1) Some of the performance updates scheduled for SP1 were already released as Updates.
2) Performance on a System of 1GB (the sweet spot) will see virtually no improvement, and they are reviewing systems with 1GB and 2GB or more. If you baseline the performance difference on a 512mb system the performance difference is more dramatic.
3) There are also a few optimization that don't affect most users. Readyboost got a significant jump in how it improves performance, and there has been refining of Superfetch as well. This includes not only USB flash, but Solid State and hybrid Drives will see significant boosts.
4) File copying in RTM did have some performance problems but the majority of the problem was the screen not accurately reporting it was already copying files when it said 'calculating time', so SP1 gets about a 10% boost, but the dialog reports the process more accurately as well.
If Windows Update wasn't doing its job and the updates hadn't already been being released, SP1 would be more of a one time dramatic increase. Also they need to be looking at lower end system when testing if they want to see more SP1 improvements.
Finally, older and pre-Vista designed system configurations see more of a bump as well. If you test SP1 on a system that has the specific chipsets and HD Audio, etc that is designed for Vista, SP1 won't add a lot, as the system components were already designed and optimized for Vista.
Still missing the point. Applications should not be able to just access 'root' areas just because it required root to install.
The application should not be touching stuff that it does not have permission to touch. This is more about fundamental permissions and what in the FS the application is accessing than the trust of the application.
If I install an application, and it is accessing file/folders that it doesn't have permission to touch, the OS should either error or ask for user permission. PERIOD.
Applications can be set to run at permission levels outside of User, so if a rare application needed more permissions than a user but not to expose these permission to the user, then the application/process should run at the correct permission level. And if not, it shouldn't be touching crap it has no permission to touch.
Precisely. And why fix the problems? We already have a standard: ODF
It would be far easier to address 3500 issues, especially with expression syntax, currency formatting, etc than it would be to take ODF to the level of functionality of OpenXML. Even if the time was put into ODF, by the time it was as mature in features as OpenXML it would also have a list of 3500 issues that would then need to be addressed.
It is easier to slim down and standardize than create from scratch missing functionality.
Well, it was installed by the root equivalent, wasn't it? Doesn't that mean that the software is trusted?
So if you use root to install firefox, then anything it does or accesses over the internet should also be trusted?
Sorry, but that is really flawed thinking. The JVM allows for outside interactions and those SHOULD always be subject to the process that launches them, not if JVM was install with root or not.
First, you are talking about access control, arent you? That alone isn't security
Actually, No I wasn't. Go read the first edition of InsideNT or any other book covering the origins of NT.
They talk about why they did not use the *nix security model, why they went with an 'Object Token' based security system, etc.
They also talk about why they didn't stick with the *nix style of steams and I/O, and instead moved to an Object model that also addressed security concerns.
Remember when NT was designed, the *nix world wasn't the beacon of security from FTP and NFS to having tons of exploitable holes via the *nix stream model. With regard to modern security *nix was no way nearly as robust as it is today.
Think of it this way, you have a group of VMS guys, a few OS theorists sitting around, and trying to come up with the best possible architecture. And the VMS peeps looked down on generic *nix as having a lot of flaws with regard to security, performance, and the stream I/O model being severly limiting.
This is hard disconnect to get across, but even when taking generically about the inherent design differences between NT and *nix; NT always deals with Objects and Object passing, even Streams are turned into Objects; however, *nix deals with streams and converts objects into streams. And although this can sound like semantics, there is a big difference.
Side note: Go look up the PowerShell team at MS - their project has been to bring a command line shell to Windows that works with objects as NT was designed, in contrast to the Win32 CLI which is limited in that it deals with syntax and I/O like DOS and *nix.
Is this a service pack, or a fresh install replacing most of the core files?
Both... Vista and Windows Server 2008 share the same core like NT always has with the exception of XP/2003 Server.
So all the work that has been happening at the kernel and even Win32/Win64 level of Windows 2008 Server is also updated and applied to Vista, moving its kernel to be the same as Windows 2008.
So yes there are some basic SP fixes, but most of the fixes were already a part of the Windows 2008 development.
Which means Vista SP1 does replace a large portion of the OS files, updating them to the Windows 2008 server versions, thus making this a large update.
If MS wasn't updating Vista to the Windows 2008 core, there would be no need for a full SP, as all the other changes or updates could be small packages available from Windows Update.
The pro to this is that it gets Vista and Windows 2008 on the same page again as NT was always designed to be. Furture updates and service packs should once again be based off of one fork, thus easing and improving updates for Vista and Windows 2008 at the same time instead of having dual resources on two separate forks like with XP and Windows 2003 Server.
Microsoft themselves cannot distribute it, but you can find it via many development projects, and once installed, even if you install an older version, Windows Updates will update the installed version.
I think the license for MS JVM dies in Dec 2007, so I don't know what happens regarding updates past that point.
However if nothing else, Java developers should use it as performance profiler and then YELL at Sun to provide a 'faster' version of a Java VM for Windows, or let go of the lawsuit and let MS recompile the latest Java for Windows, since they seem to be the only company so far that has delivered both a stable and fast Java VM.
For MS's VM to STILL be 10x faster than Sun's VM seven years after the lawsuit is just freaking ridiculous. Even Apple's license with Sun lets them produce an OS X Java build that is faster than what Sun can deliver.
P.S. People don't even try the 'they know their OS better' crap, since the MS JVM team was using off the shelf MS C compilers and using standard OS APIs.
Ok I know this is Slashdot, but come on we can't pretend to be stupid just to be anti-MS.
NT's security model is actually more robust and provides more security than the *nix model. (Remember the designers came from VMS, not an unsecure OS by any means.)
Just because XP let users run as the root equivalent so that compatibility would not break from Win9X applications that had no idea about security. If MS would have designed a 'root' or security prompt into XP instead of waiting until Vista to do this, it would no longer be an issue as software would adhere to the NT security model and not assume it has root level access when running under a user.
The NT team specifically designed the NT security model so that it would not have the inherent holes found in others OSes of the time, including *nix, and is one reason they reject the VMS and *nix models from that time period as they didn't want NT to be limited.
