One other aspect to have in mind is that the money which Munich is paying isn't just for installing new software. Munich is paying the price for not being dependent on a certain platforms (windows) and certain software.
I don't understand this statement. Munich will still be dependent on a certain platform (linux), and presumably certain linux software suites. And they seem to be paying quite a lot of money to an outside corporation for this new platform shift. Where's the win?
There's a difference between a user level application bringing down the OS, and a kernel level application doing the same. The only blue screens I've seen on XP are bad drivers, bad hardware, or bad apps that insert themselves into the kernel (through drivers, kernel hooks, like Anti-Virus apps). It's pretty easy to write a linux kernel mod that brings down the machine.
The first account created during setup is an Administrator, all the rest are limited users. The default 'Administrator' account is disabled -- in Beta 2, you could boot into safemode and log in to the account, in RC1 it will be disabled except in the recovery console. What's cool, IMHO, is that even logged in as Administrator all your apps run with limited privileges by default, and IE runs with even less privileges. Since Beta 2 they've made tons of progress removing unecessary prompts, and even preventing apps from annoying the user with elevations (they don't take over the desktop automatically, they can't happen for during the logon process).
It will still be an uphill battle to get users educated, so that they don't just blindly click 'yes' to elevation prompts. But it's progress.
It is your freaking computer, so you can easily turn off signed driver checking. As for grandma, I'm glad this'll be one more thing to keep her from being rooted.
You are free to debug any processes launched under your account (at the same privilege level), without elevation. Obviously, if you want to attach to system processes or other user's then you have to elevate.
Uhm, you don't want to run command.com, you want to run cmd.exe. Viola -- command history, auto-complete, long file names, etc... command.com is a hold over from the DOS days.
I don't get it thought... This is a feature consumers want... Is MSO supposed to be frozen in its feature set because they are the most popular Office suite? It's not like they'd be breaking any Adobe licensing.
Seeing as I don't run as an Administrator on my box when I'm not administering, the exploit is neutralized by simple lack of privielges. Still sounds nasty nonetheless.
Actually, MS is pushing pretty hard into the small business arena.
They have retail management and point of sale software for small businesses. Plus many offerings for business accounting, like SBA. They actually have some pretty cool offerings in this area, compared to the competition anyway.
I dunno. Now that Mac's popularity and attention is starting to increase, they are starting to have quite a few vulnerabilities. XP's 'patch tuesdays' lately only patch a small handful of issues, while OSX's patches as of late have surprisingly big, patch more vulnerabilities than I can count with my fingers and toes put together.
Does anyone really doubt that MS can (and will) scream ahead of Yahoo in market share in the coming years? Yahoo is a relic of the early interent, with little innovation on its side.
Google is a whole other affair, where I don't see MS winning. At least not unless they do much something better than their live site.
If a user will enter their username and password into random dialogs, then there are deeper issues here. Ones that would exist no matter what OS you are running.
At least w/ the secure desktop approach it will be slightly harder for, say, web page pop-ups to fool the user into submitting their data. But lets me honest here, a pop-up can barely resemble a windows dialog and probably some percentage of the users would still submit their info.
Actually, it will brow beat the user until they force the dumb app writers to stop requiring administrator rights. You should only need Admin rights when you are, oh, administering the machine. I should be able to run Quicken without giving it full access to my first born child.
Once you are done setting up Vista, and installing your software, you rarely see a elevation dialog except for badly written 3rd party apps. I'm glad they are finally going this route... And yes, finally forcing themselves to fix their own shit too -- in XP you can't bring up the clock control panel as non-admin, for example.
I hate patents, but MS' crazy pantent spree is a direct result of ridiculous lawsuits like these. Now a days companies can take the high ground and not patent obvious/simple tech, only to have some other company patent it and sue their ass. And lets be honest, there's been a few lawsuits lately where the patent holder purposefully sues MS and MS only, leaving smaller companies and OSS to 'infringe' on the patent as they please. That's ridiculous, no matter how much one hates MS.
Doesn't this patent constitute 'obvious' technology, though, and as such is invalid?
Comments like these are why linux hasn't yet broken in the consumer main-stream. The reviewer says the main apps on the device (opera, mail client) seem to crash all the time. Add to that the apparent platform instability (os crashes too) and, yes, the apparent lack of a media player, and it's *not* a good consumer device.
Yes, we could probably load onto it a more stable kernel version, and better apps, but what consumer would do that? Linux advocates should be pissed that this device gives such a bad impression of the platform.
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And finally, a better security model can eliminate the need to even consider asking the user in many cases.
Can you describe this security model?
One other aspect to have in mind is that the money which Munich is paying isn't just for installing new software. Munich is paying the price for not being dependent on a certain platforms (windows) and certain software.
I don't understand this statement. Munich will still be dependent on a certain platform (linux), and presumably certain linux software suites. And they seem to be paying quite a lot of money to an outside corporation for this new platform shift. Where's the win?
