Sorry folks: From now on, no more comments will be allowed on this blog, as Live Spaces fails to screen out even the most obvious link spam, and I can't find any finer-grained solution to this problem.

In contrast, there are other blog hosts offer the ability to hold all comments for moderation, or do so selectively for comments that contain links while allowing link-less comments to go into immediate effect.

So if you want to start a dialogue, you can do so by commenting at my other blogs.

My first reaction to this issue was to import this blog's content into my WordPress blog and shut this one down, but WordPress doesn't import from Live Spaces.  In any case, it's less extreme to leave the blog up with comments disabled, and just use it less in future.

If you value comments as an interactive mechanism, this issue is a bit of a "stealth showstopper", becoming apparent only after you've started your blog.  Hence my down-rating of Live Spaces from "probably would recommend" to "definitely would not recommend".

Wow, I came so close to abandoning this blog, as another example of territory lost to malware!

Unlike my other blogs, for some reason my Live Spaces blog gets a fair bit of comment link spam, i.e. comments that have no relevance to what they comment on, are not interesting in their own right, and are full of links that I wouldn't touch with a robot-controlled Geiger counter.

It's bad enough that this rather technically-crude spam makes it through as comments, but worse, I couldn't find how to delete unwanted comments.  I don't delete comments for any reason other than spam, and a function to hold for moderation any comment with links in it, is enough to kill the problem so far, on my other blogs.

As it happens, Live Spaces has a very elegant UI to delete comments.  So what went wrong?

Discoverability

You have to be in a particular UI mode to see the UI to delete comments.  Specifically, and I paste...

1. Make sure that you've signed in (To sign in with your Windows Live ID, click Sign in in the upper-right corner.) to Windows Live Spaces.
2. In the Blog module, click Summary.
3. Click the entry that contains the unwanted comment.
4. Next to the comment that you want to delete, click the Delete button [graphic 'X'].
5. Click Delete.
6. Click Publish entry

That UI is the only one that shows a deletion X next to comments, and it seems as if a step not listed in this help is to [X] check each of the comments to be deleted.  In fact, the UI differs from these instructions; there's no red X deletion graphic on each comment, instead you select (by clicking the checkbox) what you want to operate on, and then click the single red X graphic at the top of the page (scroll back up).

Er... and then, nothing happens.  Steps 3-6 do not seem to follow steps 1-2... the drugs aren't working, after all  :-(

Timeout blues

Many actions done through a web browser - with text content editing being the most notorious - can fail due to time-out issues.  Take too long in a different tab, or typing in an IE edit field that doesn't "touch" the web server while you type, and the web server may think you're inactive, and auto-log you out. 

Even if that's fixed and you're still logged in, you may still find your changes don't "stick", or your typed content is lost, and worse; "back navigation" doesn't get it back.

Broken navigation

It's tempting to use kewl Web 2.0 or scripted logic to navigate, instead of boring old HTML links.  Sometimes you have to, when traversing scripted forms, edges between secure and non-secure pages, or whatever.  But unless you have to, please don't - it breaks a lot of browser functionality, such as "open in a new tab", and the ability to paste in a link to an item.

That's why I had to paste the instructions to delete comments; I'd rather have pasted a link, but testing the link in the address bar above the relevant page shows it navigates to an earlier starting point.  I see that as a serious and exploitable issue, in that it silently spoofs the link, i.e. unless you test the link, you're not aware that you won't get what you'd thought you'd get.

Help vs. actual behaviour

This is a generic database sort of problem, of keeping things that have to be separate, as consistent as if they were atomic.  It leads to the familiar system builder's proverb to "believe the paint", when the manual is at variance with what is printed on the circuit board!

In this case, it seems as if the UI to kill comments was revised since the Help was written, and the Help didn't get updated to keep up.

Broken Help search

If I'm logged in to my Live Spaces blog, and I navigate to the Help Central via the link at the bottom of the page (scroll down, it's not "sticky" like a Status Bar), I get Help, as I expected.  I enter "delete comment" in the Search box.  I don't get anything useful back - there are a 11 items, but they don't relate to what I looked for.

If instead, I click on Safety, next to Help Central, and do the same search, I get what I want; it's the top entry in a list of 8.  So why does "the same" search work in one Help search box, but not in the other?  It feels a bit like the old "right search, wrong .HLP file opened at the time" problem, from the days when WinHlp32.exe strode the globe.

