I still believe my right to free speech extends to offensive speech
The key words are "I" and "believe". That's just not how things work in the real world (libel, slander, etc). Note that the Internet generally has intersected with the real world very loosely, which is part of many problems.
That whole bit in the WSJ about the RIAA stopping suing individuals might be related to why I'm "missing" why they're using provably spoofed data to sue me so they can lose another court case.
Based upon the court record so far, I stupidly would think that they would try for cases they would win. Assuming "N" pool of illegaly shared files and "X" matching purchase records from Apple that match identically - I don't know how the RIAA lawyer sharks everybody is afraid of decided to go after these spoofed files when they would have so much better fodder with the actual set of non-spoofed files if they chose to go down this route again.
I will now put on my tin foil hat and agree with everything everybody says. The RIAA is out to get spoofing victims now after their already great success in this legal field. Lock your women, hide your doors!
No, really didn't miss that. It assumes that the target user publishes in some fashion a list containing only iTunes tracks (one spoof hit outside of 'purchased' bounds forms the aforementioned superset which gives away the game) where you match enough tracks to warrant legal action on XXX's part, even though the files have spoofed metadata that doesn't match that on your actual purchased files.
We seem to quickly run into the Cochran defense of "If the metadata doesn't match, you must... acquit!" here. That (and stolen files) seem a far more interesting idea than this pretty bogus magical spoofing of YYY's track lists and purchase times so reliably that the XXX (Apple-assisted RIAA?) takes action against a user.
I get what you're saying, but as far as malicious threats go: go buy a lottery ticket.
Yeah, I think the illicit acquisition of other's files is where this data set falls down as trustable or critical data. However, Apple still could send you a sad note saying that your files were found on the Internet and that you probably need to de-rootkit since it certainly wasn't your fault. And if a file purchased after that point is found online, they can then can your account.
I would agree that this embedded data doesn't seem to be particularly useful at first glance. I just thought the data spoofing idea was a huge tin-foil stretch.
Wait, so what's the argument? That someone could put spoof data in files and spread them and you would be sued? How is this different than where we are now?
The interesting part of this situation is that the actual files would have a one to one correlation with a purchase log. That's what different. It's in Apple's best interests to let you validate those. It's in Apple's best interests to see that that is validated before allowing anyone to sue you. Having a pretty print-out of your non-correlated purchase logs to take to the judge seems like a nice way escape of this pretty pathetic "threat". Which assumes that somehow these spoofed files came to the attention of lawyers who decided to sue you. Again, buy lottery tickets at this point.
If we're going to believe in a super litigious world, nothing has changed from where we were. In fact, you can go out and create these spoof files today without regards to Apple's plans here.
The true "threat" to the user should be stolen hardware or files, not spoofing.
You don't have a valid purchase timestamp, you can't guarantee prosecution, and it's in Apple's interests to validate the subset/superset purchase test I already proffered.
You would seemingly have a better chance of accomplishing anything useful by buying a used lottery ticket.
Given the data set in question - email + purchase timestamp - this just isn't feasible given that Apple could easily validate that those were actually purchased by XXX. Spoofed data won't match the Apple purchase logs, which is where your house of cards comes crashing down.
If you're suggesting that Apple is going to sue you based upon the spoofed information that doesn't match the purchase logs that they have, I've got a bailout to sell you.
Right, we both saw those possibilities. And then I point out that there's no record of me purchasing those tracks and it's kind of game over and I'm sad that that's an effective use of your time.
As long as there's an actual correlation between those embedded email addresses and the purchase logs at Apple, it should be child's play to disprove "plants" like that.
Granted you have a window of malice here, but I believe it's a lot smaller than is being suggested. Those plants could be checked by Apple without me ever having to know. Your narrow window of malice (hoping to hit a subset and NOT a superset of whatI've purchased) would be even further mitigated by them simply setting "Bar For Kicking In Your Door" to some non-tiny number. So you don't even necessarily get to waste my time. Just your own.;)
You might with your project succeed with redistributing music files around the net... but that's kind of where things are now.