There's a difference between a user level application bringing down the OS, and a kernel level application doing the same. The only blue screens I've seen on XP are bad drivers, bad hardware, or bad apps that insert themselves into the kernel (through drivers, kernel hooks, like Anti-Virus apps). It's pretty easy to write a linux kernel mod that brings down the machine.
Or game companies that need the space could press two/three DVDs...
The first account created during setup is an Administrator, all the rest are limited users. The default 'Administrator' account is disabled -- in Beta 2, you could boot into safemode and log in to the account, in RC1 it will be disabled except in the recovery console. What's cool, IMHO, is that even logged in as Administrator all your apps run with limited privileges by default, and IE runs with even less privileges. Since Beta 2 they've made tons of progress removing unecessary prompts, and even preventing apps from annoying the user with elevations (they don't take over the desktop automatically, they can't happen for during the logon process).
It will still be an uphill battle to get users educated, so that they don't just blindly click 'yes' to elevation prompts. But it's progress.
It is your freaking computer, so you can easily turn off signed driver checking. As for grandma, I'm glad this'll be one more thing to keep her from being rooted.
Just tried, access denied.
Scheduling system tasks is a privilege account, not allowed in XP (at least not XP SP2).
The whole point of Vista is that you won't run as Administrator all the time.
You are free to debug any processes launched under your account (at the same privilege level), without elevation. Obviously, if you want to attach to system processes or other user's then you have to elevate.
I'm trying to grasp you logic here... Why can't someone run free software without administrator privileges?
Uhm, you don't want to run command.com, you want to run cmd.exe. Viola -- command history, auto-complete, long file names, etc... command.com is a hold over from the DOS days.
I liked the idea of YouOS, when it was called simple.com. Years ago when DHTML was in its infancy they were doing these 'fake OS' windowed interfaces.
In Vista, a window can only send messages to windows at the same or lower privilege level, eliminating shatter attacks.
Funny, when it comes to exploits (e.g. - secunia advisories), the IIS6 is doing better than Apache 2...
Where XP/2000 brought stability to their consumer line of OS, Vista brings security. That's reason enough for me.
I don't get it thought... This is a feature consumers want... Is MSO supposed to be frozen in its feature set because they are the most popular Office suite? It's not like they'd be breaking any Adobe licensing.
This is silly
In a web browser?
Seeing as I don't run as an Administrator on my box when I'm not administering, the exploit is neutralized by simple lack of privielges. Still sounds nasty nonetheless.
Actually, MS is pushing pretty hard into the small business arena.
They have retail management and point of sale software for small businesses. Plus many offerings for business accounting, like SBA. They actually have some pretty cool offerings in this area, compared to the competition anyway.
I dunno. Now that Mac's popularity and attention is starting to increase, they are starting to have quite a few vulnerabilities. XP's 'patch tuesdays' lately only patch a small handful of issues, while OSX's patches as of late have surprisingly big, patch more vulnerabilities than I can count with my fingers and toes put together.
Does anyone really doubt that MS can (and will) scream ahead of Yahoo in market share in the coming years? Yahoo is a relic of the early interent, with little innovation on its side. Google is a whole other affair, where I don't see MS winning. At least not unless they do much something better than their live site.
If a user will enter their username and password into random dialogs, then there are deeper issues here. Ones that would exist no matter what OS you are running.
At least w/ the secure desktop approach it will be slightly harder for, say, web page pop-ups to fool the user into submitting their data. But lets me honest here, a pop-up can barely resemble a windows dialog and probably some percentage of the users would still submit their info.
Actually, it will brow beat the user until they force the dumb app writers to stop requiring administrator rights. You should only need Admin rights when you are, oh, administering the machine. I should be able to run Quicken without giving it full access to my first born child. Once you are done setting up Vista, and installing your software, you rarely see a elevation dialog except for badly written 3rd party apps. I'm glad they are finally going this route... And yes, finally forcing themselves to fix their own shit too -- in XP you can't bring up the clock control panel as non-admin, for example.
I hate patents, but MS' crazy pantent spree is a direct result of ridiculous lawsuits like these. Now a days companies can take the high ground and not patent obvious/simple tech, only to have some other company patent it and sue their ass. And lets be honest, there's been a few lawsuits lately where the patent holder purposefully sues MS and MS only, leaving smaller companies and OSS to 'infringe' on the patent as they please. That's ridiculous, no matter how much one hates MS.
Doesn't this patent constitute 'obvious' technology, though, and as such is invalid?
The software patent system is completely broken.
Comments like these are why linux hasn't yet broken in the consumer main-stream. The reviewer says the main apps on the device (opera, mail client) seem to crash all the time. Add to that the apparent platform instability (os crashes too) and, yes, the apparent lack of a media player, and it's *not* a good consumer device.
Yes, we could probably load onto it a more stable kernel version, and better apps, but what consumer would do that? Linux advocates should be pissed that this device gives such a bad impression of the platform.