Raymond answered this question in his comments section -- see http://blogs.msdn.com/oldnewthing/archive/2007/05/ 04/2402028.aspx#2412469.
The bug was in a shell extension provided with a printer that was not even manufactured anymore when this patch was developed. Even exhaustive QA cannot be reasonably expected to test all Windows shell extensions in existence.
Most probably, the only difference today would have been that we would be reading about Apple dumping _Sun_ for Intel, rather than dumping IBM for same.
Reminds me of an Isaac Asimov story called "What If-", in which a newlywed couple meets a man who owns a gadget that can show them alternate realities, if key events in their past had taken a different course. For example: Would they be married had they not accidentally met on a train ride, etc. They keep going back to different points in their past: The day they met, the date of their wedding, and of course, everything is radically different, which aggravates the wife to no end ("This marriage is just based on chance, an accident..."). Right before everything gets really ugly, the husband deparately says: "Show us what we would have been doing at this very moment, had we not met on that train", and, surprisingly, they see themselves, exactly as they are right now, sitting together, happily married.
This post pretty much sums up why is isn't practical for Microsoft to fix every single bug. The harsh truth is that it's (financially speaking) not worth it.
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It was Cory Doctorow who complained about Audible's mandatory DRM, in TWiT 124, around the 43 minute mark.
Raymond answered this question in his comments section -- see http://blogs.msdn.com/oldnewthing/archive/2007/05/ 04/2402028.aspx#2412469.
The bug was in a shell extension provided with a printer that was not even manufactured anymore when this patch was developed. Even exhaustive QA cannot be reasonably expected to test all Windows shell extensions in existence.
Most probably, the only difference today would have been that we would be reading about Apple dumping _Sun_ for Intel, rather than dumping IBM for same. Reminds me of an Isaac Asimov story called "What If-", in which a newlywed couple meets a man who owns a gadget that can show them alternate realities, if key events in their past had taken a different course. For example: Would they be married had they not accidentally met on a train ride, etc. They keep going back to different points in their past: The day they met, the date of their wedding, and of course, everything is radically different, which aggravates the wife to no end ("This marriage is just based on chance, an accident..."). Right before everything gets really ugly, the husband deparately says: "Show us what we would have been doing at this very moment, had we not met on that train", and, surprisingly, they see themselves, exactly as they are right now, sitting together, happily married.
http://silverstr.ufies.org/blog/archives/000879.ht ml
This post pretty much sums up why is isn't practical for Microsoft to fix every single bug. The harsh truth is that it's (financially speaking) not worth it.
The Sasser worm has nothing to do with IE -- it exploits a flaw in Windows itself. Moving your friend to FireFox wouldn't have prevented anything.