Buy Vista or Else

Security by Fusen · 2006-01-28 06:20 · Score: 5, Insightful

Who's to say Vista will be secure? Surely from past experience its safer to use XP which has had numerous security patches then a whole new OS with thousands of vulnerabilities to be found

Re:Security by CyricZ · 2006-01-28 06:34 · Score: 5, Insightful

And beyond that it's probably safer to use something like OpenBSD instead of XP. It not only has a far more stable and secure base, but it also has far stricter security-wise development policies, and apparently more thorough code audits.

--
Cyric Zndovzny at your service.
Re:Security by LiquidCoooled · 2006-01-28 06:35 · Score: 5, Interesting

I would say if the codebase is entirely new, the chances of making the same mistakes again would be lower.
What worries me more about rebuilding any codebase is the possibility of introducing whole new categories of bugs.

--
liqbase :: faster than paper
Re:Security by bender647 · 2006-01-28 06:40 · Score: 5, Informative

TFA describes many ways in which Vista will be more secure by design than the security-patched XP. For example, more attention to user privileges, sandboxing IE, a firewall that looks at outgoing traffic, integrated spyware checking.

I could pretty much care less about Vista until the games I want to play won't run on anything else, but you can't doubt that M$ will be paying more attention to security in the fundamental design of Vista than they did in XP.
Re:Security by Kjella · 2006-01-28 06:44 · Score: 4, Insightful

Who's to say Vista will be secure?

Well, I assume it'll be more secure against you. It is pure doublespeak because it has nothing to do with user security and everything to do with content security. But I assume they'll try to market it as "security", because everyone wants security right?

--
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
Re:Security by masklinn · 2006-01-28 06:51 · Score: 2, Insightful

I think you could extend that to "if you want security you must never run any executable file that didn't come with your OS outside of a VM sandbox".

Anything that can be executed is a security threat. Random executables received from mails with "3bl4rg3 yu0r p3n1s" more than others, but few softwares actually have a bug/issue count of 0.

--
"The way we can tell it's C# instead of Haskell is because it's nine lines instead of two." -- wadler
Re:Security by Blakey+Rat · 2006-01-28 07:00 · Score: 2, Insightful

And it only takes 4 days to get your video capture card working, that is, if you can manage it at all!

No thanks. I'll trade a little bit of security for a computer I can actually *use to do things with.*

--
Comment of the year
Re:Security by advocate_one · 2006-01-28 07:01 · Score: 5, Insightful

we know the codebase is NOT new... because the first security update for the beta was for the .wmf vulnerability... who knows what other nightmares are still ticking away in it.

--
Donald 'Duck' Dunn: We had a band powerful enough to turn goat piss into gasoline.
Re:Security by HalAtWork · 2006-01-28 07:13 · Score: 4, Insightful

That was exactly my reasoning for staying with Windows 2000 while Windows XP was being introduced. When I saw that I was right, and how bad XP really was, I decided to just move to Linux and have been happy ever since.
Previously my attempts to move to Linux had been unsuccessful because I had problems getting certain hardware working (video capture, RAID) and was concerned about what software would be available (certain emulators I had grown fond of, video codecs, VirtualDub and other transcoding software), but even Windows 2000 was giving me some problems, such as booting into a blue screen telling me my registry had become corrupt, and also actually getting infected by viruses such as Blaster.
I had everything up to date, all patched up, antivirus installed, etc, but still contracted the virus. A few reinstalls later and I just figured it wasn't worth it putting up with all the headaches.
When I started running Linux, I quickly saw the advantages... Installing software didn't require the usual "Next, Next, uncheck every checkbox, delete desktop and quicklaunch icons, uninstall additional software installed along with the software I actually wanted, check for hidden startup items, make sure program doesn't phone home", when I started my PC I wasn't greeted by millions of splash screens, applications that couldn't make a connection popping up and letting me know, I didn't have to readjust settings that kept resetting for some reason (volume levels, icon positions on the quicklaunch)... GNU/Linux is about using your PC and not just working around problems to get what you want... and then I realized that upon discovering all this I didn't even have to worry about viruses at all, and I had no problems with crashes at all! Even if programs didn't behave in a way I expected I found it simple to find solutions, the error messages meant something and I could see exceptions thrown if I launched an application from a terminal, etc...

--
Twinstiq, game news
Re:Security by zootm · 2006-01-28 07:15 · Score: 4, Insightful

It's based on BSD, yes. So's OpenBSD. Vista and XP, similarly, are based on the same thing. The basis is not the point here.
Re:Security by Anonymous Coward · 2006-01-28 07:18 · Score: 2, Interesting

"And beyond that it's probably safer to use something like OpenBSD instead of XP."

I mean, seriously, just who is your post directed too? I can tell my clients: Use Firefox instead of IE, I sometimes tell them use OSX instead of XP. I even see situations where I might suggest Linux over XP or OSX.

But for the life of me, I don't ever ever see a situation where I go: " Yeah!, use BSD - it's a viable alternative to XP or OSX".
Re:Security by zootm · 2006-01-28 07:29 · Score: 3, Interesting

You misunderstand, sorry my wording was ambiguous. OpenBSD and OSX have the same roots, XP and Vista have the same roots, was my point. The point that the article was trying to get across is that these two systems with the same roots have different characteristics in terms of security, which is also the case with OSX and OpenBSD. Of course, I'm not saying that OSX is as insecure as XP, however.
Re:Security by CyricZ · 2006-01-28 07:31 · Score: 5, Interesting

OpenBSD is a great system for secretaries and people in a finance department, for instance.

I worked at one firm that was having problems with the computer systems their secretaries and finance department were using. Many of the workers would play games, or worse, they'd manage to infect the existing Windows XP systems with spyware.

Considering they were doing basic word processing, spreadsheet and web-based data entry tasks, we decided that Windows XP was excessive. OpenBSD, OpenOffice, and Konqueror would be sufficient.

The main benefit was that the systems just plain didn't get infected with viruses, spyware, and some such software. The price was a big benefit, too. And the ignorance of the general staff towards OpenBSD, and UNIX in general, helped. Instead of playing games and chatting, the employees had little to do but work. Productivity rose significantly within the weeks after switching over to OpenBSD.

--
Cyric Zndovzny at your service.
Re:Security by ajs318 · 2006-01-28 07:32 · Score: 2, Insightful

Who cares? There are programs that will run on OpenBSD that do more or less the same things as what the programs that run on Windows do. Anyone who learned how to use them the way an adult learns -- by understanding the underlying abstract concepts, rather than by simple blind repetition which is the way a child learns -- should be just fine with the alternatives.

And you have to remember that there is a lot of legitimate Windows software that takes advantage of "features" in the inherently-insecure versions of Windows; the very same features that malware takes advantage of. If Vista is built inherently-secure, these programs simply will not run under it unless the security level is downgraded. Users of such programs might be tempted to switch to a BSD variant or GNU/Linux, even if only experimentally at first, just on the basis that at least it can't be any worse than what they're already having to put up with. Learning a few new key bindings is something you only have to do once; updating anti-virus software and recovering from unexplainable crashes are continuous processes.

Between the release of Windows Vista and the release of GunCC 1.0, whenever that happens, there are going to be some interesting times. A lot of people are going to be bitten, and hard, by bad decisions from the past.

--
Je fume. Tu fumes. Nous fûmes!
Re:Security by acidblood · 2006-01-28 07:33 · Score: 2, Informative

The .WMF vulnerability is, as I understand, the result of poor design, not an implementation problem like a buffer overflow. Given the same API, the Wine project wrote an independent implementation which was also vulnerable. So if Vista has the same vulnerability, that says nothing about whether they used the same code from XP.

--
Join the NFSNET. Our prime goal is making little numbers out of big ones. http://www.nfsnet.org/
Re:Security by CyricZ · 2006-01-28 07:34 · Score: 3, Informative

The parent poster was saying that Mac OS X was based on BSD, which it is. Mach was derived from BSD, and Mac OS X builds upon Mach. Of course, it also integrates code from the other BSDs, which tend to use code from each other, too.

At one point there was a BSD-derived networking stack included with Windows. However, it is reported these days that a new implementation was written.

--
Cyric Zndovzny at your service.
Re:Security by Gonzoman · 2006-01-28 07:35 · Score: 2, Interesting

I usually don't get involved in OS wars but here goes:

I keep hearing the argument that it is not worth it to write a virus for Linux because of a lower installed base. It seems to me that some Windows zealot would have done it by now just to prove it can be done if it is as easy as they imply.

This leads me to believe that either:

A: Windows zealots can't code

or

B: Linux is much more secure than Windows
Re:Security by Blakey+Rat · 2006-01-28 07:42 · Score: 3, Interesting

Hm. Let's see... installing my Hauppauge card and Sage TV took approximately two hours on Windows, and that includes all the time I spent setting preferences. Oh, and it all worked on the first try.

