1. Companies don't pay VAT. At least, VAT-registered ones don't (which is everyone with a turnover - not profit! - of more than about £10K/year). VAT is a tax that Government outsources to companies to collect from us, citizens.

2.No, I would not be fucking happy. VAT is a regressive tax which hurts low incomes much harder than it hits high incomes.

What a stupid, stupid idea.

@Big-nosed Pengie

They're running Windows

[citation needed]

Assuming the systems in question run Windows.... Neither the article nor the accompanying PDF specify an OS.

Re: Being "insulting" should not be illegal in its own right

@Christoph

I actually saw this happen a long time ago where an American interviewer was utterly incapable of calling Linford Christie "black" at his request when he objected to being called American (on the grounds that, er, he isn't).

Re: So does it violate standards?

Short answer - "No, it doesn't."

Long answer - It doesn't support USB mass storage. It supports MTP, Apple do NOT support MTP (although there are very effective linux implementations out there).

But it doesn't violate any standards because it's not following the one you think it's following.

Re: Finally!

They're probably the same two people who run Safari on Windows.

Re: Question

Can't edit post awaiting moderation, so apologies for double-posting.

It just occurred to me that even though WP doesn't support Access, neither does does Office for Mac.

So no real loss to Mac users there.

Re: Question

Is there something that can be done on a WM8 or WM9 that can't be done on an iPhone ? I am thinking along the lines of MS Exchange/Outlook or MS Office ?

Office comes baked-in, except for (I believe) Access. But Access is foul anyway.

Re: It's not a security hole

Hard to see how it can possibly cost money.

Obviously, I'll be downvoted for appearing to "defend" Microsoft but this can't save them money in any way.

Think it through -

1. In order to run this jailbreak, you need to have a second machine with Visual Studio running a remote debugger session to the Windows RT device.

2. There is no pre-compiled ARM software out there for WinRT. You'd have to write your own.

3. Even if you did, the jailbreak does not - and cannot! - survive a boot. So one boot later, your imaginary software won't run unless you jailbreak the device again, using the VS remote debugger.

4. The stuff Microsoft charges for is Windows Store apps, and you can already sideload those - in fact, MSDN specifies exactly how to do it. Not exactly a big money-saving secret.

So, this article? Just more mudslinging. Or the author is technically illiterate and too lazy to check anything at all. Or both.

Re: .NET has been officially killed by Microsoft

care to explain why C# exists?

I doubt anyone who didn't commission it could say for sure but Anders Hjelsberg is on record as saying he wanted to create a version of Java that didn't suck.

There are oddities in C#, sure, but it doesn't suck. And yes, I was partially trolling because Eadon is unbearable little prick who will even use a vulnerability in Java to tell the world how horrible Microsoft (and all its works bar none, not one, nothing they have ever done remotely redeems them) are.

When faced with that kind of dribbling fuckwittery, one sometimes gets exasperated.

Re: .NET has been officially killed by Microsoft

All very well, except that .NET is alive, C# has been extended and Java has always been a pile of buggy old crap for poorly educated children who think C++ is hard.

Eadon, your ignorance is horrifying. The fact that you trumpet it so often is hilarious, though.

Re: Feed the children Microsoft crack whilst young....

Since they only did this to troll Eadon, I'd call it a roaring success.

Also, there's support bundled. It's probably just as expensive to go FOSS when you count in support and maybe more so when you consider retraining all those part-time school admins/maths teachers, who frankly have better things to do anyway.

Re: Win-8 is Hideous

What's the purpose?

Running Office 13? If so, your beloved Android is unfit for purpose.

Playing AC3, for example? Oh dear, Android is unfit for purpose.

I could go on but you bore me to tears and it's Friday afternoon.

I don't need a geek card - I have a job. Go away and grow up.

Re: Mauro should get a job

You should get a job at SCO. Nothing they do will ever see the light of day so you'd be safe for humanity there.

@Silverburn - if it was easy, it wouldn't need to be done programmatically. The list of instructions to follow is actually way beyond most device owners. Most of them won't even know what the VS debugger is, let alone how to conduct a remote session. Then configuring trust levels in memory... yeah, SOOOOO easy.

