Ultimate list of free Microsoft software downloads

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W00t! Word 5.5 for DOS!

A handy list (thanks!), but not all links work. For instance, the GroupBar link results in “Missing Page – We are sorry, the page you requested cannot be found.”, and the Scalable Fabric link leads to a general Microsoft Research site.

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XP List

Vista List

(Some overlap…)

Courtesy of Blake Handler, a Microsoft MVP.

You will have seen some of them before, but almost certainly not all of them.

BATcher

Plethora means a lot to me.

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From the XP List (haven’t checked the Vista one):

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SequoiaView – Treemap visualization of hard drive’s contents. (Utilityapproved by the PowerToys group)

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[/indent]Regardless of having been approved, it’s a great utility and it’s been so long since I last saw a mention of it in this forum that I thought it would be a good idea to draw attention to it for those who may not know it.
Grab SequoiaView here.

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Sadly, entropy occurs even in recent web pages…

BATcher

Plethora means a lot to me.

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Sadly, entropy increases in any closed system – we could write a law about this!

StuartR

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Hey, I have an idea

Let’s call it the Second Law of Thermodynamics!

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Too late – that Law’s already been taken…!

BATcher

Plethora means a lot to me.

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Drat! I thought I had an original idea…

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> Let’s call it the Second Law of Thermodynamics!

That’s the one that says, “And you will always lose!”

The first law says, “You can’t win.”

Alan

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Yet people think over millions of years the earth was formed as particles became organized. Things fall apart over time – not get more and more ordered.

But, I digress – Great links. Thanks for sharing.

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Things fall apart over time – not get more and more ordered.

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But entropy increasing in the universe as a whole is not incompatible with some corners of it becoming more ordered.

Ian

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Do you think it might be possible to move my kids bedrooms to that particular corner?

StuartR

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Then it can’t be a law.

I have a love/hate relationship with great posts like this. So much to explore and download – then so much to uninstall LOL

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> Then it can’t be a law.

It certainly is a law, but it applies to closed systems. A particular corner of the universe can demonstrate reduced entropy if there is a net input of energy from the rest of the universe.

StuartR

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Then it can’t be a law.

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Well, it is a law, but it is one that is often misunderstood.

What it actually says (or one way of putting it) is that the entropy of a closed system tends to increase. Some people seize on this and claim, for example, that the Second Law or thermodynamics proves that evolution could not have taken place because it requires an increase in order (and therefore a decrease in entropy). And therefore the existence of highly developed organisms must have come about with the aid of some external agency and not by purely natural processes. But that overlooks the essential point about a closed system. You don’t get something for nothing in energy terms, so order can increase somewhere but only at the expense of greater disorder somewhere else. So for example, if my freezer causes water to become ice, the contents of the freezer has become more ordered (or its entropy has decreased). But that is at the expense of the energy consumed in running the motor of the freezer to pump heat out of it, and the release of heat from that will cause an overall net increase in temperature of the surrounding room and a net increase in the entropy of the universe as a whole even if the contents of the freezer is more ordered.

Ian (ex-teacher of Physics)

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Wow! That’s impressive. I think I understand.

I always wondered what you guys in the other building did!

Johanna
(an ex teacher of English)

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> Well, it is a law, but it is one that is often misunderstood

Interesting observation. Having learned thermodynamics firstly from an engineering perspective, I (and my fellows I believe) found the idea of overall entropy increase quite logical, since we were well acquainted with open and closed physical systems. But later in life, teaching physics, I found the most misused/ misinterpreted law among students was probably Newton’s 3rd – “To every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.” This oversimplified or overgeneralized statement of the law has led to all sorts of misapplications of it by students, in my experience. Have you observed similar? Any other misinterpretations etc. you’ve noticed?

Alan

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For those in the dark who would like a free course, HERE is one from an allegedly reliable source. There are 1799 other free courses there as well.

Wikipedia has a dandy entry, but here a few more:

Flanders&Swann
CPSnow
Physlink

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