I have the current release of Virtual PC which I've used to test the installer for an app I'm working on, and also to run DOS and Windows 98 programs.

It works really well, but I could never get Linux to install on it. From what I've heard MS deliberately broke Linux support on it. If I had known that I would have gone with VMWare. Thanks, Microsoft, for once again screwing your customers, if that's in fact what you did.

(p.s. If I'm wrong about Virtual PC and Linux, I'd be happy to stand corrected, but I still recall "It ain't done till Lotus won't run.".)

Yeah when it was Connectix VPC it worked well with everything I could throw at it. Unfortunately, it now only works well with MS operating systems, so one could only assume that they either broke Linux support or took it out entirely. Seriously, you'd think they'd sell more with Linux support than without it.

Specifically, I heard they deliberately broke CD access under Linux. I even tried using Virtual Disk.

Oh well. Now I need to go back to banging my head against the wall fixing problems with DirectShow. MS support is friendly, professional-acting, prompt and courteous, but they never have any substantive answers.

You're goofy... :)

They never deliberately broke Linux support, but they sure as hell made THEIR OSs work first and foremost. I've used VPC to run many OSs from Windows to BeOS to SkyOS to different flavors of Linux.

Are those other OSs supported? Absolutely not. Do they still work? Maybe. There are some that won't work, but the overwhelming majority do. Look that the "complete" list of supported and unsupported Operating Systems at http://vpc.visualwin.com/ .

Another thing to consider for VPC over VMWare, VMWare doesn't have a "standard" video card to emulate. Instead, you have to install drivers for the OS that you are using. Good luck finding the VMWare drivers for SkyOS. Performance-wise VPC has the upper hand running on Windows XP. On others, the result is mixed, but VPC remains a very strong competitor. You can read the often cited benchmark on HDP Tools: http://usuarios.lycos.es...p/articles/vpcvsII.html .

Thanks for the info.

You know, I always say "Never attribute to malice what can be explained by stupidity." but with Microsoft I tend to forget it.

How about some details rather than broad generalities to support your anti-Microsoft stance? You would think that no other company in the world makes sure its software works best with its own stuff. Meanwhile, you're claim that VPC does not work with Linux is FALSE. It is not supported, granted but I have indeed installed Linux successfully. I'm sure there are distributions out there that don't work but there are some that do.

I'm running both MandrakeLinux and Lindows (now Linspire) in Microsoft Virtual PC without any problem. I have been able also to run Darwin x86 porting in Virtual PC without any problems...

It could be a problem with specific Linux versions, but as far as I have tried, everything have worked for me.

Microsoft bashers posting from Windows machines? What is the world coming to?

Virtual PC has always worked with Linux, if it's not working it's probably because the flava' you got is broken or you just don't know what you are doing.

90% (Alright, I guessed that percentage) of people assume that Virtual PC emulates their hardware and install sound drivers for their soundcard, videocard, etc. and then scream at Microsoft in their own in-ability to read the prompt dialogs that explain the entire 'virtual' environment before you even can create the first Virtual Machine.

Before bashing Microsoft in the future...do yourselves, and others a favor by doing just a little bit of research and read the instructions insted of clicking through it.

Sorry if I sound mean, but I for one am sick of the mindless posts bashing Microsoft on completely un-founded reasons. (aka "They disabled the CD drive when it see's a Linux CD?" WTF!?)

HELL YEAH !!!!
Totally agree with you MADMAX.
AND as for "ConceptJunkie" (btw, t handle licks... really grow up) people like you make me SICK !!!

You have no good reason to hate MSFT but, here's what I think your reason is, "my wanna be linux friends hate MS so, I'll hate it too and TRY to be cool." Oyee... it's not cool. You f**k*n wannabe.

I'M SO SICK OF DUMB LAME PEOPLE SUEING MSFT FOR PROVIDING VALUE ADDED SERVICES TO THE CUSTOMERS. I'M REFERING TO THE REAL MEDIA PLAYER's COURT CASE.

I MEAN COME'ON... IF I HAVE A MEDIA PLAYER AND AN OS I DARN WELL WILL PACKAGE MY MEDIA PLAYER IN MY OS.

I can go on for hours but right now need to get back to work.

So, next time you wanna open your GUTTER and talk crap about MS first prove what they've done wrong and instead of being your F**KED UP self.

