It's OK, I guess.

One issue I have with it is that I like to disable real-time scanning with any AV software I use, because it makes file management rather sluggish, particularly if I'm working in a folder containing a lot of executables. Before trying MSE I've been using AVG Free with the real-time scanning turned off, which works really well. If I download something new and I'm suspicious, I simply scan it manually via a right-click and scan in Explorer. Plus, I can tell AVG to ignore the fact I've turned the real-time scanning off and it won't bug me or complain about the fact. With MSE, if you disable real-time scanning, the tray icon goes read, and in Windows 7 you'll be prompted by the action center that it's disabled, but unlike AVG, I can't find any way to tell it that I know what I'm doing, and to trust my judgement.

Real-time scanning is a pain in the ass. It's necessary if you don't have any discipline when using a Windows machine, but if you do, you should be able to disable it without the AV software treating you like an idiot.

I'm guessing Microsoft Security Essentials is a close cousin to Windows Defender code which would explain a lot.

According to the Ars Technica link in the summary, MSE is a superset of Windows Defender, to the point where the MSE installer will disable Windows Defender completely if detected.

As for the single core issue, quite possible. I noticed for example that Vista's Windows automatic update detection check utilized 100% CPU of my (then) single-core machine for several seconds, affecting performance considerably. But when I moved to a dual-core, the effect was completely unnoticeable. Seems as if single-core is no longer considered when testing software performance and impact on the rest of the system.

AppLocker WILL make it more difficult to run unauthorised apps, even if they're distributed/run via USB. It won't block things entirely but just like every security measure, it will make things more difficult, and that's all you should be able to expect. Give Microsoft some credit - I'd love to get a hold of one of these netbooks.

there's nothing wrong with Hyper-V. It's going to what my company will be using to run multiple VMs as it's integrated into Windows 2008 and works seamlessly. Sure there's alternatives, but the company is also a Microsoft shop, so I guess I have to learn about it too.

Do they have to block you from purchasing it or not?

I'm not sure if the law has been ammended in Australia yet regarding digital purchases, but I bet Valve would prefer to err on the side of caution and not sell to us Aussies right now, just in case.

or as the congnoscenti call it, "Vista SP2".

Which is great fun to read because Vista already HAS a Service Pack 2

When the trails can't even base their flames around information that makes sense, you know they're idiots.

With all due respect, that's just your opinion.

How so? The Internet is full of tons of shit, but there's good stuff to be found within it. Just like deviantART. Or YouTube. If you're incapable of finding quality content, that's more a reflection of your search parameters.

Just close the fucking website, it's a worthless piece of shit anyway if it puts ads first and content later.

deviantART once had a Flash add which utilised 100% of my CPU, and since it was at the time a single-core CPU, I was barely able to bring up the Task Manager to kill it. Interestingly enough, it was that experience which pushed me to using Adblock Plus.

Point is, deviantART is hardly a worthless piece of shit. Sometimes they just made bad choices about what ads to use. Generalizations are bad, m'kay?

Unfortunately, Vista's got BSoDs again. [tomshardware.com]

It's not obsolete as you thought it was. You should be careful about making remarks about IE8 for the same reasons.

From XP onwards, BSODs will generally occur due to damaged/poorly-coded drivers or problematic hardware. I won't argue with you - BSODs are still around, but they're NOT as frequent as the Win 95/98 days. There are still a lot of people who joke about it as if it's a common problem, which it isn't.

IE8 in Vista/Windows 7 runs in a sandbox. Firefox doesn't. I'm not going to immediately say that IE8 is now more secure than FF, but I do believe that the security issues of IE6 aren't relevant anymore with the latest versions of IE.

The joke about IE being insecure is going to become as obsolete as the BSOD jokes, although I expect it to still be trotted out at Slashdot for years to come.

Seriously though, how can you browse the web *without* adblock? I've shoulder surfed people doing it, and I'd rather eat my own hand.

You can't have a problem when you don't know any better.

Hard as it may be to imagine, 'free' is not always the primary selling point to open source software.

Why is it hard to imagine? People will pay money for something if it saves them time, or is simply more pleasant to use. It's software after all - free isn't the best drawcard if the software is crap to begin with, and goodness-knows there's a ton of crap open source software out there.

I have an external HDD I use mainly for backups, but also occasionally for data transfer between computers. I had the same issue - I wanted the backups (which were basically just cp's of my Linux data partition) to retain permissions and ownership so that if I had to copy my entire backup back to my computer, everything would be retained, but at the same time I wanted to use the drive elsewhere on non-Linux machines.

I used gparted to create two primary partitions - an EXT3 partition, and an NTFS partition. Linux backups would be sent to the EXT3 partition, and anything I wanted to share or transfer between machines would go on the NTFS partition. If I knew I wanted to share content already on the EXT3 partition, I'd just copy it to the NTFS as well. Seems to work.

Now this is the Apple way of committing a robbery! I bet if Microsoft had tried to rob the place, they would have just smashed a Hummer through the front door, then drive off without taking anything.

More research into developing the perfect game

Damnit, that's suppose to say "More research into developing the perfect DRM".

Where's my coffee?