True but misleading. The default place that office 2k takes you when you want to save your files? My Documents
Interesting observation, but not exactly a mark against microsoft. In fact, if you are a competent windows system administrator, you should likely know about group policies. Then, if you know about group policies, you should also know about folder redirection and software publishing.
If you redirect your "my documents" to somewhere on the network, it will not copy it at each logon. Same thing for any of the other bulky "profile" folders you need to use.
If you set up software to be managed within your group policies, you can have it install to your user's workstations at their logon with great flexibility. This is even without SMS!
Knock on MCP/MCSE types all you want, but a good one will know all this and more. See This Link for more info.
Lovely conclusion, but your premise is quite flawed. It's called vigilante justice, and it's rarely defensible. Fight the bastard off, but don't kill him unless you want legal trouble.
This is the only useful information posted so far.
All the "Outlook/Microsoft is so terrible" posts miss the point that this thing has its own mailer built in and doesn't need Outlook. Won't someone PLEASE mod this up?:)
Oh yes... and with regards to AC's "big corporation dropping MS", I would suggest that his anonymous posting on an historically anti-ms biased forum would make a lousy reference to the management of any company looking for case studies of a move from MS to Linux, but good luck with that...
Except that that is not what the original DoD story said at all, which is why AC was glad his management didn't read this whole thing. DoD was migrating from some Unix-based word processor to StarOffice. No MS being "thrown out" at all.
Now who was it that said security by obscurity was a bad thing, again?
>Had this Linux distribution been developed by conventional proprietary means, it would have cost over $1.08 billion (1,000 million) to develop in the U.S. (in year 2000 dollars)
Seems to me this backs up Bill Gates' claim that Linux and GPL development has the potential to hurt the economy? That's (some large fraction of) $1.08 billion in wages that didn't get paid to software developers during the development of Linux.
>one employee of the Redmond, Wash., company said Microsoft has deliberately kept FreeBSD in parts of Hotmail because of its technical superiority over Windows in important functions
Riiiiiiiight. An anonymous MS employee who thinks that FreeBSD is "technically superior" to Windows... Definitely a reliable source for this article...
Show me in there where it shows the DNS servers? What's that? They weren't included in the case study?
Show me again where it shows the ad servers? Huh? They're not included in the case study of FreeBSD -> W2k migration either?
So, I guess that means that only the Hotmail front-end application servers were upgraded from FreeBSD to W2k, right? Microsoft didn't even falsely claim to have migrated the back-end off of a proprietary solution onto W2k or Exchange or who knows what?
I read through the case study again (had read it when I first ran across it a month or two ago), and I still don't seen any inconsistency here. Seems Microsoft was very up-front about what was migrated and what was not migrated at Hotmail. They did it to get Unicode support, and an easier development environment for the Hotmail app. Why the hell would they rush to upgrade the ad servers or the dns servers if there's no apparent $$ benefit to doing so?
Note how Microsoft now considers Windows 2000 to be legacy software.
You infer that this makes no sense. As soon as the next version comes out, the previous version is considered legacy. That's the way it works for lots of software vendors.
For instance: Real Player 8.0 came out, you say? Good luck buying version 7.0 once inventory is cleared out of the distribution channels -- it's then considered "legacy" and is no longer sold...
This story actually reminds me of the one where Microsoft purchased Hotmail, tried to convert it to MS Servers, failed miserably since they couldn't scale, and reverted to using the original UNIX servers. In that we see a case where a company had to use another's product because theirs wasn't good enough.
That never actually happened, you know. It's just an urban legend. Plus, Hotmail's front-end is all W2k/IIS5 now, FWIW. Back-end is still proprietary storage of some sort, I believe.
Notice the FIRST line: Windows 2000 machine (for accessing corporate resources, gotta have Smart Scheduler and Clarify)
That is mandating Windows. You have a corporate workstation for corporate resources. If you need additional machines, fine. However, I'm certain there is a bias for the 12 MS employees that aren't coding to do MS only.
For what it's worth, there are terminal servers available internally to run customer tools as Wes descibes. If you are creative enough, you probably don't *HAVE* to run Windows for anything here really... but realistically, why the hell wouldn't you? I love being able to run the latest-greatest betas of MS products!
>When a debit card number is stolen, the thief can drain the account (whatever the balance is) and you have little hope of getting any of it back.
That's just silly FUD.
I've had my debit card number stolen and used in fraud and it was a simple procedure to file a claim with my bank. Zero-liability from VISA, and 2 business days later my balance was right back where it should be!
1) MIS folks shouldn't be installing the retail release of XP (Windows or Office) on "hundreds or thousands of PCs at once". Look into Select or Open licensing.
2) What in the hell does the new Windows XP activation have to do with Windows 2000 deployments?
>the MS "Cumulative Service Packs that contain all updates from previous packs," DON'T contain the MDAC or Y2K updates included w/SP4. Bastards.
Be fair. The MDAC and Y2k updates were never "part of SP4". They just came on the same CD with a neato batch file that did the SP update and then ran the MDAC and Y2k updates if you needed it.
I suspect that too many people "accidentally" updated their MDAC with this process and then realized that their improperly-coded apps require a specific (older) MDAC version. Oops. ODBC broken.
So, in the interest of not causing those sort of headaches, MS simply removed the automated option to install all the MDAC and other Y2k updates for SP5.
> Aren't the ATI drivers certified by M$? They come on the CD...
