumb. What I mean to say is that if Oreck can lift a bowling ball with it's suckage, Windows 2003 could lift all of Russia, France, Germany's balls or maybe their bowling balls because they show no signs of testicularosity. It is a shame that it wasn't completed in time to be used on Iraq, who would have thought a 8x10.2x2.35 inch box would be more effective than a nuke.

    \Windows is horrid
    </burning_karma>

    --


    Who is this "Poster" guy and why does he own all of my comments?!?
  91. Linux attack by Unixinvid · · Score: 1

    I would like to see the last remnints of DOS gone and replaced by a shell. I mean Linux is becoming a industry standard since Windows NT series software always had a problem. I mean if someone can crash it with a simple C++ script then its somthing that is not Crash free. My recomondation use Linux or Mac OS X. Its easy to use, and its more secure and crash free.

  92. Re:I'd love to tell Microsoft to go pound sand, bu by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    There's still no match for the Exchange/Outlook combination for integrated email, directory, shared folders and calendaring.

    Take a look at Oracle Collaboration Suite as an Exchange replacement that provides all of this and Outlook compitability. Lots of buzzwords and runs on linux/Oracle9i and still in version 1.0, but looks promising! 2.0 to be released in Q2 I think. Any slashdoters with hands-on experience on running OCS?

  93. Re:IT managers on tight budgets? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    And after that, Super User Experience.

  94. Mmmmm. Windows Server 2003... by PowerEdge · · Score: 1, Redundant

    Can't wait to get my hands on this one. I have been watching the Shockwave movies on Microsoft site. This is a bigger step forward than most people on here will have you believe.

  95. well, kinda but also not really by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Yeah, you can do a lot using scripts. In Unix, I can do everythin using scripts. And using the shell. You can't restart a windows box from the shell, without writing a script. But it can be done if you want to put in the work.

    There's a reason Windows is called Windows: it's a GUI oriented operating system. The administration tools that come with the OS are GUI based, and most people use the GUI tools.

    And there are certian things about it which make it unfriendly for CLI based use; you refer to my key peeve with Windows in you post. Why is so much configuration entirely mysterious and stored in binary format? What possible reason is there to store the IIS config information in the metabase? Text files not only work, they're less apt to get fucked up (and I have dealt with fucked up metabases, and it sucks), and they're easy to edit.

    I believe IIS 6 will have text configs for the webserver; great. Now, all they have to do is eliminate the registry.

    1. Re:well, kinda but also not really by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      type shutdown at the command prompt in windows 2003.... wow, didn't even need to write a script.

  96. I missed that little update by Archfeld · · Score: 1

    but I think I like it. Soon I may have issues actually justifying my ingrown festering hatred for Bill and all things M$ :)

    --
    errr....umm...*whooosh* *whoosh* Is this thing on ?
  97. Re:Windows Server 200x by dbrutus · · Score: 3, Insightful

    This is the real problem with MS these days and no amount of reform on the part of engineering is going to cure it. Win2k3 may be the best thing since sliced bread but pair it with MS legal and the MS corporate culture and it's not a partnership that I'm entirely comfortable recommending to anybody these days, even confirmed MS shops.

    I'll probably renew my MCSE credentials in order to help out customers on migration and interoperability but without some forced reform like the Teamsters went through, I can't imagine how the public can trust MS with anything.

  98. Re:I'd love to tell Microsoft to go pound sand, bu by Indy1 · · Score: 1

    granted this doesnt free you from microsoft totally, but you can terminate exhange with extreme prejudice
    and use Mdaemon with its add on Groupware (no, not the novell thing) feature. Still not cheap, but much less costly then exchange's license, and Mdaemon is WAY more stable to boot. Plus, mdaemon runs NICELY on a slow 2k professional box (my current setup is a k6-2 400 with 128 megs ram), as opposed to exchange NEEDING 2k server, massive ram, and nightly backing because it eats the user database with almost religious like devotion.

    --
    Lawyers, MBA's, RIAA? A jedi fears not these things!
  99. More under-the-hood stuff goodness in Win 2K3 by bertok · · Score: 5, Interesting

    A lot of people here are complaining that Windows 2003 has few improvements, but as a software developer, I know that is not the case. For example, take a look at the latest Platform SDK or MSDN docs, you'll find that a lot of API improvements are listed as "Windows XP SP1 and Windows 2003 Server only".

    For example, Windows XP/2003 adds enhancements to the Security API, making it easier and more efficient to check a user's access rights. (I'm referring to the Authz### series of functions)

    There are also a whole slew of new command line enhacements that system administrators have been asking for. It is now possible to automate almost everything in windows through the CLI. This has not been possible before. For example, new CLI mode programs include 'reg' (for editing the registry), 'netsh' (for configuring networking), 'waitfor' (for synchronizing scripts across servers), 'diskpart' (for managing disks and volumes), and a whole bunch of others. Some of these are simply upgraded versions of existing tools in the Windows 2000 Resource kit, but it's nice to see them built-in, instead of an add-on.

    One thing that still irks me though is that Microsoft simply refuses to make the UI defaults reasonable. Every time I install Windows, I am forced to go through about half a dozen dialog boxes to toggle every single setting in those boxes to the exact opposite of their default values. Hiding extensions is NEVER a good thing, and it has confused everyone I have ever met. Nobody likes it, and it is one of the primary causes of the ".jpg.vbs" style viruses. Why can't Microsoft simply admit that they were wrong? Why do folders still show the Win 3.1 era large icon view, when everyone I know prefers the Detailed view? Why? Why must you hurt me Billy?

    A list of all CLI commands available in Windows 2003

    An example of the new Security API functions in XP/2003

  100. Re:HOLY FUCK by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    You seem tense. We feel your pain. Share your feelings with the group.

  101. A small step forward for the platform? by UrGeek · · Score: 0

    Well, why SHOULD they be changing things! Windows 2000 is Microsoft FINALLY getting something right. You hear me. Microsoft is the Beast, the Devil, the worst thing that has EVER happen to the world of computing but I just cannot deny, W2K was a breathe of fresh air. And yeah, they did drive us crazy with the tons of security updates and I still tell everyone to run Windows Update at least every week (or more), but compared to the piles of dreck that come before, it works. It is worth a new version just to have to save loading up the service packs and updates when you format and reinstall every six months. Hell, with W2K, I just might go a whole year before the whole rebuild from scratch. It is about time for a little more stability and I for one, salute them for it!

    Damn the creeping featurism! On with the bug fixes!

    All you Linux people, quit laughing! Especially you OpenBSD, also!

    1. Re:A small step forward for the platform? by UrGeek · · Score: 1

      I take it back. I forgot about "activation". W2003 SERVER has that damnable bit of spyware. It is not worth. W2K FOREVER!!!!! Actually, this just might be the best reason to migrate to OpenBSD or Linux.

  102. A minus in my opinion.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I DON'T like the year-based naming convention. Two years into a version, you're told you need to upgrade - with no real reason given as to why.
    At least with Linux I can upgrade bits and pieces, if I choose. Unless you wanted complete desktop upgrades, and more recently, the new GCC, you could easily do that without major version number jumps.

  103. Does samba work again ? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    My friend helpfully upgraded my win2000 computer by downloading the service pack and applying it. Now it can't see the samba shared disk any more.

    If I get this win2003 stuff, will samba work again ? This is an issue because I can't uninstall the win2000 service pack, apparently. I do not have the disk that came with the computer to load win2000 again (lost it long ago).

    Also, how much is this going to cost me ? I would relistically pay like $60 for a working samba again. It's that low because I'm unemployed with nothing left to do except work part time at Kinko's and learn more linux / solaris in my spare time, so less money and more time equals linux, eventually.

  104. Re:Not a bad thing if they improve without bloatin by archen · · Score: 1

    The new terminal service client is nice, 24 bits support, full encryption, [...]

    What kind of encryption does MS use anyway? I mean all documentation that I've seen from MS always goes on about how many bits are used, but never about the algorithm.

  105. Re:More under-the-hood stuff goodness in Win 2K3 by melted · · Score: 1

    As far as I know you can customize the default installation script virtually in every aspect, INCLUDING default parameter values. And it's something that's been there for as long as I can remember.

  106. Step forward? :) by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The last step forward, the only true original innovation that Bill Gates and Paul Allen ever created was ALTAIR Basic... whom are you kidding with these articles? :)

  107. please by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Aren't you the same chump bragging about having 2 years experience and how much you prefer Novell? And you gift us with this gem of advice based on some MS marketing movies?

    Or are you just another MS shill, trying to blend in and serve koolaid...and not making it, by the way.

  108. Re:IT managers on tight budgets? by Overly+Critical+Guy · · Score: 1

    Support costs.

    --
    "Sufferin' succotash."
  109. Re:IT managers on tight budgets? by The+Kryptonian · · Score: 1

    Support costs for Linux are lower per machine, and each machine does more. There have been abundant and numerous studies that show this. Try again.

  110. Re:Oh no! tsarkon reports by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I'm on win2k3 now, build 3790.svr03_rtm.030324-2048.

    Before you all laugh; I was using this to verify if the OS can better handle SYN floods, etc. Let me tell you, FreeBSD and Linux are many times better at handling malformed ingress attack traffic, from SYN, to UDP and ICMP floods, stuff like trinoo / tfn2k / neptune / skydance / etc. Even with syn cookies and the various types of protections shut off, FreeBSD and Linux are many, many times more robust in handling bad traffic.

    I would also like to point out that CNET is going to push this crap like crazy (Paul Allen, co-founder of Microsoft is a major stakeholder in CNET)

    I don't believe that this is a minor facelift. This OS (5.2) is appreciably faster than NT 5.1 (XP - excretion product, if anyone used XP over 2000 for any reason they have severe brain damage). 5.1 is a bad expermient. This is a major overhaul in a lot of ways. I still think IIS is not very good. Version 6, 7 whatever - Apache 2.0 is free, opensource, and despite what Zeinfeld says, I see a lot less problems with using Apache than IIS. Sorry. But anyone who claims 5.2 is a minor change from 5.0 is smoking crack. This isn't a service pack.

    And the nail in the coffin for Windows 2003? No SSH, no REAL command line configurability and remote control. I'm sorry, but I'm not going to get a real implementation of RDP, called Citrix, which is rather good and ungodly expensive, buy terminal server licenses and citrix seats and CALs and all this crap for a SAMBA share creator with horrible remote manageability. Windows zealots can take the MMC and the snap ins that can be used remotely, remote manageability, administrative packs, terminal services, RDP, remote registry service and Run As and shove it. It is 50 fucking times harder to act as root on a windows box when you arent on the screen logged in.

    The OS is a bastard version of VMS. Its that simple. Microsoft should port SQL and Exhcange to other platforms. They should give up on IIS and embrace apache. I am not annoyed one way or the other by SQL, Exchange or .NET. The rest of the Microsoft "backoffice" however leaves much to be desired. ADS is a nightmare. It is an okay directory service for exchange, but for authentication and permission domains cross platform? Whatever. Windows NT has fundamental flaws. UNIX has been "dying" for decades, and when Windows NT failed to seal its "fate," in less than 5 years, they should have given up.

