FYI I was skeptical with Windows 7 as well when I heard about it in the news when it was new too!
Obviously you are very well used to Windows XP at this point and things do change and that is a fact of life.
I am about to give a real life sample in a minute..
I remember when this feature came out with Vista. Boy, what a POS!! I had Vista on a laptop and I was working and finishing up school and my wife would not let me put Xp back on because the drivers were hard to find and not on the OEM website.
Low and behold my instructor told me what I could do with Instant search on Vista. In another class I had 6 files for a financial and inventory management project where 4 were excel files and 2 were word and I used Outlook to communicate with others to put the damn presentation together.
The company had 4 customers with data in 4 seperate files that each student made. So Windows Key + acme+ screws showed the exact excel spreadsheet for screws made. I was the leader who needed the document in word so as I wrote and referenced each point I hit the Windows Key + x to bring out each file. With aero side by side it was a snap to set up.
I hated change too, but I thought ok now Vista at least does have some highlights. I was like you and was skeptical with Windows 7. After a week the only thing I wondered is why didn't I switch earlier. XP seemed very antiquated.
For your challenge... I will whip your butt with instant search! You do not even need to type the whole thing. It is previously indexed and I can find all sorts of documents from the last 3 years in a faction of a second. It is not like XPs slow search either. I can find picture files too and not just launch quick and that is how I will win in such a contest.
When you get Windows 7 at work give this a try with the Windows key? After a week you will see Windows 7 is a decent Windows OS and a much needed upgrade.
Also it is not for stupid people. Secretaries and accountants and sales folks have tens of thousands of documents! They are the biggest fans as they get unreasonable requests to find something about some guy in a part you... back in 2011 halloween guy right?... for a contact. The indexing is really nice.My fiance class was one example where I had a ton of documents too.
Windows 7 does it better as it catagories it and with tab and enter you can switch without the mouse.
However, Windows 8.1 is now putting that feature back in. Also in Windows 7 it does not block everything out in full screen. So you can be reading a word document while you search for related things in that document etc.
It was handy when I was in college as I had a half dozen excel and word files for certain inventory management projects where I needed it linked together. I hated Vista with a passion! Still do! But with instant search it made me at least have second thoughts about wiping it for a 7 year old XP OS.
That was several years ago and it amazes me people are still cling to it like it is the best.
Clearly the operator of Lavabit received a national security letter or warrant which he objected to.
I would imagine (though don't know) that a warrant wasn't the issue. I don't know too many people who have an issue with respecting a warrant since that is, after all, due process. Law enforcement must go to a judge and convince the judge to issue the warrant based on the facts. The issue that most people have is the lack of a warrant in the vast majority of situations right now. I imagine that some gentlemen came knocking on Lavabit's doors, asked him to hand over the info, he asked to see their warrant and they said something to the effect of "we don't need a warrant!"
Warrant-backed searches are entirely acceptable and part of the process of law enforcement. Warrantless searches are a problem in just about every conceivable way.
(I assume I don't need to say that I have absolutely no clue of the specifics of this case and thus everything I'm posting is guesswork but, based on what's known, that guesswork is about as valid as anyone else's post...)
It is not the warrant per say.
The fact is this guy's customers are security minded and they know the NSA has a backdoor master key. So why should they do business with him anymore? He is not the only one who is losing business as a result?
Regardless of whether you feel it is right or wrong it is having a negative effect on his company's pocketbook. What really would be the point of using his service if it is going to be snopped on anyway?
Man, I wish slashdot would have ran that story I submitted. In Europe the article quotes over 50% are either cancelling their cloud contracts or reviewing them with US companies thanks to Prism!
While what you say has some truth, the part you leave out is that the attacks against Android were not against the linux kernel used by Android, but the Android specific parts. So, while while your numbers may be accurate as they quote Trendmicro, they misrepresent the reality. Just as a vulnerability in Firefox is not a linux vulnerability, even though Firefox ships with most linux distributions, likewise, a vulnerability found in the Google specific Android pieces does not make it a linux kernel vulnerability. If those pieces were tied directly into the kernel by the kernel developers, that would be different. But just like if I raise my Jeep and it becomes unstable when cornering, that doesn't mean it is a problem with all Jeeps, Google, modifying specific pieces of "linux" does not mean that the vulnerability is a problem with linux.
