Microsoft Fixing Windows 8 Flaws, But Leaving Them In Windows 7

mask.of.sanity sends this news from El Reg: "Microsoft has left Windows 7 exposed by only applying security upgrades to its newest operating systems. Researchers found the gaps after they scanned 900 Windows libraries using a custom diffing tool and uncovered a variety of security functions that were updated in Windows 8 but not in 7. They said the shortcoming could lead to the discovery of zero day vulnerabilities. The missing safe functions were part of Microsoft's dedicated libraries intsafe.h and strsafe.h that help developers combat various attacks. [Video, slides.]"

Comments

Shoddy Ethics

[mfh]

The bugs exist for a reason. If it's not broken now why buy the new version?

Re:Shoddy Ethics

[Anonymous Coward]

Windows 7 is still supported, so doing this now isn't shoddy ethics, it's a breach of contract. If they think that having shorter support periods will drive more sales, then have to start with Windows 9.

Re:Shoddy Ethics

[hodet]

Huh? Read what you just wrote. I would say knowingly breaking your contract is a breach of ethics.

Re:Shoddy Ethics

[Anonymous Coward]

No, it's a breach of law meaning it can be taken to court. A breach of ethics doesn't necessarily allow that unless what they're doing is not only unethical but also unlawful due to existing laws.

Cutting off support for software isn't against the law unless you were promised updates for a specific longer term of support. Which was given with Windows 7. If there wasn't a promised amount of time for updates/patches promised beforehand, it'd just be a dick move.

Re:Shoddy Ethics

[Poingggg]

Breach of ethics is not possible for Microsoft: They never had any to break in the first place.

Re:Shoddy Ethics

[shutdown -p now]

This is not about fixing any (known) bugs, but rather about making code more resilient in the face of potential buffer overrun bugs.

Simply put, it's taking an existing codebase that uses strcat and strcpy, and replacing their use with strlcat and strlcpy. StrSafe.h is a Windows-specific equivalent of those two BSD functions. IntSafe.h is a library that does something similar for integer arithmetic (to trap overflow issues).

Re:Shoddy Ethics

[mfh]

I didn't know that. If that's the case there is really no excuse not to apply the fix in Win7, unless MSFT wants Win7 to have the vulnerability. Why?

Re:Shoddy Ethics

[shutdown -p now]

The excuse is that it doesn't magically happen by itself - TANSTAAFL. You need to get people to do it, and it will take a significant amount of time for them to do so (the simple cases can be as easy as find & replace, but the harder ones require putting some thinking, so it's not an automated process) - time for which they're paid considerable amount of money, and, of course, not working on anything else.

This makes sense...

[Anonymous Coward]

Windows Sustained Engineering is a different org across the street with different funding and goals, and they don't automatically fix all of the bugs the Windows feature teams fix. There's a triage process for deciding whether bugs are important enough to fix in downlevel releases.

Re:This makes sense...

[ElPerezoso]

This. And there's no evidence that these changes correspond to exploitable security vulnerabilities. If you look at the slides, what they're actually complaining about is that certain OS code paths have been updated to use intsafe.h/strsafe.h functions in Windows 8, but not in Windows 7. Because intsafe/strsafe are used to help avoid overflow vulnerabilities, the conclusion the article draws is that these must be actual vulnerabilities, which are being fixed in Windows 8 without being ported to Windows 7.

It's worth noting that the entire presentation that the article is based on is an advertisement for their DiffRay diffing tool, so they have some incentive to overstate things. It's entirely possible that the changes that they're pointing out as "fixing potential 0-days in 8 but not 7" are actually just moving a couple of bounds checks from ad-hoc implementations in the functions themselves to the standardized common intsafe calls. Or it could be that there is already correct bounds enforcement elsewhere, and these checks are just added for redundancy, or to make function-local static analysis a little bit cleaner. I honestly don't know, but there are enough plausible benign explanations that the alternative of "Microsoft is deliberately exposing its largest set of customers to vulnerabilities" seems kind of absurd. Bring me the extraordinary evidence for this claim.

Disclosure: I'm a dev on the Windows team. I don't have any specific knowledge of this, and I'm not writing this in any official or compensated capacity.

Re:This makes sense...

[PRMan]

And 8 has code that 7 doesn't have. There is a HIGH degree of likelihood that most bugs would be in the new code, the code not shared by 7, which has been well-tested for years.

Re:This makes sense...

[lgw]

If you've ever actually used those libraries, there's nothing magically safer about them. You can more easily port old code to those libraries in such a way that all vulnerabilities are maintained than you can port and do it right. So it comes down to code review during the port. You get the same safety with the same code review without actually porting anything.

Those libraries (with good code review) are like a "W2K safe" sticker of yesteryear: a sign that someone looked at the problem, which is great, but doesn't necessarily mean anything.

IME the important thing to look for in older code is not the bounds checking, but whether there's an error path at all. It's all too common for some leaf function to avoid a buffer overrun and set come error code, but the calling code was never changed to care about the error code, so something very odd happens 47 calls down the road. This is why IMO using a language with exceptions is the key to security - you don't need the language to provide bounds-checked arrays, you can always write that library, but you really want an unhandled error to be a crash, not an unpredictable state no one thought about during design!

Re:This makes sense...

[harryjohnston]

Support, even FULL support, means fixing bugs; in practice, fixing important bugs. One thing it certainly doesn't mean is making every possible improvement.

There's no evidence as yet that any of the changes in question were bug fixes.

Re:This makes sense...

[Billly Gates]

YEAH and I could say IE 6 is just as secure as no security in design does not mean more exploits. One of my clients who switched from XP to 7 noticed a drop in malware.

Newer kernel features reduce 0 days as evident in 7 compared

Re:This makes sense...

[mwvdlee]

It all sounds like basic refactoring to me.
A simple search-&-replace of old function to new functions, not because it's necessary but because their current coding standards says they should.
I've done similar refactoring in the past, simply to get rid of some automated coding standard checker notices.

Re:This makes sense...

[duck_rifted]

These changes most certainly do correspond to security vulnerabilities, but they're inherent in the language; not the platform. Microsoft could easily argue that their API need not address security pitfalls introduced by the language itself. And they would be correct.

It's Time To Move On.

[Anonymous Coward]

"People are aware that Windows has bad security but they are underestimating the problem because they are thinking about third parties. What about security against Microsoft? Every non-free program is a 'just trust me program'. 'Trust me, we're a big corporation. Big corporations would never mistreat anybody, would we?' Of course they would! They do all the time, that's what they are known for. So basically you mustn't trust a non free programme."

"There are three kinds: those that spy on the user, those that restrict the user, and back doors. Windows has all three. Microsoft can install software changes without asking permission. Flash Player has malicious features, as do most mobile phones."

