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Windows 7's Virtual XP Mode a Support Nightmare?

Posted by kdawson on from the twice-as-many-windows-to-wash dept.

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.'"

52 of 413 comments (clear)

  1. Pardon me... by Franklin+Brauner · · Score: 5, Insightful

    ...but didn't Apple successfully pull this off twice?

    1. Re:Pardon me... by Daimanta · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Mac OS is a niche market. In the Windows market, reality has a way of kicking you in the balls. Yes, this will be a support nightmare but we simply cannot write of the biggest heap of legacy software ever. That would be the true nightmare, no correct support for older apps. And by older I mean everything tailored for XP, either 1 or 7 years ago.

      --
      Knowledge is power. Knowledge shared is power lost.
    2. Re:Pardon me... by slk · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Apple had a very different set of problems, but has actually pulled something similar off three times.

      68k to PowerPC: Lots of apps didn't work, though it was really hard to tell what System 7 broke versus what 68k to PowerPC broke.

      OS9 to OS10: utter nightmare. Classic works great as long as you're on a single-user system running as admin with well behaved applications. You run into everything from apps that expect to busy-wait to the fact that OS9 has absolutely no idea what's going on with concepts like file permissions. Ridiculous support nightmare on anything with non-admin users, multiple users, etc.

      OS10 PowerPC to OS10 Intel: 99% of stuff just works. Very clean, very well done. The handful of apps that broke were generally easily fixed, or were broken by design (i.e. anything made by Adobe)

      XP on Win7 is more like the whole OS9 to OS10 transition, and like that transition, your best bet is to ignore the existence of XPM (just like your best bet was to ignore the existence of Classic)

      --
      ERROR: Null .sig, core dumped.
    3. Re:Pardon me... by iamnothere900 · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Classic is/was not an abstraction layer. When you start classic, you can open a window where you watch Mac OS 9 boot, just like Virtual PC. After it finishes loading, the window disappears and Classic apps are displayed on the desktop, same as any other. An old enough Macintosh can boot from the System Folder used for Classic.

      You may be thinking of the Carbon API, which was available under 9 and X. There is no translation involved; Carbon applications are native in both 9 and X.

      Rosetta is a binary translation layer, like you said. Apple did the same thing when moving from Motorola 68k CPUs to PowerPC.

    4. Re:Pardon me... by Bill_the_Engineer · · Score: 5, Interesting

      In the Windows market, reality has a way of kicking you in the balls.

      Actually, Windows has a way of kicking you in the balls. How would running XP in a virtual machine be any different from the usual windows experience?

      I think this is the smartest move Microsoft has done in a long time. They need to relegate the backwards compatibility to a virtual machine, and make the next Windows OS much leaner and secure.

      I agree with the GP that Apple had little problems with this and their market is of sufficient size to assume that Microsoft would fare just as well.

      --
      These comments are my own and do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of my employer or colleagues...
    5. Re:Pardon me... by David+Gerard · · Score: 5, Informative

      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
    6. Re:Pardon me... by crath · · Score: 3, Informative

      Exactly! Why is this an insanely great idea when Apple does it, and nothing but trouble when Microsoft does it.

      For me, a Windows Power User, this is the best news I've had from MS in many, many years. Corporate IT shops will simply disable this "feature" if they don't want to support it; the rest of us will get the benefit anyway.

    7. Re:Pardon me... by DJRumpy · · Score: 3, Interesting

      They are not apples and oranges (no pun intended). Mac's typically do not run virus scan (good or bad practice, most don't see it as necessary). They didn't have to deal with running virus scan and firewall software within the virtual machine. They also had a change of architectures underneath which may have made virus propagation from VM to parent a bit harder. Last but not least, OS X like Linux, is simply more secure, either through design or lack of market share.

      That said, the latest offerings from virtul products tend to be very highly integrated. One would hope that MS could offer vscan integration to allow the parent OS to protect the virtual machine. I'm not saying that is the case now, but it seems possible since they are both on the same file system, both using the same hardware, memory, etc (given they are segmented from each other).

      I still see this as a necessary step to avoid a lot of legacy baggage.

    8. Re:Pardon me... by actionbastard · · Score: 3, Funny

      "Mac OS is a niche market. In the Windows market, reality has a way of kicking you in the balls."

      Obviously you've never been Rochambeaued by Steve Jobs.