Some roads lead to Rome

This is a good label for the above and the first points in this blog.  When success depends on a particular UI picked from various parallel UI that look as if they should be equally effective, this problem arises.  On the other side of the fence, it's like the database problem of many-to-many relationships that led to the "relational database" concept of storing everything once, thus with perfect consistency, then referring to it from everywhere else.

This isn't easy stuff, like avoiding dumb design decisions like "let's run hidden macros in data files - I foresee no problems whatsoever", so the Live team have my sympathy (and that's why I'm writing this in such detail as an attempt to help the Help)

System particulars

Lastly, the specifics of my end of these transactions.  I'm using last night's download of IE8 beta 1 on XP SP2, installing this over IE7 RTM.  I tend to right-click, Open In New Tab rather than click directly into things.  I have settings that pop up alerts on active content, and in the case of this session, I affirm permission each time.  I had Windows Live Writer build 12.0.1370.325 (oh please, make text in "About" boxes respond to select, right-click, Copy) open at the time, and delays in interacting with the logged-in Live Spaces site were spent there, writing this post.

This was a very near miss.  I'll reluctantly swallow banner ads and a bad privacy rating (Spyware Blaster immunization dislikes 2o7, for example, and Blogspot trips the same wires; WordPress is OK) but I will not contribute to a blog that waves malware links at my visitors.  I was very nearly outta here, for good.

Do you see "The directory name is invalid" when running installers, such as Setup.exe, in Windows Vista?

If so, a generic cause may be the absence of the %WinDir%\Temp folder, typically C:\Windows\Temp.  Whereas earlier versions of Windows will automatically re-spawn such folders as required, Vista fails to do so, and then mis-reports the path to the executable as invalid, whereas it is really the system Temp path that is invalid.

Example: MS Office 2007

In my case, this cropped up when installing the Student and Teacher edition of Microsoft Office 2007 from the CD-ROM included in the package.  On this PC, Vista is installed in C:\Windows and the optical drive letter is G:, so the report I got was to the effect that "G:\ is not a valid directory".

I tried copying the CD's contents to hard drive volume F:, i.e. F:\Storage\MSO2007 and then running the Setup.exe from there.  Result; "F:\Storage\MSO2007 is not a valid directory".

Cause: Missing Windows Temp

As part of an early malware management session from Bart CDR boot, the C:\Windows\Temp subtree was moved from C: to F:\Storage\2007DEC\Moved; that is why it was no longer present during attempts to install MS Office 2007.  Because the move was done from outside Windows, the location references were not updated in the registry.  This effect was intentional, as the purpose of the move was to break any possible references to missed malware that may reside there.

What is different in Vista, is that the location is not re-spawned as required, and causes attempts to install software to fail with misleading error messages.

Great news, now visibly out of NDA...

http://www.istartedsomething.com/20070929/vista-sp1-recovery-disc/

http://tailrank.com/2990170/Vista-SP1-Create-a-recovery-disc

http://www.boxxet.com/Windows_Vista/How_To_Guide_Create_a_Windows_Vista_Recovery_Disk.17frfy.d

http://adacosta.spaces.live.com/blog/cns!E8E5CC039D51E3DB!16492.entry

http://www.downloadsquad.com/2007/09/30/windows-vista-sp1-lets-you-create-a-recovery-disc/

...Vista SP1 will contain a facility to build a bootable mOS disk.  From the above links, it looks like the WinRE functionality from the Vista DVD.  I'm looking forward to checking it out!

I've started a third blog here, mainly because I liked the look of the hosting service:

• No "bad cookie" alerts, unlike here and there
• Richer feature set
• Better suited to "normal" web site structure

Normally, each blog has a "theme"; this one is about Vista, and the new one might be about Linux if I get traction with that.

This blog was supposed to track my growth with Vista's WinPE 2.0 and WAIK as maintenance OS, but it's a long haul; I haven't got beyond the crude ability to image a reference build and apply that image to build new and SID-independent PCs.  To attain the same functionality as I enjoy in Bart would take a lot of work, and may take longer than the remaining life of the platform, should vendor politics make Vista as unacceptable to sell as OEM MS Office 2007 has already become.

On the other hand, Ubuntu 7.xx claims safe write support for NTFS, which could position Linux as a maintenance OS for Vista.  Unlike Windows XP and Vista, there's no artificial separation of installed OS vs. maintenance OS booted independently of the hard drive, so what I learn about Linux will be directly applicable to both "rescue" CDR use and installation as a productivity OS.  The learning curve may be harder than WinPE 2.0, but what I learn may continue to be useful for longer.