    Microsoft has to accept facts. Juniper puts FreeBSD on its godly routers and not NT based crap or Linux for very good reason. Looks are a distraction! Does this stuff WORK? Is it useful, change-able, tunable code that is well documented and self-documenting? Is it mired with ridiculous licensing? The Microsoft EULA and the GPL must have competitions on being the weirdest license ever.

    So, I ask all you Windows NT people. You XPers and you Win2003ers. Yeah, you won the browser war hands down - for now. For me it is easier to play games, do my "stuff" and browse with Windows. But do any of you really really believe in this piece of garbage for Servers? I mean fucking c'mon. This god damn tangled mess with fucking DRIVE LETTERS. No real sense of root. No well documented function to do "ln -s" (It's called joining - you can get a utility to do it with reskit, but its a hard link that cannot cleanly traverse drive letters or DFS mounts). No real way to do diskless or dumb clients unless you add citrix. TCP/IP implementation is curiously more expensive than it is on Unix clones and less able to handle attacks. Its rudely expensive with its CAL model. It seeks to proprietize the interoperable (Samba, Domain, LDAP, Kerberos, even HTML is bastardized). It cannot be easily "rescued" like unixes can. Fuck a trashed Unix box is so easy to fix, particularly if you are willing to start over.

    Windows server zealots piss me off because they live a lie. They think this crap is more modern and better?

    Fo shizzle my nizzle zealots. ;p

  111. There are some changes their not eluding too by dWhisper · · Score: 1

    I think the biggest change is going to come in interfacing, and how you can set up new servers and domains in 2003. I was in the Beta test for it, and they made the setup of almost any "server role" seemless and simple. It was a nice addition. As for changes under the hood, I'm not sure. There was not a lot of demand for changes there. There is also the integration of the .NET initiative directly into the server structure, as compared to an add-on, like it was for 2000.

  112. Re:More under-the-hood stuff goodness in Win 2K3 by TheRealSlimShady · · Score: 1

    Dude, netsh has been builtin since Windows 2000...

  113. Hacking invitation - windows 2003 by chameleonanonymous · · Score: 2, Interesting
    I really want to see how good Windows 2003 is. So hack away. Address : www.dbcodegen.com

    only open port is 80 IIS6

    Prize Money : $100 US winning entry - must replace the homepage with your contact so taht prize money can be paid.

    Ricky

  114. activation? by prockcore · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Neither the article nor any comments mention Activation.

    Does Win2k3 have activation? If so, why would anyone downgrade from Win2k?

    1. Re:activation? by Carrot007 · · Score: 1

      Of course it has activation!

      It's logical progression (fork) of the NT codebase so it includes the XP improvements.

      And yes they still have those nice corperate activation codes that bypass the horrible stuff.

      Seems stupid to me though, putting the activation in a SERVER product. I mean anyone stup[id enough to use a MS server product would need support for it right? Or did I miss the point where all the kiddies wanted to run Server OS's?

      (actually you can turn it into a desktop os if you fiddles around for ages and edit stuff (start all the services, and activate directx etc) but unless someone made a tool to do it, it's really too much effort)

      --
      +----------------- | What is the question!
  115. Re:I'd love to tell Microsoft to go pound sand, bu by Eristone · · Score: 1

    as opposed to exchange NEEDING 2k server, massive ram, and nightly backing because it eats the user database with almost religious like devotion

    Well, yeah it does need 2k server. That whole Active Directory thingie. Massive amounts of RAM - okay - no argument there assuming you have a couple thousand folks on busy equipment. Eat the user database w/almost religious devotion though? I don't think so. I've had to restore a database once in the past 2 1/2 years in my 4000 (3000 - wait 2500.. dang this downsizing) user shop and the traffic we get is fairly high (think abuse@biblicalchapterflightfromegypt.net for instance). Now if you're running E2k on crappy equipment (that 486sx 25 just isn't the right system for the job), I can see how you might be praying the backups are good...

  116. What does this mean for .NET? by Thaidog · · Score: 2, Funny

    A year ago it was call .NET server... there was .NET this... .NET that... these .NETs in your mouth... lalala... well I downloaded a 45MB patch for my win2k box then a service pak for it... and I still don't have even the faintest idea WTF .NET or what Windows Server 2003 means to it... obviously not a whole lot given the description... can somebody please define .NET and just what the hell Windows Server 2003 does for it?

    --

    ||| I still can't believe Parkay's not butter.

    1. Re:What does this mean for .NET? by jlanng · · Score: 1

      The short answer is that they're nothing to do with each other.

      .net is the newest MS programming environment. Their marketing department originaly decided to brand everything .net, even if it wasn't strictly related. When they realised how confusing it was, they changed the product name from Server.net to Server 2003.

      As far as .net in Windows 2003 goes, it simply comes preloaded instead of being installable - no biggie.

    2. Re:What does this mean for .NET? by SuiteSisterMary · · Score: 1

      This is similar to the OLE/COM/ActiveX naming fiasco.

      --
      Vintage computer games and RPG books available. Email me if you're interested.
  117. Using money... by Sepper · · Score: 1

    they have $30 billion in cash

    And since right now their biggest competitor is themselves, they are using that money to try to push win2003 further, by Giving it away with "evluation kits"...

    Well, they seems to have learn a couple of things from FOSS... like "try before you buy"...

    --
    I live in Soviet Canuckistan you insensitive clod!
  118. Re:Not a bad thing if they improve without bloatin by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Many agents died to bring you this information, but Microsoft uses ROT#&#&^@%!)!_)00))!))0 NO CARRIER

  119. ok, now by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Get a sum of the amount of memory used by a set of processes (determined, say, by name or other criteria) from the command line in Windows. Without writing a script.

    Create a text file with fully qualified paths to all the .jar files within a given directory and all it's children in the Windows command shell. Do it without writing a script.

    The problem is, Windows isn't made to be used through it's shell. Consequently, it's shell and the shell tools suck.

    The Unix command line environment is much richer and more powerful, and will remain so for the forseeable future (MKS toolkit, Cywin, etc. notwithstanding). Unix has long been made for text oriented, interactive use; that is the nature of the creature. Microsoft has little incentive to catch up; most MS users use the GUI.

    1. Re:ok, now by SN74S181 · · Score: 1

      So basically, you're saying "It isn't UNIX, which is what I am used to."

      Gotta do better than that. Makes you look like a steam engineer encountering his first electric motor.

    2. Re:ok, now by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Well tasklist will give you a list of running tasks... which you can of course filter no script needed

      Fully qualified paths of jar files:
      dir /s/b *.jar > whatever.txt

      so in conclusion:
      Yeah, whatever mother fucker

    3. Re:ok, now by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Convert a series of from a fixed width flat files in Unix format, to a quoted, comma delimited DOS format file.

      So, in conclusion:
      Yeah, whatever mother fucker.

      BTW, you mom says hi.

  120. Re:Oh no! troll? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny
    This is a troll? How is being opinionated about something based on factual experience a troll? /. is so fuckk of fuckers and fucker moderators is laughable.

    This is just another example of spineless crap moderation here on /.

    Mao Tse Tung, Hitler, Stalin, Castro, Pinochet, Mussolini, Marshall Joseph Tito, Slobodan Milosevic, Idi Amin, Ho Chi Minh, Saddam Hussein, Muammar Qaddafi, Juan Peron, Ayatollah Khomeini, Ferdinand Marcos, General Suharto, Pol Pot, Fransisco Franco, and certainly the worst of the bunch, SLASHDOT's editing/moderating [read: censoring] "community"(*) ALL AGREE on ONE THING:
    CENSORSHIP WORKS!

    (*)Note, the word community used often on Slashdot, this is referring to a proto communist commune.

    So, you busy little plebian proletariats, get busy, you have some censoring to do! FUN! Do the bidding of your fat, undisciplined masters who never subject themselves to peer review!

    Good job you little neo-commies. Don't want to hear the other side, shoot the fucker in the head as an ENEMY OF THE STATE [In this case anyone who seeks to improve the sad state of /.].

    I have a Gun and the Constitution [Not the urinated-on pissed-on hacked fucked up one WashingTOON thinks exists, I mean the real one, with Jefferson and Madison at my side], please, give me an excuse to use them both.

    A few haikus to commemorate the sucktitude:
    Crack Pipe Moderators
    Crack smoke wafts though air
    Dumb shit moderator!
    Try to suck less, please

    The Humorless Moderator
    Crack smoke wafts through air
    Humorless moderator!
    Why do you hate me?

    The Proletariat
    Slashdotting Commie
    Moderator fears new idea!
    Censor him quickly

    The reason China blocked Slashdot is that when Jiang Xemin saw at how good "The Editors" at Slashdot are at suppressing the community, he knew that if more of his party members saw this degree of suppressive efficacy, he would be deposed, for the good of the people, of course, in favor of Rob Malda as the all new supreme dictator and premier of China.

    It has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all the others that have been tried. - Sir Winston Churchill (Especially when your democratic peers twist democracy into a reason commit censorship, to squash dissenting or unpopular opinions, and refer to them as trolls, flaimbait overrated or offtopic when they aren't any of the said)

    The reason there are two senators for each state is so that one can be the designated driver. - Jay Leno.

    The Constitution poses no threat to our current form of government. (Death to those who defile the root documents of a free nation to make economic freedom Supercede Freedom! Freedom First! Free market Second!)

    Occam's Razor "Entities should not be multiplied unnecessarily." "Pluralitas non est ponenda sine neccesitate" "Frustra fit per plura quod potest fieri per pauciora" "Entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem" Translation: " "Simple explanations are preferred to complex ones" Modern fucking translation "JUST DO IT."

    Reading Slashdot at anything above -1 is like trying to put a shit filter on your ass.

    Get busy moderating this down, you little pack of obedient prefects of the corrupt state! You are the vanguards of purity, and dissent is not allowed!
  121. Statement made by Microsoft Information Minister. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    "Never have such operating systems (Linux) been used to power servers! Never, I say! We have forced the open source infidels to go into hiding. As I speak Linus is surounded by angry Microsoft employees. We have his dog too!

    In ONE hour I shall take you to see all the servers of all the world so that you can see that they all run Windows 2003. Praise to allah Bill Gates and Microsoft will prevail!"

  122. Um, when the revolution comes by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    You'll be third against the wall after Gates and Ballmer. You have been warned.

  123. sold my soul by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Sigh... I worked at a kick ass company that ran mostly Linux. I ran linux on my desktop for over two years. The company had issues unrelated to the engineering dpt. that are causing their demise. I was laid off 5 months ago.

    Now I just see lots of small businesses running win98 and they need support. But I don't want to run my own consulting shop. Kinda lazy maybe...

    So I am taking tests to get my MCSE. CCNA as well.
    It seems these are 'check box items' to get job interviews in So. Calif.