I think Hairy the reason is human psychology. Once actions are repeated it goes to the part of the brqin that deals with routines. Mess with the routine by changing the reflexes of XP UI, its colors, its outdated 3 layers of nested menus in Office 2k3, and you have resistence based on irrational fear of change. Users have invested so much into this way of thinking and routine that the arguement turns from not why Windows 7 is better, but why leave what works?
You mention benefits and the first thought is how do I downplay Hairys reasoning?. I watch restaurant impossible impossible on the food network. You wouldnt believe the resistence to change from owners when confronted. Worse chef Irvine puts fresh ingredients for dishes with many fans, yet older patrons want the the usual frozen and crappy version "Their usual."
Windows 95 used to do that and I forgot about that.
When I am on a Windows 7 if I am thinking of something I wrote 3 years ago I just hit th windows key and type acme sales 2010 and enter to find the documents. Beagle under Linux tried similiar functionalty.
I show all die hard XP users this and within 10 minutes they are hooked. I do not care about the menus as I am so hooked on instant search now that I cant live without it. Jumplists and aero snap make me a windows 7 diehard.
Sorry I lost faith in Linux after gnome 3. Windoes 8 might make me reconsider though:-)
Windows 7 for a crappy Windows OS really was the best version and to me even eclipsed XP.
Inaccurate analogy. More of me going into a deAlership with a 12 year old car with 300,000 miles and being all pissed and whine how I got a new transmission free of charge. What do you mean you wont build a new engine for free! Greedy cocksuckers waa waa!
Good riddence. Windows 7 is only $130. Folks are so afraid of change and the fud of win 7==vista sp 2 created all these XP ludditie afraid of change.
This is Slashdot where we like technology isn't it? Please tell me I am not alone?
FYI experts have agreed Windows 7 is the best OS from Redmond putout
It becomes annoying for us to not have html 5 with smooth graphics on our desktops and have our IPhones give us a smoother and better experience all because people hate change.
Webmasters are tired of IE 8 which is still the most popular browser in the IE family. This shows me the majority of XP users still have not discovered Firefox yet. Most importantly shows they fear change rather than really need it.
XP users like IE 6 ones negatively effect everyone as they slow progress.
All say time stops at june 2011 dont run any update after this date!! I had one copy sort of run with a rootkit. If it hibernates it freezes up as the anti circimvention drm panics. It cant boot into safe mode either.
I have not seen a single version of Windows 7 that works with updates turned on without side issues like not booting without a fixmbr if the battery goes dead etc
Thanks to the US export restrictions on encryption the Asians use ActiveX obtracities for banking and web shopping written in VB 6 with many designed for IE 6.
Many slashdotters ignorantly think the 10% of IE 6 users are all corps. They are almost all Chinese and Korean users. The good news is Xihnu and ebay are now updating their sites to work with IE 8.
What does that mean? Like the corps Linux and anything later than 2001 is a no go.
I swear that browser is more of a nightmare than Windows ever was for lockin.
IE 6 also is one the most popular browsers. Infact until this time last year it was the most popular browser as Chinese websites are still made to only work with IE 6.
All machines may suffer from malware. However with the Unix style of permissions, OS X and Linux are unlikely to suffer from true viruses. Trojans are far more likely. As for kernel attacks, you've never heard of the Blue Screen of Death? What world do you live in?
Not true.
Windows has the most secure kernel options available rivaling even OpenBSD and sitll has issues. Look up buffer overflows, priveldge escalation, heap spraying, and other techniques?
Just because you are a limited user does not mean something can't write something in a ram address of a root app or service and then execute? There are loopholes and ways with timing known as branching or breaching as SSL can be over run too.
