Sysinternals Site Migration

Artikel
10/30/2006

Hi, my name is Otto Helweg and I’m very excited to help lead the Sysinternals community migration as well as help define a plan for Sysinternals growth going forward. I’m a Program Manager in the Windows Server and Tools division but my background is heavy IT-Pro (not too much dev) and I look forward to interfacing with the Sysinternals users. Mark has been super helpful in guiding our planning for this migration and will continue to be involved in the post migrated site and ongoing development of its content.

Our goal is to smoothly migrate the major Sysinternals site components to Microsoft services and keep the same level of service the community received pre-acquisition. Here’s how the components are going to match up:

Original Sysinternals Site	Microsoft Service
Mark’s Blog	TechNet Blog - Mark
Yahoo Groups Newsletter	TechNet Blog – Sysinternals
Web Site	TechNet TechCenter
Downloads	Microsoft.Com Downloads
Forum	TechNet Forum
Source Code	Not being migrated.

Once the Sysinternals site has been completely migrated and stabilized, we’re going to begin to implement plans on growing this community. What does that mean? Well, we’ve just starting thinking about this but we do know that Sysinternals has been very successful in reaching their customer base with free tools and utilities that assist in Windows troubleshooting. We would like to see if we could leverage this model across other parts of Microsoft as well. Look for more details after the first of the year.

Let me highlight the Sysinternals site components that will change – just so there are no surprises.

Mark’s Blog: Mark’s blog has been moved over to TechNet blogs. He will continue to post on the same topics as before (as time permits I’m sure). We will work on getting his blog history moved over as well (although we’re still trying to determine the feasibility of migrating the blog comments). His new blog is: https://blogs.technet.com/MarkRussinovich

Newsletter: Going forward, we will be publishing the newsletter in the form of a blog. We feel a blog would be better since it can still be syndicated (trough RSS or ATOM) and it allows for folks to comment. This blog content will be primarily focused on site changes and updates during and post migration. The site blog is: https://blogs.technet.com/sysinternals

Web Site: Starting out we are going to be creating a TechCenter on the TechNet site dedicated to Sysinternals and containing the main Sysinternals pages. If we miss migrating important sections of the original Sysinternals site, we will migrate those after the fact as demand surfaces. We will initially maintain a site support e-mail address (syssite@microsoft.com) to address initial site issues.

Downloads: We will be migrating most Sysinternals tools to Microsoft.Com Downloads which has additional bandwidth for a better end-user experience. At Mark’s direction, we are not going to be migrating 100% of the tools for one of the following reasons:

1. It only worked on Win9x or DOS – the number of downloads didn’t justify the migration. These were eventually going to be removed from Sysinternals anyway.

2. Not compatible with XP or Vista – or had compatibility issues with other 3^rd party applications and were slated for removal pre-acquisition.

3. Demo tools – some tools were posted as demos that were paired with Mark’s articles. We are still trying to determine where these will land.

If you want a tool back, let us know and we'll let community demand help drive our priorities.

We have also changed the Licensing Terms and made it ‘click-through’. The Licensing Terms are actually more liberal and are intended to allow the tools to be used in more situations without a custom license.

Forum: The Forum will be the last site component to migrate due to its complexity. The new TechNet Forum for Sysinternals will essentially have the same structure. In addition, the moderators have agreed to keep their roles as moderators in TechNet as well! We are going to try to migrate all the Forums history, but we know that data quality will suffer to some degree (e.g. reference links within replies may be broken). In addition we won’t be able to migrate Forum accounts, so participants will need to re-register with TechNet.

Source Code: The number of source code downloads didn’t justify the migration, support, and possible integration problems it might cause with other Windows components down the road.

Comments

Anonymous
January 01, 2003
Here's an announcement that I almost missed due to the noise from TechEd and the Sysinternals site migration.
Anonymous
January 01, 2003
Yes, the old files are still on the downloads.sysinternals.com site and the old links are still active. They will gradually dissappear as we migrate more of the site over.
Anonymous
January 01, 2003
Congratulation :) Process Explorer want to keep too ! Regards.
Anonymous
January 01, 2003
今年の7月にMSに買われた Sysinternals サイトの各種公開ソースコードの行方ですが・・・
Anonymous
January 01, 2003
The comment has been removed
Anonymous
January 01, 2003
Microsoft withdraws Sysinternals source code
Anonymous
January 01, 2003
Mitte des Jahres wurde Winternals und Sysinternals von Microsoft gekauft. Das Angebot der sehr hilfreichen Tools steht auch heute noch kostenlos zur Verfügung. In den vergangenen Tagen wurden nun die letzten Vorkehrungen getroffen um das neue Angebot
Anonymous
January 01, 2003
Anonymous: They're not quite lying. What they aren't saying is that no number of downloads would've justified the migration, even if millions of people were downloading it.
Anonymous
January 01, 2003
Please see my comment "If you want a tool back, let us know and we'll let community demand help drive our priorities." I'm willing to apply that to the source code as well. It would be helpful to hear why source code access is important (please be specific) and which source code has been the most helpful. Some code may be easier for us to post than other code and this will help drive its priority. I have been and will continue to be open and honest with you (the community) about our decisions and directions with Sysinternals. I maintain that the current source code decision is driven more by resources and priorities than it is about policy. I want to see this community grow at Microsoft, not just exist.
Anonymous
January 01, 2003
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Anonymous
January 01, 2003
Looks like the SysInternals Website is preparing for a Site Migration , having been acquired by Microsoft
Anonymous
January 01, 2003
Hey Folks,