      --
      Sig this!
    9. Re:Pardon me... by atraintocry · · Score: 4, Funny

      Yes.

    10. Re:Pardon me... by mdarksbane · · Score: 3, Insightful

      It really depended on what you were trying to do with Classic. As a way to run just a few old apps that never got upgraded, it worked really well. As a main part of your daily workflow, it was a pain in the ass. For most home systems it did what it was designed to do - get people by until they were able to buy the next version of all their favorite software, which was by that time OS X native.

      It's a much better solution than either a) not supporting those applications at all or b) maintaining backwards compatibility with a codebase that is that archaically designed.

    11. Re:Pardon me... by SpryGuy · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I use Virtual PC to run XP under Vista right now, and have for a year. And it works.

      I find it difficult to believe that MS would release this solution in any state that is less functional than what currently exists under Vista.

      It was just announced and is in beta (likely lagging behind Win7... since it ships as a separate download there's no need for it to ship at the same time as Win7, which itself is six months away at the least). There's time.

      --

      - Spryguy
      There are three kinds of people in this world: those that can count and those that can't
    12. Re:Pardon me... by Jurily · · Score: 3, Insightful

      And by older I mean everything tailored for XP, either 1 or 7 years ago.

      How many times have we been through this? 3.1, 95, 98, 2000, XP, Vista, and now this. How many legacy apps did Linux broke since then? Oh, right, they're still working because the code is open and there's always someone to fix that one function call that no longer exists.

      Wanna bet? In five years the Win 7 apps will be either obsolete, or better supported on Linux than Windows 7++.

    13. Re:Pardon me... by Arainach · · Score: 4, Insightful

      You really don't get it, do you? Source compatibility isn't enough. You need BINARY compatibility. Many core business apps were developed by companies that no longer exist or developers who were no longer there. Many times, Source code doesn't exist.

      Even if it does, users don't want to or know how to recompile it. And fixing that one function call that no longer exists? Why should people have to? Every function call that no longer exists is another pile of developers who won't switch to your latest version.

      I highly reccomend reading Raymond Chen's blog/book to understand how backwards compatibility works in the real world.

  2. kdawson by rgo · · Score: 5, Insightful

    stop posting troll articles!! :@

  3. A big mess by mc1138 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    On one side, you have the convenience of having an OS thats tested, your apps work on it, everything is good. On the other, you're perpetuating an old system, and keeping people from moving forward. Support nightmare isn't the half of it, you're going to have a very mixed level of application compatibility as well. In fact, the better option might have been a better more robust compatibility function to better support older apps. Because while it's all well and good to say that companies need to upgrade their products, how about the apps that are no longer supported, but switching away from them is no option. In many larger companies it can take years to migrate to another system, even upgrading may not be an option.

    --
    The musings of just another geek and his junk.
    1. Re:A big mess by Dhalka226 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I think overall, this is a better way of moving forward. Windows has been essentially crippled from several different perspectives for years because of their need to support backward-compatibility, even with broken interfaces or insecure models. Letting a significant portion of that flow into VMs of older operating systems for those customers who absolutely, positively can not get off their old apps is a good compromise. It allows them to start with a cleaner slate for the majority who has no such requirements.

  4. Won't this largely depend on how well it works? by DoninIN · · Score: 5, Interesting

    The better it works the easier it will be to support. Also why does the XP instance have to have its own antivirus and firewall? I don't understand why the windows 7 (Magnificent 7? Windows Magnifica!) firewall and antivirus won't be sufficient for the virtual XP machine inside.

    1. Re:Won't this largely depend on how well it works? by Zeroko · · Score: 5, Insightful

      The need for a separate antivirus makes sense because the virtual machine is running a different operating environment with susceptibility to different viruses. A separate firewall does indeed seem superfluous.

    2. Re:Won't this largely depend on how well it works? by MightyMartian · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I see no reason for a second AV program, providing the VM's virtual drive is readable by the host operating system. If any kind of nasty program gets installed, it's going to have hit the file system at some point, and if the host's AV can plug in to that file system, it can suspend or terminate the VM.

      --
      The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
    3. Re:Won't this largely depend on how well it works? by cbhacking · · Score: 3, Informative

      One of the features of Win7 that was announced early was that it can mount .VHD (Virtual Hard Disk, the format used by Virtual PC) natively (it can even boot off one, so long as the bootloader is on a real partition). So yes, the host AV *should* be able to protect the virtual system.