    1. Re:sold my soul by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "Kinda" lazy? Hell, go support those Win98 shops! Then, when Microsoft pulls the plug on it, you can convince them to move to OSS instead of paying the upgrade fees to Microsoft. Think of it as a little bit of redemption. Of course you also get to make money as a consultant in the process.

  124. Episode V by vastabo · · Score: 2, Funny

    The Empire Strikes Back.... It is a dark time for the Rebellion. Although the Death OS has been discredited, Imperial microserfs have driven the Rebel forces from their hidden base and pursued them across the mindshare. Evading the dreaded Imperial Software, a group of freedom fighters led by IBM has established a new secret base on the remote ice world of Canada. The evil lord Darth Gates, obsessed with finding young FOSS(?), has dispatched thousands of Windows OSes into the far reaches of IT... (Aplogies to Canada)

  125. Astroturfing 101 by Idou · · Score: 1

    Post as an AC to generate an atmosphere that the ideas in the post are the ideas of the general public.

    Maybe AC should mean "Astroturfing Commando"?

    Same stupid arguments . . . comparing MSCE's to someone who actually knows what they are doing complaining the latter costs more (means more demand, you chimp) . . . oh yeah, and Linux is hard to set up for everyone, including those who know what they are actually doing. I guess posting as an AC beats being modded a "troll."

    --
    Sdelat' Ameriku velikoy Snova!
  126. what a pile of crap by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    it bluescreens on my favorite open source games like
    tuxracer.sf.net
    and
    vegastrike.sf.net

    well it looks like back to linux I go!
    --The real switcher

  127. as devil's advocate: by knowledgepeacewi · · Score: 1

    well, Windows doesn't have as far to go on the desktop as linux does. They only need incremental updates to tweak stuff.

  128. Re:IT managers on tight budgets? by SN74S181 · · Score: 1

    Unfortunately, if Open Source gets enough of a 'renegade' reputation, it'll be banned from more shops than it's in already. I like running OSS on my machines at home. I like experimenting around with it and learning from it. That doesn't automatically translate into a 'big scheme.'

  129. Like the other Microsoft Postings here today... by knowledgepeacewi · · Score: 1

    It looks like windows has hired a few people to post here and make Win2k3 sound good.

    But wait they don't know about Slashdot (as I stare at a giant Visual Studios Advertisement)

  130. Re:IT managers on tight budgets? by SN74S181 · · Score: 1

    Umm, there are many, many things that Linux desktops can't do at all yet.

    For example, the amount of Engineering Workstation software ported to Linux is miniscule. Sure, your Linux box makes a nice Xterm in the engineering lab as long as there's a big Unix box somewhere on the network running the licensed EDA apps, but any PC with Exceed can do that.

    The amount of multimedia editing and creation software for Linux is pitiful, and doesn't seem to be growing much at all.

    'Each machine does more' only works for niche server tasks like web serving and communciations apps, and only there because all the legacy UNIX stuff has been ported over.

  131. Well, Doy. by duck_prime · · Score: 1
    What kind of moron chooses the root of the word "fossile" as the name of a movement trying to develop technology?
    Maybe they want to advertise (ahem) "rock-solid" stability.
  132. Re:IT managers on tight budgets? by SN74S181 · · Score: 1

    Ooooh, IT managers just LOVE to adopt platforms where the only admins they can find are shakedown artists.

  133. Re:I'd love to tell Microsoft to go pound sand, bu by LadyLucky · · Score: 1

    But it only runs win9x, last I checked. It's next to useless.

    --
    dominionrd.blogspot.com - Restaurants on
  134. Re:Oh no! troll? by GnarlyNome · · Score: 1, Funny

    You know a nice cup of hot tea(de-caf) and a Valium would do wonders for your outlook on life

    --
    Diplomacy is the art of saying "Nice doggie" until you can find a rock. Will Rogers
  135. Re:Not a bad thing if they improve without bloatin by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    RC4 (in RDP).

  136. Ah, the insight. by Otis_INF · · Score: 2, Interesting

    The "NT kernel series" sucks when you try to port Unix-style thread or process per client model server software to it, because of the process limit I discussed and the VMS-like heaviweight processes. The ideal # of concurrent executing threads on 2K3 is one per processor, SQL Server and Exchange are modeled on this.
    Kernels do not suck. Kernels, if properly written (but not properly written kernels are hardly ever used in OS-es, except the win9x 'kernels'), do what was designed up-front. They have specs. If you want to use something, you read the specs and see if what you want to use can perform what you want it to perform so the usage is succesful. If you want to use an NT kernel as a monolithic UNIX kernel, and try to schedule processes instead of threads, it won't work efficiently. NT-based OS-es do not use shared memory for their processes. That's why they use threads, because these can use shared memory. When you want to use processes on an NT-kernel and you see that the performance is poor, it's not the fault of the kernel, it's the fault of the programmer who sux big time and doesn't know a thing about what he/she is doing.

    Also your remark about 'VMS-like Heavyweight processes' is of the same quality: an NT-kernel based OS works differently than UNIX. You also do not eat soup with a fork, do you? even when the fork performs brilliantly when eating potatoes!

    One thread per processor is the optimum? Whoa :) Tell me, how would it be possible to execute say 4 threads simultaneously on a processor (without HT) ? SQLServer and Exchange are modelled on the 'thread-scheduling' model, pure and simple. SQLServer's kernel (yes it has a kernel too) even uses NT-fibers, a part of the OS which can boost threads (and other threads are suffering on this). If Win2k3 has better thread-scheduling and less process-scheduling, SQLServer and Exchange will benefit from this, but also ALL threaded applications will benefit from this (can you say: IIS? aspnet_wp.exe ?)

    Windows server performance is top notch, the kernels are tuned excellently, and with each server release they get better and better. I also found your resources-remark rather amusing. You are refering to the handle-count in each process. So you think it is a good thing, a process will open (2^32)-1 objects and thus has that much handles open? I think that's a bad thing. An open handle means you have an open resource, and are keeping it open. Not a lot of resources qualify for that, most resources get opened, used and are closed right after they are used. That's good programming practise.

    I'm very happy for you that you think your monolithic, hardware-specific kernel is the way of the future. I also hope that you WON'T understand that how a kernel works internally is not that important, it's how the OS it is part of runs the software YOU want to run and use. If you WILL understand this, you will regret your swap. Until then, enjoy the ride, while it lasts.

    --
    Never underestimate the relief of true separation of Religion and State.
    1. Re:Ah, the insight. by Saint+Stephen · · Score: 2, Insightful

      While i was there I evangelized using I/O Completion ports, Overlappped Async I/O, Scatter/gather APIs, Interlocked Linked Lists (newly documented in XP/2K3), &c. the "MS-specific razor's edge" that IIS and SQL and any high-perf app on Win32 uses. It is a true statement that if you follow *exactly* that set of techniques you get world-class perf. It is also true that if you do anything the way the rest of the world does it you get shitty perf. It is also true that every ISV I worked with had huge perf problems because they didn't "walk the razor's edge."

      Example: a guy in the kernel team was bitching that WaitForMultipleObjects has a 64-handle wait limit. Dave Cutler stepped in and gave historical reasons for why the limit was set, and argued eloquently (as you did) that the Unix way of select() on thousands of sockets was inferior to using I/O completion ports. His argument was compelling, as is yours. But the original guy said: "I cannnot go to a large ISV and tell them REPENT! and use I/O Completion ports! as does IIS!" The MS-attitude is IIS is a great socket-listener, and MS wants people to write web services using ASP.NET, so why reinvent the wheel?

      So that's why I switched. It's not that MS technology is inferior. It's just that it's myopic. Linux is out there letting a thousand flowers bloom. It's more fun!

    2. Re:Ah, the insight. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

      I think you switched because you were an intern and didn't get back a 'Will Hire' recommendation. :-)

      You walk the razors edge on ANY performance tuning you do. Be it Linux, or Unix, or Windows.

      Take a look at Oracle for Linux - it works best on specially tuned versions of linux, and requires all kinds of kernel performance changes and patches.

      As a developer, I'd rather just 'get it right once' then say 'Ok now patch your kernel for optimal performance.' Once you optimize your server for Win2k, you don't have to worry that someone's kernel settings will be off and kill your optimizations, it will work on ALL of the Win2ks out there pretty much the same.

      That is worth a lot more to me as a developer. You walk a razor's edge, but you do it once every few years. That's why Windows TCO is said to be cheaper than Linux's - Oracle's recommendations on how to tune your kernel for Oracle might go against another application's recommendations for tuning. And all that tuning still requires a sysadmin's time to go in and recompile kernels and make other changes.

    3. Re:Ah, the insight. by Saint+Stephen · · Score: 1

      I said way back at the beginning that MS is better for business for the reason you described :-) (And wasn't an intern for three years!) I haven't even attempted to use Linux in a business setting, it's way to immature for that. And you're right, SQL Server's and NT's "self-tuning" beats the total hell out of Oracle and Unix's endless tuning knobs.

      However...
      I spent all my time at MS convincing people that shit it doesn't do well is really grounds for writing a "best practice whitepaper" on how you didn't really want to do that shit anyway. I constantly faced 700-step non-reversable processes which could fail silently at step 2 and you couldn tell till the end, and it really only made sense to start over. And the natural response for others to these complaints is to smile, implement the 10% the technology allows you to, and redefine that as what you really wanted to do!, and seem effective. Linux doesn't make me feel like that as much. That makes me happy. Linux has other problems (usability wise) -- which you point out. But overall I'm confident that the culture fostering Linux will allow it to grow faster than Windows.

  137. how appropriate by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
    "fossa" is Latin for "ditch". Almost as bad as "kroupware", but that's been renamed now.


    Still, Operation Iraqi Liberation gets first prize.

  138. bullshit is the evaluation free by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Shipping to UK is charged at $11.90 for standard (ie 3-5 weeks). Shipping a CD here by that method actually costs under $5. That's a lot of $7 profit adding up for Microsoft on a time-crippled EULA-usage-crippled product. It's like all their developer preview software... "no, it's free honest, it really does cost us $40 to ship it to you".

  139. Re:What? No NextP? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    They can wait for SCO to go belly up and by UNIX from them for $5. Finally, Windows NT is a better UNIX than Unix!

  140. Uh oh by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    You called me a Communist! Well I can see I've already lost this intelectual match, I had better go pick on the smaller boys!

    P.S: The correct term of insult is now "Terrorist". Please remember to call people terrorists in future.

  141. Re: Your sig by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    You should update your sig. I think you'll find the supreme court removed that "under God" bit. Which was a nice break for all of us non-Christians and Atheists, because we wern't too happy about aparently being "under God". That was a lucky break!

  142. Sorry to bust your .COM bubble by iamacat · · Score: 1

    But people would rather pay a reasonable price than be robbed of their limited free time. Just charge a quarter per video clip or per hour of audio stream and nobody will bother to steal your stuff. Arcades, movie theaters, Blockbuster or Karaoke studios are not suffering from lack of business even with MAME or DivX.

