Vista - Wake up Mike Brannigan [MSFT] and smell the reality!

Au Contrare Mike--I think it's superlative form. And most of your collegues
have their email address available via a public right click anyway.

1) You all are maximally aloof, non-responsive, elitist, condescending,
arrogant, don't value feedback from your customers or those of us who help
your customers, and you hide all the time from the public. I just wanted
to reduce your hiding behind that Redmond campus facade from your
customers--the ones who pay your salary and buy your personal toys.

You all are the company that wanted to include in the negotiation of your
Halo movie contract with studios to fly MSFTies to the Halo premier after
demanding an unprecedented piece of the movie, when the movie companies
walked away from your demands:

http://www.themovieblog.com/archives...completed.html

seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/businesstechnology/2002329242_bizbriefs11.html

http://www.reallyscary.com/2005/08/h...07-release.asp

You all are the company who hired Ralph Reed the Jack Abramoff right hand
man to do your lobbyist bidding and defended it until Ballmer felt
compelled to fire Ralphie when it hit the media. Currently Jack Abramoff
has been singing so much ratting out Rove, Cheney, and ex-Special assistant
to the President Susan B. Ralston who got Abramoff into the West Wing 465
times in the space of one year and your lobbyist was into this

http://cnn.com/2006/WORLD/europe/09/...ref=sitesearch


and he was directly responsible for setting up female slavery and forced
prostitution in the Marianna Islands.

Check out the hits below in the Google Search--it would've been appropriate
for Brad Smith and the attorneys that work for him to check them out. It
would have saved you all embarrassment and prevented you from funding this
kind of activity by paying Reed several million in lobbying fees:

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q...rianas+islands

Try to sell us that before whoemever at Redmond hired Reed from VP General
Counsel's office Brad Smith or Nancy Anderson's posse in your legal office
that they were incapable of doing an MSN Search, a google or checking out
what Ralph Reed was into before they paid him $27,000 per month. I've put
considerable info on this topic on this group. It goes to integrity. and the
presumption that those of us who watch MSFT are stupid. I've seen an
analogous assertion on these type matters by the previous several years of
Congress and the Senate in our country right up to this minute with the
mornic nominations for federal judges during the lame duck Congress by Bush.
It's all about arrogance and the perception people are stupid.


2) During the entire run of the Beta since July 2005, MSFT spottings on the
Beta groups and participation was extremely rare as far as interaction over
functionality aside from administrative functions and announcements. There
needs to be a much larger forum where MSFT interacts with its customers.
Your platinum partner Dell has started one. I read a large number of MSDN
and Technet blogs but that's not what I mean here. I mean one for overall
MSFT policy particularly the two large issues I've singled out--recovery
media and support.

In person, your people are pleasant enough, and of course very high quality,
superbly trained and great presenters, but there are two topics that are
absolutely taboo for them to discuss:

1) Tech Support sub enterprise which is eggregiously poor and nothing like
your thought process when you look at a windows problem--or mine. I can put
you on a call anytime, anyplace and show you how ridiculous they are and how
terrible the English is at those Indian call centers. We're not talking
your collegues in Redmond who have Indian parents or may be Indian. We're
not talking the guy you sent from MSFT Research to head MSFT Research in
Indian--we're talking about people who know less Windows than my dog whose
MO is to tell your customers many of whom aren't sophisticated Windows users
to format the box when a large percentage of the problems you and I could
fix easily.

2) An absolute taboo subject at MSFT is the way you all arm twist and
pressure 300 OEM named partners--Dell has broken from this in Vista
according to their blog that I linked:

See for ref from a recent article on the Dell Blog:

Bloatware, Operating System Discs and Dell Software Support
http://www.direct2dell.com/one2one/a...0/17/3132.aspx

3) I can't require and wouldn't be grandiosely that crazy to think I could
require anyone to do anything particularly someone who works for a 65,000
person company who leads the US in outsourcing tech support to Convergys of
Ohio in Cinncinaiti which is not in Redmond, Washington but when I last
checked across the Ohio River from Convington, Kentucky north of a baseball
stadium outsources to call centers in India.

It does amuse me that one of the standard defenses is that MSFT is not
required to do this or that. They sure aren't , and people aren't required
to use or buy their software. I'm looking at a slide here titled "The
Windows Vista Opportunity" where MSFT has projected they will have according
to "industry forecasts" which are all over the map actually "> 475 million
running Vista in the first 24 months" and "an upgradable installed base of
>200 million PCs." The next 24 months will be interesting, but I think
this
is a grandiose prediction from what I can tell.

"All OEMs shipping preinstalled Windows are required to provide a
method of recovering the OS to "as shipped" on the device (this may or
may not be destructive to any data on the system). This may be in the
form of recovery CDs/DVDs, original OEM media or a on disk recovery
partition or a method to create one of these after the initial setup
of the system by the end user."

Yessir, Mr. Brannigan, and let me help a senior policy maker and longtime
employee at Redmond with this concept. I thought I drove it home with my
challenge to you, to members of the setup team, to your best and brightest
Windows mavens including Jim Allchin to break Vista or XP--I don't care
which except again a repair install or inplace upgrade has considerably more
clinical efficacy on the ground in XP than a Win RE Startup Repair in
Vista--and you all try to recover with what you just mention and I'll take a
genuine full fledge OS CD and I'll clean your clock every time.

Let's make this clear. In Hospitals in Seattle, including the complex where
the Gates Foundation is located, when people go into respiratory or cardiac
arrest or both, certain medications and equipment are needed to have the
maximal chance to recover them and this goes under the name of CPR among
others with various standardized protocols.

Analagously, when a Windows XP box breaks down the protocol is along the
lines of Chapter 28 of the Windows XP Pro Resource Kit--I've put hundreds of
directions to get this done on the Vista and XP groups over the last few
years--do a search--whether to help people recover XP or Vista with MSFT
sanctioned directions appropriate to each OS.

If in those hospitals, instead of the right concentration of epinepherine
and other medications you have tap water in some of the vials, bottles, and
syringes, you're not going to get those people back.

What you just cited are the equivalant of water in those epi bottles. What
you all don't want to admit, but I've gotten plenty of Softies to admit
privately from Redmond Washington campuses and other offices is that you all
pressure OEM named partners not to provide an OS CD. What you named almost
never works. So while it sounds appropriate for you to talk about the form
of recovery CDs/DVDs, original OEM media or a on disk recovery partition or
a method to create one of these after the initial setup
of the system by the end user" the problem is that when this takes the form
of a "recovery partition" or "non-destructive recovery discs" as HP calls
them they simply don't work. Again Mike, I want you to think epinepherine
and I want you to think water subbed for epi. The water won't get the
pressure up fast enough. You don't get the patient back with just water.
Likewise, the crap you're referring to is worthless greater than 99% of the
time, and it won't get the OS back.

I don't know what you've been doing with your time the last few years Mike,
but I've spent a lot of mine with your customers trying to recover their
non-bootable OS for a varitety of reasons that are software once hardware is
elminated from the equation and there are times when both sources are in
play. I have found that very very few of thes people who have plunked down
their hard earned money for boxes from your OEM named partners (300 of them
under the whip of Scottie di or Scott di Valerio have an XP CD or will have
a Vista DVD in their possession after having purchased an OEM pc from the
web or from a bricks and mortar store.

So what you have just proferred Mike as if it were an appropriate means of
recovery is absolutely worthless. I hope I'm clear. Short of the full code
on a full OS media, people aren't going to recover. As it is, there is an
additional monkey wrench thrown into Vista recovery and that is that again,
Win RE's methods don't work much of the time.

Please take my challenge and let's setup 10-20-30-50 MSFTies at Redmond or
wherever who have access to various media or partitions from OEM and I'll
take a genuine CD or DVD and let's see how your people function with "water
for recovery" and I function with epinepherine in my vials borrowing from a
medical CPR analogy.

I haven't seen anyone from Redmond MSFT game to take this challenge yet.

You wrote: "Sorry - I really don't see your point here. Your OEM will
provide a
recovery method as they are required to do for end users purchasing a
machine pre installed with Windows."

No, Mike. You pretend innocently not to see my point. I know you get it.
As far as me and an OEM (I'll probably build my next desktop so I don't have
to take the low end power supplies and junk that they often try to ship even
when you theoretically pick out your hardware) I can tell you how I handle
this, always have, and always will. I make it clear that I am onto the game
that Mr. DiValerio has played with your customers--the "tough luck sucka"
game--and I tell the sales person that they either send me an XP CD or a
Vista DVD at no extra charge or I'm not buying the box from them and they
can take their 1100% profitable markup and shove it and MSFT can take their
policy of denying customers a full fledged OS CD or DVD and shove it.

I am not sure what Mike Brannigan can't comprehend about anything less than
an OS CD (XP)or DVD (Vista) ***does not work*** to successfully perform a
repair isntall in XP or a Startup Repair or other Win RE modality in Vista.
I wouldn't be pile driving this point home to you, but I've participated in
close to 1000 fix no boot XP's over the past few years,and a lot of fix no
boot Vistas over the past year and a half and if you think I'm kidding about
this do a search for my name on the setup groups or the XP groups and see.
I want your customers to be able to recover. I'm not worried about myself.
I'm going to find a way to always have a full fledge XP CD or Vista DVD with
me at all times. I'm not going to be taken advantage of by a CPA
non-engineer di Valerio from MSFT that is paradoxically the titular head of
OEM System Builders and named partners with next to no training in software
and hardware.

And for a third time incase it isn't chiselling in for you when you say "
Your OEM will provide a recovery method" you are correct they will provide
one, but the only problem is unless it is a full fledged full code CD in XP
or DVD in Vista --it's not going to work, that is won't be successful, that
is won't have clinical efficacy (remember the epinepherine analogy in those
Seattle hospitals you depend on Mr. Brannigan). You left that part out.
The recovery methods no workee and they no workee almost every single time.

That was the point of a challenge. You and your people work with those
recovery methods you have so much confidence in; let me remove a few key
Windows bootstrap files and folders-- for example in the case of Win XP>Bios
finds a bootable disk>loads a program found at the MBR>MBR loads a program
called NTLDR into memory>NTLDR switches box to flat memory module>reads
BOOT.INI>before XP loads>NTLDR opens NTDETECT.com into memory which
performs a hdw test>then NTDETECT.com sends info back to NTLDR>NTLDR
attempts to load the version of XP you selected by finding NTOSKRNL file in
the System 32 folder>after the Kernel is loaded into memory>NTLDR passes
control of the boot process to the kernel and HAL.DLL>you know the drill.

This doesn't happen with those "cheap imitation for OS recovery discs or
partitions" you so blithely referennced Mike and therein lies the problem
and why you would fail trying to take me on with OS media using them and you
know it.

Refs would include some things along the lines of these:

Resources for troubleshooting startup problems in Windows XP
http://support.microsoft.com/default...b;en-us;308041

A description of the Safe Mode Boot options in Windows XP
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/315222/en-us


(BTW Mike most of your customers are ignorant of the fact they should try
all four options at F8--I exclude safe mode with VGA from this).

F8 options including the 3 safe modes (I'm omitting VGA for
this purpose) to try to system restore and I would use Last Known Good if
they don't work. I say 3 because sometimes one works when another will not.
If you use safe mode command, the command for system restore is:

%systemroot%\system32\restore\rstrui.exe

Repair Install
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/u...ps/doug92.mspx

This isn't going to happen with the worthless recovery discs and partitions
you just referenced almost all the time and you know it and if you don't
you've learned it now. Check with the Vista setup team because I know in
conversations with them they know there are problems and I can document
those conversations for you.

In the case of Vista, in addition to trying F8 Windows Advanced Options,
this comes to mind:

Screenshot: System Recovery Options (Lower Left Link)
http://blogs.itecn.net/photos/liuhui...4/500x375.aspx

Screenshot: (Click first option "Startup Repair"
http://www.leedesmond.com/images/img...SysRecOpt2.bmp

I'd be delighted to know what it is you don't understand about the statement
that those recovery discs and partitions you so readily reference don't work
you don't comprehend. I'd be glad to work with you until you do.

I want your customers covered Mike--they deserve no less for their $400 for
Vista Ultimate. Most of your Vista far and away will be sold via OEM named
partners preinstalled with no OS CD. Dell has said they will now provide
one but in the past you all leaned on them not to:

See for ref from a recent article on the Dell Blog:

Bloatware, Operating System Discs and Dell Software Support
http://www.direct2dell.com/one2one/a...0/17/3132.aspx

As to the no excuse failure of all the resources at Redmond to fix device
manager in over 11 years, I can comment. It's indefensible and eggregiously
lazy and sloppy. It doesn't even rate a gentleman's "C".

"Why was there such a global systemic tin ear as to many many
components of Vista that TBTs spelled out for various members of the
Redmond Vista teams that were ignored repeatedly?"

You typed to this:
"This section above does not make sense. Please reiterate"

It means

We submitted a large number of bugs during the Beta to different Vista teams
and developers and they weren't fixed when Vista RTM'd on key issues.
You'll see them play out in the next few months here and in support
channels.

"The figures for satisfied customer using Microsoft Product Support
Services and those of the Premier Support and other programs do not
back up your assertion."

I can tell you as someone who frequently fixes and cleans up the messes your
Convergys of Ohio Indian contractors make or leave with the support calls my
experience backs up my assertion in spades. And I often call to test these
turkeys with scenarios and listen to their badly broken English as they say
"OK" to anything you tell them and then like a fund challenged inner city
hospital dental clinic in Seattle or any big city in your country they want
to pull the teeth/aka format the box when it can be fixed easily.

Tell them you are in Windows and your user account is gone and you'll see
they know nothing about a non-deletable user account available to recover
this in safe mode.

