Microsoft Extends XP To May 2009 For OEMs

beuges writes "Microsoft has announced over the weekend that it would allow computer manufacturers to receive copies of XP until the end of May 2009, shortly before Windows 7 is expected to hit the market. This should allow users to skip Vista entirely and move straight to 7, which has been receiving cautiously favorable reviews of pre-release and leaked alphas."

Comments

New security process

[Monoman]

If they use the same security prompts/process as Vista then Windows 7 will be another one to skip. I have found it inconsistent and incomplete.

* If your account is a local admin then should you be prompted to do some things? Probably, but not more than once. I swear there is a minimum of two prompts by default.

* Why does an admin need to choose "Run as admin" for some things?

* If the system is going to prompt me then make sure I will see it. Sometimes the security prompts pop-under. If I go off to another program while waiting for something to finish only to later find the unanswered prompt still waiting for my response.

* If a program requires admin access or "Run as admin" then clearly give the user direction to do so. Try pathping for instance and you get "0 No resources". Launch cmd "as admin" and it works fine.

The Vista security model is horrible IMHO. We are just getting started with Windows 2008 and it looks like it is going to be more of the same. If I am logged in as admin on a server I sure hope I don't get the same incomplete and inconsistent experience. If so, Windows 2008 will be the Server OS to skip from MS. (I'm sure some slashdotters will say they should all be skipped. :-) )

Re:New security process

[RedK]

You're a Unix guy, you should get this instantly. The "Administrator" account in Windows Vista is the equivalent of being in the sudoers file on Unix for a normal account. Basically, you don't have any administrative privileges on the system until you need to do something that requires. As in a Unix system (where you would type out sudo or a kdesu window would pop up), Vista prompts you for your password before granting you time limited and application limited elevated privileges. This is the Unix way basically.

Even Mac OS X does this, with the locks on the system preferences and for installing software. Bashing Microsoft on this, but not OpenSolaris, HP-UX, Mac OS X, Ubuntu or any other Unix type system is fanboyish. Some don't even offer a root account by default anymore, you need to explicitly activate it.

Re:New security process

[shutdown -p now]

As in a Unix system (where you would type out sudo or a kdesu window would pop up), Vista prompts you for your password before granting you time limited and application limited elevated privileges.

You were mostly correct, except for this line. Vista doesn't prompt an admin ("sudoer") for his password on elevation - it just pops up that infamous "Allow/Deny" prompt. There is a reason for that; sudo asks user for password, because otherwise any app running under his account (e.g. an exploited web browser) could get elevation by execing sudo and piping "yes" (or whatever confirmation there is) into it. Requiring to enter the password ensures that it's user who consciously does the elevation, and not an app doing it under cover.

Now as to why Vista doesn't do it: the way they display that "Allow/Deny" prompt is specifically implemented so that no other running app can interact with it (and, for example, imitate a mouse click on "Allow", or send a window message simulating the activation of the button, etc). I don't know the details of this thing, but MS refers to that as "notification running on a separate desktop", and apparently that's what causes that screen flashing briefly when it pops up. They also disable all interaction for all other windows, so that a malicious app cannot trick the user into clicking "Allow" by overlaying its own window with deceiving labels which is transparent for mouse events on top of the notification window. It is claimed that all these measures, when combined together, achieve the same security as the simple trick used by sudo. I do not know whether the claim is true, but I haven't heard of anyone describing a working hack/workaround, so I have to assume that it is.

Re:Windows 7

[Sir_Lewk]

I installed over 3000 copies of vista at a local OEM over my summer break. You wouldn't believe the shit I've seen. Integrated ethernet cards only being recognized every other boot, 15 minute startups, reboots required for every other damn driver install, random "could not connect to authentication server"s...

Yeah, I'ved used vista...

M$ feels the pain.

[KcRusty]

It seems that many people really think there wasn't much recourse for Microsoft putting out such a terrible product in it's initial release of Vista.... This very much so isn't the case.

If we refer to the table here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usage_share_of_desktop_operating_systems you can see how much of the market has started to diversify since Vista came out. I think it would be safe to assume that the market share of Vista is somewhat inflated due to the fact that Microsoft made it very difficult to get anything but Vista on a regular consumer machine for quite some time, and now most major builders charge a fee ($150 at some!) to "downgrade" Vista to XP.