Not the ones that crash the box. The ones that will crash your box have historically been the "latest and greatest" versions of the driver. They are often "unsigned" drivers, so when you load them you actually have to even click through a "this driver has not been certified by MS" type of dialog before it will install.
Yes, you can probably disable this prompting, but it's on by default.
Slashdot Mirror
Someone please mod this up. It's the first useful post in this story.
Interesting observation, but not exactly a mark against microsoft. In fact, if you are a competent windows system administrator, you should likely know about group policies. Then, if you know about group policies, you should also know about folder redirection and software publishing.
If you redirect your "my documents" to somewhere on the network, it will not copy it at each logon. Same thing for any of the other bulky "profile" folders you need to use.
If you set up software to be managed within your group policies, you can have it install to your user's workstations at their logon with great flexibility. This is even without SMS!
Knock on MCP/MCSE types all you want, but a good one will know all this and more. See This Link for more info.
Lovely conclusion, but your premise is quite flawed. It's called vigilante justice, and it's rarely defensible.
Fight the bastard off, but don't kill him unless you want legal trouble.
All the "Outlook/Microsoft is so terrible" posts miss the point that this thing has its own mailer built in and doesn't need Outlook. :)
Won't someone PLEASE mod this up?
Why in the world would you sign up for a service that estimates 4-week install times if you're moving "after a month"??
Oh yes... and with regards to AC's "big corporation dropping MS", I would suggest that his anonymous posting on an historically anti-ms biased forum would make a lousy reference to the management of any company looking for case studies of a move from MS to Linux, but good luck with that...
DoD was migrating from some Unix-based word processor to StarOffice. No MS being "thrown out" at all.
Now who was it that said security by obscurity was a bad thing, again?
Nope, but I suspect if I'd been keeping up with my Slashdot articles, I would have, right? :)
Seems to me this backs up Bill Gates' claim that Linux and GPL development has the potential to hurt the economy?
That's (some large fraction of) $1.08 billion in wages that didn't get paid to software developers during the development of Linux.
- Do YOU want to work for free?
See... THIS one should be modded up to +5:Insightful.
Moderators? Where are you??
Riiiiiiiight. An anonymous MS employee who thinks that FreeBSD is "technically superior" to Windows...
Definitely a reliable source for this article...
http://www.microsoft.com/TechNet/migration/hotmail /hotplan.asp
Show me in there where it shows the DNS servers? What's that? They weren't included in the case study?
Show me again where it shows the ad servers? Huh? They're not included in the case study of FreeBSD -> W2k migration either?
So, I guess that means that only the Hotmail front-end application servers were upgraded from FreeBSD to W2k, right? Microsoft didn't even falsely claim to have migrated the back-end off of a proprietary solution onto W2k or Exchange or who knows what?
I read through the case study again (had read it when I first ran across it a month or two ago), and I still don't seen any inconsistency here. Seems Microsoft was very up-front about what was migrated and what was not migrated at Hotmail. They did it to get Unicode support, and an easier development environment for the Hotmail app. Why the hell would they rush to upgrade the ad servers or the dns servers if there's no apparent $$ benefit to doing so?
or, you could just not put any local users on your firewall and not be affected by it at all.
I'll see your sarcasm and raise you a dose of reality.
W2k has done quite well and has raised MS quite a lot of money in the past 15 months.
You infer that this makes no sense. As soon as the next version comes out, the previous version is considered legacy. That's the way it works for lots of software vendors.
For instance: Real Player 8.0 came out, you say? Good luck buying version 7.0 once inventory is cleared out of the distribution channels -- it's then considered "legacy" and is no longer sold...
That never actually happened, you know. It's just an urban legend. Plus, Hotmail's front-end is all W2k/IIS5 now, FWIW. Back-end is still proprietary storage of some sort, I believe.
That is mandating Windows. You have a corporate workstation for corporate resources. If you need additional machines, fine. However, I'm certain there is a bias for the 12 MS employees that aren't coding to do MS only.
For what it's worth, there are terminal servers available internally to run customer tools as Wes descibes. If you are creative enough, you probably don't *HAVE* to run Windows for anything here really... but realistically, why the hell wouldn't you? I love being able to run the latest-greatest betas of MS products!
That's just silly FUD.
I've had my debit card number stolen and used in fraud and it was a simple procedure to file a claim with my bank.
Zero-liability from VISA, and 2 business days later my balance was right back where it should be!
2) What in the hell does the new Windows XP activation have to do with Windows 2000 deployments?
That means it's a Post-SP1 hotfix that will be released as part of W2k SP2 when it comes out.
Be fair. The MDAC and Y2k updates were never "part of SP4". They just came on the same CD with a neato batch file that did the SP update and then ran the MDAC and Y2k updates if you needed it.
I suspect that too many people "accidentally" updated their MDAC with this process and then realized that their improperly-coded apps require a specific (older) MDAC version. Oops. ODBC broken.
So, in the interest of not causing those sort of headaches, MS simply removed the automated option to install all the MDAC and other Y2k updates for SP5.
1) not programming to NT specs (something broken that you were depending on got fixed) or
2) using a compiler that is guilty of #1
Not the ones that crash the box. The ones that will crash your box have historically been the "latest and greatest" versions of the driver. They are often "unsigned" drivers, so when you load them you actually have to even click through a "this driver has not been certified by MS" type of dialog before it will install.
Yes, you can probably disable this prompting, but it's on by default.
Now the question is, where can one get cheap, usable Sun hardware to play with. Anyone?
Welcome to Slashdot. You new here?