In addition to the Windows Firewall and bugfixes SP2 included: Windows Security Center, greater IE local zone security, IE popup blocker, IE addon manager, IE "authorized code" download manager, Data Execution Prevention, Attachment Manager for OE/IE/MSNMSGR, a Bluetooth stack, a much improved WiFi connecton wizard and greater 802.1x support, Windows Movie Player interface/feature upgrades, the removal of raw socket support (a feature to those of us IRC operators out there), and a limitation on the number of concurrent embryonic connections.
Although I'm not sure exactly what you're talking about (since as somebody else noted, Vista does not restrict your access to your own files) I'm going to assume it's DRM in which case you're very confused about the issue. The only DRM new to Vista is in HDCP/ICT which will downsample Bluray/HDDVD content unless displayed on a compliant monitor. While annoying, the feature will not be used on Hollywood movies until 2012 (and that's only if Bluray/HDDVD don't die out before then). Considering the encryption scheme of Bluray/HDDVD was shown to be very breakable this week I don't expect this sort of DRM to be a problem come 2012. Now for Microsoft's part in it, all they did was support the standard so they'd be able to play such movies when they're released. I'd be surprised if similar additions aren't made to other operating systems when that time rolls around. All this nonsense of Microsoft trying to stop you from listening to MP3's or using/copying any arbitrary file simply isn't true. Sure there is still DRM in the Windows Media format, but that isn't new to Vista.
Unless I'm missing something significant I don't see how this is true at all. Windows releases have been within 5 years for every release outside of Vista. Windows 95, Windows NT 4.0 (released in 1996), Windows 98, Windows ME, Windows 2000, Windows XP (released in 2001), Windows 2003. And how are software projects as large as the Windows operating system supposed to stay a complete secret until their release? How is announcing an upgrade supposed to head off people who might otherwise jump ship from Microsoft products considering many of these companies are still running 2000/NT4?
So because you don't know anybody who has been screwed over by PayPal it doesn't happen? This isn't some small idea on the Internet being voiced by a vocal minority, PayPal complaints are everywhere. A quick search for "Paypal sucks" on Google reveals hundreds of detailed accounts on dealing with PayPal. Even if you haven't personally been screwed it's easy to see that they're a bad company to deal with, just try contacting their customer service. It's damn near impossible. I can name 3 people I know who have had their PayPal accounts frozen and each time unfairly. There was no communication with Paypal about the account, just an email indicating that it was being shutdown due to excessive risk. It's great that you have been able to conduct such a large amount of business through PayPal without any problems, but don't use that to trivialize the legitimate complaints being made about the company - they're not a myth.
The majority of the world's testosterone was held inside the nation's lumberjacks. With machines replacing these mighty beasts it's no surprise that the horomone is now in short quanity.
Way off topic here, but I've read studies comparing natural warming period increases in global temperature to current measurements and the difference is significant. Only after accounting for additional methane in the atmosphere were the numbers able to approach one another. I also disagree that this side hasn't been heard because many of the people I've spoken with (that care) don't believe the scientific community has a consensus on the cause. While it's conceivable that the people I've heard from are not overall representitive of American opinion I think a similar pattern could be observed from the fact that it's not a strong voting issue (despite the gravity of the purported problem). Conjecture is hardly necessary though: among climatologists there is a strong consensus that global warming is the result of greenhouse gases. Currently the "Global Warming" article on Wikipedia is highly informative and maintains a list of scientists with dissenting opinions.
Okay this is what I thought you were getting at and why I asked why you would feel MS has some obligation to keep their OS insecure. MS created the market with XP and now that they're releasing a more secure OS the security vendors are going to have to rethink their business models. Somehow I still believe there will be room in the software industry for antivirus companies. MS doesn't have an obligation to make sure their OS is insecure to accomodate for these companies. Furthermore their security features are well accomodated for already using the APIs Microsoft developed for them (which you've still neglected to explain the problem with).
