Microsoft Buys Tools Vendor Winternals

[ronjor]

Microsoft snaps up a highly-rated security and data recovery tools vendor, and adds a Windows kernel guru—who exposed Sony's rootkit debacle—to its roster of technical fellows.

-{ Quote: "Microsoft on July 18 announced that it has acquired Winternals Software, which provides security, recovery and management tools for enterprises as well as a respected collection of free Windows tools on the Sysinternals site.

The privately held, Austin-based company makes tools that assist in the recovery of damaged systems and lost data. Its new Protection Manager products provide greater control over privileges for users and applications than is standard in Windows.

Winternals founders Mark Russinovich and Bryce Cogswell have been well-known authors and commentators on Windows issues for many years. Russinovich will join Microsoft as a Technical Fellow in the Platforms and Services Division. Cogswell will join the Windows Component Platform Team as a Software Architect. The two will work from Microsoft headquarters in Redmond, Wash." }-
Story (http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1759,1990579,00.asp?)

[dog]

I won't say more than ... : Too Bad :(

More good guys bought by bad money ... with no benefit to the end-user >:(

[ThunderZ]

-{ Quote: "More good guys bought by bad money ... with no benefit to the end-user[/B][/I] >:(" }-

Have to agree 100%. But now-a-days it is how business is done. Wonder how this will effect Winternals law suit against Best Buy?

[zapjb]

Well thanks Mark Russinovich and Bryce Cogswell. You two made great contributions to the pc world.

This includes Sysinternals as well!
All that great freeware. Arggh!!
:'(

[Meriadoc]

Microsoft snaps up a highly-rated security and data recovery tools vendor, and adds a Windows kernel guru—who exposed Sony's rootkit debacle—to its roster of technical fellows.

:o
:( wonder how that affects the London hands-on

[WSFuser]

i hope sysinternals freeware isnt left to rot or anything. i rele like contig, process explorer and all the other great programs.

[ronjor]

Their site is overloaded at the moment. He does have a blog entry there.

[VikingStorm]

Perhaps Microsoft will make Winternals programs free...

[ERD Commander 2005 is one of the most useful tools I've ever used. Have a big problem that you can't get into safe-mode to use system restore? Use ERD Commander]

[Chubb]

Oh my god!!! :o :o :o Just don't want to see it happen, but it happened!!!

Anything falls into the hands of Microsoft will become buggy...

>:( >:( >:( :'( :'( :'(

[Lamehand]

The evil empire strikes again, geez, all this usefull tools ruined in one fell swoop.

[f3x]

I can help but having the same mixed reaction of joice / sadnes.

It's a great addition to MS team but made at a great price.
And not i'm not talking about any dollard spend by microsoft to do the acquisition.

[Chubb]

-{ Quote: "The evil empire strikes again, geez, all this usefull tools ruined in one fell swoop." }-

M$ will ruin these useful applications eventually...:'(

Let's pray that Winternals' products will enjoy a better life in the heaven :'(

[bktII]

-{ Quote: "Perhaps Microsoft will make Winternals programs free...
" }-

Of course they will .... one will just need to buy the premium version of Vista:)

bktII

[spm]

It's so comical the way you people react to news of this kind. You spend your lives whining about how bad MS's products are, and then whinge uncontrollably whenever they take steps to improve things. Get a life.

[ErikAlbert]

-{ Quote: "It's so comical the way you people react to news of this kind. You spend your lives whining about how bad MS's products are, and then whinge uncontrollably whenever they take steps to improve things. Get a life." }-
M$ improving things? M$ has nothing but mediocre softwares after so many years development. M$ lost its creativity completely and buys ideas from other companies. M$ isn't a software company anymore, it buys and sells software.
Microsoft = Microbank. :)

[bktII]

-{ Quote: "It's so comical the way you people react to news of this kind. You spend your lives whining about how bad MS's products are, and then whinge uncontrollably whenever they take steps to improve things. Get a life." }-

Just like they did with Giant AntiSpyware. This product was best in class before Microsoft bought it.

[spm]

-{ Quote: "Just like they did with Giant AntiSpyware. This product was best in class before Microsoft bought it." }-
An unfortunate choice of battleground ... Giant AntiSpyware was somewhat long in the tooth and subject to horrible shortcomings at the time MS bought Giant.

