# Windows 7 RC



## Caliante (May 12, 2009)

Haha, I just enter the prefix 'solved' to the title of the thread to be funny :e

I just installed Windows 7 the other day on an old machine (you can down it from MS now and get a key that's valid for 13 months). I was impressed: install went smooth except for the fact that it didn't recognize my network adapter (simple 3Com 9Cx, nothing not known to around a zillion of computers :stud) and consequently asked me if I wanted to go online to look for a driver (duh. How difficult is it to have an exception in that 'wanna go online driver program' to distinguish between network adapter drivers and other drivers?).

Anyway, I have to admit: it is fast, way faster than XP is. In this new Windows they have managed to hide all the functions even better, so you are really looking and looking and looking to find stuff that had a normal place in XP. 

Of course, for me it is a road without and end; MS is exit for me, and XP is the last Windows I will have used. But just thought I'd share my experience with you all.


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## graudeejs (May 12, 2009)

he he he, vista was a pain to configure Wifi (i was searching for few hours first time)


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## Beastie (May 13, 2009)

Caliante said:
			
		

> it didn't recognize my network adapter [...] and consequently asked me if I wanted to go online to look for a driver



Hahaha, Windows never ceases to amuse me.

```
System failure: unable to detect the keyboard.
Please, press F1 for help.
```


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## rliegh (May 17, 2009)

My laptop came with Vista, and I tried W7 on it; the upgrade went great but it's not really compelling enough to be worth having to wipe everything off of it when it bricks next year -and the FAQ says that you'll have to do a clean install even if you want to upgrade from the RC to the full version.

In the end, I simply put Vista back on it.


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## Pushrod (May 17, 2009)

I have a few peers that have installed Windows 7, and it seems pretty solid. I've never had any problems with Vista, so if W7 is any better, then it's going to be good.

Recent Windows with Cygwin = the best desktop OS at the moment. That's my opinion (and probably no one else's).


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## hedwards (May 19, 2009)

Pushrod said:
			
		

> I have a few peers that have installed Windows 7, and it seems pretty solid. I've never had any problems with Vista, so if W7 is any better, then it's going to be good.
> 
> Recent Windows with Cygwin = the best desktop OS at the moment. That's my opinion (and probably no one else's).


Honestly, I haven't yet tried Windows 7, but Vista was in general significantly better than any previous Windows version.

It's kind of a shame that MS finally *beep**beep**beep**beep*ed with me to the point that I won't have any business relations with them in the future. (Entendre not particularly intended, but too good to edit out)

One of these days I want to try portable Ubuntu. Basically a version which is sort of similar to Cygwin, but without requiring an installation. Last time I tried Cygwin it was a pretty big pain, although that was years ago.

EDIT: Makes me wonder how people named *beep**beep**beep**beep* ever manage to post their real name here.


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## fbsduser (Jun 15, 2009)

Tested W7. Same junk as every other version of Windoze. M$ does nothing except polishing the same turd.


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## DrJ (Jun 15, 2009)

hedwards said:
			
		

> One of these days I want to try portable Ubuntu.


Try UWin, from Korn at Bell Labs.  It has worked well for me.

I've tried W7, and actually rather like it.  It is the first Windows product that I've really liked since W2K (though they have all worked fine for me, including Vista).


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## SirDice (Jun 15, 2009)

Beastie said:
			
		

> Hahaha, Windows never ceases to amuse me.
> 
> ```
> System failure: unable to detect the keyboard.
> ...


That's a BIOS message and has nothing to do with Windows :stud


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## fronclynne (Jun 15, 2009)

*I mean, you'd have to call it Windows2001 first, but who cares?*



			
				DrJ said:
			
		

> It is the first Windows product that I've really liked since W2K (though they have all worked fine for me, including Vista).


NT4 was okay, but 5 (I guess I can accept "2k" if you look like Angela Bassett) was naggy and service-rich in a way that rubbed wrong on me.  Long I for the days of yore and simple, simplistic interfaces?  Aye, 3.1 was the best.

I anticipate the day when the pointless incrementing of version numbers makes the "Windows2000"* nonsense look foolishly shortsighted.

But, really, I just surf a bit of some tubes and play a couple of text games.  I don't think windows can do that anymore, unless you install the double-silverlightdotnet4.0ie8wmp13.9# plugin.



*It occurs to me that if you could get HAL working under cygwin on windows 2000 you would probably end up accidently killing Doctor Bowman.


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## DrJ (Jun 15, 2009)

fronclynne said:
			
		

> Long I for the days of yore and simple, simplistic interfaces?  Aye, 3.1 was the best.



I do hope you are not being serious.  I booted my old 3.1 box a week ago (from circa 1992), and the UI is clunky and very, very dated.

For a simple but effective window manager, SunView (that ran on SunOS before the switch to SPARC and SysVR4) was pretty good.


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## Carpetsmoker (Jun 19, 2009)

I had ``Windows 7 readiness training'' at work last week, the feature most praised by our Microsoft representative was the fact that Windows 7 can now automatically change backgrounds, I think he spent about 6 or 7 minutes ``explaining'' this feature.

Just an example to show that Microsoft seems to have slightly different priorities than FreeBSD  They are still using NTFS for example with all it's shortcomings and design flaws ... But you can change your background automatically now !! wheee!!!!


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## DrJ (Jun 19, 2009)

Carpetsmoker said:
			
		

> ... Windows 7 can now automatically change backgrounds.
> 
> Just an example to show that Microsoft seems to have slightly different priorities than FreeBSD



Ya think?  Did you get "sensitivity training" too, so that any background displayed should at least have clothes on?

I never think Windows is as great as its proponents claim, nor as bad as its detractors would like you to believe.


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## Oko (Jun 20, 2009)

DrJ said:
			
		

> I never think Windows is as great as its proponents claim, nor as bad as its detractors would like you to believe.



The same could be said for all proprietary operating systems. The other day I fired old SGI and I was must reminded that you can telent to SGI to a root account without a password. Old good times


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## DrJ (Jun 20, 2009)

Oko said:
			
		

> The same could be said for all proprietary operating systems.



Or most things in life.  We seem to live in polarized times.


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## graudeejs (Jun 20, 2009)

Carpetsmoker said:
			
		

> I had ``Windows 7 readiness training'' at work last week, the feature most praised by our Microsoft representative was the fact that Windows 7 can now automatically change backgrounds, I think he spent about 6 or 7 minutes ``explaining'' this feature.
> 
> Just an example to show that Microsoft seems to have slightly different priorities than FreeBSD  They are still using NTFS for example with all it's shortcomings and design flaws ... But you can change your background automatically now !! wheee!!!!



now that was funny


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## ericbsd (Jun 20, 2009)

excuse me but windows 7 gone suck more!!! Why virus spyware zombie bug and all shit like and we have to pay for that crap!!!
I don't Wont try this shit!!! I stay with my open source.


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## jdr (Jun 20, 2009)

hi all im new here, thought i would throw in a post here...my girlfriend has Vista Home/Basic..We put 7 on it, and I have to admit, its rock stable. I really enjoy using her computer when she isnt glued to facebook. Alot faster then Vista, and seems more modular. 

Speaking of old OSes, I remembered my mind was blown like a kid with a sack of good weed when Win95 came out. But does everyone remember OS/2? What about BeBox(?)? Or the NeXT cubes?


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## ChuckOp (Jun 20, 2009)

*Oh come on now...*



			
				Carpetsmoker said:
			
		

> ...the feature most praised by our Microsoft representative was the fact that Windows 7 can now automatically change backgrounds...
> 
> Just an example to show that Microsoft seems to have slightly different priorities than FreeBSD



Obviously that little feature is not "a priority".  The people giving you the training and spending several minutes on something like that are not those charged with setting design priorities.