EnjOy ;)

You're telling me to grow up, after an infantile screed like that? Maybe it's corny, but I've been using that name for almost 20 years. I'm rather fond of it.

Apparently I was wrong regarding running Linux under VPC, but the information I stated came from a source that is usually very reliable. Also the grandparent post clearly didn't read my complaint either, since he completely botched it when trying to quote me.

I've been dealing with Microsoft since you were probably in grade school or earlier and I know far more about them than you seem to. As far as setting up Virtual PC, there is no real documentation on how to do it on the CD or in the packaging itself. I had to either figure everything out myself or read about it online.

There are a number of basic things they could have explained that would have saved a lot of time (like the fact that the DOS CD emulation driver breaks Windows 98).

Six months ago, when I first searched for information about using Linux on MS Virtual PC, there wasn't any that I could find... everything referred to the prior version of the product.

Clearly that's changed, as there are now plenty of sites describing installing far more OS's than I would have imagined. However, my experience was as I stated... upon booting the Linux installer, I could no longer access the CD-ROM.

Microsoft's anti-competitive practices are widespread, even though the case against them focussed mainly on the completely irrelevant issue of bundling IE with Windows, although the issue of MS strongarming OEMs with respect to bundling Windows was addressed. (You should wipe the spittle off of your computer monitor by the way.) The real damage was done almost 10 years before any suit was brought against them back in the Windows 3.0 days when you had to be a huge corporate partner to even get complete information on the SDK (at least that much has changed). By time the government bothered to do anything, it was too late to matter, and the case they brought against them and the prospective "punishments" they might have imposed had MS not purchased an "out" were laughable, and would have only hurt consumers.

And far from being hypocritical bashing MS from a Windows machine, as someone who makes a _very_ comfortable living developing for Windows, I am well-qualified to know what I'm talking about.

I lie somewhere between aman_molder and fewt.

I work for Microsoft as a tester in Office, and have now for a little over a year. When I was in college ~1995 or so, I was a huge Linux fan, and actually contributed to a few projects. I used to frequent Slashdot, and used to make fun of the BSOD.

In the years since then, I realized that what Microsoft and the Linux community have been doing, is moving toward a common goal... making the world more productive. It was about this time, that I realized how childish many of the Open Source advocates are. They are generally a loud and vocal group, and they generally won't listen to another side of an arguement. They're right, and there is nothing you can say that will make them change their minds. An open way to freely exchange ideas can foster inspiration, but competition in a free market really can drive invention. Ultimately because of the professionalism I saw in businesses like Microsoft, I have elected to work as a professional in that industry.

That lashing out by aman_molder really makes me reflect. ConceptJunkie, you didn't know how to make something work, and you were frustrated in your initial posts; that is understandable. I applaud you in the dignified way in which you handled yourself when I gave you (what I though was) helpful information. "You know, I always say `Never attribute to malice what can be explained by stupidity.' but with Microsoft I tend to forget it." What a genuinely great way to say "I screwed up, I jumped to a conclusion, I was wrong, and I often jump to this conclusion with Microsoft, right or wrong." Why didn't this discussion end there?

---

It was the shrill retoric of the OSS movement that made me lose their favor, yet now here is someone else lashing out at you. This isn't warfare -- we don't need to be taking sides as if it were. What is most important is that consumers benefit in the end.

When Microsoft creates a product, there are a lot of components they need to pay attention to. You can be certain that the competition is part of the equation, but so is security, interoperability, forward compatibility as well as backwards compatibility. The OSS guys have it easy in comparison.

If Microsoft exposes evey aspect of something, features that haven't been tested as thouroughly get used, they get relied on, and they must be carried forward as backwards compatibility even if it was something that was never regarded as consumer consumable. The nature of such a program also means that some OSS project will more than likely try to expose, integrate with, emulate, or replace that functionality. Rarely do you see Microsoft trying to go the other way (and isn't it funny that in many projects, OSS is playing catch up?). This means that Microsoft must be even more protective of their APIs in order to maintain a competitave edge.

It's a difficult balance. We want developers to build upon the platform, and to use the services that the OS provides, and to build solutions for customers using our business products, but we have to be carful about what we expose becaues there is a constant threat from other vendors. As a result, some standards have been extended to give an edge to the Microsoft platform. Or in the opposite case, other programs have been designed to work best with Microsoft products. There's favortisim where some close developer partners get special functionality to make their applications shine. There's smart business deals made between OEMs to create hardware and software that increases the PC's usefulness, and deals that negotiate lower prices for exclusive rights of use.

