Clay, get the boiling oil. Or if we're out, get the emergency backup oil and start boiling it :) These are my pet-peeves. I don't really care if this guy reads this or not - I have no interest in "donating" my time and professional insight to a company with billions of dollars, but I certainly don't mind ranting...it's good for the soul :) If he wants more recommendations I'll be happy to sit down with a design team or Ballmer himself, if I'm adequately compensated. Instead of hiring out of MENSA, in all of it's top IQ glory, why not hire people that have actually tried to USE this stuff, and let them tell you how it should work! I have had the fortune of not having to administer Windows machines since NT4, but this is the stuff that I see and hear complaints about regularly. Priority 1 is to stop changing everything with every release. Gawd, why is the DUN setup (almost) identical in 95 and 98, different in ME, different in NT, different in 2k, and different in XP? Why should we have to have different setup instructions for every version of Windows, every version of IE, and every variant of Outlook? Why is it so difficult to view full headers in Outlook and OE? Know why there are so many 95 and 98 users still around? Because they don't want to have to re-learn everything after they upgrade. The inconsistency in the interface is probably complaint #1 for tech-support. Can't there be a better way than MMC to manage IIS websites? I want something that I can change with a text editor - a text file that I can backup, print out, copy from machine to machine, do GLOBAL CHANGES, modify with a shell script? Give me a flat file, give me XML, give me SOMETHING that I can modify without a GUI. Exchange 5 and 2k accept and queue EVERY message received (that's addressed to a valid local domain, doesn't break relaying rules, etc) and only AFTER they accept the message and close the SMTP session do they do the user lookup for final delivery. This causes no end of problems when a spammer does a dictionary attack against an Exchange-hosted domain. I've heard this is fixed in 2k3, but haven't confirmed. Exchange 5 and 2k (correctly) tried every MX in order until it either ran out, or delivery succeeded. Exchange 2k3 (apparently) only tries the first two, then gives up. True, RFC 2129 says to try at least two, but implies that you should try as many as possible to make delivery succeed. SMTP was designed to be EXTREMELY reliable. We shouldn't go backwards in functionality with a new release. I think it's reasonable to assume that a company will have 1 mail server, 1 backup on-site, and 1 off-site backup MX. That's 3. I want to be able to pull a drive out of a machine, put it into another (non-identical) machine, and go, like I can in Linux, BSD/OS, FreeBSD, UnixWare and Solaris. I don't want to re-install Windows, and I don't want to call Microsoft to let them know that my hardware has changed (XP). On that same note, I think the network configuration is keyed on the MAC address of the card. So I can't just swap in a new NIC of the same model, without having to re-config the network. This isn't a huge deal, unless you're talking about a machine with 200+ IP's on it. You really have to wonder, when MS is designing this stuff, do they ever sit back and think - is this pointy-clicky interface still usable with 100 of these (IP's, websites, users), 1000? On Fri, 2003-12-19 at 08:11, Clay Fandre wrote: > This is interesting... > > > ______________________________________________________________________ > From: Michael Surkan <msurkan at windows.microsoft.com> > To: tclug-list-owner at mn-linux.org > Subject: posting to Linux mail list > Date: Fri, 19 Dec 2003 00:16:52 -0800 > > > > I am a program manager in the Microsoft networking group, doing some > research around how we can improve our operating systems. My goal is > to help us identify capabilities, improvements, and features that > Microsoft should be focusing on to help our customers over the next 5 > years or so. I am particularly interested in hearing from Linux users, > and get their input about what they feel should be priorities. > > > > I was wondering if you would mind if I posted a message on your Linux > mailing list (tclug-list at mn-linux.org) asking for feedback? I want to > ask for people to e-mail me directly if they would be interested in > taking an on-line survey I have put together (sorry, I don’t want to > post the survey URL directly to the public). > > > > If you don't feel this is an appropriate use of your list, that's > fine. Of course, I am always eager to hear your thoughts if you wanted > to share them. :-) > > > > Thanks, > > Michael Surkan > > > > P.S. If it’s ok for me to post to your distribution list, what is the > best way I should do that? Is there an e-mail address you recommend I > use? > > > > > https://mailman.mn-linux.org/mailman/listinfo/tclug-list > > > > > > > > ______________________________________________________________________ > _______________________________________________ > TCLUG Mailing List - Minneapolis/St. Paul, Minnesota > http://www.mn-linux.org tclug-list at mn-linux.org > https://mailman.real-time.com/mailman/listinfo/tclug-list _______________________________________________ TCLUG Mailing List - Minneapolis/St. Paul, Minnesota http://www.mn-linux.org tclug-list at mn-linux.org https://mailman.real-time.com/mailman/listinfo/tclug-list