Either the application or Sun's Java is NOT written properly and VIOLATES security that it does not violate on OSX/Linux/ETC.
It is using what in the *nix world would be ROOT level when a USER is running it. This is a NO NO in the *nix world, and with NT security ON like it is in Vista, it is also a NO NO. This is NOT Vistas fault, if the app or VM were running on OSX or *nix it would also get a PROMPT to continue.
People, even Sun and Java coders, are LAZY on the Windows platform, NT has had robust security since it was designed in 1992, developers not coding for it properly or trying to use the equivalent of ROOT access is not NT/Vista's fault.
PS Microsoft still supplies their Java VM updated, it is still 10x faster than Suns and doesn't have inherit problems by violating NT security.
Next time skip the Sun crap, and test the freaking presentation before you are in front of people to make sure you Java application is NOT retarded.
. Security is a major issue - can you trust that your data won't be compromised if lost or stolen? Do you have a reasonable backup? (Most people don't) For most employees, a desktop is often enough. And if laptops are handed out, then users need to be very, very careful. (Encrypt data, daily backups...) I'm thinking a better solution would have a laptop that works as a dumb terminal.
This is where your IT skills kick in, and beyond 'user policies' in employee manuals you manage laptops technically.
I personally know laptops take a bit more thought, but if you treat ALL workstations as vulnerable (i.e. employee steals desktop), then the security and policies don't change much.
There are lots of tools that work well to get a good environment. This is an area where MS has done some good work, but everything can be imitated with OSS for the most part.
1) Keep domain security tight, no exceptions 2) Use roaming profiles, remove user->workstation dependency. 3) Offline file shares, they can be enforced and managed one time from the server side. 4) Encryption with Domain Admin key, even if laptop is stolen, data is dead. 5) If using Vista, use Bitlocker for volume level encryption as well. 6) Backups are server based and set via policies and schedules (also as laptop is agnostic to users, less of a problem) 7) Remote networking is automatic (VPN kicks in when user is off site, so you still have as much security and policy control as you need in addition to keeping them in touch with applications and resources) 8) Remote applications (Server hosted applications for enterprise level software) 9) Use automation deployment tools (biggest mistake in small-medium IT departments) Literally when a new laptop or desktop is plugged into work domain everything from OS to applications are automatically setup, with a few exceptions for OS differences. 10) For anything else, scripting is your friend. (Not batch scripting, but real scripting based on a real language that has access to OS management and APIs.)
If your IT system is setup to expect laptops and treat desktops with the same level of security and agnostic configuratinos, they are just another node. Working with goverment agencies where security is high profile you have to treat desktops like they are laptops and enforce the same levels of security.
Anything that is not locked and secured in server rooms is treated the same, no exceptions and then laptops add no additional concerns.
And that's great if the user only uses one locale at the same time. Not when he needs many locales at the same time. On Linux I just set LC_ALL to anything I want and whola, all apps that I start on that console magically use that locale. On Windows I need to restart, and the setting applies to all applications.
See Windows Vista, language changes no longer require a restart. Even XP changing the IME didn't even require a restart and it is no where near the universal agnostic language design of Vista.
This is another reason Vista Ultimate is worth the money, as you get packs for over 30 languages, on the fly configuring, and not have to purchase separate localized versions nor be stuck with using the outdated IME only in XP for multi-lingual people/developers.
I agree that languages in Linux is pretty good, but you are comparing Linux of 2003 to Windows NT of 1996. Compare Linux 2003 with XP or Linux 2007 with Vista, Linux still has a long way to go.
Also the UTF-16 is NOT a bad design, there are reasons why it is actually better than UTF-8 and if you go read the history of NT, specifically why UTF-16 was chosen as it has 'greater' language support for especially middle-eastern languages that UTF-8 fumbles on.
It seems that Windows is, again, the only operating system that falls behind. There are tons of often-used apps in Windows that are not Unicode-enabled. Writing Unicode-enabled applications is a huge pain in Windows because my application depends on output of other arbitrary applications (such as text files produced by Notepad) but not all of them produce Unicode output
Not sure where you are going with this. Notepad itself has been fully unicode since 1992 on the NT platform.
Also take a look at the initial non-localized binaries started with XP and brought to fruition with Vista and language packs that truly flip the OS to localized levels beyond just the IME used in WindowsXP for non-localized versions.
Windows has had some of the best non-english support of any OS since the NT 4.0 days, far before it was even common in *nix distributions or even possible in Linux.
So not sure how you see Windows as 'failing', as I find just as many applications written in *nix environments that don't properly support Unicode. But this is the nature of third party applications and localized development, not something that is intrinsic of any OS.
Horse poop!!! "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\Memory Management\PagingFiles" sets the minimum and maximum size of system page file(s) - you can have more than one. Windows will grow the page file to the maximum size if an application goes stupid using up memory and eventually a dialog will pop up telling the system is out of virtual memory.
Look at the options on a version of Windows made this century.
Not only is there a 'full' hand off to the OS to decide:
[ ] Automatically manage paging file size for all drives
But there are the basic partition options:
( ) Custom Size [Min] [Max]
( ) System Managed Size (Like I was talking about)
( ) No Paging file (And yes XP and Vista can run without a pagefile)
Even small techs should have OS images and installs on an external and/or dvd/cd media. This includes having a retail/oem slipstream version so you could wipe old Aunt Tilly's machine with a fresh install with your settings, and just load her drivers from the CD or external folder you moved them to.
Even before USB was around, our techs use to carry a small case of Hard Drives with various generic OS installs to boot from, and Hard Drives with installation images.
Even if you are just the 'neighbor' geek, it would take you about an hour to make up a set of OS install images going all the way back to Win95 and hitting the main *nix distributions as well. Throw them on a cheap external drive with a custom boot menu, and/or have a small case with the images on CD/DVDs.
All Windows service packs are large in comparison to relative download speeds of the time, and that is why you can download the offline install version, the slipstream version to create a new installation cd.
The same goes for any *nix distribution, if you aren't packing a recent set of updates, count on spending half a day on dial up getting just the latest distribution patches.
