Author: Ed Bott

Tech journalist. Author of 25+ books. ZDNET Contributing Editor since 2006. Contact info: https://edbott.com/contact-me/

Vista beta testers, please help me out

Over at ZDNet, I’ve just posted a description of the new Reliability Monitor tool in Windows Vista Beta 2. (Go read Watching Windows Vista Decay for all the details.)

According to the System Stability Chart at the top of the Reliability Monitor, my notebook has deteriorated alarmingly in the past four weeks, going from a perfect 10 rating to a mediocre 1.70. See for yourself:

Reliability Monitor

The trouble is, this system isn’t particularly unstable. Instead, it appears that the System Stability Index itself is inaccurate. As I point out in the ZDNet piece:

This is a crude measurement, to be sure, and it’s misleading as well. The problems I’ve been experiencing (and which are logged in detail in the Reliability Monitor) are pretty much the same bugs, in Windows and in application software, occurring repeatedly, which is what you expect from a beta. So the inference that the system is somehow getting much less stable over time may not be accurate. In other words, my system stability was never a 10, and it’s certainly not a 1.70 now..

If you’re beta-testing Windows Vista, I’d like your help in assembling a dataset of Reliability Monitor readings. Open Reliability Monitor and make a note of the first date in the chart and the current Stability Index. (Click Start, Control Panel, System and Maintenance, Performance Rating and Tools, Advanced Tools, Open Windows Diagnostic Console. Or you can just click Start, type Perfmon in the Search box, and click the Perfmon shortcut when it appears.)

Post the date and the Index number and any additional subjective comments you have about Vista’s performance in the comments section below. Thanks!

The security software racket

In the middle of a post about Microsoft’s new Windows Live Messenger service, Dwight Silverman’s guest blogger Jim Thompson writes:

At home I don’t install IM software both because I have little need for it and because I see it as just another source of viruses and other malware.

One could make the same argument about e-mail, I suppose. Or networking. Or mobile phones.

And can anyone point me to the treasure trove of “viruses and other malware” that sneak in via IM products? Because I’m sure not seeing them out there in the real world. Googling the subject turns up a flurry of scare-mongering articles from 2003, 2004, and early 2005, all of which report on the alarming increase in IM viruses and predict that this year will be the year that IM-borne viruses finally take off. Oh, wait! Here’s yet another scare-mongering article from June 2006 – “a 500 per cent increase in IM attacks during last month alone.” Details? Bah! Who needs details?

I would take all these articles much more seriously except for the fact that every single one just happens to tout a new study from a security software company that just coincidentally happens to have the product that will solve this alarming new problem.

Nice racket.

Update: In the comments, Jim Thompson responds:

Look at my statement this way, Ed: IF I had a serious need for IM software THEN it would be worth dealing with the malware risk. In the case of networking and email, the need if the technology is worth the trouble of dealing with malware.

Maybe I’ve been duped by the security folks, but tell me: isn’t it true that IM can be used to send executables? And I know for a fact that *any* executable can contain a virus, rootkit, or trojan horse. Given that I’m not that familiar with IM software (something that I mention in the post) and that IM would be used mainly by my young daughters (something I didn’t mention), isn’t it prudent to simply not give malware another route onto my systems?

My reply:

There are three completely separate issues at work here, and conflating them just confuses the discussion.

1. If you don’t need a particular class of software, don’t install it. I’ve been preaching that gospel for years, and it’s still true. Any program can introduce possible security and stability problems, so why install something you don’t need? This argument isn’t unique to IM software.

2. Your kids are the ones who might use this software? Of course you should look carefully at it before installing it. Not just because they can download executables, but because they can communicate with strangers. In my opinion, this is a parenting issue, not a computer security question.

3. Can IM be used to send executable files? Well, yes, as can e-mail. In the case of Windows Live Messenger, there is a fairly easy to access setting that allows you to automatically block ALL known unsafe attachments, including types that aren’t normally considered executable. In addition, the software has an integrated and apparently free virus scanner.

I agree that you should evaluate any Internet-facing software carefully before installing it, but falling for the security industry’s fear tactics is a bad starting point for that evaluation process.

Update 2: Jim has posted an excellent follow-up here.

R.I.P. ActiveSync

The Windows Vista Team Blog has some good news about the new Windows Mobile Device Center for Windows Vista:

Windows Vista Beta 2 features built-in support for Windows Mobile-powered devices for the very first time with the new Windows Mobile Device Center. Instead of installing ActiveSync to use our devices, our device drivers are now part of Windows Vista. Due to this built-in functionality, installation of ActiveSync is blocked.

Windows Mobile Device Center can perform “Guest” functionality similar to ActiveSync, but with some new and exciting features. With Windows Mobile Device Center, you will be able to browse your device, synchronize media using Windows Media Player, and even play media files and view pictures and documents directly from the device. Our devices will be able to connect with Windows Vista via Bluetooth, USB or infrared.

An update to the Windows Mobile Device Center will be available shortly on Windows Update. With this update, you will be able to create partnerships and synchronize your Windows Mobile-powered device with Outlook. Stay tuned!

This has been one of the key missing features in current betas of Windows Vista. I’ve had to boot into XP using a copy of my Outlook Personal Folders file just to sync up contacts and appointments – a significant PITA, needless to say.

I’m also pleased to see Windows Update being used as a way to deliver new functionality like this. No need to wait for a new nbuild – just download an update.