Windows style permissions are VMS and more advanced than Unix believe it or not regardless of what the slashdotters say. An admin user for example does not even have full admin access but rather has a token to give to the true admin to run something just as an example enforced with UAC.
What is changing though is many malware writers are targetting Linux and MACOSX. They are easy targets because they refuse to run anti virus software with a smile and refuse to believe they are infected when they truly are.
Windows may have 100x as many users but Windows is getting so much secure and the users keep them up to date with AV software that is easier to pick on the 1% in greater numbers.
You sir are a fool and a prime target to hit if I were a bank trojan writer. Windows users keep their systems updated and run AV software but you on the otherhand are a prime picking.
This myth needs to end before someone losses all their money from the next Mac or Linux banking trojan.
The problem was DOS being a primptive piece of crap. Windows 95 had no concept of managed memory as dos apps still wrote whever they wanted and could GP fault another application.
OS/2 Was sooo much better and MS still did not want to leave the 8088 users out for 15 damn years so Windows was compromised and couldn't be the OS it needed to be.
So programmers got used to be admin/root all the time because you had too under Windows 98 and earlier. XP forced people to stop using assembly calls and use managed memory but the apis they used were from the IWndows 3.1/98 days and needed unfethered access.
The problem was Microsoft and its shitty operating systems. Today they are better, but damn it took decades to get rid of the legacy stuff and compromised designs from old. Same issue why the corps still run IE 6 and IE 8 today. Old stuff refuses to die for many of Microsofts customers.
Primarily yes, though Microsoft didn't help things by changing the driver API between the last RC (RC2) and manufacturer (RTM) releases, thereby breaking most all the drivers that manufacturers had tested.
MS created many of the problems themselves; they didn't need help.
MS propogated a culture of developers using Administrative Rights for nearly every application. It didn't help that many of their own APIs were broken so badly that you had to have those rights to do many things. However, they also warned developer for years that the change was coming, and developers had the opportunity to test on Vista before its release to make sure that wouldn't be an issue - yet most chose to ignore it. Thus the whole UAC debacle which is primarily a 3rd party issue.
Many 3rd party developers weren't ready for Vista but they like everyone else didn't think MS would actually release Vista in that level of incompleteness.
Vista was quite complete when it was released. That was not the issue. Win8 was less polished than Vista upon release (considerably so); but fairing better because it builds off of Vista (as Win7 did).
They thought they had more time.
No. Anyone that tracked the releases - and you didn't have to be in some secret group - knew the release was coming. The betas for Vista were very public and didn't require an MSDN license to obtain either. The only thing that really caught people off guard was the change in the driver APIs that MS did at the last second which only affected those writing device drivers.
Those developers didn't create the Vista Compatible/Ready fiasco. They didn't make UAC so damn annoying.
Their failure to modify their applications to not require APIs that needed Admin Rights was what caused the UAC fiasco and made it so damn annoying.
They didn't cause MS to throw out everything after years of development and start from scratch using a different kernel.
You obviously know very little about the Vista codebase and its evolution and history.
Vista is based on the same kernel series as WinXP - the NT Kernel. It was just the next major version (6.0).
Yes, Microsoft had developed a version of Windows that it had scrapped - 3 years before Vista was released - and restarted the development cycle to produce Vista. But that restart was not a wholesale rewrite. It restarted from the WinXP codebase, refactored the APIs for better modularity, and added new features.
The kernel that got scrapped was never released outside of a couple limited distribution alphas and betas. It never really entered the release cycle - other than demos that Microsoft did of WinFS and other stuff. It was too damn slow to be usable.
The main areas of incompatibility between the NT5 (WinXP) and NT6 (Vista/7/8) kernels were that the sound and video drivers were moved from kernel space to user space to help improve stability. Most all other drivers were still compatible or only had minor changes required.
Shit, I saw screenshots of longhorn back in 2004 man!
MS told OEMs and developers it was years away and no really 2005 we will ship it just wait until 2005!... ok No 2006. Beware Longhorn is coming and here is another preview as in 2006 will the year of longhorn... oh and here is yet another API and driver thing you need to start over in etc.