I'm not sure why people think moving from Windows makes any of these issues easier.
Trust me on the installation images, also carry a set of common drivers that are post OS release, and you will save yourself hours of work no matter how crazy Aunt Tilly's machine is.
PS The first step in fixing a problem like you suggest with Aunt Tilly's machine, do a system restore and roll the OS back to the oldest date possible. If a timepoint exists before the problem occured, you are golden, and can then do minor maintenance. (System Restore takes like 5-10min on a slow computer, so always worth the chance.)
When installing Windows, I make a partition specifically for the swap file and temp files. That way they don't add to the fragmentation mess of the OS partition.
This hasn't been necessary for several years now, NT usually creates a non-fragmented pagefile.
Speaking of which, why does Windows still use a variable sized swap file? I lock it down to 2x RAM or 4GB. Whichever is larger. I do not want fragmentation in the swap file. I'd prefer not to need one, but that's another story.
Again it hasn't since Win98, default is system managed and this means the OS picks the size, and it stays the same. Although with system managed if your HD does run out of room, it can automatically decrease the fixed size.
And how about moving IE's temp files somewhere else? Okay, you can still set permissions on the folder, but get it out of the user's profile.
Because for security reasons, the IE temp files are the 'users'. If a co worker was sharing a system with you, and looking at kiddie porn, would you like for his temp files to be in a public folder?
And I'm tired of seeing C:\WINDOWS\Temp Temp directories do not belong in the OS directory.
Again, only old applications use this, Windows and any application made by a credible developer uses the TEMP variable, which points to the users Temp folder.
Yeah, I'm whining. But I spend 15 extra minutes just getting the directories and swap arranged correctly every time I set up someone's Windows machine.
Sounds like you are doing extra work, and gaining nothing in the process. You should take a look at how Windows works today, it is far different from your assumptions. Some of the stuff you are talking about is from the Win9x OS, which was completely different than the NT based OSes like 2K,XP,Vista.
PS Even if you have a lot of settings or changes you like to make to a default installation, take a look at the install and deployment tools and policies for Windows, you can slipstream your install so that all the settings you want are done by default.
Deployment tools and easy customization of the Windows installation is one of the things that makes it popular in the business world, and you can use these tools at home or in the field as well.
Here are a couple of links you might find of interest, they come from an article talking about how Windows IT people shouldn't ever be using DVDs or stock Windows images to install Windows.
This list has NOTHING to do with Windows 7, other than it is a list of 'requests' made from beta testers from Vista.
Some of the stuff on the list is already implemented in Vista, as well as some of the stuff is insanely stupid and has zero chance of being implemented.
This story was marked 'old' on other technology sites that were posting 'corrections' a couple of days ago.
Can we get a SlashDot moderator/editor to do a quick Google on a story before approving it? Is that too much to ask?
Sadly, being so quick to slap Microsoft you are willing to sacrifice your credibility.
It isn't that their partners are using WM DRM. They are using a 'customized Windows based application' in conjunction with WM DRM.
If it was just WM DRM as MS designed it, you would have options on other OSes, but since this idiotic company has tied the downloads and the DRM management to a Windows application as well, this is why it is Windows only.
What makes this 'really' stupid is that they are using a crap mix of technology when there are some very specific and easy remedies, even for the licensing protection they are trying to uphold.
They could just as easily provide the content in TRUE WM DRM format that expires 7 days after downloading and retricts foreign IPs, using the basic DRM mechanism of WM without the specialized Windows application that this is all running through.
Set up a streaming and download server, set DRM, check for IPs on Web Host, stream or download content via Microsoft Silverlight (Runs on Mac, Linux, Windows) and they would have the protection they need and not be tied to a Windows application complicating the whole process.
Truly stupid, especially when they are already mixing WMV and Flash Video formats on the site and in the 'windows client' they force people to download. Silverlight and a WM as designed would do what they want and be available for all platforms.
NBC needs to smacked upside the head. Even Microsoft has to be looking at them and going, how feking stupid are you people...
Yes, but that is a different design concept from what apps usually have. Unfortunately, I say, but things are still that way.
This is true, although many application designs provide UI efforts for new and older ways of working. Just because the application behaves 'as expected' using older UI paradigms, doesn't mean that other new paradigms exist as well.
Also if you look at OSes like OS/2, Win95, etc the Document template metaphor allows the OS to create a docu-centric approach even if the application has no concept of these concepts. (Windows Right Click New for example)
OSes still are holding users hands too much in the move to better ways of computing, driven by fear of a backlash from the market. MS has been the boldest in the last year with Vista and Office 2007, but neither are even close to where the UI researchers would like to see things eventually be.
If one piece of code requests a chunk of memory and another does the same, the two chunks cannot normally be shared, even if the code happens to run from the same place in memory. How is the OS to know whether the memory will be used for the same purpose, whether the two instances are synchronized, etc..
Go look up modern OS memory mangement. If an application request even a large portion of RAM, when that RAM is not be actively accessed by the application the OS MANAGES this by shoving it to virtual (page/swap).
Even old memory management techniques dealt with stuff like this quite well, although Apple System prior to X didn't do well with applications and memory management. But if you look at even Windows 3.1 for example, people were running MS Word on Win 3.1 even if they had 1Mb or 2Mb of system RAM, and the EXE for Word from that time was larger than 1Mb, let alone the assisting libraries it used.
(And no this was not the begining of virtual RAM, but was the first widespread use in the DOS/PC world. Virtual RAM goes back to the 50s when computers had tiny amounts of RAM constructs.)
There is no reason at all to have several copies of the exact same exacutable code run on the same processor(s). It's much better to reuse the code, and let it run on different data, in separate threads if you need. Having several copies of the same app in memory is merely an ugly hack to gain functionality that already should be in one copy app itself.
I both agree and disagree. There are applications that YOU SPECIFICALLY want running in their own process space. For example a buggy application, to even simple constructs that are batch processing thumbnails to other tasks.
As for Adobe Photoshop, yes Adobe COULD design the Application to break the MDI interface so that it could run multiple copies and tie to the original applicaiton loaded in RAM. Many products do this that HAVE broken away from older MDI concepts like MS Word, Excel, etc. They run multiple instances, and yet share portions with the 'initial' instance ran.