I spent over 16 hours *attempting* to install IVTV (the "official" Linux drivers for the Hauppauge capture cards) before giving up.

During this period of time, I had help from two Linux experts. The best output I ever got from the cat was a postage-stamp-size mpeg2 movie with no sound and no way to change the channel. (Needless to say, the GUI TV viewer apps didn't work at all, and didn't give any clues as to why they wouldn't work.) That was on Ubuntu.

Then I looked at other Linux distributions, and noticed that SUSE claims to support Hauppauge hardware out of the box. So I spend the hours downloaded 5 freakin' CDs worth of CRAP so I do a single task (not counted in the 16 hours) and install SUSE with default settings to my PC. During the install, it gives me an encouraging message, reading something like: "We've detected a video capture card in your computer, so you should install these TV viewer applications." I hit yes, install. Get a working, booting system, open the TV viewer app and... nothing! No error message, it just froze.

Now, given, this was on Linux. But I can't imagine how it could be any easier on BSD.

--
Comment of the year
Re:Security by Coryoth · 2006-01-28 08:07 · Score: 2, Informative

I think you could extend that to "if you want security you must never run any executable file that didn't come with your OS outside of a VM sandbox".

Anything that can be executed is a security threat. Random executables received from mails with "3bl4rg3 yu0r p3n1s" more than others, but few softwares actually have a bug/issue count of 0.

There are things that can be done that allow for significant improvement over the current situation. The only catch is that it requires significant change to the base system, and some changes to applications that wish to run on the system.

Instead of forcing everything outside of core OS software into a VM sandbox that completely restricts access to everything, you can have the system itself mandatorily mediate all access to system resources - in a sense have everything (except the kernel) sandboxed, but each sandbox flexibly defined according to a policy declaring what the software running inside the sandbox requires access to. Doing such a thing, of course, would require you to build such a security system into the kernel itself, preferably with some separation of policy and enforcement. You would also have to build a robust policy for the core system services, restricting each to their least privilege, and fixing anything that has unnecessary demands for access to system resources. At step two you would need to encourage more general user software to minimise unnecessary access demands, and generally making use of this new access control system (which would replace and/or augment file permissions, groups, etc.); hopefully applications would also provide suggested policy requests as well.

That sounds like an awful lot of work, but thankfully we already have the kernel security structure and core sytem utility fixes. That means that we are at step two - we need to start promoting this system as the new access control mechanism, and try and get application developers to play nice with, and use, the new system.

Jedidiah.

--
Craft Beer Programming T-shirts
Re:Security by nittacci · 2006-01-28 08:09 · Score: 2

Use OpenBSD? But most of my software won't run on it. You show me an open source OS that will let me run Cubase or Sonar or ProTools and I'll run out and buy it. Yeah, I've tried the emulators, and they suck.
Re:Security by kuzelnik · 2006-01-28 08:11 · Score: 4, Insightful

Well ...
FreeBSD *is* viable alternative to XP.
Today I have even installed Windows-only Tutenstein game from kids.discovery.com on it for my little daughter using wine. A few days ago I have installed Linux binary Fentun to open winmail.dat file I have received form an Outlook/Exchange user.

FreeBSD has more then 14000 ports available.

It has got everything an ordinary user needs.
Office, mail, browsers, chat, much greater number of supported media files than most Linux distros ...

I know, It is comon belief FreeBSD is more difficult to install than XP.
Well, Joe Sixpack isn't able to install Windows either.
And tell me, how many users can remove dozens of malware, viruses, rootkits and other unwanted crappy applications from Windows?

You install FreeBSD for a non-technical user once, and you do not have to come back to clean it up.
Re:Security by utlemming · 2006-01-28 09:12 · Score: 5, Interesting

I know that the Slashdot crowd has mixed feelings about VMware, but honestly, I am a huge fan of it. VMware is what allowed me to switch from Windows to Linux, while keeping the programs that I need for school, and keep my wife happy. Further, I can run a different Windows for whatever the different need may be. For example, I have one Windows for personal use, work, school, security/spyware/malware research, Windows Server 2003, Windows 98, an Oracle enviroment, FreeBSD, and several different Linux bases installed. Before I made the leap, I tried VMware in Windows, and decided that it was a viable alternative and then made the conversion to Linux. The great thing about running Windows under Linux is that I have not had any spyware problems since converting, nor virus problems -- probably because I surf the internet and do email under Linux as opposed to Windows. The downside to this approach is that it 1) Expensive, VMware cost $189 for Linux, but they do give you a 30-day license; 2.) You have to have a lot of memory in order to get the full benefit. 3.) You still need a license for Windows. However, I get better performance for my Windows installations under Linux than I did with a native Windows installation. And then you can do snapshots and other features. Even if you manage to hose your Linux installation, short of deleting your virtual machine files, your virtual machines are safe.

Anyhow, the point of the post, is that if you seriously would like to be able to migrate away from Windows, and need to be able to maintain compatablilty, then look at VMware. Unlike some of the other virtualization solutions, VMware is extremely professional, polished, and does a slick job. I am the president of a Linux and Unix User group and we distribute VMware disk images for use in VMPlayer (which is free) to help people get farmiliar with Linux. The quaility of VMware is such that after using a beta release for two months I couldn't help but buy it after the beta expired -- their beta was so professional, I was really impressed.

And no, I don't work for VMware.

--
The views expressed are mine own and do not express the views of my employer.
Re:Security by Jezza · 2006-01-28 10:09 · Score: 2, Funny

Blakey Rat said: "And it only takes 4 days to get your video capture card working, that is, if you can manage it at all!"

Sure, but at least it won't get a Virus and send a picture of you in your undercrackers to Paris Hilton's cell phone. :-)
Re:Security by bowlingfreak · 2006-01-28 10:51 · Score: 3, Interesting

You get stuff like this on both sides. Here's mine.
I built 2 64bit AMD boxes, and purchased WinXP X64 for both. I figured one would be a Win box for my wife, the other would be dual boot, Win for games, Fedora Core 4 for development.
I spent about 2 weeks finding and downloading drivers for the Windows installs. Everything on the motherboard (including 1Gb network card), the DVD RW, video card...
I was ALMOST afraid of putting Fedora Core 4 64bit on it, but figured I could get it working with some work. So installing Fedora was a much, different experience. Put in the DVD and follow the install screens. No drivers to find and everything worked out of the box.
So in MY case, Windows took days, Linux was less than an hour.
Re:Security by Blakey+Rat · 2006-01-28 10:53 · Score: 2, Interesting

1) Two hours is about right for setting up a PVR. That's how long it took to set up my parent's Dish Network PVR, more or less.

2) The computer didn't freeze, and it wasn't a hardware error. (The hardware works flawlessly in Windows.) It was the TV viewer application that froze.

3) Hauppauge cards don't work on OS X. But at least OS X doesn't *claim* that they do, unlike SUSE.

--
Comment of the year
Re:Security by rnpg1014 · 2006-01-28 12:31 · Score: 2, Interesting

I think Transmogrify_UK was refering to websites that say you should use Windows 98/2000/XP and don't provide support for any browser besides IE, leaving you unable to view anything because of the massive ammount of ActiveX plugins used in the site. And even if there are no ActiveX plugins, i'm sure most Windows-using webmasters couldn't care less about standards compliance and modifying their websites to work with Firefox / Safari / Konqueror. Still, I have in fact run into websites from my school's macs that completely deny mac access. A little tweaking can solve that, however.

--
- Nick
Re:Security by arminw · 2006-01-28 13:04 · Score: 2, Informative

....websites from my school's macs that completely deny mac access.....

Turn on the Safari debug menu and get Safari to lie to the offending website. It may display screwy, but it will get you in every time.

--
All theory is gray
Re:Security by m.lp.ql.m · 2006-01-28 14:37 · Score: 2, Funny

> 12. ...
13. Profit!
Re:Security by ClamIAm · 2006-01-28 15:05 · Score: 2, Funny

The best output I ever got from the cat
Dude people are running Linux on cats now?
Re:Security by Overly+Critical+Guy · 2006-01-28 15:27 · Score: 2, Informative

It's so frustrating sometimes that so many posters on Slashdot continue to be misinformed about things that are common knowledge in the tech world.

Vista had the same flaw because it's got the same Win32 code. Vista is not a rewrite of Windows. It's based off the Windows 2003 code, which was based off XP. It's the same Windows as before but with some new rushed 1.0 APIs for hackers to crack. WinFX is just a layer on top of Win32. It's the same Win32 Windows we've known all along with some internal updates (i.e., a new networking stack).

--
"Sufferin' succotash."
Re:Security by carl0ski · 2006-01-28 18:32 · Score: 2, Informative

I did that got X64 to replace XP

what a nightmare

A motherboard box with the clear label 64bit compatible
Access the CD bang absolutely NO windows X64 drivers included

took 2 hours to install Audigy X64 Drivers (creative claims unsupported) you must have previous drivers installed to use this Installer.