      Firewall is just ridiculous; filter the VPC connection through the host (Win7) network interface, and the host's firewall is the guest's firewall. In fact, on current versions on VPC, if you want to connect the client to a network *without* running it through the host firewall, you need a dedicated NIC (i.e. the host can't connect via that interface).

      --
      There's no place I could be, since I've found Serenity...
  5. On the contrary... by casings · · Score: 5, Interesting

    This could be very good for support people. Since Microsoft would have to keep supplying patches to XP, there will be no reason to even think about installing Windows 7. Thus allowing support people to the confidence of continued patches.

    1. Re:On the contrary... by jmorris42 · · Score: 5, Interesting

      > Since Microsoft would have to keep supplying patches to XP, there will be no reason
      > to even think about installing Windows 7.

      It gets even better. If they ship an XP compatibility layer in 7 it tells everyone that XP apps will be a supported option for the lifetime of Windows 7. And if XP is kept alive in this way, ya you are probably right that patches for XP itself will probably be continued for quite some time, especially since they are going to be selling newly licensed copies at least as late as this Xmas.

      However it is the follow on effects of a promise that XP will be a viable platform to run applications in for at least the next 5-7 years. It makes XP the safe choice of API to write new code to. An XP compatible application will run on XP, Windows 7 and via CodeWeavers increasingly effective efforts (as the XP target has remainied basically stable for years) it means an XP application can run at native speed on Mac and Linux. And it doesn't take that much effort to write XP apps that will run on 7 anyway without needing the emulation layer so 7 compatible XP code is going to be a more universal binary than Java ever achieved in the real world.

      If Microsoft isn't careful with this XP on 7 plan they could Warp themselves.

      --
      Democrat delenda est
    2. Re:On the contrary... by trifish · · Score: 3, Informative

      It makes XP the safe choice of API to write new code to.

      Wrong. (The Home versions of Windows 7 will not support the Virtual XP mode.)

  6. So what, if true by Radhruin · · Score: 5, Insightful

    This is exactly what we want them to do. Virtualize the deprecated, old stuff, and get it out of the main operating system. Move on from the cruft of yore and build in some sweet new fundamentals that break backwards compatibility. We've been crying for them to do this for forever, so let's encourage it. It might add a bit of a support burden, but if it gives us a better product overall, what's the big deal?

    1. Re:So what, if true by Chang · · Score: 4, Insightful

      The thing is - Windows Vista and Windows 7 aren't really a fundamental departure from the past. For example, I applaud Microsoft for finally getting on board the IPv6 train with Vista and Win2K8 but what happened to rewriting system services and the Windows shell in managed code (.NET)? That would be a fundamental change that would justify a compat VM container. Microsoft is really giving customers the worst of both worlds. Making only incremental improvements to their mainline OS's while creating a backwards compatible VM which is simply more cruft to throw on top of an ever expanding pile of backwards compatible cruft.

    2. Re:So what, if true by EvanED · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Microsoft is really giving customers the worst of both worlds. Making only incremental improvements to their mainline OS's while creating a backwards compatible VM which is simply more cruft to throw on top of an ever expanding pile of backwards compatible cruft.

      Better to float the "VM as compatibility" boat in the wild before relying on it?

      I'm making crap up -- it's probably more MS missightedness -- but it would be a half decent reason. There's all sorts of stuff that can go wrong in the wild that would be next to impossible to foresee, so by limiting the places where it doesn't work to only programs that don't run on Win7 natively they limit the potential damage a little bit. (Of course, problems that surface are more likely to be on critical apps.)

    3. Re:So what, if true by EvanED · · Score: 4, Informative

      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.

  7. As opposed to what? by gparent · · Score: 3, Insightful

    As opposed to what, supporting an install of XP and an install of Windows 7? Or Windows XP in a VM and Windows 7?

    Just think about it.

  8. Since when does anyone take Gartner seriously? by jerryasher · · Score: 5, Funny

    Fear and doubt...doubt and fear.... Our two weapons are fear and doubt...and ruthless uncertainty.

    1. Re:Since when does anyone take Gartner seriously? by amliebsch · · Score: 3, Funny

      I didn't expect a kind of Slashdot inquisition!

      --
      If you don't know where you are going, you will wind up somewhere else.
  9. Yes but ... by Savage-Rabbit · · Score: 3, Insightful

    ...but didn't Apple successfully pull this off twice?