"Digital handcuffs are the most common malicious features. They restrict what you can do with the data in your own computer. Apple certainly has the digital handcuffs that are the tightest in history. The i-things, well, people found two spy features and Apple says it removed them and there might be more""

From:

Richard Stallman: 'Apple has tightest digital handcuffs in history'
www.newint.org/features/web-exclusive/2012/12/05/richard-stallman-interview/

Re:It's Time To Move On.

[LordLimecat]

Richard Stallman is full of crap if he is claiming that Windows is endemically, technically less secure. Anyone remember the Pwn2Own games? Anyone remember what OS fell first every time? Thats right, fully patched OSX (think that changed ~2012).

This could turn into a debate lasting days, but suffice it to say that from a technical level Windows is pretty secure. 90% of all exploits these days hit third-party applications that also happen to run on Linux and OSX (flash, java, adobe reader). Im sure Stallman would rail against those too, and he would actually be right, but the point is that the vast majority of users need those plugins and he is being deceitful if he is attempting to paint the various Flash player exploits as problems with Windows, or as problems endemic to Closed Source Software.

And you, too, have a bit of gall posting this, after some of the hugest security holes to hit the net were just released, both affecting OSS. Ideology is great until you hit the real world, and realize that things are never as simple as "I hate Microsoft, therefore Windows is technically bad", or "Closed source software has trust issues, therefore all OSS is inherently more secure". My hope is that all who take this like will grow up and abandon their zealotry before they enter the workforce.

Re:It's Time To Move On.

[msobkow]

The question is not just whether an OS is secure, but how long it takes for patches to be rolled out. While Microsoft often sits on their laurels when it comes to releasing patches, the king of procrastination is Oracle, which has left known issues in the wild for decades.

Still, I don't disagree with the general intent of your post, which I read as "closed source is not necessarily worse than open source." But that's only up to a point -- timely patches are critical to maintaining the security of a system, and when Microsoft purposely omits patches for downlevel releases that are still under support, they do a great disservice to their customers, to the 'net community as a whole, and to their own reputation and therefore bottom line.

Re:It's Time To Move On.

[jones_supa]

Digital handcuffs are the most common malicious features. They restrict what you can do with the data in your own computer.

There's many sides to this. With all the bugs, missing features, and subpar performance, also free software restricts what I can do with my computer.

The ideas of free software can be beautiful, but if they produce crusty software which just makes my life unnecessarily more clunky compared to the proprietary alternative, it's a bit of a "meh" to me. To squeeze the most out of my computer is still the most important battle for me.

Re:It's Time To Move On.

[LordLimecat]

I imagine there are architectural differences between Win7 and Win8. Win7 is still supported heavily in the enterprise, and I dont believe for a second that Microsoft has some perverse desire to screw over their biggest customers.

Re:It's Time To Move On.

[RR]

Richard Stallman is full of crap if he is claiming that Windows is endemically, technically less secure. Anyone remember the Pwn2Own games? Anyone remember what OS fell first every time? Thats right, fully patched OSX (think that changed ~2012). This could turn into a debate lasting days, but suffice it to say that from a technical level Windows is pretty secure.

You totally misunderstand Stallman's point. Stallman is not arguing that open source leads to better quality software. That would be Eric Raymond. Stallman is arguing that you can't trust Microsoft. More of an Auguste Kirchhoffs interpretation. And I don't see what OSX has to do with free software.

Stallman objects to closed source philosophically, and Windows especially. In addition to being proprietary, Stallman is arguing that Windows has features to report your use of Microsoft software and potentially lock you out (Windows Activation), to add or delete software without warning (Windows Update), to track you across any device around the world (Microsoft Account), and to keep you from using the computer in inappropriate ways (Protected Media Path, Driver Signing, Secure Boot). I don't see how he's wrong.

Somebody in the Chinese government seems to have noticed, and is now trying to get Windows banned there.

My hope is that all who take this like will grow up and abandon their zealotry before they enter the workforce.

"The reasonable man adapts himself to the world: the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man." - George Bernard Shaw

Re:It's Time To Move On.

[symbolset]

The problem appears to be that if you choose Microsoft you are going to get this OS migration hassle anyway, on a regular recurring cycle, because their business model requires it. So if you are migrating OS anyway you may as well do it right once, leave them, and be done with that hassle forever.

Re:It's Time To Move On.

[SeaFox]

Richard Stallman is full of crap if he is claiming that Windows is endemically, technically less secure. Anyone remember the Pwn2Own games? Anyone remember what OS fell first every time? Thats right, fully patched OSX (think that changed ~2012).

Yes, and OSX falling first had nothing to do with the participants specifically targeting it. I mean, they would have nothing to gain from focusing their efforts on a single operating system, like the bragging rights of hacking a supposedly "secure" platform, or taking Macintosh snobs down a notch, or winning a $2000 Mac laptop instead of a $500 Dell. No siree.

Re:It's Time To Move On.

[UnknowingFool]

Anyone remember the Pwn2Own games? Anyone remember what OS fell first every time? Thats right, fully patched OSX (think that changed ~2012).

Do you remember how Pwn2Own worked? Obviously not. It was turned based not race based meaning a team/person was selected to try their exploit first before any other team. And the team got to select which system they tried because they got to own that system.

If that team did not succeed, the next team got a try. Of course, teams would try systems they both wanted and had exploits. No one picked a system they didn't want. Most often it was OS X first on the first try. But Windows systems also fell on their first try. Almost never did a Linux system fall. In fact, many times, a Linux system was never attempted.

And it was never fully patched system. The systems were also fixed at a certain date prior to the contest so that the teams had a chance to attack it. Sometimes the exploits had been patched already.

Re:It's Time To Move On.

[donaldm]

Richard Stallman is full of crap if he is claiming that Windows is endemically, technically less secure. Anyone remember the Pwn2Own games? Anyone remember what OS fell first every time? Thats right, fully patched OSX (think that changed ~2012).

Err you do realize that OSX is not Linux don't you?

Re:It's Time To Move On.

[Grishnakh]

90% of all exploits these days hit third-party applications that also happen to run on Linux and OSX (flash, java, adobe reader). Im sure Stallman would rail against those too, and he would actually be right, but the point is that the vast majority of users need those plugins and he is being deceitful if he is attempting to paint the various Flash player exploits as problems with Windows, or as problems endemic to Closed Source Software.

No one needs Adobe Reader. It's a bloated piece of trash which, as you point out, has lots of security exploits. There's tons of alternative PDF viewers you can use. There's also alternatives for Java I believe (OpenJDK I think). With Flash, you're right; there really aren't any alternative viewers for that (which is odd considering the specs are open), but for the others, especially Adobe Reader, there's little excuse for using it.

Re:It's Time To Move On.