Hmm... well longhorn can't be done. I guess it is the boy who cried wolf?
Oh well, we will throw some pieces together and call it Vista. Yeah, Vista here is the release but trust us it will really be here in January 2007 (june 2006).
Developers: LOL yeah right like you said the 3 other times. Go away MS we all know you wont give a release of Longhorn anytime soon.... comes August (2006) and Balmer han
I remember an old Slashdot story where a researcher found Vista needed 4 gigs or ram for its ideal fit!
This was back when 512 meg systems were still sold and met all sorts of outcry.
Windows 7 is not even on the same planet. It runs on 1 gig of ram systems. As in runs and boots up with 512 megs or ram. WIth 2 gigs of ram it can run most undemanding programers and still be decent. Vista with 2 gigs of ram would thrash the hard drive to death for the first hour after install or any time a disk defrag would run.
Windows 7 you can argue with geek points about it being Vista SP 2, but for real usage it is not even in the same ballpark. Vista sucks! I will never put that back on my 2 gig notebook.
The private key is not on the machine. The browser when you sign into Google or Firefox will then use SSL to obtain public keys that are used to sign the password file.
Sandboxing will keep this secure (hopefully) in javascript. It is still non destructible as the keys are in ram when you load the browser after an install, but it makes it a hell of alot more difficult to get.
My issue is if it is plain text then any exploit does not have to do things like privileged escalations that would trigger your anti virus software or memory corruption bugs. All it would need to do is run as "you" as a limited user and read it. That is insane
So if it were encrypted the piece of malware would have to escape the sandbox and then escalate a kernel privileged or attach to a kernel level service, and also avoid detection while doing these 2 things with the anti virus software, then run the debugger to get the public key, then get the password. That is harder to do.
Since the public keys are different for each install if you hack one account you can't use the same keys for another as only Google has the private key.
Rumor has it Microsoft is working on a new API in IWndows 8.1 and 8.2 for any local standard user to access a local device.
This would be a godsend as printers requiring ring0 and to install some service as admin just to send a job to the spooler is a big security and user flaw that has been in Windows since its infancy.
MacOSX users do not need to be root or admin to install printers.
Unfortunately because of METRO corporate users will do another XP and hold their ears and pretend they can't hear if you say anything is better than Windows 7. It iwll be with us for a very very long time and maybe longer than XP I fear.
In my opinion it either has to be all cloud based OR the browser creates random keys and encrypts them when you install it ala Windows. The problem being is if it gets corrupted or you need to upgrade you lose all your data:-(
Firefox sync and Google sync do this already. Yes it is a lot of power for them, but you have convenience of having everything together and Google does not read them. They are encrypted and they destroy all the hard disks from servers when decomissioned.
I assumed it was done this way already...plain text passwords accessible by limited users!! WTH seriously as any piece of malware does not even need to escalate itself as admin/root to read this?!
Hollywood and the h.264 consortium is who blocked the release of opensource drivers for Nvidia.
Which is why I was one of the opponents of it being part of HTML 5 when so many slashdotters were going on and on how much better it was bla bla. Side effect is the patent holder can tell you how to run the company.
It would not surprise me if Qualcomm and ARM have agreements with others like Samsung to make them closed source if you want to use are brilliant ideas etc.
Slashdot Mirror
There is nothing to feel threatened by.
FYI I was skeptical with Windows 7 as well when I heard about it in the news when it was new too!
Obviously you are very well used to Windows XP at this point and things do change and that is a fact of life.
I am about to give a real life sample in a minute ..
I remember when this feature came out with Vista. Boy, what a POS!! I had Vista on a laptop and I was working and finishing up school and my wife would not let me put Xp back on because the drivers were hard to find and not on the OEM website.
Low and behold my instructor told me what I could do with Instant search on Vista. In another class I had 6 files for a financial and inventory management project where 4 were excel files and 2 were word and I used Outlook to communicate with others to put the damn presentation together.