How did they design their security model to break when Symantec and McAfee required an API? What exactly is wrong with the API they've been given already? It works for everybody else.
I'm having trouble understanding the obligation bit of your argument. What is Microsoft obligated to do that hasn't already been done? I understand that Microsoft is a monopoly and has obligations to their competitors, but they created the market that Symantec and McAfee's desktop security products have made money in. They're going to be creating a competing product but that isn't even out yet and I think they've done their job in making sure they have a level playing field when it does come out.
First of all how does Microsoft have a responsibility to make sure their OS isn't secure? And how are they not accomodating 3rd party security vendors? As other posters have stated, Microsoft's future security product uses the exact same API's that they're releasing to the 3rd party vendors. There is no secret API that they're going to use to have a leg up.
What about McAfee and Symantec's complaint is valid? It's insane. Other security vendors have already made their products work with Vista just fine. Microsoft offers API to make their products work, something that I don't believe they even hold any responsibility to do. Why should Microsoft be spending their money developing APIs to allow these 3rd party vendors to work? They have no obligation. If McAfee/Symantec can't adapt to the market then they should get out of it. Other companies will undoubtedly take their place.
It seems more to me like Microsoft fought to keep the security model the way it was and is now realizing they can't win in Europe and that continuing to try would hurt the company. I don't like the change either but saying that Microsoft made security an "afterthought" doesn't accurately describe what's happening here. McAfee and Symantec only started complaining loudly at the last minute while other antivirus vendors worked to make sure their products would work under Vista. The EU heard their complaints and is in effect forcing Microsoft to make this last minute change.
I'm probably missing something, but where are you getting the impression that security was an afterthought in Windows Vista? Everything I've read up until now has stated that security was a paramount idea throughout the entire Vista development process. The article in the OP is about Microsoft giving into McAfee/Symantec lawyers who had started bitching louder and louder, it's not like PatchGaurd is a new idea that was just implemented into Vista.
The proposed PatchGaurd security model made perfect sense and was one of my favorite parts about Vista. Even though Brad Smith said in the press conference that they haven't dropped PatchGuard, by providing a hole in it they may as well.
And is anyone else incredibly annoyed when they find that some interface in the OS (like security center) has been disabled and replaced with something inferior? I don't think McAfee and Symantec care about that so much as making sure that Windows continues to face serious security threats. A secure Windows would mean they'd be out of a job.
Just remember a year or two down the road when you're helping somebody fix their rootkit/malware/spyware laden computer that Symantec and McAfee are the ones who made the problem possible.
I don't personally use Orkut, but that Google owned social networking website has a pretty large userbase. Over 9% of Brazil's population are registered Orkut users. Sounds like they're more experienced in that market than you might realize. And why are you so quick to call the purchase "stupid"? You don't think that the folks at Google can come up with a good advertising strategy for YouTube?
A judge threw out the charges and Mr. Howards sounds like he has a pretty strong case. How does this incident show that speech in the US is at risk? What it does show I think is that this administration has no respect for freedom of speech (but we all already knew that).
That isn't true at all. Clinton set the record straight pretty recently in an interview on Fox News, there are also books about it. Transcript available here: http://thinkprogress.org/clinton-interview
Honestly if the folks on/. aren't educated on net neutrality it really stands no chance at all. Companies are on the verge of taking such measures in both a traffic shaping fashion and in a blocking traffic to competitors fashion. An example from earlier this year would be an ISP blocking access to Vonage. The two tiered Internet will happen if net neutrality legislation isn't passed. Market forces will not stop a two tiered Internet because options for broadband access are very limited in America, usually to one or two different ISPs for a particular area. No new ISP will pop up as the result of market desire for the network access we've become accustomed to because of the enormous cost to enter the market.
This "solution in search of a problem" nonsense is the result of people not actually looking into the issue or trying to write off all concern over it as alarmism. Stop falling for their crap.
