Windows 8 - Deeper Impressions

[JorgeA]

;;;;;; THIS WAS A POST LOST IN THE ROLLBACK ...

Thank you for reconstructing (or pasting back in) many of your original posts. It's amazing that you were able to more-or-less rebuild, from memory, some of the longer ones. Me, if i write something and then it goes *poof*, I can never reconstruct it as well as the first time -- the inspiration is gone. Second time around it comes off mechanical, warmed over.

--JorgeA

[JorgeA]

I'd bet dollars to doughnuts that somebody got fired over this one:

Open Secret About Google’s Surveillance Case No Longer Secret

The Justice Department recently won a court battle to keep an Internet company from talking about federal demands for user data, arguing that even disclosing the company’s name would damage national security.’

But then, after months of arguments, the department appears to have been foiled by its own redaction process, which left the name “Google” on one page that was posted Friday in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York.

Whoops!!

I'm no fan of Google, but if nothing else, this confirms that at least some tech companies are trying to combat this generalized official spying as well as they're permitted to. (That in itself is a sad statement on the state of things, like the role of defense lawyers in Soviet times who were basically limited to seeking a lighter sentence for their clients.)

--JorgeA

[CharlotteTheHarlot]

Windows 8 RTC Bug analyzed and fixed! ( Ocaholic 2013-08-22 )

HWBot now banning Windows 8 benchmarks from AMD as well ( NeoWin 2013-08-26 )

They mean "fixed" in the sense of "understood", NOT "corrected" because it has not been corrected at all. In fact I do not believe Microsoft has even acknowledged this mistake yet, they certainly have not gotten back to NeoWin who asked for comment. Ocaholic has identified the software and hardware timers that affect one another and how to create the situation(s) that lead to time errors.

The reason? Another website, Ocaholic, claims that their investigation of the bug showed it could be replicated on AMD chips if a person runs cmd as an admin and then pastes in the following command line, "bcdedit /set {current} useplatformclock No". However, the bug on AMD only affects the Windows 8 PC during its next boot. After that, the OS resets the "useplatformclock" choice back to "Yes". This apparently does not occur when used on a Windows 8 PC with an Intel processor.

Read through the article at Ocaholic ( there are multiple pages ) for testing results and a very thorough explanation. Here is their summary ...

Conclusion

• Windows 8 benchmarking results cannot be trusted since it is very easy to fool the RTC.
• AMD can be affected too.
• Windows 7 doesn't have this issue unless somebody know how to make the RTC use the same timer source as the QPC. In other words use the DMI as source.
• Windows 8 is the only one to blame here as the RTC is set to use the same timer source as the QPC and this one fails to use an external hardware timer source on Intel platforms and use the DMI frequency instead due to missing/faulty BCD parameter.
• To fix it: run cmd as admin and paste "bcdedit /set {current} useplatformclock Yes"

It looks like we can officially say that Windows 7 and Windows 8 have a significant architectural difference, with the latter breaking a core function in order to cater to mobile devices. That core function is the predictability and reliability of a constant realtime baseline and it was done by decoupling certain time routines from reality. Yes, it takes certain conditions to establish this disconnect but that is no excuse whatsoever, on the contrary it is the definition of an unreliable quasi-race condition illustrative of sloppy design and testing.

This operating system cannot be considered for any serious use, god forbid it ever sees the inside of NASA, the defense department, scientific lab, hospital, health-care or medical center.

[CharlotteTheHarlot]

;;;;;; THIS WAS A POST LOST IN THE ROLLBACK ...

Thank you for reconstructing (or pasting back in) many of your original posts. It's amazing that you were able to more-or-less rebuild, from memory, some of the longer ones. Me, if i write something and then it goes *poof*, I can never reconstruct it as well as the first time -- the inspiration is gone. Second time around it comes off mechanical, warmed over.

--JorgeA

Actually I had copies of most of them, it was just a couple where I mentioned "recreated from memory" that were missing completely. That was because I still forget to "save" the page from Opera after posting a quick shorter comment.