Maybe if you draw a bright line between what's acceptable (pointing out that someone's gaming performance is subpar using harsh words) and what's not acceptable (threatening them) you might be able to create a valid and useful test. Kind of like the difference between yelling LIAR or FIRE in a theater. There's seemingly precedent in not having laws be hamhanded.
Come on, "Fuck you" is a horrible counter-argument. What's the implied threat there? That there might be future sex with that person in some capacity? Epithet and threat rhyme but do not mean the same thing.
How about keeping the text but just changing the scenario? Such as: 'What do these women do when someone says "I'm going to sodomize you. Repeatedly."?' That's a much more related discussion.
The player media associations should be pretty straight-forward - the player's First Use Experience dialog's Custom path lets you toggle what you want it to own/not own, the Tools:Options:File Types menu in the player lets you customize later, and the Set Program Access and Defaults lets you set the global file-associations-for-WMP-OFF-NOW! switch.
That should be a fairly robust set of options, and there shouldn't be any niggling reownership or Are You Really Certain You Want Other Player To Play That File Type dialogs to bother you.
I'd be interested in the specifics of your media associations criticism. The large majority of confusion in this space stems from the other player not correctly registering their file types. Pre-Vista this was a little more difficult because many applications only registered correctly for shell associations and didn't register for MIME/browser associations. The new Default Programs:Set User Defaults scheme in Vista accounts for this fairly nicely (at least way better than it was before; plus it's per-user).
So: what were your specific problems/criticisms here? While I wrote most of the player side of this discussion, I've always been pretty proactive in reaching out to other vendors to help them fix up their broken registration code, so -- I'd love to know if I know what you're having an issue with.
Of course I remember Voxware. Their MetaVoice (MetaTalk) codec was even shipping with Netscape at one point for some Netscape telephony application (I don't recall that name right now). (Plus MetaVoice and MetaSound were in the early NetShow/Windows Media codec set, before they were replaced by L&H (remember that fiasco?), ACELP.net, FhG MP3, and eventually the Windows Media Audio codecs. And if you were *really* paying attention, the MSNAudio codec.)
It's voice-based warehousing (?), so that makes some sense. Still, a fascinating leap.
Yeah, the Vivo guys were really nice too - I was sad to see them generally folded by RN.
From what I recall, I think the VDONet codecs were generally inferior to the VxTreme codec set, so from what I can piece together from searches, they focused on their VDOPhone application, left the video codec market, and then sold what was left to Citrix. Looks like Steve is now working over at P2PCleaner(?).
Hm. Thanks for raising that interesting question. I'm glad to know that answer too.
In fact, WMP was predated by ActiveMovie, Microsoft's first real attempt at streaming video playback.
You may be thinking of NetShow / ActiveMovie Stream there. Windows Media Player folds in Media Player / NetShow / ActiveMovie / CDDeluxe / DVDPlayer, and probably some others I'm not thinking of.
Didn't RealNetworks buy ViVo and Xing, Microsoft bought VxTreme, and... what *did* happen to VDONet? I wouldn't think you were referring to ClearVideo or Duck, but it's possible.
What plug-in are you referring to? I would think it would be either ViVo or VxTreme, which were the best alternative players at that time that I can think of.
And about Windows Media player... this was on my desktop, not a workstation, so no group policy. I had installed VLC, and had it opening all my files, and defintely ogg. A few weeks later, I clicked on an OGG podcast and it opened up in Windows Media. Subsequent media (although I really don't do this often on my Windows machine) all opened in Windows media player. Windows Media Player doesn't associate to OGG. Third party plug-ins could add registration for OGG to the player's file association set (I designed it to be easily extensible), but it doesn't come that way. So whomever actually did make that registration may have done that badly, but -- if it's going through my WMP association system, there's no mechanism for random re-registration ('reactivation') because you and I hate that.