Windows Vista Tip #4: Move your data folders to a separate drive

Update 24-Feb-2007: There’s an even easier way to accomplish this. Details here:

Vista Hands On #7: Move user data to another drive

If you prefer the manual approach, keep reading…

Windows Vista makes a few fundamental changes in the default folders used to store personal data. For starters, the Documents and Settings folder is gone, replaced by the Users folder, which is located in the root of the system drive (usually C:). Each user account has its own profile folder here, which contains 11 folders, each devoted to a different type of data.

If you have multiple hard drives (or multiple partitions on a single hard drive) you can relocate any of these user folders. The advantage? By separating system files from data, you make it easy to back up and restore each. At least once a month, you can use the backup program in Windows Vista Ultimate Edition to create an image-based backup on DVD or an external hard disk. If something happens to your system drive, you can restore the image, and your data files remain unaffected.

In my experience, the Documents, Music, Pictures, and Videos folders are most likely to contain large amounts of data and will benefit most from relocation. In this case, I assume you have a separate empty drive or partition that uses the letter E:. If your system is configured differently, you’ll need to adjust the instructions accordingly.

Here’s how to relocate the Documents folder:

  1. Open Windows Explorer, navigate to the empty drive that you want to use to store data, and create new folders for each of the existing folders you want to move. If you’re the only user on your computer, you can put them in the root of the drive: E:\Documents, E:\Music, and so on. If you’re planning to use the drive to store data for two or more users, you should create a separate top-level folder for each user and then create subfolders for each type of data: E:\Ed\Documents, etc.
  2. Click Start and click the bold user name at the top of the right column in the Start menu. This opens your profile folder.
  3. Right-click the icon for the Documents folder and choose Properties.

    4. Move_docs_folder_1

     

  4. On the Location tab, click the Move button.
  5. In the Select a Destination dialog box, double-click Computer, double-click the icon for your data drive (E: in this example), and select the folder you want to use as the new location. Don’t double-click this folder, just click to select it.
  6. Click Select Folder to return to the Location tab, and then click OK. You will see two dialog boxes:
    • Do you still want to proceed and redirect to <new folder location>? Click Yes.
    • Would you like to move all of the files in your old location to the new location…? Click Yes. (If you click No, the original folder remains intact and you risk having documents split between the two locations.)

That’s it. You can now repeat the process for Music, Pictures, Videos, and any other data folders you want to use. When you click the Documents shortcut on the Start menu, it takes you to the new location, which appears to be in the same old location. In the Vista namespace, your profile folder always appears under the Desktop, and each link in that folder points to the location you specify. So you can leave some folders (especially those you rarely use) in the original location and just move those that are chock full of data.

Are you having Windows Genuine Advantage problems?

Two months ago, Microsoft pushed an update of its Windows validation software, part of the Windows Genuine Advantage program, to all Windows XP users. I’m hearing an increasing number of reports of problems with this update. I’ve written about this at ZDNet (Microsoft presses the Stupid button).

If you’ve experienced WGA problems recently, I’m interested in hearing about it. Leave a comment here and describe your experience.

The Emperor’s new ring tone

The New York Times gets played with a silly story that claims kids have found a new ring tone that is so high-pitched that old farts teachers can’t hear it:

“When I heard about it I didn’t believe it at first,” said Donna Lewis, a technology teacher at the Trinity School in Manhattan. “But one of the kids gave me a copy, and I sent it to a colleague. She played it for her first graders. All of them could hear it, and neither she nor I could.”

The technology, which relies on the fact that most adults gradually lose the ability to hear high-pitched sounds, was developed in Britain but has only recently spread to America — by Internet, of course.

Sure. I’m over 50 and have spent years sitting too close to the PA system at rock ’n’ roll concerts and I can hear this annoying high-pitched noise just fine.

Windows Defender stops one

This surprised me today. As I was looking for an e-mail message from my 2005 archives, I ran across a message in my Junk E-mail folder that was clearly some sort of malware. It was from a sender I didn’t recognize, with a subject line that hinted it was a picture in a Zip file.

I opened the attachment to see what was inside and saw that is was an executable file with a filename designed to fool the recipient into thinking it was a picture. Standard stuff, right?

I extracted the file onto the desktop, where I was going to scan it using an antivirus program (on this test system, I don’t have real-time antivirus protection). But before I could do that, this dialog box popped up:

Windows_Defender

Windows Defender, included with a default installation of Windows Vista, had detected this copy of what turned out to be the Bagle worm and had blocked it with a blood-red warning message.

I don’t normally think of Windows Defender as an antivirus program, but clearly it has that capability, especially for well-traveled forms of malware. I certainly wouldn’t rely on it exclusively, but in this case it did exaactly what it was supposed to do.

First Draft by Tim Porter: Why TimesSelect is the Right Thing for the Times to Do

Tim Porter says TimesSelect is the Right Thing for the New York Times to Do:

Charging for full access to the newspaper, like the Wall Street Journal does, is one option. Selling subscriptions to pure online journalism products like Salon or TheStreet.com is another. Putting a price on the head of your most popular columnists, like the Time does, is yet another.

That one hit close to home.

I pay $99 for an annual subscription to the online edition of the Wall Street Journal. I pay $39 for an annual subscription to Salon. And I pay $199 to TheStreet.com for its RealMoney service. And I’ve seriously considered paying the New York Times for TimesSelect.

Gee, maybe this online publishing thing could work after all.