EDIT: I should add here a note to you ( Jorge ) that while fighting with this editor for that previous post upthread I noticed that it tries to embed YouTube videos when the URL is simply pasted as text into the comment! That kind makes my earlier post about using {media} tags a moot point.

In fact, it seems to do it even when changing HTTP to HxxP and H**P. We'll have to do a more thorough experiment of all the possibilities to see what this editor logic looks like. All I know is that it was a pain to NOT embed that link in that quote.

Edited August 26, 2013 by CharlotteTheHarlot

[CharlotteTheHarlot]

Time for another plug for this thread at Mini-Microsoft ...

Steve Ballmer is Going to Frickin' Retire From Microsoft! ( Mini-Microsoft 2013-08-23 )

Mini-Microsoft is back for another post after a 9 month hiatus since the Sinofsky firing ( see that important thread here here ).

Read through it for yourself ( 162 comments so far ) because it is very interesting. The comments are mostly from Softies and ex-Softies ( certainly a few more ex-Softies than in the past ). There's a lot to learn from the inside from mostly non-sycophantic non-MicroZealots.

One overwhelming common theme is that along with Ballmer, the majority seem to want the following people to leave with him and not be considered as his replacement ...

• Lisa Brummel
• Kevin Turner
• Julie Larson Green
• Terry Myerson

More than a few commenters are expecting a "coming purge" before Ballmer exits.

Also prominently mentioned is the infamous Stack Ranking review system, a real morale buster if there ever was one.

They are up to 275 comments in this thread now, the majority are probably from current Microsoft employees. As an outsider it is fascinating reading, both this thread after the Ballmer announcement and the previous one about Sinofsky's firing. Between the two of them there are 536 comments which help to put the larger issue of Microsoft itself into focus, rather than the smaller issue of Windows and other products.

There are many anecdotes that shine a light on the inner workings and toxic atmosphere at Baby Blue. Here's one example ...

O.k. here are my 3 favorite Microsoft "principle consultant" experiences:

1. I had this really brilliant L-62 dev who couldn't believe just how STUPID the "chief architects" (L-65 and up, really were). So, one day, one of them walked into our office and took great offense because we'd changed his slides ...

Without even blinking, he said "you can change the text all you want, but you can't change my pictures, because that's all people look at."

As he was trying to explain to the guy that the "pictures" came from the actual "data" ... I suddenly realized that this moron didn't actually know where charts came from, and I excused myself and waited in the hallway for the really great partner consultant who thought I had a really bad attitude problem, to come flying out, desperately in need of a drink.

It took 10 minutes. I took him out for a cup of coffee so no one saw him shaking, throwing things, and revisiting his whole opinion of Microsoft.

Seriously, that one wins - but not by much

2). And the same great dev marched off one day to to tell the lead architect that the product he was planning to use, just didn't work that way ...

And that one's just plain funny. The "Architect" (who I wouldn't hire to build a computer for a 5-year-old, looked really annoyed, pulled out a glossy marketing folder, pointed and said 'of course it does - IT SAYS SO, RIGHT HERE."

Right. Bill Gates would have just shot these people and put their heads on stakes around the castle.

and then there's #3 ... we all know that SMS, commonly known as "it's a mess" ... is a disaster. So, you've got to work with whatever else is out there ... and as I was pitching the argument to my boss, he actually said "well, if we don't use SMS, how do we get the data?"

Straight from the operating system like everyone else, you f* moron.

Holy F* crap. "Of Course it works that way, it says so right here" got replaced with "if we can't use SMS, then were do little counters come from? "

I can still crack up intelligent people up with "and where do little counters come from?" "

And that is why Microsoft needs to be just turned upside and shaken hard until all the chaff is gone.

