Mark Gilbert’s Blog

Microsoft has been fined €899 Million by the EU for violation of the 2004 anti-trust ruling. This amount is the fine is the sum of daily fines from June 21st 2006 to October 21st 2007. This makes Microsoft the first company to be fined for non-compliance.

I have previously mentioned that this was coming here.

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As we all know, Blu-Ray has fairly well won the HD DVD wars. It was included in the PS3 console which massivly increased it’s user base. I think it would be interesting to see figures breaking down Blu_ray player sales into PS3 sales and standalone player sales. This would give a clearer insight into how much of a part the PS3 has played in this battle.

The other question that goes round my head is this, “would the outcome of this battle been different if Microsoft had included HD-DVD players in the Xbox 360?” Perhaps not the basic versions, but the Elite versions only. I feel this should have happened and it may have been an oversight on Microsoft’s part not to. I understand the logic behind not oncluding HD-DVD drives in the 360, MS did not want to be seen as having a dead weight round it’ neck if HD-DVD lost, but that may have become a self-fulfilling prophecy.

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Windows Vista SP1 has been RTM earlier this week, but reports are now coming out that SP1 could cause more issues for users than it solves. Microsoft have admitted that there are some new driver issues in SP1, drivers that worked on the original Vista build may not work in SP1. Mike Nash who is charge of Vista product management was quoted as saying;

“Our beta testing identified an issue with a small set of device drivers, these drivers do not follow our guidelines for driver installation and as a result, some beta participants who were using Windows Vista and updated to Service Pack 1 reported issues with these devices.”

Basically with the changes to the core of Vista being brought about in SP1 drivers may cease to function correctly. Before SP1 is installed it will check for the drivers that have known issues and not offer SP1 to those users with the offending drivers, although Nash remained tight lipped at present as to what those drivers were.

This would not be the first time a major SP release has caused problems for Windows users, think back to the XP SP2 release a few years ago.

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Also quietly out of the door today was Microsoft Office 2008 for OS X. Updates to all the usual suspects are included however Microsoft Visual Basic for Applications is not supported in Office 2008, which some have suggested in Microsoft’s way of not fully supporting Office under OS X without explicitly having to announce that they are ceasing support.

Personally I think there is very little that MS Office 2008 can offer that current alternatives such as NeoOffice and Pages cannot.

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I haven’t posted in a while, I’ve had a lot of other things on my plate. I’m here now though so that’s the important thing.

I read a wonderful tongue in cheek review of the upgrade benefits of Windows XP when compared to Vista.

To be honest there is only one conclusion to be made; Microsoft has really outdone themselves in delivering a brand new operating system that really excels in all the areas where Vista was sub-optimal. From my testing, discussions with friends and colleagues, and a review of the material out there on the web there seems to be no doubt whatsoever that that upgrade to XP is well worth the money. Microsoft can really pat themselves on the back for a job well done, delivering an operating system which is much faster and far more reliable than its predecessor. Anyone who thinks there are problems in the Microsoft Windows team need only point to this fantastic release and scoff loudly.

Have a read of the whole thing, I find it’s great, a little biased as one would expect but funny all the same.

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With Windows XP Service Pack 3 and Windows Vista Service Pack 1 both on the horizon people have started benchmarking the two. The Florida based software development company Devil Mountain Software showed that XP still outperforms Vista with the new service packs applied to both OS’s.

Apparently Vista took 80 seconds compared to 35 seconds for XP SP3. The SP1 update for Vista made little or no difference to speed, SP3 for XP on the other hand gave a 10% performance increase over an XP SP2 machine.

So it would seem that a year after launch Vista is yet to live up to it’s hype. It is still outclassed by the 6 years old Windows XP and many people simply want nothing to do with it.

Well 2008 may bring new things for Vista, or it may simply be more of the same crap that has plagued the OS since launch, time will, as always, tell.

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What the bloody hell is wrong with IE you may say, why would Mark, a seemingly nice guy, refer to IE in such a cruel way. Well my friends, this time it is down to IE’s poor handling of modern MIME types.

XHTML web pages should have their MIME types set to application/xhtml+xml instead of the far older text/html. Try using application/xhtml+xml with IE though and it simply does not know what to do. I asks the user if they want to download the file rather than render it like it’s supposed to.

the modern javascript MIME type is also not handled correctly. Instead of the old text/javascript type the newer application/javascript should be used, but instead of working like a modern browser IE simply doesn’t render any application/javascript elements, it just skips over them as though they were not there.

