Category: Microsoft

Dueling newshounds

The business press got mixed messages from Microsoft today.

From the Wall Street Journal (subscription only):

Microsoft Confirms Vista Schedule

Microsoft Corp. said it sees no impediment to shipping Windows Vista on time.

Kevin Johnson, co-president of the division that includes Windows, said Thursday the company has test versions of the operating system in the hands of millions of users. So far, nothing has turned up to keep the product from shipping to business customers in November and to consumers in January as planned, Mr. Johnson said at a meeting for analysts.

Bloomberg.com:

U.S. Stocks Slide on Earnings, Possible Microsoft Vista Delay

Technology stocks slid after Microsoft Co-President Kevin Johnson said the world’s largest software company will ship Vista, postponed in March, when it’s ready.

Who do you want to believe?

True tales from the WGA front

From Microsoft’s Windows Genuine Advantage blog, May 18, 2006:

I’m starting this blog because I would like to share some of the cool things our team is doing and because we want to hear from you. We want to know what you like and don’t like about WGA and our efforts to reduce piracy of Microsoft products while at the same time offering great benefits to users of genuine and licensed Microsoft software. I also want to know what you think we can do to make WGA better.

[…]

BTW, I will enable comments to start with and look forward to a frank and honest exchange of ideas. Also, I won’t be offering any technical support through this blog but I am happy to point people to the numerous support resources we have.

Comment posted to that same entry, July 16, 2006:

[A]fter recieving a flag telling me my Windows XP Professional might not be genuine, I did the right thing and checked up with Microsft through the telephone support network.

After speaking with five different people 2 told me my Windows package was invalid and 3 told me it was genuine, even so they issued me with a new product key “HEY GUESS WHAT” this new product key has really screwed up my computer.

Since being a caring honest type of guy and registering my concerns I have had nothing but no end of trouble with me recently bought computer.

What has Microsft done about it?

Uttered their sympathies and concerns, had me sat at my computer for over 3.5 days listening to foreign engineer having to repeat everything as clarity of instruction was not perfect to say the least. Well four weeks on I still have to register my Windows with the registration team, mind you! somthing different happened today “I cannot register the new programme Microsoft sent me BECAUSE IT HAS BEEN REGISTERED TOO MANY TIMES or is this not a genuine copy sent direct to me from Microsoft.

Well I have had some success after 7 attempts I finally got through to the telephone registration team and after a bout of intense listening and a number of repeating the number sequence I finally got registered, but hey in this energy efficient world we live in I am not going to switch my computer off paying the electricity bill is less stressful than switching on my computer.

[…]

I only want to switch on my computer and start work without having to re-register every time, JUST LIKE IT DID BEFORE MICROSOFT SENT FRIGHTENING POP UPS TELLING ME IT MAY NOT BE GENUINE.

I can’t wait to see the response.

Meanwhile, if you have a WGA horror story, please post it in the comments here.

A big week for Winternals

Mark Russinovich and Bryce Cogswell have had a very, very big month. First, their company, Winternals Software, settled a lawsuit they brought against Best Buy and its Geek Squad subsidiary, resolving claims that Geek Squad technicians were routinely using bootleg copies of Winternals diagnostic and repair tools.

And today comes word that Microsoft has bought Winternals Software. The good news is that the legendary free utilities Winternals produces will continue to be free – for now. No telling how long that will last, though, so if you’re smart you’ll download what you need now, before it vanishes.

Congratulations, Mark and Bryce. And congratulations to Microsoft for a great acquisition.

The new Scoble?

Nah. But heads are exploding over this news from Adam Shostack:

I’m very pleased to announce that I’ve accepted a position with Microsoft. I’ll talk in a bit about the work I’ll be doing, but before I do, I’d like to talk a bit about the journey that’s brought me here, and the change I’ve seen in Microsoft that makes me feel really good about this decision.

(Via Prof. Froomkin)

Quotes of the day

Paul Boutin on Slate’s curious unwillingness through 2005 to publish a disclaimer about its relationship with Microsoft:

A concise but unambiguous “No one at Microsoft dictates, edits, approves or redacts a word of what we write about their Swiss-cheese software or its over-evangelized competitors” would’ve probably sufficed to put tech readers at ease.

Robert McLaws on Microsoft’s decision to kill WinFS as a standalone project, as announced by Quentin Clark of the WinFS team:

Hey, I chug the Kool-Aid from a freakin beer bong here, but even I have to say that Microsoft’s putting a PR spin on this albatross that probably isn’t going to fly. “it’s not dead… it lives on in productized form in Katmai!” Yeah, and Bob lived on to become Clippy.

Rick Mahn, after installing a stack of pre-release software from Microsoft:

Ah, Microsoft beta software. Applications you love to hate… wait a minute. This stuff actually works!

 

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.

With NTFS, you get eggroll

David Lawsky of Reuters, analyzing the Microsoft antitrust hearings before the European Commission’s Court of First Instance, comes up with the Worst. Metaphor. Ever.

The workings of what one might call “Chinese restaurant protocols” may help explain the importance of computer protocols.

Chinese restaurants deal with clients, who sit at tables waiting to eat while servers go from table to table taking orders and delivering food.

In the case of computer protocols, the clients are personal computers, operated by Microsoft’s near-monopoly Windows system. The PCs send requests to central computers, known as servers, to validate passwords, provide files and print documents, among other tasks.

Chinese restaurant servers, like computer servers, follow protocols—that is, rules and custom of interaction—in meeting the needs of the clients.

For example, clients are served in the order they came in, unless they have reservations. All clients at the same table want their meals at the same time.
Menu items may be designated by number as well as description, a familiar code to Chinese restaurant clients. Egg fried rice might be Number 18 and General Tsao’s Chicken Number 14.

But if someone calling from home for take-out has an old menu, the code could be wrong. The old number 14 was sweet-and-sour pork, and the caller winds up with General Tsao’s Chicken.

About the only cliche he missed was a reference to wanting to access those files again an hour later. I had to check the dateline carefully to make sure it wasn’t April 1.

Nick Bradbury says Dvorak is wrong about Internet Explorer

Nick Bradbury disagrees with John C. Dvorak’s view that Internet Explorer is Microsoft’s biggest blunder ever:

I’ll be the first to admit that the way Microsoft embedded the browser into Windows was sloppy. I still wince when I think about the support problems I had with HomeSite that were caused by new versions of Internet Explorer updating important system files such as comctl32.dll. And don’t even get me started on the anti-competitive ways in which Microsoft negotiated OEM deals regarding Internet Explorer, or the poor design decisions that have caused so many of the security problems that Windows users face. So, if we’re talking about how the browser was embedded in Windows, I agree that Microsoft blundered. But if we’re talking about whether embedding a browser in an OS is good idea, I say that it is (and Apple says it is, too).

What Dvorak ignores is the huge number of Windows applications that have benefited from the ability to embed a web browser. Microsoft has done a great job making it easy for developers to host Internet Explorer in their software, and this has been a good thing for customers. Think of all the software that relies on an embedded IE – not just commercial web authoring tools, feed readers, email clients, etc., but also the thousands of in-house applications that need to display web pages. This isn’t a minor point: millions of people rely on software that requires an embedded web browser, and in this regard, these people benefit from having the browser included in their OS.

Word.