TV card didnt have X64 drivers
The mainboard website had nothing much NIC and Sound

my Canon Printer didnt have X64 drivers
Battlefield was acting up ATI drivers were sub par
and to top it the problem with Windows Failing to use more that 2GB ram still existed.

X64 Fedora Suse10.0 and Mandriva 2006 all installed all the above hardware , and it used all resources far better than 32bit Linux Distros

Windows has reset their position of,
Best driver support available
and Linux has taken the crown for now.
Re:Security by rtb61 · 2006-01-28 20:42 · Score: 2, Informative

It's a trick when installing windows any version. You must install the drivers in the correct order, no matter what the instructions say, you must reboot between each and every software driver install. Other tricks are, add new hardware, do a complete re-install (clears up the build up of errors in the reigistry which can really stuff up new driver installs).
The other thing don't install any other sofwtare until you have completed all the hardware driver installs and applied all the windows patches. Slipstreaming is they way to go becuase that avoids connecting to the net to downgrade the patches before configuring installing you non-microsoft firewall (anybody the uses a brondband modem instead of a router/firewall with windows needs their head read) and yes the microsoft firewall is really "soft" software and is only just barely better than nothing.

--
Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
Re:Security by zootm · 2006-01-29 00:21 · Score: 2, Insightful

Vista bogged down to the eyeballs with the latest microsoft drm is likely to be a pretty bad release as they again use their customers to bug test this new "er" feature.

I sincerely hope you're wrong about that, but I fear you're probably right. My hope is the fact that they're calling the feature "optional" will allow me to get away (since I don't intend on using DRMed media), but it might lead to more widespread adoption of such nonsense technology.

linux? OS X? by joe+155 · 2006-01-28 06:21 · Score: 3, Interesting

maybe they should say "upgrade to linux for the security" (or macOS X)... Vista seems to be offering very little in terms of features, and will offer little else in terms of security, partly people go for it because it's what most people use, and partly because M$ just doesn't take security seriously enough... they need to have a root and branch change of how the OS is designed to give a greater emphasis on security instead of useless visual tweaks.

--
*''I can't believe it's not a hyperlink.''

Re:linux? OS X? by Kevbo · 2006-01-28 06:29 · Score: 2, Interesting

I think Apple is already doing this. They may not be running specific ads saying that they offer better security than Windows (at least, I have never seen any) but I am always hearing about how Mac never gets any viruses, exploits, etc from friends, reporters, Mac salesman...
It may be underground marketing, but it is still marketing.

--
In Vino Veritas
Re:linux? OS X? by DaHat · 2006-01-28 06:43 · Score: 5, Informative
Vista seems to be offering very little in terms of features

Lemme guess... you are basing that solely on what you've read on /.?

Allow me to list a few features coming in Vista that I am looking forward to:
- Application level audio control
- Application specific remoting
- Vastly improved networking stack (apparently superior to any other OS's)
- Support for user mode drivers
- New printer technology (way beyond postscript)
- Pluggable crypto system
Take a look at this MSN Spaces post which has some links to some videos on some of these improvements and more on Channel 9.
--
Help Brendan pay off his student loans
Re:linux? OS X? by jcr · 2006-01-28 06:50 · Score: 2, Informative

I think Apple is already doing this

Nope. When I worked there, it was made very clear to us that Apple doesn't talk about security as a reason to switch. We emphasized ease of use, etc.

-jcr

--
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
Re:linux? OS X? by Anonymous Coward · 2006-01-28 07:13 · Score: 3, Informative

While per-application audio control (I can't wait to be able to turn down my games and turn up teamspeak) and a new networking stack sound nice, remoting a single application has always been possible through netmeeting or with stuff like citrix. User mode drivers have been around for a while in other operating systems (libusb, libsane, various user mode filesystem drivers, etc). Not sure what a "pluggable crypto system" is but linux has had a good number of kernel crypto modules for a long time now for various purposes. As for Metro, the only thing it really brings to the table is XML. PDF already does everything Metro will, and will probably be much less encumbered than anything Microsoft releases as "open". (I also suspect that you could set per-application mixer levels in ALSA for any application not using OSS emulation, but it would be an undocumented hack and application dependent, rather than an OS feature)
Re:linux? OS X? by PCM2 · 2006-01-28 07:51 · Score: 2, Interesting

Agreed. I saw Allchin's latest Vista demo and I walked away for it confident that I will, under no uncertain terms, be buying a new laptop in early 2007 to run Vista on.

There's lots of things in Vista that nobody has even started talking about yet, particularly in the area of mobility.

- Laptops will start shipping with a secondary LCD screen that's accessible when the machine is closed. So you will be able to do things like checking the status of your e-mail, IM, stocks, weather, whatever -- without taking the machine out of sleep mode, spinning up the hard drives, etc.

- Tablet PCs will have touch screen functionality in addition to just pen-based input. In addition, the handwriting recognition will "learn" from the files that Vista has indexed on your hard drive -- so if you're a doctor and you're always using words like "phenylketonuria," it will pick that up and recognize those words more readily.

- As I mentioned in another post, Vista will ship with Windows Collaboration, a Groove-like networking feature that lets wireless users quickly form ad-hoc network and share files and even screen real estate in an easy way.

- Microsoft will stop talking about power states like "Standby" and "Hibernate" when Vista ships. There will only be "on" or "off." When you hit the power button on your laptop, essentially it goes into Standby. Meanwhile it will be writing out a Hibernate file. After it figures out you won't be coming back, it sinks into Hibernate mode. But (and I'm a little unclear on this) even then it will still be sending a trickle of power to the memory only to keep the memory alive. The idea is that fast on and off will be a way of life and people won't be rebooting their computers all the time.

- You will be able to associate with a new generation of LCD projectors wirelessly. No more showing up to a meeting and fumbling with monitor cables etc. Just find the projector and route PowerPoint through it.

Outside of all that, WinFX should be a huge deal and there are a number of APIs that will be shipping in or be closely related to Vista that represent really serious innovations. I know the /. crowd hates to hear that word when talking about Microsoft, but I just call it how I see it.

Vista is going to be a major, major upgrade... way more than anybody is giving it credit for yet and enough so that Apple should definitely be looking over its shoulder. Maybe Microsoft still won't be able to offer customers anything to compare with the iPod experience on a Mac, but business users in particular are going to be all over this.

--
Breakfast served all day!
Re:linux? OS X? by lebski · 2006-01-28 08:12 · Score: 2, Insightful

Most of these features don't really sound like vista features - more like new hardware features.
Laptops will start shipping with a secondary LCD screen that's accessible when the machine is closed. So you will be able to do things like checking the status of your e-mail, IM, stocks, weather, whatever -- without taking the machine out of sleep mode, spinning up the hard drives, etc.
That sounds to me like something outside of the operating system otherwise there is no point.
- Tablet PCs will have touch screen functionality in addition to just pen-based input. In addition, the handwriting recognition will "learn" from the files that Vista has indexed on your hard drive -- so if you're a doctor and you're always using words like "phenylketonuria," it will pick that up and recognize those words more readily.
Touch screen is again a hardware improvement; indexing your files to pick out common words for recognition is very clever though.
- As I mentioned in another post, Vista will ship with Windows Collaboration, a Groove-like networking feature that lets wireless users quickly form ad-hoc network and share files and even screen real estate in an easy way.
This just scares me!
- Microsoft will stop talking about power states like "Standby" and "Hibernate" when Vista ships. There will only be "on" or "off." When you hit the power button on your laptop, essentially it goes into Standby. Meanwhile it will be writing out a Hibernate file. After it figures out you won't be coming back, it sinks into Hibernate mode. But (and I'm a little unclear on this) even then it will still be sending a trickle of power to the memory only to keep the memory alive. The idea is that fast on and off will be a way of life and people won't be rebooting their computers all the time.
Isn't that simply removing functionality? I'm sure it will be great for novice users but removing the ability to switch a computer off is not a 'feature' I'm all that keen on.
- You will be able to associate with a new generation of LCD projectors wirelessly. No more showing up to a meeting and fumbling with monitor cables etc. Just find the projector and route PowerPoint through it.
Again this seems more like a hardware improvement - and more of an improvement in LCD projectors than anything else.
Sorry if this seems all very negative but the only positive feature I can see in Vista is the ability in non-admin accounts to enter the admin password to complete admin functions - such as installing software. Hopefully making them usable for the first time in windows.
Re:linux? OS X? by ratboy666 · 2006-01-28 08:40 · Score: 4, Interesting

I want to comment on some of the features you list:

"New printer technology (way beyond postscript)"

This is interesting. What could be "way beyond Postscript"? Postscript is a general purpose language, with rendering support. It has even been extended into a GUI (although that is irrelevant from the perspective of printing). By utilizing a common language for print rendering, different vendor OSs and systems can actually share printers. The reference implementation of Postscript is now (arguably) Ghostscript, which is Open Source. Postscript is also behind PDF technology.

If there is a new rendering technology, how will it be incorporated into heterogenous network?