The thing is this is not the bleeding edge of MIME types. application/javascript was registered by an informational RFC in June 2005. application/xhtml+xml was registered by an RFC in January 2002. These are not new things, in January 2002 IE 6 SP1 had not even been released yet. Microsoft have had a lot of time to get things right with regards to standards.

I want to serve my MIME type correctly on my site. I want to use application/xhtml+xml, but I cant because IE doesn’t support it. So instead I’m having to sort some horrid backwards compatible script out to server text/html for all those Internet Exploder users out there. Please IE users, take this advice, switch browsers to something more standards compliant. Safari for Windows and Firefox are both excellent choices and work far better than IE for web standards compliance. Why should you care about standards? Because if nobody followed any standards on the net then simply put the Internet would cease to exist, fragmenting into incompatible sections where only people using one certain standard could view certain parts of the net. Imagine having to use one browser to read your e-mail, another to do online shopping and then another one to go to a different shopping website. Not nice, so please for the sake of the earth use something other than IE.

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Due to some kind of cock-up Microsoft have managed to inadvertently send the Windows Desktop Search program out through Windows update. What’s more it was pushed out to be installed through Software Update Services even if the application had never been installed before and SUS was set to only update apps.This obviously has created a lot of problems for many people, since when Windows Desktop Search is installed it will automatically begin indexing the machine’s hard drive drive contents slowing the PC down. Not so bad you might think but when you’re a business who needs machines to work quickly at the start of a working day then it does become an issue.So well done Microsoft, you’ve managed to foul up yet another Windows update casting even more doubt onto the service.

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A leaked e-mail from Microsoft has revealed that they plan to release a service pack for Windows Vista in the second half of 2007.

Windows Vista Service Pack 1 (SP1) will be a standard service pack that will include security updates, hotfixes, as well as limited other changes focused on improving quality.

I assume that this wil be very similar to the kind of security fixes that came along with Windows XP SP1.

So relating to my poll on the right, when will you upgrade to Vista? Will you wait for the imminent service pack.

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Just a little thing to make the blood boil over here in the UK, Vista pricing.
On the Amazon US site Vista costs $379.99, while the Amazon UK site did have Vista for sale at £369.99. Now at a current exchange rate of 0.5323 Pounds to the Dollar that means the Amazon US copy of Vista costs £202.26. WTF means that we in Britain should pay £167 more than the US for the same software? It is a piece of software, it costs no more to sell in the UK than it does in the US. This sort of extortion, and it is extortion plain and simple, cannot be allowed to continue. This kind of disparity in pricing on software is profiteering, with Microsoft making silly profits from me and my fellow Britains for no good reason. If someone can come up with a valid reason for this price difference then please add your comments to this post.

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I really found this hillarious. Microsoft have rushed so much to get both the Zune and Vista out of the door that the two of them are incompatible.

As the screenshot above shows the two simply will not work together.

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Within days of Vista going gold people have figured out a way to crack the OS and let people use it for free. The “crack” involves replacing components of the OS with components from the previous betas and release candidates. This basically allows people to use product keys from the previous versions. It doesn’t however bypass the product activation but will allow the product to be activated over the net as a beta or RC.

These cracks are already making their way around the various torrent sites under the name “Vista BillGates”. Obviously Microsoft have their usualy weapons to fight back against this such as deactivating beta keys as well as RC keys that are being used in this manner, and I’m sure WGA will also be used in a similar manner to XP WGA with regards to Vista.

Quite how widespread Vista piracy will be remains to be seen. XP piracy was a big headache for Microsoft and they will not want a repeat of this situation with Vista.

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Microsoft has this week made a rather unprecedented move. They have decided that all Zune owners are actully criminals. They then took it upon themselves to administer a fine as a criminal punishment. How has this not made the news you may ask? Well it has, only with a slightly different air to it. The deal is being touted as a licencing deal. Microsoft are paying Universal an undisclosed sum of money for each Zune purchased to offset supposed loses due to piracy.

Now hold on just a minute, Universal being compensated for a crime which hasn’t happened and might not happen? That strikes me as a little bit wrong. Are we now to expect to be put in prison when we buy a car, since we may kill someone with it, and it’s beter to get the prison time out of the way now right? Wrong, what a load of crap. What on earth gives Microsoft and Universal the right to punish us for what we havn’t done? So a user who buys all their music from the new Zune stores will be charged just the same as those who dont.