These people aren't anything like the quality of enterprise support provided
by MSFT. I do understand that if you have an account with 12000 boxes from a
large company that kind of investment and expenditure rates top notched
cattering and collaberation. I've had people at your campuses tell me the
exciting thing is often that the companies working in collaberation with
MSFT will come up with solutions they didn't think were possible previously.

But your customers simply deserve much better PSS, and because they don't
get it, those of us who help in these groups redouble our efforts with no
thanks whatsoever from MSFT. Our reward is fixing these people--like going
into the areas the Gates' have worked so hard on with their foundation in
countries where there isn't medical care to eliminate chronic diseases It's
going in where MSFT doesn't provide adequate support--that's my analogy.

They deserve nothing less nothing less did I say nothing less in English
Mike--does this translate into Redmonese than a full fledge full coded XP or
Vista OS on media.

Best regards,

CH





"Mike Brannigan" <Mike.Brannigan@localhost> wrote in message
news:O6O4Wd2CHHA.1012@TK2MSFTNGP04.phx.gbl...
> "Chad Harris" <Vista RTM is really Beta 1.net> wrote in message
> news:%23KI5eP1CHHA.3660@TK2MSFTNGP02.phx.gbl...
>> Yo Mike Brannigan--
>>
>> BTW anyone wanting to reach Mr. Brannigan can do so at
>> mikebran@microsoft.com
>>
>
> Chad,
>
> Firstly the posting of Microsoft employee e-mail addresses in a public
> newsgroup is just poor behaviour and counter productive.
> Secondly that address is no longer active anyway - but your staggering
> lack of tact and protocol is duly noted.
>
>
>> Good to see you slumming in here. Again I can count the number of softies
>> that have been in the pubic groups on the fingers of one hand once or
>> twice--Darrell Gorter, Jill Zoeller and that's about it. Corey Snow and
>> Nick White once when their names were invoked.
>>
>
> Microsoft employees are not required to participate in these newsgroups as
> they are Peer to Peer community. The only officially monitored and
> responded to groups are under the managed newsgroups of MSDN and TechNet.
>
>> Jill's blog is excellent but neither she nor anyone else has lifted a
>> finger to put comprehensive articles on Technet or MSDN or any other
>> Vista sites--including the offbeat urls from MSFT that few people find.
>>
>> MSDN and Technet blogs and Radio 9 are a very promising phenom for
>> communication. It's a shame that Rob Scoble is no longer with MSFT in
>> one sense, but promising that he has moved on--I haven't seen anyone
>> taking his place and filling those very large shoes at MSFT yet. His
>> blog will always live on. There's always Mini for some slices of MSFT
>> culture:
>>
>> minimsft.blogspot.com
>>
>> I would love to see you Mr. Brannigan address a couple issues--boy would
>> I
>> like to have a conversation with you on them.
>
> Feel free to post what you like to these public groups.
>
>> I also invite you and your homeboys and girls to take a particular Vista
>> challenge with me.
>>
>> MSFT in the form of one OEM VP Scotty DI aka Scott Di Valerio has arm
>> twisted OEM named partners (300 of 'em Mike) to not include OS on media
>> when your customers pay hard earned cash for a new box from them.
>> Instead MSFT wants to ship the very profitable pre-loaded OS via OEM
>> named partners without any viable competent means to recover a broken
>> Vista or XP with the most capable tool--the entire OS code on media.
>>
>
> All OEMs shipping preinstalled Windows are required to provide a method of
> recovering the OS to "as shipped" on the device (this may or may not be
> destructive to any data on the system). This may be in the form of
> recovery CDs/DVDs, original OEM media or a on disk recovery partition or a
> method to create one of these after the initial setup of the system by the
> end user.
>
>
>> This is in part mirrored by the MSFT report last quarter of a nearly 20%
>> (19%) increase in profit from OEM sales of hardware with the preinstalled
>> OS and or Office on it (that's be XP at the time and Office 2003 Systems)
>> and a 20% plummeting of retail software profits. MSFT's major cash cows
>> have been the Windows OS and Office, although they finally after years of
>> foot dragging have recognized Jo Anne Bradford's push to market web
>> advertising because Google has been kicking MSFT's butt in profits in
>> that venue all over the playing field.
>>
>> I'd like to challenge you personally and anyone you want to choose at
>> Redmond up through Allchin and Gates to go into a room and take your
>> spiffy laptop and we'll break your Vista or your XP if you like--let's
>> break both. I'll break mine and I want a Vista DVD but you can have an
>> OEM piece of crap recovery disc or recovery parititon and lets repeat
>> this scores of itmes and see who wins as to recovering the OS.
>>
>
> Sorry - I really don't see your point here. Your OEM will provide a
> recovery method as they are required to do for end users purchasing a
> machine pre installed with Windows.
>
>> Why was there such a global systemic tin ear as to many many components
>> of Vista that TBTs spelled out for various members of the Redmond Vista
>> teams that were ignored repeatedly?
>>
>
> This section above does not make sense. Please reiterate.
>
>> Why were so many promising features left on the cutting room floor that
>> had been proposed and promised for Vista?
>>
>
> Remember when Microsoft talk about a future product all features and
> functionality mentioned is subject to change. No presentation given prior
> to he release of Windows Vista guaranteed any specific feature would make
> it to the final RTM product.
> The whole process of producing a product such as Windows Vista is vast
> with time and influenced by a staggering number of factors.
> I'm sure you can appreciate a tiny fraction of these are related to
> resourcing (people/time etc), features that would take too long to deliver
> in a product that is on a time lien (however loose that may be), feature
> cuts required due to development issues, feature cuts due to request from
> those providing input into the process as to this or that feature being
> too complex or of limited value vs. effort/time/delay etc to include this
> time, features whose focus changes as the product evolves and the IT and
> business world that product is aimed at change over time, features that
> when worked on blossom into entire new functionality that is better suited
> to be delivered by another product or delivery mechanism and so on and so
> on.
>
>> Why is there such a significant lack of efficacy in your crash cart for
>> Vista PM Desmond Lee's team's Win RE's Startup Repair compared with the
>> success rate of repairing Win XP with a Repair Install or Inplace Upgrade
>> as it's called in the MSKBs--provided--and this is a big if because it's
>> rare for about 800 million of your OEM customers of Win XP on the planet
>> now and will be equally rare for Vista customers to have a genuine OS
>> media shipped with their new computer after the expenditure of many hard
>> earned bucks?
>>
>
> I have already covered the recovery methods your OEM is expected to
> provide you - the method they choose is up to them.
>
>> Why is your PSS so horrendous for Win XP, Office, and now Vista?
>
> The figures for satisfied customer using Microsoft Product Support
> Services and those of the Premier Support and other programs do not back
> up your assertion.
>
>> Why is your cheap Convergys outsourcing it to Indans who know so little
>> about fixing Office and XP and Vista and who are largely unintelligible
>> in English and best characterized as "minimum waged butts in seats"?
>>
>
> I think that is a very unfair comment to any of the individuals who work
> in the many off shore support and development centers around the world
> including those in the India region.
>
>> Why hasn't Device Manger been fixed so it can distinguish between a
>> corrupt driver and an intatc healthy one? Isn't 11 years enough time?
>> It wasn't fixed in Vista either. Team members associated with devices
>> and drivers confirmed this in Beta chats.
>>
>
> Then I assume you had the opportunity to pose that question to them at
> that time. I cannot comment.
>
>> CH
>>
>
> --
>
> Mike Brannigan
>
> "Chad Harris" <Vista RTM is really Beta 1.net> wrote in message
> news:%23KI5eP1CHHA.3660@TK2MSFTNGP02.phx.gbl...
>> Yo Mike Brannigan--
>>
>> BTW anyone wanting to reach Mr. Brannigan can do so at
>> mikebran@microsoft.com
>>
>> Good to see you slumming in here. Again I can count the number of softies
>> that have been in the pubic groups on the fingers of one hand once or
>> twice--Darrell Gorter, Jill Zoeller and that's about it. Corey Snow and
>> Nick White once when their names were invoked.
>>
>> Jill's blog is excellent but neither she nor anyone else has lifted a
>> finger to put comprehensive articles on Technet or MSDN or any other
>> Vista sites--including the offbeat urls from MSFT that few people find.
>>
>> MSDN and Technet blogs and Radio 9 are a very promising phenom for
>> communication. It's a shame that Rob Scoble is no longer with MSFT in
>> one sense, but promising that he has moved on--I haven't seen anyone
>> taking his place and filling those very large shoes at MSFT yet. His
>> blog will always live on. There's always Mini for some slices of MSFT
>> culture:
>>
>> minimsft.blogspot.com
>>
>> I would love to see you Mr. Brannigan address a couple issues--boy would
>> I like to have a conversation with you on them. I also invite you and
>> your homeboys and girls to take a particular Vista challenge with me.
>>
>> MSFT in the form of one OEM VP Scotty DI aka Scott Di Valerio has arm
>> twisted OEM named partners (300 of 'em Mike) to not include OS on media
>> when your customers pay hard earned cash for a new box from them.
>> Instead MSFT wants to ship the very profitable pre-loaded OS via OEM
>> named partners without any viable competent means to recover a broken
>> Vista or XP with the most capable tool--the entire OS code on media.
>>
>> This is in part mirrored by the MSFT report last quarter of a nearly 20%
>> (19%) increase in profit from OEM sales of hardware with the preinstalled
>> OS and or Office on it (that's be XP at the time and Office 2003 Systems)
>> and a 20% plummeting of retail software profits. MSFT's major cash cows
>> have been the Windows OS and Office, although they finally after years of
>> foot dragging have recognized Jo Anne Bradford's push to market web
>> advertising because Google has been kicking MSFT's butt in profits in
>> that venue all over the playing field.
>>
>> I'd like to challenge you personally and anyone you want to choose at
>> Redmond up through Allchin and Gates to go into a room and take your
>> spiffy laptop and we'll break your Vista or your XP if you like--let's
>> break both. I'll break mine and I want a Vista DVD but you can have an
>> OEM piece of crap recovery disc or recovery parititon and lets repeat
>> this scores of itmes and see who wins as to recovering the OS.
>>
>> Why was there such a global systemic tin ear as to many many components
>> of Vista that TBTs spelled out for various members of the Redmond Vista
>> teams that were ignored repeatedly?
>>
>> Why were so many promising features left on the cutting room floor that
>> had been proposed and promised for Vista?
>>
>> Why is there such a significant lack of efficacy in your crash cart for
>> Vista PM Desmond Lee's team's Win RE's Startup Repair compared with the
>> success rate of repairing Win XP with a Repair Install or Inplace Upgrade
>> as it's called in the MSKBs--provided--and this is a big if because it's
>> rare for about 800 million of your OEM customers of Win XP on the planet
>> now and will be equally rare for Vista customers to have a genuine OS
>> media shipped with their new computer after the expenditure of many hard
>> earned bucks?
>>
>> Why is your PSS so horrendous for Win XP, Office, and now Vista? Why is
>> your cheap Convergys outsourcing it to Indans who know so little about
>> fixing Office and XP and Vista and who are largely unintelligible in
>> English and best characterized as "minimum waged butts in seats"?
>>
>> Why hasn't Device Manger been fixed so it can distinguish between a
>> corrupt driver and an intatc healthy one? Isn't 11 years enough time?
>> It wasn't fixed in Vista either. Team members associated with devices
>> and drivers confirmed this in Beta chats.
>>
>> CH
>>
>>
>> "Mike Brannigan" <Mike.Brannigan@localhost> wrote in message
>> news:uM0xgU0CHHA.4312@TK2MSFTNGP06.phx.gbl...
>>> "Jon Acord" <JOn@theacords.biz> wrote in message
>>> news:7562A9F3-9D25-440E-A8B3-A53A96188F5C@microsoft.com...
>>>> Josh, Josh, Josh, MSDN and Technet subscribers are paying a FEE $$$ to
>>>> Microsoft. Thats the ONLY reason they get a copy, and CPP users do
>>>> not.
>>>> Because I put ALOT of hard work in on testing LH and Vista. so don't
>>>> tell me
>>>> its fair!!!!!!
>>>>
>>>
>>> Jon, you are confusing a number of issues here
>>> .
>>> MSDN users pay to receive various Microsoft products for development and
>>> testing purposes only. so they subscribe for up to a couple of thousand
>>> dollars to receive a whole raft of operating systems, servers
>>> applications and development tools. The fact that they have access now
>>> to Vista is just a function if it being a released OS that they should
>>> have access to, to continue to develop products and applications for as
>>> well as all the other areas around integration etc etc etc
>>> TechNet have access to a number of operating system and desktop/server
>>> applications for testing and demonstration purposes only. They pay to
>>> receive these products to allow them to test, learn and demo them as
>>> part of the subscribers role as IT Professionals.
>>> So neither of these groups are getting anything for free - they are
>>> getting entirely what they paid for.
>>> The members of the Technical Beta groups were involved in the testing
>>> and shaping of the Vista product for a significant amount of time. There
>>> are significant requirements on you as a member of this group as regards
>>> continued participation in various pieces of work from feedback, chat
>>> sessions, feature focus work, etc etc.
>>> There are invites to participate based on a number of criteria. They
>>> are not paid and are not expected to receive anything for the work they
>>> do. A decision was made for the Vista Tech Beta that those that met the
>>> relevant criteria would be offered a single copy of one of the Vista
>>> products for their own personal use.
>>>
>>> The CPP that you paid a nominal amount for, gave you access to the pre
>>> release product to allow you to gain some experience of the product
>>> prior to release. there was no requirement for you to do anything and
>>> you got what you paid for -- namely access to the product prior to
>>> release.
>>> So the product has now RTM'd and you as a member of the general public
>>> will be able to purchase it in Jan 07.
>>> If you did choose to provide feedback and do any particular "work" with
>>> eh CPP builds then you did so under your own time and without any
>>> commitment from Microsoft to reward you in any way.
>>>
>>> So there is absolutely no reason for you to feel hard done by now for
>>> not getting some freebie that you seem to thing you are owed for doing
>>> voluntary work.
>>>
>>> --
>>>
>>> Mike Brannigan
>>>
>>> "Jon Acord" <JOn@theacords.biz> wrote in message
>>> news:7562A9F3-9D25-440E-A8B3-A53A96188F5C@microsoft.com...
>>>> Josh, Josh, Josh, MSDN and Technet subscribers are paying a FEE $$$ to
>>>> Microsoft. Thats the ONLY reason they get a copy, and CPP users do
>>>> not.
>>>> Because I put ALOT of hard work in on testing LH and Vista. so don't
>>>> tell me
>>>> its fair!!!!!!
>>>>
>>>> "Josh" wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> Wow, Ok first off Microsoft has not given MSDN or Technet Subscribers
>>>>> anything. They purchased it. Those programs aren't free. The
>>>>> Technical
>>>>> Beta participants who have been in this program FAR FAR longer than
>>>>> the CPP
>>>>> has even been around do much much more than just file a couple of
>>>>> bugs.
>>>>> They are responsible for feature focus testing each week. They have
>>>>> to
>>>>> rebuild there systems far more often than someone in the CPP who only
>>>>> got 2
>>>>> downloads.
>>>>>
>>>>> Now I agree that this program certainly helps and I am sure that
>>>>> Microsoft
>>>>> appreciates the testing, but is it the same level of commitment that
>>>>> was put
>>>>> in by the Tech Beta participants...NO WAY.
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> --
>>>>> Josh
>>>>> http://windowsconnected.com
>>>>>
>>>>> "Jon Acord" <JOn@theacords.biz> wrote in message
>>>>> news:53678CBE-647E-45B3-A516-7B6548691DF8@microsoft.com...
>>>>> > It's been a long road helping Micro$oft beta test Vi$ta. I've been
>>>>> > doing
>>>>> > it
>>>>> > since it was called Longhorn. I have submitted Just under a dozen
>>>>> > bug
>>>>> > reports. I have installed and uninstalled it more times than I care
>>>>> > to
>>>>> > remember in my zeal and enthusiasm. I have believed in this product
>>>>> > when
>>>>> > no
>>>>> > one else did. When I hear that Micro$oft is giving away
>>>>> > 'complimentary'
>>>>> > copies only to MSDN and TechNet subscribers I felt as if someone had
>>>>> > slapped
>>>>> > my face. So, just because I tested Vi$ta VIA the customer preview
>>>>> > program
>>>>> > I
>>>>> > am screwed out of my gift? I feel I have earned a copy. You mean,
>>>>> > because I
>>>>> > did not pay Micro$oft a $600.00 subscription fee to beta test and
>>>>> > better
>>>>> > their software I am beneath their notice? This is typical of a
>>>>> > large,
>>>>> > bloated, corporate monster that does not care one iota about the
>>>>> > people
>>>>> > who
>>>>> > made them their most precious $$$. This proves that Micro$oft does
>>>>> > not
>>>>> > have
>>>>> > a heart, all they care about is money.
>>>>> >
>>>>> > ----------------
>>>>> > This post is a suggestion for Microsoft, and Microsoft responds to
>>>>> > the
>>>>> > suggestions with the most votes. To vote for this suggestion, click
>>>>> > the "I
>>>>> > Agree" button in the message pane. If you do not see the button,
>>>>> > follow
>>>>> > this
>>>>> > link to open the suggestion in the Microsoft Web-based Newsreader
>>>>> > and then
>>>>> > click "I Agree" in the message pane.
>>>>> >
>>>>> > http://windowshelp.microsoft.com/com....vista.general
>>>>>
>>>
>>>
>>
>>
>
>