    ... Apple doesn't have every IT criminal on the planet gunning for their OS. They are bloody lucky to be in that situation and should IMHO be less smug about Windows security problems in their advertising. On the other hand running the defense grid for one Windows instance was fatiguing enough to persuade me to abandon Windows and become a Linux user and then an Apple customer. I still have to put in work to secure my machine but it is a lot less work than if I was using Windows. If this really means MS is doubling the security workload on each Windows box then.... hell.... I don't even want to think about it.

    --
    Only to idiots, are orders laws.
    -- Henning von Tresckow
    1. Re:Yes but ... by NeverVotedBush · · Score: 4, Interesting

      I almost feel bad for Microsoft because of the number of people attacking their code. Almost.

      As I was perusing the various security boards and newsletters I frequent, I started thinking of how amazingly large the array of people making their livings off of Windows' security deficiencies. It's huge.

      There are a multitude of websites that might as well be devoted to Windows security issues. There are the people who constantly write AV signatures. People who collect malware in honeypots and distribute it to security researchers. People who have to write and test patches - both at Microsoft and at other software publishers. People who lecture on Windows security. People who do forensics on compromised machines. People who try to contain the damage when an organization's computers are compromised. People who have to notify the people who are affected by the compromises. People who have to untangle and try to block unauthorized bank charges and identity theft. Etc.

      It's like the bump on the log at the bottom of the sea song. The chain just goes and goes and goes. At least it is employing people but you have to wonder what the total global expenditures are in dealing with the consequences of security issues in Microsoft Windows.

      This isn't meant to be a troll. It's a legitimate concern and I wonder when people will finally say "enough".

    2. Re:Yes but ... by Kaboom13 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      That's because making a living off Window's security deficiencies is for all intents and purpose the same thing as making a living off Computer security deficiencies. Sure, there are aspects of the Windows security model that downright suck. But the reality is every system has security vulnerabilities out the ass. Whether Windows or Linux or BSD or what have you has more is up for debate, but the definite thing is that security is an active, evolving process, and whatever OS is used by the majority of the world is going to be under constant attack.

      I suppose if builders didn't build houses so damn easy to get into, we wouldn't need locks (and thus lock makers), and alarms, and cops and security guards, and fences, and a neighborhood watch. After all, the home builder made the house, he should guarantee it in perpetuity as an impenetrable fortress. Even if the owner ignores his recommendations, and leaves the doors unlocked and the windows open, it should still be secure. And despite the need for security, it must still be convenient for the owner and guests to enter and exit at will, pleasant to look at, and maintainable by an owner who has no knowledge of experience in houses.

      You act as if security is easy, and MS could accomplish it if only it tried a little harder. That's not the reality. MS deserves flack for any number of legitimate grievances. They took way to long to take security seriously (basically the entire time from XP's release to Vista was spent making massive security improvements to catch up to where they should have been), they use abusive business practices to encourage lock-in. They make bizarre and frankly retarded attempts at anti-piracy like activation/genuine advantage (if there ever was a drm measure that does nothing to even slow pirates down, and annoys the crap out of legit purchasers, its Windows Activation).

      But acting like MS and MS alone must bear the burden for ensuring the security of pc's, is ridiculous.

    3. Re:Yes but ... by TheLink · · Score: 5, Informative

      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."

      --
    4. Re:Yes but ... by NeverVotedBush · · Score: 3, Interesting

      I didn't say that. What I said is that there is a huge infrastructure in place with huge costs associated with Windows.

      Linux and OSX both have and will have weaknesses. The tend to be more local exploits than remote, but they aren't perfect either. I know Apple has caught a lot of flack for being slow to fix weaknesses too - apparently generally slower than Microsoft or the Linux distro maintainers.

      I know security is not easy. Security is a big part of my work. But I think that both Apple and Microsoft could do a better job about educating users regarding security. All too often I hear Windows and Mac users claiming they have never had an intrusion/virus. Particularly Mac users. Linux users, on the other hand, really do tend to be more computer literate and the distros now also tend to have everything turned off and ports need to be opened to use services. A default closed stance is a good one.

      But the fact is that Microsoft is the target of the lion's share of exploits and attacks. It does get the criminals the most bang for the buck. But for whatever reason, a lot of Microsoft users don't update. I think it's a bad decision, but Microsoft now excludes pirate copy users from being able to get updates. That just guarantees a ready pool of systems to be used in botnets.