Now I know what your thinking, ‘Mark why are you complaining your about as likely to buy a Zune as you are to buy a copy of Windows?’ and you would be right in thinking this, but I am concerned about you first of al dear reader. You may want to buy a Zune and why should you be forced to pay money to compensate for a crime you have not committed? That is my first reason for caring. However the second reason has far broader reaching consequences.

Universal essentially is getting money for nothing here. They are not providing anything to the end user and are simply extracting money from them. Microsoft willingly allowed them to do this. How long before Universal start wanting this kind of money from Apple for every iPod sold? Then how long before every other label wants a slice of this pie? So very soon we have a situation where each individual label is charging users for a crime they have not committed and may not commit. Surely this is not the sort of situation we want. It is simply not right that I am charged for something I may do. What ever happened to the presumption of inocence until proven guilty?

So I propose either one of two solutions. Firstly since you are being charged for pirating Universals music and they are already being compensated, then why not go ahead and do just that. Pirate Universals music. As much as you like whenever you like. Why not they’ve already been compensated based on the assumption that you will do this anyway, and if the shoe fits then wear it. If they treat you like a ciminal then why not act like they expect?

The second solution, while far less fun is to simply boycott the Zune and Universal. Do not buy a Zune or music from Universal, since money is all they seem to understand then hit them where it hurts, right in the back pocket. Personally I wont buy a Zune anyway, and I advise you not to either.

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Jim Allchin, Vista development team leader has made a post which indicates that Vista is now ready and has gone gold. All the post actually says is “It’s time!” and is tagged RTM.

Looks like they will actually make the January 30th consumer release date. And to think i ever doubted them.

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Security researchers have found a flaw in Microsoft’s XML Core Services. The flaw only affects those using Internet Explorer, read ‘flaw only affects n00bs’ and is caused by a problem with the XMLHTTP 4.0 ActiveX Control. Oh how we love ActiveX. The result of the flaw is arbitary code execution though visiting a malicious website.

Microsoft admits the bug is being exploited by hackers but said that it would not break with it’s monthly patch release cycle. This puts a fix out on November 14th. They did however say that they would evaluate customer needs and may decide to release a patch out of cycle rather than wait a week.

This seems rather arrogant. If they have a patch available why wait to release it? Surely getting it out sooner rather than later is the best thing for their customers? Or maybe Microsoft just doesn’t care about it’s customers. I’ll let you decide if that’s true or not.

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I missed this somehow, but found out today, IE7 has now been pushed out by Microsoft as a high priority update over the Windows Update Service. This will probably mean a lot of users who were totally unaware of the existance of IE7 will now be using it, no doubt with some scratching their heads asking “why has the internet changed?” Personally I dont like IE7, I’ve been using the betas on a machine at work for some time now and I simply dont like it. I think the UI is a backwards sep as far as I’m concerned, but maybe that’s just me. Anyone else have any opinions on this?

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Microsoft have set the 30th November 2006 as the launch date of Vista to businesses and 30th January 2007 as the release date for the general public. Whether this will be met remains to be seen, but that release date would leave a lot of xmas purchases high and dry. Buying computers with Windows XP on and then finding out Vista is just around the corner could be a rather unwanted xmas present for many.

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Microsoft’s anti-spyware application has finally come out of beta and you can download it from the Windows Defender homepage.

What’s even more interesting though are the statistics Microsoft have released along with this update to the program. These are based on the first three months the program was available and show that 22 million items of spyware were detected and 14 million items were cleaned. This really is a staggering ammount and just goes to show that no one on a Windows PC should be without an anti-spyware applicaton.

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Microsoft have announced that they will no longer support XP SP1 or SP1a installs. Users must ugrade to SP2 if they wish to continue to recieve updates to the OS.

SP1 was first distributed in September 2002 and so is an old version of the Windows XP OS, it was replaced by SP2 in September 2004.

So if you haven’t already upgraded, then now would seem to be the time.

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Microsoft have said that both desktop and server versions of it’s new Vista operating system will feature a reduced functionality more for pirated copies. This mode will be used if the software is not activated within 30 days of install.

Reduced functionality includes not being able to run a browser all the time, and having the Aero features of Windows disabled. This is all the information I know of for now. I really hope for Microsoft’s sake they have some more reduced functionality than that. I mean really, Aero? Saves CPU and GPU cycles when turned off, and you can run Firefox off a USB flash drive. Come on Microsoft, you know Bill needs a new ivory back scratcher.

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