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First Windows Vista Security Update Released

Posted by Zonk on from the pre-release-security-vulnerabilities-are-inspiring dept.

Bard Of Vim writes "Microsoft has issued critical security patches for beta testers running the Windows Vista December CTP (Community Technology Preview) and Windows Vista Beta 1, and warned that the new operating system was vulnerable to a remote code execution flaw in the Graphics Rendering Engine. The Vista patches address the same vulnerability that led to the WMF (Windows Metafile) malware attacks earlier this month. The recent out-of-cycle security update for the WMF vulnerability (see slashdot coverage) makes no mention of Windows Vista being vulnerable, but with the release of this weekend's patches it is clear that the poorly designed 'SetAbortProc,' the function that allows printing jobs to be canceled, was ported over to Vista."

17 of 317 comments (clear)

  1. At least... by ajdlinux · · Score: 5, Insightful

    ...they're fixing bugs before they release. M$ is doing something right and actually attempting to release a more secure Windoze than XP.

  2. Frist patch by sexyrexy · · Score: 5, Insightful

    They ported some functional code to their newest project. I hope they don't get unfairly bashed for this, just because a few bits of said code were discovered to be vulnerable. Every halfway intelligent programmer reuses code - it would be far more stupid not to. This is semi-interesting as a landmark ("frist patch!") but not exactly news because of what it contains.

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    1. Re:Frist patch by peragrin · · Score: 3, Insightful

      No MSTF ported flawed buggy code that was rewritten specifically for XP. With earlier 98/me/2k all immune MSFT rewrote buggy code just for XP and then carried that to Visyta.

      Vista by the way should of been a complete ground up rewrite. i would expect no less for taking over 6 years to build. Just look at were KDE, Linux kernel, X where 6 years ago. Hell look at what Apple did with OS X in far less time than MSFT. Every other major OS has under gone massive revisions and upgrades. Hell Apple is working on it's second major change in 6 years. (Mac OS 9 to OS X , PPC to Intel)

      Why can't MSFT with it's billions do that? Oh right because it's not about money spent but about productivity.

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      i thought once I was found, but it was only a dream.
    2. Re:Frist patch by IntlHarvester · · Score: 5, Insightful

      > Hell look at what Apple did with OS X in far less time than MSFT

      Apple bought an abandoned OS from the 1980s, that uses kernel with code originally written in the late 1970s. On top of that, they bolted a bunch of Toolbox compatibility code dating from the 80s and 90s, and a bunch of *nix stuff which is also 10-20 years old.

      So, it somewhat silly that you would argue that MS performs a "complete ground up rewrite", all while advocating MacOS X, which is a complete slut for legacy code.

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      Business. Numbers. Money. People. Computer World.
    3. Re:Frist patch by MikTheUser · · Score: 3, Insightful

      So, it somewhat silly that you would argue that MS performs a "complete ground up rewrite", all while advocating MacOS X, which is a complete slut for legacy code.

      Maybe his argumentation was wrong, but the simple fact is: BSD/Darwin/OS X never needed a rewrite - they work really well to this day, as you can see on Apples all over the globe. Windows' code, however, should have been dumped, printed on toilet paper and nailed to the church door as a bad example at the time Windows ME was released at the very latest.

    4. Re:Frist patch by Tony · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Apple bought an abandoned OS from the 1980s . . .

      Funny you should mention NeXT. It was easy-to-use, powerful, developer-friendly, and by far the best OS for desktop use.

      I use the NeXT to illustrate how Microsoft has set the computer industry back. To this day, MS-Windows still doesn't have the power or ease-of-use of the NeXT. It wasn't until Apple picked up the pieces with OS X that an operating system approached the desktop usability of NeXTStep.

      Microsoft set the computer industry back over a decade. So when you talk about how Apple just stole a bunch of old code to make OS X, at least they had the smarts to steal the good code. Microsoft doesn't have access to good code, so they just steal from themselves.

      Microsoft: it's like corporate masturbation!

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      Microsoft is to software what Budweiser is to beer.
  3. Does anyone else get the feeling... by ZackSchil · · Score: 3, Insightful

    that Windows Vista isn't going to be all the fresh, hot goodness that we've been promised? For their own sake, Microsoft should step away from their stale and horribly insecure old code bases. They've had enough time now to rewrite the OS a few times over but it seems they chose instead to shoehorn in their old crap. Now is as good a time as any to cut the Win 9x support cord.

