Microsoft thread

[Nathan]

Cygwin update - I have Virtualbox running on my old souped-up laptop, with an ssh server and I got the port opened so not only can I ssh into my guest OS, I can ssh in from other machines on my network as well. So I'm building a mini cluster with all the machines I have lying around and I run all kinds of crap and play music off my other machine and use my netbook like an Xterminal. This pretty much kicks ass and really expands my productivity.

Question - how I do I keep my machines INACESSIBLE from the outside - does the ISP close the SSH port by default? Do I need to go into my router setup? Does windows 7 firewall handle that?

One more problem with windows 7 starter is that you can't move the taskbar

Also OneNote7 is so useful and totally replaces Acrobat professional just as a side usage.

Check out ShieldsUP!.  https://www.grc.com/x/ne.dll?bh0bkyd2

You can do a scan on the first 1056 ports, a specific port, or the most common ports to see if they are stealthed, closed, or open.  My home computers show all of them stealthed, even when I WANTED to have port 22 open on one machine to SSH into from work.

[PANatsFan]

Check out ShieldsUP!.  https://www.grc.com/x/ne.dll?bh0bkyd2

You can do a scan on the first 1056 ports, a specific port, or the most common ports to see if they are stealthed, closed, or open.  My home computers show all of them stealthed, even when I WANTED to have port 22 open on one machine to SSH into from work.

I tried a good old fashioned ssh and it didn't work, so I'm happy for now. Gotta leave for the game soon.

[PANatsFan]

Sounds like you've got a pretty good thing going, seems you've answered your own question.  I mean, unless you absolutely have to have Aero Glass

Ugh, just trying to change the background to a baby picture (background is unchangable in starter) I installed a souped up version of WindowBlinds called MyColors that broke the default windows them and made the toolbar look awful.

However, thing seem to actually be running faster under their theme-on-top of a theme, and it loks better than Starter Default, so I'm gonna just ignore it for now.

[PC]

I don't know if this is the place for this but it's Microsoft-related because it's Windows-related...

I've been a Windows fanboy for years, (and I was a DOS fanboy before that...back in 1991 I was, simultaneously a DOS AND Windows fanboy!) but, until today, I never knew that a superscript was a valid character in a Windows file name.  

Since long file names were introduced ie Windows 95, I've never seen a superscript in a file name and it would never occur to me to add one because you can't get one directly from the keyboard.

[The Chief]

That's funny.  Definitely wouldn't have thought of that either.

[The Chief]

Yeah there's a chick voice now Does MSE stop you from visiting infected sites? The main page for Gilly's Craft Beer was infected, Avast saved my butt.

Update:  MSE stopped some kind of trojan on a site I visited last night, so "yes" to your question...  sort of - it didn't stop me from visiting the site or stop the page from loading, but it did catch the malware - which I thought was interesting considering the infected file was a firefox cache file (extensionless)

[PatsNats28]

Xbox = microsoft, so I'll ask here.

Have any of you guys faked an RROD? I did, and I'm hoping it works. I get two rings from overheating, so I just sent it in anyway... apparently Microsoft doesn't look too closely from what I've seen online, but I was curious about any personal experiences.

[PC]

7 market share (14.46%) has passed Vista's (14.34%) but both, combined, still trail XP (61.87).

http://www.desktopreview.com/default.asp?newsID=1179

This HAS to be corporate users' doing.  Consumers can't still be running the same XP install they've had for the past 3, 5, 7...10 years, can they?  How is this possible?  Considering I have a Technet subscription (and MSDN subscription on top of that!) and am a compulsive OS installer, I install Windows a dozen plus times a year.  Admittedly, I'm "unusual" but do these people just never reinstall their OS, continuing to use that XP install from years ago or are the installing XP over and over again?  

I'd find that even more interesting, someone who has the skill set to reinstall Windows but never upgrades their OS and keeps installing XP!

[Nathan]

Well, corporate users is a big part of that.  We just had our systems upgraded to XP from 2000 a few months ago.

Also, many people don't reinstall their OS.  And frankly, I don't think that it should be a requirement to reinstall an OS every year or whenever.

Many people still don't want to upgrade to 7 because either the backlash from hearing how "bad" Vista was, they don't want to buy an OS upgrade, and their system won't handle it.  I'd say a majority of users never install an OS.  They get what comes on their computer and stick with it until they buy a new computer.

I've got 2 people at work who just bought new computers because their old ones just got so slow, even after they went to a website that popped up that would fix it ( )

Now they want to wipe it before throwing it out.  I'm thinking of offering to do it for them if they let me keep the old machines, once I find out what they are.  I know one is from 2002 so it will be basically useless, but I don't know how old the other one is.

[The Chief]

I'd say a majority of users never install an OS.  They get what comes on their computer and stick with it until they buy a new computer.

This is exactly right.  Also - PC, why are you talking about re-installing OSes?  Those numbers aren't affected by reinstalls, they're measured (at least i'm pretty sure) by a combination of sales and web use.  It may actually be JUST web use.

But yes, XP share is largely corporate machines and old personal machines as the vast majority of users only "upgrade" their OS in the scenario Nathan mentioned.  Where I work, we just started supporting Windows 7 on new machine purchases last month.

[PANatsFan]

My netbook flipped out and the "snap" window feature in 7 went bananas and my screen was scrolling uncontrollably horizontally. Putting it to sleep and waking it up fixed the problem. Any ideas?

[PANatsFan]

I want to give a big sloppy kiss to whomever came up with OneNote - I don't know what I would do without it.