"Support for user mode drivers"

Is this a good thing? I know that there have been attempts at providing "user mode drivers" to Linux, and other OSs, but that is a REALLY BAD thing to do wrt security. Transitions from less trusted code to more trusted code are ok, because the more trusted code can check its inputs. The reverse transition is not ok -- simply because the code is less trusted.

Of course the "user mode driver" may require signing, but then why not test it and put it back into kernel mode? The only other reason I can see for "user mode drivers" is that you want the driver code and data to participate in standard OS semantics (scheduling, swapping, etc.). Which may be a good reason to do it. But the security implications are immense: maybe front layer drivers only, that cannot do anything with the OS core or data, and where data only flows "user->user driver->kernel" -- you get the idea.

Still, I was under the impression that Windows was a micro-kernel (in some sense), which is supposed to eliminate the need for this hack.

"Application level audio control"

Can you elaborate on this? I was under the impression that that was ALREADY a feature (or are you referring to OS control on the application audio, which is more interesting - specifically, the ability to route the audio output from an application to another application which can provide filtering: say, low-pass. Of course, this provides a security hole for the media, and so I doubt that this will be implemented).

The other features will be welcome.

Ratboy.

--
Just another "Cubible(sic) Joe" 2 17 3061
Re:linux? OS X? by dangitman · 2006-01-28 09:17 · Score: 2, Funny

Just find the projector and route PowerPoint through it.
But wouldn't someone then stab you to death for using Powerpoint? I don't see the advantage in being dead.

--
... and then they built the supercollider.
Re:linux? OS X? by Insensitive_Claudio · 2006-01-28 09:46 · Score: 2, Funny

Little in features??? Did you see the screenshots???? Dude, they have frosted glass with semi-transparent drop-shadows!!! Are you out of your mind!!!! Geez!!!
Re:linux? OS X? by pherthyl · 2006-01-28 10:07 · Score: 2, Informative

*sigh*
Why does everyone continue to buy into this BS? Point sizes have absolutely nothing to do with your screen resolution if your display is set up correctly. An 8pt font should be the same size whether your res is 1024 or 1600x1200. If you're having trouble reading text on a high res screen, do this: on windows:
display properties, settings, advanced, then choose custom setting and adjust the ruler until the distance displayed is correct. Reboot.
On Linux, set the DisplaySize (or something like that, I forget) in xorg.conf
Re:linux? OS X? by spitzak · 2006-01-28 10:26 · Score: 2, Informative

- A secondary LCD screen that offers limited, PDA-like functionality while the main OS is in Suspend. How would you do that with XP? Or Linux? It's not anything you can write in user mode.

What the hell are you talking about. That LCD would be a *second screen*. Windows as-is already supports multiple screens, so add a driver for the LCD! I don't consider that a change to the OS. A slight change so that the user can make a program go to that screen without dragging it is, I guess, a change to the OS, but hardly a huge addition. Of course I think MS has gone and made yet another api, totally failing to realize that the existing one was just fine. That is why you seem confused into thinking supporting this new screen is some new OS feature. Sigh.

A little circle appears, kind of like a radar screen, and it figures out which icon you meant to press. Current touchscreens can't do that.

WTF? Last I looked current touchscreens can draw anything they want on it. So I guess they improved the driver, but I suspect they could have put this into XP just as easily.

Power modes

This I would say *is* a feature of Vista as it probably touches lots of different parts of it. It is not a driver like the above two.

The LCD projector thing -- that's not OS?

Um, NO! The LCD projector thing is "hardware in the projector to pick up the wireless signal!" Are you claiming that this could not be done with existing Windows if a hardware manufacturer built such a device?

user-mode drivers

This certainly is a big improvement to the OS. However what I fail to realize is why you thought various drivers were improvements to the OS.

Now where are the real innovations: get rid of text/binary mode in the files!! How about a unified file name space so that open() and readdir() can find everything, like Plan9 had twenty f**king years ago (Linux also sucks in this area, but not as bad as Windows, where you cannot even list the disks without a special api).
Re:linux? OS X? by The_Cheese_Stands_Al · 2006-01-28 11:47 · Score: 2, Insightful

Laptops will start shipping with a secondary LCD screen that's accessible when the machine is closed. So you will be able to do things like checking the status of your e-mail, IM, stocks, weather, whatever -- without taking the machine out of sleep mode, spinning up the hard drives, etc.
What?? - Explain to me how one is to interact with a machine in sleep mode. Either A) M$ is only turning off the primary LCD, Touchpad, Keyboard, etc. off and calling it "sleep mode," OR B) The machine continuously displays info on the second LCD. With A - That's a sucky sleep mode, and with B - that would drain power all the time, which is even worse.

Tablet PCs will have touch screen functionality in addition to just pen-based input. In addition, the handwriting recognition will "learn" from the files that Vista has indexed on your hard drive -- so if you're a doctor and you're always using words like "phenylketonuria," it will pick that up and recognize those words more readily.
Ummm... I thought that the whole point of a tablet PC was that it had touch screen functionality. The second idea is good, although rather old. ANY handwriting recognition software uses previous recognition data if there is any room for data storage at all.

As I mentioned in another post, Vista will ship with Windows Collaboration, a Groove-like networking feature that lets wireless users quickly form ad-hoc network and share files and even screen real estate in an easy way.
First off, ad-hoc wireless networking is not new in any sense of the word. File sharing protocols (zero configuration, no less) have been around for a while. Remote Desktop viewing/controlling applications are both old ideas that have been implemented--even on Windows.

Microsoft will stop talking about power states like "Standby" and "Hibernate" when Vista ships. There will only be "on" or "off." When you hit the power button on your laptop, essentially it goes into Standby. Meanwhile it will be writing out a Hibernate file. After it figures out you won't be coming back, it sinks into Hibernate mode. But (and I'm a little unclear on this) even then it will still be sending a trickle of power to the memory only to keep the memory alive. The idea is that fast on and off will be a way of life and people won't be rebooting their computers all the time.
"Standby" and "Hibernate" are not new to Windows either. Most laptops have this feature that activates (wait for it....) when you close the lid. Microsoft's "Fast on" sounds more like a "wakeup" than anything else. [given the confused explanation of this "feature", it's hard to say exactly what they mean]. The other point about this "feature" is the lack of an ability to turn off the laptop with the "off" button.

You will be able to associate with a new generation of LCD projectors wirelessly. No more showing up to a meeting and fumbling with monitor cables etc. Just find the projector and route PowerPoint through it.
Apparently Microsoft has managed to coordinate a zeroconf wireless LCD projector standard without anyone knowing--or is this simply support for bluetooth screens.

Vista is going to be a major, major upgrade... way more than anybody is giving it credit for yet and enough so that Apple should definitely be looking over its shoulder. Maybe Microsoft still won't be able to offer customers anything to compare with the iPod experience on a Mac, but business users in particular are going to be all over this.
On the iPod note -- did you miss Microsoft's press release about their "iPod killer" this week (or was it last week)? As to the "Apple should be looking over its' shoulder," please see the definitions of FUD and vaporware, as that is all that your argument seems to be based on.
Re:linux? OS X? by Antique+Geekmeister · 2006-01-29 01:30 · Score: 2, Insightful

Congratulations, you've discovered several of the little men behind the curtains. In particular, the "new printer technology" is in order to break CUPS and Samba based compatibility Windows printing. I'm sure they'll "embrace and extend" parts of them, but I'm also convinced they'll deliberately make them incompatible with existing tools in the process.

Second, the "user mode drivers" have a rather obvious use: coupled with the plans for "trusted computing" style authentication of software, they provide a robust means for digital rights management of both software and hardware. The plan seems to be to require authenticated software to access CD and DVD readers and burners. And by integrating it in at the trusted computing driver level, the drives can be designed so that they cannot be used without the vendor's signed software, disabling all access to the content except with the vendor's approved software.

It's a logical consequence of the "trusted computing" approach to software, and you'd better believe that it's being pushed for if not already directly integrated into Vista.

quote? by Prong_Thunder · 2006-01-28 06:21 · Score: 5, Funny

"nice computer you got here... be a shame if it crashed...."

People actually pay for articles like this by heinousjay · 2006-01-28 06:21 · Score: 5, Funny

This is all about anti-Microsoft masturbatory geekspasms, right? Let the games begin:

Yeah, Winblows security? They haven't reimplemented enough of Unix to be secure yet.
- or -
Sure, it's secure - it can't be pwned when the new RSOD feature is active.

Well, I've shot my wad.

--
Slashdot - where whining about luck is the new way to make the world you want.

Re:People actually pay for articles like this by ScrewMaster · 2006-01-28 06:29 · Score: 2, Funny

One of the quality assurance guys at work claims to receive "bugasms" when he finds a particularly juicy one.

--
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.