Not everyone works the same, and people are acting like wanting a few copies of an application running is a crazy request, when in fact the whole multi-application UI design of modern OSes 'encourages' this behavior, as it is more intuitive for newer UI concepts that users are just starting to move to, even though OS/2 and Win95 tried to get users out of the old Application to Document mentality and move to a Document mentality with Applications seen as tools that attach or work with the documents.
Just like the world processor days, everyone saved their documents inside the word processor folder and their spreadsheet files inside the spreadsheet applicaiton folder. People are FINALLY moving away from this concept, but there is STILL a long way to go.
If you understand this, then you don't open your wordprocesser to type a letter, your create a black 'document' on your desktop, name it and then open it, and whatever word processor you are using launches for you. You should never even see or use save or open dialog boxes 99.9% of the time. And this was something Win95 tried to move people towards, and yet today the majority don't get this simple idea or shift in thinking.
PS Running multiple copies of program are not ugly hacks, this is in fact an essential part of OSes like NT and UNIX. If you look at it from a server standpoint, there is a reason why code processors launch separate and multiple instances of themselves, so one users script or html page won't be crashing another users.
And what happens when all those instances of the same DLL allocates some memory...?
This is why the OS manages RAM, and DOESN'T let applications have control over RAM usage, just requests.
A smart OS like everything out there now can handle stuff like this, as these are RAM and sharing concepts that are over 20 years old now, and OSes like NT and even OS X and NeXt handle.
I imagine part of it is that most people don't have half a gig of ram for each copy of Photoshop they want to run. Photoshop is a huge app, and it has an insatiable lust for system resources.
I actually diagree, yes it is a big application, but it is not so huge in reference to the hardware we are using today.
Like in my example, other applications like Photo-paint are rather large as well, but running 5 or 6 copies of them is easily manageable on 1gb or 2gb RAM systems.
Also as I stated before if people can afford photoshop, they can surely afford the 80 bucks to push their system to 2GB of RAM Plus...
This is more about people moving from dated MDI interface constructs, and even if Photoshop is something Adobe considers to be 'too bloated' there are other ways to host the core application and provide a non MDI interface.
Photoshop takes up A LOT of memory. It does not just take it - it reserves it for its own personal use. Where are you going to get that other 95% of physical memory for your next instance of Photoshop?
Running multiple Photoshops for multiple images... that is insane. Or running multiple PhotoPaints. Those are not Word or Notepad. Those are heavy-duty graphic editing programs.
You do know that you can open and work on more then one file at a time?
Are you serious?
Is this an old Mac Single application mentality thing? Do you always only run one copy of every application?
I personally have several different projects going all the time, and multiple instances of many types of applications going. And yes even for images, I will load in 20 images for one project in Photo-paint, and load another copy of photo-paint for another project, and then have photo-paint open again for dropping in images for quick tweaks, resizes, etc. I would rather use Photoshop like this, but it is one of the 'few' applications in the 'modern' computing world that prevents this.
As for RAM? Again, are you kidding? We are not running Mac System 9 where RAM is preallocated to an application. Windows and OS X can easily handle applications that 'want' and 'use' a lot of RAM, and even if you are running low on physical RAM, that is why modern OSes virtualize RAM - even if Photoshop tries to take control of more than it needs, the OS regulates this. Also realize most people that can afford Photoshop, can probably afford to have 2 or more GB of RAM... (Some of us use to run Photoshop on computers with 16mb of RAM and less.)
It scares me that multi-application instance productivity is still seen as such a foreign concept. During my years in UI research, this was the biggest area of difference between Windows and Mac users, Windows users usually worked with several applications running all the time, where Mac users would go in and out of applications one at a time, even on OS X.
I don't want to be harsh, but I would like to encourage you and others that agree with you to reconsider why and how using multiple instances of various applications CAN and USUALLY IS more productive.
Too many people still see applications through a MDI interface, which is what Photoshop is still doing, and the rest of the industry has moved to docu-centric computing and applications are tools attached to your documents for editing them, rather than 'containers' where you access your documents.
Both Apple and MS have made giant leaps in creating environments for users and developers to move forward with new paradigms, but educating or getting people to let go of old habits is incredibly hard.
Allow photoshop to multitask. I cannot believe that still in 2007, with my Macbook Core 2duo with 3GB of RAM, I cannot edit images while I am using my scanner. Why can't photoshop scan negatives in the background while I work on other images in the foreground?
Why are you using Photoshop to scan images in? Use another tool like iPhoto, Windows Scanner, etc to scan in your images so you can continue to do other work in Photoshop.
I know a lot of imaging applications like Photoshop provide direct 'import/scanning' options, but with OS built in utilities that do scanning automatically, why 'reach through photoshop' to get to your scanner.
PS I agree more of Photoshop needs to be threaded out better with its UI and is one reason I often find myself in other applications for simple edits.
Another thing that 'kills' me is that Photoshop won't allow itself to run multiple copies at a time. This is like some crazy hold over from the 1980s single application metaphor.
Less powerful editing software like Corel Photo-Paint behaves like a modern application, and I sometimes will go back to it because I can have 5 or 6 copies of it running at the same time and working between them. What is so hard about the idea of having more than one copy of Photoshop running at a time?
Yep, just had a chance to sit down to a Home Premium system, and Previous Versions is not available. I am having techs check for a tweak that turns it on, as this is another reason why I hate the various versions of Vista. MS feked up big time with the home versions.
However, Home Premium does have basic backup tools like XP did, just no complete restore function, you have to reinstall the OS and then restore from the backup instead of it being an automated recovery.
MS just needs to kill the Home versions, offer free upgrades to Ultimate, and then only offer Business and Ultimate (since businesses don't want games, media center, etc. installed)
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The things that reviewers seem to be missing...
1) Some of the performance updates scheduled for SP1 were already released as Updates.
2) Performance on a System of 1GB (the sweet spot) will see virtually no improvement, and they are reviewing systems with 1GB and 2GB or more. If you baseline the performance difference on a 512mb system the performance difference is more dramatic.