Mark is on board with this decision
We have some internal policies - which I believe are reasonable (although sometimes tedious) - to bring code through a review process before providing it to our customers so they don’t get bitten by issues like API changes between operating systems. This process alone requires resources, not to mention the efforts, involved in updating comments, API calls, coding practices etc., so we have a level of confidence that we’re not doing our customers a disservice. In addition, we don’t want to send a mixed message by providing code that goes against some of our own published (and followed) best practices (like not using private APIs). I know the historical Sysinternals members can overlook this, but I'm driven by a baseline that includes our entire customer base that may not be familiar with these tools or their history.
Our resources are tapped out trying to get this site up and will be for the next couple months. Right now my driver is the 600,000 daily visits to the site and trying to ease that transition experience. In addition, Mark and Bryce are revving bits, sometimes several times a day, which are fixing bugs and issues as they flow in from this new launch. Adding un-scoped features like source code is not at the top of my agenda right now. Getting a better understanding of the source code usage scenarios would help me elevate it. I’m asking you to work with me on this, not against me.

Anonymous
January 01, 2003
It’s started. The entire Sysinternals site has been flagged to be migrated into various areas of
Anonymous
January 01, 2003
http://blogs.technet.com/sysinternals/archive/2006/10/30/sysinternals-site-migration.aspx Want to keep
Anonymous
January 01, 2003
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Anonymous
January 01, 2003
I have to add another vote ... Source code is very important.
Anonymous
January 01, 2003
It looks like there's a lot of churn over the source code issue. Let me say that it was not an immediate decision and there was debate over whether or not to post the source code. Some of the other reasons for not posting it include the fact that it has been used in malware, and some of the programs use undocumented APIs (which we're trying to get away from). Would it be acceptable to start including more source code chunks in the blog and information articles instead? We are interested in your opinions. Thanks for posting.
Anonymous
November 02, 2006
We are glad Microsoft has decided to keep and improved on SysInternals objectives. We are looking forward to the improvements MS will make on these tools. I am sure it will help make MS platform more attractive. My congratulations to Mark and his colleagues on this acquisition.
Anonymous
November 03, 2006
"1. It only worked on Win9x or DOS – the number of downloads didn’t justify the migration. These were eventually going to be removed from Sysinternals anyway.

Not compatible with XP or Vista – or had compatibility issues with other 3rd party applications and were slated for removal pre-acquisition." It's wierd how Microsoft doesn't want to support it's own operating system... No wait it isn't. Policy like this don't get my points.