That last part isn't a monopoly, it's business pure, and simple. Ultimately though, it's the customers and consumers that drive those decisions.

Sure, higher prices would yield a greater value per individual sale, but the software market isn't really about two or three units, it is about shipping millions of units of software. Sam and Joe both make computers for about the same cost, and the both sell them for about the same cost, for arguement sake, let's say $25 with an OS cost of $10 and $10 of parts with a net yield of $5 per PC. If I owned Bob's Software, and we made Bob's OS, I would do everything I could to sell volumes to Sam or Joe. If I negotiated a price of $7.50 per unit, but the conditions of that price means that Sam can only sell Bob's OS, Sam is making less money per unit. Sam can then turn around and sell his PC for $20, eating away $2.50 of their cost per unit. When the consumer has to choose between Sam's PC for $20 or Joe's PC for $25, if 80% of them choose Sam, and assuming that more people will purchase a PC at $20 than would have at $25, then both Sam and Bob are making more money in net profit. Joe may eventually go bankrupt because they have so few sales, but the consumers, Sam, and Bob all win. This is free market, and ultimately it takes care of itself in balancing prices.

Mincing words and in general putting down another user doesn't benefit anyone. The next time you (aman_molder) feel like lashing out at someone, take a deep breath, reread their post, and try to be constructive with your reply. Use facts when you can, and provide links that either openly support your claim or lend it credulence. We are all on the same side of things, some of us are just a little more right than others. :)

Much of what Microsoft does is quite reasonable, and much of their software is good. On the other hand, Microsoft has had innumerable problems, particularly in security, that don't seem to be appropriate with a company that could, if it chose, throw 11 figures of capital at any problem they needed to solve.

I think a perfectly good example was when I tried out Outlook 2003. From a UI point of view, the product is great. It's easy to use, especially setting up rules, and the spam filtering feature is the best I've seen. But it's slow. About an order of magnitude slower when managing the same amount of data that I regularly manipulated with Outlook Express. Then I found problems when trying to import my e-mail archives. It turns out, and this was confirmed by people with far more knowledge than me, that Outlook often chokes when your PST gets larger than a gigabyte to a gigabyte and a half. How can this be? Here's the flagship product from the biggest and most powerful software company in the world, and I hit what I consider to be a fatal bug within days of starting to use it. Sometimes I wonder if I've slipped into some parallel universe where logic just doesn't exist.

With respect to OEM bundling practices, when MS prohibits OEMs from bundling other software, like Netscape for instance, I consider that to be highly anti-competitive. At the time, IE won over Netscape hands down on merit. Of course, nowadays I only use IE when I go to a Microsoft site, since it is so seriously flawed that MS will never be able to fix it, unless they start over a la Mozilla. When multiple government agencies are recommending against a piece of software, I think that pretty much stands as a valid indictment.

But I still use Windows. I like using Windows. I love using Visual Studio (well, version 6 anyway). I've made a career of developing software for Windows and I don't see any reason to pursue another career.

What am I saying? I'm not sure, but I think there's room for the OSS mentality under the MS umbrella. I have code on SourceForge (it's rather out of date though). I think MS has reached a similar state that the U.S. Tax Code has reached. The only real way to fix the problem is throw it all out and start over. But in both cases, that can never happen because of enormous momentum of the existing system. MS tried (and was extremely successful, IMO) with NT. Perhaps it's time for NNT. With the advent of such excellent products as Virtual PC, backwards compatibility isn't the absolute it used to be, and I know many of MS's problems have to do with the elephantine weight of legacy code... in effect they have to live with every bad decision they've ever made ad infinitum.

Oh, well, now I'm just rambling, but I think there's a real possibility for a back-to-basics approach here. It seems that while computer hardware is increasing exponentially in power, software is increasing only linearly. Where does the extra power go? Sloppiness, waste and inefficiency would be my bet. Of course I have a real fundamentalist approach to software development... start with a small but rock solid base of functionality and build upon it as needed. I've found the level of effort to do many tasks with MFC to be only marginally better than doing the tasks myself from scratch, but in the case of home-grown, I invariably end up with something more flexible or at the very least, much easier to use. The ultimate example was a simple command-line ftp file transfer program. With MFC (I know this example is much better in .NET), it takes literally hundreds of lines of cookbook code just to do basic operations. Why is this necessary? My version of the program, including the class library code itself for sockets and ftp don't add up to that much code.
To use it, you declare the object, initialize it and use it, in the case of the FTP session class, this is usually literally 3 lines of code. Simple things should be simple.

