Koreans Advised to "Avoid Vista" for Now

An anonymous reader writes "The Chosonilbo reports that several government ministries in South Korea are advising users not to install Windows Vista, at least until popular online services can be made compatible. The problem is that ActiveX is pervasive in the Korean webspace, employed by everyone from web games to online banking. Upgrading to Vista is expected to render many of these services unusable. Portions of the popular "Hangul" word processor, a major competitor to Office in that country, are also not functioning under Vista. The Ministry of Information is planning to publish compatibility information for popular websites, and urging users to carefully research the implications of upgrading."

Comments

Korea is stuck using Microsoft

[bitserf]

Ran into this with my partner, who is Korean. Her online banking uses incredibly invasive, poorly conceived and programmed software called nProtect. Which installs a bloody device driver to function. It actually blue screened Vista randomly. It does not install without Administrator level access to the machine (obviously). In addition, it required that you run IE7 in Administrator mode when attempting to log in. Also, many many websites did not function reliably with Vista and IE7, their ActiveX controls expecting to have administrator level access to the machine. Advanced technologically? Hardly. Just proprietary and locked in, and not very security conscious. The amount of times I had to click "Allow this website to install an ActiveX control" is just insane, I don't want to think of the amount of remote code execution vulnerabilities present on a machine with all these controls installed. They're pretty much conditioned to allow the website to install any old thing, really, since so many of their websites require it.

Re:Korea is stuck using Microsoft

[element609]

I wonder if this has anything to do with the large amount of spam originating from South Korea? For my less internationally inclined clients, I sometimes suggested using the DNSBL cn-kr.blackholes.us to help fight some of the unwanted spam.

I spent a month at a S. Korean University, and there was a lot of junk installed on the public computers on campus. Every evening they rebooted, and and started with a clean image each morning - so IE was clogged after a day's worth of surfing. Needless to say, I rebooted before using one.

Re:isn't everyone?

[Flavio]

I think perhaps the truth lies somewhere in the middle. Vista will not be a complete flop, but it will sell well under what Microsoft expects.

Legal copies of Vista will be bundled with most new computers, and this alone will make it a best seller. Also, many corporations will upgrade just for the sake of upgrading.

I believe Microsoft has a very good idea of what's going to happen. They understand the business and marketing aspects of selling software better than anyone else.

Client-Side VBScript.

[MightyMait]

Some sites even insist on using VB, in place of Javascript - ugh!

Don't I know it!!! I assume you mean client-side VBScript, which only works in IE. Server-side VBScript (in ASP, or VB.NET in ASP.NET) works just fine, since plain HTML is sent to the browser.

Recently, while troubleshooting an error in one of our customer's server-side code, I came across a web-form with a client-side VBScript validator. Underscoring the fact that the "developer" didn't understand what was going on, there was a disclaimer on the page that the form only works on "Internet Explorer and other browsers that support ASP". Of course, ASP had nothing to do with the incompatibility, it was the client-side VBScript.

It almost goes without saying, but the code had FrontPage written all over it!!

Not Vista's fault

[Sloppy]

The problem is that Vista doesn't play well with a software program called Active-X that is widely used in Korean Internet sites.

No, the problem is that incompetently created websites use delicate nonportable nonstandard proprietary software that is only interoperative with one single obsolete platform.

Don't blame Vista; blame people who aren't responsible, experienced, or forward-looking enough to see why complying with standards is so necessary.

Now let's see how people will fix their glaring mistake. Will they "fix" it by repeating it (i.e. rewriting ActiveX controls to be compatible with Vista, so that they can get paid to screw their customers again in 5 years when the next version of Windows comes out) or will they fix it by removing the irresponsible dependencies?