The company had 4 customers with data in 4 seperate files that each student made. So Windows Key + acme+ screws showed the exact excel spreadsheet for screws made. I was the leader who needed the document in word so as I wrote and referenced each point I hit the Windows Key + x to bring out each file. With aero side by side it was a snap to set up.
I hated change too, but I thought ok now Vista at least does have some highlights. I was like you and was skeptical with Windows 7. After a week the only thing I wondered is why didn't I switch earlier. XP seemed very antiquated.
For your challenge ...
I will whip your butt with instant search! You do not even need to type the whole thing. It is previously indexed and I can find all sorts of documents from the last 3 years in a faction of a second. It is not like XPs slow search either. I can find picture files too and not just launch quick and that is how I will win in such a contest.
When you get Windows 7 at work give this a try with the Windows key? After a week you will see Windows 7 is a decent Windows OS and a much needed upgrade.
Also it is not for stupid people. Secretaries and accountants and sales folks have tens of thousands of documents! They are the biggest fans as they get unreasonable requests to find something about some guy in a part you ... back in 2011 halloween guy right? ... for a contact. The indexing is really nice.My fiance class was one example where I had a ton of documents too.
Windows 7 does it better as it catagories it and with tab and enter you can switch without the mouse.
However, Windows 8.1 is now putting that feature back in. Also in Windows 7 it does not block everything out in full screen. So you can be reading a word document while you search for related things in that document etc.
It was handy when I was in college as I had a half dozen excel and word files for certain inventory management projects where I needed it linked together. I hated Vista with a passion! Still do! But with instant search it made me at least have second thoughts about wiping it for a 7 year old XP OS.
That was several years ago and it amazes me people are still cling to it like it is the best.
Clearly the operator of Lavabit received a national security letter or warrant which he objected to.
I would imagine (though don't know) that a warrant wasn't the issue. I don't know too many people who have an issue with respecting a warrant since that is, after all, due process. Law enforcement must go to a judge and convince the judge to issue the warrant based on the facts. The issue that most people have is the lack of a warrant in the vast majority of situations right now. I imagine that some gentlemen came knocking on Lavabit's doors, asked him to hand over the info, he asked to see their warrant and they said something to the effect of "we don't need a warrant!"
Warrant-backed searches are entirely acceptable and part of the process of law enforcement. Warrantless searches are a problem in just about every conceivable way.
(I assume I don't need to say that I have absolutely no clue of the specifics of this case and thus everything I'm posting is guesswork but, based on what's known, that guesswork is about as valid as anyone else's post...)
It is not the warrant per say.
The fact is this guy's customers are security minded and they know the NSA has a backdoor master key. So why should they do business with him anymore? He is not the only one who is losing business as a result?
Regardless of whether you feel it is right or wrong it is having a negative effect on his company's pocketbook. What really would be the point of using his service if it is going to be snopped on anyway?
I think you right about American cloud providers getting screwed.
Man, I wish slashdot would have ran that story I submitted. In Europe the article quotes over 50% are either cancelling their cloud contracts or reviewing them with US companies thanks to Prism!
So it has come to this.
Well if your clients are customers who use your service because it wont be snopped I would say you are screwed!
American cloud companies are now suffering. I put this link as a story, and I am surprised the slashdot editors didn't accept this.
60% of all European companies are canceling their cloud contracts or are revising them due to security concerns!
Canada's health ministry is quotes in that article's comments on already cancelling as there is no confidentiality thanks to the NSA's prism program.
So my hunch is it is not his overeaction, but all his customers leaving for European or Canadian encrypted email cloud providers instead.
While what you say has some truth, the part you leave out is that the attacks against Android were not against the linux kernel used by Android, but the Android specific parts. So, while while your numbers may be accurate as they quote Trendmicro, they misrepresent the reality. Just as a vulnerability in Firefox is not a linux vulnerability, even though Firefox ships with most linux distributions, likewise, a vulnerability found in the Google specific Android pieces does not make it a linux kernel vulnerability. If those pieces were tied directly into the kernel by the kernel developers, that would be different. But just like if I raise my Jeep and it becomes unstable when cornering, that doesn't mean it is a problem with all Jeeps, Google, modifying specific pieces of "linux" does not mean that the vulnerability is a problem with linux.