I've been pulling my hair out trying to work with DirectShow. MS support says they don't see anything wrong with my code, yet it doesn't work correctly. I'm trying to do something very simple (playing a video while modifying frames using the frame grabber). Complex tasks will always be complex, but with advanced tools, simple tasks should be simple. I shouldn't have to cut-and-paste large swaths of sample code just to do basic operations.

Declare. Initialize. Use.

When you need custom functionality, you might need to dig into the guts and get down and dirty, but you should be able to do the basics in 3 simple steps. I know my classes function like that.

Declare. Initialize. Use.

CListCtrl is a another example. This class is insane to use. It's grotesquely incomplete. In a couple of weeks, I worked up a control which blows CListCtrl out of the water for ease of use for basic operations. Does it cover the full gamut of what CListCtrl can do? I seriously doubt it, but basic grid functionality is an order of magnitude simpler with my version. Yes, I have to go in fix or add things sometimes, but with MFC, that's often an issue anyway, except changing the classes themselves is dangerous and unwise. I don't consider myself some kind of coding genius, but I have the luxury of being 100% consistent because I don't have to support a trillion lines of old code until the heat death of the universe. Still, what one person can accomplish should be possible with a thousand. Or ten thousand.

Anyhow, a former co-worker of mine worked at MS for 6 years on the SQL Server and NT kernel teams. He was very smart and really knew his stuff and I asked him a lot of questions about why some things from MS are so bad? His answer was always the same...

Why is RAS so bad? The smart people weren't working on it.

What is ICS so bad? The smart people were all working on NAT for the Server OS?

Why cannot a company as rich as MS come up with enough smart people to go around? When the government was threatening to break MS up as a possible punishment for anti-trust behavior I found that to be hilarious. Much of MS's problems come from the fact that they are far too fractured now! Weren't there something like 7 different (and sometimes incompatible) versions of Office 2000 service pack 1? Everything MS does smacks of design-by-committee. I joked when Windows 95 came that they never saw a desktop metaphor they didn't like. They just threw them all in, good ideas and bad. The configuration of each version of the OS changes, often significantly, with no apparent rhyme nor reason, leaving us users having to memorize meaningless details when working on multiple platforms.

Well, now that I've really wandered off the deep end, I just want to conclude that I don't hate Microsoft (despite what my wife and coworkers might think), but I do think that a company as rich and powerful as they should be doing a far better job.

Let me first just say that throwing money and people at a problem as complex as security won't fix it alone. For years Microsoft lived in a safe, isolated, single-user world, and applications were written with features and usability in mind over security. At the time, threats didn't exist, and the vulnerabilities that a constant internet connection instill today were inconceivable, or at least not fully realized.

There is a massive effort underway to change this, and it involves training, new ways of thinking, and a paradigm s*** that goes against what many of the older employees have built their careers upon. More importantly, it takes time. So much of the innovation we want to do now is being stifled by security fixes for old software, which I think there is definitely a real consciousness about getting it right the first time now.

A gigabyte of email is an awful lot of email anyway you look at it. I personally have a 1.01 GB PST as we speak, and I run it on a 1 Gigahertz P3 with 256MB of memory. I'm not trying to justify the experience you are having, but I do want to let you know that I certainly can appreciate where you are coming from if anyone can. I wish we could take this off-line and I could try to answer your specific problems, but BetaNews doesn't offer PMs and the last time I posted my MS email on this board, I started receiving emails from District Courts. :)

If you belong to another forum that uses vBulletin, post your handle for that board, and I'll PM you with my email at that.

I don't think our legal team wants me to/or will allow me to get involved in a debate about any legal maters that have or will face my company. As a compromise, I will tell you my own opinion about a similar situation that a hypothetical company might face, and apply it to Microsoft as if it did involve my current employer. :) In other words, the opinions here are my own, and in no way reflect that of my company or are based upon internally obtained information.

Microsoft didn't force any OEM to bundle software, or not to bundle software with their PC sales. What Microsoft did, and as a firm believer in free market I find no fault in, was they wouldn't offer their OS to those OEMs at lower prices unless those OEMs complied with the terms of their contract. Those terms might specifically call out software that can't be bundled with the system.

