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Microsoft Updates Multiple Sysinternals Tools
wiedzmin writes "A couple of very useful updates have just been released by Microsoft for the ever so popular Sysinternals tool set. The most notable one is ProcessMonitor v2.0 which will now include 'real-time TCP and UDP monitoring.' Another one, released earlier this year — Desktops 1.0, provides a very unique multi-thread way to get multiple desktops running on your Windows box."
How about making it so ProcessMonitor actually fully unloads when you quit. Nothing is more aggravating then having to reboot because a lot of games consider it a hacking tool and refuse to run.
Your hair look like poop, Bob! - Wanker.
Multiple desktops without annoying flicker. Never understood why multiple desktop managers on windows used window hiding instead of real multiple desktops which were built in into NT family from at least NT4.
Oh well.. Maybe it's too late for me anyway to get used to multiple desktops because now I'm just using 2 lcd panels which provides real multiple desktops and I don't see the point in multiple virtual desktops anymore.
Process monitor looks sweet though.
Mark Russinovich is well known windows system hacker and I always liked his work. Nice to see that after acquisition of sysinternals by MS he still writes software.
- Arwen, I'm your father, Agent Smith.
- Well, you're just Smith, but my father is Aerosmith!
Team Slashdot may not like Windows very much; but when you have to get your hands dirty with Windows, having the sysinternals tools makes your life less unpleasant.
Plus, Mark was the one who discovered and publicised the Sony rootkit, when all the professional AV guys were too incompetent or traitorous to say anything. That ought to give him enough karma to go unflamed on Slashdot once or twice.
Finally a free multiple desktop program for x64 Windows XP.
---- aut viam inveniam aut faciam
For instance, popups for an application on another desktop would show up on another desktop, even with application sharing off. I would get modal dialog boxes that would pop up, lose focus and fall under my current window. Then when I'd go to check on that application, I couldn't interact with it until I found which desktop an orphaned dialog box was hidden on (it wouldn't get a taskbar slot since it was the child of a process on another desktop). Thunderbird was one of the worst offenders when I'd have to re-enter my password.
Also, firefox would some times 'shift' when I'd change windows too many times, and I found that the CPU bug would trip off easier. The deal breaker, for me, was that switching desktops would screw up Office 2000 applications (shifting the internal frames, some times leaving an app unresponsive, etc.), and at work I have to deal with an internal Access application.
Nothing like starting up the editor on one desktop, documentation on another, firefox with google at the ready on another, and the application/database window on the fourth desktop. Access or the application would crash/move itself if I switched back and fourth too quickly too often, and I was constantly waiting on Firefox to restart after causing the CPU bug to trip and take so many cycles that I couldn't switch desktops to the one with the task manager open. The net gain was a complete loss in productivity, as compared to compiz where I find myself about twice as productive.
At home on my 'doze box, I've got dual screens, but it would be nice to have dual screens with a functioning multiple desktop setup. Does anyone have any hints for this, or think Desktops-1.0 will improve upon the situation?
If I could afford it (broke software development major - my rig is always a generation behind what is 'standard', and two behind bleeding edge), I'd probably just get a third screen and be done with it, but multiple desktops is my only viable solution until I have some cash that isn't earmarked for more important hardware.
If I mod you up, it doesn't necessarily mean I agree with what you've said, sorry.
Oh no's, conspiracy! Consider Vista / Win2k8 compatibility was added to a number of these tools, as well new features and functionalities HAVE been added to many of them.
I actually clicked through and read about he virtual desktops. Just wow. I haven't followed Windows closely since 98SE and NT4 and it is amazing how little has changed. They still haven't caught up to things us Linux folk have had since FVWM in 1996. Virtual desktops should not be rocket science folks, the fact Windows is still struggling with them is shocking. More cash on hand than the Pope in Rome, as close to unlimited development resources as any mortal entity and they can't do easy stuff. No wonder they worked years and finally (still) birthed the horror called Vista.
They truly are kept alive by fear and ignorance. Ignorance in the mass consumer public that anything else even exists, and that 'all computers' are as unreliable as Windows and fear amongst those who DO know that their hard earned Windows Power User secret lore would be useless in a world without Windows.
Democrat delenda est
(subject line done in illiterate speak to fit)
I didn't get the impression that this was a DRM issue. I took it more as an anti-cheat measure for on-line play. Given that there are huge numbers of players who think it's neat to win by loading up some warez that gives your game an unfair advantage against other on-line players, it's not too unreasonable to have code that detects some of the more common cheats. Unfortunately, when monitoring software starts hooking itself in places where it's not expected, it can look a lot like the cheating software.
I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
Highly unlikely. God doesn't use MS products, just look at the Bible, completely open source... every sect has it's own way of reading and writing the thing.
-- Sex is the antonym of pringles. Once you pop it's time to stop.
I know of at least one piece of anti-copying software which specifically checks for filemon (as it was at the time, this was before process monitor appeared).