However, at this point, I really don't care. I do. If somebody is doing registrations badly, let's fix this up before people get confused. You're confused, and thus I'm concerned.
So hit me up on the email address I mentioned in my earlier response to you (zachdms at hotmail dotty com) and supply the repro steps here that are causing you to hit this badness. VLC definitely isn't really Vista file association aware, though, so that's the most probable source of error. If you check the VLC forums you'll note that I provided most of their solution already - I don't know if it's in their packages yet, though. Still, you did mention that it was a problem for a podcast, and that could be coming in through a different association path that VLC simply isn't currently handling. Pre-Vista, the split between shell and browser associations was rather a PITA - Vista finally generally consolidates those. Much easier to deal with.
I can't and don't want to speak to anything else other than Windows Media Player file associations, but since I designed that since maybe day one, it's always been my number one goal just to play nice and get out of your way and let you use the player that you want to. If you're seeing something else, somebody probably isn't plugging in properly. It's certainly possible that it's a Windows Media Player bug, but it's not malicious because I simply don't play like that. I grew up on the Mac, programmed on U*IX/Solaris in college, and regularly try to help any vendor that needs it. Email me, we should be able to sort this out.
I wrote most of that code. There's no mechanism by which it could reactivate. Hit me up at zachdms at hotmail dotty com and I'll walk through whatever you think you're seeing.
Most third party players have tended to be a little lackadaisical when it comes to file association implementations. This is one of the big reasons why the new (easy) Vista file association interfaces (Set Default Programs) are so great. Ask your favorite application to support it if they don't already. I've supplied the basics to a number of third party vendors (WinAMP, VLC, MPC-via-CCCP) to get them up and running on this.
Vista wouldn't crash so much This implies that you are encountering or know of some issue that should be looked at to be addressed by a QFE or service pack. What are the steps to reproduce this issue, or (better) what is the fault bucket data?
I deal with crashes all of the time... most of what I deal with is externally sourced. =\
It's not like you're going to get any support out of Microsoft about Windows Media Player. For what kinds of problems? I work at Microsoft and try to go the extra mile beyond my development duties, specifically using large chunks of my personal time providing support about Windows Media Player. (Various official options, my unofficial FAQ.) I also work closely with the Web Help and other teams based upon user feedback to tighten up the various response points users will run into after they encounter issues. I also dedicate chunks of my time following up with third party vendors who accidentally break Windows or Windows Media Player, etc etc etc.
It's not like Windows Media Player or Windows Media Player support is the be-all end-all, but it's a strange thing to target/pinpoint given that the majority of the problems people I deal with run into have with it seem to be externally derived these days. I'll stop tangenting now. =)
They told me they had removed the copper AFTER they did. That was fairly jaw-dropping since I had just wanted to try FIOS for a while. The joke was on me.
That's the best example I've seen yet, and I'm glad it got modded up appropriately.
It's also extremely relevant that the Matrix Collection (I bought the 5-disc version in HD) contains nothing really new, whereas the PotC discs both contain the otherwise almost unfindable "Lost Disc" that Pirates fans have to be pretty excited about.
So: different price points, different ratings, different relevance (PotC being in theaters now), out-of-print unfindable bonus features on Pirates -- I would be stunned if PotC wasn't doing well comparatively.
I've got both an HD-DVD drive and Blu-Ray drive: I'm net-neutral here, but the comparison of PotC and Matrix seems kind of dumb. Planet Earth is the disc I hear everyone talking about, anyways. [Although I'm personally excited for Blade Runner...)
If it's changing her desktop stuff, that should all be per-user and not require admin privs. That's why I'm thinking there's something missing here...... but regardless that should be a one-time configuration cost that wouldn't repeat itself the next week. Ongoing operations shouldn't require admin privs. If it does, that's fascinating and knowing specifics would be of high interest.