Stateless address autoconfiguration and nd as far as I can tell are not available with IPv4 in any form and I consider those to be pretty darn useful. Also I think you're missing how the larger address space isn't just to prevent exhausting the quantity of addresses, but to allow true host to host connectivity on the Internet. By providing groups with large address space hacks like overloading (NAT) will become unnecessary.
Why do people keep making this argument? It's completely irrelevant to the actual problem being voiced. This is not an issue of people posting information to facebook and expecting privacy, it's an issue of bad UI design where people are given every small action performed by their friends on the front page. Even worse, people tend to friend everybody they've ever talked to and wind up getting spoon fed more information than they care to know about those people.
You're also wrong on a few counts, have you ever used facebook? The privacy controls severely limit the number of people able to view your profile. Google's crawlers won't be able to index this information unless the folks working for facebook open it up to them. The privacy controls are of course only as trustworthy as the people working for facebook, and also if you're friending everybody under the sun you have removed the ability of the privacy controls to help anyway.
Even if the article is about Microsoft, I'm surprised to find that people here don't like the ribbon idea at all. When I first saw it I thought the design was revolutionary and considerably more intuitive for users new to computers. Functions are better organized toward what the user wants to do as opposed to the vague categories we have in today's menubars that frequently require people to search multiple different menus to find what they want (Edit vs. Tools, View vs. Window). I do however agree with an earlier poster's remark that the design uses precious vertical space even though today's monitors are moving towards increased horizontal space. In Word this is tough to pull off because the primary use (creating an 8 1/2 x 11 document) demands vertical space, but surely there are other non-office applications that could benefit from this new style?
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In addition to the Windows Firewall and bugfixes SP2 included: Windows Security Center, greater IE local zone security, IE popup blocker, IE addon manager, IE "authorized code" download manager, Data Execution Prevention, Attachment Manager for OE/IE/MSNMSGR, a Bluetooth stack, a much improved WiFi connecton wizard and greater 802.1x support, Windows Movie Player interface/feature upgrades, the removal of raw socket support (a feature to those of us IRC operators out there), and a limitation on the number of concurrent embryonic connections.
Although I'm not sure exactly what you're talking about (since as somebody else noted, Vista does not restrict your access to your own files) I'm going to assume it's DRM in which case you're very confused about the issue. The only DRM new to Vista is in HDCP/ICT which will downsample Bluray/HDDVD content unless displayed on a compliant monitor. While annoying, the feature will not be used on Hollywood movies until 2012 (and that's only if Bluray/HDDVD don't die out before then). Considering the encryption scheme of Bluray/HDDVD was shown to be very breakable this week I don't expect this sort of DRM to be a problem come 2012. Now for Microsoft's part in it, all they did was support the standard so they'd be able to play such movies when they're released. I'd be surprised if similar additions aren't made to other operating systems when that time rolls around. All this nonsense of Microsoft trying to stop you from listening to MP3's or using/copying any arbitrary file simply isn't true. Sure there is still DRM in the Windows Media format, but that isn't new to Vista.
Unless I'm missing something significant I don't see how this is true at all. Windows releases have been within 5 years for every release outside of Vista. Windows 95, Windows NT 4.0 (released in 1996), Windows 98, Windows ME, Windows 2000, Windows XP (released in 2001), Windows 2003. And how are software projects as large as the Windows operating system supposed to stay a complete secret until their release? How is announcing an upgrade supposed to head off people who might otherwise jump ship from Microsoft products considering many of these companies are still running 2000/NT4?
I've hibernated my thinkpad running Vista RC2 numerous times and haven't had any trouble. I suspect it's a hardware driver afterall.
Denial of service attacks are very difficult to defend against.
I know plenty about computers sir, repairing them has been my job my whole life.
Writing software is my job in my life. Please start paying for the work I've done, it wasn't easy.