Anonymous
November 06, 2006
Would be a GNU/Linux sysinternals tools?
Anonymous
November 06, 2006
I don't see why it would be difficult to migrate the source code, if they're going to migrate the compiled versions...
Anonymous
November 07, 2006
Mark , source code is very important for us ! ! !, and I think it woudn't be difficult migrate the source code, so,..., try to help us, please .
Anonymous
November 07, 2006
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Anonymous
November 07, 2006
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Anonymous
November 07, 2006
Agreed, source code is a must!
Anonymous
November 07, 2006
No source code :( Well I hope the $ tastes good
Anonymous
November 07, 2006
If these tools use undocumented API's, fix the source code and post it afterwards (and DO fix it). If it's not fixable, well, then that points to a problem in the windows API no? The fact that it has been used in malware, well, how about you don't make any API available, because they to are certainly used in malware. For me, it always felt 'safe' to have the sourcecode available: if I ever need to do something like that, I can look at the code here. Real life code, not marketing samples that ignore pretty much everything you have in real software. And otoh, I knew the tool probably wasn't doing anything malicious, since certainly someone read the source and checked. Why not talk to the MSDN people? I'm sure they'd love to have some very advanced samples of using the API available...
Anonymous
November 07, 2006
I do not think that by not migrating the source code they can avoid malware development. The source has been there for years. The guys that write malware already have it. And also there is a full community(ies) of reverse engineering people. By not releasing the source they are actually hurting the new developers. People that for some reason want to understand how Windows works or have/need to write a driver. I really hope they post the source again for the benefit of the developer community. (And mine too, since I don't remember where I put the sources :))
Anonymous
November 07, 2006
Please, i think the decision to not migrate the source is a bad one, and the excuses given, (malware) ridiculous. and (too much work) are already making me lose faith in the transition, it sounds like censorship from day one! The source is very useful as a reference.
Anonymous
November 07, 2006
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Anonymous
November 08, 2006
Mark can you send me all the source code? taywaileong@hotmail.com
Anonymous
November 08, 2006
It only seems fitting that sourcecode should now be accessible on MSDN Academic Alliance site or MSDN Developer's site if anywhere.
Anonymous
November 08, 2006
I'm a longtime user of Mark & Bryce's excellent tools. I can sum up their best points as: - Good design, excellent reliability, superior engineering - As non-intrusive as possible on the system - one of the early pioneers of dynamically loadable device drivers, for example - Excellent reference apps for other developers looking to follow good practise If Microsoft chooses not to migrate over the source code along with the main apps, they will be giving up a hugely valuable resource for developers. It only takes one developer to write an application that may be used by hundreds or thousands of users. Mark & Bryce have provided working examples of how to implement a whole range of sophisticated Windows programming techniques, and a whole generation of developers have benefited from this. Posting code snippets is not remotely as useful as showing a fully working application. Making the source code only available through a closed Microsoft developer program is also nowhere near as useful. If Microsoft wishes to retain the respect of the development community during the course of this acquisition, source code MUST continue to be made readily available. I hope this is clear from the other comments already posted.
Anonymous
November 08, 2006
One more vote ... please keep source code available.
Anonymous
November 08, 2006
The comment has been removed
Anonymous
November 08, 2006
If you have to use the undocumented API's to pull off what is needed for SysInternals then they need to be documented. Otherwise our applications are on a Level playing field with Microsoft. Source code, is educational. I am a software developer and we use SysInternals Products all of the time. I see your from the IT side of the house. I wish Sysinternals was acquired now and placed in MSDN instead of Technet! We view it as a valuable development tool more than an IT tool. Snippets on the blog just don't count, as I then have to search multiple blog entries that are pointless to find the way something was done in a sysinternals product, I might not even find it. I think that posting snippets in blogs is an excellent additional to the source code.
Anonymous
November 08, 2006
I absolutely agree about the undocumented code. If there isn't already a documented method to do what the undocumented code was doing, then document the method so it is no longer undocumented, mark it as deprecated in future versions of the OS, and add a "supported" method for doing it.
Anonymous
November 08, 2006
Yet another shout against the bogus reasons...
Anonymous
November 08, 2006
Another disappointment in Microsoft the source code disappears. I even defended the "takeover" and believed sysinternals would be safe. Ah well it's Marks decission to let this happen. All the fuzz will probably result in the source code being available a little longer but in the end I'm just loosing my trust in Microsoft. I feel powerless the only small thing I can do is remove the terrible Vista from a few machines and replace it with Ubuntu although they already devoured Novell/Suse so where is the end....
Anonymous
November 08, 2006
On the site move: I’m very disappointed that the SysInternals.com domain is completely gone. Most sites post up notice that there will be a merge, and typically the old content is still accessible for months afterward. This is prohibition: download from SysInternals.com in October, search Microsoft hopelessly in November. sigh Could we please get SysInternals.com back up for a week? On the source code: Open source has always meant three things to me:
No mal intent or hidden agenda (to quote Steak & Shake “If it’s in sight, it must be right!”)
quick patches to bugs (if not by the developer, then by the user community)
fully extensible Some would say that open source programs are more secure. This is not so by the virtue of just posting the code, but becomes so over time because of value #2 above. I’m not a developer any more, and have little use for the source code now. However, that does not minimize any of the three values above. And having done software development I can truthfully say that proprietary software derives a LOT of its value due to the need to reverse engineer the “undocumented APIs” in order to provide desperately needed functionality in today’s ubiquitous mixed environments. Mainframe & server farm, Mainframe & Web/XML, Microsoft & Linux, data mining apps that pull from both SQL Server and Oracle systems… on and on. Most vendors provide little help in these situations, and the majority of retail books are worse than worthless. It is the rare gems like SysInternals.com, AutoIt, SourceForge, etc. that enable and drive today’s IT. Ultimately, the enveloping of SysInternals into Microsoft will be seen as just one more innovation that Microsoft bought to control and claim as its own because they were unable to innovate on their own. Ottoh,
Put SysInternals.com back up for a couple of weeks to ease the transition for those like myself that visited only once a month and may have missed any advance notice.
Don’t be afraid of the posting source – free the source and be set free yourself from worries about the source. Your community will catch an errors you miss, and will help you with security problems as they arise.
Lastly, and perhaps most importantly, listen to your community. Ultimately innovation is just meeting needs. (Not to be confused with sales: an attempt to convince customers that they have a need.)
Anonymous
November 08, 2006
Ottoh, thanks for the opportunity to provide feedback. It was good to see a reply from you yesterday. :)