      I think Apple and Microsoft both would benefit from including a multimedia presentation with their computers that covers the basics of computer security. They could explain the risks of various activities and also the best ways to combat computer crime. If people actually understood what the difference was between an administrator account and a user account, that in itself would go a long way to make it more difficult to compromise PCs.

  10. IT depts that don't need it ain't going to use it! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I'm 100% sure that a competent IT dept that has no use for this feature will, unsurprisingly, NOT USE IT, saving themselves all the support hassles entirely.

    And for those that DO need this feature, they know there's basically no other way and it's worth the extra support hassle because they know they will have people saying Application XYZ MUST work I don't care how.

    I suspect this means that the old applications that have to work and only currently work on XP can now be moved forward and the IT dept can get everyone onto Windows 7. Once there, the devs of these applications will have Windows 7 rather than XP to test against/run with and they'll have an incentive to update their programs to just work on Windows 7 because, like Classic on Mac OS X, this mode will have just enough 'impedience' that programs will be updated to work on Windows 7 native; but they will work okay in the meantime.

    That's the thing - this isn't seamless. It's going to be a little tricky to set up applications to run in the XP box rather than natively on Windows 7, even if launching them is easy.

    The trick is "Just enough impedience to get people to update to 7 native while providing a path."

  11. Let me fix that for you: by pseudonomous · · Score: 5, Interesting

    From TFA:

    "Windows XP Mode is specifically designed to help small businesses move to Windows 7," Scott Woodgate, director of Windows enterprise and virtualization strategy, said in a blog entry last Friday.

    Corrected:

    "Windows XP Mode is specifically designed to help us move copies of Windows 7 proffessional and ultimate, as opposed to the cheaper home addition,"S cott Woodgate, director of Windows enterprise and virtualization strategy, meant in a blog entry last Friday.

  12. Drivers? by tepples · · Score: 5, Interesting

    How would running XP in a virtual machine be any different from the usual windows experience?

    It depends on whether Windows 7 can pass-through USB devices and PCI cards to Windows XP. Otherwise, people will try and fail to use hardware with XP drivers on the virtual XP. (Windows 7 uses Vista drivers.)

    1. Re:Drivers? by Hal_Porter · · Score: 3, Informative

      USB is much harder to virtualise than PCI. PCI devices look like like memory to the host. You could easily hack the HAL in Windows so that devices can appear on the virtualized machine. I'm not sure how the UI would work, but I could imagine you'd right click on a device in device manager and send it to the VM. The host version of Windows would then unload the driver and unmap the device from memory. Then it would map it into the guest address space and let plug and play do the rest.

      USB, by contrast is a complete pain. The host builds a structure in memory and the USB controller zips through it and generates the packets. Also USB controllers and not hot pluggable from the point of view of Windows - you need to reboot the machine when they appear or disappear. What's worse is that one controller will typically control many devices - in fact on a netbook there is typically only one USB 2.0 controller in the whole system. And there are other issue too - the USB 2.0 controller only handles the USB 2.0 devices. USB 1.0 devices are handled by a companion controller. Both controllers have to be on the same machine.

      Of course maybe you could have some sort of stub host controller driver on the guest machine that forwards the IRPs (device driver request packets) to the host. Looking at VMWare this is probably what it does.

      Still either of these require extensive work in the host OS. And probably in the guest one too. There are horrible timing issues too with USB no matter what you do. Lots of USB device drivers are probably sensitive to timing, slow things down and they will bluescreen or stop working. And there are things like bus suspension.

      I think you could do it, but it won't be reliable.

      Of course, that's general USB device support. Specific cases like USB Mice and Keyboards are no problem at all, because the host handles the device access and can send messages with mouse position and keyboard scan codes into the guest. So it doesn't matter if the host has a USB mouse and keyboard. I think things like mass storage devices could be made to work too. The general case where you have ISO and interrupt endpoints or timing sensitive drivers that stream data and need to handle bus suspension is really hard however.

      --
      echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;
    2. Re:Drivers? by thsths · · Score: 3, Informative

      >USB is much harder to virtualise than PCI.

