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Microsoft's Most Successful Failure

Posted by Zonk on from the win-some-lose-some dept.

m4dm4n writes "As we near the end of mainstream support of Win2k The Register looks back at what it has achieved. What was meant to be Microsoft's most secure OS ever turned into a disaster. Worm after worm changed the face of internet security in Win2k's first 2 years. Five years down the line the battle is far from won, but the improvements are dramatic." From the article: "Things were different in the year 2000. Programmers felt vindicated that the Y2K bug didn't turn out to be that big of a deal. We made it past January 1st, and then it was time to move on. Windows 2000 came out that first quarter, just as security was becoming more interesting to more people -- and Windows was a good place to start. It was also seemed to be the start of a new breed of Windows hackers."

16 of 354 comments (clear)

  1. say what you want... by msh104 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    but atleast it didn't took me 4 years to get my printer up and running... all in all I am very happy with linux, but why does it always have to be win=bad lin=good everywhere.

    1. Re:say what you want... by MikeFM · · Score: 1, Interesting

      Have you tried Windows? It sucks. Maybe your new poorly supported printer worked on Windows easier but overall installing hardware on Windows is a pain. I added a supported video card to Windows and it took more than an hour, several downloads, and many reboots to install. Linux on the other hand simply detected it at boot and adjusted. As long as you verify support before buying your newest gadget then it'll almost always be easier to install in Linux.

      And then it doesn't constantly crash and it's security isn't totally laughable. Oh.. and with Linux there is no company hell bent on profiting at your expense. Wait until Microsoft totally screws you and then try to figure out why so many people hate them. I've certainly seen more than one person reduced to tears after trying to talk to their customer or tech support.

      Linux certainly has it's problems but it's really a whole different universe than Windows for putting users through torment. Linux is usually a case of you don't know how. Windows is a case of no you can't do that or you can (maybe) but you'll suffer for trying. The only really good thing about Windows is that nearly all hardware and software works with it (supposedly.. often they claim to work but don't).. which has nothing to do with the OS itself.

      --
      At what price learning? At what cost wisdom? The price is a man's peace of mind, and the cost is his life.
  2. Failure -- A bit harsh? by Blahbooboo3 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I won't make an arguement about security problems in Win2k, since the article is correct. However, I will say that I think Windows 2000 is the best MS OS to yet come out. The GUI is far better then XP (IMHO), has support for all the latest "bells and whistles", and it is FASTER than the equivalent XP machine.

    1. Re:Failure -- A bit harsh? by matth · · Score: 2, Interesting

      I agree.. I'm extremely disapointed to see support for W2K going away as it's the O/S I run on my laptop, at home, and that we use here at work... it's fast sleek, and doesn't hog resources like XP... oh well.. here we come linux.

  3. Win2k, a failure? by JeffTL · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I can't see how you can honestly call Windows 2000 a failure -- Microsoft didn't spend more making it than they made off of it, and it was actually (in my experience, at least) more reliable than XP.

  4. It was successfull, kind of... by adolfojp · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I was the first STABLE windows platform that could handle multimedia apps.

    Security became a joke, but stability was superb.

    It was a gigantic leap from the 9x series.

    Cheers,

    Adolfo

  5. Re:oldie but a goodie by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

    Considering this is supposed to be a joke . . .I recently got an XP machine at our office without an a: drive (31/2"). Windwos seams to think it has one though, it shows up in explorer, and you get an error if it is selected. It also generates an error every time the computer is shutdown.

    Sad when jokes become reality. . .

  6. Re:2k was excellent except for one thing.... by TheRealMindChild · · Score: 4, Interesting

    A slightly off-topic comment, that I feel I have to make to someone somewhere...

    My boss and I were talking a week or so back, and we were talking about taking a bunch of our libraries and somehow making them into something we can use everywhere. Now realize that we, unfortunatly, have about 200 applications to maintain, across Visual Basic, Delphi, Java, C++ in many flavors (Borland and MS are the majority) and a slew of other crap, including some VB scripts.

    Now, obviously, a plain DLL isn't going to cut it... VB would be a pain in the arse to translate all of the declares to, and Java would need something similar to use a native library.

    This IS where ActiveX control/libraries come in. And thanks to even automation, I can EVEN use said libraries in the windows scripts via a magical CreateObject.

    The nightmare of using ActiveX controls on a webpage shouldnt blur the actual usefulness of the technology possibly elsewhere.

    --

    "When life gives you lemons, don't make lemonade. Make life take the lemons back!" -- Cave Johnson
  7. Re:where would we be.... by AKAImBatman · · Score: 4, Interesting

    just imagine if the nature of the stack wouldn't allow [buffer overruns]. If some kind of mechanism beside a simple jump had been used. Like registering an address in the CPU via an instruction and then calling that jump.

    Would it annoy you to no end if I explained that you've just described the segmented memory model that has been available on the 386 and up since 1986? It just so happens that today's "Modern OSes" (right load of bull that is) map only two memory segments, then completely ignore the GDT, LDT, and TSS after that? It is, of course, done all in the name of "Performance", the mini-god for which many a programmer has sacrificed his first born for, but has never actually managed to show that this "performance" was worth it.