In theory the industry is used to having admin privileges, so seeing UAC too much is more probable right now than it should be one year from now as vendors stop coding that kind of bad application behavior.
Social engineering will still work, but if you even stopped half the world from downloading SpywareInstallerDoctor2006, that's still a pretty big win. Once Vista is in the second week of operation, how many UAC prompts do you see then? That UAC prompt to install an actual update or to approve malware should be a rare thing.
As mentioned elsewhere, it's not a definitive solution, but it's an aid to the user. And if Random User is still frequently hitting UAC in week 2, that's potentially a strange usage pattern.
Before we get all excited about laughing about Mac ads-
What is she doing that consistently requires administrator privileges? Because that's the question that should be being asked here. Clearly a lot of people ran the betas which had more UAC prompting, which I think distorts many people's views. But: why is the FOAF here doing admin tasks all the time?
work is going on to make WMP a vehicle for modifying DRM components ? The Windows Media Format Runtime (which encompasses the DRM subsystem) is a part of WMP. The Windows Media Format Runtime is the "DRM components". WMP has installed the current Format Runtime, which is how WMP renders media files (for non-DShow types), ever since the Runtime first existed.
I don't particularly like nor use DRM... I just think your interpretations may be a little confusing.
I still don't see what's confusing about it. Most of it just seems to be opinions surrounding MCE/DRM, which don't really have anything uniquely to do with WMP and aren't things that are affected by WMP, since those are preexisting concerns before the WMP install anyways.
* The rest of the bit about license backup, specifically where it tells you how to back up your licenses, is valuable context. * The MCE thing was a bug, fix here.
Hopefully people aren't confused by your +5 mod'd post. Regardless of your pro/anti-Microsoft sentiment, if you care about the MCE thing... seems like there's a fix available.
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I still believe my right to free speech extends to offensive speech
The key words are "I" and "believe". That's just not how things work in the real world (libel, slander, etc).
Note that the Internet generally has intersected with the real world very loosely, which is part of many problems.
That whole bit in the WSJ about the RIAA stopping suing individuals might be related to why I'm "missing" why they're using provably spoofed data to sue me so they can lose another court case.
Based upon the court record so far, I stupidly would think that they would try for cases they would win. Assuming "N" pool of illegaly shared files and "X" matching purchase records from Apple that match identically - I don't know how the RIAA lawyer sharks everybody is afraid of decided to go after these spoofed files when they would have so much better fodder with the actual set of non-spoofed files if they chose to go down this route again.
I will now put on my tin foil hat and agree with everything everybody says. The RIAA is out to get spoofing victims now after their already great success in this legal field. Lock your women, hide your doors!
No, really didn't miss that. It assumes that the target user publishes in some fashion a list containing only iTunes tracks (one spoof hit outside of 'purchased' bounds forms the aforementioned superset which gives away the game) where you match enough tracks to warrant legal action on XXX's part, even though the files have spoofed metadata that doesn't match that on your actual purchased files.
We seem to quickly run into the Cochran defense of "If the metadata doesn't match, you must ... acquit!" here. That (and stolen files) seem a far more interesting idea than this pretty bogus magical spoofing of YYY's track lists and purchase times so reliably that the XXX (Apple-assisted RIAA?) takes action against a user.
I get what you're saying, but as far as malicious threats go: go buy a lottery ticket.
Yeah, I think the illicit acquisition of other's files is where this data set falls down as trustable or critical data. However, Apple still could send you a sad note saying that your files were found on the Internet and that you probably need to de-rootkit since it certainly wasn't your fault. And if a file purchased after that point is found online, they can then can your account.
I would agree that this embedded data doesn't seem to be particularly useful at first glance. I just thought the data spoofing idea was a huge tin-foil stretch.
Wait, so what's the argument? That someone could put spoof data in files and spread them and you would be sued? How is this different than where we are now?
