Discussions

5 hours ago, Ray7 wrote

*snip*

It's not a question of not understanding how their own software works; it's a question of not understanding how their own software works on a near infinite combination of hardware/driver/software configurations, 99% of which they haven't even seen. The fact that Windows boots up at all is a constant source of amazement to me.

Bear in mind that Apple used to have similar problems caused by dodgy installations with hard-to-trace problems (and they make all the base hardware) until they stopped doing massive roll-up releases. 

Would folk rather trace the problem in a small incremental change, or wade through a large service pack? 

And since when have people started taking the Register's 'sources close to the team' stories as the universal truth?

I'm certain people would rather not deal with installing 300 separate updates by the next Presidential election. Microsoft seemed to not have much of a problem with service packs or roll-ups before. Also, the cross section of hardware variations is smaller this days. 

And this is about Microsoft knowing how dependencies work between all of the individual updates, which all install separately without blue screening a computer. Hardware has nothing to do with it.

6 hours ago, magicalclick wrote

@ZippyV:

Reading the article, it claims to be very difficult with unknown fatal error. Probably they tried to combine the accumulative changes, but, it doesn't do well when some patches are dependent to another.

But I think they should at least release new OS images with those patches pre-applied, if not offering it to existing OS.

Actually, the article stated the fatal errors were an issue with Service Pack 1 that Microsoft was never able to figure out. They don't state that as a reason for no SP2. 

However, it wouldn't be a surprise. It wouldn't be the first time Microsoft failed to understand how their own software works and subsequently just gave up on it.

from anandtech review:

Explorer works just as it would on a Windows 8 PC. The folder structure is exactly as you would expect it on any Windows machine. There are even some x86 remnants in the Windows RT install such as a C:\Windows\SysWOW64 directory complete with x86 binaries inside that obviously won't run on your Windows RT tablet. 

See .. this is one of the reasons people like Apple products -- polish -- things look like they're finished. Microsoft has good products, but they consistently half-a$$ them. How does it make sense to leave more than a GB of useless binaries on a mobile device with limited memory?

In the new version of IE, if you have to end task on the browser because a plugin or some javascript went nuts, does it still erase all of your saved passwords or did they fix that?

Mapping wasn't the only casualty. Podcast playback was taken out of the iTunes app and put in its own Podcasts app --- this app had been available on the iTunes store for several months and it was almost universally reviled (people who think iPhone users are sheep should think about that for a few minutes). The thing barely works, is slow, plays podcasts in the wrong order, doesn't sync with desktop iTunes, and is generally useless.

Not sure I'm suggesting a connection or not, but it's kinda funny in a sort of way how these bad decisions started happening after Jobs died. If it continues, it'll certainly be remembered that way.

Apparently I was mistaken about downgrade rights on OEM preinstallations and that OEM preinstallations do have downgrade rights:

http://www.microsoft.com/oem/en/licensing/sblicensing/pages/downgrade_rights.aspx#fbid=NbRYestewy2

Apparently, every Microsoft licensing rep has also lied to me for the past 10 years because my previous post was right out of their mouths. To downgrade OEM preinstalled operating systems I have always been forced to purchase SA "for downgrade rights" regardless of the size of business I was dealing with. Looks like I should be able to get a metric * ton of money back.

* Update: from URL above: Other OEM Windows 7 versions (for instance, Windows 7 Home Basic and Windows 7 Home Premium) do not include downgrade rights. Apparently, only Pro and Ultimate OEM installs get downgrade rights, not the home editions, which makes sense.

10 hours ago, elmer wrote

That model is only applicable to LARGE business.

SMB tends to buy new hardware with pre-installed software, and use the downgrade rights of that license to maintain their standard platform policy.

Windows preinstalled on hardware has never had downgrade rights. If you buy a computer with Windows version N preinstalled, you do not get downgrade rights to version N-1. Downgrade rights only exist if you buy Software Assurance.

In other words, if you buy 30 machines with Windows 7 preinstalled, you don't get to put Windows XP on them without SA -- it doesn't matter how big your business is (Unless, of course, you have non-OEM unused XP licenses lying around -- which is not what we're talking about).

The only "downgrade" rights you get with an OEM Preinstall is the ability to purchase an upgrade for that preinstallation and then fail to use the upgrade. That, however, would not be a downgrade, it would simply be someone wasting money on an upgrade license they have no intention of using.

17 minutes ago, elmer wrote

I'm also assuming that this is what business is intending to do with new Win8-Pro desktop/laptop purchases - same as they did with Vista purchases downgraded to WinXP.

However, MS have done plenty of inexplicable things in the past, so anything is possible.

The difference with businesses is that they buy Software Assurance which 1) keeps them licensed for the then-current version of Windows and 2) always gives them downgrade rights to whatever version they need to run in their enterprise (which is how Microsoft was able to say businesses were flocking to Vista/7 even though they were still on XP).

If non-business XP to Win8 upgraders without SA get downgrade rights to Win7, it will be the first time Microsoft has ever allowed that.

But hey --- you don't need to run Metro and the desktop is still there. Why would you need Windows 7 if you upgraded to 8? It's not like anyone's being forced to use the Metro start screen or Metro apps. At least, that's what I keep hearing here.

2 days ago, cheong wrote

Since you mentioned this, I want to bring up another more serious "daisy chaining" issue - password recovery question.

You see... there's a lot of website providing similar question sets for user to recover their passwords. But AFAIK, while most of the companies stores passwords in encrypted form, more than a dozen of them I know of stores answers to such question in plain text. (So their CS staffs can read them and confirm customer identity on phone).

Remember the 2 big password database leaks earlier this year? What happens if the hackers target these questions instead of these (supposed) difficult to recover passwords?

What's worse? A lot of these companies happens to store the password recovery email address in plain text too! That means if you use similar password recovery questions in the email service you use to receive recovery password, the hacker would know what "question and answer" to use for breaking in that email account.

If you happens to be a developer maintaining such systems, please be sure to at least do some basic two-way encryption to them, or in one of the next waves of network attacks your company would have embarrassing moment. Thank you for your attention.

Good timing. Blizzard just had a slew of email addresses and the answers to secret questions compromised. http://us.battle.net/support/en/article/important-security-update-faq#1

Maybe they haven't yet figure out which sync product team kissed the most * yet.