Secure Automatic Login for Vista

I, like quite a few computer owners, am almost the only person to use my machine.  It always has annoyed me that when I boot up my machine I can’t just walk away and come back to a ready to use machine.  That’s because it will load Windows fine, but when that’s done I still won’t be logged in.  So I enter my password and then wait while resources get sucked up by various applications that start loading.

One could argue with why these applications load at this time, or why they need to suck up so many resources that the it’s hard to use the machine for a minute or two longer but that’s another post.  The other way to avoid this problem is to have your user automatically logged in.  But I’ve never been comfortable with the idea of my computer not needing a password, despite it being locked inside my apartment, and the knowledge that a determined person who was inside my apartment already could surely defeat that protection given ample time.

I’ve finally found the solution to this problem.  First, start with the automatic login.  Tap Window-R and type netplwiz.  This loads the Advanced User Accounts Control Panel.

If you have more than one user configured make sure your user name is selected.  Next, uncheck the box "Users must enter a username and password to use this computer."

As I mentioned the problem is now your computer boots up and is wide open.  The fix is to take advantage of Vista’s much enhanced task scheduler.  You can either run taskschd.msc /s or choose Task Scheduler from Administrative Tools.  Choose Action\Create Task.

 

On the General tab make sure "Run with highest privileges" and "Run only when user is logged on" are both checked. 

Go to the triggers tab and click New and select, Begin the task: "At log on".  Make sure "Enabled" is checked too before clicking OK.

Almost done now.  On the Actions tab, click New again.  Select Action: "Start a program".  In Program/script, type %SYSTEMROOT%\system32\rundll32.exe.  Last, in Add arguments, type user32.dll, LockWorkStation.  Click okay, click Run now to test, or reboot. 

In my testing you won’t even see the desktop.  All your user login work will be taken care of and you’ll see just the login screen.  For a small bit of added security, go back to netplwiz, and on the Advanced tab choose "Require users to press Ctrl-Alt-Delete".

Vista Sales: Present and Future

It seems like every journalist is writing something about Vista sales numbers. The only thing I find surprising is the surprise of others. Vista’s not selling well in retail, it’s boosting OEM sales however, and digital downloads are more popular than 5 years ago (when they didn’t exist..). How can this be a surprise?

Yes, in the last 5 years, the computer industry has changed. The average user is completely different. As a percentage far fewer users are interested in “tinkering” with software or hardware, so they just buy prebuilt machines. Even in sheer numbers I expect there are fewer tinkerers because the economics of building your own system changed too. Often you can buy a prebuilt system for as cheap or cheaper than you could buy the parts if you’re system is in the “value” range.

Beyond this, XP with Service Pack 2, was good enough for many users. Vista is a lot better, but fewer users really know much useful about it. They know it’s late, or know that WinFS was dropped, but ask the average person and the only feature they are likely to mention is the graphics. In time they will learn, but most likely it will be after they buy and new machine with Vista preloaded, and finally get an honest impression, by using it.

OEM Sales

Vista will make its money from three sources. Number one is OEM sales. This should have been obvious from observing XP revenue numbers. 2007 will have higher new PC sales than normal, but eventually those numbers will return to normal, and there will be a corresponding lull at some point, so this revenue is really just maintaining the status quo. Considering the margins on the status quo, strengthening its position is a good enough reason to release an update by itself.

Enterprises

Businesses will also buy plenty of licenses. Some will get their licenses through new PC’s, some through their software assurance agreements. These are status quo as well, but there will also be significant number of companies without software assurance, but with corporate policies that choose to upgrade. Expect these companies to make their purchases at the end of 2007 or beginning of 2008, not the beginning of 2007. Virtually no one planned for Vista during 2006. Half of all the IT staff had been convinced that Vista would be delayed another year by various IT analysts. The other half either didn’t care, or knew that fighting against that first half would be like pushing water up a mountain.

But over the course of 2007 the planning will progress. Some lucky companies will have IT budget surpluses at the end of 2007, which they will merrily spend on Vista, others will get it into the 2008 budget. Some won’t plan all through 2007 either, and will start to regret that decision as 2008 turns and they realize they’re corporate structure means they won’t be able to correct that mistake for another year.

Anytime Upgrade

The third and final source hasn’t been discussed much, but it may turn out to be one of the most important to Vista revenue growth. While OEM sales will temporarily boost revenue, and software assurance will strengthen volume license agreements, and business upgrades will provide a onetime boost, what I’m sure Microsoft is looking for is sustained revenue growth.