[bktII]

-{ Quote: "An unfortunate choice of battleground ... Giant AntiSpyware was somewhat long in the tooth and subject to horrible shortcomings at the time MS bought Giant." }-

Here is an example of their being "long in the tooth" and "subject to horrible shortcomings" as of October 2004:

http://spywarewarrior.com/asw-test-results-5.htm

Giant AntiSpyware: 111 out of 138 (No one else is even close)

[spm]

-{ Quote: "Here is an example of their being "long in the tooth" and "subject to horrible shortcomings" as of October 2004:

http://spywarewarrior.com/asw-test-results-5.htm

Giant AntiSpyware: 111 out of 138 (No one else is even close)" }-
October 2004??? Doesn't that tell you anything? What date is it now? How applicable do you really believe October 2004 testing procedures are to today's threats?

A hints (there are many others I could make, too) ... how well do you think Giant AntiSpyware performed in a multi-user Windows XP environment? Not in the labs, but in reality? How well do you think it would perform now (for instance, in a restricted user account)?

In any case, we could argue any specific issue until the cows come home. What is important is this...

Premise 1: You believe Mark Russinovich and Bryce Cogswell to be 'good guys' who have contributed a lot to the industry.

Premise 2: You believe they will make no positive impact on the quality of Microsoft's products, because they are not good enough.

Mmm. Solid logic, that.

[bktII]

This is a Giant AS pre-acquisition product comparison based on some actual testing and nothing more. By a reputable organization.

Your challenge is to find a current AS product comparison based on some actual testing conducted by a reputable organization that shows MS Windows Defender leading the field.

[f3x]

I wont comment on Giant as this is a sysinternals topic.
I'll just drop a word saying that many collection of all sysinternals tools are now available in torrent for those who fear of them being removed.

[Lamehand]

-{ Quote: "Premise 2: You believe they will make no positive impact on the quality of Microsoft's products, because they are not good enough.
" }-

It's not up to them to decide what's gonna be integrated in the software, microsoft is the company they work for, and they have their own policy, they are working for the boss now, and two man working for such a big company ain't gonna change it.
They can only try.

Lamehand

[spm]

-{ Quote: "It's not up to them to decide what's gonna be integrated in the software, microsoft is the company they work for, and they have their own policy, they are working for the boss now, and two man working for such a big company ain't gonna change it.
They can only try.

Lamehand" }-
Ah, so you don't believe in the capabilities of Mark Russonovich and Bryce Cogswell after all. Geez. Talk about trying to have it both ways.

[spm]

-{ Quote: "This is a Giant AS pre-acquisition product comparison based on some actual testing and nothing more. By a reputable organization." }-

Err, in Octover 2004? Then it is completely invalid now. Let me ask you again - what is the date now?

-{ Quote: "Your challenge is to find a current AS product comparison based on some actual testing conducted by a reputable organization that shows MS Windows Defender leading the field." }-

No, that is not my challenge at all. Apart from there being plenty of positive reviews about WD, the only valid challenge - since that is what you seem to want - would be for you to find a comparative review of Giant AS and WD. But hey, don't waste your time. Get back on topic. All you and others have done in this thread is to sling mud. It doesn't take much intelligence to do that, and such behaviour does you no favours.

[eyes-open]

-{ Quote: " Wonder how this will effect Winternals law suit against Best Buy?" }-


Co-incidentally that is now sorted:-

-{ Quote: "Winternals Software® is pleased to announce that it has reached an agreement to settle the copyright infringement lawsuit it filed in April against Best Buy and its subsidiary, Geek Squad. " }-

austin.dbusinessnews.com (http://austin.dbusinessnews.com/shownews.php?newsid=84561&type_news=latest)

[rdsu]

Very bad news... :-\ :(

[dallen]

-{ Quote: "Here is an example of their being "long in the tooth" and "subject to horrible shortcomings" as of October 2004:

http://spywarewarrior.com/asw-test-results-5.htm

Giant AntiSpyware: 111 out of 138 (No one else is even close)" }-
bktII,
I just noticed this thread, so I apologize for jumping back a little. You cannot be serious in citing this test as being credible. Leaving all dates aside, any test that rates Lavasoft's Ad-aware higher that Webroot's SpySweeper should raise a red flag. Even in Oct. of 2004 a test that arrived at that conclusion must be flawed.

[bktII]

Hi dallen,

The link to the AS testing serves no other purpose that to show the relative standing of the various AS products at that time, October, 2004, prior to Giant being acquired by Microsoft. With regard to the veracity of the test, here is my response:

1) The link http://www.spywarewarrior.com/rogue_anti-spyware.htm is used by the Wilders Security Forum to identify links to rogue sites that are not allowed to be posted at this forum. Here is a thread at Wilders where a link I posted was removed and an explanation was provided by one of the moderators:

http://www.wilderssecurity.com/showthread.php?t=128746&page=2

Thus, the Wilders forum, at least, has some respect for this ste.