[LordLimecat]

Hes not wrong, except he beats a dead horse. Everyone knows what Windows activation is, that you cant patch Windows yourself, that you cant inspect the code.

Incidentally Driver Signing and Secure Boot can both be turned off, and theyre not to stop you from misusing your computer. You (he) might as well complain that AppLocker or Software Restriction Policies are draconian DRM-- except theyre really not, theyre a mechanism to harden the OS.

>>(Quote)

Stallman takes his ideology so far that he becomes completely irrelevant. I know of noone outside of the OSS movement (and surprisingly few in it) that actually take him seriously-- he goes so far off the deep end that hes managed to alienate a full half of the Unix userbase as well.

Re:It's Time To Move On.

[LordLimecat]

Pwn2Own was useful because the common claim was that it wasnt just the huge userbase of windows that attracted exploit writers. but that it was that Windows was actually less secure than OSX. But when a shiney new laptop is on the line, people had no problem getting root. You can argue that OSX had 9 root-level exploits and Windows had 10 in any given competition-- but its sort of a moot point. By far and away the biggest factor in what systems get exploited is monetary gain and return on investment.

Id also note that, in the actual real world, somethin like 85-90% of exploits are non-OS-- theyre browser or browser plugin exploits. The only people arguing that Windows is more vulnerable to viruses are people with no friggin clue. Remove Java and virus incidence goes down like 50%.

Re:It's Time To Move On.

[LordLimecat]

No one needs Adobe Reader...There's tons of alternative PDF viewers you can use.

A lot of them lack features that Adobe Reader has. You're right that Adobe makes awful software, but again: in reality, people actually use it, and its sort of irrelevant to go on about how they dont actually need to.

OpenJDK hasnt worked with any applet I've ever tried.

Re:It's Time To Move On.

[UnknowingFool]

Pwn2Own was useful because the common claim was that it wasnt just the huge userbase of windows that attracted exploit writers.

Again you failed to understand Pwn2Own. It said NOTHING about the relative security of OS X vs Windows or exploit writers. All it said was whether a system had an exploit not how easy it was to exploit. Either could have had an exploit so complicated that it was only usable the by the most skilled of hackers. Also remember th

But when a shiney new laptop is on the line, people had no problem getting root. You can argue that OSX had 9 root-level exploits and Windows had 10 in any given competition-

Again you failed to understand Pwn2Own. All it took was 1 exploit each. And the exploit was not always about getting root access. For browser exploits, it might have been launching another desktop program (like calculator) or writing a file to the HDD without permission.

Id also note that, in the actual real world, somethin like 85-90% of exploits are non-OS-- theyre browser or browser plugin exploits. The only people arguing that Windows is more vulnerable to viruses are people with no friggin clue. Remove Java and virus incidence goes down like 50%.

Again you don't seem to understand the nature of the problem. By its nature Windows was always more susceptible to viruses and OS X and Linux were far less susceptible due to the nature of the OS. Specifically viruses by definition self-propagate which Windows allowed. OS X and Linux by their nature did not allow program to autoexec.

Re:It's Time To Move On.

[mwvdlee]

OpenJDK hasnt worked with any applet I've ever tried.

It runs the Netbeans and Eclipse IDE's just fine.
Either you've only ever tried applets you hacked together yourself or you haven't tried running anything since OpenJDK was out of it's early alpha stages.
By the way; who uses applets any more?

Re:It's Time To Move On.

[LordLimecat]

Either you've only ever tried applets you hacked together yourself ...By the way; who uses applets any more?

* Any Cisco web interface (generally REQUIRE official java 1.4.2
  * Dell's iDRAC
  * Assuming HP's iLO
  * Xerox EFI configuration interface

Actually, really any of the "enterprise" applets seem to have this issue-- they have the commonality that they are all terribly written and require ancient versions of official JRE.

Re:It's Time To Move On.

[UnknowingFool]

Thanks for nonsensical irrelevant and almost factually deficient rant.

Re:It's Time To Move On.

[toddestan]

It couldn't be features like ASLR and isolation control in Windows, with Apple taking years to catch up to the level of security that Microsoft included in Vista. Naw, couldn't be.

Re:It's Time To Move On.

[Lennie]

Solution:

Move as much as you can to webbased solutions, probably running on Intranet servers.

That can be managed on the server.

Every platform has a browser and they are more and more capable each release.

Re:It's Time To Move On.

[UnknowingFool]

Spoken like someone who was not there at beginning of Windows XP where there was a new virus of the week. But hide behind your anonymity, coward.

Dear Microsoft....

[DigitalSorceress]

Dear Microsoft,

Dear gods, please catch a ride on the clue train. Businesses don't want Windows 8 - the retraining necessary is just too costly, and all the cool features involving touch are useless for the cube farm drones.

So just stop your stupid shit, realize the Windows 7 is your nex XP, make sure that Windows 9 undoes a lot of the silly bullshit, and maybe you won't completely jump the shark.

Um also while I (fail to) have your attention - the Ribbon is still stupid. Stop wasting my screen real estate and go back to proper menus. // yeah I know it's a pipe dream, but I needed to rant and rage.

Re:Dear Microsoft....

[Cley Faye]

You're very wrong when you say "all the cool features involving touch are useless for the cube farm drones."

After having played with a surface tablet and an "embedded" windows 8 computer (those things that combine the computer and the screen), I can tell you this about the touch features: they are broken by design, gets in the way of doing things (even moving a file is more complicated than using a mouse, and why doesn't the keyboard pop up when hitting a textbox?), and as such are useless for everyone, not just the cube farm drones.

Re:Dear Microsoft....

[savuporo]

Dear Microsoft,

Please make Windows 9 touch only, do not give anyone any menu, use the well known principle of most surprise for the user interface design, break all possible APIs, come up with another Uncommon Language Runtime, force me log into everything with the same username and password security be damned, put Bing on the way of actually getting to internet and if you could Ribbon me another two three screenfuls, all would be dandy.

Only by implementing these urgent measures will you guarantee your local fanbase of 2 people will stay very loyal. And the rest can move on to better things and world will be a better place.

Thanks,
Your local detractor.

Re:Dear Microsoft....

[PrimaryConsult]

I've successfully gotten die-hard MS Office users to use OpenOffice precisely because it had menus rather than the stupid ribbon. The Oracle branding helped, and I think the Apache one probably would be just as effective.

Re:Dear Microsoft....

[LordLimecat]

and all the cool features involving touch are useless for the cube farm drones.

Powershell 4.0 and 5.0, however, are not, nor is HyperV.

Sort of amazing that a supposedly technical community thinks that the only thing different about Windows 8 is the GUI.

Re:Dear Microsoft....

[Richy_T]

And, of course, these are unavailable on 7 for purely technical reasons.

Re:Dear Microsoft....