    Bandwidth might be expensive now, but multicast (you wait for 30 seconds for users to gather up and then send the file to many addresses) and location-sensitive P2P can address the problem. By the same token, credit card companies can come up with a low-cost model to process small payments.

    By contrast DRM or invasive advertisement may work right away but only for short time. People will get burned trying to migrate their media collection to another PC. Or just get tired of putting up with all the boring junk to get to your stuff. Either way, they'll turn to something else for entertainment of information.

  143. I am trying to run my new OS browser... by jotaeleemeese · · Score: 1

    ... in my OS OS as a matter of principle.

    If you want to be told how to access *your* data, by which menas and under which conditions, good luck and hope that your "provider" is benign.

    --
    IANAL but write like a drunk one.
  144. You don't get it. by jotaeleemeese · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Linux is not there to slay any Goliaths.

    Linux is there because many people believe it solves their computing problems, most importantly it solves the problem about who decides how to handle your own computer resources.

    With MS you have to upgrade when they say you must, to what they say you must, under the conditions they dictate to you and there is absolutely nothing you can do about it if you have become completely reliant on MS based stuff for your crtitical computer work.

    With Linux and other OS OSes the ones that make those decisions are the owners of the computer infrastructure. Red Hat does not support your version of RH Linux but you can't upgrade? No problem, all the code is open, you can pay somebody to fix any outstanding issues if that is what is required. Or you can move the data and programas to other Linux (and most probably any UNIX platform) when you are ready.

    The variety of Linux distributions gurantees that you find the right solution to your problem and not a one size fits all approach that most probably will not please all the different types of needs out there.

    Regarding Linux training, there is enough stuff around, but to be perfectly honest any good UNIX training is good enough and any particular caveats for a given distribution are easily covered by books or standard documentation.

    I never learned Linux anywhere but had my first working machine up and running in no time at all. I had been working on Solaris before that, I felt at home on Linux.

    --
    IANAL but write like a drunk one.
  145. Already losing monopoly rents by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
    Things don't sound so good for those poor guys at Microsoft! I better sell my stock!

    Looks like someone has beat you to it.

  146. VMS on Itainum by meadowsp · · Score: 1

    Ummm, how wrong can you be. Assuming Itaniums (or their decendants) are still going to be around in 20 years, VMS will be running on it, they've already managed to boot the port and should be commonly available soon. How many people that actually use it is another question though.

    1. Re:VMS on Itainum by Build6 · · Score: 1

      Assuming the Itanic itself actually survives :-)

      Anyways, there's also the question of emulation - does it really matter if the chip isn't running an OS "natively" if I can trigger an emulated environment and run an x-year-old OS at acceptable speeds (thanks to the sheer oomph of modern hardware)? MS' purchase of Connectix was in part?wholly? predicated on them wanting to be able to sell people a Win2k3 server that would allow them to run NT4 "inside", if I've understood the reports correctly... . emulation tools exist to run pre-PPC MacOS on even x86 machines (http://www.emulation.net) and let's not forget all the game-console emulators, MAMe etc.

    2. Re:VMS on Itainum by RoLi · · Score: 1
      Assuming Itaniums (or their decendants) are still going to be around in 20 years

      Well, assuming, assuming. Actually the Itanium is a prime example: The x86 compatibility will finally get dropped, maybe in 5 years, maybe in 10, but eventually.

      Anyway, that's not the point. The point is that DOS and VMS won't support the chipsets, hard disks interfaces, IO-interfaces and all the other hardware that people will use in 20 years.

    3. Re:VMS on Itainum by meadowsp · · Score: 1

      For VMS, I would have thought that you won't be running it on commodity hardware, pretty much like how nowadays it's run on alpha system's supplied by HP, in the future it'll be itanium systems provided by HP.

  147. No, he doesn't. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
    I agree. I've been running Linux since I was _twelve_ years old. I did my first fdisk on my own at 12 years old, to format partitions.



    It sounds like the parent doesn't like the choices available to him -- well, the solution to that seems to be Mac OS X, which is a unified front. I haven't played with it other than toying around with some of the notebooks/laptops at CompUSA, but from that and the numerous reviews I've read, it seems like it is a real step forward.



    I'll tell you who Linux is nice for. Linux is nice for cheaper dev shops trying to make a buck. It's nice for servers. It's nice for anywhere you don't want to spend money on licensing.



    -Ryan

  148. Re:Why does this always turn into Windows vs. Linu by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    > (and STOP before you flame that...you know that everone that loves
    > LINUX loves their flavor of LINUX and not just LINUX.)

    Not everybody. *I* prefer a 'nix environment, *any* 'nix environment,
    over 'doze, *any* doze, period. In fact: I may soon be doing some
    WebObjects development. I have a choice of two development platforms:
    'doze 2k pro or Mac OS X. I'll take the latter, thank you very much.

  149. Re:Oh no! tsarkon reports by Surak · · Score: 1

    Even with syn cookies and the various types of protections shut off, FreeBSD and Linux are many, many times more robust in handling bad traffic.

    Must be that RFC 3514 compliance. (Sorry, couldn't resist. :)

  150. Experience DRM with MS-Server 2003 by SgtChaireBourne · · Score: 3, Insightful
    The review articles seem to mention few changes from 2000/XP so it's funny how none of the artices really touch on the DRM problem and the licensing trap which seem to be the real purpose behind the new products.

    Either problem alone would scare potential buyers, so it seems to be forbidden to discuss.

    It would be convenient to skip the upcoming deluge of advertisements and astroturf and see trade magazines feature the F/OSS tools instead. Ads cost a fortune and MS could instead use the money to 1) hire developers to rewrite software in a secure, stable form, 2) hire lawyers for the upcoming willful negligence lawsuits.

    --
    Beta is broken and the link to classic doesn't work. Stop wasting our time or there won't be anybody left here.
    1. Re:Experience DRM with MS-Server 2003 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Amen to that license price increase:
      Check out this email at University of Wisconsin:

      From: Brian Rxxx
      Date: Mon, 21 Apr 2003 10:41:27 -0500
      To: xxxxxxxxxx@relay.doit.wisc.edu
      Subject: Microsoft license nonrenewal

      TPs:

      UW Madison will not participate in the UW System site license
      (renewal) for Microsoft products after the current contract expires
      July 31, 2003.

      UW System's negotiations with Microsoft resulted in two possible
      options for System schools: entering into a lease and relenquishing
      ownership of all licenses acquired under the current contract, or
      continuing ownership at a huge price increase (over 100% for
      Madison). The open-ended nature of the lease, coupled with the
      loss of license ownership, made that option unacceptable. Given
      the State budget shortfall, the price increase for ownership was
      unaffordable.

      When the current contract expires, departments will own licenses
      to the latest versions and rights to future maintenance patches for
      the Microsoft desktop products that were included in the original
      contract. They can continue to use those licenses indefinitely on
      department-owned machines. This includes any new versions
      released up to the expiration date of the UW System contract.

      The right to use Microsoft products acquired by departments through
      the current contract on personally-owned machines ends on July 31,
      2003. DoIT is working on a way to purchase work-at-home rights.
      If a faculty or staff home machine is University-owned, they may
      continue to use the Microsoft products.

      Students must remove those Microsoft products acquired
      through the current contract unless they graduate or leave the
      University by the time the contract expires. DoIT is still working with
      Microsoft on options to enable continuing students the ability to buy
      out their Windows and Office licenses and retain ownership.

      After the contract expires, DoIT will continue to offer Microsoft
      products and licenses to departments and students at education
      discounts through the Tech Store. We will also make Star Office,
      Sun's productivity software suite, available to the campus community.

      Details on these changes--as well as new prices for Microsoft
      products--will be made available in early May at these web sites:

      http://www.wisc.edu/wisc/UW_Madison/fs_index.htm l
      http://www.doit.wisc.edu/

      xxxxxxx
      ------
      posted anonymously as I'm not sure if this was supposed to be released...

  151. Quite the opposite !!! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    the companies Where The Money Is are requesting more and more MS stuff
    I've been looking for a job as a Unix SA, and I swear I've actually seen one or two job postings for "Unix SAs" where it says "MCSE is a plus"...


    Where are you getting this nonsense? Your boss doesn't work for "big money" anymore, right? Why is that in your opinion?

    It was always hard to find a "clean" Unix SA jod. You see the *clients* have always been windows. But now there are clean unix jobs!!!

    You can bet that within a few years, we will migrate away from our current servers (Solaris on UltraSPARCs) to Windows at this rate

    don't worry, with this kind of managment, a "little dot.com company" won't last a few years!!
    Good for you that you are already looking for a job.

  152. Re:Oh no! troll? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    On the contrary, I think Trolls everywhere have so much to learn from his style.

    Its a refreshing take on the old issues, mixing poetry, politics, communism, free speech, and curses all in one. Beautiful...

  153. The basics: Diversification. by dmaxwell · · Score: 1

    I think that is the most realistic long term path for MS. As the parent says, they have a desktop monopoly on WWW browsing and office productivity.They have some decent dev tools but they seem to be a second order effect of their desktop and server marketshares. There is no potential for growth there. They have server market share but are basically just holding the line at best. There's some money to be made in console gaming but Sony isn't about to just let MS eat it's lunch entirely. 600lb gorilla meet 900lb gorilla. Aside from all of this, they are seen as King Nero on the Mountain by a horde of coders and smaller businesses. When you're King EVERYBODY wants to knock you off.

    In this environment, what used to work isn't going to work going forward. I don't see the death of MS (much as I would enjoy attending a EULA bonfire...) anytime soon. I think the computer industry and many other fields have had just about enough of them. Something is going to have to give if they want to stay as large as they are now.

    The way to survival and more importantly profit is probably diversification. Completely owning a couple of specialty markets isn't the most stable situation to be in. The only direction you can go is down. If they have large shares in lots of markets then they can live for the forseeable future...much like IBM. This may even mean, gasp!, Linux apps and support. Why not? Even I might consider buying MS sourced Linux apps if I had no suspicion they were out to migrate my servers to another platform. They can be closed source even. I won't tolerate un-interoperability or bits of intentional brain damage meant to force change in underlying technologies though. They're going to have to get over this insistance that they call all of the shots. For now, OS agnosticism isn't the best move for them. I'm not sure it always will be and that isn't entirely my point. I think the way for them to live long term is to have their fingers in lots of pies rather than being the only ones who can eat two or three.

    1. Re:The basics: Diversification. by rnd() · · Score: 1

      Wrong. The key to business success is specialization which is something Microsoft is edging toward. Think about it, the economy used to consist of a handful of conglomerates that were in all sorts of businesses simultaneously.

      Over time, smaller companies proved better able to compete, and the conglomerates began to die. There are still a few left, but they are getting weaker every day, particularly in mature industries.

      Microsoft has a vision of the future in which barriers to becoming a programmer are minimal, and solid technology (such as .NET) underlies the efforts of even the most amateur programmers. This will allow for greater productivity, and a seamless integration between office apps, development tools, enterprise apps, and human beings.