Please review the massive article that is http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Features_new_to_windo ws_vista before spreading any further ignorance. You'll find many features useful to businesses.
So because you don't know anybody who has been screwed over by PayPal it doesn't happen? This isn't some small idea on the Internet being voiced by a vocal minority, PayPal complaints are everywhere. A quick search for "Paypal sucks" on Google reveals hundreds of detailed accounts on dealing with PayPal. Even if you haven't personally been screwed it's easy to see that they're a bad company to deal with, just try contacting their customer service. It's damn near impossible. I can name 3 people I know who have had their PayPal accounts frozen and each time unfairly. There was no communication with Paypal about the account, just an email indicating that it was being shutdown due to excessive risk. It's great that you have been able to conduct such a large amount of business through PayPal without any problems, but don't use that to trivialize the legitimate complaints being made about the company - they're not a myth.
The majority of the world's testosterone was held inside the nation's lumberjacks. With machines replacing these mighty beasts it's no surprise that the horomone is now in short quanity.
Way off topic here, but I've read studies comparing natural warming period increases in global temperature to current measurements and the difference is significant. Only after accounting for additional methane in the atmosphere were the numbers able to approach one another. I also disagree that this side hasn't been heard because many of the people I've spoken with (that care) don't believe the scientific community has a consensus on the cause. While it's conceivable that the people I've heard from are not overall representitive of American opinion I think a similar pattern could be observed from the fact that it's not a strong voting issue (despite the gravity of the purported problem). Conjecture is hardly necessary though: among climatologists there is a strong consensus that global warming is the result of greenhouse gases. Currently the "Global Warming" article on Wikipedia is highly informative and maintains a list of scientists with dissenting opinions.
Okay this is what I thought you were getting at and why I asked why you would feel MS has some obligation to keep their OS insecure. MS created the market with XP and now that they're releasing a more secure OS the security vendors are going to have to rethink their business models. Somehow I still believe there will be room in the software industry for antivirus companies. MS doesn't have an obligation to make sure their OS is insecure to accomodate for these companies. Furthermore their security features are well accomodated for already using the APIs Microsoft developed for them (which you've still neglected to explain the problem with).
How did they design their security model to break when Symantec and McAfee required an API? What exactly is wrong with the API they've been given already? It works for everybody else.
I'm having trouble understanding the obligation bit of your argument. What is Microsoft obligated to do that hasn't already been done? I understand that Microsoft is a monopoly and has obligations to their competitors, but they created the market that Symantec and McAfee's desktop security products have made money in. They're going to be creating a competing product but that isn't even out yet and I think they've done their job in making sure they have a level playing field when it does come out.
First of all how does Microsoft have a responsibility to make sure their OS isn't secure? And how are they not accomodating 3rd party security vendors? As other posters have stated, Microsoft's future security product uses the exact same API's that they're releasing to the 3rd party vendors. There is no secret API that they're going to use to have a leg up.
What about McAfee and Symantec's complaint is valid? It's insane. Other security vendors have already made their products work with Vista just fine. Microsoft offers API to make their products work, something that I don't believe they even hold any responsibility to do. Why should Microsoft be spending their money developing APIs to allow these 3rd party vendors to work? They have no obligation. If McAfee/Symantec can't adapt to the market then they should get out of it. Other companies will undoubtedly take their place.
It seems more to me like Microsoft fought to keep the security model the way it was and is now realizing they can't win in Europe and that continuing to try would hurt the company. I don't like the change either but saying that Microsoft made security an "afterthought" doesn't accurately describe what's happening here. McAfee and Symantec only started complaining loudly at the last minute while other antivirus vendors worked to make sure their products would work under Vista. The EU heard their complaints and is in effect forcing Microsoft to make this last minute change.
