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Vista Bug Costs Users In Swedish Town Their Internet
Lund, Sweden refuses to work around a Vista bug, so people who live there must choose between Vista and internet access. It's nice to see the right people being held accountable for a change.
Is if the city offered free Ubuntu CDs as "Windows Upgrades."
Ubuntu is an upgrade from XP and Vista.
Keep that shoe on the other foot for just a little longer. Imagine them having "support scripts" that travel through a KDE interface instead of Outlook Express or IE. Imagine them requiring Ubunto to install your access. In short, imagine all of the "standardization" Windoze enjoys being flipped on you.
In the free software world, users can edit a few well annotated text files to get the job done if they are given the proper information. That task is harder in Windoze because you must dig through several GUIs that don't tell you what to ask for in advance or ever.
It's a shame that ACs can post with more points and more frequently than Twitter.
Their internet is b0rked?
Blearf. Blearf, I say.
Wouldn't using a router to connect to the internet bypass the bug?
Fucking tricky one, eh?
Like choosing between an anal probe and a cream bun.
If this happened in my town--and if I were using Vista--I'd be pretty damn unhappy. Usually a story is funny because someone got what they deserved in a particularly humorous way, or because someone subjectively considered evil takes it in the pants. Here I see a bunch of people getting shafted by two corporations that don't want to play nice, and this perhaps for the crime of simply owning a new computer.
The university I work for in Sweden began testing with Vista when it was the called Longhorn. We discovered some bugs with the communication between Vista and some of our servers (running Solaris) back in 2004. The bug repports were submited to MS back then and the thing was fixed on the next Longhorn beta "release". It seems it's easier for some not to test and cry out like a baby when it's too late.
It's time to realise that Abble's products are the biggest abomination these days. Just say NO to the dumb iAbble way!!
The problem as reported is that the Vista DHCP client fails to obtain an address from Linux servers running (I'd presume) ISC dhcpd.
When I bought a laptop recently it came with Vista. When I connected it to my network it failed to obtain an address. I assumed there was some misconfiguration problem I was missing, Turns out it's a fundamental difference between the DHCP client in Vista and the one in prior versions of Windows. See this item from Microsoft: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/928233/en-us.
The version of dhcpd I'm using is an old one (2.0). I thought about upgrading it to see if that would solve the problem, but since I wasn't planning on keeping Vista on the laptop, I didn't bother upgrading. All our other machines run Linux and don't have this problem.
I wonder what decision will be made in enterprises running Linux DHCP servers that introduce Vista into the workplace. Will they follow the Microsoft KB item above and "fix" the problem on every new Vista box they buy? Or will the replace the Linux DHCP box with Windows Server?
.. actually the city in sweden with most students per capita, since lund university is located there. If anyone is willing to adopt to linux or just bash windows it's young people. This is probably a big issue down there but so far I haven't heard anything about this over here, and I'm about 150km away.
Vista sets the DHCP BROADCAST flag.3 3
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx/kb/9282
This is in compliance with DHCP standards.
Ofcourse the incompetent Admins will blame Vista and not fix the router software.
It's nice to see the right people being held accountable for a change.
/. , so the majority of folks will be going "HAHA ST00P1D MICRO$OFT LUSERS PWNED LOLZ!1!!eleventyone!"
Nice bit of flamebait there.
Yeah, I know it's
Once everybody gets that out of their system, IMHO Lundis Energi is really being a bunch of assholes, and I have no sympathy for them, as it makes them seem like a company run by a bunch of 15-year-olds who've just discovered Ubuntu.
They find a bug (or rather, the users did) in newly-released software that doesn't play nice with their Linux-based server. Rather than you know, cooporate with Microsoft to help diagnose the problem, they're essentially saying to their users "We think you're a bunch of losers (LUSERS HAHA!!1!), so ya'll use the OS we want and tell you to use! If you don't like it, kiss our asses! And Micro$oft can kiss our ass too until they fix the bug!"
Because, after all, bugs never, ever happen on any software ever, and developers psychically know what exactly a bug does without any reporting by end-users whatsoever.