      Most people don't care what OS they are using, they care about what they can do with it. That is why Microsoft has won every round to date.

      --

      Amazing magic tricks

  154. Kernel 2.4 by dmaxwell · · Score: 1

    I'll grant you that 2.4 brought improvements but it strictly handle with care ware until the minor release numbers got into the high teens. When 2.6 is released, I'll futz around on some throwaway desktops with it but it won't see server use for a number of minor releases. Do you know how to tell the pioneers from the later settlers? They're the ones with arrows sticking out of their backs.

  155. Re:Oh no! tsarkon reports by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    EVIDENCE? Do you have EVIDENCE that "FreeBSD and Linux are many times better at handling malformed ingress attack traffic"? No, of course not. You're a liar.

  156. AD incompatobility?!? by kruczkowski · · Score: 1

    I had a friend who beta tested an early beta and AD did not work with 2k AD.

    Does anyone know the story?

    --
    hmm... for fun I enjoy launching DDoS attacks against 127.87.42.5
  157. Re:I'd love to tell Microsoft to go pound sand, bu by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    'Good old' Win98 is all you need to run business apps. Why install the whole enchelada? Win4Lin uses a modified Linux kernel that replaces some of the Win98 functions. The result is Windows running in an X-window that is more stable and snappier than the native Windows98. If you don't believe me, try it.

  158. Problem solved.... by hughk · · Score: 1
    I have no problems managing my 2K boxes. I just run ssh via Cygwin and TightVNC for the stuff that insists on windows like MMC.

    Oh, and I do the server management from a Linux system.

    Cygwin handles drive letters very nicely (/cygdrive/C/Windows). Regrettably some of the shortcomings of the underlying platform can't be so easily overcome, but opensource can make W2K (and probably Win2K3) almost useable and manageable.

    Maybe the purists will still hate the idea of 2K underneath, but this is essentially encirclement, demonstrating to management the benefits of Open Source before they make the big leap. Perl and Bash certainly beat WindowsScriptingHell.

    --
    See my journal, I write things there
    1. Re:Problem solved.... by rutledjw · · Score: 1
      I'm all for OSS tools, but VNC is to *&&#$ slow over my VPN. I have DSL with pretty good speeds 640/640 and it still drags. Terminal Services is much better on that front. That being said, I have the luxury (and i mean that) of being able to draw the line in the sand with *nix boxes.

      I only deal with *nix and do everything (even with RH) on the command line. Windows stuff goes to another group. The only reason I can pull that line in sand stuff is that except for stuff like Exchange we're moving to Linux.

      --

      Computer Science is Applied Philosophy
    2. Re:Problem solved.... by bheerssen · · Score: 1

      I'm all for OSS tools, but VNC is to *&&#$ slow over my VPN.

      The problem with VNC on windows is that Windows doesn't have a true "window server" (an X server in the *nix world) to hook into, and so must use the current desktop. Including all the 32x32 icons, animated toolbars, what have you. Terminal services works better because it is able to layer a window server on top of the operating system. It does this using proprietary and undocumented features within windows. There is no way for VNC to compete with that. I think that if Windows were more open in that respect then you would see VNC (or VNC type programs) operating in the same way that Terminal Services does.

      To illustrate, when I access VNC on my server from the internet, I access a port that has Blackbox running instead of KDE, and I make sure that all backgrounds are a single color and that there are no menu animations. That helps speed things greatly. When I access the same server while on my LAN, I access a port that has KDE running because speed is not such an issue and I like the features KDE has to offer. If VNC could do that in Windows, it would compete much more effectively with Terminal Services.

      This message brought to you from the if-only-Windows-would-play-nice dept.

      --
      (Score: -1, Stupid)
    3. Re:Problem solved.... by hughk · · Score: 1
      Do you run TightVNC? The compression helps. Updating still isn't wonderful, so running MS Office just isn't on. Running standard tools like MMC seems to work though (although it depends upon the snap-in).

      If it can work from the command line, then tools like Cygwin's bash and perl make life a lot easier. Certainly there are perl scripts around for adding windows users and all sorts.

      --
      See my journal, I write things there
    4. Re:Problem solved.... by hughk · · Score: 1
      Yes, this is why you really can't do much more than system management via VNC.

      I know that Citrix has the sources, which is how they swing it. I understand that it really isn't that difficult, it is just a matter of getting in the right hooks. The VNC/TightVNC crowd would like to get in deeper, but that probably gets into territory that MS wouldn't like (i.e., lawyer's letters time).

      --
      See my journal, I write things there
  159. new offering indeed. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Server 2003 is their 64bit offering.

  160. Re:Not a bad thing if they improve without bloatin by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Why on Earth would you toggle any setting, in any OS or software package, without fully understanding what it does?

    This is an operation issue, not a technical one.

    Don't fsck with things you don't understand.

  161. actually, no that's not what I was saying by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I was saying the Unix command shell is more powerful and flexible, because it has had to be. Windows is less powerful as a CLI because Windows is a GUI os. I'm not saying that Windows sucks because of it, I'm saying that this aspect of the OS is more mature on Unix than on Windows. If you say otherwise, you're ignorant.

  162. totally stupid question by sw33tjimmy · · Score: 1

    I attended a tech showing of Windows Server2k3 put on by microsoft. (My boss is a reseller of MS software, licenses, etc and he invited me along) So at the end of the day long seminar, the MS guy there had us all fill out a form and told us that each of us (there were about 15 there) would get a free copy of server2k3 (just the standard flavor -- not small business or anything like that). So, how stupid would it be to have a domain controller for my peer to peer network at home? LMAO. Seriously, though, here's the stupid question: Would it be dumb for me to put 2k3 server on my gaming rig that I've currently got 2kpro on? I'd really like to get familiar with 2k3 server, but I seriously doubt that driver support is going to be any good. I suppose I could be wrong though. Help a budding geek out, folks!

    --
    Get Virtual.
  163. don't quote me on this... by sw33tjimmy · · Score: 1

    but i think that .net refers to the inclusion of xml on web servers. The definition of .net that I got from the MS spokesperson was pretty gushy, though. the example he gave us: an MS web developer built this tool that you could enter any flight number into and it would return with the outside temperature of the place that flight was over at any given time. he was able to build this by using multiple xml services across the net provided by different servers: gps, flight tracking, zip code verification, and weather service. again. don't quote me on that, but that's what I got out of it.

    --
    Get Virtual.
  164. MS buying slashdot accounts? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I have to wonder sometimes if MS has been secretly buying high karma sub 300K numbered accounts or if they have been registering them just in case all along

  165. What about the license agreement? by Zaphod-AVA · · Score: 1

    I don't care if the software is the best thing since nethack, if the agreement is as painful as Win XP, I'm not touching it with a ten foot cattle prod.

    -Zaphod

  166. nope - linux= one flavor, windows=2 flavors by TheRealRamone · · Score: 1

    I was under the impression there was but a single thread of development for the Linux (kernel of the GNU Linux OS).

    As opposed to windows with its DOS and VMS(ie "new technology technology") kernels.

    Or perhaps you were confusing Linux with *BSD??? (which has 4)

    --TRR

  167. ADAM by xrayspx · · Score: 1

    Active Dir Application Mode is backported to 2k as well though, so you don't need Win2k3 Server to get it. I was just offered this as a solution by MS, though in my case using a full-blown Domain was the better way, since I need it for authentication, not fancy directory lookups.

    Can someone explain how ADAM is different from just running any LDAP server for this purpose? Not that they'll charge for ADAM, but it would be nice to know how cross-platform it is, or if LDAP is better for mixed environments.

  168. I Have A Vision... by LifesABeach · · Score: 0

    I have a vision that one day we will rise up and live out the true meaning of: "Do Not Re-Invent The Wheel."

    I have a vision that one day in Redmond Washington that the children of older operating systems and the children of Linux will be able to sit down together and not have to worry about rebooting.

    I have a vision that one day even the state of Redmond Washington, a desert state, sweltering with the heat of injustice and corporate short sightedness, will be transformed into an oasis of creativity and justice.

    I have a vision that my children will one-day use a computer where they will not be judged by the work-arounds they know, but by the content of their homework.

    But now I have to get back to work fighting not only deadlines, but also the "Blue Screen Of Death".

  169. Re:Oh no! tsarkon reports by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    How about... FUCK YOU, you know-nothing snarky mediocritomaton; I ran these fucking tests - PERSONALLY. Go compile them for yourself, you fucking PUKE, and see for yourself. I'm not publishing my results unless you feel like paying me to run them.

    You know, bastard, I got paid a bit of money to do the analysis, too. I think that getting paid for information in a fair bakeoff somehow validates the data, no fraud was committed, and the information was useful and worth paying for because it illustrated a point - the point?. The point was that a company desired to illustrate the vulnerability to IIS users that their firewall/IDS/DOS product was very much needed for people stupid enough to use IIS as a production Web server.

    You stupid fuck. Now, instead of looking like a complete ass, I see you have nothing to say about windows laughable remote manageability. Fucking, fucking loser. Why don't you toss your IP to some script kiddies and challenge them to bring down your box. You'll see what happens. I can trash a Windows 2003 box with the best GigE card in the world with a surprisingly small amount of malformed traffic, so much so that you can't even "Disable Interface." Yep that's right. The Windows equivalent of ifdown or rmmod doesn't even work the machine gets so hurt by the attack.

    Now how about another 378 byte Slammer attack for you and you fucking pack of Zealots. I'll tell you one thing, Windows can certainly produce lots of traffic when trojaned and wormed.

  170. Re:IT managers on tight budgets? by drunk_as_in_beer · · Score: 1

    Ooooh, IT managers just LOVE to adopt platforms where the only admins they can find are shakedown artists.

    Shakedown artists? No, more like "people who are seriously interested in computers." It only helps to have Linux/UNIX listed in your resume. If people aren't educating themselves in this area, then its their loss, the industry will leave those people behind. Those who are competitive will remain.

    --
    --Drunk as in Beer
  171. Re:Oh no! troll? by mugnyte · · Score: 1

    Hmm. Moderation doesn't removed the posts; this isn't censorship at all. Filter at your leisure.

    Actually, with that type of writing, I can understand why you'd be upset about moderation.

    If you want a site without filters, stick to newgroups sourpuss. Nobody forces you to come here, although being so angry does flatter the site.

    mug

  172. OK, I can't beat a free OS in price, but.... by SonicBurst · · Score: 1

    ...you're figures are off quite a bit for those of us working as admins in the academic world. I realize that you wouldn't know that, and I also realize that most admins do not have access to the kind of pricing that academic institutions can get. I only pay $87 per license of 2K server that I use in a production environment. For academic teaching, we only pay $800 per year for almost everything MS makes, with the exclusion of any Office product. And, I can give a license for all that stuff away to each and every student enrolled in a CS class. We also get 4 free support incidents a year with that annual cost. Now, again, I know that this can't compare with Free Software in terms of absolute price, but I just wanted to make it known that MS's pricing isn't *always* horrible. As a matter of fact, for many universities, their software is downright cheap.

