CharlotteTheHarlot

Clearly Microsoft's streak of getting to a market late is in no danger of ending anytime soon. Seriously, they are poised to dive headfirst in to the swimming pool just as the water is drained out. In real life when you land on your head like that you wind up paralyzed. Of course, anything can happen, even a sudden interest in Metro interfaced phones, however I just cannot imagine this happening given the current flooded state of the market and the prospects described in your links. I think the other big problem for them is simply when you compare the interfaces. To the independent un-biased consumer, which are most attractive? ... I cannot believe that they have forced me into the position of saying that Apple and Android look nicer! Freaking squares and rectangles. Circles would have been better, or stars, or random blobs, or better yet simple user choice! What is just insanely ironic is that when you go to a party and there are 20 different smartphones, the Androids will all look different ( customized ), the Apples will look similar but still be different and definitely attractive, but the WP's will be the most uniform in appearance thanks to the gigantic blocks, and least attractive overall. Welcome to Big Blue, 21st century west coast division! Appearance is everything to the fickle consumer. Gazillions of dollars and hours of research have gone into appearance and packaging so that Jane public will grab box A instead of B since the product inside may vary only a little bit. Apparently Microsoft thinks they can just disregard this fact and people will flock to WP anyway. No, we do understand the big picture now. The thrust for Windows 8 and Metro is primarily about a future Microsoft walled-garden kiosk PoS terminal. The question is, how many companies are going to crumble along the way when they climb onboard the Metro bandwagon thinking it will help sell their phones and computers only to discover they got suckered by a hyped Redmond sales pitch to launch a lines of WP's and other devices. There is going to be blood on the floor! EDIT: arrrghh! not x86 or ARM phones! Microsoft Windows 8 : Vistro! ( The name we should have chosen. )

I managed to track them down (Win9x and NT versions) just a couple of days ago. See here in another thread. Still working direct download right at this moment.

Well I know they started using him for the first PC in late 1981 with great fanfare because it was quite a big deal. And he appeared in many ads at least through the AT and Portable. I can't tell from the images in that link but it had to be around 1986-1987 ( Convertible to PS/2 era ) that they stopped but I just might not be remembering. Searching images for PS/2 alone doesn't show any obvious Chaplin ads so I guess they quit before then ( big mistake ). It was really a brilliant branding idea that is clearly identifiable now almost 31 years later! ( Way, way, way off-topic, but your link triggered some memories ) ... About those PCjr's, they made me and quite a few others from what I learned later quite a bit of money from about 1984 to 1988 or maybe 1989. You see we learned how to modify these units and by undercutting the official IBM expansion price raked in some really good dough. Most of the work was done through the PCjr's expansion bus which was on the outside of the computer using stackable sidecars. The PCjr was the only PC I ever saw that had an external bus like this, it was weird and way oversized. The sidecars were equal to the height and depth of the system unit ( and perhaps an inch thick ) attached to the side of the PCjr ( or to the previous sidecar ) with four special long brass screws, the long male bus connector protruded on the inner side and female recessed on the outer side of each addition attached internally to the main bus, so it was equivalent to adding ISA or PCI cards. The official IBM upgrade path had you buying the sidecars in 128 KB increments so with *four* 128 KB sidecars you could officially bring it up to 640 KB ( at GREAT cost!), or ... pay us to do it better. There were other kinds of sidecars as well such as parallel port and power supply adapters and others. So it was common for geeks to have 6 or more sidecars which greatly lengthened the system unit. Here is an image from Google, just imagine 4, 5 or 6 sidecars! ... What happened is that information became available to the few of us that had access to USENET or ran BBS's and it circulated among really early hacking-mod-DIY groups and forums. The instructions evolved over time but were pretty easy to understand and perform with basic electronic experience. Specifically, we modded the memory sidecars by removing the original soldered RAM chips and installing RAM sockets so we could just push in new higher density RAM chips that we bought in bulk in clear plastic tubes bringing the sidecars from 128 KB to 512 KB total RAM ( there was a little more to it involving cutting a trace and soldering a jumper wire ). The actual PCjr base unit had 64 KB or 128 KB, so it was possible to easily bring the system to 576 KB or 640 KB total. Later experimentation by others created slightly higher totals of 704 KB and 768 KB which I believe was only usable in a ramdisk. The new RAM total was made available to DOS via a device driver in config.sys ( PCJRMEM. COM ). So we managed to offer a much improved choice to a user to move to 640 KB, they either did it with 4 x 128 KB or simply 1 x 512 KB sidecar. I didn't realize until years later when the web came online and many more USENET newsgroups and BBS archives were accessible just how many of us were doing these mods. It seems that in every area where the was a large IBM presence there was a large amount of PCjr's because employees got them at a discount below the stupidly high retail price. As I pretty much had one city all to myself near a few of their larger plants so I must have done a few hundred of them. I see that Wikipedia says they only sold 500,000 total in the entire world and certainly only a small amount were modified so I could have done a good percent or two of the total RAM mods. Those were the days! Thurrott probably has some good sources ( although I have no doubt he exaggerates a bit ) so it is not unreasonable to believe he is spouting more than wishful thinking with that infamous quote. This is why I have said that This Is War Now. EDIT: wording, updated image URL, and again