How much time was spent on the multi-touch features?  The Libraries feature?  The improvements in boot and shutdown time?



> They are still using NTFS for example with all it's shortcomings and design flaws



NTFS is a very robust file system.  Can you give an example of some "design flaws" it has?


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## ChuckOp (Jun 20, 2009)

Caliante said:
			
		

> I was impressed: install went smooth except for the fact that it didn't recognize my network adapter (simple 3Com 9Cx, nothing not known to around a zillion of computers :stud) and consequently asked me if I wanted to go online to look for a driver (duh. How difficult is it to have an exception in that 'wanna go online driver program' to distinguish between network adapter drivers and other drivers?).



Well, in my Windows laptop, there are several network adapters; WiFi, GigE, Bluetooth, Firewire, and anything I connect via PC-Card or USB.  I *would* like it to hunt online for those drivers.

I get what you mean, but you should think through the implications of your desire.



> Anyway, I have to admit: it is fast, way faster than XP is. In this new Windows they have managed to hide all the functions even better, so you are really looking and looking and looking to find stuff that had a normal place in XP.



Example please?  I'm sincerely curious.


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## Oko (Jun 21, 2009)

ChuckOp said:
			
		

> I'm sincerely curious.



Hi there. 

You look like somebody who works for Microsoft. I was 
always wondering do you guys have a copy of pristine Windows without legacy support and all unnecessary PR crap. I would really like to see how that works since I can not imagine such big bunch of very smart people putting out half backed OS with gazillion wholes.

Best,
OKO


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## Carpetsmoker (Jun 21, 2009)

ChuckOp said:
			
		

> How much time was spent on the multi-touch features?  The Libraries feature?  The improvements in boot and shutdown time?



None.



> NTFS is a very robust file system.  Can you give an example of some "design flaws" it has?



The first three that spring to mind:

o The ACl implementation is just stupid.
o Fragmentation (And thus performance) is *horrible*.
o Lack of symbolic links (Vista does NOT have proper support for symbolic links)


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## Carpetsmoker (Jun 21, 2009)

> I never think Windows is as great as its proponents claim, nor as bad as its detractors would like you to believe.



True, I have worked with it every day for the last 10 months orso, and for all it's problems, it does work. Which is more than can be said of some Xorg ``releases'' for example (...But this is a different topic...).


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## DrJ (Jun 21, 2009)

Carpetsmoker said:
			
		

> ...for all it's problems, it does work. Which is more than can be said of some Xorg ``releases'' for example (...But this is a different topic...).



Windows makes a huge effort in backwards compatibility.  That has its own issues, but it does mean that usually things work.  MS still issues security patches for Windows 2000!  On OSS, you are out of luck after a couple of years, usually.  And I've never seen anything like what has been happening recently with xorg in the Windows world.


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## fronclynne (Jun 21, 2009)

I kick puppies.

Eugene McCarthy liked pizza and Mountain Dew during long nights of coding device drivers.

Bok Choy is better than arugula(r).

Hedy Lamarr's contribution to mobile phone technology is more important that yours.

Oswald and Ruby sank the Titanic.


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## kpedersen (Jun 21, 2009)

Oko said:
			
		

> Hi there.
> 
> You look like somebody who works for Microsoft. I was
> always wondering do you guys have a copy of pristine Windows without legacy support and all unnecessary PR crap. I would really like to see how that works since I can not imagine such big bunch of very smart people putting out half backed OS with gazillion wholes.
> OKO



If Microsoft workers get a "special" copy... They certainly kept it a secret from me haha! Guess I am just a student intern though so perhaps its for senior management only!
I'll keep you updated


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## drhowarddrfine (Jun 22, 2009)

I bought a notebook last month that I was going to convert to FreeBSD but, since I code web sites, I find it convenient being able to test Internet Explorer when I'm moving around. Otherwise, I live in Firefox and cygwin and never use anything else.


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## ChuckOp (Jun 22, 2009)

*Yes, I do work for Microsoft, but love FreeBSD*



			
				Oko said:
			
		

> You look like somebody who works for Microsoft.



At this moment I'm employed by Microsoft, but that's ending soon as I'm moving from the Seattle area to Florida.

I was part of the Windows 95 Program Management team, and also worked on Windows 98, Windows 2000 and Windows XP.  I was part of the group that implemented speech recognition in Windows Vista and Windows 7.  I also worked on Internet Explorer, versions 3 through 5.  When I wasn't working full-time for Microsoft, I was writing books and doing consulting work on LDAP and directory services.

Of course my comments are solely my own and not reflective of any of my employers.

FYI, I'm not trolling - I love FreeBSD and have been using it on-and-off since 4.3.  I've always loved "true" Unix and can't stand Linux.



> I was always wondering do you guys have a copy of pristine Windows without legacy support and all unnecessary PR crap.



I don't know what "PR crap" you're referring to, but what makes you think that the people at Microsoft, like any organization, don't need legacy support?  We have badly designed internal websites that do incorrect version checking just like any other company for just one example.  I know of at least one co-worker who was using the DOS version of Microsoft Word for notetaking up until a few years ago.



> I would really like to see how that works since I can not imagine such big bunch of very smart people putting out half backed OS with gazillion wholes.



There is nothing half-baked about Windows.  In fact, I would put it's stability and robustness up against any other OS in a heartbeat.  Testing at Microsoft is simply the best and finely honed.

Now, obviously there are compatibility issues.  The ability to load kernel-level drivers exposes users to system crashes, but that rarely happens with Microsoft provided drivers.  Third-party, particularly unsigned drivers, are often the culprits.

The original architecture that allowed for all sorts of hooking into the operation of the shell has also led to a number of issues.  It's amazing how much software interweaves itself into the OS without good reason.  Everytime you right-click on a folder or file item, the shell has to load the code from all the applications that want to provide functionality.  If any of them fail, the shell can recover, but it's often slow and painful user experience.  The shell team has done a good job of working around the worst offenders (app compat hacks that have to be done for third-party software).

That's the problem with being hugely popular - is that you simply can't say "well, we're fixing an issue that causes a number of crashes" because if that means a popular application or utility will cease to work, you've just given organizations reason not to upgrade.  You have to work with the third-party companies to fix their own problems, and when they won't or can't, try as much as possible to fix it for them or work around it.

A really good blog on this stuff is Raymond Chen's "The Old New Thing" that discusses many of the problems of legacy support.

Anyway, when I see statements that slam Microsoft and Windows, which is easy to do, I push back.


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## graudeejs (Jun 22, 2009)

Now be honest, does MS use Linux for their servers (just joking)?


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## ChuckOp (Jun 22, 2009)

*None are design flaws*



			
				Carpetsmoker said:
			
		

> The first three that spring to mind:
> 
> o The ACL implementation is just stupid.



Oh, I strongly disagree.  The access control lists are system-wide and apply not only to filesystems, but to kernel objects and even network directories (LDAP-based).

I get it that it leads to confusion - for example you can have a read-only restriction on a file "share" (which is a system-object) while the directory (a file system object) allows for read-write access.

It's not at all like Unix and that bothers many people.  Access control can be very fine-grained and is intergrated with auditing, which is important for many organizations.



> o Fragmentation (And thus performance) is *horrible*.



Fragmentation is a problem greatly reduced in NTFS than in the FAT-family of file systems.  

Since Windows XP and Windows Server 2003, background defragmentation keeps the problem to a minimum.  The strategies used by UFS and ext3 to reduce fragmentation are dependent on physical characteristics of the discs themselves, something that cannot be depended upon in NTFS.