3) There are also a few optimization that don't affect most users. Readyboost got a significant jump in how it improves performance, and there has been refining of Superfetch as well. This includes not only USB flash, but Solid State and hybrid Drives will see significant boosts.
4) File copying in RTM did have some performance problems but the majority of the problem was the screen not accurately reporting it was already copying files when it said 'calculating time', so SP1 gets about a 10% boost, but the dialog reports the process more accurately as well.
If Windows Update wasn't doing its job and the updates hadn't already been being released, SP1 would be more of a one time dramatic increase. Also they need to be looking at lower end system when testing if they want to see more SP1 improvements.
Finally, older and pre-Vista designed system configurations see more of a bump as well. If you test SP1 on a system that has the specific chipsets and HD Audio, etc that is designed for Vista, SP1 won't add a lot, as the system components were already designed and optimized for Vista.
Still missing the point. Applications should not be able to just access 'root' areas just because it required root to install.
The application should not be touching stuff that it does not have permission to touch. This is more about fundamental permissions and what in the FS the application is accessing than the trust of the application.
If I install an application, and it is accessing file/folders that it doesn't have permission to touch, the OS should either error or ask for user permission. PERIOD.
Applications can be set to run at permission levels outside of User, so if a rare application needed more permissions than a user but not to expose these permission to the user, then the application/process should run at the correct permission level. And if not, it shouldn't be touching crap it has no permission to touch.
Precisely. And why fix the problems? We already have a standard: ODF
It would be far easier to address 3500 issues, especially with expression syntax, currency formatting, etc than it would be to take ODF to the level of functionality of OpenXML. Even if the time was put into ODF, by the time it was as mature in features as OpenXML it would also have a list of 3500 issues that would then need to be addressed.
It is easier to slim down and standardize than create from scratch missing functionality.
Well, it was installed by the root equivalent, wasn't it? Doesn't that mean that the software is trusted?
So if you use root to install firefox, then anything it does or accesses over the internet should also be trusted?
Sorry, but that is really flawed thinking. The JVM allows for outside interactions and those SHOULD always be subject to the process that launches them, not if JVM was install with root or not.
First, you are talking about access control, arent you? That alone isn't security
Actually, No I wasn't. Go read the first edition of InsideNT or any other book covering the origins of NT.
They talk about why they did not use the *nix security model, why they went with an 'Object Token' based security system, etc.
They also talk about why they didn't stick with the *nix style of steams and I/O, and instead moved to an Object model that also addressed security concerns.
Remember when NT was designed, the *nix world wasn't the beacon of security from FTP and NFS to having tons of exploitable holes via the *nix stream model. With regard to modern security *nix was no way nearly as robust as it is today.
Think of it this way, you have a group of VMS guys, a few OS theorists sitting around, and trying to come up with the best possible architecture. And the VMS peeps looked down on generic *nix as having a lot of flaws with regard to security, performance, and the stream I/O model being severly limiting.
This is hard disconnect to get across, but even when taking generically about the inherent design differences between NT and *nix; NT always deals with Objects and Object passing, even Streams are turned into Objects; however, *nix deals with streams and converts objects into streams. And although this can sound like semantics, there is a big difference.
Side note:
Go look up the PowerShell team at MS - their project has been to bring a command line shell to Windows that works with objects as NT was designed, in contrast to the Win32 CLI which is limited in that it deals with syntax and I/O like DOS and *nix.
So No, I wasn't talking about ACLs...
Is this a service pack, or a fresh install replacing most of the core files?
Both... Vista and Windows Server 2008 share the same core like NT always has with the exception of XP/2003 Server.
So all the work that has been happening at the kernel and even Win32/Win64 level of Windows 2008 Server is also updated and applied to Vista, moving its kernel to be the same as Windows 2008.
So yes there are some basic SP fixes, but most of the fixes were already a part of the Windows 2008 development.
Which means Vista SP1 does replace a large portion of the OS files, updating them to the Windows 2008 server versions, thus making this a large update.
If MS wasn't updating Vista to the Windows 2008 core, there would be no need for a full SP, as all the other changes or updates could be small packages available from Windows Update.
The pro to this is that it gets Vista and Windows 2008 on the same page again as NT was always designed to be. Furture updates and service packs should once again be based off of one fork, thus easing and improving updates for Vista and Windows 2008 at the same time instead of having dual resources on two separate forks like with XP and Windows 2003 Server.
Good point.
Microsoft themselves cannot distribute it, but you can find it via many development projects, and once installed, even if you install an older version, Windows Updates will update the installed version.
I think the license for MS JVM dies in Dec 2007, so I don't know what happens regarding updates past that point.
However if nothing else, Java developers should use it as performance profiler and then YELL at Sun to provide a 'faster' version of a Java VM for Windows, or let go of the lawsuit and let MS recompile the latest Java for Windows, since they seem to be the only company so far that has delivered both a stable and fast Java VM.
For MS's VM to STILL be 10x faster than Sun's VM seven years after the lawsuit is just freaking ridiculous. Even Apple's license with Sun lets them produce an OS X Java build that is faster than what Sun can deliver.
P.S. People don't even try the 'they know their OS better' crap, since the MS JVM team was using off the shelf MS C compilers and using standard OS APIs.
Ok I know this is Slashdot, but come on we can't pretend to be stupid just to be anti-MS.
NT's security model is actually more robust and provides more security than the *nix model. (Remember the designers came from VMS, not an unsecure OS by any means.)
Just because XP let users run as the root equivalent so that compatibility would not break from Win9X applications that had no idea about security. If MS would have designed a 'root' or security prompt into XP instead of waiting until Vista to do this, it would no longer be an issue as software would adhere to the NT security model and not assume it has root level access when running under a user.
The NT team specifically designed the NT security model so that it would not have the inherent holes found in others OSes of the time, including *nix, and is one reason they reject the VMS and *nix models from that time period as they didn't want NT to be limited.
Go read Inside NT, or even read a tech article, this is not something fanbois make up:
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/archive/ntwrkstn/reskit/security.mspx?mfr=true
You are correct but are missing the bigger point.
