Unfortunately, telling end users to disable a default setting is rather difficult these days.

Not if it's done the right way using the right language. For instance... ------------ Did you realize that your computer is probably wasting precious bandwidth and slowing down your Internet connection because of the wrong default setting? You can fix this problem and take back control of your connection with this small utility which resets the dynamic DNS settings to stop wasting your bandwidth. Go to http://0xdeadbeef.example.com/noddns.html and start surfing free. And don't forget to tell your friends too! ------------- In other words, Windows users don't typically change settings themselves but they do download small utilities that do nothing other than change one or two registry keys.

Back in beta days, the official explanation given was that the DNS updating was a "value add" and that it would never be disabled as a default as a courtesy to corporate customers.

Corporate customers are smart enough to tick off a DDNS option during install or to automate the entire install process with a custom install script for their site. But MS is so big that the people making this decision probably had no idea how their product is really used in the real world.

larger ISPs ought to include this "fix" as an option with their installation CDs. Alas, we get back to the ongoing debate: adjust user prefs for them, for their own good... or get the vendor to cooperate?

Both. Create and distribute a tool that fixes the problem. Make sure the tool can run windowless as part of an ISP or corporate install script. Then sit back and watch while MS assimilates the functionality of this new tool in a later release. --Michael Dillon