If that title brings on a shudder from the "all the world's a web page, and your files are but icons on it" era on IE 4, then join the club - but what I'm getting right is a way to blog so that posts can also be used via a conventional web link hierarchy.

There are two ways to do that:

1. Using permalinks and lists

This is what I'm currently doing.  If you look to the top left, there's a list currently called "On This Site", and each of those items will lead to a mini-site, or some other content that I consider timelessly significant.

If it's a mini-site, as is the case of "Vista Wishes", then you will get a link-rich contents page, used as a base for the rest of the mini-site.  At the end of each page will be a "back to..." link that takes you (back) to the contents page.

One drawback is that editing existing posts to add that bottom "home" link can have the effect of mis-dating these as "new posts", changing the natural date order.  Fortunately, it doesn't seem to break permalinks, on this Live Spaces bog at least.

2.  Using tags, labels and categories

So many tagging systems to choose from!  Are any of them actually useful?

I'm editing blog posts in Windows Live Writer, which offers "category" below the editing area, and "Inset tags" on the right.  The tags relate to various Internet-wide 3rd-party tagging schemes (I'm using Technorati), whereas the categories are a labeling system native to the hosting site.

And so it is that when I'm editing a Live Spaces blog post, the categories are a radio button list with a near-duplicate pair ("Computer and Internet" vs. "Computers and Internet") and (now) an Add button, but you can't delete categories that you don't want.

But if I'm editing a Blogspot post, the categories are more like a non-unique tag space, allowing multiple tags to be attached to the same message.  There's no nesting logic, which may be as well.

Retrofits and default home links

I like to have a "home" link at the end of each page, and for articles that are not part of a mini-site, that will go back to the blog's "home".  This is significant in Live Spaces, because if you permalink to a Live Spaces blog post, you don't see the lists etc. and so you don't have the top menu "web site" menu.

A problem is how to retro-fit tags, home links and other discoverability aids to old material, without that material floating up as things month's posting (or noising out RSS feeds with old existing material).

Back to home

Many tools that one might run from WinPE to maintain an existing installation, will require registry access to work.  Unlike text configuration files like System.ini or as used in Linux, the registry is seldom found and read as loose files, but is accessed via an API that will find the booted registry hives instead of those on the system being maintained.

It is possible to manually bind such inactive hives to the "live" registry, but if you do so, the internal paths will change.  Tools that are unaware of this possibility (i.e. nearly all of them) will not work properly.  The results may be particularly poor in the context of malware management, e.g. where a malware file is deleted but registry references to it are not, or detection methods that look for registry cues fail to find these where expected.

This problem has been anticipated and pretty much solved on the Bart platform, by using Paraglider's RunScanner plugin.  This is used to launch programs using a syntax approach similar to DOS LoadHigh or Windows Start commands.  RunScanner then redirects that program's registry access to the inactive registry hives on the hard drive installation, instead of the irrelevant "live" ones.

RunScanner uses command line parameters to work around the various issues you might expect; when hives can't be found automatically, whether to use all user account hives or avoid some that may be corrupted, how to long to delay redirection so that a program can find its own settings via the "live" registry as it starts up, and so on.  I generally wrap everything up in a .CMD that launches the tool, and have done so for dozens of tools that I use from Bart.

In other words, the work has been done, and needs to find its way into WinPE, WinRE, the Vista DVD etc.  Without this, these bootable maintenance environments are considerably less useful.

Back to Vista Wish List

This is offered for debate, as I can see some reasons why this may be undesirable.

Moving to 64-bit provides the opportunity to shed legacy baggage to reduce exploitable surface and behavior variations between parallel code paths. 

The biggest obstacle to the move has been the lack of 64-bit software, and this bites deeply into formal system maintenance as hosted via WinPE or the installation DVD.

So unless 64-bit versions of HD Tune, on-demand virus scanners, etc. suddenly abound, Vista64 systems will remain at a significant survivability disadvantage unless the 64-bit installation DVD and WinPE 2.0 are able to run 32-bit tools.  It also hinders the migration to WinPE 2.0 from Bart PE.

Back to Vista Wish List

This is offered for debate, as I can see some reasons why this may be undesirable.