Secure? by SpasticWeasel · 2006-01-28 06:21 · Score: 5, Informative

From TFA: "People Near Me" feature, which searches over a Wi-Fi connection for other Vista users nearby and then sets up a peer-to-peer network with them. Yeah, that sounds pretty secure. Same old Microsoft.

--
No sooner do I get over one, then you put a better one right next to me. Bastards.

Re:Secure? by PCM2 · 2006-01-28 07:35 · Score: 3, Informative

If this is the Windows Collaboration feature they're talking about, then it doesn't automatically connect everybody. You can invite the people you choose. And it's not a peer to peer filesharing network or even a standard Windows network. It's a Groove-like system that allows you to share files and screen real estate among the connected peers. So if you're showing a presentation from your laptop, you can let me connect to your projector using your laptop over the network and show my presentation from my hard drive, using your screen in a sense. I can also push the same file to everybody in the ad hoc "network" so that they can view it. Optionally I can also send them a copy of the file, but I don't have to... that kind of thing. It's actually pretty neat.

--
Breakfast served all day!

Or we will shoot this dog by HeavyMS · 2006-01-28 06:22 · Score: 5, Funny

The link to rule them all :
http://uncyclopedia.org/wiki/Image:Windowsvistamar keting.jpg

Upgrade! by Jane_Dozey · 2006-01-28 06:23 · Score: 4, Funny

Or we'll send Balmer around with this chair...

--
Silly rabbit

Lost trust by PornMaster · 2006-01-28 06:24 · Score: 4, Interesting

I'm all for upgrading things to newer versions to enhance security. Secure by design should be the default, and if someone fessed up and said, "Hey, we fucked up last time, but we got it right this time", and could be trusted, then it wouldn't be extortionist of them to try this.

But we've all seen how Trustworthy Computing didn't really change things. New products came through that obviously weren't vetted, and plenty of legacy problems remained. I don't know who's really going to buy Vista because they'll believe the security "threat" perpetuated by MS.

--
500GB of disk, 5TB of transfer, $5.95/mo

Re:Lost trust by GigsVT · 2006-01-28 06:46 · Score: 2, Interesting

if someone fessed up and said, "Hey, we fucked up last time, but we got it right this time", and could be trusted

The problem isn't that no one says this, it's that they've been saying it about every version since Windows 95. They constantly spread FUD about using their old versions so that people will upgrade.

MS aren't the only people guilty of this though. Every try to ask for help on a slightly older version of an open source application? You'll most likely get 10 people bashing you for running a version that came out more than 2 months ago.

And the same was true of Mac users. OS 9 was the best thing since sliced bread if you were to listen to the Mac users at the time. A few months after OS X came out and they got over the intial cognitive dissonance, all you could hear about was how much OS 9 sucked from mac users.

--
I've had enough abrasive sigs. Kittens are cute and fuzzy.

Re:Slow news day by OmegaBlac · 2006-01-28 06:24 · Score: 2

This is slashdot after all; if you can't get dirt on em then make it up. ;)

It could get worse? by kamikaze2112 · 2006-01-28 06:25 · Score: 5, Funny

'I'd hate to see something bad happen to your PC'

Jeez, if it's alredy got windows on it, how much worse can it possibly get?? *ducks*

Re:It could get worse? by pvt_medic · 2006-01-28 07:07 · Score: 2, Funny

you guys are all so critical Microsoft products dont suck, they are now making vacuum cleaners.

--
30% Troll, 50% Underrated, 10% Interesting
Score:5, Troll

Vista will not be secure by Tufriast · 2006-01-28 06:25 · Score: 2, Insightful

There are already holes in Vista that were revealed with Microsoft's latest patch. If they keep rehashing a lot of the same coding mistakes, then there is no stopping threats. Vista will flop, and be just as buggy as the current version of Windows, and if you do not buy a new computer - well, we all remember Windows ME.
So, try out MacOS X, or Mepis Linux.

--
Help me, help you. - Jerry McGuire

The jokes keep on coming. by TubeSteak · 2006-01-28 06:27 · Score: 4, Funny

Buy Vista... or someone might throw a chair at you.

In Soviet Russa, Windows Vista pays you protection money

Take your pick folks, I'll be here till Sunday.

--
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!

Re:The jokes keep on coming. by jcupitt65 · 2006-01-28 06:42 · Score: 5, Funny

Upgrade to Windows Vista because, thanks to XP product activation, we know where you live.

I knew it! by Ardeocalidus · 2006-01-28 06:29 · Score: 4, Funny

As long as I don't find my computer's monitor in my bed, I'm not upgrading.

Re:I knew it! by Galt_Drakor · 2006-01-28 11:25 · Score: 2, Funny

Then just install a unix variant. They don't mind running headless!

Talking out of both sides of his mouth by Dekortage · 2006-01-28 06:31 · Score: 4, Interesting

"Even if they are not into home entertainment or in any of the specialty areas, they are just going to feel safer and more secure by using it."

"...[Alchin] demonstrated a collaboration tool that uses a "People Near Me" feature, which searches over a Wi-Fi connection for other Vista users nearby and then sets up a peer-to-peer network with them."

Your computer must be more secure -- it can automatically network wirelessly with other computers to share your files.

--
$nice = $webHosting + $domainNames + $sslCerts

The problem is implementation rather than design by Colin+Smith · 2006-01-28 06:35 · Score: 4, Interesting

Start shipping installs secured from the start. Require an admin/install user account for new system wide applications, sandbox user installed software in their home directory/profile. Users then don't trash everything when they fubar their profile or homedir. Windows has all the necessary features to do it, It's had them since the first versions of NT.

Microsoft frankly can't be arsed and there's no profit in a secured system when they can instead continually be selling you upgrades as security fixes.

It isn't rocket science, it's just segregation of responsibility. Unix has been doing it for 30 years. No wait, it must be closer to 35 now.

--
Deleted

Its your choice by gsfprez · 2006-01-28 06:35 · Score: 5, Insightful

no one on earth is forcing an IT, CIO, homemaker, graphic artist, gamer or anyone else to HAVE TO BUY Micro Soft's shit.

I have for the last two years officially told people - i cannot and will not help you if you are running Windows. I am too busy accomplishing things (photography, videographic analysis) to be bothered with tools that do not just work. I don't care that there are millions of Windows viruses, i don't care if your webpage doens't work with anything but IE and Active X, i just have stopped caring.

I am getting older - i have a family, and i want to create and do things which are special, and i no longer have the time nor the incination to either myself, or have to deal with others who's job it is to spend all day and night defending computers from themselves. I am the architect who doesn't want to deal with the knock-off cheap Chinese crap powertools and hear all the workers bitch about them, or hear about the foreman that tells me i have to keep taking apart all the power tools and putting them back together again... build the fscking house - go get the tools that WORK - and pay more for them if you have to.

The simple fact is - its totally irrelevant to me if a Mac costs $1000 or $3000. If it does what i need - and prevents me from having to fix my tool all day long - the $3000 tool will be far more vaulable in just a week or two. Theoretical, imaginary, or otherwise fantasmic notions that Macs are just as insecure as Windows are irrelevant to me - i work today, and i work now. (well, its saturday, i'm only working a few hours today).

But the flip side of that is - i no longer give a shit what anyone uses. I don't care. Do not bother me or hassle me or get in my way if you can't keep up with me. My friends and family no longer bother me - i bought my family Mac minis, and my friends are all switching.

The world uses Windows?? I'm fscking George Bush of the Mac - i don't give a shit if every person on earth said "jump off this cliff, its the industry standard"

i'm not a lemming - i have things to get done. Whatever you want to do is fine with me, you're out of my "circle of give a shit".

You run Windows. I'm getting things done.

--
guns kill people like spoons make Rosie O'Donnell fat.

Re:Its your choice by Anonymous+Poodle · 2006-01-28 07:10 · Score: 5, Insightful

You should trademark "circle of give a shit" and "You run Windows--I'm getting things done." and sell them back to Apple. Seriously.

I'm in the same boat--After spending 20+years eating, sleeping and breathing computers, and acting as the reisident expert in my family/circle of friends/global village/whatever, I no longer support/advise/provide a shoulder to cry on for any one I know who uses a PC. I switched as many family members as possible over to iMacs, and so I now no longer get those late night calls (my screen is blue, what do I do?).

I now claim total ignorance of all things PC, so when someone asks me "is this $399 laptop from Costco a good computer?", I tell them to buy a Mac, 'cause it's all I know. I also tell them to make sure they buy an extended warranty , because they will Sure Need It.

I view the legions of unofficial Windows Support Staff--your Brother-in -law, neighbor, whoever--as part of the hidden cost of running crappy software.

Shiny shiny! by vga_init · 2006-01-28 06:37 · Score: 4, Insightful

I think screenshots will be the selling point for most people.

Re:Shiny shiny! by Anonymous+Poodle · 2006-01-28 06:53 · Score: 2, Funny

They sold me--I can't wait to install it on my new MacBook . . . . .