Nice Chad, what's your next statement? "Meet me in the playground, behind the
jungle gym after school!?"
Look, it is bad form to be posting someone's e-mail in the room if they
don't have it posted openly in their message.
As far as Mike goes, what Microsoft may or may have not done is not Mike.
Mike is not Microsoft, he merely works for Microsoft. So, if you have a
problem with Microsoft, take it up with them.
Moreover, I find this whole line of yours adolscent at best. What is next
for you, and temper tantrum? Maybe start throwing rocks? How about "I'm
rubber you're glue?" That'll teach them a lesson.
Grow up kid.

Gene--

Let me spell it out.

So called Tech Support subenterprise is totally worthless from MSFT and they
know it. They hate talking about it. It needs to be improved. Allegedly Dell
just poured $100 million into improving their horrendous tech support.

Tech support from MSFT for the thinking person is a real incentive to boost
your learning curves so you don't need it or get it from the newsgroups.

If you don't see the importance of providing a fully coded full fledged OS
on media CD for XP DVD for Vista, after I've made it explicit I can't help
you.

It has nothing to do with "meet me on the playground." However I've read
hundreds of elitist condescending Mike Brannigan posts. He likes to pick on
novices and come in with a sententious,
know it all attitude as if he's the Redmond Oracle with condescending
self-absorbed "Church lady from Saturday night live" tones in his posts.

Brannigan's assertion or anyone's that recover discs and partitions from OEM
work is ludicrous. If they work so well, why do searches on these very
Microsoft groups show thousands of instances where they don't.

Granted, if you're not there or on Remote Assistance of some type or stripe,
you can't be certain what the user did. But when you're helping them step
by step in a chat you're reasonably sure.

I want these people to be able to fix their OS because they are going to run
into no boot situations because of software, hardware or a hybrid of both
causes. Also the MFST Mantra that drivers cause 80% of BSOD's is simply
ridiculously over simplified and inaccurate. A lot can be done with driver
verifier to prevent a lot of BSOD's that MSFT has never recognized well or
taught well, but has referenced in a few rather obscure and often unnoticed
Driver Verifier MSKBs.

By the way, while you assert Mike is not Microsoft do a search with a decent
search engine, Google or Dog Pile, one that works currently on Mike
Brannigan. He posts all the time representing MSFT and saying "this is the
way we do it" and "this is what we mean" or "this is what we're going to
do."

As long as he does that I feel perfectly justified in addressing crappy sub
enterprise Indian Tech Support. Call 'em and see what they know because it's
horrific. Most of them know less than a high school kid in my country about
Windows or Office and the fixing of both. Their English is horrific. My
Indian neighbors have listend to them and simply said the same thing I
say--MSFT outsources their Tech Support to Convergys of Ohio --their PSS
subenterprise --to their 800 million Windows XP users and their projected
400 million Vista boxes in 24 months that I think is over optimistic if they
continue to make their nuclear family Vista purchases so expensive as Robert
McLaws has pointed out (time will tell). Many of us have urged them to
modify that and I think the market place will do that forcefully. MSFT
reacts however slowly to money. Look at the story of where Yusuf Mehdi and
JoAnne Bradford have headed MSFT pointing out to Ballmer since 2002 what is
evident now.

Google made $2.69 Billion last quater from Web Ads; MSFT made $374 million;
there is a $25 billion or more market by 2010. Joanne Bradford's boss
David Cole was calling her stupid repeatedly (classy and you want meet me in
the playground--it's MSFT's style sometimes with their own personnel)--now
her urging has MSFT in a whole new *additional direction for revenue (no one
hopes that engineering excellence ever takes a back seat but that additional
revenue helps the company cointinue and enhance engineering and hardware and
software excellence since MSFT is going into the hardware manufacturing or
collaberation business.

What precisely do you mean? I know more names of people at MSFT in
different areas of the country and I think you believe me and more of them
than the average soccer mom or Nascar dad. (I'm neither--I don't look for
senile idiots like Kansas Senator Pat Roberts to make decisions about who
can wiretap me--I prefer to remove people like Roberts from his position of
Authority on a committe where he is an obstructionist and he has now been
removed from control).

I got a big grin out of "take it up with them." That's funny Gene. Who is
"them"--cause last time I checked althought there are robot betas from MSFT
and active robotic research arms at MSFT research "MSFT" are people like
Braniggan. You meant to imply that I should take it up with some nebulous
enshrouded in a mystery persona--a Mr. Redmond campus?

I can usually quickly ID who is where on a non-intuitvely team at Redmond
and try to communicate with them on a specific issue.

But this is funny--take it up with "them" but not Brannigan. You mean email
MSWish? LOL how ridiculous. You mean hit a link at the bottom of an MSKB
when I have this much time invested helping their customers?

Dream the hell on. Brannigan responded and I responded back to him. He
asked for clarrification and he got it. I was clear on two issues. Crappy
tech support because MSFT has disdain for their sub enterprise customers;
and no viable means of recovery supplied for Windows Vista or XP.

In case you think you have the answer for recovery of XP or Vista that I'm
missing please bring it in. Let me know how it works when you spend time
helping a thousand people recover a no boot XP or hundreds already recover a
no boot Vista. Share your insights with all of us Gene.

I look forward to your specifics on these matters, and I look forward to
your perception of who MSFT is. You think it's an abstract correct? Not
people? LOL

Brannigan is a big boy and he damn well understood what I meant and if he
chooses not to defend no recovery media that works or their crappy PSS it's
because it's not defensible.

CH








"Gene Fitz" <GeneFitz@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:3E2049AB-0419-4BF8-A043-9BF8506B73CB@microsoft.com...
> Nice Chad, what's your next statement? "Meet me in the playground, behind
> the
> jungle gym after school!?"
> Look, it is bad form to be posting someone's e-mail in the room if they
> don't have it posted openly in their message.
> As far as Mike goes, what Microsoft may or may have not done is not Mike.
> Mike is not Microsoft, he merely works for Microsoft. So, if you have a
> problem with Microsoft, take it up with them.
> Moreover, I find this whole line of yours adolscent at best. What is next
> for you, and temper tantrum? Maybe start throwing rocks? How about "I'm
> rubber you're glue?" That'll teach them a lesson.
> Grow up kid.
>
>

"Chad Harris" <Vista RTM is really Beta 1.net> wrote in message
news:ey40T03CHHA.3660@TK2MSFTNGP06.phx.gbl...
> Au Contrare Mike--I think it's superlative form. And most of your
> collegues
> have their email address available via a public right click anyway.
>

Most of the Microsoft employees who post publicly do so with a slight
change to their e-mail address to prevent auto harvesting for spam
generation. A person would know what to do to send e-mail to a
Microsoft employee if requested to do so by that employee. The
sending of unsolicited mail to Microsoft employee is discouraged
unless directly requested by that employee.

> 1) You all are maximally aloof, non-responsive, elitist,
> condescending,
> arrogant, don't value feedback from your customers or those of us
> who help
> your customers, and you hide all the time from the public. I just
> wanted
> to reduce your hiding behind that Redmond campus facade from your
> customers--the ones who pay your salary and buy your personal toys.
>

Making personal attacks on someone is not helping your argument and
only succeeds in further distancing you from those that may wish to
assist you or engage in a useful dialog with you.
For the sake of this discussion I will ignore those comments and
continue to address yours where appropriate.

> You all are the company that wanted to include in the negotiation of
> your
> Halo movie contract with studios to fly MSFTies to the Halo premier
> after
> demanding an unprecedented piece of the movie, when the movie
> companies
> walked away from your demands:
>
> http://www.themovieblog.com/archives...completed.html
>
> seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/businesstechnology/2002329242_bizbriefs11.html
>
> http://www.reallyscary.com/2005/08/h...07-release.asp
>

Not relevant to a discussion on OEM recovery capabilities and just
more of your obvious anti Microsoft rantings.

> You all are the company who hired Ralph Reed the Jack Abramoff right
> hand
> man to do your lobbyist bidding and defended it until Ballmer felt
> compelled to fire Ralphie when it hit the media. Currently Jack
> Abramoff
> has been singing so much ratting out Rove, Cheney, and ex-Special
> assistant
> to the President Susan B. Ralston who got Abramoff into the West
> Wing 465
> times in the space of one year and your lobbyist was into this
>
> http://cnn.com/2006/WORLD/europe/09/...ref=sitesearch
>
>

More rantings and not germane to the technical content of this
dicussion.

> and he was directly responsible for setting up female slavery and
> forced
> prostitution in the Marianna Islands.
>
> Check out the hits below in the Google Search--it would've been
> appropriate
> for Brad Smith and the attorneys that work for him to check them
> out. It
> would have saved you all embarrassment and prevented you from
> funding this
> kind of activity by paying Reed several million in lobbying fees:
>
> http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q...rianas+islands
>
> Try to sell us that before whoemever at Redmond hired Reed from VP
> General
> Counsel's office Brad Smith or Nancy Anderson's posse in your legal
> office
> that they were incapable of doing an MSN Search, a google or
> checking out
> what Ralph Reed was into before they paid him $27,000 per month.
> I've put
> considerable info on this topic on this group. It goes to integrity.
> and the
> presumption that those of us who watch MSFT are stupid. I've seen
> an
> analogous assertion on these type matters by the previous several
> years of
> Congress and the Senate in our country right up to this minute with
> the
> mornic nominations for federal judges during the lame duck Congress
> by Bush.
> It's all about arrogance and the perception people are stupid.
>

More rantings and not germane to the technical content of this
dicussion.