The interesting part of this situation is that the actual files would have a one to one correlation with a purchase log. That's what different. It's in Apple's best interests to let you validate those. It's in Apple's best interests to see that that is validated before allowing anyone to sue you. Having a pretty print-out of your non-correlated purchase logs to take to the judge seems like a nice way escape of this pretty pathetic "threat". Which assumes that somehow these spoofed files came to the attention of lawyers who decided to sue you. Again, buy lottery tickets at this point.
If we're going to believe in a super litigious world, nothing has changed from where we were. In fact, you can go out and create these spoof files today without regards to Apple's plans here.
The true "threat" to the user should be stolen hardware or files, not spoofing.
You don't have a valid purchase timestamp, you can't guarantee prosecution, and it's in Apple's interests to validate the subset/superset purchase test I already proffered.
You would seemingly have a better chance of accomplishing anything useful by buying a used lottery ticket.
Given the data set in question - email + purchase timestamp - this just isn't feasible given that Apple could easily validate that those were actually purchased by XXX. Spoofed data won't match the Apple purchase logs, which is where your house of cards comes crashing down.
If you're suggesting that Apple is going to sue you based upon the spoofed information that doesn't match the purchase logs that they have, I've got a bailout to sell you.
Right, we both saw those possibilities. And then I point out that there's no record of me purchasing those tracks and it's kind of game over and I'm sad that that's an effective use of your time.
As long as there's an actual correlation between those embedded email addresses and the purchase logs at Apple, it should be child's play to disprove "plants" like that.
Granted you have a window of malice here, but I believe it's a lot smaller than is being suggested. Those plants could be checked by Apple without me ever having to know. Your narrow window of malice (hoping to hit a subset and NOT a superset of whatI've purchased) would be even further mitigated by them simply setting "Bar For Kicking In Your Door" to some non-tiny number. So you don't even necessarily get to waste my time. Just your own. ;)
You might with your project succeed with redistributing music files around the net ... but that's kind of where things are now.
Couldn't you correlate your purchase record, or lack thereof, to validate or disprove the claims against you in that scenario?
It seems like a quick comparative analysis there would pretty quickly mitigate *most* of that concern.
What's the harm created by those statements?
Maybe if you draw a bright line between what's acceptable (pointing out that someone's gaming performance is subpar using harsh words) and what's not acceptable (threatening them) you might be able to create a valid and useful test. Kind of like the difference between yelling LIAR or FIRE in a theater. There's seemingly precedent in not having laws be hamhanded.
Come on, "Fuck you" is a horrible counter-argument. What's the implied threat there? That there might be future sex with that person in some capacity? Epithet and threat rhyme but do not mean the same thing.
How about keeping the text but just changing the scenario? Such as: 'What do these women do when someone says "I'm going to sodomize you. Repeatedly."?' That's a much more related discussion.
Better interface for WMP? ;)
The player media associations should be pretty straight-forward - the player's First Use Experience dialog's Custom path lets you toggle what you want it to own/not own, the Tools:Options:File Types menu in the player lets you customize later, and the Set Program Access and Defaults lets you set the global file-associations-for-WMP-OFF-NOW! switch.
That should be a fairly robust set of options, and there shouldn't be any niggling reownership or Are You Really Certain You Want Other Player To Play That File Type dialogs to bother you.
I'd be interested in the specifics of your media associations criticism. The large majority of confusion in this space stems from the other player not correctly registering their file types. Pre-Vista this was a little more difficult because many applications only registered correctly for shell associations and didn't register for MIME/browser associations. The new Default Programs:Set User Defaults scheme in Vista accounts for this fairly nicely (at least way better than it was before; plus it's per-user).
So: what were your specific problems/criticisms here? While I wrote most of the player side of this discussion, I've always been pretty proactive in reaching out to other vendors to help them fix up their broken registration code, so -- I'd love to know if I know what you're having an issue with.
Speaking for myself only, as always.