    --

    Geek used to be a four letter word. Now it's a six-figure one.
    1. Re:OK, I can't beat a free OS in price, but.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      A quick clarification:

      Is that 87 per licensed machine? So if you have 100 Win2K machines, that's 8700 per incident?

    2. Re:OK, I can't beat a free OS in price, but.... by SonicBurst · · Score: 1

      No that's $87 per licensed copy of Windows. So to acquire 100 licenses, yes, that would be $8700. But the support is per incident....so if you had the same issue with all 100 servers, you only need the support once, right? Then you just apply that to the rest of the servers and MS only charges you $250 for the one incident. Now, yes, if all 100 servers had different problems, you would definitely be up the creek without some kind of support contract. Again, I've only had to call MS support once, and they didn't charge me since it was related to a security fix.

      --

      Geek used to be a four letter word. Now it's a six-figure one.
    3. Re:OK, I can't beat a free OS in price, but.... by dbrutus · · Score: 1

      Like I said, your experience is atypical. Academic institutions are to MS as crack dealers are to the columbian drug cartels, the footsoldiers in the operation that get people hooked on their product, often with free samples.

      I don't disagree that MS offers discounts when it suits them and the biggest discounts have traditionally been given to academic institutions. Whenever it feels strategically threatened MS will lower prices and even instruct its resellers to no longer check whether academic price product is actually going to students/teachers. But this situation is analogous to the proverbial hothouse flower wondering why all those plants out in the open complain about the winter months.

      The fact is that in the commercial comparison that kicked off this discussion the idea that Linux pricing is *more* expensive just doesn't hold water. You don't seem to actually be supporting that idea so why not call it quits at that.

  173. A simple C++ script?! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Did you have your morning coffee yet? You don't script in C++, and C++ is only simple once you've learned it.

    Or were you thinking of a VBScript macro?

  174. Re:IT managers on tight budgets? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
    More clueless drivel, there are lots of engineering apps for nix/linux. You also do not seem to be up much on current events in Hollywood either.

    /.:over run by MS trolls

  175. Known bugs only by sean.peters · · Score: 1
    if I remember correctly the bug count is somewhere low like 100 or less (obviously this is known bugs only, I'd bet it's way higher)
    Dammit, that's not good enough! I need to know how many UNKNOWN bugs there are! </phb mode="off">

    Sean

  176. Re:Oh no! tsarkon reports by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I believe you, captain fuckhead. You're so credible and trustworthy. I'll just take you at your word.

  177. Uranus by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
    trying to pull your head out for you.

    OSS is rather common but FOSS is not found too many places regarding free and open source software. Don't get upset because you 1337 mentality is not understood by all, some of us put our energy into other things than memorizing cute acronyms

  178. F/OSS by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    just as there is no SPDIF but there is a S/PDIF you should not be so lazy as to eliminate the slash. You are already being lazy with the acronym so give the readers a break and show a little consistency and understanding of communication

  179. Re:Oh no! tsarkon reports by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Heh. And you and your wealth of technical insight give you a whole lot more credence.

    Your lack of any technical remarks or technical insight leave everything to be desired.

    This makes you an anecdotal poser. There are Windows admins who can defend Windows properly. You are not one of them. If you want to be a poster child for windows, i suggest you promptly shut the fuck up before you make your sect look any worse.

    It is better to be though of as a fool, than to speak up and remove ALL DOUBT.

  180. My God by shadowbearer · · Score: 1

    Best. Rant. Ever.

    --
    It's old. The more humans I meet, the more I like my cats. At least they are honest.
  181. Re:Oh no! tsarkon reports by AlphaSys · · Score: 1

    Mod this troll all the way down.

    Any server product has its ups and downs. Why in the hell would you ues 2k3 for a SAMBA share? Jeez. If filesharing is all you're interested in, get a FREEDOS box and knock yourself out. You have little clue what you're talking about so I'm leaving it at that.

    --
    Can I bum a sig? I left mine at the office.
  182. Campaign .NOT by 4of12 · · Score: 1

    Despite all the hoopla about marketing to cost-conscious IT managers, what you won't see in the Win2003 advertising campaign is the real, the actual, the true way to best manage your Windows servers in the most cost effective way.

    To wit: Keep running Win2K. It's good enough for a while (Think cars: run it into the ground). That, and keep poking your toe in the Linux/SAMBA water from time to time to test for sufficient warmth.

    --
    "Provided by the management for your protection."
  183. Re:Oh no! tsarkon reports by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    what the fuck are you talking about? yeah, you are so technical and hands on, you sound so convincing.

    so, you think if you need SMB shares, you should buy Windows 2003 or just use free samba?

    what are you trying to say?

    you know, just from the sound of your garbage, i'm guessing you have never used windows 2003. I'm sure tsarkon reports has, but probably not in production - why would he? well if you read his tome, you would find out.

  184. Re:IT managers on tight budgets? by arkanes · · Score: 1

    "niche" things like mail servers and communications makes up 90% of the server market.

  185. Re:IT managers on tight budgets? by SN74S181 · · Score: 1

    And they're commodity software that just about any server platform, anywhere, can deliver.

    I am not claiming that Windows is better at that stuff, not at all. In fact old-line proprietary UNIX is still king in the EDA market. But it's certainly no 'killer app' to get Linux boxes into the server room.

  186. With the exception of IIS6.0 by MickDownUnder · · Score: 1

    *COUGH* umm... yes if you ignore the complete overhaul and rewrite of IIS - one their most bug riddled and important parts of their Server OS, it's a small step.

    But how many people out there are using their server to supply Web Services or Web forms ? .... uuhhh hmmm yes most of them.

    Windows 2003 Server represents a very major release. It's their first server which fully integrates the .NET framework.

    IIS6.0 has very significant improvements that give a systems administrator full control over the security environment and processing environment of their Web applications.

    These improvements will likely make IIS6.0 a much more stable and scalable solution than any of it's predecessors.

  187. Re:Oh no! tsarkon reports by muk99 · · Score: 1

    WOW, I wonder how Mr. Gates will survive such a "shock and awe" attack..Is he doomed like Saddam Husein?

  188. Re:Oh no! tsarkon reports by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Death to porkload fuckhead Steve Ballmer too.

    Fuck Gill Bates. Fuck Mundy, and all the other fucking fuckhead shitbags at Microfuck. And fuck those chinese loving fuckers for setting up a "research" group in China. FUCKERS. I hate them. Those stupid, error prone DoJ abusing lawmaking while lawbreaking motherfuck hypocrite fucks. I hope those China loving Puke motherfuckers all get SARS.

  189. Re:I'd love to tell Microsoft to go pound sand, bu by letxa2000 · · Score: 1
    It's next to useless because it only runs Win9X? That's enough to run Quicken, Quickbooks, Office XP, Visual .NET, DevStudio6, etc. In fact, I've been wanting to upgrade my XP laptop back to Win98 since it (XP) came preinstalled on my laptop. I upgraded to Linux and Win4Lin instead.

    To put it in persecptive for you: Under WinXP it took 10 seconds to open Word 2000. Word 2000 under Win4Lin under Linux takes about 1.5 seconds. I kid you not! All I wanted was the ability to run some Windows programs when I needed to and I didn't really care if it was clunky or slow. Little did I know at the time that using Win4Lin would actually speed up my Windows applications! Now I'm getting to use all the laptop I paid for!

    Try Win4Lin before you knock it. Very little actually requires WinXP and everything else runs faster under Win4Lin (except QuickBooks which appears to be just as slow as always under Win4Lin. I'm wondering if they put an actual time-based delay in the QuickBooks startup code!).

  190. Re:My God TSARKON REPORTS. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Tsarkon thanks you for your kindness.

  191. Tsarkon calls for an end to tyranny and despotism. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Hey, how about this: "Fuck you, you cunt bastard."

    The leaders of "communities" and in general groups of people need to learn not the abuse the venue by which they make a living: We are the people who indirectly underwrite their existence, and every voice in this forum should count.

    The Mobocratic methods of censure are amongst the worlds WORST in terms of fairness. Masses of mediocritomatons doing the bureaucratic process have no sense of fairness or humanity on a small scale, and will crush insight when it isn't populist groupthink.
    I have more faith in a benevolent dictator than groupthink, at least one localized tyrant is limited to the number of people he can put to death in one day. It takes mob populist conformitons to commit genocide.

    Think of it this way; Einstein was say, one in a billion. Nazi's wanted to kill all Judaic peoples. Einstein would have been killed in the Third Reich. And that would have been a vastly popular decision in the late 30's - early 40's.

    But it doesn't make it right. And all of humanity suffers the consequences.

  192. Re:Oh no! tsarkon reports poser liar windows kiddi by AlphaSys · · Score: 1

    Actually, you are off-base in places and off in others.

    Of course I'm not using something that went gold (and that's MS's definition of gold, so take the grain of salt because you know ymmv) weeks ago in a production environment. I'm lazy, not stupid.

    No, I'm not a Tom/Kyle/Anand type, but I do have to keep on top of the latest OS releases. I do have to evaluate the pros and cons of each release and figure out if it is worth it to my enterprise or to any of our customers. I download RH/Slack/BSD releases within days of availability and start putting them through their paces on test boxen. I do the same with MS products via my MSDN subscription. Working with both worlds all the time, I can't afford to bury my head in the sand and ignore the march of so-called progress or discount something just because it comes from Redmond.

    I read the same tsarkon posts and info you did and what I gleaned from it was he installed it to do file-sharing and then proceeded to bash everything about the OS including what he didn't test or even understand in classic /. fashion and in a very uninformed manner.

    You can bash Win2k DNS all you like but I have been running it production for two years for a number of complex domain trees and to also support a production AD (which interoperates just fine with my other LDAP servers, thank you) and I have found it to be quite stable. I am not stupid enough to let the AD servers talk DNS to the real world (use a DNS proxy locked down tighter than dick's hat band for that), but these are the kind of things you learn by actually USING a product rather than just clicking around a little and deciding it's inferior and not worth your time. BTW - maybe you're saying that there have been fewer serious BIND vulnerabilities than Win2K *DNS-specific* exploits? Umm, no.

    As for IIS, if you're using it to serve up simple DB-bound web pages, again, you SHOULD be using Apache and pHp. IIS is not just the server version of PWS, dunghole. IIS is an application platform, not a simple web server. And that's not to say that Apache w/Jakarta or WebSphere or whatever else can't compete with that, because they definitely have their uses. But using the latest incarnations of IIS to work with windows-only application platforms is simply cheaper, faster and more extensible for large clients who have standardized on that homogeneous environment at both the client and the server. Notice I'm not defending that decision, I'm just telling you what it takes to stay competitive in the large contract RAD market, since you seem to not understand why anyone would even consider checking W2K3 out.

    As for RRAS, it does what my org needs it to do and I don't have to buy/support another piece of hardware to do it. I'm sure an ISP would prefer another solution (understandably), but, then, I am not an ISP.