You mean like this one?
I think Hairy the reason is human psychology. Once actions are repeated it goes to the part of the brqin that deals with routines. Mess with the routine by changing the reflexes of XP UI, its colors, its outdated 3 layers of nested menus in Office 2k3, and you have resistence based on irrational fear of change. Users have invested so much into this way of thinking and routine that the arguement turns from not why Windows 7 is better, but why leave what works?
You mention benefits and the first thought is how do I downplay Hairys reasoning?. I watch restaurant impossible impossible on the food network. You wouldnt believe the resistence to change from owners when confronted. Worse chef Irvine puts fresh ingredients for dishes with many fans, yet older patrons want the the usual frozen and crappy version "Their usual."
Windows key Cal enter done! 1/8th of a second.
Thank you
Windows 95 used to do that and I forgot about that.
When I am on a Windows 7 if I am thinking of something I wrote 3 years ago I just hit th windows key and type acme sales 2010 and enter to find the documents. Beagle under Linux tried similiar functionalty.
I show all die hard XP users this and within 10 minutes they are hooked. I do not care about the menus as I am so hooked on instant search now that I cant live without it. Jumplists and aero snap make me a windows 7 diehard.
Sorry I lost faith in Linux after gnome 3. Windoes 8 might make me reconsider though :-)
Windows 7 for a crappy Windows OS really was the best version and to me even eclipsed XP.
Inaccurate analogy. More of me going into a deAlership with a 12 year old car with 300,000 miles and being all pissed and whine how I got a new transmission free of charge. What do you mean you wont build a new engine for free! Greedy cocksuckers waa waa!
Good riddence. Windows 7 is only $130. Folks are so afraid of change and the fud of win 7==vista sp 2 created all these XP ludditie afraid of change.
This is Slashdot where we like technology isn't it? Please tell me I am not alone?
FYI experts have agreed Windows 7 is the best OS from Redmond putout
It becomes annoying for us to not have html 5 with smooth graphics on our desktops and have our IPhones give us a smoother and better experience all because people hate change.
Webmasters are tired of IE 8 which is still the most popular browser in the IE family. This shows me the majority of XP users still have not discovered Firefox yet.
Most importantly shows they fear change rather than really need it.
XP users like IE 6 ones negatively effect everyone as they slow progress.
Not accordong to my pentium!
Have you actually tried to pirate it?
All say time stops at june 2011 dont run any update after this date!! I had one copy sort of run with a rootkit. If it hibernates it freezes up as the anti circimvention drm panics. It cant boot into safe mode either.
I have not seen a single version of Windows 7 that works with updates turned on without side issues like not booting without a fixmbr if the battery goes dead etc
XP simple
Thanks to the US export restrictions on encryption the Asians use ActiveX obtracities for banking and web shopping written in VB 6 with many designed for IE 6.
Many slashdotters ignorantly think the 10% of IE 6 users are all corps. They are almost all Chinese and Korean users. The good news is Xihnu and ebay are now updating their sites to work with IE 8.
What does that mean? Like the corps Linux and anything later than 2001 is a no go.
I swear that browser is more of a nightmare than Windows ever was for lockin.
IE 6 also is one the most popular browsers. Infact until this time last year it was the most popular browser as Chinese websites are still made to only work with IE 6.
You mean the all so horrible instant search where I can start word and view files by subject in 1\9 of a second without a mouse?
You couldn't pay me to go back to XP style start menu! Yuck.
Some people are so stuburn and hate change so much they refuse to learn anything new including Windows 7 features as I am not referingto 8 at all.
All machines may suffer from malware. However with the Unix style of permissions, OS X and Linux are unlikely to suffer from true viruses. Trojans are far more likely. As for kernel attacks, you've never heard of the Blue Screen of Death? What world do you live in?