While I agree that fragmentation can be more of an issue in NTFS than in UFS, I disagree that the result is horrible performance.  It depends on how applications create, read and write files.  Given the same application logic on both platforms, I assert that NTFS performance will be within -/+5% of UFS performance.  If under a particular application logic fragmentation is a serious problem, that can be countered with out changes to the application.

I don't agree that "fragmentation" is a design flaw, it happens on all file systems.



> o Lack of symbolic links (Vista does NOT have proper support for symbolic links)



Oh please!  NTFS has supported hard and soft links since Windows 2000.  Symbolic links are used throughout Windows Vista (for example, the default user AppData directory points to \ProgramData).  The resource kit includes mklink and all the regular filesystem internal commands (dir, rm, del, etc.) understand and support links.

Don't confuse the shell .LNK files with symbolic links.  The shell .LNK files are not the same, but provide similar functionality for GUI users.


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## Oko (Jun 22, 2009)

ChuckOp said:
			
		

> At this moment I'm employed by Microsoft, but that's ending soon as I'm moving from the Seattle area to Florida.
> 
> I was part of the Windows 95 Program Management team, and also worked on Windows 98, Windows 2000 and Windows XP.  I was part of the group that implemented speech recognition in Windows Vista and Windows 7.  I also worked on Internet Explorer, versions 3 through 5.  When I wasn't working full-time for Microsoft, I was writing books and doing consulting work on LDAP and directory services.
> 
> ...



Now that is really very, very nice and informative post from somebody who knows his job. You exactly pinpointed the things which makes systems like BSDs "superior" to Windows. Unlike MS open source projects can easily break backward compatibility and in particular they can brake compatibility with third party software. Your post also explains  correctness of OpenBSD team approach which doesn't allow third party binary blob drivers nor kernel loadable modules which makes OpenBSD so incredibly stable. 

I wish you could elaborate little bit about difficulty to support such a wide variety of often crappy hardware. Also Windows supports incredible wide amount of features not found on any other OS. For that reason Windows kernel is large comparing to Linux (probably not for a long time ) but in particular compared to BSD kernels.

This is why is so important IHMO that BSDs remain simple systems for power users instead of accommodating clueless n00bs. If any system once goes down that path it is just going to become another Windows and I do not mean that in derogatory sense.

Can you explain why is MS so often offender of various RFCs? Is that a 
conscience decision to put other Vendors out of business? Is there are any particular reason but PR to have for instance your own mail protocol 
(exchange) or for poor implementation of open protocols.

What about security? Could you compare the feature of Windows with OpenBSD? 

Could you also elaborate about one of the biggest problems of Windows deployment and that is the lack of truly competent Windows system administrators and users.


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## ChuckOp (Jun 24, 2009)

*Lengthy Reply...*



			
				Oko said:
			
		

> Now that is really very, very nice and informative post from somebody who knows his job.



Thank you, very kind. :e



> You exactly pinpointed the things which makes systems like BSDs "superior" to Windows. Unlike MS open source projects can easily break backward compatibility and in particular they can brake compatibility with third party software.



What is "superior" or "inferior" is just a matter of matching a solution to a set a of requirements.  When it comes to legacy support and the attendant problems; Windows is a victim of it's own success.



> Your post also explains  correctness of OpenBSD team approach which doesn't allow third party binary blob drivers nor kernel loadable modules which makes OpenBSD so incredibly stable.



I don't know much about OpenBSD, but if that's the case, then of course.  Few drivers in the Windows world require kernel access, but in the case of graphics adapters, it's a requirement - otherwise you can't get the speed necessary.

All of Windows' security certifications are predicated that only signed, certificated drivers are used.



> I wish you could elaborate little bit about difficulty to support such a wide variety of often crappy hardware.



There's not much to elaborate on - it's difficult.  The biggest problem is not the coding, after all it's only written once.   The biggest problem is in the testing matrix.  x86, AMD64, IA64 architectures, several dozen languages (including middle eastern, Far East, right-to-left reading order), and then add several product editions.  To get good testing coverage for a particular feature, you have to test on them all.  The build process alone is incredible.



> Also Windows supports incredible wide amount of features not found on any other OS. For that reason Windows kernel is large comparing to Linux (probably not for a long time ) but in particular compared to BSD kernels.



A friend of mine and a reviewer of my Active Directory book, Mark Russinovich, has written extensively about the Windows kernel, including a comparison of size and functionality to Linux.



> This is why is so important IHMO that BSDs remain simple systems for power users instead of accommodating clueless n00bs. If any system once goes down that path it is just going to become another Windows and I do not mean that in derogatory sense.



Depends on your requirements.  All systems conform to evolving requirements.  For Windows, supporting "clueless n00bs" is a requirement!



> Can you explain why is MS so often offender of various RFCs? Is that a conscience decision to put other Vendors out of business? Is there are any particular reason but PR to have for instance your own mail protocol (exchange) or for poor implementation of open protocols.



First let's dispel a few myths.  Microsoft gains no advantage anywhere by closing out other vendors.  The success of Windows (Microsoft's cash cow) is predicated on a very healthy software ecosystem.

I think you'd find that any organization supports standardization as much as it needs to and not much more.  No one buys a product because it's "IETF approved!" 

For 6 months in 1999, I worked on "Platinum," the codename for Exchange 2000.  The roots of Exchange go back to the late 80's and Microsoft Mail.  From that came the Mail API (MAPI).  MAPI was a rich, heavy-weight programming interface that fully supported various transport protocols, clients and servers.

This was around 1992-1994, and it was not clear that any of the email RFC's in existence at the time were sufficient for the needs of large organizations.  MAPI became the way Microsoft did email, and it was very complete and worked well.  Just like Lotus, Novell, IBM and any number of software vendors of the 90's, each had their own email protocols and only implemented SMTP to transfer mail in and out of their own systems.

MAPI supported secure authentication long before SMTP/SSL was commonly available, and organizations did not want employees using IMAP/POP clients sending clear-text passwords either.  So, organizations opted for the proprietary Exchange-MAPI-Outlook end-to-end system.

I know Exchange 5.5 and certainly Exchange 2000 supported SMTP, IMAP4, and POP3; in addition to MAPI.

I believe that Exchange 2000 defaulted to using ESMTP as it's internal transfer protocol.  Whether or not organizations use the IMAP/POP client interfaces is up to them.  I know that I'm using IMAP to get my chuckop@microsoft.com email via Thunderbird on FreeBSD 7.2.  :e

Regarding incomplete support of RFC's; it's a matter of what the customer needs.  Do they need 90%?  99.9%?  RFC's are a moving target that do not conform to product design and shipping schedules.  We build in what we can, when we can, as long as it's important to the customer.  Customers usually don't put standards support in their top requirements.  When customers do put standards support in their requirements, we support the standards as best we can when the product ships.

Open source products have much more of a need of interoperability with a wide variety of other products and thus depend more on standards.  Also remember that standards often follow inovation and engineering advances.  Products usually exist before the need for standards emerges.  If everyone did exactly what the standard states and nothing more - on what basis would you sell the product?

FYI, I attended W3C meetings when HTML4 was being debated.  Some of the same people who are now working on Mozilla were at those meetings in 1996 wanting to see Netscape's <LAYER> tag be implemented instead of CSS.  Microsoft was pushing for CSS because it was a better from a engineering point of view, whereas <LAYER> was a kludge derived from graphic design constructs.  So whenever someone says "Microsoft isn't supporting CSS2.1 100%" I think back to those meetings, when we were the ones advocating CSS in the first place.  I've also been a part of the W3C's working groups on web accessibility and on the various Voice XML standards.



> What about security? Could you compare the feature of Windows with OpenBSD?