IIRC they used him for all the releases PC, XT, AT, PCjr, and probably the Portable PC. I cannot remember when it stopped but if I had to guess it was before the PS/2 ( when they really needed him ). Lots of scans seen at Google Images, but I found no good high-quality ones yet ...... EDIT: updated image URLs, and again

Yes, I believe this makes a lot of sense, the frightening prospect of a MicroTitanic iceberg disaster complete with scurrying to lifeboats before it sinks to the depths, hence the call to 'All Hands On Deck' among their friends in the media ( nice fertile analogy here too, limitless photoshopped screengrabs of Cameron's Titanic with Ballmer and Sinofsky as the Captain and 1st mate, or perhaps Gilligan's Island. ) Hence we're treated to rabid displays of irrationality from those that are only tangentially connected with a successful Microsoft ( including many who only think they are or wish they were ), and are incapable of imagining their survival in a world without Microsoft functioning at the center of their universe. I'll buy that. Unfortunately for them you are absolutely correct in that mightier have fallen in the past, and it is almost always from repeated missteps or from blindness and deafness from living in an insulated bubble. IBM is a very close analogy ( as I suggested upthread ) though they had a bigger division to fall back on, but many others come to mind in unrelated fields, just recently Kodak. The unthinkable is very much possible and big business could open a cemetery full of tombstones to prove it. The fanboy fears are certainly warranted, but thanks to the moves I see from Microsoft since around the Vista era, I'm having a hard time giving a d@mn. People that don't read the UK Inquirer and Register might not be familiar with that 'nickname' for Microsoft. Did you ever see the Wikipedia fight over it? The softies managed to have it exorcised but at least the battle is recorded.

