Windows XP To Block Use Of "Troublesome" Drivers

Johnno74 writes "According to this story on The Register, Windows XP rc2 now includes the ability for Microsoft to prevent users from installing certain device drivers. Sounds like a good idea? Well, apparently among the casualties are ZoneAlarm and BlackIce... Two popular free personal firewall products for windows. Guess What? XP includes its own firewall ... So you don't really need then anyway, right? The full details on how this works are in this 1mb word document on Microsoft's site.

The document details how XP will automatically download the latest drivers for your hardware from the windows update site, and more worringly, XP will reguarly update the list of blocked drivers from the site. Quote from the document:

&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp"On a related note, Windows XP provides the ability for Microsoft to receive crash dump data on specific drivers (i.e. when a user receives a blue screen, we upload that information for further analysis). When Microsoft reporting systems indicate crashes have exceeded a certain threshold, Microsoft will notify the Vendor that the device is being considered for the blocked driver list. If reports pass an even greater threshold, we will then flag that specific version of the driver as needing to be blocked."

Boy, The site that uploads that crash dump data (and whatever else it snags...) better have a lot of bandwidth... ;-) As The Register points out, this brings back memories of how Microsoft killed Caldera DR-DOS by deliberately crashing Windows 3.1 if you were running on DR-DOS -- for no reason other than forcing you to use MS-DOS."

Note: according to this article, the change does not prevent Black Ice or other programs from running per se -- but it does require them to use updated versions tailored for XP.

Comments

Re: Nope

[Drestin]

IE6 beta does NOT include any firewall of any kind. You probaby have proxy incorrectly set.

Re:Oh, god, no!

[gamorck]

Hey genius. Why in the hell would MS give a shit whose firewall software you use? Their firewall is only a selling point of XP - not a usability one. Hell unless you SPECIFICALLY go to set up their software it wont be running.

Oh yeah and Zonealarm has already been upgraded to work correctly with XP. BTW - if I get that fucking "Slow Down Cowboy" shit again... Im going to drive up to Holland Michigan and......

Gam
"Flame at Will"

Re:Good! Finally we get rid of stupid "personal fw

[h0rus]

You a pretty stupid person.

"The first .. well .. normal people with windows (or newser linux distros) really have their computers pretty damn closed down when they buy'em."

You really don't have a clue, do you?

Please refrain from spamming idiocy on here, there is enough of your kind here; We don't need any more!

Pushin' the panic button again...

[Pollux]

Man, sometimes I just can't figure out which side of the ship /. is leaning to, espically on this article.

We begin with the contributor's hasty remarks that I got a the usual M$ "Oh no, they're being anti-competitive again!"

But, being as how there's the initial M$ bias that one needs to get over, I decided to read the article to find out what really was going on, so I ran into this:

The authors of BlackIce and ZoneAlarm assured us that versions will be updated to take account of the major networking changes in WinXP.

Hmm, so there's really no cause for alarm, because this is just a security issue with firewalls. If you want the firewall to be secure, you're going to have to update it for the new OS so that it is secure. So, what's the worry? In fact,

Microsoft alerted software authors and device drivers writers to the changes earlier this year that, and this Word document describes what's necessary.

Oh, so the word file wasn't one of those "M$ showing the world it's power in how to block whoever it wants from it's OS," but instead a "Hey guys, here's how to fix your software so that your clients don't shove hatemail down your throat when your software doesn't work right with the new OS." So, I decided to go back to /. to tell everyone that this was an early jump at the anti-trust gun, when I read the rest of the /. article and found this nice disclaimer:

Note: according to this article, the change does not prevent Black Ice or other programs from running per se -- but it does require them to use updated versions tailored for XP.

Oh, really? I never would have seen that one coming had I been some "M$ is the Antichrist" /. reader wanting to cry to the world about the evil Mr. Gates through the public forum aka /. Darn...15 minutes of investigating torn apart by this disclaimer that would have never needed to be had /. edited out the line detailing about BlackIce and ZoneDefender in the first place! They could have instead mentioned the second half of the article in the headline (about it's uncanny resemblance to the fight with Win3.1 and DR-DOS) in the headline instead, making the concern seem more realistic, but no.

My laugh for the day from this article... Software needs to carry the XP compliant logo to run.

Sure...and my computer needs to have the "Intel Inside" sticker to operate as well.

Warning: You must be in view of the Slashdot logo at all times to properly read and understand this message. Unless you have a clear view of the Slashdot logo above, please turn off your computer for it is not functioning properly.

MS Marketing : internal pr

[Alien54]

No, the problem is trust. Microsoft has done just about everything possible to ensure that they don't have mine. Remember the truism: fuck me once, fuck you. Fuck me twice, fuck me! Bill can go find another hunny to take from. He can't have any more of mine.

Agreed. It has gotten to the point that I no longer trust their technology solutions, because of all of this enhancement in ther marketing and monopoly functionalities.

Let me repeat this. I do not trust their technology. I do not trust their marketing. There is the old joke revisted: How can you tell when an MS exec tells a lie? Answer: [fill in the blank]

Many MS geeks live inside a microsoft world depicted by microsoft marketing. Imagine the vaporware presentations they give the staff about the new technology coming out 5 to 10 years down the road! No wonder they go OOO and AHHH. But it is vaporware all the same. MS probably lies to thier staff as much as they lie to us. They got to keep the vision alive, sell the microserfs on the long term dream enough to get get 5 or 10 years of juicey code out of them before they burn out.

Re:Oh, god, no!

[Malcontent]

Look fuckhead you need to go back and re-read the thread. You do understand english don't you.

Now in case your tiny little brain don't get it.
MS is able to remotely break any app they want by making a change or two in any of their own dlls. Once they break the app in question they can then blacklist the app because "it crashes too much".

Just because you have opera working right now does not mean anything. If any application gets broad consumer appeal then MS will break that app and blacklist it. Opera is not a threat so of course it works OK.

Re:Blocking drivers is minor.

[gamorck]

Attention! Attention Moron. When a program in XP crashes you are given the option of whether or not to upload crashdumps. I hit yes or no. If I hit yes it uploads it. If I hit no it does not.

Whats it like to be a rocket scientist?

Gam
"Flame at Will"