Tag Archives | Microsoft

Ever had a problem when compiling a VFP project of “Not a table” or “Cannot compile.” I have, and wrote a short program demonstrating how to figure out Which One of the files was the culprit. (Microsoft has apparently added this feature to VFP 8, I haven’t tried that yet.) Barbara Peisch took my example and enhanced it for her conference session “But what does that MEAN?” last year, and Mike Lewis has added a bit of explanatory text and posted the program on his web site here. It’s nice when you see something you contribute getting used.

Ars Technica has an article, not unsuprisingly, critical of Microsoft, but warning of potential exploits. It seems the urgency to patch is exceeding the concern over the side-effects. “Microsoft RPC flaw, DirectX flaw inviting massive Windows attack” From Ars Technica

C|NET summarizes this week’s meeting between Microsoft and a series of financial analysts in a series of articles listed here. The impression I get is that Microsoft is starting to recognize that they are a large industry, and not a small, scrapy software developer, and trying to act grown up. This quote illustrates:

CEO Steve Ballmer will delegate much of the software giant’s day-to-day financial operations to seven executives who will serve as chief financial officers…

So, the beancounters are left in charge. What ever happened to the visionary leaders? I suspect they’ve all cashed out.

BI, and closely related techno-buzzterms data mining and online analytical processing, are fields with lots of promise, documented paybacks for some big customers, and an exciting market with too many vendors, too many products, too many promises and too many buzzterms. A shakeout is occurring, with Business Objects purchaing Crystal Decisions, Cognos announcing new products, Hyperion buying Brio, and, as that second link points out, a lot of possible contestants – Microsoft, Oracle, SAS, PeopleSoft – still waiting in the wings. Going to be an interesting show to watch…

MS03-29, MS03-30 and MS03-31 puts Microsoft one ahead of the rate of one per week for the year.

MS03-29 lists a “Moderate” problem with a normally un-exposed function that could lead to a denial of service attack on Windows NT 4.0 Server only. Read more at http://www.microsoft.com/technet/security/bulletin/ms03-029.asp

MS03-30 deals with a buffer overrun which could allow a malicious user to run code of their choice on your machine, from a malformed MIDI file, web page or HTML e-mail. Rated as “Critical” for all to patch. Read details at http://www.microsoft.com/technet/security/bulletin/MS03-030.asp.

Finally, MS03-31, described as an “Important” cumulative patch for SQL Server, also patches three new vulnerabilities for SQL Server 7.0, SQL Server 2000, as well as MSDE 1.0 and 2000. While the patches seem to indicate that an attacker must have local logon access to execute these exploits, it’s not clear if another executable the victim could be tricked into running might be able to exploit these. http://www.microsoft.com/technet/security/bulletin/MS03-031.asp has details.

As always, there is the danger with patching your system that the patch process could go wrong, crippling your machine, or that the patch might not work properly on your particular configuration, or that the patch fails to fix the problem. Use care in evaluating whether these patches are appropriate for you, and take precautions (backups, images or restore points) to minimize the effect of a patch gone bad.

Be careful out there.

Microsoft warns of critical Windows flaw. The software giant issues a patch for a security hole that could allow an attacker to take control of computers running any version of Windows except for Windows ME. [CNET News.com]

Microsoft to Award Stock, Not Options, to Employees. The announcement is the clearest sign yet that stock options have lost some of the cachet they held just a few years ago. By John Markoff and David Leonhardt. [New York Times: Technology]

Two articles, one from Reuters and one from Associated Press, claim the Mass AG’s office is looking into allegations of retaliatory action by Microsoft against an unnamed vendor. The SlashDot story: Massachusetts Probing Microsoft Settlement Gripes Links from Slashdot

From the Microsoft FAQ for Windows 2000 Service Pack Four:

Q. Are there new features in Windows 2000 SP4?

A. No. Customers have asked that service packs focus entirely on quality updates. Therefore, Windows 2000 SP4 does not include new features.

Q. Does Windows 2000 SP4 offer support for new devices?

A. Yes, Support for Wireless Protocol 802.1x and Support for USB 2.0 EHCI Host Controllers are included with Windows 2000 SP4.

The Washington Post reports

Microsoft Corp. is taking too long to alter how much it charges competitors for technology that is necessary for their products to work with the software giant’s systems, the Justice Department told a federal judge yesterday.