Either the application or Sun's Java is NOT written properly and VIOLATES security that it does not violate on OSX/Linux/ETC.
It is using what in the *nix world would be ROOT level when a USER is running it. This is a NO NO in the *nix world, and with NT security ON like it is in Vista, it is also a NO NO. This is NOT Vistas fault, if the app or VM were running on OSX or *nix it would also get a PROMPT to continue.
People, even Sun and Java coders, are LAZY on the Windows platform, NT has had robust security since it was designed in 1992, developers not coding for it properly or trying to use the equivalent of ROOT access is not NT/Vista's fault.
PS Microsoft still supplies their Java VM updated, it is still 10x faster than Suns and doesn't have inherit problems by violating NT security.
Next time skip the Sun crap, and test the freaking presentation before you are in front of people to make sure you Java application is NOT retarded.
. Security is a major issue - can you trust that your data won't be compromised if lost or stolen? Do you have a reasonable backup? (Most people don't) For most employees, a desktop is often enough. And if laptops are handed out, then users need to be very, very careful. (Encrypt data, daily backups...) I'm thinking a better solution would have a laptop that works as a dumb terminal.
This is where your IT skills kick in, and beyond 'user policies' in employee manuals you manage laptops technically.
I personally know laptops take a bit more thought, but if you treat ALL workstations as vulnerable (i.e. employee steals desktop), then the security and policies don't change much.
There are lots of tools that work well to get a good environment. This is an area where MS has done some good work, but everything can be imitated with OSS for the most part.
1) Keep domain security tight, no exceptions
2) Use roaming profiles, remove user->workstation dependency.
3) Offline file shares, they can be enforced and managed one time from the server side.
4) Encryption with Domain Admin key, even if laptop is stolen, data is dead.
5) If using Vista, use Bitlocker for volume level encryption as well.
6) Backups are server based and set via policies and schedules (also as laptop is agnostic to users, less of a problem)
7) Remote networking is automatic (VPN kicks in when user is off site, so you still have as much security and policy control as you need in addition to keeping them in touch with applications and resources)
8) Remote applications (Server hosted applications for enterprise level software)
9) Use automation deployment tools (biggest mistake in small-medium IT departments) Literally when a new laptop or desktop is plugged into work domain everything from OS to applications are automatically setup, with a few exceptions for OS differences.
10) For anything else, scripting is your friend. (Not batch scripting, but real scripting based on a real language that has access to OS management and APIs.)
If your IT system is setup to expect laptops and treat desktops with the same level of security and agnostic configuratinos, they are just another node. Working with goverment agencies where security is high profile you have to treat desktops like they are laptops and enforce the same levels of security.
Anything that is not locked and secured in server rooms is treated the same, no exceptions and then laptops add no additional concerns.
And that's great if the user only uses one locale at the same time. Not when he needs many locales at the same time. On Linux I just set LC_ALL to anything I want and whola, all apps that I start on that console magically use that locale. On Windows I need to restart, and the setting applies to all applications.
See Windows Vista, language changes no longer require a restart. Even XP changing the IME didn't even require a restart and it is no where near the universal agnostic language design of Vista.
This is another reason Vista Ultimate is worth the money, as you get packs for over 30 languages, on the fly configuring, and not have to purchase separate localized versions nor be stuck with using the outdated IME only in XP for multi-lingual people/developers.
I agree that languages in Linux is pretty good, but you are comparing Linux of 2003 to Windows NT of 1996. Compare Linux 2003 with XP or Linux 2007 with Vista, Linux still has a long way to go.
Also the UTF-16 is NOT a bad design, there are reasons why it is actually better than UTF-8 and if you go read the history of NT, specifically why UTF-16 was chosen as it has 'greater' language support for especially middle-eastern languages that UTF-8 fumbles on.
It seems that Windows is, again, the only operating system that falls behind. There are tons of often-used apps in Windows that are not Unicode-enabled. Writing Unicode-enabled applications is a huge pain in Windows because my application depends on output of other arbitrary applications (such as text files produced by Notepad) but not all of them produce Unicode output
Not sure where you are going with this. Notepad itself has been fully unicode since 1992 on the NT platform.
Also take a look at the initial non-localized binaries started with XP and brought to fruition with Vista and language packs that truly flip the OS to localized levels beyond just the IME used in WindowsXP for non-localized versions.
Windows has had some of the best non-english support of any OS since the NT 4.0 days, far before it was even common in *nix distributions or even possible in Linux.
So not sure how you see Windows as 'failing', as I find just as many applications written in *nix environments that don't properly support Unicode. But this is the nature of third party applications and localized development, not something that is intrinsic of any OS.
Horse poop!!!
"HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\Memory Management\PagingFiles" sets the minimum and maximum size of system page file(s) - you can have more than one. Windows will grow the page file to the maximum size if an application goes stupid using up memory and eventually a dialog will pop up telling the system is out of virtual memory.
Look at the options on a version of Windows made this century.
Not only is there a 'full' hand off to the OS to decide:
[ ] Automatically manage paging file size for all drives
But there are the basic partition options:
( ) Custom Size [Min] [Max]
( ) System Managed Size (Like I was talking about)
( ) No Paging file (And yes XP and Vista can run without a pagefile)
Even small techs should have OS images and installs on an external and/or dvd/cd media. This includes having a retail/oem slipstream version so you could wipe old Aunt Tilly's machine with a fresh install with your settings, and just load her drivers from the CD or external folder you moved them to.
Even before USB was around, our techs use to carry a small case of Hard Drives with various generic OS installs to boot from, and Hard Drives with installation images.
Even if you are just the 'neighbor' geek, it would take you about an hour to make up a set of OS install images going all the way back to Win95 and hitting the main *nix distributions as well. Throw them on a cheap external drive with a custom boot menu, and/or have a small case with the images on CD/DVDs.
All Windows service packs are large in comparison to relative download speeds of the time, and that is why you can download the offline install version, the slipstream version to create a new installation cd.
The same goes for any *nix distribution, if you aren't packing a recent set of updates, count on spending half a day on dial up getting just the latest distribution patches.
I'm not sure why people think moving from Windows makes any of these issues easier.