Many useful maintenance tools that are 16-bit and/or DOS-based, such as command-line virus scanners from Sophos, Kaspersky and McAfee (as rolled into David Lipman's Multi-AV tool).  You can never have too many on-demand antivirus scanners, and compatibility with Multi-AV would be the easiest way to get WinPE-based scanning into the hands of users and techs new to such concepts.

Bart PE is able to run all such tools.

Back to Vista Wish List

The Vista installation DVD contains the ability to boot and run as a WinPE command prompt, and Microsoft is at last seeing this as a maintenance OS (mOS) to host arbitrary diagnostic, recovery and malware management tools. 

But some useful tools do not work, and fail in the same way; simply, "nothing happens" when they are run.  These are 32-bit Windows programs failing to run on 32-bit Vista DVD and WinPE 2.0, so it is not a matter of missing 16-bit support, or missing 32-bit support in a 64-bit mOS.  They don't need formal installation, and all work with Bart PE.

Examples include:

• HD Tune, a very useful and safe physical hard drive diagnostic
• WinDirStat, a fast way to assess storage space bloat
• Agent Ransack, a useful index-agnostic search

My hunch is that if one of these works, they all will.  The code base need not change, if a /kb article can document what we need to do to build a WinPE that works with these, though a better solution is to revise the code base so that the standard DVD works as well. 

In my opinion, WinPE and the DVD need to work with as many tools as possible, if it is to catch up with Bart PE's community support as a maintenance OS.  As it stands, XP + Bart is a more maintainable and survivable solution than Vista + WinPE.

Back to Vista Wish List

There are 35+ "Vista Wish" posts for July 2007, but this site may fail to display them all, so here are permalinks to these.  All attempt to offer solutions beyond complaints and motivations for attention.

Imperatives
All licensees should get fully-functional DVDs - OEM crippleware must die
Interactive file system repair - "Kill, bury, deny" just is not good enough

Bug fixes
NTFS.SYS crash locks out almost all tools - only BING and some DOS tools work
Safe Boot Alternate Shell is editable - unprotected, ?ambiguous user context
Activation false-positives - bug-hunt, tools and documentation needed
Ambiguity when properties are overlaid - meta-bug class, three examples given
Shell folder namespace duplication - happens easily, messy and risky to clean up
WinPE's Convert silently does nothing - leaves as FAT32; Vista image runs, but...
Folder views; remembered vs. content-selected - fixing which wins, better control
Shadow copy; 4 bugs/wishes - XP vs. Vista, hidden user data, copy bug, no control

Ease of Use
Save Settings Everywhere - breaking the tech/user skills barrier
Window Resize Everywhere - use the Win3.x feature set, Luke
One Button Safety - on-the-fly opt-in to reduced rights and safer UI
Usage Scenario Themes - more than just "eye candy"

Safety and security
Windows Explorer Safe List View - (pre-)selectable safer and faster UI
Safe option when discovering new storage - reduce malware and corruption risks
Block SMTP from non-designated code - best chance to kill spam transmission
Safer ADS handling - kill this dangerous hidden code opportunity
Safer file type handling - a major "safety gap" between expectation and risk

Bad defaults
Auto-restart on system errors - especially pointless before boot completes
RPC failures should not be hardwired to restart PC - UI control is greyed out

New features
User controlled New Account prototype - else account feature may be unusable
Dead bloat should be relocatable - new shell folder for "must-keep, seldom-used"
Custom shell folders and behaviors - for power users and value-add setup
Voice and fax telephony - need to receive both types of messages

Enhancements
Less per-item overhead for shell file operations - rich or slow; (pre-)choose
Pre-empt actions for shell file operations - helps mitigate slow bulk file operations
Clearer logging of ChkDsk and AutoChk - discoverability of crucial information
SFP input from ChkDsk, AutoChk, antivirus - catch more code corruption
Per-application folder redirection - taming bad application's hard-coded data paths
Defrag needs a UI and documentation - watching the man behind the curtain

WinPE as maintenance OS
Design review for better safety on sick PCs - changing the "PE" mindset
RunScanner functionality needed - transparent redirection to installation's registry
Some useful tools don't work - and a single fix may help all of them to work
64-bit hosting of 32-bit programs - broaden the maintenance toolset for Vista64
32-bit hosting of 16-bit programs - some useful "DOS" antivirus scanners out there

I'm glad I had reason to snap these into focus, and hope they may make a difference.

Back to home

I'm sure I won't be the only one asking for this, but; defrag needs a 'face, and not just for eye-candy purposes either.  One wants to know whether the system's idea of "optimization" is to stick things in the middle of nowhere on a huge volume that will never fill up (in which case a smaller volume may reduce seek travel), and what such material might be. 