[JDAustin]

I still use Excel 2003 for 90% of my excel work as I still have several custom toolbars that cannot be recreated w/ the ribbon. Being able to do many repeated functions w/ one click makes a world of difference.

Re:Dear Microsoft....

[PRMan]

I like the ribbon for one reason only. You can apply 5-6 settings at once and get a visual image of what it's going to look like. That saves a lot of time vs previous Office versions.

Re:Dear Microsoft....

[The MAZZTer]

The problem I have for Windows 8 is that the keyboard DOES pop up when hitting a textbox... when I have a hardware keyboard attached.

That said, I am developing a touch-friendly web app, so as a cube farm drone, touch is very useful for me. :)

Re:Dear Microsoft....

[Cley Faye]

Ooooh I only used the touch interface without a physical keyboard, that might explain things... ;)

Re:Dear Microsoft....

[Nkwe]

Powershell is worthless. HyperV is great.

PS is worthless because, in order to do anything useful, you need to fire up visual studio. Give me a gnu userland any day.

Um... PowerShell has nothing to do with Visual Studio. In fact (among other things), PowerShell lets you easily script against the native .NET libraries without having to compile code.

Re:Dear Microsoft....

[BaronM]

I wouldn't go so far as "useless", but I'd say powershell would be a lot more useful if I could count on having the AD and Exchange cmdlets available. As it is, many of my admin scripts are tied to my workstation due to dependencies.

Or, the answer is I'm an idiot who doesn't know the right way to package and distribute powershell scripts.

Re:Dear Microsoft....

[symbolset]

Oracle branding helped, really? That surprises me.

Re:Dear Microsoft....

[Grishnakh]

Dear Microsoft,
Dear gods, please catch a ride on the clue train. Businesses don't want Windows 8 - the retraining necessary is just too costly, and all the cool features involving touch are useless for the cube farm drones.
So just stop your stupid shit, realize the Windows 7 is your nex XP, make sure that Windows 9 undoes a lot of the silly bullshit, and maybe you won't completely jump the shark.

Dear DigitalSorceress,

Please see our raised middle finger, aimed in your direction. We don't care what businesses (or consumers) want; they'll take what we give them, whether they like it or not. We don't care about their retraining costs, or how much the Windows 8 UI affects productivity. We want to make everyone used to our new UI so that we can sell more Windows Phones and become dominant in that market. If businesses don't like that, too bad. What are they going to do, convert their entire MS-based infrastructure (including Exchange/Outlook, Office, Sharepoint, AD, etc.) to something else? Bwahahahaha! Your naivety is really quite amusing.

Stop complaining and learn to like Windows 8, the Ribbon, and anything else we deign to provide to you. We know you're not going to bother to switch to anything else.

-- Microsoft

Re:Dear Microsoft....

[Grishnakh]

That's rather optimistic thinking there. Businesses haven't switched away from MS yet, despite all the dumb stuff they've done, so I'm quite sure they could do all those things you listed there, and businesses would continue to buy their crap.

Re:Dear Microsoft....

[LordLimecat]

Im not sure you understand how commercial software works. Theres no technical reason that the features in any particular software, version n+1, couldnt be backported-- except for the fact that a lot of the time the whole point is that new features require additional work and additional funding.

And for the record, Powershell 4 actually IS backported to Win7... not sure about Powershell 5, as its still in RC.

Re:Dear Microsoft....

[LordLimecat]

PS is worthless because, in order to do anything useful, you need to fire up visual studio.

Yea, thats basically entirely false. I use it every day in managing a network, including our storage and printing infrastructure. I do 50% of my work in the console, 30% in notepad++, and 20% in an IDE like PowerGUI or Powershell ISE.

Visual studio doesnt even work with Powershell-- Im not sure where you're getting your info, but its terribly incorrect.

Re:Dear Microsoft....

[LordLimecat]

You CAN do AD stuff without the AD cmdlets, but it ends up being sort of like VBS. Generally you will need RSAT.

Simple solution would be to deploy it with GPO.

Re:Dear Microsoft....

[shutdown -p now]

Visual studio doesnt even work with Powershell

It does now, though this is a third party extension (albeit based on Microsoft's own Python Tools - yay open source).

Re:Dear Microsoft....

[mwvdlee]

Oracle is a famous and well-respected brand for anybody who hasn't a clue what they actually produce.

Re:Dear Microsoft....

[mwvdlee]

Hate to admit it, but having recently had to use both LibreOffice and Word (2010) and I strongly prefer the ribbon over the two-rows-of-tiny-indistinguishable-icons.
The ribbon may offer less functionality, atleast I don't have to search for basic functionality.

Fact is, if you want to do complex things in either, your most productive "user interface" is Google.
Word's ribbon is basically a narrow and deep organization of features, LO/OO is wide and shallow. Neither one makes finding advanced features easy.

I'd wager there are actually very few true power users. Most daily users just use a small subset of regular features. The problem with the ribbon is that each of these users has atleast one feature in their small subset of features, that has been made harder to get to (I'm looking at you, keep-lines-together and custom-table-of-content).

Re:Dear Microsoft....

[PrimaryConsult]

Precisely. The Oracle splash screen was the most important "feature" when trying to pitch an MS Office replacement to the type of people who only buy brand name groceries.

Re:Dear Microsoft....

[Grishnakh]

For servers or desktops? Linux has long been dominant for things like webservers; that's nothing new. It's seen some use for other server duties too thanks to Samba. But it's not so easy to replace things like Sharepoint or Exchange or AD servers with it. And then desktops are another issue entirely.

Re:Dear Microsoft....

[LordLimecat]

It is not as simple as that. I dont recall the exact issue (i think its really wonky/bad intellisense), but suffice it to say you're far better off using Powershell ISE, PowerGUI, or Powershell Studio.

Either way, the idea that you even need an IDE for Powershell is as dumb as claiming that bash requires the use of Eclipse.

Re:Dear Microsoft....

[shutdown -p now]

You don't need an IDE for a day-to-day use of PowerShell, of course (as you rightly note, if it did, it would be a failure of a shell). But it's also used to write lengthy scripts, just as bash. And for those, having something that is more akin to a developer tool can be very helpful.

The extension I linked to is still in early stages of development and the guy is working hard on it. I've no doubt that it has a lot of quirks at the moment, but it's also improving really fast - to the point that some people inside MS have noticed.

Re:Dear Microsoft....

[Richy_T]

That's largely the point. Microsoft use non-core improvements to drive OS upgrades even when the only reason that those features don't run on older OSs is due to something as trivial as an OS check. Indeed, many people have been successful in backporting stuff from one version of Windows to another even though that's not supported by Microsoft.

This leads to all sorts of problems when people are dependent on features or bugs from that old OS and all sorts of problems for Microsoft as they try and carry those features and bugs forward into their new OSs to maintain compatibility.