I can't really.  My Windows security knowledge is limited and I have no idea of what OpenBSD brings to the table in that regard.



> Could you also elaborate about one of the biggest problems of Windows deployment and that is the lack of truly competent Windows system administrators and users.



Well, I wouldn't say that exactly, but I understand what you mean.  As with any complex system, be it high performance automobiles, aircraft, you-name-it, it all comes down to how it's operated.

One of the nice things about the BSD-world is that it's user-unfriendly-ness keeps the entry bar pretty high.  Windows on the other hand strives to be accessible to anyone.  People who *use* Windows assume that they can *manage* Windows as well and that leads to problems.

As with anything complex, those with more education and experience will get better results.

Look at it another way.  Windows has an installed base of nearly 1 billion users.  If 0.5% are "clueless n00bs", that's still 5 million people!  :e

Thanks for the message,
-Chuck
chuckop@gmail.com
http://friendfeed.com/chuckop/


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## ChuckOp (Jun 24, 2009)

*No, but there might be some OS/2 print servers...*



			
				killasmurf86 said:
			
		

> Now be honest, does MS use Linux for their servers (just joking)?



Actually, the building I was in for 2 years had the "Linux Lab" on the first floor.  I had a friend who worked in that group.

I know your post was in-jest, but the mantra at Microsoft is to "eat your own dogfood".  Meaning that you are constantly using the development builds of your own product on your main machine.  It brings stability to the product very quickly in the development cycle and rapid feedback as features are added and refined.  During Windows 95, I would kick off automated installations of the build from the previous day, assuming it made it out of the build lab okay ("self-host" vs. "self-toast"  )

I think Hotmail was running non-Microsoft software for a few years after acquisition, but that was eventually changed.


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## DrJ (Jun 24, 2009)

ChuckOp said:
			
		

> Windows on the other hand strives to be accessible to anyone.  People who *use* Windows assume that they can *manage* Windows as well and that leads to problems.



Thanks for the interesting posts.  

The irony is that I can get FreeBSD to stand on its head and do tricks.  While I use Windows a lot (from 98SE to Win7, harkening back to the earliest DOS versions) I have no clue on how to do the same things there.  So I'll personally never confuse myself with a Win expert in any flavor.

BSD is a snap in comparison.


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## graudeejs (Jun 24, 2009)

ChuckOp, Very interesting post 
Thanks


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## SirDice (Jun 26, 2009)

ChuckOp said:
			
		

> I think Hotmail was running non-Microsoft software for a few years after acquisition, but that was eventually changed.


AFAIK hotmail was running on FreeBSD (before MS bought it), they started off by replacing everything with W2K. Unfortunately for them that didn't work out too good (it more or less buckled under the load). To solve that they put back the FreeBSD servers on the backend but left the frontend W2K. I'm pretty sure it's all Windows these days.

And as for security, I do know a fair bit about it. Having worked for many years as a security specialist for a large banking/insurance company and a renowned security company. When most people blame Windows for having glaring holes and stating that *nix is so much more secure it basically tells me two things, they don't know anything about windows and they don't know anything about *nix either.

Most (security) problems users have with Windows stem from the fact nearly all of them work as an Administrator (and it doesn't help when this is the default). On *nix you would have a similar situation if everybody just used root. The mantra on *nix has always been don't login as root however. Quite a lot of the current malware on windows simply doesn't work if you remove the administrator rights from your day to day account. There's no way a regular user can install a rootkit, keyloggers or BHOs. 

This is no guarantee though, it still leaves you open to viruses, trojans and worms (the fact that most of them don't work without admin rights says more about the virus writer then the security of the OS). Their reach is severely limited and that'll make it easier to clean up. Unfortunately from that user's point of view this really doesn't matter. S/He is still going to be pissed when the MP3 collection or all your scriptures get deleted. Which is also the reason linux or bsd users should be careful. Even though you're not running root I'm sure quite a lot of the desktop linux/bsd users use the same account every day. And there are plenty of spaces an ordinary user can write to. It's also quite simple to get something to start automatically when you login (HKCU on windows, ~/.login on *nix e.g.). Heck, you can even leave it running in the background when the user logs off.


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## drhowarddrfine (Jun 27, 2009)

I've had an issue with two laptops. My son moved into an apartment in Chicago where he goes to school and I went there to visit. He has Vista. I had just bought a brand new laptop and had it for only a week so Vista was still on it. I could not connect using a direct connection to his cable modem. Never did figure out the problem but there are hundreds of links in Google to "local access only" and I can't get on the internet but it works fine at home.

I was able to get a Linux Live CD and that accesses the net just fine.

My wife is in Chicago now and has the exact same problem with her Vista laptop.


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## drhowarddrfine (Jun 27, 2009)

> There is nothing half-baked about Windows. In fact, I would put it's stability and robustness up against any other OS in a heartbeat. Testing at Microsoft is simply the best and finely honed.


I read an article by an ex-Microsoftie, recently, that the problem is the internal testing works great at Microsoft because it's finely honed to Microsoft's internal setup but doesn't work outside of this test area.


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## drhowarddrfine (Jun 27, 2009)

> FYI, I attended W3C meetings when HTML4 was being debated. Some of the same people who are now working on Mozilla were at those meetings in 1996 wanting to see Netscape's <LAYER> tag be implemented instead of CSS. Microsoft was pushing for CSS because it was a better from a engineering point of view, whereas <LAYER> was a kludge derived from graphic design constructs. So whenever someone says "Microsoft isn't supporting CSS2.1 100%" I think back to those meetings, when we were the ones advocating CSS in the first place. I've also been a part of the W3C's working groups on web accessibility and on the various Voice XML standards.


Do you have any comment on the long fight between Brendan Eich and ECMA trying to get Microsoft to show up on time for voting? And when, after the vote is done, Microsoft shows up to object to the vote?

Do you have any comment on Microsoft's Chris Wilson not showing up for HTML5 Working Group meetings, his lack of participation and not returning emails or phone calls even though he's the co-chair of the group?

Any comment on IE8 being 11 years behind all other browsers in web standards support?


----------



## drhowarddrfine (Jun 27, 2009)

ChuckOp said:
			
		

> I think Hotmail was running non-Microsoft software for a few years after acquisition, but that was eventually changed.



Tis true. Hotmail ran FreeBSD till MS switched it over to whatever they use now.


----------



## Oko (Jun 27, 2009)

SirDice said:
			
		

> When most people blame Windows for having glaring holes and stating that *nix is so much more secure it basically tells me two things, they don't know anything about windows and they don't know anything about *nix either.


Now, are you suggesting that I should use Windows machine as a firewall for my OpenBSD desktop 





			
				SirDice said:
			
		

> On *nix you would have a similar situation if everybody just used root.


 Which is actually true for quite a few less know "user friendly" distros of Linux. 




			
				SirDice said:
			
		

> There's no way a regular user can install a rootkit, keyloggers or BHOs.


What about daemons (services)? To me Windows was always a black box so I am genuinely curious about that.



			
				SirDice said:
			
		

> This is no guarantee though, it still leaves you open to viruses, trojans and worms


What is Windows partition scheme really? Again having only / and swap on Unix doesn't make it very secure either. 



			
				SirDice said:
			
		

> (the fact that most of them don't work without admin rights says more about the virus writer then the security of the OS).


Script kitties of course. Qualified attackers especially one paid by major nation states are harder to defend against.




			
				SirDice said:
			
		

> Even though you're not running root I'm sure quite a lot of the desktop linux/bsd users use the same account every day. And


I hope this is not true at least in BSD world.


----------



## Beastie (Jun 27, 2009)

SirDice said:
			
		

> Even though you're not running root I'm sure quite a lot of the desktop linux/bsd users use the same account every day.