>
> 2) During the entire run of the Beta since July 2005, MSFT
> spottings on the
> Beta groups and participation was extremely rare as far as
> interaction over
> functionality aside from administrative functions and announcements.
> There
> needs to be a much larger forum where MSFT interacts with its
> customers.
> Your platinum partner Dell has started one. I read a large number
> of MSDN
> and Technet blogs but that's not what I mean here. I mean one for
> overall
> MSFT policy particularly the two large issues I've singled
> out--recovery
> media and support.
>

The involvement from the product groups takes many forms throughout a
technical beta program from direct intervention and comment where
necessary in the private newsgroups, to participation in the on line
chats , replying to the bug reports, working closely with the TAP
customers and OEMs who provide a significant amount of input feedback
and product testing to eh groups, and obviously doing their day job of
developing the code. There was also a heavy involvement from the MVPs
in those newsgroups also providing additional levels of guidance and
support.
It is odd that the you are a lone voice complaining so bitterly about
the Microsoft participation in the technical beta program - I suggest
you raise this in the private groups with the program leads if you
feel so strongly about it.

> In person, your people are pleasant enough, and of course very high
> quality,
> superbly trained and great presenters, but there are two topics
> that are
> absolutely taboo for them to discuss:
>

There are no taboo topics - but obviously an employee is not
encouraged to talk about areas that are not within their remit or
under their control.
You could hardly expect a ground level employee in any company to be
able or empowered to make statements about that companies policy
decisions.

> 1) Tech Support sub enterprise which is eggregiously poor and
> nothing like
> your thought process when you look at a windows problem--or mine. I
> can put
> you on a call anytime, anyplace and show you how ridiculous they are
> and how
> terrible the English is at those Indian call centers. We're not
> talking
> your collegues in Redmond who have Indian parents or may be Indian.
> We're
> not talking the guy you sent from MSFT Research to head MSFT
> Research in
> Indian--we're talking about people who know less Windows than my dog
> whose
> MO is to tell your customers many of whom aren't sophisticated
> Windows users
> to format the box when a large percentage of the problems you and I
> could
> fix easily.
>

I'm sorry that you appear to have had problems with your support
calls. Personally speaking I have not experienced such an issue
talking to Microsoft PSS from an end users perspective with anyone
providing those services over the phone.
If you have direct comments to make about PSS and the level of service
you are receiving then I suggest you contact them directly in a more
measured and professional manner then in a public peer to peer support
newsgroup for general Windows Vista issues. (You appear to be familiar
enough with the Microsoft corporate structure to know who to contact
directly)


> 2) An absolute taboo subject at MSFT is the way you all arm twist
> and
> pressure 300 OEM named partners--Dell has broken from this in Vista
> according to their blog that I linked:
>
> See for ref from a recent article on the Dell Blog:
>
> Bloatware, Operating System Discs and Dell Software Support
> http://www.direct2dell.com/one2one/a...0/17/3132.aspx
>

As was mentioned in the previous posts - the OEMs are only required to
ship a method of recovering a PC to as shipped. If Dell wish to
provide full OS disks then that is their decision and just
changes/augments the methods they may wish to offer to recovery a PC.

> 3) I can't require and wouldn't be grandiosely that crazy to think
> I could
> require anyone to do anything particularly someone who works for a
> 65,000
> person company who leads the US in outsourcing tech support to
> Convergys of
> Ohio in Cinncinaiti which is not in Redmond, Washington but when I
> last
> checked across the Ohio River from Convington, Kentucky north of a
> baseball
> stadium outsources to call centers in India.
>
> It does amuse me that one of the standard defenses is that MSFT is
> not
> required to do this or that. They sure aren't , and people aren't
> required
> to use or buy their software. I'm looking at a slide here titled
> "The
> Windows Vista Opportunity" where MSFT has projected they will have
> according
> to "industry forecasts" which are all over the map actually "> 475
> million
> running Vista in the first 24 months" and "an upgradable installed
> base of
> >200 million PCs." The next 24 months will be interesting, but I
> >think
> this
> is a grandiose prediction from what I can tell.
>

Your opinions are your own.
I'm sure that when that slide was produced is was based on the
appropriate market data and projections provided by who ever was
responsible for any research to support that slide.

> "All OEMs shipping preinstalled Windows are required to provide a
> method of recovering the OS to "as shipped" on the device (this may
> or
> may not be destructive to any data on the system). This may be in
> the
> form of recovery CDs/DVDs, original OEM media or a on disk recovery
> partition or a method to create one of these after the initial setup
> of the system by the end user."
>
> Yessir, Mr. Brannigan, and let me help a senior policy maker and
> longtime
> employee at Redmond with this concept. I thought I drove it home
> with my
> challenge to you, to members of the setup team, to your best and
> brightest
> Windows mavens including Jim Allchin to break Vista or XP--I don't
> care
> which except again a repair install or inplace upgrade has
> considerably more
> clinical efficacy on the ground in XP than a Win RE Startup Repair
> in
> Vista--and you all try to recover with what you just mention and
> I'll take a
> genuine full fledge OS CD and I'll clean your clock every time.
>

Having read you post I tested four separate OEM machines using the
recovery methods provided by those OEMs. In all case that machines
was fully reset to as shipped including all drivers etc and
configuration as well as all preinstalled software. On booting after
the recovery process they all arrived at the Out Of Box experience
requesting the initial setup information. All worked flawlessly.
Now obviously there is a difference between recovery to as shipped and
the ability for an end user to attempt other processes once they have
had a machine for a certain amount of time and installed various
pieces of software and additional hardware and drivers etc. These are
2 separate cases. For a large cross section of the PC using end user
community they may not be as technically competent as to attempt an
operating system reinstall, add all the drivers etc etc - and would
rather have a boot from the CD or press this function key at start-up
to get your machine back to the way it was when you bought it. Where
an OEM has chosen to make this a destructive restore with loss of all
data then this is unfortunate and obviously highlights the
requirements for regular end user data backups.

> Let's make this clear. In Hospitals in Seattle, including the
> complex where
> the Gates Foundation is located, when people go into respiratory or
> cardiac
> arrest or both, certain medications and equipment are needed to have
> the
> maximal chance to recover them and this goes under the name of CPR
> among
> others with various standardized protocols.
>
> Analagously, when a Windows XP box breaks down the protocol is along
> the
> lines of Chapter 28 of the Windows XP Pro Resource Kit--I've put
> hundreds of
> directions to get this done on the Vista and XP groups over the last
> few
> years--do a search--whether to help people recover XP or Vista with
> MSFT
> sanctioned directions appropriate to each OS.
>
> If in those hospitals, instead of the right concentration of
> epinepherine
> and other medications you have tap water in some of the vials,
> bottles, and
> syringes, you're not going to get those people back.
>
> What you just cited are the equivalant of water in those epi
> bottles. What
> you all don't want to admit, but I've gotten plenty of Softies to
> admit
> privately from Redmond Washington campuses and other offices is that
> you all
> pressure OEM named partners not to provide an OS CD. What you named
> almost
> never works.

Yes it does - the recovery to as shipped works fine in all instances I
have tested including the four I did last night.

> So while it sounds appropriate for you to talk about the form
> of recovery CDs/DVDs, original OEM media or a on disk recovery
> partition or
> a method to create one of these after the initial setup
> of the system by the end user" the problem is that when this takes
> the form
> of a "recovery partition" or "non-destructive recovery discs" as HP
> calls
> them they simply don't work. Again Mike, I want you to think
> epinepherine
> and I want you to think water subbed for epi. The water won't get
> the
> pressure up fast enough. You don't get the patient back with just
> water.
> Likewise, the crap you're referring to is worthless greater than 99%
> of the
> time, and it won't get the OS back.
>
> I don't know what you've been doing with your time the last few
> years Mike,
> but I've spent a lot of mine with your customers trying to recover
> their
> non-bootable OS for a varitety of reasons that are software once
> hardware is
> elminated from the equation and there are times when both sources
> are in
> play. I have found that very very few of thes people who have
> plunked down
> their hard earned money for boxes from your OEM named partners (300
> of them
> under the whip of Scottie di or Scott di Valerio have an XP CD or
> will have
> a Vista DVD in their possession after having purchased an OEM pc
> from the
> web or from a bricks and mortar store.
>

Well Chad over the past few yearas I have worked with customers
deplying hundreds of thousadns of Windwos XP systems and in having to
recvoery one of the those system for some resona (other then hardware
error) in a properly managed environment this is a simple PXE boot the
box to redploy the OS image and then the system managent apps and
gorup polices take care fo the rest.
Now if you are again talking about single user systems then the
process for trying to "fix" those systems depends on a huge number of
factors and could indeed involve trouble shooting processes such as
repair installs or full system reset/recovery. This is however
seriously beginning to mix the playing fields here from corporate
users to single home users. The requirements for troubleshooting and
recovery are different across this spectrum but for an end user with
an OEM machines the simplest and most effective can in many cases be a
simple recovery.

> So what you have just proferred Mike as if it were an appropriate
> means of
> recovery is absolutely worthless. I hope I'm clear. Short of the
> full code
> on a full OS media, people aren't going to recover. As it is, there
> is an
> additional monkey wrench thrown into Vista recovery and that is that
> again,
> Win RE's methods don't work much of the time.
>
> Please take my challenge and let's setup 10-20-30-50 MSFTies at
> Redmond or
> wherever who have access to various media or partitions from OEM and
> I'll
> take a genuine CD or DVD and let's see how your people function with
> "water
> for recovery" and I function with epinepherine in my vials borrowing
> from a
> medical CPR analogy.
>

Already tested four OEM machines recovery process. All did exactly
what they were supposed to do - reset the machine state to as shipped.

> I haven't seen anyone from Redmond MSFT game to take this challenge
> yet.
>
> You wrote: "Sorry - I really don't see your point here. Your OEM
> will
> provide a
> recovery method as they are required to do for end users purchasing
> a
> machine pre installed with Windows."
>
> No, Mike. You pretend innocently not to see my point. I know you
> get it.
> As far as me and an OEM (I'll probably build my next desktop so I
> don't have
> to take the low end power supplies and junk that they often try to
> ship even
> when you theoretically pick out your hardware) I can tell you how I
> handle
> this, always have, and always will. I make it clear that I am onto
> the game
> that Mr. DiValerio has played with your customers--the "tough luck
> sucka"
> game--and I tell the sales person that they either send me an XP CD
> or a
> Vista DVD at no extra charge or I'm not buying the box from them and
> they
> can take their 1100% profitable markup and shove it and MSFT can
> take their
> policy of denying customers a full fledged OS CD or DVD and shove
> it.
>

How you deal with your PC purchase with your chosen OEM is entirely
your business.

> I am not sure what Mike Brannigan can't comprehend about anything
> less than
> an OS CD (XP)or DVD (Vista) ***does not work*** to successfully
> perform a
> repair isntall in XP or a Startup Repair or other Win RE modality in
> Vista.

I never said you could do a repair install with a recovery CD. This
discussion was not specifically about that. If you do not have
original media then a repair install is not an option - but for a
large cross section of the end user community (home users for want of
a better expression) then a repair install may not be the best option
for the less technically astute of them and a simple recovery will be
their best option.

> I wouldn't be pile driving this point home to you, but I've
> participated in
> close to 1000 fix no boot XP's over the past few years,and a lot of
> fix no
> boot Vistas over the past year and a half and if you think I'm
> kidding about
> this do a search for my name on the setup groups or the XP groups
> and see.
> I want your customers to be able to recover.

And they will be able to recovery to as shipped, using the OEM provide
method.

> I'm not worried about myself.
> I'm going to find a way to always have a full fledge XP CD or Vista
> DVD with
> me at all times. I'm not going to be taken advantage of by a CPA
> non-engineer di Valerio from MSFT that is paradoxically the titular
> head of
> OEM System Builders and named partners with next to no training in
> software
> and hardware.
>
> And for a third time incase it isn't chiselling in for you when you
> say "
> Your OEM will provide a recovery method" you are correct they will
> provide
> one, but the only problem is unless it is a full fledged full code
> CD in XP
> or DVD in Vista --it's not going to work, that is won't be
> successful,

It will be successful at recovery the device to as shipped - that is
all it has to do. Your argument is about technically skilled end
users who wish to try and repair their OEM install themselves.

> that
> is won't have clinical efficacy (remember the epinepherine analogy
> in those
> Seattle hospitals you depend on Mr. Brannigan)

Who said I live in Seattle? - I suggest you do not make random
assumptions.

>. You left that part out.
> The recovery methods no workee and they no workee almost every
> single time.
>

The recovery methods work fine - you are confusing recovery with other
methods of attempting to repair a system by an end user.

> That was the point of a challenge. You and your people work with
> those
> recovery methods you have so much confidence in; let me remove a few
> key
> Windows bootstrap files and folders-- for example in the case of Win
> XP>Bios
> finds a bootable disk>loads a program found at the MBR>MBR loads a
> program
> called NTLDR into memory>NTLDR switches box to flat memory
> module>reads
> BOOT.INI>before XP loads>NTLDR opens NTDETECT.com into memory which
> performs a hdw test>then NTDETECT.com sends info back to NTLDR>NTLDR
> attempts to load the version of XP you selected by finding NTOSKRNL
> file in
> the System 32 folder>after the Kernel is loaded into memory>NTLDR
> passes
> control of the boot process to the kernel and HAL.DLL>you know the
> drill.
>
> This doesn't happen with those "cheap imitation for OS recovery
> discs or
> partitions" you so blithely referennced Mike and therein lies the
> problem
> and why you would fail trying to take me on with OS media using them
> and you
> know it.
>

To recovery to as shipped - I'm sorry but there is no contest - since
you have a generic OEM Os and I have a full recovery capability for
OS, drivers, configuration and preinstalled software.
But again there are two separate things here that you are conveniently
mixing up. The recovery of a system vs. the repair of one.