Software should only be limited to OS by technical requirements, not marketing requirements.

Re:Dear Microsoft....

[david_thornley]

Oracle produces many wonderful things, the strangest and most wonderful being their pricing. With a lack of clear guidelines, it exists in a quantum superposition of "lots more expensive" and "whole lots more expensive".

Re:Dear Microsoft....

[Curate]

The problem I have for Windows 8 is that the keyboard DOES pop up when hitting a textbox... when I have a hardware keyboard attached.

Define "hitting a textbox". Do you mean touch it (assuming you have a touch screen), click it with the mouse, tab to it using the keyboard, ...? In a set-up with both a touch screen and a physical keyboard attached, which is common in a lot of new laptops, if you "touched" a textbox then I think it's reasonable for Windows to assume you want to continue touching rather than switch to keyboard input. But if your set-up has no touch capability at all, then yeah, it's dumb to ever see an on-screen keyboard.

Naturally, they've done it before

[Todd Knarr]

This is just an extension of the kind of coerced upgrade Microsoft's attempted before. With Vista and then with Win7, when they didn't take off on their own MS tried to force the issue by making the latest versions of IE and DirectX and such only available for Vista/7, not XP. This is the same thing: "Upgrade to Win8 or take the heat for running a vulnerable OS.". Thing is, it'll backfire the same way the "no latest DirectX on XP" did. Win7's such a large base that developers can't afford to write code that won't run on it, so they won't be able to use the new Win8-only safe functions. Which means applications will remain vulnerable on Win8, just like on Win7 where they also run.

Re:Naturally, they've done it before

[symbolset]

Somehow the very same people who call Android "fragmented" are quite fine with this kind of arbitrarily forced fragmentation. The latest Chrome, Firefox, OpenGL are available on 99% of the Windows installed base, and 80% of the vastly more numerous mainly mobile other platforms as well. The latest IE and DirectX? 12% of Windows only, less than 6% of the installed base in active use. Is it any wonder web developers have come to ignore IE, game developers are shifting to OpenGL? It doesn't matter how good it is if only one in 20 people can use it, and the competing platform gives you 9 in 10.

Don't Tell Me This

[Nom du Keyboard]

I don't want to hear this. I just finished the migration from XP to Win7.
Do not want to go through that again for another 6 years.

Re:Don't Tell Me This

[symbolset]

Somewhere along the line you said "we must migrate, losing most of our apps, business data formats, device support, UI familiarity. Let's migrate to the one platform we know for sure will make us do it again." Don't expect anybody to cry for you when you have to do it again. You knew, and you chose it.

Re:Don't Tell Me This

[Anonymous Coward]

UI familiarity

Given the recent history of both gnome and KDE, I'm not sure this point has as much weight as it once did....

To be fair, windows 8 takes UI redesign and failure to a whole new epic level of failure.

Re:Don't Tell Me This

[symbolset]

If you want to, you can choose the old UI.

Is security a feature?

[Glasswire]

The interesting question is: should an OS vendor be able to sell a later generation of OS as "more secure" than a previous one as a feature to induce users to migrate to it, (clearly Microsoft's position on Win 8.1 vs Win 7 ) or does it have a responsibility to make all released product as reasonably secure as it can based on what it knows to and define features as capabilities, performance, etc outside of security?
I think it's fair for Microsoft to tout improvements like more secure kernel design or other elements that are core architectural advantages of a new OS (which cannot reasonably be replicated in earlier versions) but limiting fixes to common libraries, present in old and new OS, which have been found to be insecure, that could be patched for minimal effort in the old OS, to create an artificial distinction between old and new is not a security feature difference, it's a churlish forcing function. Win 8.1 is not better on security than Win 7 if the part of that difference depends on selectively responding to vulnerabilities.
Ironically, toward the end of it's life, XP got better support than Vista, because a Vista was a short-lived, poorly received follow-on that was quickly succeeded by Win 7. I'll predict that 3 years from now, after Win Next (9.0 or what ever) has been shipping for a while, the install base of Win 7 will still be far higher than that of Win 8.x and support (Microsoft and 3rd party drivers/apps) will be much better for Win 7 than it will be for Win 8.x. No doubt Microsoft will say it's most secure OS at that time will be Win 9.x but if it stopped providing critical patches to the second most popular OS way back in 2014, there's going to be trouble. (Anybody want to bet Microsoft at some point will be providing patches to vulnerabilities in Win 7 that they DON'T bother to do for Win 8.x because no one will care about "Vista-Next" anymore?)

Re:Is security a feature?

[symbolset]

Should they be allowed? Yes. They should be allowed to sell almost anything. Should they be able? People buy stuff for reasons other than it is good stuff. Whether or not they should is a tricky question. The question of whether they should be able to sell it is equally tricky. Whether they should ethically in turns leave their legacy customers vulnerable is equally tricky. A longer term of security support investment implies a higher cost that must be matched with a higher price.

Re:Is security a feature?

[Grishnakh]

Yes, they absolutely should be able to sell later generation OSes as "more secure", and totally ignore security exploits on older versions.

If customers are dumb enough to continue to patronize such a vendor, they deserve whatever happens to them.

Re:Is security a feature?

[shutdown -p now]

This is not a patch for any known security exploit. It is preventive hardening of the code that may potentially have exploit due to use of C functions that may result in a buffer overrun, like strcpy.

Re:Is security a feature?

[Glasswire]

Same thoughts apply to hardening exploitable code. If it's common to old and new OS and easily fixed (vulnerability is lessened) then it probably should be updated.

Re:Is security a feature?

[shutdown -p now]

The cost of doing such things is usually much lower on the code that's already experiencing heavy churn than it is on something that has been largely laid to rest a while ago. Trivial or not, every such change comes with a cost for code review, testing of the code (can you imagine the Windows test matrix? don't forget localization), testing of the update procedure (incl. from various combinations of previous updates) etc. On the other hand, if you're going to ship an update touching that many bits for another reason, then that cost is already there.

BTW, note that we're still not talking about "exploitable code" here. Just because a code uses strcpy doesn't automatically make it exploitable - it's perfectly possible to use it right, it's just easier to make a mistake, and you wouldn't know either way without a code audit, so it's cheaper to put range checks everywhere.

Re:Two bits to say here

[Anonymous Coward]

I believe that the updates have not been applied to Windows XP. There was a point in time when Win7 was being updated but XP was not getting those updates.
The only significance I'm seeing in this is that WIn7 is still within its support period. Still, this could make some sense if the new security implementations actually rely on technology foundations that are actually built into Windows 8 but which are not a part of Windows 7. That's one possibility that would make some sense.
Unfortunately, Microsoft may feel an incentive to categorize updates as being appropriate only for Windows 8, simply in hopes of driving people away from older operating systems.