Anonymous
November 08, 2006
New EULAs too! You may not:
work around any technical limitations in the binary versions of the software;
reverse engineer, decompile or disassemble the binary versions of the software, except and only to the extent that applicable law expressly permits, despite this limitation;
Anonymous
November 08, 2006
Rushing in and downloading all the source code from the old SysInternals site the moment I heard about the 'migration' to Microsoft... now that was a good decision, wasn't it? Can't stop congratulating myself on it. On the 'Oh my, used in malware, cut it, cut it!!!' issue: The only thing you'll accomplish will be to have all those sources floating around on hacker sites, file sharing networks and the like. Many people who could do something useful with them may not be bothered to search for them in those places, but malware authors most certainly will. Who's losing and who's gaining, I wonder? On the undocumented APIs issue: instead of moving towards eliminating any trace of references to those pesky APIs, how about trying the opposite direction for a change? Let's face it: some tools can't be as powerful as they need to be without access to some undocumented parts of the OS. Having such tools available ultimately makes the OS more useful to IT professionals. You should be helping the development of such tools, not hinder it. Of course there's the caveat that the APIs are not officially supported, may change in the next version, and so on, but everybody knows that; the tools will simply be updated to cope with the changes, if they ever happen - and we all know it's not that often anyway. In summary, I've yet to hear a valid reason for not migrating the source code. Until I do, I'll remain extremely disappointed to see MS is still headed in the old, wrong, direction. And no, code snippets in blogs won't cut it.
Anonymous
November 08, 2006
The lack of source code seems like a slap in the face. From the Winternals acquisition press release: "Customers will be able to continue building on Sysinternals' advanced utilities, technical information and source code for utilities related to Windows." So, the source code bit was just a lie? This really makes me distrust Microsoft's intentions with SysInternals. At a moment's notice, other things could begin to disappear. Do I have to mirror the entire site now? I've found the source code to be immensely useful, from understanding how Windows works, to adding features to NewSID to streamline our image deployment process (which is a giant pain without third-party tools, and even if Vista fixes this, the massive changes in Vista requires us to delay adoption). Some of the tools used undocumented APIs (which, as other people pointed out, only shows the limitations of the documented API), but a lot of them didn't. Many showed how to properly use the security APIs, etc., and fills many gaps left by the SDK. Please bring the source back. Add disclaimers up the wazoo if you'd like, or just add them to the Windows SDK examples. But please, bring the source back!
Anonymous
November 08, 2006
I really think one of the most importantant aspects of the heart and soul of sysinternals has been done a great disservice by removing the source code. In my opinion, one of the greatest ideas of the site was the education about and illumination of Windows systems internals as illustrated by the code examples. What better way to show this than by example and having the code to look at when trying to understand the issues being discussed was invaluable. SHAME ON WHOEVER DECIDED TO ELIMINATE THIS TREMENDOUS RESOURCE!!!!! BRING IT BACK!!!! BRING IT BACK!!!! BRING IT BACK!!!!!
Anonymous
November 09, 2006
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Anonymous
November 09, 2006
It would appear that I shot my mouth off before thoroughly researching the new site, and as such I apologize for the hastiness of my criticism! At current juncture I withdraw my apparently unwarranted attack on killing the Sysinternals website. I will wander the new TechNet site for awhile and see what is for free in curiosity!
Anonymous
November 09, 2006
even please post the source code in an unsupported as is state. even with out keeping it upto date with the binarys. or are we supposed to have a black market to get the source code that was there until a week ago?
Anonymous
November 09, 2006
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Anonymous
November 09, 2006
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Anonymous
November 09, 2006
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Anonymous
November 09, 2006
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Anonymous
November 09, 2006
AccessEnum.zip AccessEnumSource.zip AdRestore.zip AdRestoreSource.zip Autologon.zip AutologonSource.zip CacheSet.zip CacheSetSource.zip Ctrl2Cap.zip Ctrl2CapSource.zip SecDemo.zip SecDemoSource.zip DiskExt.zip fmifs.zip Fundelete.exe FundeleteSource.zip
Anonymous
November 09, 2006
A few more... I have all the links for stuff that was on the source code page Junction.zip JunctionSource.zip NewSid.zip NewSidSource.zip NtfsInfo.zip NtfsInfoSource.zip procfeatures.zip SDelete.zip SDeleteSource.zip ShareEnum.zip ShareEnumSource.zip TcpView.zip NetstatpSource.zip PipeList.zip PhysMem.zip RegHide.zip Tokenmon.zip TokenmonSource.zip TVcache.zip VcMon.zip VcMonSource.zip VxDMon.zip VxDMonSource.zip
Anonymous
November 09, 2006
And finally a couple of oddballs... http://www.sysinternals.com/Files / Defrag.zip http://www.sysinternals.com/Files / DiskKey.zip delete the space
Anonymous
November 09, 2006
If you want the cached GOOGLE web page, that link is HERE: http://72.14.253.104/search?q=cache:IkoKScxlnjgJ:www.sysinternals.com/SourceCode.html+www.sysinternals.com+source+code&hl=en&gl=us&ct=clnk&cd=2
Anonymous
November 09, 2006
Next: McAffee (av) Symantec (av) Skype Adobe Once the previous ones are gone, those are next on the menu: Autodesk Citrix
Anonymous
November 09, 2006
Well thank goodness for archive.org. I figured there was no more room under Microsoft's rug for sweeping, but I guess those few megs of source code could just get squeezed in there. It's clear by the previous posts that the source code files still exist in the same root directory as the presently available tools from the updated site. Statements to the effect that it would be difficult to migrate suggests the migration team finds it difficult to keep the source code hyperlinks on the page they originally copied. I can understand Microsoft's intentions with removing access to something they do not officially document, support, or perhaps condone. Misrepresenting about why, however, is not kosher in my book.
Anonymous
November 09, 2006
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Anonymous
November 09, 2006
Boo on Microsoft! Removing the source code (and some of the utilities, such as FileMon for Linux) is terrible. And bald-face lying about it makes you look even worse! Please stop buying innovative little companies just to destroy them.
Anonymous
November 09, 2006
I agree with andreyd's post... those who will use the source for malfeasence already have it. Those of us wanting it for educational are kicking ourselves for not downloading it while we had the chance. I have been an avid visiter to the Sysinternals site for the past year, but I only downloaded the executables ... I never leave home without these tools before heading to work as an IT admin. Would like to get back in to coding and see the source (or a subset of it) made available again.
Anonymous
November 09, 2006
Ottoh, you're asking us to beg you. And you're doing so to see just how much you need to give us so we will shut up and let you delete the rest. I'll give you the last bit of benefit of the doubt that i possess tho and ask this, hoping you are able to answer honestly for a change: What priorities are you talking about? What is so difficult about getting a few files, putting them on the new server and linking them? Do you not have enough ressources to handle the few megabytes? Are you running on 2000 Baud modems or something? Do you need to fill in a triplicate form for each link you put up? Also, most importantly: What does Mark say about this? Would he even be allowed to say something?