Some of us also prefer to know when defrag is taking place, and make sure this (or any other wait-until-idle activities) don't happen at other times.  This is more than a battery life issue; it may go about unreliable utility power, for example.

It would also be very good to see detailed documentation on what defrag's placement strategies are, and the basis for such decisions.  It would dispel a lot of hot air on such topics, and may expose some snake-oil products as such.

-o-

Well, unless I think of something else, that's the end of my "wish list for Vista" series.  There should be over 25 such posts this July 2007, with "Forthcoming Attractions" as the oldest; if you can't see them all, even when selecting "July" (Spaces scalability bug?) then click Permalink on the last one you can see, and then click Previous to walk back from there - or click the link below!

Back to Vista Wish List

Often one has files that are needed - but are seldom used, do not need rapid access, and should be protected from file system mishaps.  Partitioning allows such material to be moved off the active C:, protecting them from C: write traffic and keeping C: small and lean.

Shell folder relocation helps up to a point, as would per-application folder redirection.  But there's a class of material that would be perfect for a new "keep safe, out of the way" shell folder definition; pre-installation code and post-patch backup material.

Taking XP as an example, I may have 3 inactive do-nothing code file copies for every 1 active file, in locations such as:

• ServicePackFiles
• Downloaded Installations
• Software Distribution
• Installer
• DLLCache
• $hf_mig$
• $NT...$
• MSOCache

Try it yourself; download and use WinDirStat, which will show you graphically how much space things take in relation to the total used file capacity of whatever you've selected.  It's pretty ugly.

I can't think of anywhere else where a 1:3 "live" to "dead weight" ratio would be considered as acceptable performance.  75% CPU use tied up in pipeline stalls?  75% RAM tied up with locked, unused code that can't be paged out?  Hard drive activity is what keeps us waiting most of the time, so it seems a strange place to accept this sort of inefficiency.

Whether one uses partitioning to address such matters or not, it would still be good to collect such material into a "cold storage" subtree and allow this to be relocated to taste.  In addition to performance benefits, the material could be protected by stronger permissions, hardware read-only switch, encryption, automated backup or mirroring, etc.

Back to Vista Wish List

So far, "themes" have been collections of settings based on stylistic concepts.  That's nice as eye-candy goes, but what I'd like to see are themes that apply settings based on usage concepts, e.g.:

• Keep all text above X in size (for "old eyes")
• Size and strip dialogs to show as much content without scrolling
• Keep it plain (kill the frills)
• Keep it fast (drop the animations and content groping)
• Maximum safety (initiate no risks ahead of my indicated intent)
• Hi-tech disclosure (show all files, etc.)
• Revert to pre-theme settings

The last refers to the "on the fly" nature of these themes, in that it should always be possible to roll back to the way it was before the scenario theme was applied.

This gives far more flexibility than formal themes, accessibility, user accounts, collections of loose settings scattered across multiple deeply-nested dialogs, etc.  A person could walk up, select a scenario theme, do something for a few minutes, drop the theme and walk away - without being irritated or hindered by whatever the "main" user's setup was, and without changing that setup.

It's also about abstracting from loose settings detail towards what the user is trying to do when changing those settings.  For example, a tech might want a combination of "plain", "fast", "hi-tech" and "show maximum content", whereas an older user dropping in to quickly check mail may want "plain" and "no small fonts". 

It should also be possible to build and save your own scenario theme by combining settings from existing scenario themes and then (if desired) drilling into further settings detail.

One could also break the XP-and-later "limited colors" thing by generating new UI color themes based on seed color values, perhaps using an "eye-dropper" tool to pick a color base from the desktop image.  The system would sanity-check this to prevent invisible white-to-white color spreads, etc.

Back to Vista Wish List

Vista has improved the file operations progress dialog, as well as the dialogs that pop up when duplicate files are found, etc. but it is still not possible to start a bulk operation, walk away, and know that it will complete, unattended.  This is all the more bothersome as multi-file operations are slow in Vista.

It would be good if there were a "Settings..." button on the file operation progress dialog, where one could checkbox and radio-button desired responses to issues that would otherwise stall the operation:

• Exists and is newer
• Exists and is older
• Executable or library code
• Read-only
• Hidden
• System
• Can't be read (step over, abort, undo)
• Can't write (e.g. target full; skip file, abort, undo)
• ADS material will be lost

I'd resist the urge to "remember" these settings beyond the operation to which they are applied.