I'm probably missing something, but where are you getting the impression that security was an afterthought in Windows Vista? Everything I've read up until now has stated that security was a paramount idea throughout the entire Vista development process. The article in the OP is about Microsoft giving into McAfee/Symantec lawyers who had started bitching louder and louder, it's not like PatchGaurd is a new idea that was just implemented into Vista.
The proposed PatchGaurd security model made perfect sense and was one of my favorite parts about Vista. Even though Brad Smith said in the press conference that they haven't dropped PatchGuard, by providing a hole in it they may as well.
And is anyone else incredibly annoyed when they find that some interface in the OS (like security center) has been disabled and replaced with something inferior? I don't think McAfee and Symantec care about that so much as making sure that Windows continues to face serious security threats. A secure Windows would mean they'd be out of a job.
Just remember a year or two down the road when you're helping somebody fix their rootkit/malware/spyware laden computer that Symantec and McAfee are the ones who made the problem possible.
I don't personally use Orkut, but that Google owned social networking website has a pretty large userbase. Over 9% of Brazil's population are registered Orkut users. Sounds like they're more experienced in that market than you might realize. And why are you so quick to call the purchase "stupid"? You don't think that the folks at Google can come up with a good advertising strategy for YouTube?
A judge threw out the charges and Mr. Howards sounds like he has a pretty strong case. How does this incident show that speech in the US is at risk? What it does show I think is that this administration has no respect for freedom of speech (but we all already knew that).
MVPs are some of the smartest people I've worked with.
That isn't true at all. Clinton set the record straight pretty recently in an interview on Fox News, there are also books about it. Transcript available here: http://thinkprogress.org/clinton-interview
Honestly if the folks on /. aren't educated on net neutrality it really stands no chance at all. Companies are on the verge of taking such measures in both a traffic shaping fashion and in a blocking traffic to competitors fashion. An example from earlier this year would be an ISP blocking access to Vonage. The two tiered Internet will happen if net neutrality legislation isn't passed. Market forces will not stop a two tiered Internet because options for broadband access are very limited in America, usually to one or two different ISPs for a particular area. No new ISP will pop up as the result of market desire for the network access we've become accustomed to because of the enormous cost to enter the market.
This "solution in search of a problem" nonsense is the result of people not actually looking into the issue or trying to write off all concern over it as alarmism. Stop falling for their crap.
Stateless address autoconfiguration and nd as far as I can tell are not available with IPv4 in any form and I consider those to be pretty darn useful. Also I think you're missing how the larger address space isn't just to prevent exhausting the quantity of addresses, but to allow true host to host connectivity on the Internet. By providing groups with large address space hacks like overloading (NAT) will become unnecessary.
There is a (huge) list available here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Features_new_to_Windo ws_Vista
Why do people keep making this argument? It's completely irrelevant to the actual problem being voiced. This is not an issue of people posting information to facebook and expecting privacy, it's an issue of bad UI design where people are given every small action performed by their friends on the front page. Even worse, people tend to friend everybody they've ever talked to and wind up getting spoon fed more information than they care to know about those people.
You're also wrong on a few counts, have you ever used facebook? The privacy controls severely limit the number of people able to view your profile. Google's crawlers won't be able to index this information unless the folks working for facebook open it up to them. The privacy controls are of course only as trustworthy as the people working for facebook, and also if you're friending everybody under the sun you have removed the ability of the privacy controls to help anyway.
Even if the article is about Microsoft, I'm surprised to find that people here don't like the ribbon idea at all. When I first saw it I thought the design was revolutionary and considerably more intuitive for users new to computers. Functions are better organized toward what the user wants to do as opposed to the vague categories we have in today's menubars that frequently require people to search multiple different menus to find what they want (Edit vs. Tools, View vs. Window). I do however agree with an earlier poster's remark that the design uses precious vertical space even though today's monitors are moving towards increased horizontal space. In Word this is tough to pull off because the primary use (creating an 8 1/2 x 11 document) demands vertical space, but surely there are other non-office applications that could benefit from this new style?