Now if they have a policy of "NOT Windows Vista compatible right now" clearly stated to their users, then that's understandable. But eventually, most folks will move to Vista (like it or not), so this bug needs to be squashed on whomever's end.
I'll end my rant with this:
how in the hell is Lundis Energi so sure it's not a bug on their software?
(sarcasm) Oh right, it's Microsoft, so it MUST be them. (/sarcasm)
I do tech support and when Internet Explorer 7 came out we noticed that it didn't really get along with the NAT routers we send out to our customers (they sometimes need to do a very very small amount of configuring), I'm not entirely certain of what the problem is but there is no problem with IE5/6, FF, Safari, Opera or even links, but IE7 is a no-go. It took the manufacturer a good three months to come up with a new firmware that addressed the problem, and until then we had to teach hundreds/thousands of customers how to use telnet (and how to install it if they were running Vista, the telnet client is disabled by default). Good times...
Oh well, at least it's not Windows 9x, I have to give MS some credit for eventually killing off all support for that branch as our superiors decided that since MS no longer supported 95/98/ME in any way then neither should we. :-)
/Mikael
Greylisting is to SMTP as NAT is to IPv4
"It doesn't work" has never been a useful comment.
Also, I don't see why an ISP should test every OS version to check if it's compatible with their network. I thought we all used the TCP/IP standard for internet stuff. And if Vista had a broken TCP/IP implementation, then why is this the first report about this? What makes this ISPs infrastructure so different?
I just read above that the DHCP flag is part of the standard.
Nevermind then. (blush)
I'm using a couple of Vista boxes on my local LAN with a home brewed CentOS router running ISC dhcpd 3.0.5. No problems with obtaining an IP address at all. Sounds like the flaming is misguided this time for a change. Perhaps Lund is using an ancient version of dhcpd?
Both of the english articles listed in this slashdot-post says that Lundis Energi has no desire to do anything. However, in a Swedish newspaper http://www.metro.se/se/article/2007/08/28/14/2423- 48/index.xml they say:
"Our technicians are looking in the matter to see what we can do but it is mainly up to Microsoft to fix this issue" /Åsa Holmander, product manager at Lundis Energi (rough translation)
This is another example of how Vista has better security than previous Windows releases. It won't let you connect to the internet, by design. Another problem solved!
One, relatively strong Monopoly (Microsoft) gets screwed in a small town by another absolute monopoly.
:-)
Ah, no, sorry, welcome to Sweden. I know things work a bit differently in the states, but we actually got competition.
Lunds energi drop fiber along with their heating pipes and sell net access over that. Other than that, you'd have at least four different DSL providers plus net over CATV. Chances are that you'd actually have another 100Mbit ethernet provider over in Lund on top of that.
Lunds energi is definitely not the only shop in town
Bad news guys; Microsoft isn't the one with a bug causing the problem. Poor implementation yes, bug no.
For some bizarre reason Vista expects the address returned from the DHCP server to be broadcast, instead of sent via unicast packet. This is permitted in the specs and supporting the broadcast flag on the server is suggested. ("SHOULD", not "MUST" in the spec.).
When researching this I found 2 network types which required this, Infinibad and 1394 (Firewire). It looks to me like Microsoft picked the one which would (theoretically atleast) work on all network types, instead of only on a few.
Of course, this is a typical bad decision as it means that responses from a DHCP server with a lot of Vista clients will flood the network with broadcast responses, but hey, they arent know for making good decisions.
Also, MS products are used by a significant portion of the population. I know I test multiple platforms when I deploy software because I want my userbase to be happy. Sometimes that requires work-arounds. The end-users don't have control over how MS wrote their DHCP routines.
If it's a change that the ISP could make, why not? If it was the other way around, people would be yelling about choice.
To me, the ISP is being a bit dick-ish because they can, and it sounds like they have an exclusive with the city. This is really too bad, because the only people who get screwed are the folks at home whose only option is a wholesale switch, which isn't practical, regardless of how much people think it'd be great if they did.
Idiot, n. A member of a large and powerful tribe whose influence in human affairs has always been dominant
RESOLUTION
Warning Serious problems might occur if you modify the registry incorrectly by using Registry Editor or by using another method. These problems might require that you reinstall your operating system. Microsoft cannot guarantee that these problems can be solved. Modify the registry at your own risk.