    I really can't believe you even used the words "Solaris" and worse "Lotus" in the same paragraph with the word "service". Quarterly maintenance is not a good option when your users are down waiting for the fix or when a critical exploit needs attention. Patches come out when they have to not when they have been scheduled, moron.

    I am certainly *not* a Microsoft-trained monkey, and I understand that many, many such creatures exist. Everything I know about MS I've learned from having to work with it. And I guarantee you I've had much more pain from their products than you have. But I have noticed a trend in their products improving in some areas, as much as I may disagree with their direction in others. I am not very interested in what is percieved as *cool*. If I were, would I be even arguing this with you on /.? Think about it. You sound like one of the folks that has to have a "clear winner" in the server category as opposed to realizing that it is a very broad field and one may smoke on some features but not on others. I would never limit my network to a single architecture like alot of our clients do. But then again, the reason our co

    --
    Can I bum a sig? I left mine at the office.
  193. Re:Oh no! tsarkon reports poser liar windows kiddi by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Oh yeah, in addition to the quarterly maintainence, Lotus and Solaris provide patches just about every fucking day.

    You just gave yourself away, loser.

    Zealot loser. "Boxen." Hahahaa. You need to keep on top. Hahahaha. Dude, you reall did make my day.

    You are a know nothing computer tart. I have nothing to learn from you. It really amuses me you took the time to write all that shit, too.

    You know how many more years of industry experience I have than you? I can tell by the way you are mouthing off.

    You have no clients, you work for someone else, you couldnt make a dime consulting. You are trained monkey that sits in some place and is an "IT System Admin"

    You've never seen a Juniper, or a 6509, you talk a lot of shit, because you better listen up, and listen good, if you knew anything at all about network performance, you would suck Windows dick so hard.

    So I deprecate everything you say as trash from an inexperienced tart.

    Dont ever tell me I'm off base or off. I get paid more than you do because iof the way I think.

  194. Re:Oh no! tsarkon reports AlphaSys's Past. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    You are a fuck. I read a few of your past posts, and you are a snarky fuck.

    You also talk about Windows quite a bit. Windows Zealot.

    You also say things with finality. While I do respect being concise, possibly curt; brevity is quite nice, your factual statements about nebulous things is just plain absurd.

    Your postings here on SlashCrap, the loser community, serve as a testament to your complete and total loserdom.

    You are a small, prick bastard fat sexless live-at-home fuckstick suppressed homosexual with nothing to do but interject your two cents and then not realize, not even fucking replies to you. No one cares.

    You need this edification. Suck it in tird.

  195. not in tandem w/ the CLI by SHEENmaster · · Score: 1

    It's when the GUI takes over completely leaving the commandline to ruin. How do you type "rm -rf lame*.mp3" in a gui? "mkisofs foo/* > foo.iso"?

    I've used M$'s terminal-server client as well as rdesktop on my Linux box. It only allows so many people to login and the server quickly crashes under the stress. It was an NT 5 server with the latest patches; thank goodness I'm out of there.

    --
    You can't judge a book by the way it wears its hair.
  196. Re:Oh no! tsarkon reports poser liar windows kiddi by AlphaSys · · Score: 1

    You imply a disparity in your years of experience and mine and I do not doubt that. Judging from the maturity level of your posts, you don't have as many years breathing as I have of industry experience.

    Say what you want about Lotus, but I will never use it again. And yes, that implies I have before. Solaris has generally performed well for me... it's just the on-again, off-again attitude towards x86 that makes me leery of ongoing support from Sun.

    You assume you make more than me, and maybe you do (there's alot of people paying too much for too little out there) but you really shouldn't assume it because you are likely wrong. It matters not though, because I am secure in my career and my craft. You also assume I don't have a consulting biz of my own or "can't get a client". Whatever. If you feel it necessary to carry on this bullshit troll, go ahead. You're in my killfile.

    --
    Can I bum a sig? I left mine at the office.
  197. Re:Oh no! tsarkon reports by jbfields3 · · Score: 1

    Interesting note that Juniper uses BSD for core servers. I'll bet their office users still do their mail and memo's with Microsoft products. But hold it, Juniper routers are ASIC-based devices, so what are these awesome servers? Everytime I work with Cisco IOS I find myself wishing that Microsoft would buy Cisco and give us a useable user interface. Am I a Windows Zealot? I was doing UNIX before Linux was around, and for the record put the first UNIX-like system into the Peace Corps: SCO Xenix with an Oracle database. Last week I completed the train-the-trainers course for Windows Server 2003. Yes I still run BSD, but it's something of an afterthought as I'm mostly interested in how to manage UNIX from a Windows seat. Doing things the hard way is for people who *need* to do something to feel more macho, not for those who already are. Seems to me that evaluating an individual OS on an individual machine for resistance to attacks is kind of the "little picture" approach. It's not a systems approach, to be sure. Individuals who use OS's connect them to ISP's who are increasingly vigilant. Why worry about protecting my own DNS servers when I can use Verizon's? Businesses do not buy an OS for its resistance to attacks if they know they've already paid the price to stop such attacks at the firewalls and routers. It is interesting that rather than meet technical arguments head-on, this writer already labels those who might disagree with ad hominem attacks. Zealots? It issort of the pot calling the kettle black, isn't it? As for command line configurability, everything in W2K3 is configurable from the command prompt. The problem is that it is not as simple an OS as Linux, so you might have to do some real study and learning before you can figure out how to be that dangerous. As for *secure* scripting, I sure do not want to install certificate authorities and do signed code on UNIX in any business I'm going to support.

    --
    JB Fields jbfields3@gmail.com http://jaysmotorcycle.blogspot.com "Crossing the Canadian border, the customs guy asks
  198. Re:Oh no! tsarkon reports poser liar windows kiddi by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Killfile on Slashdot? hahahaha

    You are so easy to troll - you are the loser here.

    Also, you are a fucking lamer tird for complaining about Solaris on x86, it was designed for a SPARC. You are so fucking cheap-assed you cant even afford them

    HAHAHAHA
    SOME ENTERPRISE ADMIN YOU ARE, Solaris on x86. HAHAHAHAHA.

    I'm petting my Sun Blade 2000 and telling it a moron like you will neve rtouch it.

  199. Not atypical by SonicBurst · · Score: 1

    Like I said in a previous post, I don't think my experience is atypical. I cannot believe that my shop is alone in not having constant software issues with MS software. Again, it comes down to competency...I'm reminded of someone's sig. here on /. it goes something like clueless admin Homer Simpson on NT: Server goes up, server goes down, server goes up, server goes down....you get the picture. In any case, Microsoft has *always* given very favorable discounts to Academia, not just when it suits them. But they're not stupid either...giving large discounts to schools and students helps promote another generation weaned on MS software, another generation using/administering/and coding for their software simply because they're used to it. Then MS hopes and prays like hell that when they can pay for a copy, they will.

    Also, you're right, I don't think that linux pricing is more expensive. In all of my previous posts I explicitly stated that I couldn't argue that point because it *is* nearly impossible to argue (that said, now that I look at it, the support you get for the $1499 RH AS license looks pretty paltry...9-5 only and only for one machine....)

    Anyway, it's late and I'm going to bed. Perhaps I'll continue this another day.

    --

    Geek used to be a four letter word. Now it's a six-figure one.
  200. Re:Oh no! tsarkon reports poser liar windows kiddi by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    He mister super experienced, I like you super high slashdot ID - its really indicative of an "old schooler" hahahahahahahaha.

    fucking poser newbie.

  201. Re:Oh no! tsarkon reports by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    * g o a t s e x * g o a t s e x * g o a t s e x *
    gcccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccc cg
    oc/ccccc\ccccccccccccc\cccccccccccc/cccc\ccccc cco
    a|ccccccc|ccccccccccccc\cccccccccc|cccccc|ccc ccca
    t|ccccccc`.ccccccccccccc|ccccccccc|ccccccc:c cccct
    s`cccccccc|ccccccccccccc|cccccccc\|ccccccc| cccccs
    ec\ccccccc|c/ccccccc/cc\\\ccc--__c\\cccccc c:cccce
    xcc\cccccc\/ccc_--~~cccccccccc~--__|c\ccc cc|ccccx
    *ccc\cccccc\_-~cccccccccccccccccccc~-_\c ccc|cccc*
    gcccc\_ccccc\cccccccc_.--------.______\ |ccc|ccccg
    occcccc\ccccc\______//c_c___c_c(_(__>c c\ccc|ccc co
    accccccc\ccc.ccCc___)cc______c(_(____>cc|cc/cc c ca
    tccccccc/\c|cccCc____)/cccccc\c(_____>cc|_/ccc c ct
    scccccc/c/\|cccC_____)_AlphaSys_(___>ccc/cc\cc c cs
    eccccc|ccc(ccc_C_____)\FUCKS ASS//c_/c/ccccc\ccce
    xccccc|cccc\cc|__ccc\\______ ___//c(__/ccccccc|ccx
    *cccc|c\cccc\____)ccc`----c cc--'ccccccccccccc|cc*
    gcccc|cc\_cccccccccc___\cc ccccc/_cccccccccc_/c|cg
    occc|cccccccccccccc/cccc| ccccc|cc\cccccccccccc|co
    accc|ccccccccccccc|cccc/ ccccccc\cc\ccccccccccc|ca
    tccc|cccccccccc/c/cccc| ccccccccc|cc\ccccccccccc|t
    sccc|ccccccccc/c/ccccc c\__/\___/cccc|cccccccccc|s
    ecc|ccccccccccc/ccccc ccc|cccc|ccccccc|ccccccccc|e
    xcc|cccccccccc|ccccc cccc|cccc|ccccccc|ccccccccc|x
    * g o a t s e x * g o a t s e x * g o a t s e x *


    Fucking alarm! Fucking alarm!

    AlphaSys the FUCKING FAG is speaking.
  202. Re:Oh no! complaint against alphasys's chicanery by AlphaSys · · Score: 1

    OMFG, LOFL & ROTF! Yes, I actually read it all and the mirth was the worth. Thank you, AfC, for demonstarting that you have the aptitude to commit the same verbicide of which you accuse me but of which you offer no evidence and of which none can I find. If you want anyone to take you seriously (and that would be a very high ambition for you, maybe unrealistic), try posting with some identity and get back to the discussion at hand. BTW anyone can get transciptions of the minutes from their local demagoguery's meetings and do find and replace; that does not equal original thinking or speaking. But it is one way to learn the language. FOAD.

    --
    Can I bum a sig? I left mine at the office.
  203. Re:Oh no! complaint against alphasys's chicanery by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Rather than engage in a point-by-point response to the textual interpretation of AlphaSys The Child Molesting Ass Philandering Homosexual Bastard's maneuvers, I want to respond to the more general issue at hand. You see, I really believe that AlphaSys The Child Molesting Ass Philandering Homosexual Bastard has never inscribed his name on the Parthenon of human excellence, either mental or moral. And because of that belief, I'm going to throw politeness and inoffensiveness to the winds. In this letter, I'm going to be as rude and crude as I know how, to reinforce the point that AlphaSys The Child Molesting Ass Philandering Homosexual Bastard's disquisitions are based on hate. Hate, fanaticism, and an intolerance of another viewpoint, another way of life. His crazy, beer-guzzling ultimata convince me of only one thing: that he asserts that his protests are Right with a capital R. That assertion is not only untrue, but a conscious lie.