Back to Vista Wish List

Vista offers a better selection of "canned" shell folders:

• Large music, pictures and videos no longer nested in Documents
• The new Downloads folder suggests growing risk awareness

However, it would be very good to be able to create one's own shell folders and define behaviors to go with them.  Microsoft could watch where folks take this, and roll a "best of" selection into future Windows versions  ;-)

Back to Vista Wish List

Similar in concept to the "Save Settings Everywhere" Manage button and the ability to "Resize Windows Everywhere", the Safety button would be a UI feature common to different contexts, yet doing conceptually the same thing - slamming up the defenses for that context with just one click, and with immediate effect.

For example, IE 7 might go into Protected Mode and operate with boilerplate Restricted Zone settings, whereas Windows Explorer would go into a "Safe List View" as proposed here. 

This is conceptually the reverse of "Run As Administrator", and would be a handy lifeline for those who insist on disabling UAC.  Whereas UAC prompts users to opt out of reduced rights, the Safety button would opt the user in to reduced rights on demand.

Back to Vista Wish List

I am so glad List View made it into Vista! 

What I'm suggesting here, is a "safe" List View that would be the safest and fastest way to navigate the file system, do bulk file operations, and reduce exploit exposure while doing so, as part of an overall quest for safer file management.

I'll edit in some relevant parts of a previous entry here:

• Block changes to file associations, integration points and MRUs
• No automatic writes, i.e. Desktop.ini, volume tracking, date stamps, thumbnails etc.
• No content look-ahead (including embedded icons) when listing or selecting files
• No \Autorun.inf or other auto-processing
• No content groping on listing of folder contents
• No extraction or generation of icons from file content
• Do not "open" based on content rather than extension
• Show all files and file name extensions
• On "open", warn on anomalies, e.g. ADS, type vs. extension mis-match, etc.
• Apply appropriately stricter permissions
• Remain in this Safe List view, ignore "remembered" or context-cued templates
• Reduced per-tem overhead on Copy, Move and Delete

The idea is a mode that is safer with regards to failing disks and malware risks.

Back to Vista Wish List

Decent applications should always allow you to choose where they store your data, so that you can back up and manage it more effectively.

Unfortunately, many applications fail this standard, so it would be useful if the OS could step in and provide a re-direction functionality.

There is an application compatibility layer in Vista that already does this sort of thing, to bridge us over from yesterday's ideas to today's.  This is where UAC and virtualization of protected locations comes from, and I'd understand in the Vista team were so punch-drunk from blow-back over these issues that they'd be loath to extend these further  ;-)

Nevertheless, I can see a case to be made for per-application path re-direction, driven by shoddy application standards. 

For example: The Sims 2 is hard-wired to dump massive wads of game data within the "(My )Documents" location, blowing what may have been an easy-to-backup 20M of office files out to an unmanageable 1G+ lump.

Another example: Adobe drops an "Updater 5" subtree in "(My )Documents" that is currently empty, but could wind up containing pushed code file updates that a generic Win32PE virus could infect. 

No matter how "tight" your user account permissions may be, the user will always have the right to write to their data set - and that means malware can always be able to infect code files there, and then trash user data, leading to a "data" restore that also restores the malware-infected code.

For this reason, I favor a policy of excluding all incoming (e.g. "My Received Files") and infectable material out of the data set, so that it can be restored with some confidence after an unexplained melt-down precipitates a need to do this.

In general, I see per-application control as far more useful in consumerland than per-user control.  But that's another day's topic...

Back to Vista Wish List

Yes, even in this age of mobile this and wireless that, many of us still use ordinary telephones and faxing, often on the same line without the "distinctive ring" feature.

In such cases, a fax receive facility that cannot also take voice messages is next to useless, particularly for unattended calls.  Whatever "picks up" the call cannot hand it off if it doesn't know what to do with it, so Windows would have to take both faxes and voice messages to be useful.

Voice modems have been around for several years, and yet Windows still has no native awareness of them.  More to the point, recent modems seldom come bundled with software that will take both fax and voice calls within contemporary versions of Windows.  Even when this bundled software works, it falls short of expectations; for example, even where voice messages are recorded as .WAV files, they usually cannot be cued to (re-)play from arbitrary points in the sound file, etc.

So I'd still like to see Windows provide a facility to meet this dull but useful need.

Back to Vista Wish List