Since Q1 of 2007, Microsoft has seen both of their largest competitors in the desktop operating system market (Apple & Linux) double their penetration. Will this possibly drive them to bring us a better product? On a side note, Microsoft Server 2008 as a workstation is definitely worth taking a look at. You can download and use it free for 60 days, and a quick look at http://www.win2008workstation.com/wordpress/ will give you some pointers on setting it up. There are definitely some things lacking, but it might give you hope that M$ will do something right in their next major release.

Re:Meet the new version, same as the old version.

[Jeff Hornby]

Microsoft is the 800# gorilla in the room because it doesn't break backward compatibility. I'm not a mac fanboi but from what I've heard the various changes from one version to the next over the past ten years were not as seamless as you indicated. Most of my friends who use macs (none of whom are technical, they're all in the design space) just gave up on trying to get their old software to work with the new version and bought all new software. Compare that with Microsoft where althought they're not officially supported, almost all DOS applications will still run. So if you bought some piece of software in 1988 for DOS 3.0 chances are pretty good that it will run on Vista.

Re:Windows 7

[Sir_Lewk]

Or more likely it was 3000 installs, but about 100 different configurations. We specialized in building and configuring machines for local school districts.

That's irrelevant though, my point is, we were CLONING good installs onto identical hardware and were experiencing all manner of rarely reproducible errors.

Re:Meet the new version, same as the old version.

[C0vardeAn0nim0]

apple isn't very popular with enterprise for several reasons.

- price: no competition means higher price. with the PC, the cutthroat competition between hardware makers is what keeps price down.
- openess: the PC is an open architecture, you can choose your box from any manufacturer. even apple recognized this as an advantage and moved to intel/PC arch.
- relationship with developers: say what you want, but working in a large IT shop i know several programers who all agree that MS treats developers a whole lot better than apple. see the strangle hold they keep over that iPhone store.
- availability of software: the PC was created by IBM with a focus on business. the Mac wasn't. a huge library of corporate software made the diference on DOS days. the previous item does it today.

and you didn't get GP's point. emulation and virtualization, either in hardware or software helps a lot. and MS is not a newbie on this. in the early days of the transition from DOS to windows 3.0, the version for 80286 PC/ATs couldn't multitaks DOS apps. if you opened more than one DOS app, the one in the background would freeze, but in a 80386 you could multitask DOS apps because the 386 introduced hardware based "real mode" VMs. heck, you can run a binary compiled on an S/360 on a current version of Z/OS running in the latest state-of-the-art IBM mainframe.

apple's several transitions, m68k -> PPC -> intel (hardware) and Mac OS classic -> Mac OS X pretty much afected some few specialized (read: badly written) software. nothing that caused widespread problems.

it can be done, and is only the stuborness of the redmond guys that prevents them from doing it.

Re:Windows 7

[Anonymous Coward]

Have you tried KDE 4.2? Give it a go, I was pleasantly surprised. 4.0 and 4.1 were still a disappointment, but it's definitely better (my configuration is back!)

Re:Windows 7

[Sir_Lewk]

Why? hmm, lets see...

Maybe because it was still using Qt3? If you are that upset about it then just use KDE 3.5.x still and wait for the 4.x line to mature as much.

Re:Windows 7

[sexyrexy]

You weren't at PDC then. One of the keynote demos of W7 showed off the fact that it is blisteringly fast on a 1ghz, 1gb RAM netbook; UAC is fixed/gone, and hardware compatibility is top priority early-game, instead of after the fact.

Re:Windows 7

[Inda]

You're going to need contain yourself here :)

[windows key] + R

The "R" is for Run.

Re:Windows 7

[Z34107]

Assuming you're not just trolling ("Vista sucks so I installed Linux and it's better"), I'll post a batch file I use at work. It solves most any windows update-related problem.  I kept adding to it as I encountered more and more strangely broken computers, and as of now it works fairly well.

@echo off

echo Starting Background Intelligent Transfer Service (BITS)...
net start bits

echo Registering DLLs...

REGSVR32 WUAUENG.DLL
REGSVR32 WUAUENG1.DLL
REGSVR32 ATL.DLL
REGSVR32 WUCLTUI.DLL
REGSVR32 WUPS.DLL
REGSVR32 WUPS2.DLL
REGSVR32 WUWEB.DLL
REGSVR32 WUAPI.DLL

echo Killing Windows Automatic Updater Service...
net stop wuauserv

echo Destroying Update Cache...
rmdir /s /q C:\windows\SoftwareDistribution

echo Re-enabling Windows Automatic Updater Service...
net start wuauserv

echo Magic!