I can tell you one thing. This looks like a repeat of what happened to IBM in the late 1980's to early 1990's which I personally witnessed weekly and even daily right inside two of their largest plants as a consultant. It is a pure form of the Peter Principle because once employees start clocking up years there is nowhere to go but middle management really, there just are not enough spots in upper positions to accommodate everyone. Consequently the large mass of humans making up the bottom 90% will fight mercilessly for those few slots and it is inevitable that backstabbing and butt kissing become their main weapons. Ironically, if I recall correctly IBM even had a nearly identical ranking system with 1-5 scoring. Good and bad managers were known by name, the resultant reviews directly corresponded to the manager's competency and integrity, so the morale of a department was directly related. It is hard to believe that a better system could not be developed in all these years since.

Either they will bring in new blood that will do what this and many other commenters are suggesting, that is, tear the system down, fire all the posers and start over, or they will follow IBM down the road to oblivion (*). What they did at Big Blue was massively hire overseas and layoff here at home, then they shifted more to cloud and services. The likelihood is probably a Baby Blue repeat.

(*) "Oblivion" is a relative term. In IBM's case, they still exist and are a huge corporation but the plants I mentioned are shells of their former selves, where they used to have tens of thousands at these sites and every single parking spot taken is now a ghost town. Most importantly, every single trace of the PC division is gone, sold off to a Chinese company called Lenovo, as if the 1980's PC boom never even existed! Project that result onto Microsoft and the equivalent is Windows ruined and then sold off to someone else.

One thing is for sure IMHO, the best thing that could have happened for everyone involved is for Microsoft to have been split up as ordered by the 2000-06-07 judgment, sending the Windows division off elsewhere, far away from the politics and the marketing knuckleheads up in Redmond. The result could have been a neutral Windows operating system that considers both "3rd parties" and Microsoft software -equally- as customers with no advantageous collaboration between Microsoft software and that operating system allowed. Look what we have now!

[TELVM]

... As an outsider it is fascinating reading ...

It is indeed .

[CharlotteTheHarlot]

Sprint quickly cuts prices of both of its new Windows Phone 8 devices ( NeoWin 2013-08-26 )

Possible sign of WP sales trouble ...

Microsoft finally got the third biggest wireless carrier in the US, Sprint, to start selling Windows Phone 8 devices for the first time earlier this summer after it abandoned the Windows Phone platform soon after it launched.

[...]

The price of the HTC 8XT, which became available in mid-July, is now free on Sprint with a two year contract ...

[...]

That's a pretty drastic move by Sprint, and it has to be a bit of a disappointment to Microsoft, which started promoting Sprint's return to the Windows Phone fold in January in CES 2013. It's more than possible that Sprint's initial sales of their first Windows Phone 8 products were much less than anticipated.

Ya think? Wait until the January 1 marketshare report to see what Android and iPhone holiday sales do to WP ( and Windows itself ). I don't think it will be pretty. Then you will have new management coming into Microsoft soon thereafter. Fanboys are going to be sweating every moment going forward waiting for the other shoe to drop, praying that their little MicroToys are not spectacularly canceled as has happened before. I almost feel sorry for these guys. Almost. But then I see them commenting in the next article and despise them all over again ...


Chinese Windows 8.1 RTM screenshots allegedly show new default wallpaper ( NeoWin 2013-08-26 )

Classic example of fanboy logic found in an argument between two MetroTards over the alleged new wallpaper and appearance of Windows 8.1 Blew ...

someone should get fired!!

wallpapers influence the appearance of on OS so much.

they should have thought about this just for a second! why not more classy, stylish with nice black/grey and less colors?! aren't the live tiles colorful enough?! now we look at a fisherprice toy...

I'm sorry, the fisherprice toy is Windows XP.

Wait, what! Windows XP has a theme that takes mere clicks to completely change! The interface is compartmentalized from the appearance. Your Playskool operating system is designed from the ground up to be a "Fisher-Price" toy.

Oh that just burns me up. And with such irony too. So I made a graphic ...

( Originals: 1, 2 )

[CharlotteTheHarlot]

A little more info on this ...