> Refs would include some things along the lines of these:
>
> Resources for troubleshooting startup problems in Windows XP
> http://support.microsoft.com/default...b;en-us;308041
>
> A description of the Safe Mode Boot options in Windows XP
> http://support.microsoft.com/kb/315222/en-us
>
>
> (BTW Mike most of your customers are ignorant of the fact they
> should try
> all four options at F8--I exclude safe mode with VGA from this).
>
> F8 options including the 3 safe modes (I'm omitting VGA for
> this purpose) to try to system restore and I would use Last Known
> Good if
> they don't work. I say 3 because sometimes one works when another
> will not.
> If you use safe mode command, the command for system restore is:
>
> %systemroot%\system32\restore\rstrui.exe
>
> Repair Install
> http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/u...ps/doug92.mspx
>
> This isn't going to happen with the worthless recovery discs and
> partitions
> you just referenced almost all the time and you know it and if you
> don't
> you've learned it now. Check with the Vista setup team because I
> know in
> conversations with them they know there are problems and I can
> document
> those conversations for you.
>

Again I never said you could repair a system with an OEM recovery
method these are different situations.
And the short answer as I have covered several times now is for the
avergae (yes a sweeping genralsition) enmd user a redovery tmethod

> In the case of Vista, in addition to trying F8 Windows Advanced
> Options,
> this comes to mind:
>
> Screenshot: System Recovery Options (Lower Left Link)
> http://blogs.itecn.net/photos/liuhui...4/500x375.aspx
>
> Screenshot: (Click first option "Startup Repair"
> http://www.leedesmond.com/images/img...SysRecOpt2.bmp
>
> I'd be delighted to know what it is you don't understand about the
> statement
> that those recovery discs and partitions you so readily reference
> don't work
> you don't comprehend. I'd be glad to work with you until you do.
>
> I want your customers covered Mike--they deserve no less for their
> $400 for
> Vista Ultimate.

If they are paying $400 for Windows Vista then they are buying it
retail and have full media.

> Most of your Vista far and away will be sold via OEM named
> partners preinstalled with no OS CD. Dell has said they will now
> provide
> one but in the past you all leaned on them not to:
>
> See for ref from a recent article on the Dell Blog:
>
> Bloatware, Operating System Discs and Dell Software Support
> http://www.direct2dell.com/one2one/a...0/17/3132.aspx
>

Previously commented on.

> As to the no excuse failure of all the resources at Redmond to fix
> device
> manager in over 11 years, I can comment. It's indefensible and
> eggregiously
> lazy and sloppy. It doesn't even rate a gentleman's "C".
>
> "Why was there such a global systemic tin ear as to many many
> components of Vista that TBTs spelled out for various members of the
> Redmond Vista teams that were ignored repeatedly?"
>
> You typed to this:
> "This section above does not make sense. Please reiterate"
>
> It means
>
> We submitted a large number of bugs during the Beta to different
> Vista teams
> and developers and they weren't fixed when Vista RTM'd on key
> issues.
> You'll see them play out in the next few months here and in support
> channels.
>

Genuine bugs not fixed for RTM will probably be addressed where needed
in patches and ultimately a service pack.

> "The figures for satisfied customer using Microsoft Product Support
> Services and those of the Premier Support and other programs do not
> back up your assertion."
>
> I can tell you as someone who frequently fixes and cleans up the
> messes your
> Convergys of Ohio Indian contractors make or leave with the support
> calls my
> experience backs up my assertion in spades.

Do you send a lot of time fixing home user systems? As I am surprised
if your experiences are replicated across enterprise customers where
repair/recovery in a properly managed environment is less of an issue.

> And I often call to test these
> turkeys with scenarios and listen to their badly broken English as
> they say
> "OK" to anything you tell them and then like a fund challenged inner
> city
> hospital dental clinic in Seattle or any big city in your country
> they want
> to pull the teeth/aka format the box when it can be fixed easily.
>
> Tell them you are in Windows and your user account is gone and
> you'll see
> they know nothing about a non-deletable user account available to
> recover
> this in safe mode.
>

I doubt you making fake problem calls to the PSS teams is helping
anyone.

> These people aren't anything like the quality of enterprise support
> provided
> by MSFT. I do understand that if you have an account with 12000
> boxes from a
> large company that kind of investment and expenditure rates top
> notched
> cattering and collaberation. I've had people at your campuses tell
> me the
> exciting thing is often that the companies working in collaberation
> with
> MSFT will come up with solutions they didn't think were possible
> previously.
>
> But your customers simply deserve much better PSS, and because they
> don't
> get it, those of us who help in these groups redouble our efforts
> with no
> thanks whatsoever from MSFT. Our reward is fixing these
> people--like going
> into the areas the Gates' have worked so hard on with their
> foundation in
> countries where there isn't medical care to eliminate chronic
> diseases It's
> going in where MSFT doesn't provide adequate support--that's my
> analogy.
>
> They deserve nothing less nothing less did I say nothing less in
> English
> Mike--does this translate into Redmonese than a full fledge full
> coded XP or
> Vista OS on media.
>

I'm sorry but we will just have to agree to disagree on that one.

> Best regards,

I find your use of best regards a little offensive after the language
you have used directed at myself. I will assume it is just your
automatic signature, and thus not meant.