2) This site is not a commercial enterprise and not subject to the criticisms of forum members of influence by advertisors, etc. like PC Magazine, PC World, etc. It is truly independent. Please note that this cannot mean that their assessment is technically valid, a different issue that I believe is somewhat addressed by 1) above.

3) A number of threads at this forum have lamented about Lavasoft's AS product's standing having fallen over the last few years. This also speaks highly of Webroot.

4) If you feel that the results of the AS product comparison I posted earlier is an anomaly, then I would like to see some evidence. I am happy to use a weight-of-evidence approach to this issue.

bktII

[spm]

-{ Quote: "The link to the AS testing serves no other purpose that to show the relative standing of the various AS products at that time, October, 2004, prior to Giant being acquired by Microsoft. With regard to the veracity of the test, here is my response..." }-
Yawn. With blind obstinance like that, it's no wonder you post as you do.

[dallen]

-{ Quote: "4) If you feel that the results of the AS product comparison I posted earlier is an anomaly, then I would like to see some evidence. I am happy to use a weight-of-evidence approach to this issue.

bktII" }-
bktII,
Sometimes the results speak for themselves. However, since you requested evidence of an anomaly consider this. After briefly reading over the manner in which the tests were conducted, a few things jumped out at me. Here is a brief explanation of potentially problematic modus operandi:

First,
"Two substitutions were made in the anti-spyware scanners used for the second group or round of tests."
Anyone with any research experience at all (which I have none) can identify this as a major mistake. In conducting research, one should strive to keep everything except for the independant variable constant. This unnecessary manipulation renders the test invalid resulting in false conclusions. I give credit only to the fact that the manipulation was disclosed.

Second,
Based on the explanation of the methodology used, it seem that a biased sample of spyware was used. This biased sample renders the conclusions invalid.

I have only quickly reviewed the authors methods and as a result have only identified some of the potential problems with this "test." I'm sure there are many more.

[bktII]

-{ Quote: "Apart from there being plenty of positive reviews about WD, the only valid challenge - since that is what you seem to want - would be for you to find a comparative review of Giant AS and WD. But hey, don't waste your time. Get back on topic. All you and others have done in this thread is to sling mud. It doesn't take much intelligence to do that, and such behaviour does you no favours." }-

I agree that there have been positive reviews of MS Windows Defender and that it is a decent product. My point is that Microsoft acquired Giant AS when it was the leading AS vendor (Microsoft is generally very smart about their acquisitions) and have turned it into a mediocre, but certainly usable, product. The current reviews show Windows Defender lagging behind Webroot Spy Sweeper, etc. If you don't agree, fine, but provide some links to current AS reviews that show Windows Defender LEADING the pack.

-{ Quote: "... how well do you think Giant AntiSpyware performed in a multi-user Windows XP environment?" }-

In October, 2004, Webroot Spy Sweeper lacked multi-user capabilities. Today, they have this capability. One can only speculate on Giant in this regard as they were acquired by Microsoft.

Slinging insults demeans your posts and just means that you cannot find any hard evidence to show that, today, Microsoft Windows Defender leads the field.

bktII

[spm]

bktII... You just don't get it do you? Only *you* seem to think this thread is about Giant AS, WD, or whatever. It is not, despite your attempts to make it so I can only presume you are employing this tactic to cover up the fact that your only 'contribution', if you can call it that, is to sling mud. It is not an intelligent thing to do. It is transparent, and it is pointless. At this point, I'll adhere to eyes-open's signature tag and bow out at this point.

[Bubba]

-{ Quote: "Only *you* seem to think this thread is about Giant AS, WD, or whatever" }-:isay:

Good or bad....this news could split off into numerous "whatever" directions which could include the ramifications this will have on products many of us have freely used for quite sometime. With that direction it is only inevitable that a companies track record be discussed and\or mentioned :blink:

Having said that....what I would like to see is a continued discussion that does fall into a reasonable area as it relates to this companies purchase without the further "get a life" or any other such personal attack type comments Please.

Bubba ;) :lurking:

[Howard Kaikow]

-{ Quote: ":isay:

Good or bad....this news could split off into numerous "whatever" directions which could include the ramifications this will have on products many of us have freely used for quite sometime. With that direction it is only inevitable that a companies track record be discussed and\or mentioned :blink:

Having said that....what I would like to see is a continued discussion that does fall into a reasonable area as it relates to this companies purchase without the further "get a life" or any other such personal attack type comments Please.

Bubba ;) :lurking:" }-

An immediate effect has been to make the sysinternals web site so busy, it is nearly impossible to get there.

Sure hope things calm down soon.

[Chubb]

-{ Quote: "An immediate effect has been to make the sysinternals web site so busy, it is nearly impossible to get there.

