There's a bittersweet quality to the news that Microsoft is acquiring WinTernals Software, the brainchild of Windows guru's Mark Russinovich and Bryce Cogswell. On the one hand, you're happy for Mark and Bruce, who will become esteemed members of Microsoft's development staff. Mark, in particular, will become one of only 14 Microsoft Technical Fellows, taking his place alongside legends like Windows NT guru Dave Cutler and Jim Gray. On the other hand, you're sad to see the end of a project like Sysinternals, which has provided free tools like Process Explorer, Autoruns, and Filemon to millions of Windows users and net admins -- free -- for going on a decade now. Sure, I know Sysinternals was the fun side of the business and Mark/Bryce are gonna have to get their kids' teeth straightened just like the rest of us. But the tools they created and then gave away -- dozens and dozens of them -- are incredibly adept at cutting through the layers of administrative UI gobbledgy gook and making important features easy to access and use. I often found myself wondering "Why did Winternals have to do this?" Did MS need a third party developer to tell them that it would be nice to be able to view and edit the programs that start up with (and often slow down) Windows? With the turf wars, competing agendas, release schedules and institutional torpor that often settles on large companies, the short answer is "Yes."