			
				Oko said:
			
		

> I hope this is not true at least in BSD world.



What do both of you mean by that?


----------



## fbsduser (Nov 10, 2009)

ChuckOp said:
			
		

> At this moment I'm employed by Microsoft, but that's ending soon as I'm moving from the Seattle area to Florida.
> 
> I was part of the Windows 95 Program Management team, and also worked on Windows 98, Windows 2000 and Windows XP.  I was part of the group that implemented speech recognition in Windows Vista and Windows 7.  I also worked on Internet Explorer, versions 3 through 5.  When I wasn't working full-time for Microsoft, I was writing books and doing consulting work on LDAP and directory services.
> 
> ...



Long time *NIX user here and quite new to Wintendo, got a few questions for you. How can I run "PC" games in my Linux PC without Wintendo? How do I activate WintendoÂ´s built-in quick-save/quick-reload. There was a tuto in youtube to activate it, but it was removed and all I remember is it said something about placing a file called hiberfil.sys in the root of the Wintendo system partition.


----------



## fronclynne (Nov 20, 2009)

SirDice said:
			
		

> There's no way a regular user can install a rootkit, keyloggers or BHOs.



So, no buffer overflows anywhere that allow privilege escalation?  It's all written in befunge now!?  MS continues to amaze and delight!


----------



## roddierod (Nov 20, 2009)

I just wanted to share my experience with installing Windows 7.

The Machine:
Dual AMD Opteron 246(2 Ghz), 2GB, 72 GB Hitahchi U320 drive.

1st Attempt:
Windows 7 Enterprise, disk image created by my employer. 
This image would not boot on my machine although the hardware guys told me it was bootable, so I ran it from XP. Once the installer started I had to choose to overwrite my install since direct upgrades from XP aren't allowed by Windows 7. I choose advanced setup which only gave me an option to format my hardrive. No choice on my "components" to install or not. Click next and it off....after an hour, it finally reboots and hangs at finishing installing components or whatever the exact message was.

Hard Reboot. Computer boots say it uninstalling Windows 7 because it can't finish install...ok. While it was at it, it also overwrote GAG that was on an entirly different disk!

2nd Attempt:
Disconncted all drives except the drive being used for Windows 7.
Do all the same things...this time after the hour and the reboot it gets further I actually get a black screen that says Windows 7 is starting, and the new fancy Windows logo glows...but it never does anything....HARD REBOOT.

3rd Attempt:
For this attempt, I used my Windows 7 Ultimate from MSDN, thinking something must be wrong with the Enterprise disk image...This install goes faster maybe 20 or 30 minutes. It reboots and I back to the black screen with the fancy glowing logo...hang! HARD REBOOT. 

I start in safe mode so I can read what's loading...it hangs at CLASSPNP.SYS, Do research, find out that the Vista bug that caused problems with AMD processors is still present in Windows 7, work around turn off ACHI in the BIOS. Do that. System boots into Windows 7 - but only one processor is showing up. Download and install the 38 patches (36 or 37 of them were critical). Go back into the BIOS and fiddle with different ACHI settings, get the machine to boot with some ACHI setting on, still no 2nd processor...turn off machine. Have not tocuhed Windows 7 since (about 3 or 4 weeks).


----------



## peetaur (Apr 17, 2012)

Advantages to Windows:


Your local computer dealer has it in stock.
Your local computer dealer will install it for you.
Most software on the market is designed to run on it.
The .doc files you get from 3rd parties via email can be edited without them suddenly changing format around strangely when viewed again by that 3rd party.
It runs a particular mail client, which when mailed an attachment named winmail.dat that violates standard protocols, can actually view the encoded attachment files.
The average person can do basic things in it.
It natively supports the file system you can most commonly expect to be on someone else's computer.
Drivers for consumer devices (eg. phones, network, video, etc.) usually come out first for Windows.


In other words, (nearly?) all advantages are purely based on its hostile takeover of the market, making the company responsible a monopoly, having nothing what-so-ever to do with quality. So if you use it because of the above advantages, you are reponsible for its position in the market.


----------



## sossego (Apr 17, 2012)

RMS rules, man. You're, like, a spy or a suit. Down with the establishment, man. Free love, free beer, free software, man.



Nah. It's refreshing to know that you enjoy learning.


----------



## roddierod (Apr 17, 2012)

peetaur said:
			
		

> Advantages to Windows:
> 
> 
> Your local computer dealer has it in stock.
> ...


I'd have to take #4 and #6 out of the list.


----------



## athos (Apr 18, 2012)

Woah, this thread is amazing. I never tought that some Microsoft programmer would be in the FreeBSD forums, and would share his/her experience here, those were some truly amazing posts!


----------



## peetaur (Apr 18, 2012)

roddierod said:
			
		

> I'd have to take #4 and #6 out of the list.



#4 You don't think people get annoyed when their documents go all messed up because they made the wrong editor choice and you made the free choice? (and then conclude that YOU made the wrong choice and that you should buy into the monopoly and join them in enforcing the monopoly.)

#6 (a) You think average people can't do basic things? Or (b) you think that people can do basic things on most free OSses also? 

#6 plus the last sentence I implied that I mostly agree with (b) because the reason they can't do basic things in free OSses is that they have no experience with them, nor friends with experience that can help them learn the basics, since their familiarity was confined to Windows instead. The reason I say "mostly agree" is that they seem to get all confused and think the OS/UI sucks instead of just realizing they need to learn something... so they really can't do simple things because they refuse to learn. And long ago in Linux, you had to use command line to mount your CDROM, run special tools to resize your desktop resolution, etc. But nowadays the only obstacle for basic things really is experience vs ability/desire to learn, rather than the product itself. 

And BTW, I am not against pay software, and biased towards free stuff. I just really strongly believe that things should be driven towards quality, and should be as compatible with other software as possible, and follow open protocols and standards. The people that pay for it, and use it should drive the development, based on their needs. It should not be the people that sell it forcing the people that use it to lock themselves in and reduce the popularity of open software.


----------



## roddierod (Apr 18, 2012)

For #4, I'm suggesting that just because you use Word and I use Word does not guarantee that I will make changes and send you the document back in the same format. Or that even if the format is the same that when you open it on you machine the layout will look the same.

#6, I'm saying the average person can't do basic things. The average person can only do a basic thing in any OS once they have been trained or shown how to do a basic things - and we haven't defined what basic is either. Most people will say email and creating documents, but I know quite a few people that use a computer for nothing more that Mahjong and solitaire. Now once you change the interface to the OS (say from XP to Windows 7) even though all the "basics" of the OS are essentially the same, the average person is going to become frustrated at the new layout and need to be retrained.



			
				peetaur said:
			
		

> And BTW, I am not against pay software, and biased towards free stuff. I just really strongly believe that things should be driven towards quality, and should be as compatible with other software as possible, and follow open protocols and standards. The people that pay for it, and use it should drive the development, based on their needs. It should not be the people that sell it forcing the people that use it to lock themselves in and reduce the popularity of open software.



I'm not against paying for software, I've even bought a number of commercial softwares for FreeBSD, but sadly I think most development is driven by marketing and laziness. By laziness I mean that people want what I call "the one button app". You just click the one button and it magically does every thing you want - of course this view comes from a number of years of writing software for corporate users. Marketing well - again from my experience in the corporate world - drives almost all software and hardware decisions and if you are unfortunate enough to have decisions made on the golf course and not in technical meetings it can get really bad...ok, I'm going to stop being bitter now.