SECURITY!?! by Svartalf · 2006-01-28 06:38 · Score: 3, Insightful

When they have things like the WMF flaw in the designs (And ended up in Vista as well as XP and 2000...) they are NOT about security.

Security is by design, not as a friggin' afterthought.

This has little to do with MS bashing- it's just that MS doesn't think much about security and everyone knows it (Well, everyone but you, it seems...)

--
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas

Re:SECURITY!?! by c6gunner · 2006-01-28 07:12 · Score: 2, Insightful

Considering that the WMF vulnarability made it into WINE, Microsoft certainly doesn't have the monopoly for accepting blame. Face it, when you're dealing with billions of lines of code, it's easy for a vulnarability to be overlooked. The only advantage Linux has over MS is the open development model. Microsoft can only hire a finite number of prgrammers to de-bug code, whereas with open development you theoreticaly have an infinite number of programmers, or rather, the every programmer alive, being able to contribute. That's it. If Linux was a closed model OS the way Windows is, and if it was more mainstream, you'd see many of the same problems popping up there. So let's not demonize MS eh? They do a good enough job of making themselves look bad; it's not neccesary for every linux-geek in existance to join in the witch-hunt.
Re:SECURITY!?! by ajs318 · 2006-01-28 07:48 · Score: 2, Insightful

The open development model may be the "only" advantage Linux has over Windows, but it's a very big "only"! It's like saying that the "only" advantage television has over radio is pictures .....

--
Je fume. Tu fumes. Nous fûmes!

Re:NOT A Selling Point-But a "must have" for secur by GigsVT · 2006-01-28 06:39 · Score: 2, Insightful

It has little to do with the users these days. It's more about the inept application developers.

I've found a relationship (too bad slashdot doesn't do math symbols):

x = the cost of the software product that runs on Windows
y = the chance the software requires everyone using it to log in as administrator

As x -> infinity, y -> infinity

Seriously though, too much windows software, especially vertical apps or expensive commercial apps, still require every user to log in as administrator.

MS should force this issue, you are right. It should be something like Mac OS X does by default, you shouldn't be able to log in as administrator by default. That would at least send the application developers a message that developing your software to assume admin access is stupid.

--
I've had enough abrasive sigs. Kittens are cute and fuzzy.

Upgrade or keep crashing by Stan+Vassilev · 2006-01-28 06:46 · Score: 5, Insightful

Microsoft designed the 9x with the clear conscience that it's not as stable as its NT platform.

Why was it developed? Compatibility. People wouldn't really drop all their DOS and Windows 3.11 programs, so 9x was the bridge that allowed the smooth transition that ultimately brought the consumer to the NT platform.

The plain logic basically was "we have the better platform, but you want compatibility, so here's a compromise".

Now that 16-bit is a thing of the past, the DOS layer could be removed ultimately resulting in a fully 32-bit protected environment that is Win 2000 and XP. Is Microsoft to blame they sell XP as more stable OS?

Could they have success with any other strategy? I'd say unlikely.

Vista is the next step in improving security and it took a lot of effort to develop this OS, the entire submission is a flamebait: if you were Microsoft, would you work 6 years on a new product and give it for free? Yes, imagine, you have to pay for the updates, and yes the purpose of updating is improved security, new features and modern hardware support.

Microsoft isn't forcing anyone to upgrade. It just does its best to demonstrate the benefits of its latest offering, because this is what software companies do with new releases.

Now get over it, and stop ranting.

Re:Upgrade or keep crashing by jimicus · 2006-01-28 07:27 · Score: 4, Insightful

Vista is the next step in improving security and it took a lot of effort to develop this OS, the entire submission is a flamebait: if you were Microsoft, would you work 6 years on a new product and give it for free?

Why not? Linus Torvalds did ;)

All joking aside, I agree with you insofar as no-one's giving away major upgrades to commercial operating systems. But you've sidestepped the issue which was first raised by Douglas Adams in 1995 and AFAICT still exists:

"The idea that Bill Gates has appeared like a knight in shining armour to lead all his customers out of a mire of technological chaos neatly ignores the fact that it was he who by peddling second-hand, second-rate technology, led them all into it in the first place."

Yes, they charge for it. However... by ScentCone · 2006-01-28 06:46 · Score: 2, Interesting

Would you tell someone to stick with a several-flavors-ago version of your favorite distro, or to keep using Firefox 1.0? Yes, yes, free, all free blah blah blah. Believe it or not, the +/-$100 just ain't that big a deal for a lot of people, but the disruption of an upgrade (to the O/S or a significant app) is frequently the thing that puts the brakes on.

So... for most people (no, not slashdot readers), this will just happen as a new machine rotates into their life anyway. For a lot of users, "Oooh! Shiny!" is a reason to spend +/-$100. But upgrades are disruptive for people (not slashdotters) who don't actively like doing them, and the Grandma You've Talked Into Using Mandrake Who Probably Should Be Using Mandriva vX.whatever Which Means New Hardware And That Means While We're At It Let's Change Some Apps scenario is just as ugly. Never mind the dollars.

--
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.

Of course... by nwbvt · 2006-01-28 06:53 · Score: 2, Insightful

...if Microsoft ignored security in Vista, /. would have an article about how unconcerned they seem to be about it.

I guess this is why MS doesn't listen to /. for advice on how to build their new product.

--
Mathematics is made of 50 percent formulas, 50 percent proofs, and 50 percent imagination.

Microsoft to support file sharing? by black+hole+sun · 2006-01-28 06:54 · Score: 2, Interesting

I found this little bit of info fascinating:

In particular, he demonstrated a collaboration tool that uses a "People Near Me" feature, which searches over a Wi-Fi connection for other Vista users nearby and then sets up a peer-to-peer network with them. The tool is meant mostly to enable laptop users to share applications and files, among other things.

So Microsoft is, in effect, creating its own file sharing network? I wonder how the *AA will react?

Market Opportunity for Macs and Linux by kai.chan · 2006-01-28 06:59 · Score: 5, Insightful

With the advent of the iPod, I already know of a few people who are considering a Mac as their next purchase -- the everyday Joe who would have never considered a Mac before. With more game and application developer support on the Macs, I think Apple has the ability to eat a large chunk of the Desktop OS market during the switch from XP to Vista. If Guild Wars, Counter Strike Source, and Spore get a Mac release, I'd certainly be one to get a Mac. It would also make my decision between Linux or Mac a bit easier.

Re:Market Opportunity for Macs and Linux by Jackie_Chan_Fan · 2006-01-28 07:47 · Score: 2, Insightful

I've been saying this for the past month. The Ipod has given Apple an image of value. Apple is cool.

Just say it. Apple... You think cool, sleek, well designed, pretty, elite, hip, trendy...

Now say Microsoft... You think Buggy, Bland, Unrealiable, spyware, virii, adware, trojans, security holes, ugly ui, boring, and the biggest thing is... NOTHIng HAS CHANGED.

When you think of Microsoft, you realize that nothing has really improved. Think of their media player? Media Player Classic is better. Think of IE... think of all the shitty spam like bullshit things that hook into IE wether it be toolbars, or whatever.

Think MSN DESKTOP SEARCH... and how ugly it is... how slow it is....

Microsoft has a HUGE problem on its hands. It has a piss poor image and Apple has a hot shit image right now.

Walk into an apple store and realize that they have worked really hard on image. Their UI is more fluid and faster, more inventive... Windows looks bland, kiddy. Oh uh.. Its Nintendo vs Sony all over again...

Microsoft has a very big problem.

People will be jumping ship to MAC this year and more the next year because of IPOD and the perceived value that is APPLE.

Apple provides a better product? I Dont know, but i'm guessing they probably do because thats how i perceive them now. I'm a PC user. I dont use anything apple other than my IPOD. My friends a Film editor and runs mac hardware and its pretty nice from what i can tell.

We're going to see a huge shift. The hardware is the same now, so really you're chosing between Apple and Microsoft. Say their names out loud again and tell me what words come to mind right away.
Re:Market Opportunity for Macs and Linux by King_TJ · 2006-01-28 07:57 · Score: 2, Informative

Well, first off, the current market penetration of Macs is more like 5-6% right now, not 3-4%. But I realize that's basically splitting hairs. I get your point, and I tend to agree. But with Apple moving to Intel processors on new Macs, it seems like a lot of new possibilities may open up.

Microsoft, for example, currently owns and sells "VirtualPC" - which is pretty much the only way a Mac user can install and run Windows on a Mac. But with new Macs being Intel-based, it seems logical Microsoft might update VirtualPC to be a product that simply allows simultaneous execution of Windows code in a window inside OS X, rather than emulating all the x86 instructions by translating them to PPC native code.

If this happens, there's no reason Windows couldn't run well enough inside OS X on a new Mac to finally allow Windows games to run at near-native speeds. New Macs all have fairly respectable ATI or nVidia graphics cards - capable of the same features as their Windows counterparts for 3D gaming.

The Mac may never really get lots of game developers interesting in writing or even porting Windows games to OS X native titles - but they might succeed in bringing Windows to it instead, while keeping everything under the umbrella of OS X.

