Sysinternals Site Discussion

It’s started. The entire Sysinternals site has been flagged to be migrated into various areas of

Looks like the SysInternals Website is preparing for a Site Migration , having been acquired by Microsoft

Congratulation :)

Process Explorer want to keep too !

Regards.

"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 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.

I don't see why it would be difficult to migrate the source code, if they're going to migrate the compiled versions...

> 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.

This to me sounds like "don't worry guys - there will be no source code from now on". From my point of view the value of SysInternals and everything that Mark was doing was in that it was open and insightful. The source code illustrated some aspects of internals of Windows together with Mark's explanations and articles.  But now I'm afraid the openness will be gone - only tools will remain. "Well" done - typical Microsoft style.

Agreed, source code is a must!

No source code :(

Well I hope the $ tastes good

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...

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 :))

Aha, malware. Tell me: Why are american civilians allowed to use guns? Surely they could be mal-used as well? I'm very sorry to say, but i still think you're lying, mainly because i can not believe that any human being could actually state that as a reason for keeping source-code out AND actualle believe it.

Regarding undocumented APIs: There are three things one could do here.

A) Document them and make them something useful.

B) Replace them with something that fits the windows vision or something.

C) Try to hide them for some reason, god forbid people use your hacks for something useful.

Are you sure you want to choose C)?

Acceptable to post code chunks? Yes and no. YYes, it would be a TINY step in the general direction could approximately be described as right. No because it means that we get alms from the benevolent Microsoft as he sees fit to hand out instead of the free sharing of mind and creation that was previously what the name Sysinternals meant.

The correct thing to do without hurting your code integrity (heh): Ask Mark Russinovich about the source code he created and had decided to share with the community of windows users. If he still desires to share it, put it up in an archive, marked as deprecated, unsupported and for learning purposes only.

Anything else will most likely only cement the image that the general public has of you even further.

It only seems fitting that sourcecode should now be accessible on MSDN Academic Alliance site or MSDN Developer's site if anywhere.

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.

One more vote ... please keep source code available.

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.

Yet another shout against the bogus reasons...

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.)

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;

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!

Here's an announcement that I almost missed due to the noise from TechEd and the Sysinternals site migration.

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!

So now the source of windows insight will sites like the 29a labs <virus writing site, enter at your own risk>?

Hah!! I tried to post the old links to the source code here and it must have been moderated. Lame...  the site's pages are still cached on Google... get em while you can

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

And finally a couple of oddballs...

http://www.sysinternals.com/Files / Defrag.zip

http://www.sysinternals.com/Files / DiskKey.zip

delete the space

Next:

McAffee (av)

Symantec (av)

Skype

Adobe

Once the previous ones are gone, those are next on the menu:

Autodesk

Citrix

Sysinternals is moving to Micro$oft.

I think Micro$oft has shafted us enough. The one place we though we could trust was Sysinternals, now I am wondering if Bill Gates showed you the light $$$,$$$,$$$.$$ and you said sold!.

Which I hate to say, why migrate? Why not just stay an independent, with freedom there of.

Mark you are those most awesome of coders please do not take my words wrong. I just do not want to see you sucked in the death machine (M$).

I am surprised you are not going to Linux.

Everyone I know is steering away from Microsoft, and heading to Linux.

Either way Mark your still an awesome coder, I will miss your news letters, and programs, great technical advice that took me many years to try understand but I did.

I learned from you.

You are awesome!.

However I have my own "FORD" Fix or Repair Daily "Microsoft Windows XP Pro"

Good bye my friend I wish you well.

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.

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.

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?

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.

Internal politics?

Quality Assurance to make sure that "typical" (ie not sysinternal regulars) Microsoft developers are not lead astray and mislead? Paalllleeesse - give me a break!!

Put the source code up.

Then put up a bloody huge disclaimer with links to coding standards, and put it into every zip file. ... hell maybe you can get "the community" to even help identify problems and do some auditing for you.

If no one actually cares about the code (as you imply in the face of all of this) then nothings wrong, no harm-no foul. BUT If people look and find stuff - and then let you know, then you win  you save some auditing "resources" (green folding stuff) and hey ... maybe by doing that you DO encourage a community rather than a user-base.

In the mean time I am sooo glad I downloaded all source files earlier. And thanks to those who put up the links above - I filled a couple of gaps there.

Unfortunately, it doesn't suprise me that they pulled the source code.

Maybe thats why we killed the servers in the days after the announcement.  All of us were either downloading the tools like crazy and/or copying the whole websie.

We were worried about losing the great work that Mark did.  

I for one, copied the entire website (including the source code).

Come on Microsoft ... wake up ... the source code is a big part of what made the site great.

Of course the number of downloads for source code wasn't as big of a nubmer as the tools.  Tools got downloaded as they were used.  Source code was only downloaded as we needed to reference them to try to figure out how Mark did his magic.

Please (For the sake of those who didn't see this coming) restore the source code and for the sake of all of us ... continue to update the source code.  Its not just about what was already there, but the future as well, keep the source code current.

I see you are a skilled forum warrior. You are well-versed in the skills of circumventing questions with half answers.

(fine, mark is on the board, we all know that he is there, after all this is all HIS, no matter how hard ms tries to slap their corporate branding on, but that doesn't answer what he THINKS about this. in retrospect, the question is pretty stupid though. it's not as if a sane person can expect him to ever be able to speak his real opinion again as a part of microsoft. you realize that by this whole thing you have managed to taint everything he ever says from this point onwards?)

You are well-versed in the skills of providing answers that make perfect sense when viewed from a very tight angle.

(pro-tip: users != developers != customers)

You are lastly well versed in the skills of talking in big words.

(You're talking about a simple website here, not an operating system... This isn't rocket science.)

Sadly you have left behind what is usually called "common human sense" and are left unable of thinking outside of your little corporate frame.

Good bye.

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.

<blockquote>Hey Folks,

1) Mark is on board with this decision

2) 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.

3) 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.</blockquote>

Sounds perfectly reasonable to me. Many commenters here seem to think the old sysinternals site was some kind of 'beacon' within the open source community. It wasn't. Mark was always selective in the source code he provided, and that is also perfectly reasonable. Far, far too many people are jumping on the anti-MS bandwagon without stopping to consider where they are *really* coming from.

Read point 2 from Ottoh above. If MS were to publish the source code they would have to put it through all kinds of rigorous tests first. They would potentially have to review hundreds of pages of documentation on coding practices and style guidelines and modify the source to bring it in line. This would inevitably damage its individuality and independence, not to mention raising issues about who does the modifying. (Should it be Mark and Bryce, or MS employees, or both? How would that work? And what effect would it have on their relationship?) Everything has to be reviewed and double checked to make sure they are not giving out mixed messages or going against policy, and all of this requires resources. That is the way beaurocracy in a large corporation works - somebody has to justify it to somebody above them, who then in turn has to justify it to the people who control the budget etc. There is much more to it than simply "uploading them to a microsoft download server and posting a link to it".

Yes there is a community here, but MS is a business. Winternals is and always was a business. Sysinternals was created to provide some smaller yet powerful utilities to developers and administrators free of charge. <i>Some</i> source code was included. That's all. If we want the source code back, we should be making the business case for it, not slagging MS off for the sake of it.

If I were Mark I would feel thoroughly disillusioned by many of the comments above - they would make me wonder if my readers had ever really understood me at all.

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.

"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.

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.

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

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.

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.