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Microsoft Updates Multiple Sysinternals Tools

Posted by timothy on from the might-as-well-make-the-best-of-it dept.

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."

16 of 179 comments (clear)

  1. How about . . . by OverlordQ · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.
    1. Re:How about . . . by fuzzyfuzzyfungus · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Your complaint is fair(unless there is some hardcore Windows internals reason that Russinovich has his reasons for); but I am struck by the fact that sharing a platform with applications that treat you with suspicion and contempt is normal.

    2. Re:How about . . . by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

      Process Monitor loads a kernel driver in order to hook in and read everything the system is doing. Making a kernel driver unload while the system is running is hard, and in some cases, impossible to do without risking the stability of the kernel.

      If I ever come across software that treats the best damn troubleshooting toolset available for Windows as as being unfit to run alongside, then that software will come across an express ride to the Recycle Bin.

    3. Re:How about . . . by nog_lorp · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Look to the popular cheating tool CheatEngine for an open source example of a kernel driver that unloads on demand.

    4. Re:How about . . . by someone300 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Making a kernel driver unload while the system is running is hard,

      Nearly every Linux kernel module manages it.. (rmmod).

    5. Re:How about . . . by fluch · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I consider this a bug in the custommer. They shouldn't buy games which are deliberately bugy and defective by design ... and now, burn, karma, burn... :)

    6. Re:How about . . . by malkavian · · Score: 4, Insightful

      A bug in software most frequently arises due to bad, or insufficient logic being applied.
      I'd say that failing to run because somebody happens to have another (and in this case fully supported by Microsoft) program running in the background.
      You can see where the suits (and some knee jerk reactions from developers) are looking; If we put that bit in there, we're safe.

      However, the cracks that appear ensure that this is not the case. As has been noted many times on /. DRM does not affect the people who grab the cracked versions and have no intention of ever paying. It only affects someone who has already given the company their money.
      This results in a bad customer experience, lowering the credibility of the games house.

      In my eyes, this makes the logic applied by the developers (include this, and we'll be safe, and the world will be a better place, and no customer could ever object to this) is inherently flawed. This flaw makes its way into the design.
      The design is implemented in the software, which causes an issue with various other applications the end user may wish to run.
      So, the logic used in the design results in a piece of software not running. Whether the intent was to have this happen or not, the logic is flawed, thus making it a bug.

    7. Re:How about . . . by Gr8Apes · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I'd most certainly list it as a bug.

      Why does the game publisher think it has any rights at all regarding what I run on my PC?

      --
      The cesspool just got a check and balance.
    8. Re:How about . . . by The+End+Of+Days · · Score: 4, Insightful

      But what about the feature of the NT kernel where game companies actually produce software for it? When is the Linux kernel going to get that one?

  2. Finally.. by sw155kn1f3 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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!
    1. Re:Finally.. by urbanriot · · Score: 4, Insightful

      On the upside of that, if an app crashes on one desktop, it won't bring explorer down on the others.

    2. Re:Finally.. by The_Noid · · Score: 5, Interesting

      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.

      I use two screens AND multiple desktops... More screens and more desktops serve different purposes. You use more screens so you have more pixels for the same task. You use more desktops so you can separate tasks by putting all the windows you need for 1 task on 1 desktop.

  3. Re:/. and Microsoft articles... by fuzzyfuzzyfungus · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

  4. Just wow. by jmorris42 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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
  5. Re:Athiests update world domination time-table. by KGIII · · Score: 4, Funny

    I put on my wizard robe and hat...

    --
    "So long and thanks for all the fish."
  6. Great, but what about Protection Manager? by myxiplx · · Score: 5, Informative

    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.