Trust me on the installation images, also carry a set of common drivers that are post OS release, and you will save yourself hours of work no matter how crazy Aunt Tilly's machine is.
PS The first step in fixing a problem like you suggest with Aunt Tilly's machine, do a system restore and roll the OS back to the oldest date possible. If a timepoint exists before the problem occured, you are golden, and can then do minor maintenance. (System Restore takes like 5-10min on a slow computer, so always worth the chance.)
When installing Windows, I make a partition specifically for the swap file and temp files. That way they don't add to the fragmentation mess of the OS partition.
This hasn't been necessary for several years now, NT usually creates a non-fragmented pagefile.
Speaking of which, why does Windows still use a variable sized swap file? I lock it down to 2x RAM or 4GB. Whichever is larger. I do not want fragmentation in the swap file. I'd prefer not to need one, but that's another story.
Again it hasn't since Win98, default is system managed and this means the OS picks the size, and it stays the same. Although with system managed if your HD does run out of room, it can automatically decrease the fixed size.
And how about moving IE's temp files somewhere else? Okay, you can still set permissions on the folder, but get it out of the user's profile.
Because for security reasons, the IE temp files are the 'users'. If a co worker was sharing a system with you, and looking at kiddie porn, would you like for his temp files to be in a public folder?
And I'm tired of seeing C:\WINDOWS\Temp
Temp directories do not belong in the OS directory.
Again, only old applications use this, Windows and any application made by a credible developer uses the TEMP variable, which points to the users Temp folder.
Yeah, I'm whining. But I spend 15 extra minutes just getting the directories and swap arranged correctly every time I set up someone's Windows machine.
Sounds like you are doing extra work, and gaining nothing in the process. You should take a look at how Windows works today, it is far different from your assumptions. Some of the stuff you are talking about is from the Win9x OS, which was completely different than the NT based OSes like 2K,XP,Vista.
PS Even if you have a lot of settings or changes you like to make to a default installation, take a look at the install and deployment tools and policies for Windows, you can slipstream your install so that all the settings you want are done by default.
Deployment tools and easy customization of the Windows installation is one of the things that makes it popular in the business world, and you can use these tools at home or in the field as well.
Here are a couple of links you might find of interest, they come from an article talking about how Windows IT people shouldn't ever be using DVDs or stock Windows images to install Windows.
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-gb/desktopdeployment/default.aspx
http://blogs.msdn.com/ptstv/archive/2007/04/03/partner-tv-adam-shepherd-and-richard-smith-on-deployment.aspx
Good luck to you, and I hope this makes your life a bit easier.
This list has NOTHING to do with Windows 7, other than it is a list of 'requests' made from beta testers from Vista.
Some of the stuff on the list is already implemented in Vista, as well as some of the stuff is insanely stupid and has zero chance of being implemented.
This story was marked 'old' on other technology sites that were posting 'corrections' a couple of days ago.
Can we get a SlashDot moderator/editor to do a quick Google on a story before approving it? Is that too much to ask?
Sadly, being so quick to slap Microsoft you are willing to sacrifice your credibility.
Here is the trick...
It isn't that their partners are using WM DRM. They are using a 'customized Windows based application' in conjunction with WM DRM.
If it was just WM DRM as MS designed it, you would have options on other OSes, but since this idiotic company has tied the downloads and the DRM management to a Windows application as well, this is why it is Windows only.
What makes this 'really' stupid is that they are using a crap mix of technology when there are some very specific and easy remedies, even for the licensing protection they are trying to uphold.
They could just as easily provide the content in TRUE WM DRM format that expires 7 days after downloading and retricts foreign IPs, using the basic DRM mechanism of WM without the specialized Windows application that this is all running through.
Set up a streaming and download server, set DRM, check for IPs on Web Host, stream or download content via Microsoft Silverlight (Runs on Mac, Linux, Windows) and they would have the protection they need and not be tied to a Windows application complicating the whole process.
Truly stupid, especially when they are already mixing WMV and Flash Video formats on the site and in the 'windows client' they force people to download. Silverlight and a WM as designed would do what they want and be available for all platforms.
NBC needs to smacked upside the head. Even Microsoft has to be looking at them and going, how feking stupid are you people...
Yes, but that is a different design concept from what apps usually have. Unfortunately, I say, but things are still that way.
This is true, although many application designs provide UI efforts for new and older ways of working. Just because the application behaves 'as expected' using older UI paradigms, doesn't mean that other new paradigms exist as well.
Also if you look at OSes like OS/2, Win95, etc the Document template metaphor allows the OS to create a docu-centric approach even if the application has no concept of these concepts. (Windows Right Click New for example)
OSes still are holding users hands too much in the move to better ways of computing, driven by fear of a backlash from the market. MS has been the boldest in the last year with Vista and Office 2007, but neither are even close to where the UI researchers would like to see things eventually be.
If one piece of code requests a chunk of memory and another does the same, the two chunks cannot normally be shared, even if the code happens to run from the same place in memory. How is the OS to know whether the memory will be used for the same purpose, whether the two instances are synchronized, etc..
Go look up modern OS memory mangement. If an application request even a large portion of RAM, when that RAM is not be actively accessed by the application the OS MANAGES this by shoving it to virtual (page/swap).
Even old memory management techniques dealt with stuff like this quite well, although Apple System prior to X didn't do well with applications and memory management. But if you look at even Windows 3.1 for example, people were running MS Word on Win 3.1 even if they had 1Mb or 2Mb of system RAM, and the EXE for Word from that time was larger than 1Mb, let alone the assisting libraries it used.
(And no this was not the begining of virtual RAM, but was the first widespread use in the DOS/PC world. Virtual RAM goes back to the 50s when computers had tiny amounts of RAM constructs.)
There is no reason at all to have several copies of the exact same exacutable code run on the same processor(s). It's much better to reuse the code, and let it run on different data, in separate threads if you need. Having several copies of the same app in memory is merely an ugly hack to gain functionality that already should be in one copy app itself.
I both agree and disagree. There are applications that YOU SPECIFICALLY want running in their own process space. For example a buggy application, to even simple constructs that are batch processing thumbnails to other tasks.