Rant: It's not like updating only Windows 8 is sufficiently convincing to get people to move from Windows 7 to Windows 8. Even if Microsoft refused to fix a terrible flaw threatening Windows 7 machines, that doesn't mean I would worsen the situation by going to Windows 8.1 or, even worse, Windows 8. Like Vista, Windows 8 (including 8.1) is condemned to be something that should be skipped. Hopefully Windows 9 will be less useless.

Windows Tax

[BoRegardless]

Pay the upgrade or you deal with the "other" costs.

Apple is pushing the envelope: Free OS updates. Works on their hardware back 4-5 years.

My suspicion is MS, likewise, must get into the hardware business & become vertical.

Re:Windows Tax

[BoRegardless]

"14% of Windows personal computers were on Windows 8", noted by Tim Cook vs "51% of Macs on Mavericks"

Heavily fractured ecosystems are difficult for both OS & App suppliers. What is "working" in the real world.

Where are we going?

Re:Windows Tax

[bondsbw]

That means about 12.3% of computers are Windows 8 vs. 3.7% Mavericks. So take from that what you will.

Re:Windows Tax

[Belial6]

That was my first thought on the numbers. For all of the "Everyone is now buying Macs." that we keep getting astroturfed with, OSX market share is still far closer to that of Desktop Linux than it is Windows adoption. (Of course, we have to limit the linux market share to "Desktop" because it would otherwise completely eclipse OSX market share.)

Re:Windows Tax

[ron_ivi]

My suspicion is MS, likewise, must get into the hardware business & become vertical.

Suspicion?

That's been pretty obvious for a while.

There's even a word in the tech community coined from how Microsoft resorts to competing with its hardware partners: http://gigaom.com/2006/07/22/z... "Microsoft Partners, You Been Zunked".

For handheld devices, they've been doing since at least 2003: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2... .

And Surface is obviously a sign that Microsoft sees laptop vendors like HP and Dell as their direct competitors now.

Re:Windows Tax

[amxcoder]

Yeah, and to add to that, as anecdotal from my own survey of everyone that I see running a mac, about 80% or more of them in the business realm, are also running Windows on their Mac... either in the form of boot camp (dual boot), or parallels/VMWare virtual machines to get a lot of work done on them that they can't do on OSX for various reasons, mostly because they need to run software that is windows based.

Re:Windows Tax

[harryjohnston]

http://basicinstructions.net/b...

Article is dumb.

[Kaenneth]

These are mostly new functions added for Windows 8, they don't exist in the Windows 7 SDK.

If you wrote your programs to use them, they wouldn't work on 7, only 8, which everyone seems to hate.

If MS added them to a patch for 7, there would then be 2 fragmented versions of Windows 7, so if a customer calls you asking if your software works on Windows 7, you would have to ask if they have installed KB######, and they would say 'I don't know.', or they might lie and say yes, or no, and you'll have to walk them through checking installed Windows updates...

Re:Article is dumb.

[msobkow]

Have you ever noticed the runtime libraries that application installers check for and auto-install while installing the application?

Is there some reason you couldn't do the same for these magical Win7 patch libraries/DLLs?

Re:Article is dumb.

[shutdown -p now]

StrSafe.h has been around since XP, actually. It can also be used header-only, with all the functions declared as inline.

Nope, not gonna downgrade to Windows 9

[penguinoid]

Sorry Microsoft, people use your product for two reasons: 1) it's well entrenched 2) it's easy to use and familiar. If you want them to switch from win 7 to win 8, you have to do it by ruining the usability of win 7, not its security.

Re:Nope, not gonna downgrade to Windows 9

[Billly Gates]

Actually Windows 9 will have HUGE impact on games as the DirectX will have mantle like performance where CPU waits on redraws are near gone. Trim in raid and PCI ssd is nice too and cortana ... Well we will see but I always wanted a system like the enterprise on star trek with voice.

Re:Inside The Giant Spider's Den, hacking at webs

[meerling]

Somebody please mod that AC idiot offtopic, and maybe a few other things as well, and let the rest of us get back to ragging on microsoft for not doing the security patches on win7.

Amazed

[asmkm22]

I'm just amazed that no matter how horrible Microsoft handles their Windows dominance, there is literally no competitor ready to pick up the slack. Open Source is largely a joke when it comes to most businesses, and Apple seems more interested in the hipster and grandma crowd than actual networks. Where is the competition? It's like Microsoft has managed to reach a natural position of "too big to fail." Is it just because the young startups are more interested in creating the next Cloud Service (tm) or Flappy Birds? Is it a funding issue, where you can't get VC support on something that won't show a massive return in under a year? What's the deal?

Re:Amazed

[Funk_dat69]

Why would anyone new enter a market that has clearly peaked? Smartphones and tablets are replacing PCs for web surfing, video watching, social media, email and some gaming. You basically have your enthusiast gamers (not really that big of a market) content creators and developers left.
And I don't see how you call open source a joke. The only thing funny is that some people still look to Microsoft or Apple to tell them what technology to use. Why?
Windows 8 is a very confused product, reflecting the confusion of it's parent company.

Who needs this crap? Give Linux a chance. On the server it's a no-brainer. On the desktop, it takes some getting used to, but it is more than adequate for what you need from desktop OS.

Re:Amazed

[asmkm22]

My clients range from property management to law firms to multi-million dollar construction contractors. Every single one of them has one or more bits of software that won't run on Linux. Quickbooks, Sage products, Office (to properly open files their clients send), medical software, etc, all depends on Windows. "More than adequate" simply doesn't cut it.

Re:Amazed

[Attila Dimedici]

Let's see, you have clients who need software that only runs on Windows...and you ask why no competitor has come out with an OS to compete with Windows? Um maybe the answer is because there are so many business applications that only run on Windows?

Re:Amazed

[Funk_dat69]

There are small business accounting software applications for Linux. Now maybe your or your clients prefer ones that are not on Linux, but that doesn't mean others are not satisfied with them when running Linux.

Check out GnuCash or Lazy8. Also quickbooks online works with Linux.

Re:Amazed

[Anonymous Coward]

GUIs on Linux are at at better advantage because they get to pick and choose what works and what doesn't, based on what Microsoft attempts to do first.

I haven't seen that kind of trend in the OSS world. Linux desktop environments are usually something between Windows and Mac, and just when all the bugs are ironed out, the whole damn thing is completely rewritten from scratch. Rinse and repeat.

Re:Amazed

[Belial6]

I am still confounded by the fact that any businesses send or are willing to accept files other than PDF or CSV. Really I get that there are some extreamly unusual cases where something else might be needed, but for 99.999% of all cases anything that could be sent as an MSOffice file would be better served as a PDF or CSV file.