    1. Re:Does anyone else get the feeling... by thefogger · · Score: 5, Insightful

      It is reasonable to carry over old code to a new platform if you want to keep compatibility. Why in the world do you think a rewrite would improve security? It would only cause MORE bugs for years and years to come. Right now, Win32/GDI is quite bug-free, or at least undocumented bug-free. The WMF bug was a design flaw, not a coding error. Also, this has nothing to do with Win9x, for which they HAVE cut the support cord regarding the WMF vulnerability.

      Cheers, Fogger

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      Um... I didn't do it!
    2. Re:Does anyone else get the feeling... by IntlHarvester · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Not true! Windows Vista was promised to be nearly completely backward-compatibile with previous Windows!

      And that is exactly what IT customers want. They only way they can keep all those millions of custom programs developed for Windows over the last decades working is by pulling forward legacy code.

      Hey look at Apple -- they just introduced machines that do not run any software from as little as 5 years ago. Apple also has nearly zero corporate desktops. Connect the dots. Maybe consumer users running Firefox and iTunes and MSN Messenger want a "all new Windows", but nobody else does.

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      Business. Numbers. Money. People. Computer World.
  4. more like.. by ltwally · · Score: 3, Insightful
    "...it is clear that the poorly designed 'SetAbortProc,' the function that allows printing jobs to be canceled, was ported over to Vista."
    It's more like SetAbortProc was never removed from the common code-base that Vista inherited from XP. Saying it was "ported" would lead one to believe that MS actually re-writes the entire OS with every major release. They do not. They simply tack on some new stuff.
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  5. Re:Vista is Yesterday's News by ajdlinux · · Score: 4, Insightful

    > Unpriveleged access will be the default, and it'll be damn near impossible to breach Yes, because of the hardware-level DRM chips it will be impossible. The next few Windoze OSes will be much more secure, not only from the outside, but from the user.

  6. Re:I find such lack of security... by undeadly · · Score: 3, Insightful
    I agree. I've yet to remember a critical fedora patch for a not yet released Redhat FC distribution.

    This says more about Redhat FC than Microsoft, in this case. Just about weekly there is discovered a new local root vulnerability in the Linux kernel, and having dozens of those in the last year or so does not speak well of Linux security.

  7. Re:Cant wait... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful
    Wonder what exploits there will be when its actually out?

    Fixing bugs in a pre-beta OS under development is indicative of this? Then a changelog of Linux or OS/X beta will scare you good.

  8. I find such a lack of consistency . . . by EraserMouseMan · · Score: 5, Insightful

    entertaining. Google "beta" products that are used by millions have huge security bugs that let malicious persons read anyone's email and nobody says much and it is swept under the rug. Microsoft's "beta" products that are only in use by testers/developers have a security issue and everybody's shaking their head and talking about how horrible MS is. It's just amusing to me.

    1. Re:I find such a lack of consistency . . . by marcello_dl · · Score: 3, Insightful

      hehe come on, wasn't Vista marketed as the next gen secure OS coming from a company who claim they are more secure and offer better ROI of the competition? Then it comes up they are porting code with bugs (if not backdoors) and they release a security update before the official release.

      Sure, linux sometimes has the same kind of updates. But bug disclosement in linux isn't a terrorist activity, kernel versions are named 2.2, 2.4, 2.6 and earns it reputation on the field, not with marketing fluff.

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  9. Re:Didn't Microsoft say... by sethadam1 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    You remember right. That was the deal about 4-5 years ago or so. Gates called it a "bet the company" initiative, and they decided to rewrite from scratch.

    Then, a few years later, pretty much nothing worked, so they tossed out all the 4000-era builds, took a clean copy of Windows 2003 SP1, and built on top of that.

    That is Vista. It's built on Server 2003 SP1.

  10. Re:.NET 2 = already available. by giorgiofr · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Well I kinda summed it up a bit too much but my point is that *users* won't care about such technologies. I, as a developer, think they might be nice (but as I'm switching over to Linux I don't care too much); users won't. I was not saying Vista is stupid or limited; I was saying users will not perceive it as worth much more than XP. Then of course if developers force them to use Vista, that's another story...

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