Dvorak column related to the previously mentioned Thurrott piece ... Hip Hip Hooray for Windows 8! ( PC Magazine 2012-08-31 ) This is kinda funny because he is directly criticizing Thurrott for his embarrassing display of fanboyism while refusing to call him out by name! Now the comments over there are just plain wicked as they are having strokes and heart attacks over Dvorak's relatively tepid ant-Metro opinion. PC Magazine has really been unlucky to attract so many fanboys, they are probably 2nd only to NeoWin for hosting the largest collective of MicroBorg in comments. All criticism of Microsoft is instantly chalked up as pro-Apple followed immediately by a barrage of foul comments! I mean instantly! Even Dvorak is accused even though he has been writing PC articles since the 1980's. Doh! Anyone old enough to remember those days might also notice this amazing role reversal where today, we PC users now have tons of irrational anti-Apple pro-Microsoft fanboys who are every bit, no, even worse than the Apple fanatics in the 1980's. Back then the PC user was the calm conservative DOS user and had Charlie Chaplin as a mascot in some famous PC commercials. The Mac user was snooty, arrogant and often cheered the incessant attack ads against the PC aired by Apple. PC users really had no choice but to tolerate the situation. That was the way I remember it anyway. In a nutshell, we PC users learned to despise Apple, more than the users, because of their insulting and ridiculous commercials drumming up an overblown competition ( long before 'I'm a Mac, I'm a PC' ). Personally, I was just fine with the users, mostly artists and musicians who were too busy doing their thing to be worried about the PC vs. Mac war. But the Apple fanboys who were outspoken still couldn't hold a candle to what I see now from these MicroFanBoys. So somehow it has become completely reversed. The strange twist is that these new ones are rabid and irrationally targeting both Apple and PC users! There seems to be this common theme, a meme that says: "Microsoft MUST be successful in the mobile market or else! And we must embrace whatever they decide in order to accomplish this". I have read enough to believe that this is official policy within the halls of Redmond. But what I would really love to know is exactly how this spread so far and wide because not all of these rabid dogs can be employees. Common sense suggests that it not a point of view that an average user would arrive at purely on their own. There really is an interesting story here yet to be written. I have a strong suspicion that somewhere around the Vista fiasco ( when they allegedly learned their lesson ) a large-scale astroturfing project was initiated. I admit I am only guessing here, no evidence whatsoever, but it might have involved recruiting bloggers and forum lurkers as a kind of Fifth Column perhaps paying with Xbox coupons or Windows licenses or whatever. I hope that someday soon, some hard information gets out of Redmond so we can really know the truth.

I hope he is successful but that screenshot doesn't indicate any progress except for some transparency so far. I'm definitely rooting for him though There is chatter of it being faked and other chatter stating he is a softie who has the 'removed code' and plans to re-integrate it. Should be interesting! More discussion on this specific Aero Glass effort ... Aero Glass [Discuss] open Aero Glass ( PC Beta 2012-09-01<-- probably local date ) ( Chinese source page sorta translated by Google ) Aero-Glass in Windows 8 RTM, by re-instating the Aero Source Codes ( MDL 2012-08-31 ) Windows 8 may get Aero Glass back via modder ( NeoWin 2012-09-01 )

Here is one that I haven't seen mentioned yet. See if you can figure out the author! Wednesday, August 15, 2012 - Start: The Windows 8 Era Begins He uses the following picture as the top image at the article. It really sums up every possible nightmare imaginable crammed on a single screen. Everything from the wallpaper, to the colors, to the spacing and size of the tiles, but especially the icons. I've long said that this is a cluttered mess that makes the competitors look good. If you have this on a WP right next to an Android and iPhone, undecided impartial people are not going to choose it ... ( original ) He certainly has fulfilled his role as Head Fanboy in Charge. He goes on and on about the "genius" of mixing Metro and the Desktp into the same release, stating it is such a brilliant move because it would fail on its own ... ... naturally passing right over the ethics and antitrust issue of leveraging their monopoly position in such a dramatic fashion. He carefully avoids our worries of the closed Apple-model as well even though other high profile people are speaking up about it. Such thoughts can not even enter a Fanboy's mind, and it will likely be their undoing eventually. What he is essentially doing is putting a smiley face on the whole thing. He is well past 'Fanboy' to be sure, he is actually an enabler. He should just write: 'We wanna be like Apple too! Go Microsoft!'. There is much more to read there (these are small excerpts), needless to say he in positively enthralled. In fact he is so giddy (or high) that it has gone straight to his head allowing him to say the following, and it's a doozy ... Uh, huh. Deadwood ya say? That so-called deadwood of independent software is what brought Microsoft here in the first place. So did the open architecture and the fact that anyone could become a programmer without Microsoft's blessing and approval. Move from multitasking in multiple layered Aero Glass effected windows to Retro 8-bit color Playskool dual-tasking child interface? For real? Not a chance. I think this is important: Having earlier admitted that this move would fail in a standalone release so it is good to force it on the existing user base (through OEM pressure for new machines) , and finishes with 'the desktop must die', leaving Microsoft with their walled garden and expanded monopoly from desktops to everything else (a bigger monopoly), with 3rd party authors subservient to Redmond. ... Just put it all together: ... He has stated exactly what many of us have said - to which we get called tinfoil conspiracy theorists. This is war now. If you haven't guessed yet, here is the author, drum roll please .... Microsoft Windows 8 : Generating Publicity ( One Fanboy at a Time ) EDIT: typo, updated image URLs, and again