Re:Amazed

[TapeCutter]

It's not about what the client prefers, it about the system the client already owns. Business only cares about two things when they look at competing software with similar functionality, how much and how long. Many businesses get stuck in a time warp when backwards compatibility is broken (eg:IE6, Python, PHP). IE6 aside, this is actually a strength of Windows and one of the (non-evil) reasons why they were able to dominate the market in the first place, overall they maintain a much higher degree of backwards compatibility than (say) solaris.

Sure if you have one PC that you do your accounts on then the expense and time to swap may be trivial. However let's take an example from my own workplace that has nothing to do with windows, we run a CVS repository that has 5-6 large applications and about 30 different product/version combinations stretching all the way back to the 90's. This giant spaghetti ball is wrapped in python scripts to make it comprehensible. There are significant organisational benefits to be had by switching our ~25 devs to subversion, git, clearcase, or any other modern revision control system. However there are 2 perfectly rational reasons why we won't do that, namely time and money.

Re:Amazed

[asmkm22]

PDF's are common, but I never see CSV's in the wild. Anyway, the real problem is the stuff like Sage products, or other industry-specific software like Lexis Nexus or Time Matters, or medical records stuff. There's basically zero Linux support with the big players.

Re:Amazed

[asmkm22]

And if a strong competitor were to show up and actually offer an alternative, I'm sure the programs would be ported. My point is that I find it amazing how Windows has been strongly criticized for a solid 10 years, and there has been zero competition or market influence to challenge Microsoft.

Re:Amazed

[Attila Dimedici]

Linux is a strong competitor (or as strong as any competitor can be if no one ports their software to it).

Re:Amazed

[Belial6]

Is any of this being sent in MSOffice format though?

Re:Inside The Giant Spider's Den, hacking at webs

[Anonymous Coward]

tl;dr

Anyway, I only take me advice from APK.

Windows 8 would be fine without that new UI

[Joe_Dragon]

Windows 8 would be fine without that new UI.

Enterprise users are on 7 and moving to 8 now when windows 9 maybe hear next year and some have just moved to windows 7?

While you get 3rd party tools to make windows 8 like windows 7 in Enterprise useing them can be iffy.

Re:Still sticking with XP...

[asmkm22]

Probably best that you didn't bother upgrading if it would have taken you 2 to 3 days to learn the differences between XP and 7...

Hitting The Geek's Berzerk Button

[westlake]

From a post to the The Register:

NumptyScrub :

The fact that these extra functions are aimed at developers, and as far as I can tell are intended to provide bounds checked variables (e.g. protected against buffer overflow shenanigans) could be cause for some concern. It does not count as a fix of existing broken functionality though, so I don't see how it would qualify as MS ''ending support'' for Win7 if they chose not to add these extras to all existing OSs of theirs.

Redmond is patching Windows 8 but NOT Windows 7, say security bods

Re:Still sticking with XP...

[Mashiki]

Yep, Windows 7 and XP are so fundamentally different in terms of the UI that it *might* have taken you all of 15 minutes to learn the differences.

And of course if it was Windows 8, it might have taken you all of 10 minutes to install a UI shell which would have made the experience exactly the same. Then again if your internet is the equivalent of a string between two cans, I can see it taking 2-3 days to find this out.

Re:Giant Spider's Blood

[ledow]

TL;DR

(but wrote you off as a nutter anyway)

Re: Two bits to say here

[binarylarry]

Hopefully Google, Apple and Canonical find a way to replace Microsoft products before Windows 9 ships.

My explaination

[yuhong]

Well, it is relatively cheap to do things like this during development of a new major version but relatively expensive to do a security update or hotfix, so they need proof there is actually an exploitable bug, though they will often review surrounding code and do additional fixes when developing security updates.

Do they still sell windows 7?

[nurb432]

If not, that is what you get for using out of date software. Get your wallet out and climb on board the upgrade train, or accept the situation and be happy.

Sarcasm aside, who honestly expects a company to support non-products ? I dont.

Re:Do they still sell windows 7?

[Belial6]

Really? I expect every reputable company to do that. They don't tend to support them forever, but if they drop support as soon as a new version comes out, I don't trust buying the new product from them.

Re:Do they still sell windows 7?

[Anonymous Coward]

Sarcasm aside, who honestly expects a company to support non-products ? I dont.

Windows 7 SP1 doesn't go End of Life until 7 months and a week from now. Yes, I expect it to be supported.

Re:Do they still sell windows 7?

[ThatsMyNick]

Yes, they still do sell win 7.

Re:Do they still sell windows 7?

[shutdown -p now]

Microsoft publishes timelines for various degrees of support for all its products, and just because a product is no longer sold (which I doubt is actually true of Win7) doesn't mean it's out of support.

The reason why this is really a non-story is that the change is not to fix any particular security issue, it's just generic hardening of code. It's literally the Windows equivalent of replacing strcpy with strlcpy in a bunch of code, just in case there's a heretofore unknown way to trigger a buffer overrun.

Squeeze blood from the rocks!

[Your Average Joe]

I say de-support all OSes but Windows Server 2012r2 and Windows 8.1 x64!

Force all users to buy the latest OS and use it! I am sure the shareholders will LOVE that card trick.

Re:That is scummy.

[jones_supa]

Nerd rage, the funniest form of rage.

Re: Two bits to say here

[SuperTechnoNerd]

Hopefully Google, Apple and Canonical find a way to replace Microsoft products before Windows 9 ships.

Out of the frying pan, into the fire..

Re: Two bits to say here

[symbolset]

1.2 billion smart devices shipped without Windows last year, and more than that number will ship this year, making over 2.5 billion devices shipped in only two years and likely still in use. There are only 7 billion humans and two thirds of them are too impoverished, young, old or uninterested to be in the market for such things. So this event you are hoping for appears to have already happened.

Re:Maybe...

[symbolset]

You tell 'em! "Get over it. It's not like you have a choice. We have all your data locked up in proprietary apps on our proprietary system so there is no escape. Your helpless pleas only bring us joy. We have no compassion for you, you feeble wretch. Hahahahaha."

Re:Open source many eyes is pure BULLSHIT PR

[Poingggg]

First: how long would this have lasted when the source had not been open? Three years? Four? Ten?
Second: The article you mention is from 2008, SIX years old so no longer relevant,
Third: Open Source is not ideal, nor is Closed Source. But WHEN a fault is found in OSS, as a rule it will be fixed. Failures may exist in CSS for long times, and be exploited, without anyone but the exploiter knowing about it. And when such a failure is exposed, you have to wait if and when the maker of the software fixes it.
So, OSS is, as a rule, safer then CSS. Maybe Linux is not THE answer, Windows should not even be asked for.

Patching time

[ArchieBunker]

You do realize that with paying customers you can't just crank out a patch overnight and hope it doesn't affect any other piece of software. Of course when a Linux patch breaks something all you have is neckbeards sending you nasty emails. Microsoft is open to lawsuits and contract issues.