Anonymous
November 09, 2006
Ottoh, The key to this situation is that microsoft is as open as possible about the rational behind key decisions such as these. I know you have tried to do this, but if its a technical or 'resources' issue, tell us why there the process is a resource issue. If its some lengthy microsoft process for getting files posted the download.microsoft.com, then fine, but do tell us this. Right now as far as we know, its a simple matter of uploading them to a microsoft download server and posting a link to it... which would take about 15 minutes... so there must be more to it.
Anonymous
November 09, 2006
Ottoh, I wouldn't expect Microsoft to "get it" on this issue. But as you can see - there is a community demand - if you were honest in your statement that "I'm willing to apply that to the source code as well" then you would have migrated the source long long before now. You seem to be implying that it would be somehow onerous to have code on your site, yet I can fine a LOT of obsolete documents on technet (just looked up DOS 6.0 debug command documentation - how handy). The source code - ALL of it - gives audit and educative opportunities. If you don't recognize a community demand by now then there is absolutely no chance of you nurturing a community going forward. You may develop a group of people who appreciate the sysinternal tools as they are released but don't be silly enough to confuse that with a community.
Anonymous
November 10, 2006
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Anonymous
November 10, 2006
“In addition, we don’t want to send a mixed message by providing code that goes against some of our own published (and followed) best practices (like not using private APIs).” But you are already sending mixed messages by providing binaries based on such code. It is okay for MS to use such code but not us? Great. :- Although I guess that must be a great way to limit competition. Some of us come to sysinternals to learn how to do some of the neat things that Mark do. The source code was a huge part of the learning process. Since most of us only need to learn something once or twice the source code does not get downloaded nearly as often as the tools that we use all the time. The removal of source code makes me worried that sysinternals will be reduced to just another tool site. More source code in the articles would be great but it can not measure up to the full source code. Among the neat things we want to learn about are the undocumented things. Although i don’t think we would complain as much about losing the undocumented parts if we were shown how to do the same thing with official methods. I am not asking you to make the source code a top priority or anything. Just assurances that it will come back in some form would be nice.
Anonymous
November 10, 2006
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Anonymous
November 10, 2006
"Getting a better understanding of the source code usage scenarios would help me elevate it." Ottoh, everyone's been telling you about how Mark's source code is an INVALUABLE learning tool. We're coders, creators of tools, not tech's, users of tools. That's why Mark posted his code - so coders could all learn from his example. And many of the techniques he uses are not available anywhere else, and certainly not from MS. And MS still feels this is not important? Re the fact that he sometimes uses undocumented techniques in his code, why is it you think he does that? Is it because MS provides a better way to get that information? No, it's because MS DOESN'T provide a better way. As coders, we come up against the same obstacles, and Mark's code can sometimes show us the way. "I’m asking you to work with me on this, not against me." Ottoh, we all are humbled at the feet of the master (Mark, that is), and what you are hearing is our resentment at having lost our master. Mark has helped us understand the maze which is Windows for many years. We see the knowledge Mark passed on now being cleansed by MS, and many of us are angry about this loss. We all wish Mark (and Bryce) well, and hope they are enjoying the fruits of their talent with MS. But, Ottoh, we don't want to lose unfettered access to Mark. And we're afraid that's what's happening. So, Ottoh, help use retain access to Mark and ALL the knowledge he wishes to share, not just the knowledge that is cleansed by MS. Work with us, not against us, and you will feel the undying gratitude of us coders instead of the anger you now perceive. Thanks, TanMan
Anonymous
November 11, 2006
Mark, you have totally sold yourself and your work to MS. Your/Their recent decisons are not helpful to the general community. "Some of the other reasons for not posting it [source code] include the fact that it has been used in malware, and some of the programs use undocumented APIs (which we're trying to get away from)." A lot of public code is used in malware. So what? It's not like if the code wasn't there, it's going to stop people from writing malware. If it takes advantages of flaws in the OS, then it's the OS that needs to be fixed instead of hiding the code that shows it. As for undocumented APIs, who cares? You used them in making it, but you're saying it's bad to show other people even if you give a blatant warning? The APIs need to be documented. Having undocumented APIs is the fault of the API creators, so it's their job to fix it.
Anonymous
November 11, 2006
Hmm...buying out a developer, removing source code and non-Windows tools, not listening to the people...why does this sound so familiar? Ah yes...it's MS again! Removing code & utilities that was previously available makes sense, why? Has ANYBODY ever complained that the source code being available for download was harmful (for reasons other than those that are against all open-source code)? How many requests have been made to make the existing code and tools available? Yeah...you're really listening to what the community wants. "I’m asking you to work with me on this, not against me." It's hard to work with somebody who is obviously not listening to us.
Anonymous
November 11, 2006
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Anonymous
November 11, 2006
yes, great, another guy who doesn't stop and try to think outside the corporate frame. little question: ever heard of providing software/source-code "AS-IS"? it is possible to publish things without any obligations or needs for changes at all, but they willingly chose to ignore this option for reasons that are all too obvious.
Anonymous
November 11, 2006
Seems like someone sold out again. I guess everybody's human after all, everybody has a price :P I'm so sad to see an independent site go.
Anonymous
November 11, 2006
"yes, great, another guy who doesn't stop and try to think outside the corporate frame. little question: ever heard of providing software/source-code "AS-IS"? it is possible to publish things without any obligations or needs for changes at all, but they willingly chose to ignore this option for reasons that are all too obvious." As I pointed out above, the original sysinternals site did not provide the source code for every utility. Notable by their absence were Process Explorer, PageDefrag and many others (basically all the advanced utilities - the ones you really want to get your hands on). You're acting like there has been a major departure from what went before, and that simply isn't the case. I am a developer, and for me the most valuable thing by far on the old site was Mark's blog. If that were to go I'd be gutted. The source code I'm not really too bothered about. If I want to do something, I'll write it myself. If I need more insight into how Windows works, I'll buy Mark's book "Windows Internals" - it's been on my list of books to get for months now.
Anonymous
November 11, 2006
"You're acting like there has been a major departure from what went before, and that simply isn't the case." That's not true. Mark and Bryce are famous for demonstrating how to use several undocumented features of windows. There where several articles and accompanying source code that dealt with and showed how to use these features on the old site. Those are now all gone. That's a major policy change. An expected change since MS now owns the site, but a major change nonetheless. And for the future, one can't help but wonder if they are free to publish any new findings now that MS signs their paycheques.
