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Windows 7's Virtual XP Mode a Support Nightmare?
CWmike writes "Microsoft's decision to let Windows 7 users run Windows XP applications in a virtual machine may have been necessary to convince people to upgrade, but it could also create support nightmares, analysts said today. Gartner analyst Michael Silver outlines the downsides. 'You'll have to support two versions of Windows,' he said. 'Each needs to be secured, antivirused, firewalled and patched. If a company has 10,000 PCs, that's 20,000 instances of Windows.' The other big problem Silver foresees: Making sure the software they run is compatible with Windows 7. 'This is a great Band-Aid, but companies need to heal their applications,' Silver said. 'They'll be doing themselves a disservice if, because of XPM, they're not making sure that all their apps support Windows 7.'"
No, it was an actual 68LC040 emulator in software.
In fact, large chunks of the System were still written in 68040 code for a long time. So new releases of the OS would actually run faster and faster as that code was replaced with native versions.
http://rocknerd.co.uk
Why does every user need two operating systems? That seems awfully wasteful.
Because a non-free application that's no longer supported by its original publisher needs Windows XP, but the only OS of which Microsoft is selling new copies is Windows 7.
And not that I make a habit of replying to myself, but even the NT system calls are just a wrapper around the low-level interface provided by the graphics card, which are just a wrapper around the DVI or VGA signals that go out on the wire, which are just a wrapper around whatever the monitor actually uses internally, which are just a wrapper ...
OO syntax (in C++ almost entirely, in Java mostly, and in Smalltalk or Ruby a little bit) is just a wrapper around dealing with function pointers yourself, which with the rest of C is just a wrapper around assembly language, which is just a wrapper around machine code, which is just a wrapper around the actual architectural blocks of the chip, which are wrappers around gates, which are wrappers around transistors, etc.
Sure, some of these "wrappers" are more complicated than others, some provide more of an abstraction increase than others, but you can't dismiss something just because it's a "wrapper". In .Net's case, even the part that is "just" a wrapper around Win32 is a very useful one.
Holy cow, how does this stuff get under the radar, especially on Slashdot?
Not directing this at the poster..
I am hit by about 80% of IT people not even realizing this exists, and there are a lot of people locked in a 'Windows' corporate world that would really enjoy this stuff, and could use it on a daily basis.
Quick Info...
POSIX was a watered down 'basic' UNIX model OS provided under Windows NT 3.1 through Win2K.
In the meantime MS sponsored and worked with several companies in their own UNIX subsystem technologies, and the result is SUA, or one that came from joint work with Interop and MS.
(MS made the Interop people very rich and bought them out in the early 2000s.)
So there has been a 'basic' POSIX environment running on NT since NT was born, but there has been a higher end UNIX subsystem that has been available around NT 4.0 and later provided by MS around the time Windows 2003 Server was released.
(So this has been free and around for at least 6 years.)
PS: MS also funded and worked with a couple of Linux (yes Linux) UNIX subsystems, but they haven't ever left R&D.
The current UNIX Subsystem for Windows provides SVR-5 and BSD UNIX. (And there are people do Linux stuff as well on their own, but that is a non-issue as it is not official MS supported subsystems.)
So yes Virginia you can easily run UNIX applications on Windows, in a native subsystem - no VM - native, that uses the IPC and Object Manager abilities of the NT kernel architecture that gives the UNIX Subsystem communication to the Win32/Win64 subsystem. Meaning you can take your UNIX app and let it tap an ODBC database driver instead of using MYSQL, as well as run on the Windows Desktop natively.
Two quick Links...
http://www.suacommunity.com/
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc771470.aspx
(There is a lot of information on the MS site and whitepapers all around, as well as even OSS sites that work with SUA as it is known.)
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Even if you are just an IT person that is a UNIX CLI guru, break out the UNIX subsystem on Windows and go to town with your favorite UNIX CLI.
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Again it has been a free download from MS for XP or Windows Server since at least 2003, and it even ships on the Vista DVDs (Business & Ultimate) that is just a one click to install from that add/remove Windows Features/Components.
This is also one of the cool things about the NT architecture, is the client/server kernel design that offsets and layers upper level OS API sets. NT also uses its 'hybrid' kernel to do things like this that OS X and Linux can't do, by allowing both direct and managed non-direct calls to let it create the upper layer OS subsystems with offset API kernel interfaces that are easily layered.
I hope that this helps *nix people using Windows or at least someone finds this cool and something that makes their life easier.
Go ahead stay in the reality distortion field and drink the kool-aid.
It's NOT the contest that proves it. Just read what the guy says and go investigate to see if what he is saying is true.
Just see: http://blogs.zdnet.com/security/?p=2941
and: http://news.cnet.com/8301-10784_3-9759132-7.html
Quote:
"With my Safari exploit, I put the code into a process and I know exactly where it's going to be. There's no randomization. I know when I jump there, the code is there and I can execute it there. On Windows, the code might show up but I don't know where it is. Even if I get to the code, it's not executable. Those are two hurdles that Macs don't have."
You don't have to be a genius to figure it out. OSX doesn't have the same protections. It doesn't even have the protections Windows XP SP2 has and that came out 5 years ago.
If you don't believe me, just get the opinion of any of the top security researchers on the security of OSX compared to XP/Vista.
The reason why OSX is not exploited as much as windows is it is the equivalent of a house in a small village. Hardly anyone would bother break in even if the door is unlocked.
There's no point creating a tiny network of zombies. A huge network is where the money is.
If I were a malware writer I'd be rubbing my hands with glee if OSX's market share goes up.
Apple makes cool stuff, but they don't make secure stuff.
And guess who is responsible for the code quality of quicktime? Apple.
OSX is swiss cheese too. It has dozens of setuid programs. It has no "DEP" - something that Windows XP had 5 years ago with service pack 2.
It's not just me claiming that. I know others who would say the same thing.
Both Charlie Miller and "Nils" say OSX is easier to exploit.
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/securityfix/2009/03/mac_os_x_top_target_in_browser.html
http://news.cnet.com/8301-10784_3-9759132-7.html
http://blogs.zdnet.com/security/?p=2941
Quotes:
"It's getting pretty hard to do a lot of this stuff on Windows Vista and Windows 7," Nils said. "Especially when a lot of people who stayed with [Windows XP] switch to Windows 7 because they didn't want Vista, the bad guys may start to figure out they can more easily exploit these bugs more reliably on a Mac."
"Mac OS X has some ASLR but not much, and there is no DEP in OS X," Miller said. "My exploit relied on exploit code being in certain spot, and that it would [execute], and in Vista neither of those things would have happened."