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WinTernals buy is bittersweet

July 18, 2006 | Comments: (0)

WinTernals buy is bittersweet

There's a bittersweet quality to the news that Microsoft is acquiring WinTernals Software, the brainchild of Windows guru's Mark Russinovich and Bryce Cogswell. On the one hand, you're happy for Mark and Bruce, who will become esteemed members of Microsoft's development staff. Mark, in particular, will become one of only 14 Microsoft Technical Fellows, taking his place alongside legends like Windows NT guru Dave Cutler and Jim Gray. On the other hand, you're sad to see the end of a project like Sysinternals, which has provided free tools like Process Explorer, Autoruns, and Filemon to millions of Windows users and net admins -- free -- for going on a decade now. Sure, I know Sysinternals was the fun side of the business and Mark/Bryce are gonna have to get their kids' teeth straightened just like the rest of us. But the tools they created and then gave away -- dozens and dozens of them -- are incredibly adept at cutting through the layers of administrative UI gobbledgy gook and making important features easy to access and use. I often found myself wondering "Why did Winternals have to do this?" Did MS need a third party developer to tell them that it would be nice to be able to view and edit the programs that start up with (and often slow down) Windows? With the turf wars, competing agendas, release schedules and institutional torpor that often settles on large companies, the short answer is "Yes."

Unfortunately for us, the future for Sysinternals is, as the Magic 8 Ball would say "cloudy." Mark promises to keep the site running "for the time being while Microsoft determines the best way to integrate it into its own community efforts, and the tools will continue to be free to download." I don't know what that means, exactly, but I'm not too hopeful.

In the big scheme of things, though, we'll all benefit. Mark's probably best known for putting the word "rootkit" into the common parlance after he uncovered Sony's tricky DRM stealth technology back in October, 2005. But his technical expertise extends well beyond rootkit technology. Off the bat, he will be working closely with MS staff on issues like scaling in multicore environments, virtualization and creating a more manageable application model for future versions of Windows. Judging from his tireless morning and evening presentations on rootkits and kernel security at Teched 2006, Microsoft will get their money's worth out of him.

Beyond that, things get fuzzy. Bill Shelton, group product manager for Windows Server, said Microsoft isn't ready to talk about how the Winternals/Sysinternals software might be integrated with Microsoft's existing products, and won't be ready for a few months. But he did make it clear that Mark and Bryce are moving to Redmond "immediately." The goal, said Shelton, is to use the Winternals and Sysinternals wares to reduce the "TCO" (total cost of ownership) of Windows.

For his part, Mark said that working for Microsoft will give him much more leverage to improve the lives of Windows users than Winternals and Sysinternals ever could. "If I have an idea for a utility now, we can make it available to everybody that uses Windows, or get it in embedded in Windows and that will make peoples' lives better."

I sure hope so. Good luck Mark and Bryce!

Posted by Paul Roberts on July 18, 2006 01:12 PM

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COMMENTS

It's a sad day for the people like me who've been using sysinternals software for years now.

Posted by: Hendra Kieran at July 19, 2006 02:34 AM

Congratulations Mark and Bryce. However, without an independent set of tools to properly manage Windows systems (emphasis on independent and properly) I don't see being a productive Windows admin/user much further out.

Vista sucking sand more and more, DRM up my arse more and more, now the competent tools are going away.... yet another reason why I'm getting the wife and kids more accustomed to FOSS.

Posted by: Lizard at July 19, 2006 08:27 AM

Just downloaded the latest 2006 July 19 versions.
Where can I get the pre-M$ versions?