okay, now that's funny right there!

Further discussion about the Samsung StartMenu'esque 'S Launcher' with a bit of pro-Microsoft spin ... Samsung Start menu app shows why Microsoft is going its own way with Surface ( Ars Technica 2012-08-28 ) Bigtime comment war is still underway. The author, Peter (not so) Bright is real late to the party apparently having only read the Mashable article without realizing all the other great, creative work under way from Tihiy's Win7 transplant to Start8 to ClassicShell, not to mention long running mods like RainMeter among others. Perhaps he should ask himself why we feel the need to modify every single Windows release (with increasing necessity) from its standard, official, OOBE look and feel. Lots of the fanboys actually do wonder about this phenomenon but for all the wrong reasons. IMHO it is because they are left scratching their heads wondering why they themselves feel satisfied with the default Microsoft-designed but Apple-esque captive structure, and they feel a bit left out like someone that didn't get invited to an important function and then go on a campaign to convince everyone else that they shouldn't go either. EDIT: just wanted to add a hat tip to a great comment there from fung0, which I completely agree with. He says it much better than I have been able to, zeroing in on the real problem IMHO ... I would only add one thing to that quoted comment, and that is that their status of near absolute monopoly on existing desktops and many laptops, plus their power to make deals with OEM's for new systems brings the antitrust issue to light when Microsoft even considers leveraging their unique position, the issues of trust, ethics and responsibility. There are many, many problems with this 'new' OS, not one single issue. Some are about usability for novices, some are about cost to the corporate environment, but one of the biggest is the direction towards a closed market and IMHO this must be fought at all costs. We cannot let them become Apple. I would have thought that this would be simple enough for even the anti-Apple pro-Microsoft fanboys to understand.

The link that Jaclaz posted above does seem to have a good summary of what is known. Here it is again ... Windows 8 privacy complaint misses the forest for the trees ( Ars Technica 2012-08-25 ) If it is all correct, the linchpin really is browser based downloads. Some key paragraphs about the mechanics of the filter: There is much more, including speculation about what happens in Redmond to the uploaded hash and how it may be cross-referenced to you IP-Address or Windows Live ID. Some people, specifically the Microsoft knee-jerk defenders are 'missing the forest for the trees' in yet another way, by scoffing at Kobeissi's findings and speculation because it was not perfect ( SSLv2 being used or not ), thereby supposedly nullifying all his points!?! Sorry, that is just not logical IMHO. The man was starting from a point of zero information by design since Microsoft naturally isn't blogging about the mechanics of SmartScreen. He is trying to 'cleanroom' his way to the answer and cannot be expected to nail it down immediately. His critics are pathetic IMHO, because if left to them, Microsoft could implement anything no matter how draconian. Guess what, without details from Microsoft all we have is this kind of research, speculation and educated guesses based upon previous history.