The Anytime upgrade system may be the key to that. Most users buying a new PC will choose the Home Basic, or in some cases Home Premium editions. When you’re buying a $600-$1,000 computer on a budget, choosing between a faster chip for $100 and a higher end Vista edition, you’ll usually choose the hardware. The next year however, you may be willing to throw $100 at the computer to “spruce things up a little”. The vast majority of users won’t even consider $100 of hardware because they don’t tinker. But entering a code is well within their comfort zone.

If just 10% of the consumers that purchase a system in 2007 with Home Basic preloaded upgrade to Premium in 2008, that’s a substantial revenue increase. Better yet, it’ll happen in 2009, 2010 and so on for as long as Microsoft continues the strategy. The only disruption to this revenue stream will be new releases, because who’s going to upgrade Vista Home Basic to Premium, when Windows 2009 (or whatever it’s called) is available?

Future Releases

There is some talk that Microsoft will switch to smaller, more common releases, but I really doubt it. Not because they’ll be disrupting the Anytime Upgrade revenue, but for the same reasons they haven’t done this in the past. The reason Microsoft plans for 2 years between releases has nothing to do with internet distribution vs. retail distribution, or product maturity, or any of the factors that are being broken down and allowing other products and companies to release smaller, more common updates.

The fact that no one else gets this shows exactly how out of tune analysts and the entire community is to what Windows role in the computing world is. The reason that Windows will not go to smaller, more common updates is backwards compatibility, in its many forms. I know corporations that haven’t managed to switch off Windows 2000, I know plenty more which just this December deployed Service Pack 2. More common updates? What use would that be.

Consumers might superficially benefit, since the systems they buy would be preloaded with whatever was the most recent update. But consumers operate in a much larger ecosystem in which they interact with developers who must make a choice about what is the “Least Common Denominator” of their product. If there are 6 or 7 different versions out there not only does that make the developers choice more difficult, but it suggests often the users will be on the wrong side of that equation. This might sound great for Microsoft, because those users would be forced to buy the Windows upgrade, but those purchases are going to make more enemies.

And developers are perhaps the most important piece here, because fundamentally their applications is what makes the value of Windows incomparable to OSX or Linux. Applications will always be the driving force behind the success of any platform, and at the moment Windows, as an operating system is the primary platform for more popular AND valuable applications than any other by a margin as great or greater than its own market share.

Developers, unlike the IT staff do welcome frequent upgrades, but one thing they don’t welcome is segmenting the user base up into hard to target chunks. When upgrades are frequent, they therefore must be free, like Service Packs. And that is why I don’t see any major change in the release schedule for Windows anytime soon. I’m sure the next one will be closer to 2 years than 5, but 5 was the plan with Vista anyhow.

It might be tempting to counterpoint this with OSX’s release schedule, but you’d be missing the point entirely if you did. OSX doesn’t have the business users, OSX doesn’t have the legacy application, OSX has a smaller user base, and OSX users are on average far more willing to plop down for constant upgrades. They aren’t more willing because of some fundamental difference in OSX, they are more willing because they are fundamentally different people. There are just as many people like them in the Windows world, but that doesn’t matter the Windows world is so much larger, the other 80% is completely different. Changing OS’s will not change the goals, capabilities and nature of that 80%, or any user for that matter, so it’s pointless to theorize that what works for the OSX user base would work well for the Windows user base, or developers for that matter.

2007 Predictions

The year of MP3/4?

Bruce Hougton over at Hypebot thinks 2007 will be the year of the legal MP3 download.  I’d agree with that one, but there’s a follow up step of adopting a better quality unprotected standard than MP3.  The obvious choice is unprotected AAC (also know as MP4 audio).  By the end of 2007 I expect at least one store will offer unprotected AAC, and that this store will have a big advantage going into 2008.

This prediction shows a deficiency many digital music player manufacturers need to correct.  The iPod and Zune support unprotected AAC, but most others don’t.  In many cases all that is required is a firmware update (reportedly most Creative devices fall in this category).

On the other hand the increased availability of unprotected MP3 and AAC will open up new opportunities for non-Apple devices.

Vista

Consumers will likely upgrade mostly through new hardware, which will happen at a bit higher pace than most years.  It’s not just Vista that will drive this, but also the Core 2 Duo processors sinking into the budget range.  While the savvy techs switched to AMD over the 18 months or so prior to the Core 2 Duo’s release, the average consumer never figured out the AMD game, and as such was given scant reason to upgrade, since Intel’s progress was so poor during this time.