http://www.sysinternals.com/Files/Accvio.zip
http://www.sysinternals.com/Files/AdRestore.zip
http://www.sysinternals.com/Files/AdRestoreSource.zip
http://www.sysinternals.com/Files/Autologon.zip
http://www.sysinternals.com/Files/AutologonSource.zip
http://www.sysinternals.com/Files/BlueScreen.zip
http://www.sysinternals.com/Files/ClockRes.zip
http://www.sysinternals.com/Files/Ctrl2Cap.zip
http://www.sysinternals.com/Files/Ctrl2CapSource.zip
http://www.sysinternals.com/Files/Defrag.zip
http://www.sysinternals.com/Files/DiskKey.zip
http://www.sysinternals.com/Files/Frob.zip
http://www.sysinternals.com/Files/Hex2dec.zip
http://www.sysinternals.com/Files/Hostname.zip
http://www.sysinternals.com/Files/LiveKd.zip
http://www.sysinternals.com/Files/LoadOrder.zip
http://www.sysinternals.com/Files/Native.zip
http://www.sysinternals.com/Files/NewSid.zip
http://www.sysinternals.com/Files/NewSidSource.zip
http://www.sysinternals.com/Files/Notmyfault.zip
http://www.sysinternals.com/files/ntcrash2.zip
http://www.sysinternals.com/Files/NtfsDos.zip
http://www.sysinternals.com/Files/NtfsWindows98.exe
http://www.sysinternals.com/Files/NtRecover.exe
http://www.sysinternals.com/Files/PMon.zip
http://www.sysinternals.com/Files/PortMon9x.zip
http://www.sysinternals.com/Files/PortMonNt.zip
http://www.sysinternals.com/Files/procfeatures.zip
http://www.sysinternals.com/Files/PsInfo.zip
http://www.sysinternals.com/Files/PsKill.zip
http://www.sysinternals.com/Files/PsList.zip
http://www.sysinternals.com/Files/PsLogList.zip
http://www.sysinternals.com/Files/Regjump.zip
http://www.sysinternals.com/Files/Regmon9x.zip
http://www.sysinternals.com/Files/Regmonamd64.zip
http://www.sysinternals.com/Files/RegmonNt.zip
http://www.sysinternals.com/Files/RemoteRecover.exe
http://www.sysinternals.com/Files/SecDemo.zip
http://www.sysinternals.com/Files/SecDemoSource.zip
http://www.sysinternals.com/Files/Sigcheck.zip
http://www.sysinternals.com/Files/Streams.zip
http://www.sysinternals.com/Files/Sync.zip
http://www.sysinternals.com/Files/TcpView.zip
http://www.sysinternals.com/Files/TdiMon9x.zip
http://www.sysinternals.com/Files/TdiMonNt.zip
http://www.sysinternals.com/Files/Testlimit.zip
http://www.sysinternals.com/Files/VcMon.zip
http://www.sysinternals.com/Files/VcMonSource.zip
http://www.sysinternals.com/Files/VxDMon.zip
http://www.sysinternals.com/Files/VxDMonSource.zip
http://www.sysinternals.com/Files/WebServer.pdf
http://www.sysinternals.com/Files/WindowsInternals-Chapter4.pdf
http://www.sysinternals.com/Files/WinObj.zip

Posted by: W. D. at July 19, 2006 08:49 AM

As others would put it, but more succinctly:

One more reason to ditch M$ and go to alternatives where available.

Posted by: Pete at July 19, 2006 09:30 AM

hi there,

thanks for the URLs. Yesterday, I downloaded my favorites. Just the previous day, I downloaded a few of the utilities.

What makes you think that they are MS versions ?
Just because they have all been "touch"ed ?

Thank you,

BR,
~A

Posted by: anjan bacchu at July 19, 2006 10:17 AM

Sysinternals utilities all in one. Downloaded and uploaded yesterday.
http://s21.quicksharing.com/v/8558154/Sysinternals _all_in_one.7z.html

It's pretty compleate pack, it misses NotMyFault (http://www.sysinternals.com/blog/2005/08/unkillable-processes.html)
But otherwise everything should be in that pack except the videos (http://www.sysinternals.com/Videos.html).

Posted by: Green at July 20, 2006 06:28 AM

This could be great news as windows may get a great set of really useful utilities embedded and hopefully many many more. I dont see this as necessarily a bad thing, as long as mark and co dont get dragged down by microsoft internal politics.

Posted by: Tim Yen at July 22, 2006 05:15 PM

Hello:

I have found out something regarding Sysinternals software that I think you and my fellow readers may want to know about.

I had not visited the site or upgraded any of the various Sysinternals software I have had installed for the longest while (Autoruns, Contig, DiskView, among others) for more than a year or so and since it's been recently mentioned that they've been acquired by Microsoft, I decided to pay a visit and download whatever had been updated and was still free.

Just to try it out, I downloaded and installed the latest version (8.53) of Autoruns only to find out that it 'phones home', something that is not evident unless you have a half decent firewall and read the logs since there is no other indication of this happening.

It seems (please correct me if I am wrong) that on execution, Autoruns 8.53 monitors web internet access (it does not try to call if you are not
on-line) and aggressively attempts to establish an outbound TCP HTTP connection to crl.microsoft.com, scanning through a wide range of local ports (at least 1062 through 1293 till I cut it off).

Here's a pertinent part of my firewall (Atguard 3.22.11) log:

-------

Rule "Last Rule: Inbound TCP UDP" blocked (crl.microsoft.com,http).
Details: Outbound TCP connection Local address,service is (0.0.0.0,1062)
Remote address,service is (crl.microsoft.com,http) Process name is
"autoruns.exe"

-------

I can't really say that I'm surprised at this happening in a company that has been 'integrated' Borg style into MS, but I am rather shocked that
Mark and Bryce, founders of Sysinternals and long time suppliers of truly excellent Windows based freeware have not disclosed this particular 'new
feature' of their software.

I will, as you may well imagine, go back to my old_and_trusted version of Autoruns and strike Sysinternals and all their new software from my
trusted apps list.

Best regards,

CIV

Posted by: sawbona at October 16, 2006 01:59 PM

Interesting, it hits 0.0.0.0 on port 1062.

Details: Outbound TCP connection Local address,service is (0.0.0.0,1062)

Is there a little proxy server running on the system during the install?

port 1062 - something any JoeUser can open without admin?

-Lizard

Posted by: lizard at October 25, 2006 02:18 PM

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