Anonymous
November 12, 2006
May of the source codes demonstrate use of APIs that can be scarcefound elsewhere, even in Mark's book. Sure, some of this information might be misused - but surely nobody really believes in 'security through obscurity'. This is just an excuse, we all know that. The simple fact of the matter is that corporations are about profit, not availability of source codes. THIS is the fundamental change that took place when sysinternal's was bought up. Want the source codes back? Prove to Microsoft that they can profit more by providing them than by not doing so. That is the only argument they understand - all else is meaningless to them. They have proven this over and over again.
Anonymous
November 12, 2006
I'm in two minds (at least) about this whole affair. Sysinternals has been one of the best provider of tools for IS staff out there, especially regmon, filemon and pstools. The fact that the tools have always been free of charge is pretty incredible, and I always wondered how they made money. I am sad that MS have bought sysinternals, but I'm not really sure why. The new process monitor tool is fantastic, but I'm nervous about the licensing changes. The lack of source code bothers me, but I've never looked at it before (and it was not for all products anyway) so is it really an issue? I'm not sure. My only real comment is to thank Mark for producing a great set of tools, and good luck to him for getting Microsoft to buy them. I do hope the change is good for the community, but whichever way it ends up going we have been better off having sysinternals to play with. If Microsoft do manage to stuff it up somehow, then there is always the option of the community getting together to produce the next great open source toolkit, rather than complaining about corporate politics.
Anonymous
November 13, 2006
Hi Otto, Thank you for taking the time to address the issue many have had over the source code. I am having trouble understanding why you just cannot have a link to the old stuff with a disclaimer to use at your own risk? All the reasons why you cannot keep up the changes can be listed along with the disclaimer. The code and developer information (I could not find the developer information section) was just a handy thing to have access to when a developer such as myself was/is working with a related code. As a developer, I now know that I cannot turn to this website for information anymore. If this is Microsoft's intention, they have succeeded. This may not make much sense to you if you are not a developer.
Anonymous
November 13, 2006
Well, as sure as this thread is been watched, it will be the last sequence of long enthusiastic development which was appreciated by many people dealing with everyday problems in the world of today and tomorrow. can't blame mark - he's done a remarkable job over the time and may go on to the next level. For all those people which liked lemmings and have been working with the sysinternal-tools - farewell with a tear in the eyes loosing one more of the few good sites on the web. cu
Anonymous
November 14, 2006
Why not just put the source code up for some period of time (till the end of the year) and end all these complaints?? I think the fact that now that it is gone when a lot of people thought it would continue to be there as was originally promised/implied is what's riling so many people?? This is such an easy problem to solve, I can't believe Ottoh or Mark or someone with juice doesn't do something to stop all the bad feelings this is causing. Anyone who cares and doesn't know about the problem by now likely doesn't care. How many complaints do you need to think that this is not a valid point?? Please bring back the source code for a time and give us a chance to do what we should have done already. And hope that people learn something and keep this in mind for the future. Any tool that you find valuable, download it and save it for a rainy day. Thats why they make such large drives nowadays at such good prices. Thanks for listening.
Anonymous
November 14, 2006
SysInternals has never been opensource. Only small source code chunk where available. As a sample the "File Monitor" utility it's using some "dirty trick" never shown. Ms is just extending the SysInternals tradition.
Anonymous
November 14, 2006
so ... a month ago and earlier the source code was good enough, but now magically its bad? only thing what changed was the owner... so, the source code will not run/compile on Vista? then ... i'm wondering it will be the case for binary versions also what has someone before pointed out, why the binary size of some tools have raised by 3x ? many questions and i predict no real answer. i also wonder Ottoh, who are you? An MS employee? maybe the new 'boss' of Mark? ... so many questions... ;|
Anonymous
November 15, 2006
When the Sysinternals acquisition was announced, the boards were full of conspiracy theories of how Microsoft just wanted to censor Sysinternals and hide everything they found embarrassing (even information which is critical for us users). I actually defended MS, and for that I now feel like an idiot. In removing the source code (and several of the tools), MS did exactly what the conspiracy theorists predicted. You can put the source code back up (and I hope you do), but neither MS nor the new Sysinternals can ever regain my trust. I hope Mark and Bryce at least made a pretty penny when they sold out.
Anonymous
November 15, 2006
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Anonymous
November 15, 2006
The comment has been removed
Anonymous
November 16, 2006
Mr. Helweg, I own a BOOK which says on page xxix: > Updates and corrections will be posted on the > page www.sysinternals.com/windowsinternals Can you guess who the PUBLISHER and authors and title of the book might be? Why does that URL yield an HTML error 404? If I make an adjustment to www.sysinternals.com/windowsinternals.html why does it yield a page in which updates and corrections have been deleted? Mr. Helweg can you talk to the book's PUBLISHER about getting that site reinstated and/or migrated? As for publication of source code, as others have said, writers of malware already have it. Writers of malware also had the source code to the predecessor of Windows NT, i.e. VMS. Only legitimate developers couldn't get the source code. Now I DO understand that some of the source code published by SysInternals didn't match Microsoft's standards. I reported one whole bug to Mr. Russinovich. His source code was maybe only 100 times more reliable than source code examples that are published in MSDN or downloadable in some Microsoft SDKs. Please do not adjust the quality to Microsoft's standard. Please reinstate the source code as it was. Sure the number of downloads of source code was less than the number of downloads of binaries. The number of programmers is smaller than the number of users. Even programmers are users and don't always download sources of tools that they use.
Anonymous
November 16, 2006
Oh my, it's a good material for a movie like Antitrust. Sources are still available on p2p networks (some of packages are even marked as sysinternals_pre-microsoft). By trying to hide them MS only contributed to their underground distribution.
Anonymous
November 16, 2006
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Anonymous
November 16, 2006
"I maintain that the current source code decision is driven more by resources and priorities than it is about policy." However it seems that it is the MS policy requirements that need 99% of the resources necessarily to get the source published. I ended up at this blog post today because I needed some source code - specifically FMIFS as it seems there is no "official" API for formatting a drive without showing UI. I'm sure that the lack of publication of this API was done for "security" reasons before MS started to take security seriously as hiding this API makes life harder just for the professionals. A malware writer won't care about formatting a drive into nice cluster sizes, they will just overwrite with garbage. I may be wrong on this assumption but two things are fact:

I require access to this undocumented API to continue (or I need to implement a format from scratch).
Now, due to microsoft policies, it is no longer available.

Anonymous
November 17, 2006
As of 2006-11-17... FMIFS source code is still available... check out: http://www.sysinternals.com/SourceCode/fmifs.html You can see other (although, probably not complete) sysinternals source code files by navigating to: http://www.sysinternals.com/SourceCode.html Hope this helps :-)
Anonymous
November 17, 2006
> Wednesday, November 15, 2006 5:04 AM by Jeff Cross > ... I hope Mark and Bryce at least made a pretty penny when they sold out. Well, that's easy to find out - the following is an excerpt from MS SEC Filing (From 10-Q), dated October 26, 2006: "During the three months ended September 30, 2006, we recorded goodwill resulting from the following acquisitions: ...; Winternals Software LP ($31 million); and others ... All of the entities were consolidated with Microsoft since their respective acquisition dates. The purchase price allocations for these acquisitions are preliminary and subject to revision as more detailed analyses are completed and additional information about fair value of assets and liabilities becomes available." Congratulations to Mark and Bryce!
Anonymous
November 18, 2006
My thanks to SysInternals for their dedication in making Windows a better product.
Anonymous
November 19, 2006
I just can't believe it, but actually, I knew it somehow. That's why I downloaded everything when the transition news came. I had a hunch MS would remove sources. Shame on you, AGAIN.
Anonymous
November 19, 2006
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Anonymous
November 21, 2006
Ryan, do you know where I can find the latest source code version of Filemon?
Anonymous
November 21, 2006
The source code was one of the most vital and useful parts of sysinternals.com to me. I have learned more about various windows programming topics here than anywhere else. PLEASE bring the source code back and continue to add to it. It's such a valuable learning tool!
Anonymous
November 21, 2006
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Anonymous
November 23, 2006
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Anonymous
November 24, 2006
So SysInternals is now part of Microsoft. I don't mind where it is as long as it's kept to what it is: a great technical resource full of all sorts of utilities that deal with the internals of Windows. I just don't want anything to be removed, and I don't want this to turn into a "scale your profits and lower your TCO by optimizing the cash flow of" bizbabble. Keep it 100% technical, keep the marketing and business guys far, very far from it, and SysInternals will keep being very useful for people doing the real work here.
Anonymous
November 24, 2006
Oh, now I read "not being migrated". It looks like I was too quick to post my comment that I don't mind. Man. This is so Microsoft-ly. Well I guess we can say bye bye to another great technical resource. My image of Microsoft went down once again and must be now at sub-zero levels. Not only Microsoft is closed, greedy and not developer friendly - it's also purposefully developer unfriendly, buying things out just to close the source. This is yet another reminder of my decision to migrate to Linux as Windows DRM Edition (Windows Vista) is out - both personally and professionally. Open source communities aren't evil, while Microsoft keeps focusing their efforts on making my life ugly and siding with anybody but their customers. Way to go.
Anonymous
November 25, 2006
"Open source communities aren't evil, while Microsoft keeps focusing their efforts on making my life ugly and siding with anybody but their customers. Way to go." Open source communities do not make up the majority of Microsoft's customer base. When you say "siding with anybody but their customers" what you really mean is "siding with anybody but the open source community". Not the same thing at all.
Anonymous
November 25, 2006
"When you say "siding with anybody but their customers" what you really mean is "siding with anybody but the open source community"." First, by closing the source of these utilities I don't understand who are they siding with other than themselves, while some of the open source community are still Microsoft customers. Second, they also side with media corporations and bundle malware with their OSes and media players which they sell to their customers. Talk about customer betrayal.
Anonymous
November 26, 2006
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Anonymous
November 27, 2006
The source code often showed "best practice" type behaviour, and often demostrated things that were not terribly well documented to the public. Please consider putting the source code on CodePlex or similar and keep access to such a rich and educational resource open.
Anonymous
November 27, 2006
Glad to see the forefathers of Sysinternals cashed in. Not glad to see MS take possession of this resource. Stop grousing about the disappearing source code and debate when none of the tools will install without the Genuine Windows Advantage lock on the door. What if, this move actually decreased the value of Windows just a tad - a reliable sophisticated non-Microsoft resource concerning Windows goes away. "Not going away" doth protest Otto and/or Mark - at least until internal consensus develops over how to monetize it. Ah well it's always a good thing to encourage competition and give Ubuntu et al more reasons to live.
Anonymous
November 28, 2006
i'm planning to mirror all binaries and source codes from the old sysinternals.com. is it legal to publish a tar.gz of all of these stuff?
Anonymous
November 29, 2006
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Anonymous
December 01, 2006
Some of the things on the Sysinternals site, such as the article "Inside Native Applications" and source code, are more appoperate for MSDN anyway.
Anonymous
December 03, 2006
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Anonymous
December 03, 2006
mark you have been sold out its true everyone has a price
Anonymous
December 06, 2006
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Anonymous
December 08, 2006
secret has never avoided security's holes. M$ security holes are numberous and widespread. So many patchs, so many buggy programs. IT administrators, you must resist : Boycott M$ products, don't migrate as long as you can.