I think that jury decision (the California case) is looking pretty shaky overall. It is a prime candidate for overturning because of both the Judge and the Jury. The Judge is seen as an Apple puppet, and now the Jury is coming under scrutiny. Apple v. Samsung juror: we "wanted to send a message" ( Ars Technica 2012-08-26 ) It is interesting to read through the many comments there. I think the love affair with Apple is nearing its end (Microsoft, take note). So much of Apple's business is based upon temporary captive markets, walled-off as the result of lawsuits or the threats of them. The problem for this business model is that like everything, it is inevitable that the tide will turn and they will receive a string of losing court decisions, and hopefully Japan is a bellweather. Never underestimate the power of ill-will. They may be racking up a few victories but they are also accumulating a lot of resentment. They are not seen the same way today that they were just a couple of years ago. This global patent war, not just by Apple, is waking up lots of people I think to the realization that modern Patent or Intellectual Property litigation is now about freezing a market into one vendor without competition for an arbitrary period of time. Patents and IP have evolved into the exact opposite of competition, Apple (among others) has capitalized on this. This is what bugs me the most about Microsoft moving in the direction of Apple. If history is a guide they will arrive late to this party and be on the receiving end of the backlash that Apple ironically cultivated. Microsoft is always late to any new market or model, and then they make huge errors playing catch-up, often failing spectacularly . There is a pretty good chance that by the time they evolve Windows into a walled-garden with a childish interface, the world will already have had its fill of it and reject them yet again. It would serve them right for their ridiculous Apple-envy. EDIT: minor point clarification, and grammar!

Yes, I believe this is a very good way to go. There is still life in them FAT bones after all. A FAT partition or maybe a FAT flashdrive stuck in USB for \Downloads as a security buffer. The person must remember to download to and execute the SETUP.EXE file from the FAT partition. Either that or copy the \Downloads folder to a FAT disk, or running an ADS stripper. Downloading from a browser (but no "RUN") to an NTFS partition and later executing the file means an ADS is probably still attached. This is because Firefox, Opera, MSIE (not sure about Chrome) download it to one of their temp/history/wip folders (assuredly on the NTFS system partition) and copy it when done, ADS would naturally also be copied. My previous thinking was *.Microsoft.com in outbound firewall blacklist, with 'allow this time' prompt à la carte.

cluberti, can you expand on this? The reporting about this is all over the map. Just off the top of my head I can think of lots of ways to install. But what constitutes an "install"? Is it when an UNINSTALL entry is created allowing add/remove of the program? Do we know enough yet to make a comprehensive yes/no list? Maybe something like this: Metro Apps installed through official store ..................... yes (presumably) Metro Apps installed bypassing official store (theoretical) ..... Win Applications installed by local signed installer ............ Win Applications installed by local unsigned installer .......... Win Applications pushed by local setup, no UNINSTALL registry ... Win Applications downloaded and "Run" in MSIE ................... Win Applications downloaded and "Run" in Firefox ................ Win Applications downloaded and "Run" in Chrome ................. Win Applications downloaded and "Run" in Opera .................. Win Applications downloaded but NOT installed by MSIE ........... Win Applications downloaded but NOT installed by Firefox ........ Win Applications downloaded but NOT installed by Chrome ......... Win Applications downloaded but NOT installed by Opera .......... Would variations using a local network differ from purely local setup files? If anyone can think of another "install" vector please mention it!

Yep, that's me. stubborn, old school, change hater! (except when they do something right) But I'm sticking with the name Metro until Ballmer & Sinofsky apologize in public for turning Windows into Sesame Street and making Microsoft a laughingstock. Microsoft NCIS Division ... - Never Create Interfaces Stoned - New Computer Interface Stupidity - No Creative Idea Supported - Never Confide In Sinofsky - No Change in Status - Nothing's Carved in Stone I cheated for a few of these here and here