Not true.
Windows has the most secure kernel options available rivaling even OpenBSD and sitll has issues. Look up buffer overflows, priveldge escalation, heap spraying, and other techniques?
Just because you are a limited user does not mean something can't write something in a ram address of a root app or service and then execute? There are loopholes and ways with timing known as branching or breaching as SSL can be over run too.
Windows style permissions are VMS and more advanced than Unix believe it or not regardless of what the slashdotters say. An admin user for example does not even have full admin access but rather has a token to give to the true admin to run something just as an example enforced with UAC.
What is changing though is many malware writers are targetting Linux and MACOSX. They are easy targets because they refuse to run anti virus software with a smile and refuse to believe they are infected when they truly are.
Windows may have 100x as many users but Windows is getting so much secure and the users keep them up to date with AV software that is easier to pick on the 1% in greater numbers.
It is a good thing Linux or MacOSX never get malware. It is not like flashback or anything has ever hit such users.
You sir are a fool and a prime target to hit if I were a bank trojan writer. Windows users keep their systems updated and run AV software but you on the otherhand are a prime picking.
This myth needs to end before someone losses all their money from the next Mac or Linux banking trojan.
The problem was DOS being a primptive piece of crap. Windows 95 had no concept of managed memory as dos apps still wrote whever they wanted and could GP fault another application.
OS/2 Was sooo much better and MS still did not want to leave the 8088 users out for 15 damn years so Windows was compromised and couldn't be the OS it needed to be.
So programmers got used to be admin/root all the time because you had too under Windows 98 and earlier. XP forced people to stop using assembly calls and use managed memory but the apis they used were from the IWndows 3.1/98 days and needed unfethered access.
The problem was Microsoft and its shitty operating systems. Today they are better, but damn it took decades to get rid of the legacy stuff and compromised designs from old. Same issue why the corps still run IE 6 and IE 8 today. Old stuff refuses to die for many of Microsofts customers.
3rd Party developers were all to blame?
Primarily yes, though Microsoft didn't help things by changing the driver API between the last RC (RC2) and manufacturer (RTM) releases, thereby breaking most all the drivers that manufacturers had tested.
MS created many of the problems themselves; they didn't need help.
MS propogated a culture of developers using Administrative Rights for nearly every application. It didn't help that many of their own APIs were broken so badly that you had to have those rights to do many things. However, they also warned developer for years that the change was coming, and developers had the opportunity to test on Vista before its release to make sure that wouldn't be an issue - yet most chose to ignore it. Thus the whole UAC debacle which is primarily a 3rd party issue.
Many 3rd party developers weren't ready for Vista but they like everyone else didn't think MS would actually release Vista in that level of incompleteness.
Vista was quite complete when it was released. That was not the issue. Win8 was less polished than Vista upon release (considerably so); but fairing better because it builds off of Vista (as Win7 did).
They thought they had more time.
No. Anyone that tracked the releases - and you didn't have to be in some secret group - knew the release was coming. The betas for Vista were very public and didn't require an MSDN license to obtain either. The only thing that really caught people off guard was the change in the driver APIs that MS did at the last second which only affected those writing device drivers.
Those developers didn't create the Vista Compatible/Ready fiasco. They didn't make UAC so damn annoying.
Their failure to modify their applications to not require APIs that needed Admin Rights was what caused the UAC fiasco and made it so damn annoying.
They didn't cause MS to throw out everything after years of development and start from scratch using a different kernel.
You obviously know very little about the Vista codebase and its evolution and history.
Vista is based on the same kernel series as WinXP - the NT Kernel. It was just the next major version (6.0).
Yes, Microsoft had developed a version of Windows that it had scrapped - 3 years before Vista was released - and restarted the development cycle to produce Vista. But that restart was not a wholesale rewrite. It restarted from the WinXP codebase, refactored the APIs for better modularity, and added new features.