    <sarcasm>But wait, we must claim that Java is slow in order to appease this mini-god! </sarcasm>

    --
    Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
  8. Re:2k was excellent except for one thing.... by metlin · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I agree.

    Most people who bash ActiveX controls haven't really been in enterprise development environments where they have used them.

    While their security aspect is a bad thing, they're quite useful in their own way.

  9. Some thoughts on Microsoft and Pintos by dyfet · · Score: 2, Interesting
    Isn't this article a bit condensending, and saying, essentially, that if Ford were Microsoft, well, its great that Pinto gas tanks no longer catch fire so easily, and a real terrible shame about all those people who were killed in the interum, but hey, it's not our problem, and anyway what is past is past.

  10. That whole story is a myth by The+Cookie+Monster · · Score: 3, Interesting

    They've got security confused with reliability.

    Before Win2k, reliability was what everybody complained about, blue screens of death, constant crashing, runing out of resources, that sort of thing.

    Microsoft listened, claimed reliability was their priority, and eventually released Win2k which fixed all of those problems. Win2k has crashed on me all of 3 times while using it both at work and at home for nearly five years, twice due to worn out CPU fans, and once due to hard drive failure. So while my experience is anecdotal I must say Win2k was an incredible success - more than I thought was possible from that company, it certainly changed my view of Microsoft.

    Fast forward a few years (2002 - 2003ish), BSODs are now a thing of the past, leaving the increasing viruses and malware as the #1 headache on Windows.

    Microsoft listens, claims security is now their #1 priority...

    Will their security push be as effective as their stability push? only time will tell, but after the magic they worked with Win2k I'm no longer putting it above them.

    Personally I care little, Windows boxes I've had connected to the internet for years without a virus checker are still clean. It appears Windows viruses so far have been limited to inexperienced users and boxes that aren't behind a proper firewall.

  11. Lessons Learned - a paraphrase. by team99parody · · Score: 2, Interesting
    Lessons Microsoft learned, paraphrassing the article.
    • Win2K security originally sucked but many people spent money on it anyway. Time to Market is more important than security to the corporate world.
    • Longhorn is late, and has had almost all the features removed - this sucks from a profit point of view, and Microsoft stock is nowhere near their heights.
    • Various service packs fixed most all the secuirty holes in Win2000, and now it's hard to get people to upgrade to Longhorn. Upgrade revenue was easier back when they could spread security FUD against their old Win95 systems.
    • A story about security matters more to corporate custoemrs than actual security. The article clearly stated that Win2K was hyped to be secure, and therefore was successful. Despite reality being different from the marketing hype, the corporate world spent lots of money on W2K.

    Microsoft execs - remember you have a fiduciary responsiblity to shareholders to do what's in the shareholder interest. Clearly your newfound obsession with security hype is not playing to your strenghts, and forcing you to play in a market where you're clearly outclassed (linux/bsd). Microsoft, as a shareholder, I'm begging you do go back to your previous policies of balancing Time-to-Market vs Security in a way that plays to your strengths and maximizes your profits and my stock value.

    1. Re:Lessons Learned - a paraphrase. by team99parody · · Score: 2, Interesting
      All companies - not just software and not just OS companies - need to strike a balance between security and other business pressures that may have conflicts including time-to-market and end-user convenience.

      Credit card companies manage it well -- it's not too hard to steal a credit card - but it's not too hard to use them either. They balance these decisions very carefully.

      Car companies also balance many things against security in their products - including fuel economy (heavier cars are safer) and convenience (4-point seat belts are rare in consumer cars).

      Microsoft should do the same thing. They had a nice big niche - almost certainly the sweet spot in the market - back when they were cranking out gaming-OS's. Trying to reposition themselves to pretend they're a competitive server OS when you already have very strong and low cost players in that space is just stupid. They really need to just step back and look at what part of the market can they compete in profitably, and focus on that. If they answer the questions honestly, I bet they take a pass on servers; and go back to being the friendliest video-game platform that they were with Win98.

      Your suggestion that security is practically the only goal above all others would make cars cost $100000 and too expensive for anyone to drive; and it'd make e-commerce impossible. Surely you wouldn't want that.

  12. Re:Learning Experience by NanoGator · · Score: 3, Interesting

    " Step 1: Build a monopoly for a required commodity"

    You can't build a monopoly without producing something a lot of people will come along and buy.

    --
    "Derp de derp."
  13. Re:Learning Experience by lav-chan · · Score: 2, Interesting

    There's no way i could ever claim that 2000->XP was as big or as useful of a jump as 95->2000, but i personally think it's kind of annoying that people bash XP. I mean, maybe it's over-priced, and yes, it does have a hideous default window theme, but i actually thought XP was a great step up from 2000.

    Granted, better graphics and window themes and a better Start menu and user switching and a graphical log-in screen and better drivers and a better taskbar and a better tray and a better file manager and a better network manager and nicer-looking fonts and easier access to scanners/cameras and so on might not make or break the operating system, but i sure think they make XP a lot nicer than 2000.