SuperSite Blog

Lots of angry Fiji beta testers.

>>Based on feedback I’ve gotten from testers, I think Microsoft Media Center Most Valuable Professional Chris Lanier’s comments that “Fiji will go down in history as one of the worst coordinated projects to come out of Microsoft in a long time,” ring true.<<

i cant believe this!

Media Centre is going to wither away and die if it stays as it is. Here we are in the age of High-Def crystal clear 1080p television with advance interactive services and Media Centre cant deliver anything other than a bog standard service.

I was looking forward to Windows Media Center TV Pack, hoping that it would give support for BBC HD and ITV HD. Looks like thats not gonna happen now.

The above is the money quote from the Foley article.

Appears they are trying to release the more valueable features with Win7 - its just too bad that these beta features might be ready now and they are just holding on to them.

Ocean's 4th grade trolling aside, when can we expect the huddled masses of Apple users to show up and rip Paul for being so negative on Fiji?

I mean they do hate Paul's negativity in general or just when it on an Apple product?

Wow. Now that's a story. Microsoft releases OEM update to Media Center to add support for Japanese and European TV protocols. US users not impressed.

Um. Why would anyone care who isn't using one of these protocols?

Seriously, this sounds like a case of Mary Jo Foley playing up a project and then blaming Microsoft when it wasn't what she thought it was.

I had a running thread going with a Microsoft Lead Program Manager last year about all the guesses Mary Jo had about his project.

She'd heard that there was a project with a code name of "xyzzy" (not the real code name) and proceeded to write multiple articles over the next year telling her readers about what "xyzzy" was and how it was progressing.

She went through three totally different descriptions of "xyzzy" without once getting it right. (And still hasn't)

Note that the beta testers tested things that weren't in this release. Looks to me like what they tested hasn't shipped yet and what has shipped wasn't what they tested unless most of them were outside the US.

What the hell is Microsoft thinking? I actually took the liberty to write Microsoft about how disappointed I am in the Fiji project and that it should become a Vista Ultimate Extra. I sent it about 3 weeks ago. This is definitely poor execution by Redmond when this should have been a nobrainer.

Fiji should have been a update to WMC that included H.264 support, cablecard emulation, advanced DVR capabilities not currently featured, and the ability to access On Demand services. But no, unless we're buying a WMC-TV Pack computer, we'll never see the light of day. I'm absolutely puzzled by this.

Hopefully some shareholders will get Steve Ballmer on the horn and get some answers on this. Way to go Microsoft, you've justified more criticism.

subzero

There should be an update to WMC that includes H.264 and all the other features you describe. This is't it. And this shipping doesn't mean the other will or won't.

What's missing is that despite Mary Jo saying it was supposed to be some massive uber update to WMC, that isn't what shipped.

Did the descriptions of "Fiji" match this release? Clearly not.

Did Mary Jo get her code names wrong? Maybe.

Did Microsoft change what features were going it what releases? Maybe.

Does this release say anything pro or con about a future release with other features? Nope.

What shipped was a minor update to support some extra protocols that the international market wanted.

It's a lot like a Mac user complaining that the Mac Book Air wasn't the Tablet Mac they'd been hearing rumors about. Did it mean there is no Tablet Mac in development? No. Nor did it mean there was one. All it meant was that they'd been believing rumors that weren't from reliable sources and were disappointed that their sources guesswork wasn't reality.

Don't forget to post this story.

searchsecurity.techtarget.com/.../0,289142,sid14_gci1324395,00.html

Vista, useless.

btw: It's worth noting that despite Mary Jo Foley's headline of

"Microsoft (finally) speaks out on ‘Fiji’"

and Paul's headline of

"Microsoft confirms that Fiji is a joke"

the Microsoft statement never said that this was "Fiji".

So, what we really have is:

"Microsoft spokesperson confirms they're shipping a minor protocol update to OEMs"

Not much of a story when it's put that way.

@drylight

This was already discussed a lenght on Neowin.

www.neowin.net/.../vista39s-security-rendered-completely-useless-by-new-exploit

As far as anyone knows these guys have not given a senerio as to how this exploit can even occour without turning off every bit of protection Vista has as well as bveing totally careless as a PC user.

And here is a quote from the article:

"Dai Zovi stressed that the techniques Dowd and Sotirov use do not rely on specific vulnerabilities. As a result, he said, there may soon be similar techniques applied to other platforms or environments."

OSX, useless. Linux, useless.