Yep. And there really are countless ways they could have gone too. Many of us so-called 'haters' have actually been trying to help them all along in our comments. For example, early on with the DP, the obvious question from many was why didn't they simply superimpose the Taskbar (with Aero Glass) plus Start Menu right on the Metro screen, or vice versa, so all choices were available at once. Mockups were made and linked around the blogs. This could be refined with a series of checkboxes to de-select components. From my perspective, seeing the obvious resemblance to concepts on the Xbox, Zune and in MCE (Media Center), I thought they had an incredibly easy way to go if they had chosen to. But, they chose poorly, opting for a nightmarish redesign of everything instead of one simple thing. All they had to do on the front-end was leave the Windows 7 GUI including the Start Menu alone (or maybe improve upon it) and then really concentrate on developing Metro as a refined MCE application (which is user-selectable as fullscreen or resizable window). On the back end they could refine their own existing VM concepts or even incorporate something 3rd party like Sandboxie to manage the app installs and interface to the store. They could even go the Steam route or some combination of all these ideas. The final product for desktops and laptops (existing Windows systems) would simply be a downloadable add-in module from Windows update or a completely separate purchase. So finally ... on your Start Menu and/or Quicklaunch and/or Taskbar and/or Desktop you have a icon for Metro just like you have for Media Center or WMP or anything else. People like the fanboys could choose to add it to their startup so they avoid the dreaded desktop completely. People like us can choose whether or not to ever click the Metro icon in the first place. Everybody's happy. Of course, this is all about existing Windows systems and how-to design an ethical, non-intrusive way to offer Metro into these systems without forcing anything or leveraging their dangerous monopoly. Obviously for new markets like tablets and phones, they get a full featured version (as it already was). Now, how to name it? Maybe leave Windows 8 out of this cycle. They can call the phone/tablet release Windows Mobile or Windows Tiles or Windows RT. The existing Windows systems on desktops and laptops gets offered the previously described add-in simply called Windows Mobile Dock or Windows Tiles Dock or Windows RT Dock or similar. Meanwhile Windows 7 is continued as a product for new systems until a proper and worthy upgrade deserving of a new name is completed.

No disagreement from me either. You are exercising free will and choice doing what you feel works best for you. BTW, I say 'toy' not as an insult, but when directly comparing them to something of superior size and functionality. If I were comparing a tablet to a phone or to nothing at all, the tablet clearly wins. It's all relative. I think you will find that the largest amount of criticism of Microsoft and their Windows 8 Metro turd is directly related to the destruction of choice. I know this is what drives me bananas. The fanboys saying "sorry, you got no choice, it's progress" and insulting us "you just hate progress you hater!" or "it's the same desktop, nothing changed" or "you're doing it wrong using a mouse, you should be holding your arms out to a touchscreen" ... Those that they call haters, people like me, would never try to take away your choice to use it or not. It's not my business anyway. So I think its great you choose to use a tablet on a train. Depending on the train seating and luxury I just might have a tablet or even a laptop myself.

You explained that so well that I just had to repeat it. ( You also say it nicer than I do, you must have lower blood pressure ) I'm glad you mentioned the spreadsheet on a widescreen versus a toy one. When we went from the ubiquitous 17" to the now common 24" (most of mine anyway) we gained almost 100% real width increase (+/- considering font and resolution and aspect) . When talking about spreadsheets this was by every definition of the words, a huge productivity boost. Ditto for graphics, imaging, Photoshop, CAD, PDF's, and even web browsing since all the open tabs are no longer microscopic. I'll bet that many did exactly what I did for countless years, compacting spreadsheets, auto width columns, downloading tiny fonts, doing every trick under the sun to fit it on screen with as little scrolling as possible. Then boom! Overnight, years of tedious work was (happily) superceded by an actual technological advance - the availability of lots more pixels and real estate. There have been few times where such an immediate and drastic positive change was thrust upon us. Returning all these tasks to 17" monitors would make me unhappy. Smooshing them on to toy devices? Only as a last resort. But that's not to say it isn't convenient to take one into the bathroom as reading material. ;-) Anyway, fanboys take note, positive change is always welcome, and we do know what positive change is when we see it. Windows 8 and Metro is no such thing.

