[thechat] microsoft rant

[rudy]

ben's tip on thelist caught my eye --

  If you run a Windows 2000 machine (server or professional),
  make use of the hfnetchk tool:
  http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;q303215

well, i recently lost about a week's worth of productivity to the nimda
virus, and was forced to re-install win2kpro and norton antivirus (no, it
was not up-to-date with the latest virus defs -- my bad, and i have learned
my lesson, even though it apparently got in not through an email attachment
but, i am forced to conclude, by visiting an infected web site)

so a tool to check the never-ending series of patches from microsoft is now
a no-brainer to me -- even though the idea itself, that the way to deal with
the situation of a never-ending series of patches is to automate the
checking of whether you have the latest patches, is mildly ludicrous

anyhow, i go there and click on the "Download Nshc33.exe now" link, and
end up on another microsoft page that says something to the effect that
there was a problem resolving that address

darn, i can't reproduce the problem, it's working fine now, but for a minute
i thought i had another candidate for dan's windows webserver hall of shame

anyhow, the download link (watch for wrap) is --

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=http%3a%2f%2fwww.microsoft.co
m%2fdownloads%2frelease.asp%3freleaseid%3d31154

guess what, the link
http://support.microsoft.com/downloads/release.asp?releaseid=31154 works
fine too

why would they use default.aspx to do a redirect?  are they trying to ensure
that the characters are properly encoded?  why not just encode them
properly? or are they tracking which page is doing the redirect (duh)?

i will never understand microsoft (and i don't particularly want to, either)

rudy