Anonymous
December 23, 2006
What made sysinternals nice is that their software did things that the MS versions did not do or even acknowledge that one could do (or see). Instead of modifing the MS versions, which was well within their capabilities, MS buys out SI. My big problem is the loss of the source code and the new EULA. The EULA prohibits reverse engineering of the code, and prohibits modification to "work around technical limitations" What MS did is embrace and extend. The original SI software did things that MS didn't want you to do. Now future SI software will not do those unwanted things, and we will be powerless (legally) to do anything about it. The whole benefit of using SI software will soon be eliminated. Danm.
Anonymous
December 23, 2006
Just wanted to add a thank you to you guys. Your tools have been/are the most powerful, useful, and irreplaceable tools for software developers on the windows platform, and IT professionals trying to debug strange issues. Congradulations and good luck on your future endeavours! I just hope someone is willing/able to pick up the newly formed slack!
Anonymous
December 25, 2006
Good sirs and maddams, if you wish for the source code go to www.archive.org, type in "www.sysinternals.com" to go "back" to the old page where you can download archived copies of all the sources. I'm not sure they're the latest but it's better than nothing.
Anonymous
December 25, 2006
Oops I almost forgot - Merry Christmas!!!!
Anonymous
December 25, 2006
And at the risk of spamming this blog's comments - I now offer you my 15 minutes' work of collecting all the source codes (and info pages for each tool) using www.archive.org: http://www.megaupload.com/?d=H25RWTHC
Anonymous
December 25, 2006
And at the risk of spamming this blog's comments - I now offer you my 15 minutes' work of collecting all the source codes (and info pages for each tool) using www.archive.org: http://www.megaupload.com/?d=H25RWTHC
Anonymous
January 03, 2007
What a truely sad day this must have been. Migrateing to MS suprevision what a low and disgracefull way to earn more money. your SC excuses are pityfull and redicule, MS dont like OpenSources thats a fact. sad now i have to migrate to, Any recommendations on other projects similar to Sysinternals previous work are welcome!. GL chocking on the $
Anonymous
January 09, 2007
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Anonymous
January 16, 2007
Come on people, play fair. The situation appears to be thus: Mark et al sold their stuff to M$. Good for them, I say, they made some money out of what they did for us for a long time. The tools we've had have been invaluable, and must have taken a lot of time and effort. I'm glad that they've received some just rewards for their efforts. Now, M$ haven't migrated the source code. Why? Well, it seems that if M$ take and publish the source, M$ is signing off on it. This isn't good for them, as it would require a LOT of checking. So they won't bother and hence the source is not available from M$. Hopefully some workaround might be possible in which the source is provided "as is" or something, on the understanding that it is not M$ endorsed. But give Mark a break here - we've had great stuff, and now he's getting money for it. Be happy for the man!
Anonymous
January 18, 2007
Congrats Mark & Bryce - I hope you guys are getting a well-earned rest and enjoying the fruits of your labour. Shame on you Microsoft - with Virtualization features appearing on every new Intel and AMD processor, you can expect me to be doing a little migration myself for our next generation product. You manage to devalue Windows just when you least need it commoditized. Good luck with Vista - you're going to need it!
Anonymous
January 27, 2007
You people sound like a bunch of a Rosie O'Donnells. You dont own the source code, you should be grateful that it was being shared to the public for as long as it was. And besides if you cared so much about it, you would have already downloaded it. Idiots.
Anonymous
January 30, 2007
Thanks, peon, much appreciated.
Anonymous
February 17, 2007
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Anonymous
February 25, 2007
Given MS' total inability to properly document ANY of their own API's and their subsequent destruction of this primary source of knowledge in that area, there is little reason to pursue any further development on the MS platform. They can't migrate the source code? Migrate it how? To VB? Don't make me laugh. The code they post on MSDN is trivial, misleading, and usually won't even compile. In short, the source they already publish is garbage. The legacy Sysinternals code is eons ahead of MS code in every area. MS has NO coding standards. Ask them when they plan to complete their initial CMMI appraisal. ISO 9001? ANYTHING? They don't want anyone but themselves to develop on Windows, and I for one think it's time to let them get their wish. If they really want to quash all independent development, so be it and let them live with the consequences. The independent developers were the only people advancing the state of art for MS products. Killing off their sole remaining source of innovation can only help accelerate their decline and fall. I am down to one Windows machine, all the other boxes in my house have long been "migrated" to OS X or Linux. I will NOT be loading Vista or buying any more MS products of any kind -- ever -- and I will continue to promote the adoption of open standards, systems, and software in all my IT projects.
Anonymous
February 26, 2007
The information I found here was rather helpful. Thank you for this.
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March 06, 2007
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Anonymous
March 10, 2007
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Anonymous
March 10, 2007
Luogo molto buon:) Buona fortuna!
Anonymous
March 13, 2007
E evidente che il luogo e stato fatto dalla persona che realmente conosce il mestiere!
Anonymous
March 17, 2007
Lo trovo piuttosto impressionante. Lavoro grande fatto..)
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Anonymous
April 10, 2007
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Anonymous
April 16, 2007
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May 12, 2007
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