As for Adobe Photoshop, yes Adobe COULD design the Application to break the MDI interface so that it could run multiple copies and tie to the original applicaiton loaded in RAM. Many products do this that HAVE broken away from older MDI concepts like MS Word, Excel, etc. They run multiple instances, and yet share portions with the 'initial' instance ran.
Not everyone works the same, and people are acting like wanting a few copies of an application running is a crazy request, when in fact the whole multi-application UI design of modern OSes 'encourages' this behavior, as it is more intuitive for newer UI concepts that users are just starting to move to, even though OS/2 and Win95 tried to get users out of the old Application to Document mentality and move to a Document mentality with Applications seen as tools that attach or work with the documents.
Just like the world processor days, everyone saved their documents inside the word processor folder and their spreadsheet files inside the spreadsheet applicaiton folder. People are FINALLY moving away from this concept, but there is STILL a long way to go.
If you understand this, then you don't open your wordprocesser to type a letter, your create a black 'document' on your desktop, name it and then open it, and whatever word processor you are using launches for you. You should never even see or use save or open dialog boxes 99.9% of the time. And this was something Win95 tried to move people towards, and yet today the majority don't get this simple idea or shift in thinking.
PS Running multiple copies of program are not ugly hacks, this is in fact an essential part of OSes like NT and UNIX. If you look at it from a server standpoint, there is a reason why code processors launch separate and multiple instances of themselves, so one users script or html page won't be crashing another users.
Understand?
And what happens when all those instances of the same DLL allocates some memory...?
This is why the OS manages RAM, and DOESN'T let applications have control over RAM usage, just requests.
A smart OS like everything out there now can handle stuff like this, as these are RAM and sharing concepts that are over 20 years old now, and OSes like NT and even OS X and NeXt handle.
I imagine part of it is that most people don't have half a gig of ram for each copy of Photoshop they want to run. Photoshop is a huge app, and it has an insatiable lust for system resources.
I actually diagree, yes it is a big application, but it is not so huge in reference to the hardware we are using today.
Like in my example, other applications like Photo-paint are rather large as well, but running 5 or 6 copies of them is easily manageable on 1gb or 2gb RAM systems.
Also as I stated before if people can afford photoshop, they can surely afford the 80 bucks to push their system to 2GB of RAM Plus...
This is more about people moving from dated MDI interface constructs, and even if Photoshop is something Adobe considers to be 'too bloated' there are other ways to host the core application and provide a non MDI interface.
Photoshop takes up A LOT of memory. It does not just take it - it reserves it for its own personal use.
Where are you going to get that other 95% of physical memory for your next instance of Photoshop?
Running multiple Photoshops for multiple images... that is insane. Or running multiple PhotoPaints. Those are not Word or Notepad.
Those are heavy-duty graphic editing programs.
You do know that you can open and work on more then one file at a time?
Are you serious?
Is this an old Mac Single application mentality thing? Do you always only run one copy of every application?
I personally have several different projects going all the time, and multiple instances of many types of applications going. And yes even for images, I will load in 20 images for one project in Photo-paint, and load another copy of photo-paint for another project, and then have photo-paint open again for dropping in images for quick tweaks, resizes, etc. I would rather use Photoshop like this, but it is one of the 'few' applications in the 'modern' computing world that prevents this.
As for RAM? Again, are you kidding? We are not running Mac System 9 where RAM is preallocated to an application. Windows and OS X can easily handle applications that 'want' and 'use' a lot of RAM, and even if you are running low on physical RAM, that is why modern OSes virtualize RAM - even if Photoshop tries to take control of more than it needs, the OS regulates this. Also realize most people that can afford Photoshop, can probably afford to have 2 or more GB of RAM... (Some of us use to run Photoshop on computers with 16mb of RAM and less.)
It scares me that multi-application instance productivity is still seen as such a foreign concept. During my years in UI research, this was the biggest area of difference between Windows and Mac users, Windows users usually worked with several applications running all the time, where Mac users would go in and out of applications one at a time, even on OS X.
I don't want to be harsh, but I would like to encourage you and others that agree with you to reconsider why and how using multiple instances of various applications CAN and USUALLY IS more productive.
Too many people still see applications through a MDI interface, which is what Photoshop is still doing, and the rest of the industry has moved to docu-centric computing and applications are tools attached to your documents for editing them, rather than 'containers' where you access your documents.
Both Apple and MS have made giant leaps in creating environments for users and developers to move forward with new paradigms, but educating or getting people to let go of old habits is incredibly hard.
Allow photoshop to multitask. I cannot believe that still in 2007, with my Macbook Core 2duo with 3GB of RAM, I cannot edit images while I am using my scanner. Why can't photoshop scan negatives in the background while I work on other images in the foreground?
Why are you using Photoshop to scan images in? Use another tool like iPhoto, Windows Scanner, etc to scan in your images so you can continue to do other work in Photoshop.
I know a lot of imaging applications like Photoshop provide direct 'import/scanning' options, but with OS built in utilities that do scanning automatically, why 'reach through photoshop' to get to your scanner.
PS I agree more of Photoshop needs to be threaded out better with its UI and is one reason I often find myself in other applications for simple edits.
Another thing that 'kills' me is that Photoshop won't allow itself to run multiple copies at a time. This is like some crazy hold over from the 1980s single application metaphor.
Less powerful editing software like Corel Photo-Paint behaves like a modern application, and I sometimes will go back to it because I can have 5 or 6 copies of it running at the same time and working between them. What is so hard about the idea of having more than one copy of Photoshop running at a time?
Yep, just had a chance to sit down to a Home Premium system, and Previous Versions is not available. I am having techs check for a tweak that turns it on, as this is another reason why I hate the various versions of Vista. MS feked up big time with the home versions.
However, Home Premium does have basic backup tools like XP did, just no complete restore function, you have to reinstall the OS and then restore from the backup instead of it being an automated recovery.
MS just needs to kill the Home versions, offer free upgrades to Ultimate, and then only offer Business and Ultimate (since businesses don't want games, media center, etc. installed)
Thanks for fact checking this...