>
> CH

--

Mike Brannigan

>
>
> "Mike Brannigan" <Mike.Brannigan@localhost> wrote in message
> news:O6O4Wd2CHHA.1012@TK2MSFTNGP04.phx.gbl...
>> "Chad Harris" <Vista RTM is really Beta 1.net> wrote in message
>> news:%23KI5eP1CHHA.3660@TK2MSFTNGP02.phx.gbl...
>>> Yo Mike Brannigan--
>>>
>>> BTW anyone wanting to reach Mr. Brannigan can do so at
>>> mikebran@microsoft.com
>>>
>>
>> Chad,
>>
>> Firstly the posting of Microsoft employee e-mail addresses in a
>> public
>> newsgroup is just poor behaviour and counter productive.
>> Secondly that address is no longer active anyway - but your
>> staggering
>> lack of tact and protocol is duly noted.
>>
>>
>>> Good to see you slumming in here. Again I can count the number of
>>> softies
>>> that have been in the pubic groups on the fingers of one hand once
>>> or
>>> twice--Darrell Gorter, Jill Zoeller and that's about it. Corey
>>> Snow and
>>> Nick White once when their names were invoked.
>>>
>>
>> Microsoft employees are not required to participate in these
>> newsgroups as
>> they are Peer to Peer community. The only officially monitored and
>> responded to groups are under the managed newsgroups of MSDN and
>> TechNet.
>>
>>> Jill's blog is excellent but neither she nor anyone else has
>>> lifted a
>>> finger to put comprehensive articles on Technet or MSDN or any
>>> other
>>> Vista sites--including the offbeat urls from MSFT that few people
>>> find.
>>>
>>> MSDN and Technet blogs and Radio 9 are a very promising phenom for
>>> communication. It's a shame that Rob Scoble is no longer with
>>> MSFT in
>>> one sense, but promising that he has moved on--I haven't seen
>>> anyone
>>> taking his place and filling those very large shoes at MSFT yet.
>>> His
>>> blog will always live on. There's always Mini for some slices of
>>> MSFT
>>> culture:
>>>
>>> minimsft.blogspot.com
>>>
>>> I would love to see you Mr. Brannigan address a couple issues--boy
>>> would
>>> I
>>> like to have a conversation with you on them.
>>
>> Feel free to post what you like to these public groups.
>>
>>> I also invite you and your homeboys and girls to take a particular
>>> Vista
>>> challenge with me.
>>>
>>> MSFT in the form of one OEM VP Scotty DI aka Scott Di Valerio has
>>> arm
>>> twisted OEM named partners (300 of 'em Mike) to not include OS on
>>> media
>>> when your customers pay hard earned cash for a new box from them.
>>> Instead MSFT wants to ship the very profitable pre-loaded OS via
>>> OEM
>>> named partners without any viable competent means to recover a
>>> broken
>>> Vista or XP with the most capable tool--the entire OS code on
>>> media.
>>>
>>
>> All OEMs shipping preinstalled Windows are required to provide a
>> method of
>> recovering the OS to "as shipped" on the device (this may or may
>> not be
>> destructive to any data on the system). This may be in the form of
>> recovery CDs/DVDs, original OEM media or a on disk recovery
>> partition or a
>> method to create one of these after the initial setup of the system
>> by the
>> end user.
>>
>>
>>> This is in part mirrored by the MSFT report last quarter of a
>>> nearly 20%
>>> (19%) increase in profit from OEM sales of hardware with the
>>> preinstalled
>>> OS and or Office on it (that's be XP at the time and Office 2003
>>> Systems)
>>> and a 20% plummeting of retail software profits. MSFT's major
>>> cash cows
>>> have been the Windows OS and Office, although they finally after
>>> years of
>>> foot dragging have recognized Jo Anne Bradford's push to market
>>> web
>>> advertising because Google has been kicking MSFT's butt in profits
>>> in
>>> that venue all over the playing field.
>>>
>>> I'd like to challenge you personally and anyone you want to choose
>>> at
>>> Redmond up through Allchin and Gates to go into a room and take
>>> your
>>> spiffy laptop and we'll break your Vista or your XP if you
>>> like--let's
>>> break both. I'll break mine and I want a Vista DVD but you can
>>> have an
>>> OEM piece of crap recovery disc or recovery parititon and lets
>>> repeat
>>> this scores of itmes and see who wins as to recovering the OS.
>>>
>>
>> Sorry - I really don't see your point here. Your OEM will provide
>> a
>> recovery method as they are required to do for end users purchasing
>> a
>> machine pre installed with Windows.
>>
>>> Why was there such a global systemic tin ear as to many many
>>> components
>>> of Vista that TBTs spelled out for various members of the Redmond
>>> Vista
>>> teams that were ignored repeatedly?
>>>
>>
>> This section above does not make sense. Please reiterate.
>>
>>> Why were so many promising features left on the cutting room floor
>>> that
>>> had been proposed and promised for Vista?
>>>
>>
>> Remember when Microsoft talk about a future product all features
>> and
>> functionality mentioned is subject to change. No presentation
>> given prior
>> to he release of Windows Vista guaranteed any specific feature
>> would make
>> it to the final RTM product.
>> The whole process of producing a product such as Windows Vista is
>> vast
>> with time and influenced by a staggering number of factors.
>> I'm sure you can appreciate a tiny fraction of these are related to
>> resourcing (people/time etc), features that would take too long to
>> deliver
>> in a product that is on a time lien (however loose that may be),
>> feature
>> cuts required due to development issues, feature cuts due to
>> request from
>> those providing input into the process as to this or that feature
>> being
>> too complex or of limited value vs. effort/time/delay etc to
>> include this
>> time, features whose focus changes as the product evolves and the
>> IT and
>> business world that product is aimed at change over time, features
>> that
>> when worked on blossom into entire new functionality that is better
>> suited
>> to be delivered by another product or delivery mechanism and so on
>> and so
>> on.
>>
>>> Why is there such a significant lack of efficacy in your crash
>>> cart for
>>> Vista PM Desmond Lee's team's Win RE's Startup Repair compared
>>> with the
>>> success rate of repairing Win XP with a Repair Install or Inplace
>>> Upgrade
>>> as it's called in the MSKBs--provided--and this is a big if
>>> because it's
>>> rare for about 800 million of your OEM customers of Win XP on the
>>> planet
>>> now and will be equally rare for Vista customers to have a genuine
>>> OS
>>> media shipped with their new computer after the expenditure of
>>> many hard
>>> earned bucks?
>>>
>>
>> I have already covered the recovery methods your OEM is expected to
>> provide you - the method they choose is up to them.
>>
>>> Why is your PSS so horrendous for Win XP, Office, and now Vista?
>>
>> The figures for satisfied customer using Microsoft Product Support
>> Services and those of the Premier Support and other programs do not
>> back
>> up your assertion.
>>
>>> Why is your cheap Convergys outsourcing it to Indans who know so
>>> little
>>> about fixing Office and XP and Vista and who are largely
>>> unintelligible
>>> in English and best characterized as "minimum waged butts in
>>> seats"?
>>>
>>
>> I think that is a very unfair comment to any of the individuals who
>> work
>> in the many off shore support and development centers around the
>> world
>> including those in the India region.
>>
>>> Why hasn't Device Manger been fixed so it can distinguish between
>>> a
>>> corrupt driver and an intatc healthy one? Isn't 11 years enough
>>> time?
>>> It wasn't fixed in Vista either. Team members associated with
>>> devices
>>> and drivers confirmed this in Beta chats.
>>>
>>
>> Then I assume you had the opportunity to pose that question to them
>> at
>> that time. I cannot comment.
>>
>>> CH
>>>
>>
>> --
>>
>> Mike Brannigan
>>
>> "Chad Harris" <Vista RTM is really Beta 1.net> wrote in message
>> news:%23KI5eP1CHHA.3660@TK2MSFTNGP02.phx.gbl...
>>> Yo Mike Brannigan--
>>>
>>> BTW anyone wanting to reach Mr. Brannigan can do so at
>>> mikebran@microsoft.com
>>>
>>> Good to see you slumming in here. Again I can count the number of
>>> softies
>>> that have been in the pubic groups on the fingers of one hand once
>>> or
>>> twice--Darrell Gorter, Jill Zoeller and that's about it. Corey
>>> Snow and
>>> Nick White once when their names were invoked.
>>>
>>> Jill's blog is excellent but neither she nor anyone else has
>>> lifted a
>>> finger to put comprehensive articles on Technet or MSDN or any
>>> other
>>> Vista sites--including the offbeat urls from MSFT that few people
>>> find.
>>>
>>> MSDN and Technet blogs and Radio 9 are a very promising phenom for
>>> communication. It's a shame that Rob Scoble is no longer with
>>> MSFT in
>>> one sense, but promising that he has moved on--I haven't seen
>>> anyone
>>> taking his place and filling those very large shoes at MSFT yet.
>>> His
>>> blog will always live on. There's always Mini for some slices of
>>> MSFT
>>> culture:
>>>
>>> minimsft.blogspot.com
>>>
>>> I would love to see you Mr. Brannigan address a couple issues--boy
>>> would
>>> I like to have a conversation with you on them. I also invite you
>>> and
>>> your homeboys and girls to take a particular Vista challenge with
>>> me.
>>>
>>> MSFT in the form of one OEM VP Scotty DI aka Scott Di Valerio has
>>> arm
>>> twisted OEM named partners (300 of 'em Mike) to not include OS on
>>> media
>>> when your customers pay hard earned cash for a new box from them.
>>> Instead MSFT wants to ship the very profitable pre-loaded OS via
>>> OEM
>>> named partners without any viable competent means to recover a
>>> broken
>>> Vista or XP with the most capable tool--the entire OS code on
>>> media.
>>>
>>> This is in part mirrored by the MSFT report last quarter of a
>>> nearly 20%
>>> (19%) increase in profit from OEM sales of hardware with the
>>> preinstalled
>>> OS and or Office on it (that's be XP at the time and Office 2003
>>> Systems)
>>> and a 20% plummeting of retail software profits. MSFT's major
>>> cash cows
>>> have been the Windows OS and Office, although they finally after
>>> years of
>>> foot dragging have recognized Jo Anne Bradford's push to market
>>> web
>>> advertising because Google has been kicking MSFT's butt in profits
>>> in
>>> that venue all over the playing field.
>>>
>>> I'd like to challenge you personally and anyone you want to choose
>>> at
>>> Redmond up through Allchin and Gates to go into a room and take
>>> your
>>> spiffy laptop and we'll break your Vista or your XP if you
>>> like--let's
>>> break both. I'll break mine and I want a Vista DVD but you can
>>> have an
>>> OEM piece of crap recovery disc or recovery parititon and lets
>>> repeat
>>> this scores of itmes and see who wins as to recovering the OS.
>>>
>>> Why was there such a global systemic tin ear as to many many
>>> components
>>> of Vista that TBTs spelled out for various members of the Redmond
>>> Vista
>>> teams that were ignored repeatedly?
>>>
>>> Why were so many promising features left on the cutting room floor
>>> that
>>> had been proposed and promised for Vista?
>>>
>>> Why is there such a significant lack of efficacy in your crash
>>> cart for
>>> Vista PM Desmond Lee's team's Win RE's Startup Repair compared
>>> with the
>>> success rate of repairing Win XP with a Repair Install or Inplace
>>> Upgrade
>>> as it's called in the MSKBs--provided--and this is a big if
>>> because it's
>>> rare for about 800 million of your OEM customers of Win XP on the
>>> planet
>>> now and will be equally rare for Vista customers to have a genuine
>>> OS
>>> media shipped with their new computer after the expenditure of
>>> many hard
>>> earned bucks?
>>>
>>> Why is your PSS so horrendous for Win XP, Office, and now Vista?
>>> Why is
>>> your cheap Convergys outsourcing it to Indans who know so little
>>> about
>>> fixing Office and XP and Vista and who are largely unintelligible
>>> in
>>> English and best characterized as "minimum waged butts in seats"?
>>>
>>> Why hasn't Device Manger been fixed so it can distinguish between
>>> a
>>> corrupt driver and an intatc healthy one? Isn't 11 years enough
>>> time?
>>> It wasn't fixed in Vista either. Team members associated with
>>> devices
>>> and drivers confirmed this in Beta chats.
>>>
>>> CH
>>>
>>>
>>> "Mike Brannigan" <Mike.Brannigan@localhost> wrote in message
>>> news:uM0xgU0CHHA.4312@TK2MSFTNGP06.phx.gbl...
>>>> "Jon Acord" <JOn@theacords.biz> wrote in message
>>>> news:7562A9F3-9D25-440E-A8B3-A53A96188F5C@microsoft.com...
>>>>> Josh, Josh, Josh, MSDN and Technet subscribers are paying a FEE
>>>>> $$$ to
>>>>> Microsoft. Thats the ONLY reason they get a copy, and CPP users
>>>>> do
>>>>> not.
>>>>> Because I put ALOT of hard work in on testing LH and Vista. so
>>>>> don't
>>>>> tell me
>>>>> its fair!!!!!!
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Jon, you are confusing a number of issues here
>>>> .
>>>> MSDN users pay to receive various Microsoft products for
>>>> development and
>>>> testing purposes only. so they subscribe for up to a couple of
>>>> thousand
>>>> dollars to receive a whole raft of operating systems, servers
>>>> applications and development tools. The fact that they have
>>>> access now
>>>> to Vista is just a function if it being a released OS that they
>>>> should
>>>> have access to, to continue to develop products and applications
>>>> for as
>>>> well as all the other areas around integration etc etc etc
>>>> TechNet have access to a number of operating system and
>>>> desktop/server
>>>> applications for testing and demonstration purposes only. They
>>>> pay to
>>>> receive these products to allow them to test, learn and demo them
>>>> as
>>>> part of the subscribers role as IT Professionals.
>>>> So neither of these groups are getting anything for free - they
>>>> are
>>>> getting entirely what they paid for.
>>>> The members of the Technical Beta groups were involved in the
>>>> testing
>>>> and shaping of the Vista product for a significant amount of
>>>> time. There
>>>> are significant requirements on you as a member of this group as
>>>> regards
>>>> continued participation in various pieces of work from feedback,
>>>> chat
>>>> sessions, feature focus work, etc etc.
>>>> There are invites to participate based on a number of criteria.
>>>> They
>>>> are not paid and are not expected to receive anything for the
>>>> work they
>>>> do. A decision was made for the Vista Tech Beta that those that
>>>> met the
>>>> relevant criteria would be offered a single copy of one of the
>>>> Vista
>>>> products for their own personal use.
>>>>
>>>> The CPP that you paid a nominal amount for, gave you access to
>>>> the pre
>>>> release product to allow you to gain some experience of the
>>>> product
>>>> prior to release. there was no requirement for you to do
>>>> anything and
>>>> you got what you paid for -- namely access to the product prior
>>>> to
>>>> release.
>>>> So the product has now RTM'd and you as a member of the general
>>>> public
>>>> will be able to purchase it in Jan 07.
>>>> If you did choose to provide feedback and do any particular
>>>> "work" with
>>>> eh CPP builds then you did so under your own time and without any
>>>> commitment from Microsoft to reward you in any way.
>>>>
>>>> So there is absolutely no reason for you to feel hard done by now
>>>> for
>>>> not getting some freebie that you seem to thing you are owed for
>>>> doing
>>>> voluntary work.
>>>>
>>>> --
>>>>
>>>> Mike Brannigan
>>>>
>>>> "Jon Acord" <JOn@theacords.biz> wrote in message
>>>> news:7562A9F3-9D25-440E-A8B3-A53A96188F5C@microsoft.com...
>>>>> Josh, Josh, Josh, MSDN and Technet subscribers are paying a FEE
>>>>> $$$ to
>>>>> Microsoft. Thats the ONLY reason they get a copy, and CPP users
>>>>> do
>>>>> not.
>>>>> Because I put ALOT of hard work in on testing LH and Vista. so
>>>>> don't
>>>>> tell me
>>>>> its fair!!!!!!
>>>>>
>>>>> "Josh" wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>> Wow, Ok first off Microsoft has not given MSDN or Technet
>>>>>> Subscribers
>>>>>> anything. They purchased it. Those programs aren't free. The
>>>>>> Technical
>>>>>> Beta participants who have been in this program FAR FAR longer
>>>>>> than
>>>>>> the CPP
>>>>>> has even been around do much much more than just file a couple
>>>>>> of
>>>>>> bugs.
>>>>>> They are responsible for feature focus testing each week. They
>>>>>> have
>>>>>> to
>>>>>> rebuild there systems far more often than someone in the CPP
>>>>>> who only
>>>>>> got 2
>>>>>> downloads.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Now I agree that this program certainly helps and I am sure
>>>>>> that
>>>>>> Microsoft
>>>>>> appreciates the testing, but is it the same level of commitment
>>>>>> that
>>>>>> was put
>>>>>> in by the Tech Beta participants...NO WAY.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> --
>>>>>> Josh
>>>>>> http://windowsconnected.com
>>>>>>
>>>>>> "Jon Acord" <JOn@theacords.biz> wrote in message
>>>>>> news:53678CBE-647E-45B3-A516-7B6548691DF8@microsoft.com...
>>>>>> > It's been a long road helping Micro$oft beta test Vi$ta.
>>>>>> > I've been
>>>>>> > doing
>>>>>> > it
>>>>>> > since it was called Longhorn. I have submitted Just under a
>>>>>> > dozen
>>>>>> > bug
>>>>>> > reports. I have installed and uninstalled it more times than
>>>>>> > I care
>>>>>> > to
>>>>>> > remember in my zeal and enthusiasm. I have believed in this
>>>>>> > product
>>>>>> > when
>>>>>> > no
>>>>>> > one else did. When I hear that Micro$oft is giving away
>>>>>> > 'complimentary'
>>>>>> > copies only to MSDN and TechNet subscribers I felt as if
>>>>>> > someone had
>>>>>> > slapped
>>>>>> > my face. So, just because I tested Vi$ta VIA the customer
>>>>>> > preview
>>>>>> > program
>>>>>> > I
>>>>>> > am screwed out of my gift? I feel I have earned a copy. You
>>>>>> > mean,
>>>>>> > because I
>>>>>> > did not pay Micro$oft a $600.00 subscription fee to beta test
>>>>>> > and
>>>>>> > better
>>>>>> > their software I am beneath their notice? This is typical of
>>>>>> > a
>>>>>> > large,
>>>>>> > bloated, corporate monster that does not care one iota about
>>>>>> > the
>>>>>> > people
>>>>>> > who
>>>>>> > made them their most precious $$$. This proves that
>>>>>> > Micro$oft does
>>>>>> > not
>>>>>> > have
>>>>>> > a heart, all they care about is money.
>>>>>> >
>>>>>> > ----------------
>>>>>> > This post is a suggestion for Microsoft, and Microsoft
>>>>>> > responds to
>>>>>> > the
>>>>>> > suggestions with the most votes. To vote for this suggestion,
>>>>>> > click
>>>>>> > the "I
>>>>>> > Agree" button in the message pane. If you do not see the
>>>>>> > button,
>>>>>> > follow
>>>>>> > this
>>>>>> > link to open the suggestion in the Microsoft Web-based
>>>>>> > Newsreader
>>>>>> > and then
>>>>>> > click "I Agree" in the message pane.
>>>>>> >
>>>>>> > http://windowshelp.microsoft.com/com....vista.general
>>>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>
>>>
>>
>>
>
>
>

Hey Chad here is some advice for you: if you don't like Mike then avoid
reading his posts.
See how easy a solution that is?

"Chad Harris" wrote:

> Au Contrare Mike--I think it's superlative form. And most of your collegues
> have their email address available via a public right click anyway.
>
> 1) You all are maximally aloof, non-responsive, elitist, condescending,
> arrogant, don't value feedback from your customers or those of us who help
> your customers, and you hide all the time from the public. I just wanted
> to reduce your hiding behind that Redmond campus facade from your
> customers--the ones who pay your salary and buy your personal toys.
>
> You all are the company that wanted to include in the negotiation of your
> Halo movie contract with studios to fly MSFTies to the Halo premier after
> demanding an unprecedented piece of the movie, when the movie companies
> walked away from your demands:
>
> http://www.themovieblog.com/archives...completed.html
>
> seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/businesstechnology/2002329242_bizbriefs11.html
>
> http://www.reallyscary.com/2005/08/h...07-release.asp
>
> You all are the company who hired Ralph Reed the Jack Abramoff right hand
> man to do your lobbyist bidding and defended it until Ballmer felt
> compelled to fire Ralphie when it hit the media. Currently Jack Abramoff
> has been singing so much ratting out Rove, Cheney, and ex-Special assistant
> to the President Susan B. Ralston who got Abramoff into the West Wing 465
> times in the space of one year and your lobbyist was into this
>
> http://cnn.com/2006/WORLD/europe/09/...ref=sitesearch
>
>
> and he was directly responsible for setting up female slavery and forced
> prostitution in the Marianna Islands.
>
> Check out the hits below in the Google Search--it would've been appropriate
> for Brad Smith and the attorneys that work for him to check them out. It
> would have saved you all embarrassment and prevented you from funding this
> kind of activity by paying Reed several million in lobbying fees:
>
> http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q...rianas+islands
>
> Try to sell us that before whoemever at Redmond hired Reed from VP General
> Counsel's office Brad Smith or Nancy Anderson's posse in your legal office
> that they were incapable of doing an MSN Search, a google or checking out
> what Ralph Reed was into before they paid him $27,000 per month. I've put
> considerable info on this topic on this group. It goes to integrity. and the
> presumption that those of us who watch MSFT are stupid. I've seen an
> analogous assertion on these type matters by the previous several years of
> Congress and the Senate in our country right up to this minute with the
> mornic nominations for federal judges during the lame duck Congress by Bush.
> It's all about arrogance and the perception people are stupid.
>
>
> 2) During the entire run of the Beta since July 2005, MSFT spottings on the
> Beta groups and participation was extremely rare as far as interaction over
> functionality aside from administrative functions and announcements. There
> needs to be a much larger forum where MSFT interacts with its customers.
> Your platinum partner Dell has started one. I read a large number of MSDN
> and Technet blogs but that's not what I mean here. I mean one for overall
> MSFT policy particularly the two large issues I've singled out--recovery
> media and support.
>
> In person, your people are pleasant enough, and of course very high quality,
> superbly trained and great presenters, but there are two topics that are
> absolutely taboo for them to discuss:
>
> 1) Tech Support sub enterprise which is eggregiously poor and nothing like
> your thought process when you look at a windows problem--or mine. I can put
> you on a call anytime, anyplace and show you how ridiculous they are and how
> terrible the English is at those Indian call centers. We're not talking
> your collegues in Redmond who have Indian parents or may be Indian. We're
> not talking the guy you sent from MSFT Research to head MSFT Research in
> Indian--we're talking about people who know less Windows than my dog whose
> MO is to tell your customers many of whom aren't sophisticated Windows users
> to format the box when a large percentage of the problems you and I could
> fix easily.
>
> 2) An absolute taboo subject at MSFT is the way you all arm twist and
> pressure 300 OEM named partners--Dell has broken from this in Vista
> according to their blog that I linked:
>
> See for ref from a recent article on the Dell Blog:
>
> Bloatware, Operating System Discs and Dell Software Support
> http://www.direct2dell.com/one2one/a...0/17/3132.aspx
>
> 3) I can't require and wouldn't be grandiosely that crazy to think I could
> require anyone to do anything particularly someone who works for a 65,000
> person company who leads the US in outsourcing tech support to Convergys of
> Ohio in Cinncinaiti which is not in Redmond, Washington but when I last
> checked across the Ohio River from Convington, Kentucky north of a baseball
> stadium outsources to call centers in India.
>
> It does amuse me that one of the standard defenses is that MSFT is not
> required to do this or that. They sure aren't , and people aren't required
> to use or buy their software. I'm looking at a slide here titled "The
> Windows Vista Opportunity" where MSFT has projected they will have according
> to "industry forecasts" which are all over the map actually "> 475 million
> running Vista in the first 24 months" and "an upgradable installed base of
> >200 million PCs." The next 24 months will be interesting, but I think
> this
> is a grandiose prediction from what I can tell.
>
> "All OEMs shipping preinstalled Windows are required to provide a
> method of recovering the OS to "as shipped" on the device (this may or
> may not be destructive to any data on the system). This may be in the
> form of recovery CDs/DVDs, original OEM media or a on disk recovery
> partition or a method to create one of these after the initial setup
> of the system by the end user."
>
> Yessir, Mr. Brannigan, and let me help a senior policy maker and longtime
> employee at Redmond with this concept. I thought I drove it home with my
> challenge to you, to members of the setup team, to your best and brightest
> Windows mavens including Jim Allchin to break Vista or XP--I don't care
> which except again a repair install or inplace upgrade has considerably more
> clinical efficacy on the ground in XP than a Win RE Startup Repair in
> Vista--and you all try to recover with what you just mention and I'll take a
> genuine full fledge OS CD and I'll clean your clock every time.
>
> Let's make this clear. In Hospitals in Seattle, including the complex where
> the Gates Foundation is located, when people go into respiratory or cardiac
> arrest or both, certain medications and equipment are needed to have the
> maximal chance to recover them and this goes under the name of CPR among
> others with various standardized protocols.
>
> Analagously, when a Windows XP box breaks down the protocol is along the
> lines of Chapter 28 of the Windows XP Pro Resource Kit--I've put hundreds of
> directions to get this done on the Vista and XP groups over the last few
> years--do a search--whether to help people recover XP or Vista with MSFT
> sanctioned directions appropriate to each OS.
>
> If in those hospitals, instead of the right concentration of epinepherine
> and other medications you have tap water in some of the vials, bottles, and
> syringes, you're not going to get those people back.
>
> What you just cited are the equivalant of water in those epi bottles. What
> you all don't want to admit, but I've gotten plenty of Softies to admit
> privately from Redmond Washington campuses and other offices is that you all
> pressure OEM named partners not to provide an OS CD. What you named almost
> never works. So while it sounds appropriate for you to talk about the form
> of recovery CDs/DVDs, original OEM media or a on disk recovery partition or
> a method to create one of these after the initial setup
> of the system by the end user" the problem is that when this takes the form
> of a "recovery partition" or "non-destructive recovery discs" as HP calls
> them they simply don't work. Again Mike, I want you to think epinepherine
> and I want you to think water subbed for epi. The water won't get the
> pressure up fast enough. You don't get the patient back with just water.
> Likewise, the crap you're referring to is worthless greater than 99% of the
> time, and it won't get the OS back.
>
> I don't know what you've been doing with your time the last few years Mike,
> but I've spent a lot of mine with your customers trying to recover their
> non-bootable OS for a varitety of reasons that are software once hardware is
> elminated from the equation and there are times when both sources are in
> play. I have found that very very few of thes people who have plunked down
> their hard earned money for boxes from your OEM named partners (300 of them
> under the whip of Scottie di or Scott di Valerio have an XP CD or will have
> a Vista DVD in their possession after having purchased an OEM pc from the
> web or from a bricks and mortar store.
>
> So what you have just proferred Mike as if it were an appropriate means of
> recovery is absolutely worthless. I hope I'm clear. Short of the full code
> on a full OS media, people aren't going to recover. As it is, there is an
> additional monkey wrench thrown into Vista recovery and that is that again,
> Win RE's methods don't work much of the time.
>
> Please take my challenge and let's setup 10-20-30-50 MSFTies at Redmond or
> wherever who have access to various media or partitions from OEM and I'll
> take a genuine CD or DVD and let's see how your people function with "water
> for recovery" and I function with epinepherine in my vials borrowing from a
> medical CPR analogy.
>
> I haven't seen anyone from Redmond MSFT game to take this challenge yet.
>
> You wrote: "Sorry - I really don't see your point here. Your OEM will
> provide a
> recovery method as they are required to do for end users purchasing a
> machine pre installed with Windows."
>
> No, Mike. You pretend innocently not to see my point. I know you get it.
> As far as me and an OEM (I'll probably build my next desktop so I don't have
> to take the low end power supplies and junk that they often try to ship even
> when you theoretically pick out your hardware) I can tell you how I handle
> this, always have, and always will. I make it clear that I am onto the game
> that Mr. DiValerio has played with your customers--the "tough luck sucka"
> game--and I tell the sales person that they either send me an XP CD or a
> Vista DVD at no extra charge or I'm not buying the box from them and they
> can take their 1100% profitable markup and shove it and MSFT can take their
> policy of denying customers a full fledged OS CD or DVD and shove it.
>
> I am not sure what Mike Brannigan can't comprehend about anything less than
> an OS CD (XP)or DVD (Vista) ***does not work*** to successfully perform a
> repair isntall in XP or a Startup Repair or other Win RE modality in Vista.
> I wouldn't be pile driving this point home to you, but I've participated in
> close to 1000 fix no boot XP's over the past few years,and a lot of fix no
> boot Vistas over the past year and a half and if you think I'm kidding about
> this do a search for my name on the setup groups or the XP groups and see.
> I want your customers to be able to recover. I'm not worried about myself.
> I'm going to find a way to always have a full fledge XP CD or Vista DVD with
> me at all times. I'm not going to be taken advantage of by a CPA
> non-engineer di Valerio from MSFT that is paradoxically the titular head of
> OEM System Builders and named partners with next to no training in software
> and hardware.
>
> And for a third time incase it isn't chiselling in for you when you say "
> Your OEM will provide a recovery method" you are correct they will provide
> one, but the only problem is unless it is a full fledged full code CD in XP
> or DVD in Vista --it's not going to work, that is won't be successful, that
> is won't have clinical efficacy (remember the epinepherine analogy in those
> Seattle hospitals you depend on Mr. Brannigan). You left that part out.
> The recovery methods no workee and they no workee almost every single time.
>
> That was the point of a challenge. You and your people work with those
> recovery methods you have so much confidence in; let me remove a few key
> Windows bootstrap files and folders-- for example in the case of Win XP>Bios
> finds a bootable disk>loads a program found at the MBR>MBR loads a program
> called NTLDR into memory>NTLDR switches box to flat memory module>reads
> BOOT.INI>before XP loads>NTLDR opens NTDETECT.com into memory which
> performs a hdw test>then NTDETECT.com sends info back to NTLDR>NTLDR
> attempts to load the version of XP you selected by finding NTOSKRNL file in
> the System 32 folder>after the Kernel is loaded into memory>NTLDR passes
> control of the boot process to the kernel and HAL.DLL>you know the drill.
>
> This doesn't happen with those "cheap imitation for OS recovery discs or
> partitions" you so blithely referennced Mike and therein lies the problem
> and why you would fail trying to take me on with OS media using them and you
> know it.
>
> Refs would include some things along the lines of these:
>
> Resources for troubleshooting startup problems in Windows XP
> http://support.microsoft.com/default...b;en-us;308041
>
> A description of the Safe Mode Boot options in Windows XP
> http://support.microsoft.com/kb/315222/en-us
>
>
> (BTW Mike most of your customers are ignorant of the fact they should try
> all four options at F8--I exclude safe mode with VGA from this).
>
> F8 options including the 3 safe modes (I'm omitting VGA for
> this purpose) to try to system restore and I would use Last Known Good if
> they don't work. I say 3 because sometimes one works when another will not.
> If you use safe mode command, the command for system restore is:
>
> %systemroot%\system32\restore\rstrui.exe
>
> Repair Install
> http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/u...ps/doug92.mspx
>
> This isn't going to happen with the worthless recovery discs and partitions
> you just referenced almost all the time and you know it and if you don't
> you've learned it now. Check with the Vista setup team because I know in
> conversations with them they know there are problems and I can document
> those conversations for you.
>
> In the case of Vista, in addition to trying F8 Windows Advanced Options,
> this comes to mind:
>
> Screenshot: System Recovery Options (Lower Left Link)
> http://blogs.itecn.net/photos/liuhui...4/500x375.aspx
>
> Screenshot: (Click first option "Startup Repair"
> http://www.leedesmond.com/images/img...SysRecOpt2.bmp
>
> I'd be delighted to know what it is you don't understand about the statement
> that those recovery discs and partitions you so readily reference don't work
> you don't comprehend. I'd be glad to work with you until you do.
>
> I want your customers covered Mike--they deserve no less for their $400 for
> Vista Ultimate. Most of your Vista far and away will be sold via OEM named
> partners preinstalled with no OS CD. Dell has said they will now provide
> one but in the past you all leaned on them not to:
>
> See for ref from a recent article on the Dell Blog:
>
> Bloatware, Operating System Discs and Dell Software Support
> http://www.direct2dell.com/one2one/a...0/17/3132.aspx
>
> As to the no excuse failure of all the resources at Redmond to fix device
> manager in over 11 years, I can comment. It's indefensible and eggregiously
> lazy and sloppy. It doesn't even rate a gentleman's "C".
>
> "Why was there such a global systemic tin ear as to many many
> components of Vista that TBTs spelled out for various members of the
> Redmond Vista teams that were ignored repeatedly?"
>
> You typed to this:
> "This section above does not make sense. Please reiterate"
>
> It means
>
> We submitted a large number of bugs during the Beta to different Vista teams
> and developers and they weren't fixed when Vista RTM'd on key issues.
> You'll see them play out in the next few months here and in support
> channels.
>
> "The figures for satisfied customer using Microsoft Product Support
> Services and those of the Premier Support and other programs do not
> back up your assertion."
>

I haven't been posting to Mike Branigan based on like or dislike and I would
have no basis for not liking Mr. Branigan. Over the years he's posted a
good deal all over the web, and I've learned from it.

But Mike is out to lunch on the OEM policy. It almost tightens up the MSFT
sphincter and I know Mike isn't a softie now as if it were an intimate
secret. They don't like to talk about a very systemic publc screwing with
no OS media to use to mazimize recovery chances. These discs nearly never
work and Mike has been parsing words way beyond when Bill Clinton did the
contorted "'ve never had sex with this woman. etc.

I have a reply to Mr. Braniga I'll post soon.