----------



## SR_Ind (Apr 25, 2012)

roddierod said:
			
		

> #6, I'm saying the average person can't do basic things. The average person can only do a basic thing in any OS once they have been trained or shown how to do a basic things - and we haven't defined what basic is either. Most people will say email and creating documents, but I know quite a few people that use a computer for nothing more that Mahjong and solitaire. Now once you change the interface to the OS (say from XP to Windows 7) even though all the "basics" of the OS are essentially the same, the average person is going to become frustrated at the new layout and need to be retrained.


Well the 'average person' is now moving to tablets. Stuff like Windows vs Linux vs MacOS vs <My Fav OS> is becoming less and less to matter. 




			
				roddierod said:
			
		

> I'm not against paying for software


FOSS fanatics will not agree with you . Just curious, how many people here write software for a living either freelance or employed? 

People see a software in the market and wonder why is it priced like that or why can't it even be free? People not from product development backgrounds may be surprised to know the products that actually make a public appearance is just a fraction (a successfully closed project) of what actually gets tried by product line management. Naturally there is tendency to recover cost. 



			
				roddierod said:
			
		

> I've even bought a number of commercial softwares for FreeBSD, but sadly I think most development is driven by marketing and laziness. By laziness I mean that people want what I call "the one button app". You just click the one button and it magically does every thing you want - of course this view comes from a number of years of writing software for corporate users. Marketing well - again from my experience in the corporate world - drives almost all software and hardware decisions and if you are unfortunate enough to have decisions made on the golf course and not in technical meetings it can get really bad...ok, I'm going to stop being bitter now.


My experience is mixed. Enterprises are usually resistant to change and they don't like shiny new toys. "One button" magic is usually demanded by retail users. However, I'd concur with you in another situation...enterprise do demand "one button" magic toys if it is meant to be supplied by some hapless vendor.


----------



## ChuckOp (Apr 26, 2012)

*Sorry for the late reply*



			
				drhowarddrfine said:
			
		

> Do you have any comment on the long fight between Brendan Eich and ECMA trying to get Microsoft to show up on time for voting? And when, after the vote is done, Microsoft shows up to object to the vote?
> 
> Do you have any comment on Microsoft's Chris Wilson not showing up for HTML5 Working Group meetings, his lack of participation and not returning emails or phone calls even though he's the co-chair of the group?
> 
> Any comment on IE8 being 11 years behind all other browsers in web standards support?



I haven't followed the Microsoft/ECMA issues and couldn't comment knowledgably.

However, in the IE3 and IE4 timeframe, I worked with Chris Wilson and Scott Issacs on the accessibility aspects of standards support.  I found both of them very professional and truly interested in doing the right thing for the end-user and customer.

I realize this reply is little under 3 years over due, I've been busy.  <smile>


----------



## ChuckOp (Apr 26, 2012)

*Responsible*



			
				peetaur said:
			
		

> Advantages to Windows:
> 
> 
> It runs a particular mail client, which when mailed an attachment named winmail.dat that violates standard protocols, can actually view the encoded attachment files.



Just because the attachment isn't in an open format doesn't mean it violates standards.  

Yes, Exchange 2000 would internally violate SMTP standards with regard to TNEF-encoded messages, but that was a bug that was fixed.  When forced to send a TNEF-encoded message, Outlook will wrap it up in standards-compliant attachment.

Outlook 2002 and newer default to HTML as their message formats.



> In other words, (nearly?) all advantages are purely based on its hostile takeover of the market, making the company responsible a monopoly, having nothing what-so-ever to do with quality. So if you use it because of the above advantages, you are reponsible for its position in the market.



Hostile takeover?  Recognize that there has always been commercially available alternatives to Windows.  Windows is successful because it did things OS/2, Mac OS, and dozens of other OS's could not do - run the programs that the purchaser wanted to run.

Nothing hostile about it.

I'll strongly disagree about quality.  I'll put the quality of Windows up against any other commercially available software.  Many of the quality issues end-user perceive are not the fault of Windows, but of third-parties.

Yes, I am responsible for it's position in the market.  I'm 1/1,125,000,000 responsible.


----------



## ChuckOp (Apr 26, 2012)

*Walled Gardens*



			
				SR_Ind said:
			
		

> Well the 'average person' is now moving to tablets. Stuff like Windows vs Linux vs MacOS vs <My Fav OS> is becoming less and less to matter.



The problems will remain, and between iOS, Android, and Windows RT, the walled gardens are getting higher and harder to scale.


----------



## peetaur (Apr 27, 2012)

ChuckOp said:
			
		

> Just because the attachment isn't in an open format doesn't mean it violates standards.



But does that make it okay? What you said is basically a true statement, since it simply doesn't follow the standard, rather than violating it. But it is still an unfriendly concept. If I'm not using Outlook, and I get a winmail.dat attachment, what am I supposed to do with it? It is ridiculous to assume that every email client will understand this closed standard. And in my experience, when someone is emailed a "winmail.dat" file (for example, in Thunderbird), instead of saying that Outlook is ridiculous, they say that Thunderbird is clearly broken and inferior, because Outlook can "properly" read the attachments. This is force, and indicates a hostile takeover.



			
				ChuckOp said:
			
		

> Nothing hostile about it.



See above. And similar monopoly tactics apply to Word, and IE. Remember back when Microsoft was found to be using undocumented functions in IE and over the years, the documented ones that Netscape used were getting slower and slower? And there are many more examples, which would be pointless to list here. You can easily find them elsewhere if you open your mind and do the research.



			
				ChuckOp said:
			
		

> will wrap it up in standards-compliant attachment.



No sir. It wraps it up in an unstandard attachment, in a standard way. If I mail you a .zip file, there is no need for there to be included in the email standards, but you know what it is, and the sender knows what you should see in the attachments list. The interoperability of the product arising from using the standards is intact. But when you send something cryptic and essentially useless, the usefulness of standards is broken. If every company pulled tricks like this, the whole system would fail. To make such a statement is to say "there is nothing wrong with it" to anyone reading it, which is false.



			
				ChuckOp said:
			
		

> I'll strongly disagree about quality.  ...



I could argue with you about quality (since I prefer to a less dumbed down system to be quality), however, my original point was to do with their advantage in the market being purely to do with marketing tactics and monopoly enforcement. 

And continually using the "blame 3rd party drivers" defense is also pointless. Repeating the same statement about 3rd party drivers crashing Windows is not going to make me switch or support such a choice. Every Linux system I run has 3rd party drivers in it (from the distro or elsewhere rather than from kernel.org), and they apparently run forever without crashing. One XFS system I have has crashed 2 times in 3 years in the same 2 weeks for no apparent reason (blame XFS), and the others actually never crashed. And FreeBSD with ZFS crashes or hangs lots, but I use it rather than Windows, for very good reasons.

And I don't need to compare them to other commercial businesses. (Nearly?) all successful 
large businesses got there through tricks and lies. Here is a big list of Microsoft lawsuits I found somewhere, which is interesting enough to share. http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/1048246/microsoft-lawsuit-payouts-usd9-billion

Seeing WordPerfect in the list on that page reminds me of the fact that in some obscure version of Word where I had the "upgrade" CD rather than the normal install, it would ask you to insert the previous version's installer disk as proof that you own it. If you inserted a WordPerfect floppy disk instead, it would say that your proof is okay and it would continue to install Word.




			
				ChuckOp said:
			
		

> Yes, I am responsible for it's position in the market.  I'm 1/1,125,000,000 responsible.



A bit more actually, but your estimate is close. Even this thread makes you more responsible. Unfortunately though, it is not a crime, and cannot be measured, so I can't accurately quantify the effect.