Buy Vista or Else.... by kgutter · 2006-01-28 07:00 · Score: 2, Interesting

How will they market vista ? , well first thing they will do is stop supporting XP, and when the new vulnerability comes up , both corporates and home user will have no choice but to upgrade. Security wise , i hope vista introduce newer programming model call "Advance improved Complex OLE and Advance COM and DCOM" , which BTW only virus writer and visual basic programmers understands and not C programmers. They can't implement unix security model , because than why pay for it :) I think they have also implemented strong anti-piracy feature , which will not "allow you to update" if you don't have a "genuine" vista ,which is more laughable as it takes one malicious program to make genuine to un-genuine Have a nice day.

Also comes to mind is... by Vorondil28 · 2006-01-28 07:03 · Score: 5, Funny

...Ballmer.

"Fucking XP users are fucking pussies. I'm going to fucking bury them, I have done it before, and I will do it again...I'm going to fucking kill anybody that doesn't upgrade."

--
This sig rocks the casbah.

Read this or the terrorists have already won . . . by pariahdecss · 2006-01-28 07:14 · Score: 5, Insightful

This is nothing new . . . we live in an society (post 9-11) where everything is predicated on fear. "Buy our anti-bacterial hand soap or your kids may die!!" , "Buy this ADT security system or you are a failure as a parent" . . . marketers and the government have embraced the ubiquitous power of fear and uncertainty to sell everything from tampons to troop deployments . . .ad nausea infinitum

Personally I am more afraid of deploying Windows Vista than not, and Microsoft can stick the DRM in the orifice of their choice.

Re:NOT A Selling Point-But a "must have" for secur by LocoMan · 2006-01-28 07:15 · Score: 2, Informative

I was reading somewhere (I think on cnet too, I'll look for the URL later) that Vista will require the admin password to do admin stuff, and won't run on admin by default. They also said they were making a list of all the software that required administrative access, and dividing them in different categories. Those that actually needed admin. access will require the password be entered before opening (or before doing the specific section that needed it).

Also it said that there are lots of apps out there that just check for admin access on startup but don't need it, just that the developers was lazy by not checking wether it ran on limited accounts. In those cases, Vista default will be to report to the program that it's running with admin priviledges, but actually run it with limited priviledges.

I'll try to find the URL and post it later, I know I read it in the last couple of days or so.

Or else what... by panth0r · 2006-01-28 07:22 · Score: 2, Funny

You'll send the dogs, or the bees, or the dogs with bees in their mouths that shoot bees when the bark?

--
I like suggestions, but I don't like contributing towards them.

Trying to be fair about it by TheReaperD · 2006-01-28 07:23 · Score: 5, Interesting

Of what I have read, there will be, at least, one thing that could improve Vista's security. Also, several people have commented on it without having read anything about Vista. Users will login to a limited access user account, rather then an administrator account as the default.

Unfortunately, there are several bad points with Vista that will make me hesitate on upgrading:

DRM This is a big one, for me.
Requires a P3 800 or higher, just to run the operating system with no tangible benefit to the user.
Visual enhancements require Direct X 9c compatible hardware.
No compelling features.

--
"Be particularly skeptical when presented with evidence confirming what you already believe." -

Windows Vista tagline: by mrobin604 · 2006-01-28 07:28 · Score: 2, Funny

"Windows Vista: Now you can let someone else tell you what you can do with your data."

Re:The problem is implementation rather than desig by ajs318 · 2006-01-28 07:44 · Score: 5, Insightful

..... And by requiring all that, you immediately nullify one of the chief "advantages" of Windows. That is, the ability just to turn on a computer and start using it, without identifying yourself or otherwise taking notice of it. You don't get a screenful of diagnostic messages ending with a bunch of green [OK]s while Windows is booting up, "in case that might confuse the poor user". {As a full-time Linux user who has had to attempt to fix a Windows box, I can say that not having those messages is way more inconvenient for the technician than having them is inconvenient for the user. Users can just ignore them, after all. On that logic, maybe we should start building cars where the oil pressure and alternator warning lights don't come on when you first turn on the ignition.} The default privilege level is administrator; but unlike root on a unix system, there are certain actions that are blocked from even an administrator on a Windows system.

I think Windows with passwords is going to be a bit like a pale imitation of KDE.

--
Je fume. Tu fumes. Nous fûmes!

Not even the same code lines by charnov · 2006-01-28 07:50 · Score: 2, Insightful

You do realize that the Win95, etc. core and the NT cores aren't even from the same code lines?

Nice FUD, though...

--
[RIAA] says its concern is artists. That's true, in just the sense that a cattle rancher is concerned about its cattle.

A really sad commentary... by seven+of+five · 2006-01-28 07:53 · Score: 4, Insightful

MS has failed the user community when it has to say, 'don't keep running the old unsecure shit we sold you last year, buy this new shit. And trust us this time.'

Take a page from Apple by aduzik · 2006-01-28 07:58 · Score: 4, Insightful

It's pretty clear to me that the main reason that Windows has so many security problems is that there is something inherently broken in its design. Remember: when Microsoft first designed Windows, no one was using the Internet, office LANs were pretty much the most networking you were likely to find. So Microsoft didn't have to think about network security back then. Now that the world of computing is increasingly connected to a high-bandwidth Internet connection all the time, it's clear that the model that Windows is built upon is broken.

I think it would benefit Microsoft to do a fundamental redesign of Windows. Apple did this about five years ago when they made the transition from Classic Mac OS 9 to Mac OS X. They designed an API that permitted developers to write software that ran natively on both operating systems (Carbon) and gradually phased it out in favor of an API that was completely native to Mac OS X (Cocoa). At the same time, there were many applications that would only run on Mac OS 9 -- i.e., those that were not Carbonized -- that ran in a (mostly transparent) virtualized environment. Microsoft could follow the same pattern as Apple and redesign their operating system from the ground up with security as a primary focus.

The thing that's going to get people to upgrade to Vista isn't the desktop search or any new multimedia features. It's the security and the performance. Right now, Microsoft keeps tacking on bloat after bloat to the existing Windows codebase. This has the effect of making Windows slower. Also, these "ad-hoc" additions, I think, have a tendency of opening up security holes. Microsoft, it's time for you to reevaluate the design of your operating system. Instead of focusing on devising as many different editions as you can for Vista -- which, by the way, baffles the hell out of a lot of your customers -- it's time to wipe the slate clean and start over.

I know we've all said at one point or another, "if I'd known then what I know now, I would have done things completely differently." Well, Microsoft, you do know stuff now that you didn't know 20 years ago. It's time to do things completely differently. Your model no longer works; find a new one.

--
If it's not one thing it's your mother.

Seamless switch? by Doc+Ri · 2006-01-28 08:00 · Score: 2, Interesting

Really? No complaints other than "I miss my games"? No training required? It just worked? I have a hard time believing this.

I am not saying that OpenBSD is a bad choice for this task from a purely technical point of view. But there must have been some problems during comissioning. It would be interesting to learn how you solved them.

--
617B3B7F7E7C7D7F00EOF

Re:Seamless switch? by CyricZ · 2006-01-28 08:35 · Score: 5, Interesting

KDE can be easily configured to be quite Windows-like. Many people didn't even notice, to be quite honest. We did our best to make the transition as seamless as possible, and we managed to do that well.

We labelled the OpenOffice Writer icon as "Microsoft Word", for instance, and people didn't know the difference.

We imported the Word templates and Excel spreadsheets they were using, tested them out with the OpenOffice equivalents, and for the most part they worked. The one problem we ran into was the font on the standard company letterhead was a bit too large under OpenOffice. That took about a second or so to remedy, of course.

When they asked about the games and MSN, they were simply told that they were deleted.

A little bit of preparation, forethought, and the use of quality software lead to a transition that went very well.

--
Cyric Zndovzny at your service.
Re:Seamless switch? by cosminn · 2006-01-28 09:12 · Score: 2, Informative

The problem in an office environment are apps needed. The people at the front desk here all use Windows. For the most part, the stuff they need could easily be handled by Linux. They'd even _like_ it, our lab is Linux and they would have no problem using KDE, for example. They already use Firefox, some Thunderbird, and the calendar is web-based.

The problem that we have is that they need a couple of apps that will not run on anything _but_ Windows. We tried wine, cxoffice, they even have issues in VMWare.

One of the apps even requires you to be on a specific Windows domain, since it's a University-wide software.

It seems that it's getting to be more viable to switch them to OSX at the next upgrade, but I'm not convinced.

So yea, most secretaries use a browser, and email client, but they need to use some apps that will not run on Linux, not to mention OpenBSD.

And as much as I like OpenOffice, and I support them (I haven't used MS Office for a few years now, with the exception of helping some friends), companies can't afford to tell a client "err, this document looks really ugly when I open it with OO" or risk writing something in OO, saving it in .doc format and showing up all ugly for the company/person working with them. I'm not even going to get into .ppt...