But the Core 2 makes a big jump, and as such a lot of pent up demand will be released in 2007, especially on the non-laptop side (desktop, HTPC).

Despite low retail demand, I expect reviews and opinions will end 2007 much better than the prerelease publicity.  Also, I expect business demand for upgrades to be high.  Many organizations that have highly standardized their environments for security reasons will perform full upgrades by the end of the year.  On the other hand, organizations that have standardized for cost reasons will barely be starting their plans to upgrade by the end of the year.

Non-standardized organizations will have a hard time avoiding Vista on new machines so they’ll adopting much like consumers.  Some will spend the first 6 to 9 months of 2007 buying no virtually no hardware, and end up making a big purchase at the end of the year or budgeting for a big spend at the start of 2008, depending how the organization manages it’s finances.

Blogging

The number of active authors will fall in 2007, but readers will increase, and will reach new demographics.  Hopefully, something (or somethings) will emerge to address the content quality issues of Digg/Reddit.  Digg/Reddit were great once and in many ways still are, but they aren’t for everyone, except right now they’re near the only option.  I feel a vacuum left behind from their growth and the inevitable shift in demographics and character.  I can’t say how that vacuum’s going to be filled (or I’d be out doing it), but it’s there so I give high chances that at least a few will try, and hopefully at least one succeeds.

Remote Desktop Update for All

With the release of Vista to business consumers, Microsoft has decided to release the Remote Desktop updates (a.k.a. Terminal Services Client) through Windows Update. This update is available to XP users under the “Optional” updates, and is KB925876.

Why would you want this update? Besides the security and performance improvements, if you want to simulate Dual monitors (or just drive one huge monitor), you can do that with this update.

No more need for those beta files.

Dual Monitor Remote Desktop Files

Update: These files are no longer necessary. The update is now available on Windows Update as an “optional” update.

A kind user has posted the files necessary to upgrade the XP remote desktop client, like I described. If your looking for them, you can get them here.

There are some additional good tips in the related forum post.

Dual Monitor Remote Desktop Goodness

One of my pet peeves with Remote Desktop has been that it did not support multiple monitors. Well in a sense, it does now. Vista includes a new version of the RDP client, version 6.0, which removes at least most of the limitations upon display size.

The trick can be found here. To sum it up a bit more concisely, plus a few added tips of my own.

• Create a folder for you RDP 6.0 files (don’t place them in System32)
• Copy the files mstsc.exe and mstscax.dll from a Vista installs System32 folder to the new folder.
• Create a subfolder, en-US.
• Copy the files mstsc.exe.mui and mstscax.dll.mui from the Vista installs System32\en-US folder to the subfolder.
• Create a shortcut to mstsc.exe and include the command line option “/span”.

This will get you the new client. You will still need to manually edit your RDP file to set the resolution you want. Normally you’ll find a default.rdp file in your My Documents folder, which is easily editable with Notepad.

It still does not support actual separate desktops (meaning that all Windows will maximize to both monitors, rather than just one), so you need to grab a third party tool for that, which as of yet I have not found. Anyone have a suggestion? I am pretty sure I read about one a couple months back, but not having solved the first problem, didn’t really take enough note, and now I can’t find it.

While I was tinkering with the RDP files, I ran into this little setting “remoteapplicationmode”, which lead me to a post about new features to remote individual applications without a desktop, which I guess will be part of Longhorn Server.

One last tip, I end with is to remind you that if you can redirect the handling of the open and edit commands to the new application. Unfortunately you have to do it through the registry because if you select the mstsc.exe in your new folder, Windows continues to run the one in its System32 for some odd reason.

Update: Microsoft has released this update for XP as a “Optional” update in Windows Update.

WhatIf: Microsoft announces Windows Vista to be available only on XBOX.

Yes, the title is complete fiction; but what if it was true? An anti-trust suit would be filed, and Vista would never make it to market, and that would make sense.

So why is it the Microsoft hating Apple users seem to be suggesting this is Microsoft should be doing? No, they don’t say this literally, but the implication is there. Within the Apple community, the current hype is about how Apple’s closed system is superior to the PC system. If the suggestion is that closed systems are better, than should everyone be creating them, including Apples competitors, including Microsoft?