And ChuckOp, since otherwise this would just be an endless and pointless argument, much like a religious one, perhaps you could answer a question I have. I want to create portable external disks to ship data around the world. When doing so, we are forced to use NTFS, because no windows user knows how to use anything other than that and FAT32, and FAT32 has no support for large files. Luckily, NTFS was successfully reverse engineered, and works just fine in most OSses (lately causes kernel panics in OSX though), so it can still be used on other systems. I'm sure Microsoft isn't happy that everyone can use NTFS, or they would have released the specs. So what is Microsoft's officially endorsed solution to such a compatibility problem?


----------



## anon12b (Apr 27, 2012)

I would like to thank ChuckOp for his very informative posts.  I would also commend him on the manner in which he acts, given some of the other posters in this thread.  That he includes opinions is not a problem, as you are free to form your own opinions.

I do not think the aggressive, and confrontational nature of several posters in this thread is good for anybody.  From pure semantics (that some people attacked SirDice with, reductio ad absurdum even), to a series of unsubstantiated claims expecting ChuckOp to explain the actions of company as a whole, and those of random employees.  I know it is alarmingly common on the faceless, anonymous communication mediums, and I would not pretend otherwise.

However, there is no point in engaging in such behaviour in what is otherwise a helpful, and friendly forum.  As somebody who believes in the quality of FOSS, and FreeBSD in particular, I would want somebody who ventures into these forums to see a considered, and reasoned argument.  Your argument should befit the quality of the software you advocate.  So, please, "Preview Post," and make sure that you are explaining why you disagree, or how the solution you suggest is better.


----------



## ChuckOp (Apr 30, 2012)

peetaur said:
			
		

> But does that make it okay? What you said is basically a true statement, since it simply doesn't follow the standard, rather than violating it. But it is still an unfriendly concept. If I'm not using Outlook, and I get a winmail.dat attachment, what am I supposed to do with it?



I didn't say it was "okay".  You stated that the sending of winmail.dat violated standards, and I countered that it did not violate standards.




> It is ridiculous to assume that every email client will understand this closed standard. And in my experience, when someone is emailed a "winmail.dat" file (for example, in Thunderbird), instead of saying that Outlook is ridiculous, they say that Thunderbird is clearly broken and inferior, because Outlook can "properly" read the attachments. This is force, and indicates a hostile takeover.



Hopefully you realize that the TNEF format we're discussing existed PRIOR to HTML even existing.  It's called WinMail because of the original Microsoft Mail clients including what was known as Microsoft Exchange in Windows 95.  That was developed in 1993 and 1994, before HTML became a standard.

Since it's a closed format, there is no one saying "that Thunderbird is clearly broken and inferior", certainly no one from Microsoft.

I'll reiterate; TNEF (AKA winmail.dat attachments) are proprietary and filled a need in the early 1990's when all email clients and servers did everything proprietary.  It wasn't until the late 1990's that HTML and MIME had the feature set that TNEF was providing.  

Accordingly, it's been ten years since any Microsoft software shipped that defaulted to using it in favor of HTML and MIME.  Yes, you can still occasionally wind up getting a winmail.dat attachment - because the original sender of the message did something, usually specify the legacy "RTF Format" under email options.  However, you'll still get a plain text version of the message.



> See above. And similar monopoly tactics apply to Word, and IE. Remember back when Microsoft was found to be using undocumented functions in IE and over the years, the documented ones that Netscape used were getting slower and slower?



Is your assertion that IE used some sort of secret way of doing something but that Netscape was using non-secret ways, and over time got slower and slower?  The implication that Microsoft was giving Internet Explorer some sort of speed advantage, while purposely slowing down Netscape Navigator?  ï¿½e

You think there was something like "if process=Netscape.exe then sleep(100)" inside of HeapAlloc() or something like that?

Are you freaking kidding me?  Don't you think that would have come out at the DOJ trial?

Having worked as a Program Manager in the Internet Explorer team in the 1990's for versions 3, 4, 4.01, and early development of IE5, I followed the DOJ allegations pretty closely and had my email file submitted as evidence.

The issue of undocumented functions giving IE some sort of advantage was not part of the so-called "Findings of Fact" (later overturned).  It was often alleged, but never found to be accurate. 

Microsoft hardly needed to artificially slow down Navigator - it was bloat-ware starting with version 4.0 and people started turning away from it when it became "Netscape Communicator" and had Netcaster radio and AIM clients built in.



> And there are many more examples, which would be pointless to list here. You can easily find them elsewhere if you open your mind and do the research.



Yes, I can find many rants and ravings from conspiracy nuts, but I cannot find any fact-based examples of any Microsoft application gaining any advantage from an undocumented function or method that wasn't also used by non-Microsoft products.  If you can find any, I'd love to discuss it.



> I could argue with you about quality (since I prefer to a less dumbed down system to be quality), however, my original point was to do with their advantage in the market being purely to do with marketing tactics and monopoly enforcement.



By that standard, Apple would be considered much worse, right?

I always laugh out loud when someone says that Microsoft's "marketing tactics" are the reason for the success of it's products.  Many people within Microsoft think the marketing has been awful; how many names has the search engine had?  Explain the branding behind the email clients:  Microsoft Mail, Microsoft Exchange (the client), Windows Exchange, Internet Mail and News, Outlook, Outlook Express, Windows Mail, Windows Live Hotmail, Windows Live Mail.  

Compare Microsoft, Apple and Google ads and say to yourself - which one was more likely to sway my purchasing decision?

Fancy marketing did not make Microsoft successful.  



> And continually using the "blame 3rd party drivers" defense is also pointless. Repeating the same statement about 3rd party drivers crashing Windows is not going to make me switch or support such a choice.



I only said it once, so I could not be repeating it.  Beyond that, it's absolutely factually accurate.  



> Every Linux system I run has 3rd party drivers in it (from the distro or elsewhere rather than from kernel.org), and they apparently run forever without crashing. One XFS system I have has crashed 2 times in 3 years in the same 2 weeks for no apparent reason (blame XFS), and the others actually never crashed. And FreeBSD with ZFS crashes or hangs lots, but I use it rather than Windows, for very good reasons.



Thank you for proving my point.  That drivers cause system crashes.  Of course the drivers are likely more stable in Linux and OSS systems for two reasons:  Firstly, the drivers are doing a lot less work, particularly display drivers.  Nvidia and ATI drivers frequently crashed on FreeBSD machines I ran, and never supported the same capabilities of the hardware that the Windows drivers did.  Secondly, there is a motivated community that can work to improve open source drivers.



> And I don't need to compare them to other commercial businesses. (Nearly?) all successful
> large businesses got there through tricks and lies. Here is a big list of Microsoft lawsuits I found somewhere, which is interesting enough to share. http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/1048246/microsoft-lawsuit-payouts-usd9-billion



Speaking as a longtime (but now former) Microsoft employee, I can tell you that myself and everyone I worked with operated ethically and lawfully and were never asked directly or indirectly to do anything otherwise.

Microsoft was and is a huge business that has over $60B in cash reserves.  It should surprise no one that it is a magnet for lawsuits.  Many things are alleged, very little is proven.  Settlements don't equate to guilt.



> Seeing WordPerfect in the list on that page reminds me of the fact that in some obscure version of Word where I had the "upgrade" CD rather than the normal install, it would ask you to insert the previous version's installer disk as proof that you own it. If you inserted a WordPerfect floppy disk instead, it would say that your proof is okay and it would continue to install Word.



Yes, 15 years ago, Word 97 allowed WordPefect to be a qualifying upgrade product.

Why is that a problem?  Many commercial products, software and otherwise, give discounts for moving from a competitor product.  That's not a trick, that's solid business practice.