Windows 8 RTC Bug analyzed and fixed! ( Ocaholic 2013-08-22 )

HWBot now banning Windows 8 benchmarks from AMD as well ( NeoWin 2013-08-26 )

They mean "fixed" in the sense of "understood", NOT "corrected" because it has not been corrected at all. In fact I do not believe Microsoft has even acknowledged this mistake yet, they certainly have not gotten back to NeoWin who asked for comment. Ocaholic has identified the software and hardware timers that affect one another and how to create the situation(s) that lead to time errors.

The reason? Another website, Ocaholic, claims that their investigation of the bug showed it could be replicated on AMD chips if a person runs cmd as an admin and then pastes in the following command line, "bcdedit /set {current} useplatformclock No". However, the bug on AMD only affects the Windows 8 PC during its next boot. After that, the OS resets the "useplatformclock" choice back to "Yes". This apparently does not occur when used on a Windows 8 PC with an Intel processor.

Read through the article at Ocaholic ( there are multiple pages ) for testing results and a very thorough explanation. Here is their summary ...

Conclusion

• Windows 8 benchmarking results cannot be trusted since it is very easy to fool the RTC.
• AMD can be affected too.
• Windows 7 doesn't have this issue unless somebody know how to make the RTC use the same timer source as the QPC. In other words use the DMI as source.
• Windows 8 is the only one to blame here as the RTC is set to use the same timer source as the QPC and this one fails to use an external hardware timer source on Intel platforms and use the DMI frequency instead due to missing/faulty BCD parameter.
• To fix it: run cmd as admin and paste "bcdedit /set {current} useplatformclock Yes"

It looks like we can officially say that Windows 7 and Windows 8 have a significant architectural difference, with the latter breaking a core function in order to cater to mobile devices. That core function is the predictability and reliability of a constant realtime baseline and it was done by decoupling certain time routines from reality. Yes, it takes certain conditions to establish this disconnect but that is no excuse whatsoever, on the contrary it is the definition of an unreliable quasi-race condition illustrative of sloppy design and testing.

This operating system cannot be considered for any serious use, god forbid it ever sees the inside of NASA, the defense department, scientific lab, hospital, health-care or medical center.

Windows 8 overclock-related RTC bug isolated and fixed ( TechSpot 2013-08-26 )

A programmer of great reputation is on the case, Franck Delattre, author of CPU-Z and other highly regarded utilities.

Ocaholic's Christian Ney teamed up with CPU-Z author Franck Delattre to try and isolate the cause of the issue, using a utility that read four system timers (QPC, HPET, ACPI and the problematic RTC) in real time. At the default bus frequency of 100 MHz on an Intel-based system, each of the four clocks had the same readout, but when the bus frequency was adjusted down to 95 MHz from within Windows 8, the readout from the RTC and QPC clocks went off the rails.

Further exploration of the issue revealed that if you change the CPU frequency in the BIOS, the clocks are unaffected on boot-up, and although AMD systems are largely fine, the bug can cause issues in some circumstances. The team also confirmed that Windows 8 is the only operating system affected by the bug due to changes in the RTC's time sourcing methods.

Once again, the headline is incorrect as this issue is not "fixed", but merely "understood". The bug lies in Windows 8 and will remain there unless Microsoft undoes the damage they have introduced from their mobile-centric tunnel-vision mindset.

[FiveAcres]

Over on the Minismft thread, someone mentioned DEC. In the 90s, I worked at a (no longer existing) telecommunications company (M__) and helped support an application originally running on VMS. With much pain, we ported that application to a unix based system. Even as we did the port, we would never have guessed that DEC would crater so quickly. It was particularly painful because DEC had facilities here in Colorado Springs, and I knew people who worked for them. I also worked for a while at IBM, before the first voluntary RIFs (followed by involuntary RIFs), which is probably why I am fascinated by the current Microsoft story. I have personal experience of how fast large technological companies can go down the tubes.

Microsoft has a lot of cash on hand. My own guess is that Ballmer's departure is the board's response to financial underpinnings that are even worse than the most recent earnings report indicates. Cash on hand can be used to cover a lot of financial shortcomings. For a while, anyway, as Enron taught us.