      It is the other way round, very much for the reason that you mentioned. USB uses a data stream abstraction, and that can be virtualised (not easy, but possible). Most virtual machines can access USB devices on the host. But that is not possible for PCI, precisely because PCI works without this abstraction, and gives devices direct access to the memory. Because the interface to the DMA controller is different for each device, it is not possible to write a generic virtualisation layer.

  13. Stupid, Stupid, Stupid... by TheNetAvenger · · Score: 4, Insightful

    How stupid are these people?

    Windows alreadys supports multiple OSes, from the Win16 and DOS subsystems to the BSD/UNIX subsystem, and also the Win32 and Win64 subsystem.

    Which all have their own kernels, and run in NT OS subsystems.

    So adding in a VM'd version of XP is going to add to 'support'? How?

    The updates still come from MS Update, it isn't like the in house people are writing the patches themselves.

    If anything this creates more work for MS, not a freaking IT department.

    I'm not sure where to even begin with how stupid this sounds...

    More tech support? Really?

    If an IT department isn't using group policies and the business centralization and integration technologies of Windows, they shouldn't be using Windows and instead move to something that has almost no central control or mangement like Linux or OS X.

    The hallmark of why business CONTINUES to choose Windows deployments is the ease and control that MS continues to give IT administrators, along with their centralized server management concepts that really do make anything else out there look foolish.

    A well deployed Windows server/client environment is peanuts to administer, even when the IT people shove Firefox on users and have to run around and do 'manual' updates because Firefox is 'retarded' about allowing remote or admin level updates without giving your users administrator rights.

    The second part of this is not understanding the virtualization technology being used. They assume it is like a 'free window' VMWare mode.

    It isn't, it somewhere better a VM and a Subsystem on the NT architecture, which is one thing that makes HyperV as powerful as it is.

    Truly people forget that NT is a user mode OS-less architecture, and that everything anyone sees is a 'virtual' subsystem, even Win32 has its own kernel and doesn't really know that NT is running under it.

    Ok, I'll let people go grab the facts on this crap themselves, and give Win7 a week or two i people's hands that actually 'do' know what they are talking about...

    PS The XP Virtualization is mainly for corporate clients, as 99.9% of all software works on Vista and Win7.

    It is only the in house written or 'corporate' written software crap that has no concept of NT security that has problems with Vista or possibly Win7 that enforces the 20yr old NT security model that the software developers should have written for in the first freaking place.

    1. Re:Stupid, Stupid, Stupid... by TheNetAvenger · · Score: 4, Informative

      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.)

      ---

      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.

      ---

      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.

  14. Smart move? by Spit · · Score: 3, Informative

    If you're going to run virtualized, why bother using Windows 7 as the host OS? Ubuntu can virtualize XP with Virtualbox-OSE, one install away. You only need a license and any system currently running XP can be upgraded to Ubuntu with XP virtualized.

    Interesting times...

    --
    POKE 36879,8
  15. Re:Umm... by DaHat · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Neither VPC, Virtual Server or Hyper-V support "running off of a directory tree in the host OS's file system"... instead the virtual hard drive(s) are packaged into nice and portable VHD files... and I'd be very surprised if VirtualBox, VMWare or any other VM software did.

    External scanning would require the AV system to know how to crack a VHD (which isn't difficult at all)... though doing so when the VM is online might be tricky.

    --
    Help Brendan pay off his student loans
  16. Re:Inflated numbers? by tepples · · Score: 4, Informative

    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.

  17. crash and burn by NicknamesAreStupid · · Score: 5, Interesting

    This is sad, just another example of how the wheels are coming off the cart while careening down another blind alley. I was at a trade show last month, and the visit to the Microsoft booth was surreal. The first kiosk was for Windows 7 and a smiling young man touting the virtues of this beta software. When I mentioned that I was having trouble running Vista on a 3.2GHz P4 with 4GB RAM, a 512MB ATI video card with DX10.1, and a terabyte HDD, he scoffed and said that nobody at Microsoft was running Vista, not even the developers. He gave me a DVD of beta 7 and told me that even as a beta, Windows 7 was "so much better than Vista." I accepted his disc (which expires on August 1), and went to the Windows Mobile (WM).