EDIT: ( cleaned out stale information ) Please see post #12

One of the increasingly rare positive Windows 8 Metro articles ... Windows 8: Hate It Already? Why Waiting for Windows 9 Won't Help ( PCWorld 2012-08-28 ) The usual result too, with probably 90% of commenters opening a can of whoop@ss on the guy and Microsoft. He brought it upon himself really by pretty much echoing the standard softie argument, to paraphrase: 'forcing Metro onto the desktop is necessary because they MUST penetrate the mobile market, to stop Google, and to stop Apple'. I find this completely absurd and frankly it angers me because they are saying we need suspend our disbelief at this abomination of an OS, we must overlook Microsoft abusing their desktop monopoly as they convert it to an Apple-style walled garden business model, and we must allow all this so that they may sell their pOS on a few mobile devices. To cut to the chase, what they are really telling us to do is to sacrifice our integrity and take one for the team. Team Microsoft. Team MicroMonopoly. Amazingly, neither Redmond nor its fanboys have figured out that this arrogance makes many people angry. I know I am. Steaming boiling angry. Add in their many recent missteps and the fibs and outright lies and I don't even recognize the company anymore. Google > Apple > Microsoft. I never thought it would be possible that I would list them in that order of preference! But there it is. Microsoft Windows 8 : Google and Apple suck! ( That leaves only us for you to Love )

To ragnargd, I just wanted to add that there are two very specific tools that relate to what you described in Post #6. VxdLib by Clive Turvey lets you pack, unpack, list and extract the monolithic VMM32.VXD constructed during Win9x setup. He also has some detailed documentation on the exact format of the file that may be useful for determining how it is corrupted. I remember using it years ago to extract the 40 or so packed files and then WinDiffing them against the CAB versions. Jaclaz actually found a link to get it in this thread. It is still working ... VxdLib ... ( freeware ) RegDat by Henry Ulbrich for Win9x is a cool utility that is kind of a registry DAT reader. You select a DAT hive to load and it gives you a perfect facsimile of the REGEDIT GUI viewing the DAT like a live registry for browsing, compare and export, etc. Just be real careful to not confuse the current registry of the machine in use, with your loaded 'remote' DAT file, and don't mash them together unless you really want to! Read the HELP file. This was a very nice piece of coding, genius really. One of the very few offline registry hive decoders around. ( shareware, see notes below ) RegDat for Win9x ... I found, downloaded and compared a copy of RegDat v1.3 (2002-03-03), Verified as authentic distribution against my own copy. Get it while you can: Direct Download. Another: Direct Download found in this page. If direct is not working, goto the page because it might be a dynamic download URL. RegDatXP for NT/2K/XP/Vista/7 ... I found, downloaded and compared a copy of RegDatXP v4.3 (2010-02-09), Verified as authentic distribution against my own copy. Get it while you can: Direct Download found in this page. If direct is not working, goto the page because it might be a dynamic download URL. REGDAT STATUS: both of the help files talk about Shareware/Nagware registration with some features otherwise disabled. The problem is, Henry Ulbrich's website is definitely offline and you get a parking space. What is odd is that he updated RegDatXP for Windows 7 in 2010. It would be worth trying to determine where he is in order to find out how to get his utilities fully enabled. EDIT: Rewrote the post after locating the files. Download them before they disappear!

... Gizmodo and NeoWin suggest Apple might get angry ... Perhaps Apple patented icons sitting on a horizontal surface? EDIT: typo, updated image URL, and again