To resolve this issue, disable the DHCP BROADCAST flag in Windows Vista. To do this, follow these steps:
1. Click StartStart button, type regedit in the Start Search box, and then click regedit in the Programs list.
User Account Control permission If you are prompted for an administrator password or for confirmation, type your password, or click Continue.
2. Locate and then click the following registry subkey:c es\Tcpip\Parameters\Interfaces\{GUID}
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Servi
In this registry path, click the (GUID) subkey that corresponds to the network adapter that is connected to the network.
3. On the Edit menu, point to New, and then click DWORD (32-bit) Value.
4. In the New Value #1 box, type DhcpConnDisableBcastFlagToggle, and then press ENTER.
5. Right-click DhcpConnDisableBcastFlagToggle, and then click Modify.
6. In the Value data box, type 1, and then click OK.
7. Close Registry Editor.
So Vista isn't (formally) going counter to protocol, it's just going counter to a 15-year old custom. Nonetheless, Vista *can* cooperate, it just needs to be told not to raise the DHCP BROADCAST flag. And yes, that route goes via a registry modification.
In summary: a tropical storm in a teacup.
From the article, even in Swedish, it makes it clear that the town doesn't want to cooperate with Microsoft on providing data for the bugfix. The accountable party here, then, is the town internet provider and not Microsoft.
[Town]: Our internets doesn't work with Vista
[Microsoft]: Okay, do you have any data on why not?
[Town]: no but it's your fault, fix it!?!?
[Microsoft]: Well, what's even a short description of the problem? Side effects? Can your Linux server be changed to alleviate it in the meantime?
[Town]: THE INTERNETS IS BROKEN, FIX IT THOUGH OKAY!!!!????
Yeah, all Microsoft's fault. If this was on Mozilla or Novell or Linux bugzillas it would have been closed as "irrelevant".
Monthly fee contract 1 year 3 year 5 year
100 Mbit/s 349 kr 329 kr 299 kr
10 Mbit/s 199 kr 179 kr 159 kr
Taxes included.
7 SEK = 1 $
And counter to Microsoft's last 4 operating systems.
They got it right back in 1995 (12 years ago)
Nope. Just another example of how Microsoft does not care about published standards. Their DHCP services can handle it so why should they spend any time understanding the standard that the rest of the world follows?
After all, everyone else will probably change to support Microsoft's weird implementation. Who cares about the problems that the users have in the meantime? If Microsoft is lucky, no one will be able to explain the problem in terms those users could understand and the rest of the world will be blamed for the problems when it is Microsoft who is not following the published standard.
Actually, why should the provider CHANGE their config which works perfectly fine with OSes that follow standards? They were NOT the one deploying software, MS was, and MS failed to meet the standard.....and hence fucked these customers more than they have a few others.
Of course, not being able to get on the web does decrease the malware they get infected by.
It's not a bug in Vista... they just turned on a flag that is already defined in the standard. The problem is that many many servers didn't implement the standard fully. Who's fault is that? I'd say it's the software that doesn't fully support the standard. Guess what...that's not Vista in this case. Vista has some other network problems, but this isn't one of them.
Cisco's IOS has had the option of turning on the DHCP broadcast flag on its router client since v12.2 and I'm guessing (can't find a specific reference) that the Cisco IOS DHCP Server probably has also supported it since then... so it's been supported by the major network router manufacturer for many many years.
The D-Links and the Linksys' (yeah, I know they're Cisco now) routers don't support it either, so it isn't just Linux DHCP servers
Karma: Excellent. 15 moderator points expire sometime.
So, where do you put the line in letting them break the standards that work? Tell me one good reason for helping MS on trampling things that work? A bit here, a bit there and you get things that work only on/with windows. Kerberos anyone?
BTW, it's relatively simple to fix MS' client, too. Let them fix the bloody client.
It is always better to be a first grade version of yourself than a second grade version of someone else.
Actually, Vista is not following the RFC. They SHOULD NOT set the broadcast bit.
Since it is only affecting customers with Vista and only those without a NAT firewall, it is not a widespread problem, and the correct solution should be a patch from Microsoft.