The OEM is in a position to either buy the OS at regular prices (something that any mom and pop PC builders were already subjected to), or they could get a further discounted price by entering into this exclusivity contract.

This is NOT anti-competitive, it is business. It wasn't as if Microsoft was saying bundle that software and we won't give you an OS. Microsoft was saying, if you don't bundle that software, we'll give you a discount. If you are the company that made the software that was getting excluded, you had better come to the table and give a compelling reason that the OEM should still bundle your product and forego the discount. When the OEM decides that you aren't worth it, then of course you will blame Microsoft, but really it is the OEM that should be held accountable by the software company. But that's all it is -- just coupons. Why would I by Jiffy when Skippy is giving me $0.30 off? It's business.

I think we are moving the company in the right direction again (still), and our focus is looking to the future, but this time we are going to make sure security is an important aspect of that. If you don't want to use IE any more, that is your call. I think you'll find that the time we spend to fix the critical security holes is time well spent, and we have a pretty solid product. As problems arise, we do everything we can to fix it before it becomes a problem. If you haven't tried the XP SP2 Release Candidates, you should. (http://v5.windowsupdate.microsoft.com/) They rock, and I can't wait until will release it officially.

That actually raises a very curious question, and it is one that we are facing now. Most exploits aren't a result of someone finding something that we don't know about, most of them are a result of comparing the binary before patching and the binary after patching, and figuring out what was broken after the fact. Those exploits then target those users who haven't patched their system. The question then is how do you distribute security fixes without revealing to a potential attacker what the original problem was? Keeping every PC well and up to date is like fighting windmills.

The solution is NNT. Well, not as you are probably thinking though. We need to break away from the legacy code problems that we have today, and .Net and the NetFX of Longhorn are that stepping stone. By using even more system methods, and letting the system handle critical things like memory management, we can mitigate potential threats. A lot of programs fail to allocate memory properly. By adding to SP2 and using NX protection in the hardware, and by compiling applications to have increased protection against buffer overruns, we can further reduce that surface of attack. Lastly, if there is a flaw in some system level component, you only need to fix the flaw in one spot instantly increasing the reliability of every application that uses that API.

Yes, you are right in thinking "wasn't MFC supposed to fix this?" I actually don't know of any project Microsoft makes that uses MFC. It's better than nothing for some developers, but almost all of our apps are currently written in Win32. Interestingly, most of our automation testing is being written in DotNet, and I think (hope) that the company will continue to move into the managed code world. NetFX will be replaced someday too. In the meantime, the benefits of managed code are staggering compared to previous frameworks. The cool thing is that performance is pretty much equal to that of Native code, and in some cases through the smart caching of objects and garbage collection, can even be improved.

I'm not familiar with your exact problem with DirectShow, but I think they were trying to strike a balance between power and ease of use. Beyond building graphs and basic tasks with DS, I haven't worked with it much. When/if I leave Office, I think I'd really like to go work in the eHome division, working on Windows Media Center Edition. I'd like to learn more about DS, but I'd be of little help now. Did you check your semicolons? :)

Your friend's "anti-grass is greener" syndrome is common through the company. You always think the stuff you are working on is the best, and you wonder what the other teams and groups are smoking. The smart people abound at this company and I am honored to be working with them. There are decisions that are made, that I don't always agree with, but they are usually based on different priorities than my own. This leads me to ask the question "Why?" a lot, as your former co-worker did, but those decisions are always made one way or another for a reason. Every decision made is carefully crafted and made with a purpose. Products and interfaces are almost always tied into a usability study of one form or another, but ultimately it comes down to time, money, and resources.

Definitely give me a vBulletin BBS that I can PM you at, or leave me your email rot13'd. I don't think any District Courts are going to be emailing you for support. (Actually, the courts just had some support issues, and although I certainly wasn't the best qualified to handle their request, I found someone who was.)

How long can these posts on BetaNews be?

Statistics compiled from Microsoft Word 2003 :)
Paragraphs: 16
Words: 1351
Characters: 6214
Characters (w/ spaces): 7602

Statistics do not include the paragraphs, words, or characters used to write out those statistics... or this sentence for that matter. :)

Thanks for the great info. If you want to contact me off-line, just google my username.

Rick

Obligatory on-topic comment: Virtual PC is really easy to use and works well for installing MS apps.