All of us = Fooked, if you are not careful

Master3

That would be typical of these "perpetual motion" stories.

The last one got the same "Windows is doomed" headlines. Once the details came out (about week after the headlines-of-doom gave the "noted researcher" a lot of publicity) It turned out to be an effective technique at gaining Administrator level access - but only if you were already sitting at the machine you wanted to attack and logged on as Administrator!

Doh!

senerio = scenario  

bveing = being

Paying too much attention to the Olympics on the TV.

I'm not sure I would say it's a joke, but Microsoft is really, really missing an opportunity with Vista Media Center.  Where is the (official) Netflix movie streamer?  And why build one for Xbox but not VMC?  And why not have a common API for Xbox and Vista Media Center tool building, so what works on one will also work on the other?  How about an iTunes library connector?  How about a way to play Blu-Ray discs inside VMC, without relying on buggy and kludgy software from third-parties?  How about official codec support for DivX/XviD, H.264, etc.?

I understand that third parties "should" build this stuff, but it's in Microsoft's interest to push this stuff along.  Microsoft's commitment to VMC seems mild at best.

I've missed something here, and I'm not ashamed to admit it.

Would someone explain to me what exactly VMC needs?

It does everything I need of it at the moment, it records digital TV, plays it back, plays DVDs, music, videos, photos, even HD discs (HD-DVD or BluRay)

It will even play ball with british digital sky systems, provided you have a suitable viewing card and contract.

It will even play back DRM encrypted downloaded tv content from the BBC or Channel4 (however, it would be nice if these broadcasters wrote a media center front end for their services, but still...)

And this, apparently from the (many sources have told me) crippled UK version. The only thing I've noticed is missing is the "my movies" browser.

Now what, exactly, is needed. I'm not being arrogant, I just honestly don't know. What is a cable card? Why does your media center not play blu-ray discs?

Oh, and as for the supposed exploit? MikeGalos, there's every possibility that you're correct, and it's just another publicity claim, HOWEVER, there's also a chance, that it may be real.

So I'd say, don't be scared just yet, but don't not be concerned ;-)

(oh, and remember linux, unix, and osx fans, this could potentially affect all systems, but then again, potentially not)

I think that I agree with Mike and that this is probably not even Fiji...at least that is what I hope. I have been a fan of Media Center since it came out and am looking forward to microsoft "finishing" was they "started" with the Vista MC. Time will tell.

--tayme

Master3: "...when can we expect the huddled masses of Apple users to show up and rip Paul for being so negative on Fiji?"

Whatever. You all got Mike to defend MS against MJF's criticisms :)

I think Mike Galos is a paid MS plant.

Why? Because he runs circles around known Apple's volunteer shills?

He must be getting paid by MS.

I think Mike Galos is a paid MS plant.

Ocean.

Since you asked so nicely (and twice, at that, proving that a comment board must be trickier than I thought) I'll state for the record that I am not currently an employee of or otherwise paid by Microsoft for any purpose including wierd conspiracy theories you might have that commenting to the dozen or so people who read the comments here is something Microsoft thinks is worth subsidizing.

(Of course, I could have read that wrong, in which case, I also hereby state that I do not now nor have I ever lived in the state of Mississippi although I did spend a night in Jackson in, if I remember correctly, 1979. I also state that I am a member of Kingdom Animalia and not Kingdom Plantae. I think that answers the possible interpretations of the implied question but feel free to clarify if I missed one.)

Ocean,

I think your technique of boring this blogs readers to death with your recurring troll posts works far better for Microsoft than anything Mike or anyone else could argue in favor of them.

Me, when i think of Apple, one of the first thing coming to my mind are people like you, and that, i can tell you, is a very effective way to keep me from any switching thoughts.

"Seriously, this sounds like a case of Mary Jo Foley playing up a project and then blaming Microsoft when it wasn't what she thought it was."

It sounded to me like that too. Mary Jo Foley had been hyping up Fiji for a long, long time. Unlike Vista, Microsoft never made any promises about 'Fiji' so they're free to add/delete features as they wish because we had no official word on the initial feature set. (If this is actually Fiji, that is.)  

BTW, Mary Jo Foley has been hyping up Midori in a similar manner these days. This is an operating system that may or may not replace Windows 10 years from now. Who cares?