And next time you boot, do it again? And again? Within 24 hours of the iPhone 4's release, you could jailbreak it by opening a website.

This is a whole different bucket of cod.

I would agree with you, Silverburn.

IF.

1. You didn't need a remote debugger session to the WinRT tablet running to perform this hack.

2. You didn't need to rerun this hack (with remote debugger) EVERY. TIME. YOU. BOOT.

This is not any kind of practical jailbreak and even if it were, what are you going to run on it? Paint.net? Wow.

This FAIL is for you.

Re: Why did my XP Pro box crash 5 TIMES.....

@AC - are you suggesting it's immature and unstable?

(I bet this AC doesn't know that some linux fixes - for example, I speak as one involved in a long-term love/hate relationship with debian - can take up to nine years. I bet this AC just wants upvotes from the "we hateses micro$haft lolz0rs crowd).

Re: What exactly is good about it?

This is why McDonalds have 3 Michelin stars, right?

Re: It isn't a competition for consumers!

well said.

Re: I wonder how many installations are simply as the machine came?

For a touch centric OS it's very telling that people keep saying that ;)

I'm having some trouble in understanding your point here - although a brief perusal of your post history indicates strongly partisan anti-Win8 views so it might be an attempt at a snide comment - so let me walk you through why it's important.

Most PCs don't have touchscreens. Win8 expands on Win7s keyboard shortcuts - you know, those things professionals use, you might have heard of them - making Win7s shortcuts a subset of the new larger collection. Because the desktop is still there and the launcher is still just a launcher regardless of how much people try to insist that it's a whole OS by itself, these shortcuts have no learning curve and make for a painless transition.

Not so hard, was it?

Re: Is this a good thing though?

I think the reason it's a bad thing is that it allows Apple to sue whoever they like for rounded corners while merrily refusing to pay FRAND rates for legitimate patents.

How much did the judgement cost Tim Cook?[1] A crate of iPads?

[1] Actually, how much did this cost Paul O'Grady in his shiny new Tim Cook persona. There is no Tim Cook.

Also - in before Eadon says this is Microsoft's fault.

Re: I wonder how many installations are simply as the machine came?

@HollyHopDrive

you have to boot into windows to get to the bios

Er, no you don't. I use a Win8 box for development. The ASUS motherboard was already UEFI enabled (just as it was when the same machine ran win7) and in order to get to the secure boot switches in UEFI, you just have to, er, press DELETE during the UEFI boot.

Same as you would with a BIOS boot.

....

You haven't actually tried this, have you? Why are you criticizing something you haven't tried?

Re: Hummm!

And yet you trust Matt Assay's opinion, based on one month's estimated figures and viewed through the TOTALLY IMPARTIAL eyes of a professional Open Source advocate who writes nonsensical clickbait columns on the Register for money.

Seems legit.

Re: Hmmm. Propoganda figures me thinks.

I've seen all these symptoms before.

They happened when somebody tried a cheap Win8 upgrade over a pirated copy of Win7.

Oh dear. Playing tricksy games, were we?

Re: I use it at work too

f-cking awful in every respect

Yeah, that improved task manager, that's fucking awful.

The optimised boot, that's fucking awful, too.

The multi-desktop enhancements, those are fucking awful.

The JBOD implementation (I forget the name), that's fucking awful.

The build in antivirus, that's fucking awful.

All the other improvements are fucking awful too.

"Every respect". "Every". "Respect". "In every respect"

Liar.

Remember Instagram

Remember what happened when Instagram released an Android app.

Millions pissed-off iPhone users complaining that their private expensive garden was being sullied by poor people who couldn't afford iPhones.

Making a cheap iPhone will alienate the existing Apple cultists. And, obviously, produce less revenue per device. That's why I don't believe Apple would do it.

The classic fanboi argument is "it's not how many you sell, it's how much money you make selling them" and they criticize Android manufacturers for the Jack Cohen "pile 'em high, sell 'em cheap" philosophy. Their elitist squeals of betrayal might even be enough to sink Apple for the second time.

Re: Differentiating

@Barry Shitpeas -

5% USA,

10.5% UK,

15% Italy

22% Finland

Lower in many places, higher in a few.

But then, every day is make stuff up day for you, right?