Why did the size of so many Sysinternals utilities increase in size from 1-200K to over 1MB for no change in functionality?
They added a EULA and a call to iexplore http://www.live.com./ In Redmond, that's about 800k.
From TFA:
Desktops reliance on Windows desktop objects means that it cannot provide some of the functionality of other virtual desktop utilities, however. For example, Windows doesn't provide a way to move a window from one desktop object to another, and because a separate Explorer process must run on each desktop to provide a taskbar and start menu, most tray applications are only visible on the first desktop. Further, there is no way to delete a desktop object, so Desktops does not provide a way to close a desktop, because that would result in orphaned windows and processes. The recommended way to exit Desktops is therefore to logoff.
About every other OS has had multiple desktops for ages, nicely implemented, now *finally* MS gives it a try, and they fail miserably. Sad.
I put on my wizard robe and hat...
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
They may be updating the Sysinternals tools (after changing the EULA's on them all), but what about Protection Manager? That looked like a great product (and one we were planning to buy), but was conveniently buried the second Microsoft acquired Winternals & Sysinternals.
Protection Manager was launched in March 2006, and removed from the market by Microsoft in November that same year. It was the first thing I looked for when Microsoft acquired Winternals and while I wasn't surprised to see it removed, I've been waiting ever since in the hope that it would be re-launched. That has never happened, and my belief now is that Microsoft deliberately buried it, thinking it would hurt Vista sales.
Protection Manager was a program that gave system administrators a simple and effective way to whitelist the applications that could be run on their network. The idea was that you ran it for a few weeks to generate a baseline list of allowed applications, then turned on protection, after which non authorised programs would be stopped until approved by an administrator. It also allowed you to run individual applications with admin rights, making the management of legacy software far simpler.
Most of the literature regarding the program has gone now, but this is a handy guide:
http://www.inuit.se/?page=130
A few choice quotes from MS:
"the decision was made to withdrawal Winternals Recovery Manager, Defrag Manager and Protection Manager in their current form from the market effective November 17th 2006"
Q. What is the future of Protection Manager?
A. Winternals Protection Manager has been withdrawn from the product line. Many Protection Manager usage scenarios are addressed by the new User Account Control feature of Windows Vista."
source: http://www.microsoft.com/systemcenter/wifaq.mspx
Personally, I don't see that UAC offerse half the features Protection Manager did, and we have no desire to move over to Vista anyway. To me, it looks like Microsoft removed from the market a program that would have been genuinely useful to many of their customers, once again putting sales & marketing ahead of security and their customers.
Yes, I've used Dexpot on my office, home and laptop PCs. Home and Office have dual monitors and Dexpot allows me to have multiple, dual-screen desktops with almost no problems at all. I have one application which will put it's progress bars on the current desktop instead of the one the application is on and there are a couple of graphical glitches here and there but on the whole I'd thoroughly recommend it.
This is interesting to me even though I don't run Windows on my own computer, because sometimes other people use Windows, and since I am an IT professional that means I occasionally encounter it. YMMV.
Cut that out, or I will ship you to Norilsk in a box.
Hello,
'Process Explorer' has dumping capabilities as well as registry monitor / file monitor capabilities. This could be used to trace the behavior of SecuROM.
Therefore, we do not allow the game to start when this software is active.
We have no immediate plans to allow this software in the future.
Best regards,
SecuROM Support Team
SecuROM on the web: http://www.securom.com/
or via e-mail: support@securom.com
They have always been this idiotic, it's nothing to do with cheating.
They also blacklist software capable of mounting ISOs as virtual discs, as I found out a few years ago. Except in that case, the choice was "Uninstall the software or do not play the games you bought." Fucking blow me Sony. There's cracks everywhere and we both know it, so let me play the damn game.
They're not mutually exclusive, and neither perspective is more important than the other, let alone worthy of the arrogant frothing-at-the-mouth tone you took.
I didn't mean to come off as frothing in support of my take on it. My beef is only with SecuROM. Sorry if it seemed like I was giving the parent a doing over. He said:
I didn't get the impression that this was a DRM issue. I took it more as an anti-cheat measure for on-line play.
And I don't agree. We're talking intent here: SecuROM doesn't do any sort of checking for cheats, and they already stated that they detect it solely to trip up crackers. That a dumper/debugger can be used to find methods of cheating is incidental, so I don't see that position as being well supported.
And if you ask a software developer or system admin about the tools, you'll get the equivalent of asking a locksmith about lock picking tools.
Well SecuROM made the lock and they are the software developer. They're bastards, but they're pretty upfront about what the prevention is for, and it's not cheat prevention or detection.
Oh contraire mon frere.
It makes the system heap smaller, and flushes out LRU crap from the OS. Something that it should have had in a feature all along. It works increibley well on a Terminal server. Excellent. Increases stability, speed, usability, capacity.
Marks solution? Buy a laptop with 4GB of ram, and get your company give you a superdome to play with.
Mark? Can I have your Superdome?