While for a browser, an email client, and an alternative OS it's pretty easy to get people to switch (OSX looks _nothing_ like Windows, and yet I know of nobody who has complained it's not like Windows...), training them to use _other_ programs, presuming they _do_ exist, is not as easy. If you use MS Money (or however it's called), try using GNUCash, and then notice the difference..and that's not even a major app...
Re:Seamless switch? by sd_diamond · 2006-01-28 09:51 · Score: 5, Funny

We labelled the OpenOffice Writer icon as "Microsoft Word", for instance, and people didn't know the difference.

We need to talk.

--Sincerely,
Microsoft Legal Dept.

From a sysadmin's perspective by toadlife · 2006-01-28 08:39 · Score: 2

...I really don't care what Microsoft's marketing line regarding Vista is. I already know what improvements Vista brings to the table, as do most other IT people who manage large numbers of Windows machines. As for home users, is marketing to them really all that necessary? The vast majority will get Vista by default when they get a new PC - and the vast majority of them won't even realize it, much less care about it.

As it is right now, Win2k and WinXP are fairly easy to manage on a large scale as long as you don't let everyone have admin rights to their local machines. Upgrading is out of the question in most corporate environments, because it cost too much money for what it's worth. Like the Joe Users of the world, Vista will appear when it starts coming on our new computers. Like 2000>XP, the XP>Vista transition will take at least three years, during which time we will have mixture of OS's out there.

There one time where we actually did upgrade existing computers was when we moved from Win9x to Win2000. The benefits of running 2000 on the desktop were so great in terms of time saved on support that it was worth it to us.

As for XP>Vista, I've seen the beta's and the new security features are nice, but as I said before managing 2000/XP is not a big problem and I don't see any reason to upgrade existing machines. IMO, the improvements in Vista are going to be the greatest for home users and IT shops that don't know what the hell they are doing. Those improvements still won't save users from themselves - but no OS can do that.

--
I don't always use unix-like operating systems; but when I do, I prefer FreeBSD.

Not just social problems, my friend. by CyricZ · 2006-01-28 08:40 · Score: 2, Informative

You didn't read my post. While the game playing was indeed a social problem, the malware problem was an even more significant technical issue.

It was indeed the higher security of OpenBSD, Konqueror, and the other software we used that helped improve the problem of malware. Blame it on the popularity of Windows all that you want; since the transition, we have not had to go back and clean up an infected system yet.

You must not have worked in a real office of any significant size. Policy rules like you suggest don't always work. People will keep playing Solitare, for instance, until it is deleted from the system. A better solution is to use a system that doesn't include such distractions in the first place, and makes it even more difficult for the average user to install them if they are that desperate.

That said, even from just a technical standpoint, OpenBSD was the right decision to make. It has saved the company time and money, offering a return far greater than the initial and ongoing investment.

--
Cyric Zndovzny at your service.

MS Has Gone Backwards Since Windows 2000 by LazloToth · 2006-01-28 08:50 · Score: 3, Interesting

The saddest aspect of Vista's arrival, as far as I'm concerned, is that XP technology has been no improvement over Win2k Pro or Win2k Server in our company. And now we get another scary OS release from MS as the end-of-life date for 2000 products draws near. After SP4 came out for the 2000 products, the only real annoyance was the constant stream of critical updates, some of which unleashed mayhem on our network until we got a handle on update management. Otherwise, the Windows 2000 servers have been rock solid. Meanwhile, XP and Server 2003 have been insufferable turkeys, making me regret every installation. The memory leaks that have plagued Server 2003 should be getting a lot more attention than they've been getting in the tech press. I suspect Microsoft would say that hardware vendors have delivered faulty drivers, but we never saw the random crashes and reboots in Windows 2000 Server that we see in our 2003 servers. I can't trust the 2003 platform anymore - - we moved everything of importance back to Win2k. Service Pack 1 for 2003 Server was about as helpful as a broken ankle. I understand we might see SP2 in 2007. Wow, that's encouraging. Who here wants to dive for Vista? Thank the gods for Linux, Apache, and MySQL . . . .

--

It's only funny until someone gets hurt. Then, it's hilarious.

Good joke... by Anonymous Coward · 2006-01-28 10:22 · Score: 2, Interesting

Funny how OUR 2003 servers are FAR more stable than 2k has EVER been (as a matter of fact, 2k is the single most problematic OS I've ever seen coming from MS, at the beginning, the drivers for most hardware sucked REAL BAD, so BSODs all the fucking time! It essentially made the whole OS worthless when it came out). Drivers for 2k aren't so bad anymore, but it's still nowhere near as stable as 2003 is (SP1 or not). No problems with 2003 R2 so far either.

Bashing a clearly more stable OS, and then being thankful for a toyish DB? Wow. 100% FUD.

I don't think your position makes any sense.. by bmajik · 2006-01-28 10:30 · Score: 3, Interesting

Is security a binary thing? Is something secure or insecure ?

I don't think so.

I think "security" is a blend of many things.. the _correctness_ of non-security features, the selection and depth of security-focused features, the process around resolving defects (because there will be defects), and the conditions under which a user can use the machine.

Even if Microsoft had done everything they knew how to do to make XP "secure" when they had made it, would it be secure today? No. Because today new threats are understood and being used that weren't in existance when XP was designed and shipped. Is XP retroactively insecure? Or it just less secure than something newer, all things otherwise equal, that was developed with the context of the threats that have emerged since XP was released?

In the specific case of Vista vs XP, some of the things that are "better" this time around are
- more credible run-as-non-admin story
- better sandboxing and least-priviledge stuff, even within a normal user account (i.e. its not necessarily true that IE running as you can do anything you can)

The run-as-non-admin thing "worked" in XP, but with enough caveats that it was hard to credibly say "everyone, do it that way". The POR for XP was to ship with non-admin-by-default until very, very late in the ship cycle, where there was just too much stuff that didn't work as non-admin. They made the hard decisino to make users=admin by default, and nobody was happy about it. This is a problem that Microsoft has been chipping away at for a while now, because the goal is "let everyone run with as few permissions as possible" and it often conflicts with the other goal of "20 year old software written by 3rd party people needs to keep running"

I have no problem buying that Vista has more security-focused features than XP. I have no problem buying that Vista has better code correctness in non-security features than XP. I don't think the security response process will be any worse in vista, infact, i know of at least one technology that makes it better (but im not sure if its public yet?).

Will Vista be "more secure" than XP? I think so. Will it be "as secure" as OpenBSD? Probably not. Will it do more things that more users want than OpenBSD? Definiately. Will Vista have a better intersection of practical security vs functionality than OpenBSD?

Microsoft thinks so, and I think I agree with them.

--
My opinions are my own, and do not necessarily represent those of my employer.

Buy this OS or we shoot the dog by scotty1024 · 2006-01-28 10:51 · Score: 2, Funny

I installed a fresh copy (no pun intended) of Windows XP SP2 from MSDN on VIrtual PC 7 (after trying Vista and learning you can't install Vista on VIrtual PC on a Mac either...) and did my usual defrag after instal. Only 9,000 files. Can you believe it? I hadn't remembered how little one actually gets from MS for $199.

So yeah, they need to do something like the old magazine cover and print the picture of a dog on the front of the box with a Dirty Harry gun pointed at it. They certainly don't put much inside the box to get you to buy it...

ahh not thanks I gave at the office by wap911 · 2006-01-28 14:06 · Score: 2, Funny

I have already switched in Oct 2005 to SimplyMEPIS and it's simply...

As for LongNose / Vista or whatever I let me get my last word in before emoticons are patented into uselessness > ,,!,,

'nuf said

Hear that Billy G. ,,!,, ,,!,, ,,!,,

Or, by The+Cisco+Kid · 2006-01-28 17:21 · Score: 2, Funny

Gee, I wouldnt want anything bad to happen to your PC. You know, you really shouldnt be running Windows on that, or anything from Microsoft - you're just asked for one of around a million or so various trojan horses or other exploits that turn your PC into a spam or porn relay, steal your private data, or at best just severely cripple its performance.

Re:Linux is doomed by demon · 2006-01-29 03:18 · Score: 2, Interesting

Linux has one problem that over-shadows all others :

* A monolithic kernel

You're kidding, right? Microsoft has pretty much gutted Cutler's NT microkernel design, what with moving so many subsystems back into the kernel and all. And OS X? It's a full fledged BSD kernel running on top of a Mach microkernel - really, a microkernel arrangement in name only. The only reason they keep it around is because Mach provides some... interesting IPC facilities, which OS X exploits heavily. Everyone has either moved back toward the monolithic kernel, or hasn't strayed *that* far from it; outside of research or very limited, purpose specific OSes, a full-blown microkernel layout is pretty much nonexistant.

--

Sam: "That was needlessly cryptic."
Max: "I'd be peeing my pants if I wore any!"

106 of 539 comments (clear)