    I feel this way because I, hardheaded cynic that I am, would never take a job working for AlphaSys The Child Molesting Ass Philandering Homosexual Bastard. Given his gormless smears, who would want to? He treats people as objects, period. At first, you might be unsure as to whether I urge you to join me in my quest to fight anal-retentive porn stars. But on deeper inspection, you'll truly conclude that it doesn't do us much good to become angry and wave our arms and shout about the evils of his wisecracks in general terms. If we want other people to agree with us and join forces with us, then we must protect little children from obtuse underachievers like him. Although the Gospel According to AlphaSys The Child Molesting Ass Philandering Homosexual Bastard says that it is not only acceptable, but indeed desirable, to usher in the beginning of a squalid new era of pauperism, I maintain that his eccentricity is surpassed only by his vanity. And AlphaSys The Child Molesting Ass Philandering Homosexual Bastard's vanity is surpassed only by his empty theorizing. (Remember his theory that you and I are inferior to bloody-minded riffraff?)

    Individually, his obiter dicta use organized violence to suppress opposition. But linked together, his activities could easily instill a general ennui. He likes to generate an epidemic of corruption and social unrest. Such activity can flourish only in the dark, however. If you drag it into the open, AlphaSys The Child Molesting Ass Philandering Homosexual Bastard and his sycophants, who are legion, will run for cover, like cockroaches in a dirty kitchen when the light is turned on suddenly during the night. That's why we must convince vexatious treacherous-types to stop supporting AlphaSys The Child Molesting Ass Philandering Homosexual Bastard and tolerating his conjectures. Will his mad deputies make our country spiritually blind? Only time will tell.

    He is like a pigeon. Pigeons are too self-absorbed to care about anyone else. They poo on people they don't like; they poo on people they don't even know. The only real difference between AlphaSys The Child Molesting Ass Philandering Homosexual Bastard and a pigeon is that AlphaSys The Child Molesting Ass Philandering Homosexual Bastard intends to move increasingly towards the establishment of a totalitarian Earth. That's why I shall not argue that his newsgroup postings are an authentic map of his plan to publish blatantly snooty rhetoric as "education" for children to learn in school. Read them and see for yourself. His most progressive idea is to consign our traditional values to the rubbish heap of fetishism. If that sounds progressive to you, you must be facing the wrong way. Who else but AlphaSys The Child Molesting Ass Philandering Homosexual Bastard would have the brass to distract people from serious analysis of the situation? No one. And where does that brass come from? It comes from a sure knowledge that he can retreat into his "victim" status if anyone calls him to account.

    I just want to go placidly amid the noise and haste. That's why I propose, a

  204. Re:Oh no! complaint against alphasys's chicanery by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
    Noob. YHBTYHLHAND. Taking the bait so bad you are flopping around on the bottom of the fishing troller.


    GM Jesse twitched and farted in his sleep. Next to him lay Susie Anne Lou, the GM plant-slut and all around bar whore. She was 42. She was also awake.

    "Jesse, wake up," she hissed, her voice like sandpaper from years of a 5-pack-a-day smoking habit. "Wake up you fat son of a bitch!"

    Stirring and mumbling something about "polishing his knob like a good little slut," GM Jesse awoke slowly. He winced as had fallen asleep with his cheap sunglasses on again and inadvertantly shoved them into his face in a failed attempt to wipe the sleep from his eyes.

    "What the fuck!?" he exclaimed as he groggily looked around. He gasped as he saw Susie Anne Lou; he had forgotten that he had "seduced" (bought her 7 beers at the bar) and fucked her earlier that night. He had been dreaming about Sarah Jessica Parker's perky Jewish tits and her shaven Jewish pussy. He had "messed her pussy up" all night long in his dream and waking up to Susie Anne Lou was in sharp contrast to his fantasy.

    "You were snoring and farting. You God-damned pig, I don't expect to deal with shit-smell and grunting after I fuck," Susie Anne Lou said pointedly. "God dammit!"

    Without hesitation, GM Jesse bitchslapped Susie Anne Lou. "Fuckin' cunt, God-damn bitchin' an' whinin' after I got my balls in you," he berated. "Next time you want this God-damned meat pole you're gonna get down on your knees and kiss my balls first, you fuckin' hag!"

    The next morning, Susie Ann Lou, the GM plant-slut, was nowhere to be seen. Neither was GM Jesse's guitar (untouched since '78), his Journey records (last listened to yesterday), his beer (all 5 cases of it, chilled), and a stack of porno mags (Open Legs, Hustler, and Shaved).

    "Fuckin' slut stole all my shit, God dammit!" GM Jesse exclaimed angrily. "Fuckin' fuck-hole walked off with all my favotire shit!"

    He grabbed his jean jacket and waddled out the door. It was a warm summer morning in Kansas City and he was wearing his finest red cut-off jogging pant shorts, a stained white tshirt, and a flannel shirt overtop of that. His shoes were imitation leather with Velcro straps. GM Jesse didn't have time to fuck around with tyin' his shoes!

    His belly hung out from his tshirt, and though he didn't notice, his dirty cock was hanging limply from a hole he had cut in the front of his jogging pant cut-off shorts so he woulnd't have to pull them down to piss. He'd done this while trying to piss in a beer bottle in his reclining chair late one Wednesday night. It was quite hard to piss in a beer bottle sitting down with your dick aimed down and over the top of an elastic band!

    His '78 Sedan stationwagon peeled out of his driveway and down the gravelly road toward I-70 and the GM plant.

    His buddies from the line were drinking in the parking lot before work, per tradition every work day, and he didn't want to be late.
  205. Re:Oh no! alphasys's chicanery YHBTYHLHAND by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
    YHBTYHLHAND Hahahaha. You are so noob, its great.


    * g o a t s e x * g o a t s e x * g o a t s e x *
    gcccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccg
    oc/ccccc\ccccccccccccc\cccccccccccc/cccc\ccccccco
    a|ccccccc|ccccccccccccc\cccccccccc|cccccc|cccccca
    t|ccccccc`.ccccccccccccc|ccccccccc|ccccccc:ccccct
    s`cccccccc|ccccccccccccc|cccccccc\|ccccccc|cccccs
    ec\ccccccc|c/ccccccc/cc\\\ccc--__c\\ccccccc:cccce
    xcc\cccccc\/ccc_--~~cccccccccc~--__|c\ccccc|ccccx
    *ccc\cccccc\_-~cccccccccccccccccccc~-_\cccc|cccc*
    gcccc\_ccccc\cccccccc_.--------.______\|ccc|ccccg
    occcccc\ccccc\______//c_c___c_c(_(__>cc\ccc|cccco
    accccccc\ccc.ccCc___)cc______c(_(____>cc|cc/cccca
    tccccccc/\c|cccCc____)/ _ _ _\c(_____>cc|_/ccccct
    scccccc/c/\|cccC_____)AlphaSys__ ___>ccc/cc\ccccs
    eccccc|ccc(ccc_C_____)\FUCKS ASS!/c_/c/ccccc\ccce
    xccccc|cccc\cc|__ccc\\_________//c(__/ccccccc|ccx
    *cccc|c\cccc\____)ccc`----ccc--'ccccccccccccc|cc*
    gcccc|cc\_cccccccccc___\ccccccc/_cccccccccc_/c|cg
    occc|cccccccccccccc/cccc|ccccc|cc\cccccccccccc|co
    accc|ccccccccccccc|cccc/ccccccc\cc\ccccccccccc|ca
    tccc|cccccccccc/c/cccc|ccccccccc|cc\ccccccccccc|t
    sccc|ccccccccc/c/cccccc\__/\___/cccc|cccccccccc|s
    ecc|ccccccccccc/cccccccc|cccc|ccccccc|ccccccccc|e
    xcc|cccccccccc|ccccccccc|cccc|ccccccc|ccccccccc|x
    * g o a t s e x * g o a t s e x * g o a t s e x *

    Over the past few weeks, I've learned to look past AlphaSys The Noobie Dork's pestilential, power-drunk expositions. I've learned to look past some of the foul things AlphaSys The Noobie Dork has said. I've even learned to look past his attempts to make serious dialogue difficult or impossible. But I cannot stay silent about AlphaSys The Noobie Dork's incomprehensible and unforgivable audacity regarding a specific event that recently occurred. Wait! Before you dismiss me as disloyal, hear me out.

    No matter how close he's come to making me turn to a life of crime, he won't be satisfied until he finds a way to waste hours and hours in fruitless conferences and meetings. Above all, it should scarcely seem questionable to anyone that he treats people as objects. For your information, if we take his sentiments to their logical conclusion, we see that by the end of the decade, he will create an ideological climate that will enable him to promote foul-mouthed ideologies, such as antipluralism.

    Scary primates (like AlphaSys The Noobie Dork) are not born -- they are excreted. However unsavory that metaphor may be, if history follows its course, it should be evident that the poisonous wine of Stalinism had been distilled long before AlphaSys The Noobie Dork entered the scene. AlphaSys The Noobie Dork is merely the agent decanting the poisonous fluid from its bottle into the jug that is world humanity. Judging by the generally misguided nature of AlphaSys The Noobie Dork's mercenaries, I can see that AlphaSys The Noobie Dork believes that he is the ultimate authority on what's right and what's wrong. Sorry, but I have to call foul on that one. He is not interested in what is true and what is false or in what is good and what is evil. In fact, those distinctions have no meaning to him whatsoever. The only thing that has any meaning to AlphaSys The Noobie Dork is nepotism. Why? There aren't enough hours in the day to fully answer that question, but consider this: AlphaSys The Noobie Dork's reason is not true reason. It does not seek the truth, but only self-aggrandizing answers, uncouth resolutions to conflicts.

    I would like to put forth the possibility that he spouts a lot of numbers whenever he wants to make a point. He then subjectively interprets those numbers to support his holier-than-thou attitudes while ignoring the fact that I can no longer get very excited about any revelation of his hypocrisy or crookedness. It's what I've come to expect by now. If sexist thieves r

  206. Re:Oh no! complaint against alphasys's chicanery by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    nice aol emoti-expressions, there, loser

    "OMFG, LOFL, ROTF, FOAD"

    like a retarded kid in a candy store.

    can you please get back to mopping the floor and stop playing with the university's computers, please.

  207. troll by Zeio · · Score: 1

    This is a poorly formatted, half assed troll.

    And your use of ** for *emphasis* dates you as a fucking retard Apple ][e shithead - but certainly not before.

    What a fucking retard.

    --
    Legalize the constitution. Think for yourself question authority.