The kernel that got scrapped was never released outside of a couple limited distribution alphas and betas. It never really entered the release cycle - other than demos that Microsoft did of WinFS and other stuff. It was too damn slow to be usable.
The main areas of incompatibility between the NT5 (WinXP) and NT6 (Vista/7/8) kernels were that the sound and video drivers were moved from kernel space to user space to help improve stability. Most all other drivers were still compatible or only had minor changes required.
Shit, I saw screenshots of longhorn back in 2004 man!
MS told OEMs and developers it was years away and no really 2005 we will ship it just wait until 2005! ... ok No 2006. Beware Longhorn is coming and here is another preview as in 2006 will the year of longhorn ... oh and here is yet another API and driver thing you need to start over in etc.
Hmm ... well longhorn can't be done. I guess it is the boy who cried wolf?
Oh well, we will throw some pieces together and call it Vista. Yeah, Vista here is the release but trust us it will really be here in January 2007 (june 2006).
Developers: LOL yeah right like you said the 3 other times. Go away MS we all know you wont give a release of Longhorn anytime soon. ... comes August (2006) and Balmer han
I remember an old Slashdot story where a researcher found Vista needed 4 gigs or ram for its ideal fit!
This was back when 512 meg systems were still sold and met all sorts of outcry.
Windows 7 is not even on the same planet. It runs on 1 gig of ram systems. As in runs and boots up with 512 megs or ram. WIth 2 gigs of ram it can run most undemanding programers and still be decent. Vista with 2 gigs of ram would thrash the hard drive to death for the first hour after install or any time a disk defrag would run.
Windows 7 you can argue with geek points about it being Vista SP 2, but for real usage it is not even in the same ballpark. Vista sucks! I will never put that back on my 2 gig notebook.
The private key is not on the machine. The browser when you sign into Google or Firefox will then use SSL to obtain public keys that are used to sign the password file.
Sandboxing will keep this secure (hopefully) in javascript. It is still non destructible as the keys are in ram when you load the browser after an install, but it makes it a hell of alot more difficult to get.
My issue is if it is plain text then any exploit does not have to do things like privileged escalations that would trigger your anti virus software or memory corruption bugs. All it would need to do is run as "you" as a limited user and read it. That is insane
So if it were encrypted the piece of malware would have to escape the sandbox and then escalate a kernel privileged or attach to a kernel level service, and also avoid detection while doing these 2 things with the anti virus software, then run the debugger to get the public key, then get the password. That is harder to do.
Since the public keys are different for each install if you hack one account you can't use the same keys for another as only Google has the private key.
Rumor has it Microsoft is working on a new API in IWndows 8.1 and 8.2 for any local standard user to access a local device.
This would be a godsend as printers requiring ring0 and to install some service as admin just to send a job to the spooler is a big security and user flaw that has been in Windows since its infancy.
MacOSX users do not need to be root or admin to install printers.
Unfortunately because of METRO corporate users will do another XP and hold their ears and pretend they can't hear if you say anything is better than Windows 7. It iwll be with us for a very very long time and maybe longer than XP I fear.
Google does this with gmail already.
In my opinion it either has to be all cloud based OR the browser creates random keys and encrypts them when you install it ala Windows. The problem being is if it gets corrupted or you need to upgrade you lose all your data :-(
Firefox sync and Google sync do this already. Yes it is a lot of power for them, but you have convenience of having everything together and Google does not read them. They are encrypted and they destroy all the hard disks from servers when decomissioned.
I assumed it was done this way already ...plain text passwords accessible by limited users!! WTH seriously as any piece of malware does not even need to escalate itself as admin/root to read this?!
Hollywood and the h.264 consortium is who blocked the release of opensource drivers for Nvidia.
Which is why I was one of the opponents of it being part of HTML 5 when so many slashdotters were going on and on how much better it was bla bla. Side effect is the patent holder can tell you how to run the company.
It would not surprise me if Qualcomm and ARM have agreements with others like Samsung to make them closed source if you want to use are brilliant ideas etc.