    This kiosk had a good looking young man who was part of the product management group for WM 6.5 and very knowledgeable about the product. When I told him that I was a WM developer, he listened attentively as I explained my frustration in trying to program the WM6 smartphone camera to work. His smile faded as he explained that Microsoft had failed to thoroughly test the OEMs for WM5, WM6 and WM6.1. As a result, the DirectShow APIs for many phones were not fully/correctly implemented. He showed me a web page - http://studierstube.icg.tu-graz.ac.at/handheld_ar/camera_phones.php - that explained the problem phones. Then I asked, "will this be fixed in the coming 6.5 release?" He shook his head and replied, "no, not until WM7." I thanked him for his candor and moved onto Live Search.

    At Live Search, a bright young man was touting the performance of their latest version and let me test it against Google, where it seemed to respond comparably. He talked about how his group was trying to get other parts of Microsoft to use their Live Search instead of their own, "an uphill battle." At that moment, another person walked up and asked a question, prompting him to pull out his iPhone. I reached out with my WM phone and joked, "wouldn't it be more politically correct to show this?" He responded, "oh, no. Most of my friends at work have iPhones. It's OK."

    The problems documented by Daniel Wagner's web page (above) and unmentioned on microsoft.com or msdn.com cost us three months of development time. I should have suspected; mea culpa. Our application now runs on iPhone, and we are not looking back.

    BTW, the Microsoft coffee table looks like a giant iPhone.

    1. Re:crash and burn by SpryGuy · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Just for the record, I've used Vista at work since it was released (doing .Net development and Database work on SQL Server).

      Before SP1 was released, it was a pain in the ass. Since then... not so much.

      In fact, I'm now used to Vista, and like it's extra features and perks, and find going back to XP annoying. I miss too much (the instant search everywhere, for starters, the snipping tool for another, I could go on and on) when I'm forced to use XP. And XP is so much less secure than Vista. Vista has proven to be remarkably stable and I haven't had ANY issues with viruses or trojans (not so, every XP install I've had over the same time period). It performs well, but of course I do have 4GB of memory, and wouldn't dream of saying anyone run Vista on less than 2GB.

      The trash-talking of Vista is, at this point, mostly habit based on old info. It's ridiculous. ANYTHING that will help get people off XP and onto the newer more secure OS's (hopefully Win7) is a GOOD THING.

      Hopefully most people won't need to use this new virtual XP VM in a regular way, in perpetuity. It can be and should be used as solely a stepping stone to get people on Win 7 and off XP, giving time for any software that refuses to run on Win7 to be updated or replaced. Mostly, the "XP Compatibility Mode" works well. For those apps that are just so badly written and so insecure and obsolete that they can't run even under that, this new XP VM provides a solution.

      Of course, if software had been written correctly in the first place, then it'd run on Win7 correctly without issue.

      Of course, one of the more laughable things is that SQL Server 2000, Microsoft's own product, won't run on Vista or Win7. Of course, it's a crappy database and nobody should be using it at this point... but there you go :-)

      --

      - Spryguy
      There are three kinds of people in this world: those that can count and those that can't
  18. Dual OS like Dual Core? by dlevitan · · Score: 5, Funny

    So when Intel and AMD couldn't increase the speed of their processors any more, they decided to introduce dual core chips. Does this mean that Microsoft has decided they couldn't slow down computers any more with Windows 7 and is now planning on shipping a dual OS system to ensure slow performance?

  19. Re:Microsoft, please read and listen! by The+Living+Fractal · · Score: 3, Insightful

    "Architect" level my ass. You probably get someone coffee. Sorry but your whole post is just ridiculous.

    There's no reason for any of your 'points' to stand if you migrate the system to Windows 7.

    Why have both? If Windows 7 is a better alternative, then for god's sake, run it. And don't tell me you need it just to have support for legacy apps that only run in Windows XP and not Windows 7.

    Because if you DO have those apps, you either need to upgrade them to Windows 7 functionality, find something that does the job better, or just FORGET ABOUT WINDOWS 7 and stay with XP.

    Damnit man, this is not that difficult to comprehend.

    Why do IT guys always have to blow things way out of proportion?

    --
    I do not respond to cowards. Especially anonymous ones.
  20. RTFA!!! by anonymousbob22 · · Score: 3, Informative

    So, there's actually no full-on windows XP installation. It's application level support that wraps XP applications so that they work with Win7. Patching, antivirus, etc can all be handled by Windows 7.

    Seriously, this sounds a lot better than XP's lame "compatibility mode" for Windows 98 and older that never seemed to work anyway.

  21. Stick your head out of the sand sometime by TheLink · · Score: 5, Informative

    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.

    --