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

Not a bad idea, but not perfect, either

[chennes]

Putting all the anti-Microsoft BS aside, this really is a pretty good idea - they just need an opt-out option. I wouldn't mind MS telling me that the driver I'm about to install has crashed 4 trillion machines - but I reserve the right to go ahead and install it anyway.

it IS Microsoft's fault

[janpod66]

It's a perfect example of double standards: when Windows crashes this is always the fault of Microsoft, not of bad drivers or programs which access Windows internals, while in fact they often are (especially video drivers).

Software vendors don't "access Windows internals" because programmers want to--it takes a lot of time to do so. They do it because Microsoft's APIs are insufficient and poorly thought out. Microsoft has profited handsomely from this because third parties have managed to figure out how to make that pitiful platform do things Microsoft never had the sense to design APIs for. Without third party vendors doing this, Windows would be nowhere. Now that Microsoft has finally copied enough from other vendors, their system doesn't quite need such enthusiastic third party software vendors anymore.

It's also a question of architecture: except for a very limited set of hardware drivers, there is no reason why the installation of anything should either be prohibited or cause instability. (Linux doesn't get this right either, but it is considerably better than Windows.)

The biggest problem with this is, though, that, whether it is sensible or not, Microsoft is driven by the profit motive, and for them to be able to exclude vendors from the market and force them to submit to certification procedures is a great way of controlling their market and increasing their profits. That is, even if there is some weak justification of this action in terms of profits, it is still highly suspect, and should be.

This isn't about being intrinsically "anti-Microsoft". The company has been found to be a monopolist, and it is rightfully subject to this kind of scrutiny and suspicion. Microsoft needs to tread extra careful in ways other companies don't have to, and instead the company is still giving consumers, software vendors, and regulators the finger.

(Incidentally, your characterization of blocking "only current versions of the drivers" is incorrect. I suggest you take the time and actually read the document at Microsoft's site describing their policies.)

Re:The real reason for this:

[shokk]

All they will do is drive people to dual boot their machines to Linux for those purposes. Anyone using "SMR, DivX ;-), 3ivx, M$MPEG-4" are probably good enough with computers to handle the dual boot. So just keep MS for the MS approved games, and start using Linux for everything else. Eventually the games will follow.

Another real reason to kill non MS firewalls

[owlmeat]

The last thing that MS wants is for the user to see a bunch of pop-up warnings each time XP and MS servers talk to each other to validate/snitch registration information.

Spoofing?

[JimDabell]

How can Microsoft stop people from sending in spoofed data? What will stop, for example, NVidia from sending in data that makes Matrox drivers look buggy as hell and getting them blocked?

Blocking drivers is minor.

[Bartab]

The big thing is that they will be uploading crash dumps.
This is just another method to determine what things are installed on your computer. They couldn't get away with HD scan uploads, so now they upload what's installed on your computer - but only when it crashes. On windows, that's more than early enough, my win2k box crashed twice today.

Do you have StarOffice installed? Well that's why you crashed.

Re:Improve "reliability"

[wolf-]

I would say, yes.
We HAD NT systems here that ran for almost 5 years, with reboots only for service packs and hotfixes.

(As a side note, after receiving nearly 35 letters from the BSA and Microsoft, sent to us because we were developers and resellers and customers, offering us a "truce" and calling us all manner of names, we have removed all Microsoft Server products from our organization, have replaced them with Linux or BSD based systems. MS, F*CK you and your BSA Cronies! I dont care if it was a form letter, we were a bit more than offended.)