> And ChuckOp, since otherwise this would just be an endless and pointless argument, much like a religious one, perhaps you could answer a question I have. I want to create portable external disks to ship data around the world. When doing so, we are forced to use NTFS, because no windows user knows how to use anything other than that and FAT32, and FAT32 has no support for large files. Luckily, NTFS was successfully reverse engineered, and works just fine in most OSses (lately causes kernel panics in OSX though), so it can still be used on other systems. I'm sure Microsoft isn't happy that everyone can use NTFS, or they would have released the specs. So what is Microsoft's officially endorsed solution to such a compatibility problem?



I would argue that NTFS has not been successfully reversed engineered.  I never trust any non-Windows OS to write to NTFS reliably, because of past experiences with OSX and sadly, FreeBSD 5/6 corrupting portions of the NTFS directory tree.

I cannot speak for Microsoft, but since Windows NT, the concept of Installable File Systems has been part of Windows.  Your device can specify IFS drivers that are loaded when the device is connected and can read any file system you have a driver for.  There are open source IFS drivers for ext3.

While that requires additional development work, it does keep you in control of all aspects of the reading and writing, without dependence on reverse engineering.

Other possible techniques:

1) Use FAT32 and provide high-level scheme that splits files greater than 4GB into smaller chunks.  Provide a join program for the user to rejoin the data on-site.

2) Use NTFS, but use a Windows-platform to perform the writing.  For example, have a Windows machine share out the removable media and write your data out through SMB file shares.  Slower, but more reliable.


----------



## Carpetsmoker (May 5, 2012)

> I would argue that NTFS has not been successfully reversed engineered. I never trust any non-Windows OS to write to NTFS reliably, because of past experiences with OSX and sadly, FreeBSD 5/6 corrupting portions of the NTFS directory tree.



I've used ntfs-3g frequently at my previous job to fix broken NTFS filesystems (usually due to disk damage). This worked quite well. I've also resized many ntfs filesystems with ntfs-3g.
Never experienced serious corruption problems. FreeBSD 5/6 was quite some time ago, and a lot of progress has been made.


----------



## ChuckOp (May 8, 2012)

Carpetsmoker said:
			
		

> I've used ntfs-3g frequently at my previous job to fix broken NTFS filesystems (usually due to disk damage). This worked quite well. I've also resized many ntfs filesystems with ntfs-3g.
> Never experienced serious corruption problems. FreeBSD 5/6 was quite some time ago, and a lot of progress has been made.



I checked and I was in error, my experience was with FreeBSD 7.1, not 5 and 6.  I've also had issues with Mac OS X in 2010 writing to NTFS.

The problem I had was moving files from a FreeBSD partition to a NTFS volume.  There were a number of illegal characters in the file names.  It was extremely frustrating and ultimately I was left with a directory tree of files I could not remove.  I eventually had to backup and reformat the NTFS volume.

This was just anecdotal experience, not mission critical and not varied.  Didn't affect my love of FreeBSD, just my distrust of using a closed file system outside of its comfort zone.

Thanks for the message.


----------



## fbsduser (Jan 13, 2013)

ChuckOp said:
			
		

> I checked and I was in error, my experience was with FreeBSD 7.1, not 5 and 6.  I've also had issues with Mac OS X in 2010 writing to NTFS.
> 
> The problem I had was moving files from a FreeBSD partition to a NTFS volume.  There were a number of illegal characters in the file names.  It was extremely frustrating and ultimately I was left with a directory tree of files I could not remove.  I eventually had to backup and reformat the NTFS volume.
> 
> ...



Which goes to prove the point that Microsoft uses propietary formats/filesystems AS A MEANS to make it as hard, risky and unreliable as possible to switch away from their products. Essentially once you are in, you can't get out. Also did you notice that MS made a new filesystem (refs). I am 100% sure they wrote it because they knew that with ntfs-3g, NTFS was no longer useful for it's intended purpose (LOCK-IN) since it wasn't secret enough anymore. So they came up with a new filesystem to recover their ability to make users data unreadable to non-MS OS's.



			
				ChuckOp said:
			
		

> I didn't say it was "okay".  You stated that the sending of winmail.dat violated standards, and I countered that it did not violate standards.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



I agree with you that marketing didn't get MS to where they are. Plain old ITALIAN MAFIA "Bussiness 101 (How to MURDER, BLACKMAIL, STEAL, SCAM, VANDALIZE, BRIBE and EXTORT your way to being the ONLY company in the market)" is what got MS there (I mean, a company run by this and this guys).

I'm sure that with those guys running Microsoft, it's obvious that the company and it's employees operate ethically. As ethically as my cousin's company (plain ol' money laundering).

I'm sure MS doesn't play foul (http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2001/10/23/13219/110, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_litigation#Anti-trust, http://www.birdhouse.org/beos/byte/30-bootloader/, http://semiaccurate.com/2012/06/21/...ack-to-monopoly-forced-bundling/#.UPJUUJFX7z4, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_Microsoft#Vendor_lock-in, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embrace,_extend_and_extinguish, http://biz.yahoo.com/msft/p18.html, http://forums.aria.co.uk/showthread...EMs-To-Lock-Devices-Into-Windows-8-Using-UEFI, http://www.engadget.com/2009/05/22/microsoft-publishes-maximum-windows-7-netbooks-specs/, http://www.itexaminer.com/microsoft-adds-to-atoms-restrictions.aspx), they just boss the oem's around.

And the questions I wanted to ask you. Why MS Windows (even in Windows 8/Server 2012) STILL won't recognize ext2/3/4 filesystems (which every other non-Linux OS recognizes nativelly for read and write) and STILL won't automatically add already installed Linux and BSD OS's to it's boot manager (every other OS out there can do that automatically, except Windows), and finally What is the obsession MS have with the black color as the background in boot screens and boot managers (They locked the win7 boot sscreen PRECISELLY to keep people from changing the background color to something less "PROFFESSIONAL" and more colorful), the deliberate dullness of the UI (I mean Steve Ballmer THREW Longhorn out of the window and started from scratch BECAUSE the build he got at Winhec 2003 had WOBBLY WINDOWS AND VISUAL EFFECTS. For the sake of removing a F*CKING visual effect he RUINED the entire OS and gave us A HALF-BAKED, CRAPPY AND UNTESTED OS.), and the deliberate uncustomizability?


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## sossego (Jan 13, 2013)

The employees at the base levels are not always informed or aware of what upper management does. He does have the right to defend his job position.

Cygwin seems to be the answer to the ext2/3/4 question.


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## kpa (Jan 13, 2013)

> And the questions I wanted to ask you. Why MS Windows (even in Windows 8/Server 2012) STILL won't recognize ext2/3/4 filesystems (which every other non-Linux OS recognizes nativelly for read and write) and STILL won't automatically add already installed Linux and BSD OS's to it's boot manager (every other OS out there can do that automatically, except Windows)



Nothing forces them to do so. The Linux filesystems are not considered to be industry standards yet and their quality is easily questionable. I don't expect any of them to become industry standards unless the Linux developers start to aim for feature stability instead of trying to impress the unwashed by coming up with "new and shiney" every month.


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## xibo (Jan 13, 2013)

Well FreeBSD doesn't support ext4 either, and I guess most users don't even care about that.
Why should extfs be more important to be implemented than Apple's HFS (which used considerably more often) to begin with?

AFAIK ext4 is not even properly specified, which means the only way to "port it" means reverse engineering an application that breaks API and of cause ABI every every week (linux). The fact the sourcecode of the ext4 modules is available wouldn't help Microsoft either, because that source code is GPL.


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## sam0016 (Jan 19, 2013)

Beastie said:
			
		

> Hahaha, Windows never ceases to amuse me.
> 
> ```
> System failure: unable to detect the keyboard.
> ...



Reminds me of the Windows has stopped responding do you want to end it now? It is something like that lol.


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