[Formfiller]

Over on the Minismft thread, someone mentioned DEC. In the 90s, I worked at a (no longer existing) telecommunications company (M__)

You're free to tell company and product names here.

[Tripredacus]

I can't even imagine what the tech world would look like if Microsoft went away... Heck, the world by itself!

PS: Windows 8.1 is RTM today.

http://blogs.windows.com/windows/b/bloggingwindows/archive/2013/08/27/readying-windows-8-1-for-release.aspx

Edited August 27, 2013 by Tripredacus

[JorgeA]

Ballmer Departure From Microsoft Was More Sudden Than Portrayed by the Company

According to sources close to the situation, the departure of CEO Steve Ballmer from Microsoft last week was more sudden than was depicted by the company in its announcement that he would be retiring within the next year in a planned smooth transition.

It was neither planned nor as smooth as portrayed.

While the decision to go seems to have technically been Ballmer’s, interviews with dozens of people inside and outside the company, including many close to the situation, indicate that he had not aimed to leave this soon and especially after the recent restructuring of the company that he had intensely planned.

Instead, sources said Ballmer’s timeline had been moved up drastically — first by him and then the nine-member board, including his longtime partner and Microsoft co-founder and chairman Bill Gates — after all agreed that it was best if he left sooner than later.

More good reading at the link above!

--JorgeA

[Formfiller]

Redmond is one huge torture chamber or something:

http://www.businessinsider.com/meet-the-most-universally-hated-exec-at-microsoft-lisa-brummel-2012-7

Microsoft's Stack Ranking review process predetermines the number of good, bad and mediocre reviews the company gives to its employees.

Microsoft uses a 1 to 5 scale, with 1 being the best and dictates that 20% of employees get a 1, 20% get a 2, 40% get a 3, 13% get a 4, and 7% get a 5. Those people probably get fired, explained anonymous Microsoft blogger Mini-Microsoft in one of his many blog posts about it.

This turns teammates into competitors. No matter how well a team does, most of them will get a mediocre review and a few will be scapegoats. It also means the best people at the company don't want to work together because only one person can be the top ranked employee in his or her group.

..

Although Steve Ballmer is credited as the architect of the review process, when top HR manager, Lisa Brummel, took over in 2005, she promised to fix it. Instead she's instituted a series of tweaks that sometimes made it worse. This made Brummel "perhaps the most universally hated exec in the place," the employee said.

Employees who are in the lower rankings (3,4, and 5) effectively can't transfer to other departments within the company, the employee said. This is unfair because they might be struggling in one group, but would be able to flourish in another group. (Heck, they might not even be struggling, but someone has to get a 3, 4, or 5.)

Groups are also ranked against each other. Managers then have to fight amongst themselves to get resources for them.
There are two review seasons, meaning this process -- and the stress of it -- goes on almost all year long. It also means people are working with very short term goals in mind.

I have to admit, I respect MS employees more after reading all the horror stories about their terrible condition. Even something stinky like Windows 8 is an achievement given this environment.

[JorgeA]

I can't even imagine what the tech world would look like if Microsoft went away... Heck, the world by itself!

PS: Windows 8.1 is RTM today.

http://blogs.windows.com/windows/b/bloggingwindows/archive/2013/08/27/readying-windows-8-1-for-release.aspx

Yeah, that would be something, eh?

And yet, we survived IBM (they of IBM PC fame) disappearing for all intents and purposes from the individual-customer space.

--JorgeA

[FiveAcres]

Over on the Minismft thread, someone mentioned DEC. In the 90s, I worked at a (no longer existing) telecommunications company (M__)

You're free to tell company and product names here.

MCI. Pretty well known, at one point, before the Worldcom follies and Verizon bought up the remnants at the fire sale. Once upon a time, MCI was known as a Law Office with a Radio on top, but at one point was a real telecommunications company with a real business model. Worldcom, who unfortunately bought it, had a business model closely resembling a Ponzi scheme.

(edited to fix block quoting error.)

Edited August 27, 2013 by FiveAcres