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MSN Lists 10 Dumb Things NT Users Do
Stephen Moore writes "10 Dumb Things Windows NT Users Do. By MSN. Strangely they don't mention buying Windows NT in the first place. I particularly like
7. Forgetting the password
(Look for their suggestion here)
and
9. Applying service packs unwisely.
This brings new meaning to the Hack PC Week story.
Here is
the url.
Cheers"
This guy is basically an idiot.
1. Hardware compatibility. Followup in this month's issue of NoShit Magazine.
4. No ERD. I'll bet that everyone who is reading this has a recent (less than 1 week) backup of their system. It is basically the same thing here.
6. Enable the GUEST account? Is this guy on acid or what. Every checklist on hardening NT has at or near the top disabling this account. If you want to share across machines you need local accounts or a domain account if you are running a domain.
7. Give yourself admin privileges for your everyday account? This is insane. If you do that and let a virus/macro/trojan by you, it has the machine. Your everyday use account should be as a USER (or POWER USER) and you should just remember the admin account password, or lock it in a safe.
9. Service Packs (and HotFixes) are pretty much mandatory and I think it is highly irresponsible to suggest that you don't apply them, espcecially if you are running a small number of machines. There have been some bugs that existed in Service Packs, but they were primarily related to new ways of authentication in response to security vulnerabilities. These bit shops that were not careful in their deployment (and yes, M$ could have made it _much_ easier).
10. This was accurate at one time, but for the last year or more, all the cloning utilities update the SID. M$ even has an approved procedure. Interestingly, this is not an issue for existing flavors, but W2K uses the SID in the ActiveDirectory scheme and they must be unique.
I'm a Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer/Microsoft Certified Trainer. I instruct for one of the largest computer training companies in the world. I also run Linux...and MacOS...and BeOS...and AmigaOS... But I'm not here to debate the relative merits (or demerits) of an operating system because I've seen too many people complain about what they do not know about to know they're full of shit. But this guy scares me. Not only is he an MCSE, but Microsoft actually let him put that drivel on their page. I for one HATE paper MCSE's, because they take the relative value of the certification and kill it. I'm not saying he's one, but jeez! This guy, even though he claims to have used NT since 3.1 Advanced Server, says some pretty stupid shit:
1. To quote: "Windows NT has an abstraction layer between the hardware and the operating system. When a program wants access to a hardware device...it must go through this layer to do so. The purpose of this is security, and to ensure a bad application can't steal all resources from a given hardware device."
Yeah, right. Don't be a jackass. Yes, although the NT ARCHITECTURE is supposed to promote security (in many different contexts), the true purpose of the HAL is to make all hardware look the same to the microkernel. Therefore MS wouldn't have to use different source code every time NT was ported to a different platform. MS actually had the engineers code the prerelease versions of NT 3.1 on a MIPS box, and then PORT it to x86. NT's original premise was PORTABILITY...and that's where the HAL comes in. Now that all the other ports are gone (RIP Alpha...stupid MS) the only thing the HAL is good for is to maybe port W2K to IA-64? Who knows, but security ain't the issue here.
2. Here's another one: "If you install NT into the same partition, you'll end up sharing the \Program Files directory, which could be catastrophic for Internet Explorer, for instance. This is an easy one to avoid."
Whatever. Go to your NT box. Open that Program Files Directory. NT specific binaries are stored in a "Windows NT" subfolder. IE, specifically, is stored in %systemroot%\Program Files\Plus!\Microsoft Internet. When you install or upgrade a 9x machine (even with Plus!) with IE3/4/5, it installs to C:\Program Files\Internet Explorer. This guy's talking out of his ass. I've done dual boot 9x/NT boxes all day long. I DID, however, keep both copies of IE the same rev...for consistency's sake...:)
3. One more: "The key to ensuring your two Windows NT computers can communicate is to make sure the guest account in user manager is enabled. This is the account that is used when one computer connects to another, with relatively little security--the reason it is disabled by default."
Wha...WHAT?! Are you out of your freaking MIND?! One of the first things we teach in the classes is to keep Guest diabled. Why don't you just create a local user, put 'em in the appropriate ACL's for the share, use the "conenct as" option and be DONE with it...
There are more...but I gotta get back to work...:)
This guy says he's an MCSE? And MS puts his stuff up for the whole world to see? People like him make people like me look bad.
-Kevin, MCSE/MCP+I/MCT, MCP ID # 1198191
PS: Just to be fair...I do agree with him on the service pack issue...I don't use a newly released SP until it's been out in the field for a while. SP3, for instance, was an apology for SP2...:)
My posts don't reflect the opinion of my employer, and my employer's opinion doesn't influence the content of my posts.
Please. BeOS configures at least twice as easy as Windows NT does now. Networking configuration is abysmal in NT, whereas in BeOS it's pretty much one-stop shopping. It took me about fifteen minutes to install drivers and set them up correctly for my system under Windows; under BeOS, it took me all of two not only to set it up, but to get my dynamic IP and visit a couple of my favorite web sites.
As for the Linux crack, NT may be "easier," but what it lacks in luser-friendliness it makes up for in raw power and flexibility. Further, for any competent computer user, Linux actually isn't significantly harder than NT to set up.
I suppose I should be grateful; now the PR arm of Microsoft is viewing not only Linux, but BeOS, an operating system not even competing with Windows NT, never mind competing in the same class, and OS/2, an arguably dead operating system that is no longer supported by their parent, as targets for their FUD.
Microsoft must be running scared.
This is my favorite one of the entire bunch. Basically Windows DLL management is basically broken by design and should be tought as a prime example of how not to build a stable system. Consider the facts:
...
1) Every little (or bit) P.O.S. application can (and often will) overwrite system DLLs. I would not dare to overwrite libc.so on my system every time I install a new app.
2) You have very little control over where you go to find your libraries. Compare this to LD_LIBRARY_PATH where you can set exactly where you look for your libraries (thus giving you the ability to use different versions without harming each other).
This is a prime example where MS's design is fundamentally broken, but they turn it around and blame the user for not understanding the beartraps that lurk under the surface. Of course installing a service pack, then installing your app and then re-applying the service pack (to make sure that all your DLLs match) is not quite intuitive. IMHO, the only way to have a stable windows machine is to do the following:
1) Install the OS
2) Apply all necessary service packs
3) Install your apps
4) Re-apply the service packs
5) Don't touch the machine anymore
Anybody with half a brain should see right away that something is fundamentally wrong here. It's admirable (or rather quite daring) of MS's marketing machine to blame this on the user. If they would have desgined it right the first time, you wouldn't end up in DLL hell everytime you install something new