Personally, I think they are wrong, but that is the suggestion that comes across loud and clear. I think they are wrong because the closed system has been defeated several times already. In fact, this has a lot to do with Microsoft’s initial rise to dominance. Not only is there the obvious defeat of the original Macintosh operating system, but the mainframe market as well. Mainframes often are not considered a direct competitor to MS-DOS systems, but it is certainly true that all microcomputer architectures were in competition with mainframe architecture.

But I digress, the point is MS-DOS became so popular because it did something very few others were even trying to do, and that was open the hardware-software loop, so that when a developer wrote code he could move it to different hardware. There were a few others trying to do this, but most were not much different from MS-DOS (like CP/M86). Microsoft however succeeded, creating the IBM compatible market with IBM’s assistance. The only other effort to achieve any similar success was UNIX. UNIX however had much internal strife, and generally was slower in opening closed systems.

For the early years of UNIX, DEC’s PDP-11 systems were the only supported platforms. VAX support was added by BSD but this changed little since VAX was still a DEC machine, just more expensive and more powerful. In 1982 Sun released SunOS (the precursor to Solaris), and systems built using Motorola processors. SunOS ran only on Sun hardware, and applications required recompilation to move from other UNIX platforms, but at least it was a beginning of hardware independence for developers.

Other less closed developments happened later, like Linux and BSDI, but by that time, the IBM PC compatible market was well established and so was MS-DOS. I will not bother to cover the years since, other than to concede that yes, Microsoft has an effective monopoly on operating systems, and that dislodging them is certainly difficult due to the large amount of software designed for the Windows. A great deal of people contend that Microsoft has abused their monopoly status in many ways. I will not attempt to debate any of these contentions today however, as it is not necessary to make my point.

The point is that none of the acts Microsoft has been convicted of, settled for, nor even accused of, has been as black and white wrong as a closed hardware/software system. Preferential licensing, undocumented APIs, and bundling of extra software into operating systems would be harmful, but absolute exclusion through lack of licensing is simply and obviously inappropriate for a monopoly.

Apple users however ignore this, and advocate a system far more restrictive than the one they campaign against. In terms of OSX, Apple can legally do this as long as their market share is small, because minor vendors have that freedom if they want it, however misguided it may be. But what astounds me is the acceptance of it in the digital music arena, where Apple does have a monopoly nearly as strong as that of Microsoft in operating systems. No one has asked Apple to remove features, alter hardware or software on their iPod. The best one expects from Apple is to license the FairPlay DRM to other companies who either sell music or players so they can alter their own products. At the very least one would hope Apple would not sue companies that reverse engineered the DRM and re-implemented it, nor go to great lengths to intentionally break those implementations.

For years, Microsoft has let Wine go about its way. Recently they have designed WGA to not function on Wine. However, their official policy seems very weak on the issue. The overall effect only turns out to be that users must use a manual process for downloading updates for Office applications. If Microsoft were Apple however, they would have made WGA disable the office applications, and threatened lawsuits.

Microsoft is not perfect, but at least they are better than Apple.

Backwards Compatiblity of Operating Systems

It is well known, that one of the biggest challenges Microsoft faces in the development of operating system upgrades, like Vista, is the issue of backwards compatibility. While all application designers need to consider backwards compatibility, Windows more so than any other operating system, and almost all applications, is heavily weighed down by this concern. There is hope of an improvement to this, which I will get to, but first a bit of background into the difficulty.

Linux users are already predisposed to incompatibilities rising from forks, flavors and bundling, so backwards compatibility is easier to manage for developers. In addition, since the Linux community does not include many “basic” users, they leave the user to resolve many problems in this area. Being open-source helps too, by making it more possible for a user to resolve problems themselves. However, this assumes that either you are highly technical, or a highly technical user with the same problem shares a solution. In addition, in the area of hardware, having an open-source operating system may not help if you do not have sufficient information about the hardware itself.

Apple has an even easier time of it, for many reasons. First of these is the smaller number of applications for the platform, and the much more distinct clustering of user types. Apple users tend to come from a much less diverse group, and thus rely upon a much less diverse set of applications.

Another factor in their favor is complete control of the hardware platform, which limits hardware compatibility issues. I would list this as the primary advantage, except that hardware concerns tend to be shorter lived and self-resolving. For example, some companies still run 16-bit Windows code, more than 10 years old, but how many run 10 year old hardware? Even the most miserly IT department ditches PC’s within 7 years. Even more importantly, the capacity limitations of such machines are an irresolvable impediment that users generally have some acceptance of, so when gathering driver support 5 years is acceptable, except for some peripherals like printers.