I was wondering when there would be some painful stories about this. Another possible black eye for Windows 8 from problems in their quasi-RAID implementation called Storage Spaces. Current Storage Spaces method flawed and buggy ( social.technet.microsoft 2012-08-18 ) Windows 8 Storage Spaces: Can you trust it with your delicates? ( UK Register 2012-08-28 ) I wonder if anyone else had doubts about this. I admit I never like this idea, it is too risky and unnecessary. IMHO it's all about kitchen-sink feature padding to find ways to sell this turd. For all practical purposes It's software RAID ( and I thought we got passed that ). I'm not surprised at the reported problems because software RAID is likely to fail eventually in most circumstances because so many other intensive chores are thrown at the CPU already. But being tied to Windows compounds it because what happens if the OS itself gets malware, or deactivates, or just goes FUBAR. I'm not even surprised at the developers of it at Microsoft because they really have little concern for customer's data, they're just getting their project finished on time. But what gets me is that somewhere up the chain of command there isn't an adult to NOT greenlight such a risky idea that will inevitably create angry customers, possibly big name server users, that could possibly lead to a very large support ticket to handle. Storage Spaces, just like Metro itself are perfect candidates for add-in modules or even entirely separate products. Integrating however, means lots of people will be using it, increasing the statistical probability of fail. I know I would try to avoid needless exposure. These days if you get a decent motherboard you can easily get hardware RAID built-in. If you don't have it built-in, adding a dedicated card is cheap and relatively simple. Either should easily handle proper RAID or JBOD and similar hybrids. Enterprise customers of course already know exactly what hardware they need to buy if they haven't got it already. So you gotta wonder just who were they thinking of marketing it to? I really hope they don't plan to court possible new Enterprise level customers with salesman nonsense like "with Windows 8 you can throw out all that 3rd party RAID hardware and save money!". If that situation occurred it would be difficult to decide who to laugh at more, Microsoft who sold it to them, or the upset client with a data catastrophe on their hands who thought they could manage their data on the cheap. I suppose that the idea of connecting all these different hardware interfaces (SCSI, IDE, SATA, USB ...) together in a virtual RAID array was their unique selling point, but for the love of God, using such a mixture of massively different bandwidths, lag times and error checking was thought to be a great idea? For real? Well, yes they did actually ... Virtualizing storage for scale, resiliency, and efficiency ( Official Destroying Windows Blog 2012-01-05 ) ~sigh~ I must be too old school to understand. Microsoft Windows 8 : NAME UNKNOWN ( We're still working on it )

Seemingly all, what is different may be the result of the check (i.e. a warning or "nothing"). This is logical, *everything* is checked and what passes the check is considered "kosher", whilst everything that *somehow* doesn't pass the check triggers the warning. Thanks. Well that would be yet another serious misstep by Microsoft ( trying to track all installs and not just Metro ). It's really come full circle now with Windows 8 repeating every Vista mistake and then some (remember the privacy issue with Vista concerned DRM and hardware content protected path). It is frankly incredible. Further complicating it, many other sites are still describing this as software installed from the internet ( which I cannot make sense out of, is it through a browser? ). Others say it is only about signed files. Others say it is everything you install. Others say it is just Metro. No matter what this turns out to be, both Smartscreen and the Telemetry from CEIP will need to be watched closely because between the available official information and our suspicions, it looks like 'privacy' is expendable. It doesn't help matters that there are those fanboys again swallowing everything without thinking! For another good laugh there was this thread at NeoWin announcing the SmartScreen story ... Windows 8 tells Microsoft about everything you install ( NeoWin 2012-08-24 ) The first comment was great: "In before someone spins this as a good thing.". And right on cue it is immediately followed by a parade of fanboys proving him correct. Anyway I wonder what they could really do about completely local setup files, using unsigned Inno or NSIS installers where the EXE is renamed to something else like NOTEPAD.EXE and only copies files and imports registry settings without ever using the UNINSTALL keys. BTW, on one of the other sites there was a link to an old article when the DP came out showing a quick step-by-step guide to disabling SmartScreen ... How to Turn Off or Disable the SmartScreen Filter In Windows 8 ( howtogeek 2011-11-07 )

I've had this exact problem mentioned by several customers. Of course it never happens while I have their computer, only when they take it home. My guess is that it is some screensaver or other application that interfaces with Power options. I've gotten into the habit of setting the power options and then saving it as a custom power profile (with their name in it) so that they can simply select it when the problem occurs. This quickly reinstates all the saved options at once (they do not need to poke around all the sub-choices).