Vista Lockup

Vista just locked up completely. No response from any program I had running, this was Task Manager, Firefox, and Windows Explorer. Thats it, task manager, showed about a 6% processor load, but I could not switch tabs in task manager when I tried it grayed out. It seems that the longer Vista has been installed the more problems it has.

I had to do a hard boot to restart.

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Vista Problems

Well something else is happing in Vista, not sure just what, the first system I noticed is that when I click on the Computer shortcut that should open windows explorer, the control panel opens instead. It also opens the control panel when I right click on the icon and try to open properties. When I click on the shortcut for the control panel I get and error message saying "The properties for this item are not available."

Microsofts Lobbyists against Google

Microsoft... is trying to stop Google from being able to acquire DoubleClick. In order to get support in blocking the deal, Microsoft apparently had a big PR firm try to put together one of these fake "coalitions" using the name "Initiative for Competitive Online Marketplaces"... which
appears to be designed solely to release reports critical of Google practices. The problem, though, is that the email the PR firm used to "recruit" members to join this group has leaked out and is getting press attention.
Again, there's nothing particularly new in all of this. There are countless such organizations, but it's rare to get the details on how one was brought together. In this case, the email being sent to potential participants urges them to complain about Google's practices to politicians, regulators and the media. Even though Microsoft put the group together, apparently the PR firm did not reveal that.

More Microsoft being Microsoft

Home » OSI Board Blog » esr's blog

Submitted by esr on Fri, 2007-08-31 03:25.
» My Resolve To Treat Microsoft Like Any Another License Submitter Is Being Sorely Tested.

But I find that my resolve is being sorely tested. Because Microsoft's behavior in the last few months with respect to OOXML has been egregious. They haven't stopped at pushing a "standard" that is divisive, technically bogus, and an obvious tool of monopoly lock-in; they have resorted to lying, ballot-stuffing, committee-packing, and outright bribery to ram it through the ISO standardization process in ways that violate ISO's own guidelines wholesale.

If Microsoft succeeds (which is beginning to look likely) they will have not merely damaged the prospects of open-source software, they will have ruined the good name of ISO by corrupting its people and processes. Because if OOXML, with all its huge flaws, really does pass, no one who has been conscious while this was going on is going to believe the process it passed through wasn't a charade bought and paid for by Microsoft marketing.

Unpatched IE Flaw Is Worse Than Expected

Unpatched IE Flaw Is Worse Than Expected: "By Larry Loeb
November 28, 2005
Last week was shortened by the Thanksgiving holiday, and it seemed the malware guys took it off as well. There was not much going on of recent origin, and the biggest blip on the security radar was the realization by the security community that an Internet Explorer problem first identified six months ago was a lot worse than it appeared.

The realization caused Secunia to issue a rare 'Extremely Critical' advisory. Once thought just to be a DoS vulnerability, it turns out that it also allows execution of arbitrary code.

Benjamin Tobias Franz figured out the original problem in March of this year, which can be summarized thusly: IE fails to correctly initialize the JavaScript 'Window()' function, when used in conjunction with a event. This means that Internet Explorer encounters an exception when trying to call a dereferenced 32-bit address located in ECX."

The Register First up and more seriously, a buffer overflow flaw has been unearthed involving Microsoft's implementation of Point-to-Point Tunnelling Protocol (PPTP), a Virtual Private Networking technology natively supported within Windows 2000 and Windows XP. PPTP support is an optional component in Windows NT 4.0, Windows 98, Windows 98SE, and Windows ME.

Ars Technica: The PC enthusiast's resource Posted 12/20/2001 - 3:37PM, by Caesar
This Washington Post story let the cat out of the bag: WinXP's Universal Plug 'n Play support contains a flaw that essentially allows malicious users to seize control of any unpatched XP system on the 'net. This flaw is also present in the Internet Connection Sharing client that can be installed in Win98 and WinME. In other words, everyone using a Microsoft OS should get the patch. From the story:
A Microsoft official acknowledged that the risk to consumers was unprecedented because the glitches allow hackers to seize control of all Windows XP operating system software without requiring a computer user to do anything except connect to the Internet.
There is no KB article yet, although Microsoft said that information will be available within 24 hours under KB article Q315000. Most egregious, in my view, is the fact that this bug was discovered five weeks ago, yet we're only learning about it now, yet not from Microsoft, but from the media. Also note that the patch has not appeared on WindowsUpdate yet, so you'll need to grab it and install it the old fashioned way. Update: I've just received a copy of the security bulletin that Microsoft sent out over e-mail. It contains much more in-depth information than is currently available elsewhere. I've posted it up here for those interested.