Even here, Apple has an advantage in that its users are more willing to pay large amounts for expensive hardware and upgrades. Most Apple users do not upgrade as often as the die-hard PC gaming community, but as an average, it is more often, and the upgrade tends to be to a near top-end system they will use for 3-5 years before disposing of. Lastly, you will not find many Apple users attempting to string along a system with processor upgrades and such.

Microsoft on the other hand has many corporate users, who still run 16bit Windows or even DOS applications, and they demand, in a rather loud manner, that these new versions of the operating system support these applications. A recent article on the 64-bit version of Vista, makes a good point about how the 64-bit version will be abandoning many of this baggage. It is an interesting strategy and might just work. The 32-bit version should keep those troublesome corporate customers happy, while the 64-bit version creates a clear imperative for software and device manufacturers to ditch the incompatible elements.

However, it may be far more difficult than this because the hardest and most important part is convincing corporate IT departments to ditch those old apps. Not being able to run the 64-bit version, and loosing out on its higher end security will have some effect, but it may be more of a low buzz, rather than the loud fire-alarm effect it takes to create action for many stubborn administrators and users holding on to outdated applications.

If they do not we might see a divergence of consumer and corporate versions of Windows, similar to the Windows 98/2000 split. What is interesting is this time the roles will be reversed. In addition, notice I do not mention NT 4.0, which very few adopted as a workstation. Like 2000, it targeted corporate users, but generally failed to gain traction because of lack of backwards compatibility. 2000 was still not as compatible as 98, but was far more than NT 4.0. By the time XP was released, many corporate customers were firmly entrenched in 2000, and many have never upgraded to XP as a result, despite one of its primary features being even greater backwards compatibility with Windows 98 and DOS applications.

One lesson of all this is it is very difficult to predict what compromises users will make in the area of backwards compatibility. Some will follow one path, others another and the question of how to reunite all under a single banner can be a difficult one. The battle against requirements of backwards compatibility is one of the several disadvantages of being the dominant operating system. It is not specific to Windows either; any operating system in a similar market position would have similar difficulties. Closing your system, as Apple has done, can make it easier, but that is an unacceptable condition for a dominant operating system.

FlexGo and thoughts

Apparently, Microsoft has a plan to more or less rent PC’s in emerging markets. The program is called FlexGo, and when I first heard of it I did not think much of the idea. It still does not interest me personally, but after I read an article that explained their target market the idea made a bit more sense.

The target market is users who are currently paying money at an Internet Café. Thinking of it this way, the Microsoft plan might actually save these users money while being more convenient. In the long-term I think the plan is doomed, but long-term is more like 10 years, which gives plenty of time to build markets and make a little money too.

Though, with the prices I have heard mentioned I have to wonder if they will make money off it. They may have to ask the Gates foundation for support to make it work, which would not really be a horrible thing.

I think the world could benefit a lot from more business based charity. Traditional charity efforts have generally seemed wasteful to me, because they are so easily taken advantage of both by executives, vendors, corrupt governments or often the people they are trying to help. I think you would see a lot less of this in endeavors that run half as business. In a way, this is similar to my idea about open-source.

There is a lot to be said for the power of money, and not all of it is bad. If we can find better ways to use that power for good, we would all be a bit better off. What this requires though is compromises, and corporations are in general no more apt to make any significant compromise than idealistic charities. Kudos to those that do.

Search Providers and Choice

A number of other people have pointed out Google’s double standard on search defaults, but there is big one I haven’t seen so far.

The Google Toolbar. You can’t customize the search provider for it, can you? The MSN\Windows Live Toolbars allow you to customize your search provider. In fact I’ve been using it this way ever since I switched from the Google Toolbar (I liked the way that MSN Desktop Search displays results alot better.. but that’s another topic). But the Google Toolbar (and probably Yahoo, etc.) doesn’t.

Several people have pointed out that IE7 doesn’t change the setting, it just reuses it. And this I can confirm as well, as when I started up IE7 Google was the only search provider listed. Microsoft didn’t even add themselves as an default second option, which they could have.

But here is another interesting point about that. The Google toolbar “offers” to change your default IE setting when you install it, so most all the IE users who have installed it will end up defaulting to Google when they install IE7. What I mean by “offers” by the way is one of those default on settings in a window that the average user is likely to just hit next… Much like the ones in Acrobat installs that tries to sneak the Google toolbar in, and other stuff.

With all of this, I half wonder if more users will default to MSN than Google.

Google.. I love ya but I think you have a bit of a climb before you can take the high ground on this one.