Re:Patching time

[Grishnakh]

Microsoft is open to lawsuits and contract issues.

No, it's not.

Re:Patching time

[msobkow]

How, pray tell, does delivering a new DLL with new APIs "break" existing code? Microsoft has added those APIs for writing safer software; they didn't modify existing APIs to do it. But in order to "run on Windows", developers can't use those new APIs without ignoring the huge number of Windows 7 boxen out there, never mind the old Vista boxes.

This makes sense...

[Darinbob]

No, they should not consider Windows 7 a "downlevel" release. I just bought a NEW computer with Windows 7 on it for a relative, and had to pay a premium to get W7 instead of W8. I don't need a repeat of the XP debacle! Windows 7 is the MAIN operating system from Microsoft today, Windows 8 is only a trial balloon. Since I did pay for W7 I expect FULL support for its lifetime not some half assed job designed to force people to upgrade prematurely.

The advice from the computer repair shop my relative used this very week was to get W7 and avoid W8. This is not just some disgruntled people avoiding W8, it is very much mainstream.

Re:Still sticking with XP...

[Darinbob]

I take it you don't have to support an older relative who lives a long distance away who calls you up every time an icon changes location. If Windows is only for the experts then it should be labeled as such, and leave Linux for the beginners.

How about the delete problem

[Murdoch5]

Windows 7 is the only operating system I have ever used that has trouble deleting information from the Operating System. I just had to deal with being told that a file / folder didn't exist and couldn't be removed. This kind of issue, even though small, shows the lack of refinement and the false young nature of the Operating System. In contrast Linux is the adult in the Operating System war, I'm not saying that just to blow smoke or be a Linux fan boy, I'm saying that because when I run into issues in Windows, I don't run into them in Linux.

Re:I absolutely HATE to say this but... apk

[Opportunist]

MS is the IBM of the new century. No, really.

IBM was the "computer company" up 'til about the 1980s. You could simply not ignore IBM if you had anything to do with computers in a way that goes beyond hobbyist interests. You had a company and that company used computers? You had IBM. You might have had some other tools and toys, but the core of your computer system, the backbone, the framework and pretty much everything that was relevant to actually getting and keeping your computer system running was IBM.

This of course led to some serious hubris by IBM. The same "my way or the highway" attitude you can see in MS today. We tell you what you buy and you will eat our shit and call it chocolate fudge. I guess it goes without say that this didn't really sit too well with the various companies, but, well, what can you do? If you need computers in your company, you can't ignore IBM.

Times changed and PCs came, and IBM ignored them as petty machines that don't fit their paradigm of the mainframe - terminal ideal. They did enter the PC market halfheartedly, but when they noticed that the PC is here to stay, they tried to regain control over it. The MCA illustrates this very well. It was a bus vastly superior to the (then standard) ISA bus. Their licensing practice ignored completely the emerging PC clone market, though, the market that became more and more important as small companies and private people wanted to use PCs and considered money a deciding factor for the choice of computers. Add that companies so far using IBM wanted to get out of their stranglehold and one can easily see why the "clones" became more and more popular and why a bus that was at least on par with the later very popular PCI bus never became popular or widely supported by third party manufacturers.

MS is now following that "my way or the highway" hubris. I guess they need to learn it, too, that you can only force people to drink your cool-aid as long as they don't have an alternative.

Re:This is not news

[DaHat]

Liar.

http://windows.microsoft.com/e...

Duh

[koan]

Microsoft doesn't want another Windows XP, I'll wager they are after a 5 year turn around or perhaps even faster.

$'s.

Re: Two bits to say here

[binarylarry]

Yep but not on the Desktop. :(

I don't see the desktop disappearing either, although its role has definitely changed.

Re:Still sticking with XP...

[Mashiki]

I take it you don't have to support an older relative who lives a long distance away who calls you up every time an icon changes location. If Windows is only for the experts then it should be labeled as such, and leave Linux for the beginners.

Nope, they died last year at the age of 86. Until then I did, and that distance was 3200 miles. Then again, I found that explaining to them before hand that the "icons change" and why they change, and how, makes it much easier.

In the Microsoft boardroom...

[edibobb]

There's GOT to be a way we can get people to buy Windows 8!

Re:Still sticking with XP...

[Billly Gates]

Yeah that's real secure. FYI your chrome is not even sandboxed on it because the kernel is so ancient.

Re:Still sticking with XP...

[Billly Gates]

Except that programs are running faster on Windows XP than on Windows 7, because the OS take less CPU resources.

Bang! Idiot destroyed.

Yeah on a Pentium IV. On a modern i5 the same code will run faster as a new kernel supports better smp, page swap, ram buffers, and the runtimes use all your CPU instructions. Not part as XP had to run on Pentium IIs.

Re:Still sticking with XP...

[Billly Gates]

I can't find anything to fix. 7 is better and has more features and takes advantage of modern hardware

Supply and demand

[TapeCutter]

I am still confounded

Aside from the fact that spreadsheet formulas cannot (easily) be ported to different spreadsheets via csv, there's a very simple supply and demand explanation, client says: "We only use MS office, that's the way we have done business for over a decade, it's what we are set up to handle now, if you can't deliver we will have to find someone who can". - Actually in the "real world" they would probably just laugh their asses off and walk away.

obig car analogy: It's like a mechanic saying I can't work on your Mazda because it's not a Ford.

Re:Open source many eyes is pure BULLSHIT PR

[TapeCutter]

Your confusing transparency with vigilance, in my 25yrs experience working in commercial software houses, I have rarely seen anyone attempt to review, debug, or modify OSS code, they just plug it in to their own application and wait for a patch to be released if something goes wrong, which is exactly what they do with CSS. Why? - Because as soon as you apply your homespun patch to the source you have forked the OSS source and you now have yet another ball of spaghetti to maintain. The unspoken principle of "you touched the source, so you own the problem" comes into force.

Re: Two bits to say here

[Lehk228]

more likely the fix will come from Valve

FixIT or ForgetIT by Software companies is typical

[OldHawk777]

Simple Reality: It is profitable to release new improved [undocumented bugs] software to buyers.
It is costly to fix software bugs for free, because old buggy products are a an excellent free marketing tool.

HookWare is good for US and always good for companies and greedy.

Re: Two bits to say here

[unixisc]

Apple already has it. It's just that their biz model requires that it run only on their boxes.

Re: Two bits to say here

[symbolset]

Remember when desktop computing was bigger than pocket computing? I do. But then I remember when personal computers were new too - back before there was an IBM PC as such. Things change.

Re:Ethics? Microsoft? Hahahhaha...

[dumb kid]

I'm a Mac guy, but Apple's license agreement for OSX has the same kind of limitations on liability and fitness for use.