It almost sounds like a Linux "A feature not a bug"(tm) :-).
/etc/thisdamnconfigfile.conf with vi.
:q!? What's the? Stop Editing!
:forcequit :DearMisterViIreallyWantToLeaveYou :letmeoutyoupervert! :helpVItrappedme man vi reboot Emacs"
IE:
Of course there is no bug! You just have to open
change the "DearGodPleaseMakeSureIWillBreakNothing" flag to 0
Close the file. Kill the daemon and restart it.
In the real world:
Oh my God how does this text editor work? Insert not Delete! How do I save eh?
kill thedaemon
daemon restart
Error line 26458: : unrecognized command ":q!
Well, so what makes Microsoft so special that people MUST adapt to their breaking of standards? If the ISP accommodate Microsoft, shouldn't they also accommodate any other vendors who wrote buggy software? And when will it ends? I think the ISP is doing a fantastic job.
I'm sorry, but you're wrong.
If MS is violating the DHCP standard, then the right thing for EVERY vendor and ISP-type-organization is to _REFUSE_TO_INTEROPERATE_ with MS's non-standard-compliant code. The problem here is not the Swedish ISP, the problem here is idiots who are willing to dilute formal standards because the gorilla in the room decides not to obey them.
Formal standards exist for a reason. If you aren't willing to tell Microsoft to fuck-off or obey them, then YOU are a MUCH BIGGER problem than Microsoft.
There's a leadership saying that goes "it's better to have a lion at the head of an army of sheep, than a sheep at the head of an army of lions". You, sir, are a sheep. And that Swedish ISP is not being "dick-ish", they're being a lion. Too bad more of the so-called industry leaders are as sheepish and incompetent as you are.
From rfc-1542 that regulates the use of the broadcast flag:
And from the same rfc, a section that defines certain terms, including SHOULD
(also later defined in rfc-2119)
These two documents show that although the use of the BROADCAST flag is standard compliant (and we could argue that the DHCP server involved SHOULD try to answer them), the implementation of a modern DHCP client on a system capable of receiving unicast responses using the BROADCAST flag is not (at least without a very good reason to do so).
Considering that Microsoft has already made DHCP software capable of receiving unicast DHCP requests, and seeing that the fix proposed by Microsoft themselves is a simple change in a registry entry (meaning the software is in fact capable of receiving unicast responses), I'd say the software is not compliant.
I consider that behavior non compliant unless Microsoft had a very good explanation (the possibility of Vista running on a pc not capable of receiving unicast responses not a good one, since the flag should have been set the other way). It is at the very least gross imcompetence, if not outright malicious behaviour.
GPG 0x1B479C78
That's not a bad thing here. Microsoft is generally a dick without principle.
Microsoft, however, does. And the only way to get through to Microsoft is through their end-users -- or maybe their actual customers.
Actually, no.
Generally, when it's the other way around -- that is, when some open-source project can't communicate with something standard-compliant -- well, first off, pigs are flying; this just generally doesn't happen.
But also, we fix it. We don't run around screaming and blaming others unless there is a reason to.
Example: If it's actually a bug in, say, Firefox rendering, we fix Firefox. However, if someone deliberately sends the wrong page, or even just an "access denied" page, to Firefox users based on nothing more than a user-agent string, then we pull out our user-agent switchers and pretend to be IE -- and we also bitch loudly.
Take a look at the shit the Wine project has to do, on pretty much a daily basis, just to get Windows programs to run. They can't even write to Microsoft's standard, because Microsoft doesn't, and application developers don't -- Microsoft writes whatever they felt like that day, developers work around that, and Wine gets stuck having to reproduce "bug for bug" compatibility.
So in general, no, the community does not usually have an attitude of "obey the standards or we won't cooperate." Perhaps we should. I know I often have a mind to block users on IE6, at least, and maybe IE7 also, so I don't have to do extra work to support them.
