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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."

8 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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    Rex is 09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0
    1. 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: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.

  4. 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!
  5. 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.
  6. 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.

  7. 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.