The Archives of The Evil Empire2000 March | ||
28 March: Beware Of The Office 2000 SR-1 Update What looked like a simple update has turned into a nightmare for many people, including our BugNet testers. This service release is big enough that we recommend that you NOT install it over the Internet. There are just too many places for problems to occur . . . and we think we experienced them all. To be fair to Microsoft, we did update a couple machines that didn't manifest any problems whatsoever. However, when ever we did see a problem, it usually took hours to fix. And if you experience a problem with SR-1 and you want to back it out, you'll be in for a long night of uninstalling/reinstalling Office 2000. And after doing all that, we still found SR-1 sufficiently ensconced, with little SR-1 droppings all over our system. 24 March: Microsoft offer considered inadequate Skeptical government lawyers consider an 11th-hour offer from Microsoft Corp. to settle its antitrust trial so inadequate in important areas that there were no immediate plans to resume negotiations in Chicago, people close to the case said Saturday. These sources did not rule out the possibility of talks resuming, and the government continued to evaluate the proposal by Microsoft to end the case before Tuesday, when the trial judge has threatened to announce his verdict. The government on Saturday again reviewed Microsoft's latest offer, which published reports said included promises to separate the company's Internet-browser software from its dominant Windows operating system. But there was no indication whether doing so would satisfy government negotiators now that Internet Explorer has eclipsed Netscape's Navigator and become the market's dominant Web browser. 22 March: Office 2k SR-1 makes registration with MS compulsory Compulsory registration for Microsoft Office is a reality, following the arrival of Service Release 1 (SR-1) for Office 2000 yesterday. As The Register reported earlier this year, SR-1 reincorporates the Registration Wizard that appeared during Office 2k beta, and if you haven't registered the product after 50 uses, it stops working. The Registration Wizard works by the customer using the Internet, email, phone, fax or post to provide a 16 character installation ID and the country they're registering in, after which the Microsoft Registration Center sends them back an eight character confirmation code. Mindful of previous ghastly privacy screw-ups, Microsoft says the Wizard "is designed to protect customer privacy through a simple and unobtrusive anonymous product registration process." 20 March: New York investigating Microsoft lobbyists Microsoft's lobbyists are being investigated by a state commission about a $2,399 dinner the company hosted for state legislators in New York City, the company confirmed. The guests included state assembly minority leader John Faso and his assembly members as well as staffers from New York City mayor Rudolph Giuliani's office. At issue is why the company provided the New York Temporary State Commission on Lobbying with an inaccurate list of attendees at the dinner Microsoft paid for at the Old Homestead steakhouse last November. 18 March: WebTV's 'non-virus' Although it prefers to call the trouble a "malicious code," WebTV has experienced its first virus. Parent company Microsoft is working on a patch of its service to counteract malicious programming code that overloads WebTV newsgroup discussions with fake postings. "Newsgroups are starting to flood with junk posts, and you can't post," said Brian Bock, editor-in-chief of Net4TV Voice. Bock said the virus -- a first for the closed, non-PC WebTV system -- is like the renowned PC virus Melissa. The similarity is that it self-replicates, he said. Microsoft was extremely reluctant to call the problem a virus. "It's not a virus," said Microsoft spokeswoman Claire Haggard. "There's never been a virus on WebTV." 18 March: Scientology in the machine A Microsoft spokesman called reports that the software maker has turned over its closely guarded Windows 2000 source code to the German government "just a rumor," but would not deny that the company has disclosed technical secrets in a probe of the operating system. The federal government is examining whether a Windows 2000 utility developed by a Scientologist would prohibit public agencies from installing the new operating system released last month. German law bars state and federal governments from doing business with a member of the Church of Scientology. The Federal Office of Security in Information Technology (BSI) is also looking into whether the tool in question -- DisKeeper, a disk fragmentation technology created by Glendale, California-based Executive Software -- poses a security threat to users. 16 March: Microsoft gives away Win2K code for free Microsoft faces something of a licensing issue in Spain, following the accidental free distribution of an estimated 100,000 copies of full, non time-limited Windows 2000. The code was cover-mounted by the Spanish edition of IDG's PC World, which we understand has had record-breaking sales for the month. 15 March: IE5 bug: HTML Code Can Cause 100% CPU Usage It seems that certain HTML code can cause Internet Explorer 5.0 on Windows NT to crash or consume all available CPU cycles until the offending process is terminated manually. In one instance, an email that contained the code caused Eudora Pro to consume 100% CPU when the email was opened. Non-NT versions of Internet Explorer were not tested for this vulnerability. 15 March: IE5 plus 128-bit logs Win2k users off, warns MS Microsoft has told IE Access Kit partners to freeze distribution of builds of IE5, following the discovery of a "serious problem" that stops Win2k users logging on to their machines. The gotcha relates to the installation of the 128-bit security patch for IE 5.0, 5.0a and 5.0b on Win2k, and is caused by "important security files" in a Win2k installation being overwritten by older ones. 15 March: Storm over MS bid to bounce MSCEs into Win2k Microsoft's current treatment of its MCSEs (certified systems engineers) shows just how fundamental are the problems faced by the company with Windows 2000. Microsoft is trying to pressure MCSEs who have taken the NT4 exam to take a combined Windows 2000 exam before they might otherwise choose to do so. The reasons for Microsoft's behaviour are pretty transparent: very few enterprises are prepared to risk their business by adopting Windows 2000 to soon. Memories of what happened to some prominent businesses that were early adopters of Windows NT are still sharp enough. 13 March: Beta testers question readiness of next Microsoft OS Although Microsoft says development of Windows Me is on track, some testers claim there are more bugs than usual in the latest beta versions of the company's next operating system for consumers. The development of the operating system has already had a tumultuous life at Microsoft. Company chairman and founder Bill Gates initially announced that Windows 98 would be the last DOS-based operating system, pledging all releases after the Windows 95 successor would be based on the Windows NT kernel, which is thought to be more secure, reliable and stable than DOS. The company quickly changed courses, however, and announced a series of DOS-based follow-ups to Windows 98: Windows 98, Second Edition, and Windows Me, code-named Millennium. 2 March: Microsoft uses, modifies, and sells free open source code In a move that company detractors said is another sign of its infamous 'Embrace, Extend, Extinguish' strategy, Microsoft has used an open Internet security standard in its Windows 2000 operating system and made modifications without openly documenting its changes. Microsoft has incorporated open standard Kerberos security, which keeps user passwords from being sent over a network where they can be sniffed and stolen, into Windows 2000, making its marquee operating system (OS) more competitive with Unix. 1 March: Microsoft snafu: passwords on free CD-ROM at CeBIT Visitors of Germany's CeBIT computer trade fair made an interesting discovery when they found that a free CD-ROM distributed to visitors at the Microsoft booth contained a file with internal memos, login information and passwords. It seems that the CD-ROM, which bore the title 'Microsoft CeBIT 2000 - Rundum informiert [the complete information]' contained information that was a bit too complete. NOTE: this article is in German. |