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
Right people here are discussing RCFs and wonder what is going on, well I live in Lund and here is my take on what has happened:
a)Per the RFC servers do not need to implement the broadcast flag, but it is a good idea if you want to support systems that use it.
b)Per RFC Vista doesn't need to clear the broadcast bit, but it is strongly recommended and setting it is intended for legacy clients only.
c)Lund's energi's network doesn't support the broadcast and thus Vista machines do not get an IP over DHCP since they set the broadcast bit.
d)For reasons we don't yet know, Lund energi won't implement a workaround on their server. I don't know enough about DHCP or their systems to tell why, so I guess there might be a technical issue or perhaps they are just being jerks.
e)The fix is to set a registry key, which is easy for technical users, but a pain for those who don't know about it.
My judgement is that Lund's energi has a shitty DHCP server and Vista is a shitty DHCP client. Since the fix is so simple ( adding a registry key ) this really ought to be a non-issue, but because Microsoft and Lund's energi are both incompetent crappy companies the end user is left with a problem that would actually be rather easy to resolve. Those in the know can work around it, but non-technical users are left without service while those responsible point the finger at one another. The sad thing is that this really isn't particularly surprising. Hmm, did I forget something? Oh yea, the article summary is wrong since there are scores of ISPs in Lund, and this only affects one of them. So yea, I'm not very surprised at all...
If by "modern", you mean "at least 1 gig of RAM", I guess that works.
I have tried it on a machine with 512 megs of RAM. It was Home Basic, and it was loaded down with HP crap, but no matter how much I cleared away, it still took several minutes to do anything. And I mean anything. Control panel? Two minutes. Internet Explorer? A minute and a half. It was ludicrous.
And I am fairly confident it was the RAM, because it was paging like mad. I did plug in a USB stick and used ReadyBoost while I was there, and it did improve things, but not by much.
Now, I know someone who upgraded from XP 64-bit to Vista, and basically raves about everything about it, and I don't blame her -- XP 64-bit sucked. She realizes that was a mistake, should've stayed on 32-bit. But Vista 64-bit isn't bad (finally catching up to Linux' 64-bit support), and it's generally been solid for her.
She also has, I believe, some 2 gigs of RAM.
Her advice to me was, less than a gig of RAM? XP is faster. A gig or more? Vista is faster.
Which makes me wonder what the fuck it's using half a gig of RAM for. I have Kontact (Outlook-like app, so email, calendar, etc), Konqueror (web browser), two IRC clients, Kopete (multi-IM client), KTorrent (bittorrent), and a Windows game open in Wine right now, and it's using less than 600 megs of RAM. Vista, apparently, uses at least that much just to show you a desktop -- I remember it being a gig or so paged (I'm not kidding) with nothing open other than the task list. What gives?
It's not Aero, by the way. I've had Beryl on this computer before, and right now, it's running KWin with everything turned on, which includes some Beryl/Aero-like features (including real drop shadows and transparency), and that doesn't use a significant amount of RAM, either.
The issue is that when you play media, your download slows. And there is absolutely no reason for this, and versions of Windows prior to Vista are not effected, all the way back to 95, probably 3.1.
And I actually do have a PC that doesn't do that. It runs Ubuntu. It also doesn't slow down when downloading, even torrents, because they use so little of my resources (aside from bandwidth) that I can do pretty much anything I was doing before (unless it's online).
Where'd you get this information?
Last I checked, they hadn't even acknowledged it as a bug. They were still insisting that it had to be this way in order to not have the music skip. (Well, guess what? My music doesn't skip even when I'm transferring stuff over Gigabit. Novel concept, I know.)
People complain that Linux is focused on throughput and not latency -- that is, that it'll make my desktop lag just so that background compile can run 2% faster. Here's a clear example of why you don't want to go too far the other way, though -- playing any audio at all on Vista slows your network down by 10%.
It may not be enough for you to notice, as that's still probably faster than your Internet. Probably. But it doesn't make it any less of a bug, no matter what Microsoft says.
That is and has been true, and occasionally various users find it better enough to make the switch. (Not all users do, obviously, and some never will.)
Being able to download fast while playing media is unarguably better than lagging. Being able to play a multiplayer
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
Uhh what the fuck? Windows XP worked perfectly fine with the ISP. Windows Vista doesn't. That's **Microsoft's** regression. Linux users were never mentioned, as it assumes they have followed the standard all along and don't release new distributions who break standards for no purpose other than to break them. This should give **Microsoft** a bad name for not being able to release a new version of their own OS without breaking virtually every component in the process.