"(Of course, I could have read that wrong, in which case, I also hereby state that I do not now nor have I ever lived in the state of Mississippi although I did spend a night in Jackson in, if I remember correctly, 1979. I also state that I am a member of Kingdom Animalia and not Kingdom Plantae. I think that answers the possible interpretations of the implied question but feel free to clarify if I missed one.)"

:-) I was a little surprised at theMississipi reference at first. That was funny.

shark

re: Mississippi

Sometimes being thorough and precise helps cut confusion. And, sometimes, not so much :-)

Shark

And before Microsoft Research's project Midori was the darling of the hype set, it was their Singularity project.

If they ever go to the Microsoft Research site and actually see the hundreds of projects that are never intended to be products their heads might explode.

What they fail to realize is that MSR is a pure research lab. That's part of what attracts the top researches that work at their labs. The researchers are not expected to produce products and that isn't a factor in getting a project approved. Apparently funding research without a short term return on investment is a alien concept to a lot of writers these days. Luckily, it isn't to Microsoft.

Shark

To continue being thorough, there is no official MS plant.

There are, however:

An official MS tree (Magnolia)

An official MS flower (Magnolia)

An official MS wildflower (Tickseed)

I don't know whether one of these is what Ocean meant since I doubt any of them are paid. (Was he calling me a professional Magnolia?)

"To continue being thorough, there is no official MS plant."

Here's a list of all the plants that grow in MS:

http://tinyurl.com/6f6deg

None of them is official, of course.

Never owned an Apple product, other than a iPod.  I like XP.

>>I'll state for the record that I am not currently an employee of or otherwise paid by Microsoft<<

No, I'd bet its some shadowy company MS hires.

Vista's security has been thoroughly broken.

>>It’ll be interesting to see how Microsoft spins this. The paper has huge implications and fixing these issues is going to be tricky. Given how long we can expect Vista to be around I expect that Microsoft will try to fix things in a future service pack. These issues are going to haunt Windows for years.<<

blogs.zdnet.com/hardware

www.neowin.net/.../vista39s-security-rendered-completely-useless-by-new-exploit

>>While this may seem like any standard security hole, other researchers say that the work is a major breakthrough and there is very little that Microsoft can do to fix the problems. These attacks work differently than other security exploits, as they aren't based on any new Windows vulnerabilities, but instead take advantage of the way Microsoft chose to guard Vista's fundamental architecture. According to Dino Dai Zovi, a popular security researcher, "the genius of this is that it's completely reusable. They have attacks that let them load chosen content to a chosen location with chosen permissions. That's completely game over."

According to Microsoft, many of the defenses added to Windows Vista (and Windows Server 2008) were added to stop all host-based attacks. For example, ASLR is meant to stop attackers from predicting key memory addresses by randomly moving a process' stack, heap and libraries. While this technique is very useful against memory corruption attacks, it would be rendered useless against Dowd and Sotirov's new method. "This stuff just takes a knife to a large part of the security mesh Microsoft built into Vista," said Dai Zovi to SearchSecurity.com. "If you think about the fact that .NET loads DLLs into the browser itself and then Microsoft assumes they're safe because they're .NET objects, you see that Microsoft didn't think about the idea that these could be used as stepping stones for other attacks. This is a real tour de force."<<

Paul is it too much to ask to block this idiots IP address?

Not only is he unable to stay on topic, he is just being a troll.

Ocean is a true troll.  Not only does he post off topic things, he never offers any of his own commentary.  This board needs an ignore feature.

I think your avatar is is subliminal trolling, Admin.

"Ocean's 4th grade trolling aside, when can we expect the huddled masses of Apple users to show up and rip Paul for being so negative on Fiji?

I mean they do hate Paul's negativity in general or just when it on an Apple product?"

I actually thought I'd write a comment about how the tone of these posts is a bit annoying. The stronger opinions you have across the board, the stupider you generally are.

Being critical and being negative are two different things. I hate negativity :)

"Me, when i think of Apple, one of the first thing coming to my mind are people like you, and that, i can tell you, is a very effective way to keep me from any switching thoughts."

And he's not even a Mac user. Go figure.

Why does EVERY thread here have to devolve into an Apple vs. Microsoft thing?  Here's an idea: Let's talk about the actual blog post.    

Pingback from  MicroTechXP  &raquo; Blog Archive   &raquo; Microsoft confirms that Fiji is a joke

BrightrevCarl

On a positive note, none of the Apple Advocates have changed the subject on any of today's 3 topics. Maybe it's a religious thing and those who worship Steve Jobs don't troll on Sundays.