Of course I remember Voxware. Their MetaVoice (MetaTalk) codec was even shipping with Netscape at one point for some Netscape telephony application (I don't recall that name right now). (Plus MetaVoice and MetaSound were in the early NetShow/Windows Media codec set, before they were replaced by L&H (remember that fiasco?), ACELP.net, FhG MP3, and eventually the Windows Media Audio codecs. And if you were *really* paying attention, the MSNAudio codec.)
It's voice-based warehousing (?), so that makes some sense. Still, a fascinating leap.
Yeah, the Vivo guys were really nice too - I was sad to see them generally folded by RN.
From what I recall, I think the VDONet codecs were generally inferior to the VxTreme codec set, so from what I can piece together from searches, they focused on their VDOPhone application, left the video codec market, and then sold what was left to Citrix. Looks like Steve is now working over at P2PCleaner(?).
Hm. Thanks for raising that interesting question. I'm glad to know that answer too.
In fact, WMP was predated by ActiveMovie, Microsoft's first real attempt at streaming video playback.
You may be thinking of NetShow / ActiveMovie Stream there. Windows Media Player folds in Media Player / NetShow / ActiveMovie / CDDeluxe / DVDPlayer, and probably some others I'm not thinking of.
Didn't RealNetworks buy ViVo and Xing, Microsoft bought VxTreme, and ... what *did* happen to VDONet? I wouldn't think you were referring to ClearVideo or Duck, but it's possible.
What plug-in are you referring to? I would think it would be either ViVo or VxTreme, which were the best alternative players at that time that I can think of.
And about Windows Media player... this was on my desktop, not a workstation, so no group policy. I had installed VLC, and had it opening all my files, and defintely ogg. A few weeks later, I clicked on an OGG podcast and it opened up in Windows Media. Subsequent media (although I really don't do this often on my Windows machine) all opened in Windows media player.
Windows Media Player doesn't associate to OGG. Third party plug-ins could add registration for OGG to the player's file association set (I designed it to be easily extensible), but it doesn't come that way. So whomever actually did make that registration may have done that badly, but -- if it's going through my WMP association system, there's no mechanism for random re-registration ('reactivation') because you and I hate that.
However, at this point, I really don't care.
I do. If somebody is doing registrations badly, let's fix this up before people get confused. You're confused, and thus I'm concerned.
So hit me up on the email address I mentioned in my earlier response to you (zachdms at hotmail dotty com) and supply the repro steps here that are causing you to hit this badness. VLC definitely isn't really Vista file association aware, though, so that's the most probable source of error. If you check the VLC forums you'll note that I provided most of their solution already - I don't know if it's in their packages yet, though. Still, you did mention that it was a problem for a podcast, and that could be coming in through a different association path that VLC simply isn't currently handling. Pre-Vista, the split between shell and browser associations was rather a PITA - Vista finally generally consolidates those. Much easier to deal with.
I can't and don't want to speak to anything else other than Windows Media Player file associations, but since I designed that since maybe day one, it's always been my number one goal just to play nice and get out of your way and let you use the player that you want to. If you're seeing something else, somebody probably isn't plugging in properly. It's certainly possible that it's a Windows Media Player bug, but it's not malicious because I simply don't play like that. I grew up on the Mac, programmed on U*IX/Solaris in college, and regularly try to help any vendor that needs it. Email me, we should be able to sort this out.
I wrote most of that code. There's no mechanism by which it could reactivate. Hit me up at zachdms at hotmail dotty com and I'll walk through whatever you think you're seeing.
Most third party players have tended to be a little lackadaisical when it comes to file association implementations. This is one of the big reasons why the new (easy) Vista file association interfaces (Set Default Programs) are so great. Ask your favorite application to support it if they don't already. I've supplied the basics to a number of third party vendors (WinAMP, VLC, MPC-via-CCCP) to get them up and running on this.