Sure hope things calm down soon." }-

I was able to get there after jammed for half and hour. ;D

[sosaiso]

Main site works, but clicking on other links to get to the software is slow. Really slow.

[ThunderZ]

-{ Quote: "Co-incidentally that is now sorted:- " }-



Thank You. Guess I have been to busy looking in other directions and missed that.

[Chubb]

-{ Quote: "Thank You. Guess I have been to busy looking in other directions and missed that." }-

Maybe just too many people (including me ;D ) are getting there to get the stuff and this makes the server overloaded... I just thought that M$ has killed the site when it was heavily conjested two hours ago.

[Howard Kaikow]

I managed to get to the forum.
Typed in a Reply.
But no response to Submit.
Could not post my words of wisdom!

[ronjor]

-{ Quote: "Russinovich will be named a technical fellow, the number-one technical position at Microsoft held by only an exalted few. In that role he will work in Microsoft's Core Operating Systems Division, and on other aspects of Windows.

For Russinovich it means that he will be "working on challenging projects that span the entire Windows product line and directly influence subsequent generations of the most important operating system on the plant." Meanwhile Cogswell will join the company as a software architect in the Windows Component Platform Team. " }-
Article (http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=44741)

[Bubba]

-{ Quote: "Russinovich will be named a technical fellow" }-In the Tech field....that's a little more important than some folks realize.

-{ Quote: "A "Fellow" (related to the word "fellowship") is one who typically defines his own job, goes where his interests take him, and is simply expected to sit around and be smart. They are not typically members of product teams, and have very broad portfolios.

These jobs are reserved for the brightest of the bright: their employers figure they are so smart that they will come up with that far-out idea that may turn into a surprise product someday.

In the technology ladder almost anywhere, about the only job better might be Chief Scientist." }-

[ronjor]

-{ Quote: "brightest of the bright" }-
He certainly fits that description. It's also good to know he won't be put in some mundane job.

I see the move as positive for Windows users.

[Mele20]

Anyone wanting to archive the sysinternals tools with the Microsoft EULA from yesterday can get the entire package from Steve Gibson's grc.test NG. Microsoft has changed the EULAs again today and now if you download the tools from Sysinternals, you have the right ONLY TO TEST the tools. Today's EULA is much more restrictive than yesterday's.

http://www.grc.com/x/news.exe?cmd=article&group=grc.test&item=30830&utag=

I don't think this will be there much longer so get it now.

Steve just removed the file. So, you will have to put up with the new, restrictive Microsoft EULA if you get it from Sysinternals. But Steve's file can stil be obtained using BitTorrent.

[Meriadoc]

Mark writes in his blog that the sysinternal tools will stay free:)

http://www.sysinternals.com/Blog/

-{ Quote: "I’m pleased to report that Microsoft’s number one priority is not only keeping the tools freely available, but preserving the Sysinternals community including the newsletter, the forums, and my blog" }-

-{ Quote: "While we’re still brainstorming how to make this successful in the long term, I’m pleased to announce the first step in the transition, which is the introduction of a new Sysinternals EULA, that I believe is even more permissive than the EULA in place before the Microsoft acquisition, since it allows for wider use of Sysinternals utilities within a company." }-

[nadirah]

Microsoft certainly is getting bigger and bigger and EVEN bigger again! They're so greedy it seems that they're gonna take in every expert left standing out there under the hot sun.

Certainly, IMO I do think Mark and Bryce can perform and work better without Microsoft.

Bill might have some ideas ready in his old backyard for the both of 'em.

[Longboard]

On Topic :D

Cant be bad for MS. Might be needing some help with Vista !! :)

Could be bad for us :(

There was always tremendous support at the forums there.

Any "hot topic" software glitch or OS problem always seemed to have a solution from Sysinternals and thier toolkit.

I hope that will continue: A "backdoor" into Windows OS.

Maybe some of the forum help there will end up spending some time here?

[johnclord]

-{ Quote: "Here is an example of their being "long in the tooth" and "subject to horrible shortcomings" as of October 2004:

http://spywarewarrior.com/asw-test-results-5.htm

Giant AntiSpyware: 111 out of 138 (No one else is even close)" }-
Just curious - the results shown at that link are two years old. How does Microsoft AntiSpyware compare with Webroot Spy Sweeper nowadays?

[dallen]

-{ Quote: "Just curious - the results shown at that link are two years old. How does Microsoft AntiSpyware compare with Webroot Spy Sweeper nowadays?" }-
Absolutely not. In my opinion, and I've ran both, Webroot Spy Sweeper is among the best AS in the industry. Microsoft AntiSpyware seems to be improving, but it is marginal, at best.