"Victory means exit strategy, and it's important for the President to explain to us what the exit strategy is." G.W.Bush
From my understanding of the problem, Microsoft is no longer supporting the unicast response for DHCP like it did previously, even though that is the recommended way to do this. While Microsoft's implementation is valid (though not recommended), I can see why the ISP doesn't want to honor it. If a lot of Vista subscribers start doing this, there could potentially be a lot of broadcast packets. I.e. each time a Vista user connects, the DHCP server would send a broadcast response to everyone on the local subnet (which can be quite huge).
I remember scanning the broadcast network traffic years ago on my cable modem and it was tens to hundreds of DHCP requests packets per second. If most users start running Vista then this would double the broadcast traffic.
Broadcast should be avoided unless absolutely required.
This post is encrypted twice with ROT-13. Documenting or attempting to crack this encryption is illegal.
;) It means that you should not use the broadcast bit if it is not needed, and it is not in this case. The server is not required to implement it, since it is supposed to help older implementations. Vista is not one of those. Of course it is not FORBIDDEN to set the bit, but you have to take the consequenses of setting it. Who set the bit?
Comment removed based on user account deletion
"why should the provider CHANGE their config" Hmmmmm, to keep their CUSTOMERS, maybe?
No. If the provider changes their config that lets Microsoft customers remain Microsoft customers. Microsoft broke it, let Microsoft fix it. The provider's customers are free to use any other OS (including older Microsoft versions) while remaining provider customers.
Take an electric utility, for example, that runs house current at 220V (we're talking Europe). Should they drop that back to 120V just because a few customers bought an appliance from a company that couldn't manage to make it compliant with 220V, just to keep those customers? No, let the customers take it up with the appliance vendor. (Of course it's not an exact analogy, but at least it isn't a car analogy.)
-- Alastair
Every one of the DHCP servers in the world, on every OS whether embedded or multi-purpose should be audited and downgraded (yes, this is a downgrade to a deprecated method) or replaced with obsolete equipment.
This should be done because Microsoft's Vista network programming team could not be troubled to code in something like "If DHCP request using deprecated method times out, retry with the standard method."
And no copying my idea. That's valuable Intellectual Property there.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
Do you really want Swedes on the Internet? I mean, aren't they like the Canada of Europe?
Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong fix.
If you think developers are lazy, the average non-user is pathetic. I guess I'd be quite screwed-up if I used such an opiate for over ten years. I prefer to serve and I was shown NT (the __only__ Windows when we began the experiment) was unsuitable right in front of my face.
The answer: People are lazy! (not just developers) What I cannot tolerate is all the needless suffering this laziness has caused. I'm pissed. Most people who are shown Linux (and more likely *BSD from the younger ones) take to Unix real fast. If "Generation X" had full use of their computers, they'd be dangerous!
Sorry this seems so burnt-out, but two days of dealing with Windows "non-users" is beyond my limits. ANYTHING UNIX(tm) or "Unix-like" simply attracts smarter people. That's not simply because they used it in university, Unix users are simply smarter. (Duh)
The Pirate Bay
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
It is very interesting how the ISP is blamed here. He could, he should, yada yada. M$ delivered a broken configurations and the ISP has to fix this. Generally not wrong. However, as Linux user I wonder a bit, why he should do this? I have enough examples where ISP refuse to support Linux. If it works, fine. If not, problem of the user. I never heard similar ISP blaming comments about this in any forum. More likely: "Oh yeah, Linux is the outsider, only 0.00001% of all user use it, heh heh heh."
And how often do I hear about the superiority of Windoze. When some WiFi card does not work under Linux: Linux is not fit for the general desktop. If some WiFi card does not work under Vista: The stupid manufacturer was not able to deliver proper drivers on time.
I begin to think the only reason that Windoze works at all is because everybody bends over for M$ and paves their path.
Sorry, but even if those voices, which say the ISP could have acted on behalf of their customers, are right, and they are, I still deem them hypocrites.