CH


"Ron K." <RonK@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:B63AF393-4B50-49F8-BFC7-FB41ECF7A70A@microsoft.com...
> Hey Chad here is some advice for you: if you don't like Mike then avoid
> reading his posts.
> See how easy a solution that is?
>
> "Chad Harris" wrote:
>
>> Au Contrare Mike--I think it's superlative form. And most of your
>> collegues
>> have their email address available via a public right click anyway.
>>
>> 1) You all are maximally aloof, non-responsive, elitist, condescending,
>> arrogant, don't value feedback from your customers or those of us who
>> help
>> your customers, and you hide all the time from the public. I just
>> wanted
>> to reduce your hiding behind that Redmond campus facade from your
>> customers--the ones who pay your salary and buy your personal toys.
>>
>> You all are the company that wanted to include in the negotiation of your
>> Halo movie contract with studios to fly MSFTies to the Halo premier
>> after
>> demanding an unprecedented piece of the movie, when the movie companies
>> walked away from your demands:
>>
>> http://www.themovieblog.com/archives...completed.html
>>
>> seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/businesstechnology/2002329242_bizbriefs11.html
>>
>> http://www.reallyscary.com/2005/08/h...07-release.asp
>>
>> You all are the company who hired Ralph Reed the Jack Abramoff right hand
>> man to do your lobbyist bidding and defended it until Ballmer felt
>> compelled to fire Ralphie when it hit the media. Currently Jack Abramoff
>> has been singing so much ratting out Rove, Cheney, and ex-Special
>> assistant
>> to the President Susan B. Ralston who got Abramoff into the West Wing 465
>> times in the space of one year and your lobbyist was into this
>>
>> http://cnn.com/2006/WORLD/europe/09/...ref=sitesearch
>>
>>
>> and he was directly responsible for setting up female slavery and forced
>> prostitution in the Marianna Islands.
>>
>> Check out the hits below in the Google Search--it would've been
>> appropriate
>> for Brad Smith and the attorneys that work for him to check them out. It
>> would have saved you all embarrassment and prevented you from funding
>> this
>> kind of activity by paying Reed several million in lobbying fees:
>>
>> http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q...rianas+islands
>>
>> Try to sell us that before whoemever at Redmond hired Reed from VP
>> General
>> Counsel's office Brad Smith or Nancy Anderson's posse in your legal
>> office
>> that they were incapable of doing an MSN Search, a google or checking out
>> what Ralph Reed was into before they paid him $27,000 per month. I've put
>> considerable info on this topic on this group. It goes to integrity. and
>> the
>> presumption that those of us who watch MSFT are stupid. I've seen an
>> analogous assertion on these type matters by the previous several years
>> of
>> Congress and the Senate in our country right up to this minute with the
>> mornic nominations for federal judges during the lame duck Congress by
>> Bush.
>> It's all about arrogance and the perception people are stupid.
>>
>>
>> 2) During the entire run of the Beta since July 2005, MSFT spottings on
>> the
>> Beta groups and participation was extremely rare as far as interaction
>> over
>> functionality aside from administrative functions and announcements.
>> There
>> needs to be a much larger forum where MSFT interacts with its customers.
>> Your platinum partner Dell has started one. I read a large number of
>> MSDN
>> and Technet blogs but that's not what I mean here. I mean one for
>> overall
>> MSFT policy particularly the two large issues I've singled out--recovery
>> media and support.
>>
>> In person, your people are pleasant enough, and of course very high
>> quality,
>> superbly trained and great presenters, but there are two topics that are
>> absolutely taboo for them to discuss:
>>
>> 1) Tech Support sub enterprise which is eggregiously poor and nothing
>> like
>> your thought process when you look at a windows problem--or mine. I can
>> put
>> you on a call anytime, anyplace and show you how ridiculous they are and
>> how
>> terrible the English is at those Indian call centers. We're not talking
>> your collegues in Redmond who have Indian parents or may be Indian.
>> We're
>> not talking the guy you sent from MSFT Research to head MSFT Research in
>> Indian--we're talking about people who know less Windows than my dog
>> whose
>> MO is to tell your customers many of whom aren't sophisticated Windows
>> users
>> to format the box when a large percentage of the problems you and I could
>> fix easily.
>>
>> 2) An absolute taboo subject at MSFT is the way you all arm twist and
>> pressure 300 OEM named partners--Dell has broken from this in Vista
>> according to their blog that I linked:
>>
>> See for ref from a recent article on the Dell Blog:
>>
>> Bloatware, Operating System Discs and Dell Software Support
>> http://www.direct2dell.com/one2one/a...0/17/3132.aspx
>>
>> 3) I can't require and wouldn't be grandiosely that crazy to think I
>> could
>> require anyone to do anything particularly someone who works for a 65,000
>> person company who leads the US in outsourcing tech support to Convergys
>> of
>> Ohio in Cinncinaiti which is not in Redmond, Washington but when I last
>> checked across the Ohio River from Convington, Kentucky north of a
>> baseball
>> stadium outsources to call centers in India.
>>
>> It does amuse me that one of the standard defenses is that MSFT is not
>> required to do this or that. They sure aren't , and people aren't
>> required
>> to use or buy their software. I'm looking at a slide here titled "The
>> Windows Vista Opportunity" where MSFT has projected they will have
>> according
>> to "industry forecasts" which are all over the map actually "> 475
>> million
>> running Vista in the first 24 months" and "an upgradable installed base
>> of
>> >200 million PCs." The next 24 months will be interesting, but I think
>> this
>> is a grandiose prediction from what I can tell.
>>
>> "All OEMs shipping preinstalled Windows are required to provide a
>> method of recovering the OS to "as shipped" on the device (this may or
>> may not be destructive to any data on the system). This may be in the
>> form of recovery CDs/DVDs, original OEM media or a on disk recovery
>> partition or a method to create one of these after the initial setup
>> of the system by the end user."
>>
>> Yessir, Mr. Brannigan, and let me help a senior policy maker and longtime
>> employee at Redmond with this concept. I thought I drove it home with my
>> challenge to you, to members of the setup team, to your best and
>> brightest
>> Windows mavens including Jim Allchin to break Vista or XP--I don't care
>> which except again a repair install or inplace upgrade has considerably
>> more
>> clinical efficacy on the ground in XP than a Win RE Startup Repair in
>> Vista--and you all try to recover with what you just mention and I'll
>> take a
>> genuine full fledge OS CD and I'll clean your clock every time.
>>
>> Let's make this clear. In Hospitals in Seattle, including the complex
>> where
>> the Gates Foundation is located, when people go into respiratory or
>> cardiac
>> arrest or both, certain medications and equipment are needed to have the
>> maximal chance to recover them and this goes under the name of CPR among
>> others with various standardized protocols.
>>
>> Analagously, when a Windows XP box breaks down the protocol is along the
>> lines of Chapter 28 of the Windows XP Pro Resource Kit--I've put hundreds
>> of
>> directions to get this done on the Vista and XP groups over the last few
>> years--do a search--whether to help people recover XP or Vista with MSFT
>> sanctioned directions appropriate to each OS.
>>
>> If in those hospitals, instead of the right concentration of epinepherine
>> and other medications you have tap water in some of the vials, bottles,
>> and
>> syringes, you're not going to get those people back.
>>
>> What you just cited are the equivalant of water in those epi bottles.
>> What
>> you all don't want to admit, but I've gotten plenty of Softies to admit
>> privately from Redmond Washington campuses and other offices is that you
>> all
>> pressure OEM named partners not to provide an OS CD. What you named
>> almost
>> never works. So while it sounds appropriate for you to talk about the
>> form
>> of recovery CDs/DVDs, original OEM media or a on disk recovery partition
>> or
>> a method to create one of these after the initial setup
>> of the system by the end user" the problem is that when this takes the
>> form
>> of a "recovery partition" or "non-destructive recovery discs" as HP calls
>> them they simply don't work. Again Mike, I want you to think
>> epinepherine
>> and I want you to think water subbed for epi. The water won't get the
>> pressure up fast enough. You don't get the patient back with just water.
>> Likewise, the crap you're referring to is worthless greater than 99% of
>> the
>> time, and it won't get the OS back.
>>
>> I don't know what you've been doing with your time the last few years
>> Mike,
>> but I've spent a lot of mine with your customers trying to recover their
>> non-bootable OS for a varitety of reasons that are software once hardware
>> is
>> elminated from the equation and there are times when both sources are in
>> play. I have found that very very few of thes people who have plunked
>> down
>> their hard earned money for boxes from your OEM named partners (300 of
>> them
>> under the whip of Scottie di or Scott di Valerio have an XP CD or will
>> have
>> a Vista DVD in their possession after having purchased an OEM pc from the
>> web or from a bricks and mortar store.
>>
>> So what you have just proferred Mike as if it were an appropriate means
>> of
>> recovery is absolutely worthless. I hope I'm clear. Short of the full
>> code
>> on a full OS media, people aren't going to recover. As it is, there is an
>> additional monkey wrench thrown into Vista recovery and that is that
>> again,
>> Win RE's methods don't work much of the time.
>>
>> Please take my challenge and let's setup 10-20-30-50 MSFTies at Redmond
>> or
>> wherever who have access to various media or partitions from OEM and I'll
>> take a genuine CD or DVD and let's see how your people function with
>> "water
>> for recovery" and I function with epinepherine in my vials borrowing from
>> a
>> medical CPR analogy.
>>
>> I haven't seen anyone from Redmond MSFT game to take this challenge yet.
>>
>> You wrote: "Sorry - I really don't see your point here. Your OEM will
>> provide a
>> recovery method as they are required to do for end users purchasing a
>> machine pre installed with Windows."
>>
>> No, Mike. You pretend innocently not to see my point. I know you get it.
>> As far as me and an OEM (I'll probably build my next desktop so I don't
>> have
>> to take the low end power supplies and junk that they often try to ship
>> even
>> when you theoretically pick out your hardware) I can tell you how I
>> handle
>> this, always have, and always will. I make it clear that I am onto the
>> game
>> that Mr. DiValerio has played with your customers--the "tough luck sucka"
>> game--and I tell the sales person that they either send me an XP CD or a
>> Vista DVD at no extra charge or I'm not buying the box from them and they
>> can take their 1100% profitable markup and shove it and MSFT can take
>> their
>> policy of denying customers a full fledged OS CD or DVD and shove it.
>>
>> I am not sure what Mike Brannigan can't comprehend about anything less
>> than
>> an OS CD (XP)or DVD (Vista) ***does not work*** to successfully perform a
>> repair isntall in XP or a Startup Repair or other Win RE modality in
>> Vista.
>> I wouldn't be pile driving this point home to you, but I've participated
>> in
>> close to 1000 fix no boot XP's over the past few years,and a lot of fix
>> no
>> boot Vistas over the past year and a half and if you think I'm kidding
>> about
>> this do a search for my name on the setup groups or the XP groups and
>> see.
>> I want your customers to be able to recover. I'm not worried about
>> myself.
>> I'm going to find a way to always have a full fledge XP CD or Vista DVD
>> with
>> me at all times. I'm not going to be taken advantage of by a CPA
>> non-engineer di Valerio from MSFT that is paradoxically the titular head
>> of
>> OEM System Builders and named partners with next to no training in
>> software
>> and hardware.
>>
>> And for a third time incase it isn't chiselling in for you when you say "
>> Your OEM will provide a recovery method" you are correct they will
>> provide
>> one, but the only problem is unless it is a full fledged full code CD in
>> XP
>> or DVD in Vista --it's not going to work, that is won't be successful,
>> that
>> is won't have clinical efficacy (remember the epinepherine analogy in
>> those
>> Seattle hospitals you depend on Mr. Brannigan). You left that part out.
>> The recovery methods no workee and they no workee almost every single
>> time.
>>
>> That was the point of a challenge. You and your people work with those
>> recovery methods you have so much confidence in; let me remove a few key
>> Windows bootstrap files and folders-- for example in the case of Win
>> XP>Bios
>> finds a bootable disk>loads a program found at the MBR>MBR loads a
>> program
>> called NTLDR into memory>NTLDR switches box to flat memory module>reads
>> BOOT.INI>before XP loads>NTLDR opens NTDETECT.com into memory which
>> performs a hdw test>then NTDETECT.com sends info back to NTLDR>NTLDR
>> attempts to load the version of XP you selected by finding NTOSKRNL file
>> in
>> the System 32 folder>after the Kernel is loaded into memory>NTLDR passes
>> control of the boot process to the kernel and HAL.DLL>you know the drill.
>>
>> This doesn't happen with those "cheap imitation for OS recovery discs or
>> partitions" you so blithely referennced Mike and therein lies the problem
>> and why you would fail trying to take me on with OS media using them and
>> you
>> know it.
>>
>> Refs would include some things along the lines of these:
>>
>> Resources for troubleshooting startup problems in Windows XP
>> http://support.microsoft.com/default...b;en-us;308041
>>
>> A description of the Safe Mode Boot options in Windows XP
>> http://support.microsoft.com/kb/315222/en-us
>>
>>
>> (BTW Mike most of your customers are ignorant of the fact they should try
>> all four options at F8--I exclude safe mode with VGA from this).
>>
>> F8 options including the 3 safe modes (I'm omitting VGA for
>> this purpose) to try to system restore and I would use Last Known Good
>> if
>> they don't work. I say 3 because sometimes one works when another will
>> not.
>> If you use safe mode command, the command for system restore is:
>>
>> %systemroot%\system32\restore\rstrui.exe
>>
>> Repair Install
>> http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/u...ps/doug92.mspx
>>
>> This isn't going to happen with the worthless recovery discs and
>> partitions
>> you just referenced almost all the time and you know it and if you don't
>> you've learned it now. Check with the Vista setup team because I know in
>> conversations with them they know there are problems and I can document
>> those conversations for you.
>>
>> In the case of Vista, in addition to trying F8 Windows Advanced Options,
>> this comes to mind:
>>
>> Screenshot: System Recovery Options (Lower Left Link)
>> http://blogs.itecn.net/photos/liuhui...4/500x375.aspx
>>
>> Screenshot: (Click first option "Startup Repair"
>> http://www.leedesmond.com/images/img...SysRecOpt2.bmp
>>
>> I'd be delighted to know what it is you don't understand about the
>> statement
>> that those recovery discs and partitions you so readily reference don't
>> work
>> you don't comprehend. I'd be glad to work with you until you do.
>>
>> I want your customers covered Mike--they deserve no less for their $400
>> for
>> Vista Ultimate. Most of your Vista far and away will be sold via OEM
>> named
>> partners preinstalled with no OS CD. Dell has said they will now provide
>> one but in the past you all leaned on them not to:
>>
>> See for ref from a recent article on the Dell Blog:
>>
>> Bloatware, Operating System Discs and Dell Software Support
>> http://www.direct2dell.com/one2one/a...0/17/3132.aspx
>>
>> As to the no excuse failure of all the resources at Redmond to fix device
>> manager in over 11 years, I can comment. It's indefensible and
>> eggregiously
>> lazy and sloppy. It doesn't even rate a gentleman's "C".
>>
>> "Why was there such a global systemic tin ear as to many many
>> components of Vista that TBTs spelled out for various members of the
>> Redmond Vista teams that were ignored repeatedly?"
>>
>> You typed to this:
>> "This section above does not make sense. Please reiterate"
>>
>> It means
>>
>> We submitted a large number of bugs during the Beta to different Vista
>> teams
>> and developers and they weren't fixed when Vista RTM'd on key issues.
>> You'll see them play out in the next few months here and in support
>> channels.
>>
>> "The figures for satisfied customer using Microsoft Product Support
>> Services and those of the Premier Support and other programs do not
>> back up your assertion."
>>