Vista wouldn't crash so much
This implies that you are encountering or know of some issue that should be looked at to be addressed by a QFE or service pack. What are the steps to reproduce this issue, or (better) what is the fault bucket data?
I deal with crashes all of the time... most of what I deal with is externally sourced. =\
It's not like you're going to get any support out of Microsoft about Windows Media Player.
For what kinds of problems? I work at Microsoft and try to go the extra mile beyond my development duties, specifically using large chunks of my personal time providing support about Windows Media Player. (Various official options, my unofficial FAQ.) I also work closely with the Web Help and other teams based upon user feedback to tighten up the various response points users will run into after they encounter issues. I also dedicate chunks of my time following up with third party vendors who accidentally break Windows or Windows Media Player, etc etc etc.
It's not like Windows Media Player or Windows Media Player support is the be-all end-all, but it's a strange thing to target/pinpoint given that the majority of the problems people I deal with run into have with it seem to be externally derived these days. I'll stop tangenting now. =)
They told me they had removed the copper AFTER they did. That was fairly jaw-dropping since I had just wanted to try FIOS for a while. The joke was on me.
That's the best example I've seen yet, and I'm glad it got modded up appropriately.
It's also extremely relevant that the Matrix Collection (I bought the 5-disc version in HD) contains nothing really new, whereas the PotC discs both contain the otherwise almost unfindable "Lost Disc" that Pirates fans have to be pretty excited about.
So: different price points, different ratings, different relevance (PotC being in theaters now), out-of-print unfindable bonus features on Pirates -- I would be stunned if PotC wasn't doing well comparatively.
I've got both an HD-DVD drive and Blu-Ray drive: I'm net-neutral here, but the comparison of PotC and Matrix seems kind of dumb. Planet Earth is the disc I hear everyone talking about, anyways. [Although I'm personally excited for Blade Runner...)
If it's changing her desktop stuff, that should all be per-user and not require admin privs. That's why I'm thinking there's something missing here... ... but regardless that should be a one-time configuration cost that wouldn't repeat itself the next week. Ongoing operations shouldn't require admin privs. If it does, that's fascinating and knowing specifics would be of high interest.
In theory the industry is used to having admin privileges, so seeing UAC too much is more probable right now than it should be one year from now as vendors stop coding that kind of bad application behavior.
Social engineering will still work, but if you even stopped half the world from downloading SpywareInstallerDoctor2006, that's still a pretty big win. Once Vista is in the second week of operation, how many UAC prompts do you see then? That UAC prompt to install an actual update or to approve malware should be a rare thing.
As mentioned elsewhere, it's not a definitive solution, but it's an aid to the user. And if Random User is still frequently hitting UAC in week 2, that's potentially a strange usage pattern.
Before we get all excited about laughing about Mac ads-
What is she doing that consistently requires administrator privileges? Because that's the question that should be being asked here. Clearly a lot of people ran the betas which had more UAC prompting, which I think distorts many people's views. But: why is the FOAF here doing admin tasks all the time?
work is going on to make WMP a vehicle for modifying DRM components
? The Windows Media Format Runtime (which encompasses the DRM subsystem) is a part of WMP. The Windows Media Format Runtime is the "DRM components". WMP has installed the current Format Runtime, which is how WMP renders media files (for non-DShow types), ever since the Runtime first existed.
I don't particularly like nor use DRM... I just think your interpretations may be a little confusing.
I still don't see what's confusing about it.
Most of it just seems to be opinions surrounding MCE/DRM, which don't really have anything uniquely to do with WMP and aren't things that are affected by WMP, since those are preexisting concerns before the WMP install anyways.
* The rest of the bit about license backup, specifically where it tells you how to back up your licenses, is valuable context.
* The MCE thing was a bug, fix here.
Hopefully people aren't confused by your +5 mod'd post. Regardless of your pro/anti-Microsoft sentiment, if you care about the MCE thing... seems like there's a fix available.