By making it the user's responsibility to approve/disapprove just about every freakin' thing that runs on the Vista box, they can then go back and say "Gee, too bad you got that virus/spyware/malware infection, but it's not our fault, you clicked Allow". I've seen this comment quite a few times on Slashdot, and it continues to be completely senseless. Someone has to decide whether any particular piece of software is permitted to be installed. Either it's you, or its Microsoft. If you'd be happy for Microsoft to decide for you what programs you're allowed to install on your own computer, if you'd be happy to download and run a program only for a prompt to say "Sorry, Microsoft has forbidden the installation of this program on Windows PCs", if you'd be happy to relinquish even the semblence of having control over your own computer; best of luck to you. I'll stick with OSes that allow me the ability to take responsibility for what programs that I install on my own computer.
Maybe there's a good reason why these programs need administrative access, maybe not...but they need it. And under Vista you'll be prompted. Sorry, but that's just wrong. Pretty much everything that "needs" admin rights in XP does so because the app wants write access to either the systemwide branch of the registry (i.e. HKLM) rather than current user branch, or, more often, their own folder in \Program files rather than \appdata in the current user's home folder (ini files etc.). Neither of these will need admin privs in Vista due to file & registry virtualization, which redirects writes (and subsequent reads) to a per-user location within the users profile. For example, if an application attempts to write to C:\program files\appname\settings.ini and the user doesnt have permissions to write to that directory, the write will get redirected to C:\Users\username\AppData\Local\VirtualStore\Progr am Files\appname\.
Xerox have had 25 years to go after Apple, and almost as long to go after Microsoft, for half-inching the GUI. They never did... Ummm...
Yes they did.
They sued Apple in the late 1980s for copyright infringement of their GUI. The case was dismissed because the three year statute of limitations had expired.
Actually, I'm really quite surprised by this. Quite surprised by what, that programs running in user-mode can still access the current user's data and programs in their home folder? Hardly news.
(I was slightly confused by the statement that programs "can still hide with user-mode rootkits", though -- surely if a rootkit is running with LUA privs, it wouldn't be able to hide itself? I thought the whole point of a rootkit was that it allows malicious programs to maintain root (i.e. highest privilege) access undetected, which would make "user-mode rootkit" a bit of a contradiction in terms, unless I'm misunderstanding somewhere...?)
(And whilst I'm posting, "...a social engineering attack scenario where a fake elevation prompt can be used to trick users into clicking "allow" to give elevated rights to a malicious file"? If it's a prompt that will give a malicious program elevated rights when the user clicks 'allow', what part of it is fake? Surely a fake/spoofed dialogue box wouldn't *actually* be able to grant elevated rights (pretty much by definition); and the text in the *real* elevation prompts can't be changed, since they run in 'secure desktop' sandbox mode, no?)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Next-Generation_Secur e_Computing_Base I think I speak for everyone in the Slashdot community when I say how deeply, deeply disappointed I am that we as a people will miss out on the vendor-locking-in hardware-backed DRM platform that comprised Palladium. I was so looking forward to losing even the illusion of being in control of my own computer, too...
Seriously -- according to the wiki article, the only bit of NGSCB that actually made it into Vista is Bitlocker's ability to use TPM chips. Which was pretty much the only good part of it. Are you seriously arguing that MS's leaving the rest out was a bad thing?
What I want to know is why it requires super duper computing abilities even with the "Turbo Hyper-Fighting Championship Edition graphics mode". It's not doing anything that's not being done on OSX or Linux (Compiz, Beryl). So why does Vista require so much power when Linux and OSX can do it on half the hardware? Regarding Aero, IIRC the reason it requires a DirectX 9 graphics chip is because of the frosted glass effect, which uses Shader model 2.0, which was first brought in with DirectX 9. Beryl, Compiz etc. working on pre-DX9 chips just use normal alpha transparency, which is much, much cheaper in terms of computing power (no sampling, etc.) than frosted glass effects.
OMG OMG, XP support ends at 20:14 -- that's an hour, 35 minutes away! M$ are going to FORCE us to switch by ending XP support lifecycle so soon after release!!
...Oh, wait, sorry, it's 2014. 7 years away. Since most companies AFAIK work on a approx. 3 year replacement lifecycle, the point is entirely moot.
But Microsoft is due to phase out XP by the end of this year.
So does this mean they will push out XP to schools then not support it? "Phase out" means they're not going to sell it any more, not they're not going to support it. IIRC, XP mainstream support (i.e. service packs) sends in 2009, and extended support (i.e. security patches only) end in 2014.
Vista, on the other hand, appears to let old games work just fine on a Limited account. Obviously, REALLY old games don't work at all, but Win98-era games work just fine again. That might be due to File & Registry Virtualization; which coincidentally I'd just read about in Wikipedia before coming to Slashdot. To quote:
Applications written with the assumption that the user will be running with administrator privelages experienced problems in earlier versions of Windows when run from limited user accounts; often because they attempted to write to machine-wide or system directories (such as Program Files) or registry keys (notably HKLM)[1]. UAC attempts to alleviate this using File and Registry Virtualization, which redirects writes (and subsequent reads) to a per-user location within the users profile. For example, if an application attempts to write to C:\program files\appname\settings.ini and the user doesnt have permissions to write to that directory, the write will get redirected to C:\Users\username\AppData\Local\VirtualStore\Progr am Files\appname\.
"ipconfig" works fine in Vista; but if you need to check it often, having it in the sidebar a quick key combination (winkey+space) away is a lot quicker than typing "cmd/k ipconfig" -- and a lot less intimidating for people who aren't very comfortable using the command line.
I'm very surprised that they don't have graphical equivalents for the key-commands that you suggested, especially since they take up the space in the task bar with an almost useless icon Clicking on that taskbar icon does exactly the same as winkey+space, i.e. brings all the gadgets and the sidebar to the front and in focus.
It's just in the way, even on a widescreen monitor - who would willingly sacrifice that much real estate? It's not always on top, and doesn't take space away from applications -- by default, anyway, it just sits on the desktop, so the only thing it's nudging out of the way are desktop icons. Though there is an option to have it always on top, I can't see that many people would use it -- for exactly the reasons you say. So if you want to see your gadgets, you just winkey+M (minimize all) to see your desktop.
Alternatively, if you want it to work like Dashboard (i.e. gadgets appear temporarily over the top of your current applications), the shortcut is winkey+space, which brings the sidebar and any desktop gadgets to the front (and in focus), from where you can use winkey+g to cycle through them.
In fact, if you hide the sidebar altogether and just use desktop gadgets, and use winkey+space to bring them to the front when necessary, you can pretty much exactly emulate the functionality of Dashboard.
BTW, For what it's worth, the first version of MacOS to have gadgets was released in April 2005. The initial release of Konfabulator was in February 2003 (November 2004 for the Windows version). Windows Sidebar, meanwhile, was demonstrated as a Microsoft Research project called Sideshow in the summer of 2000 and first turned up in a public Longhorn build in September 2002, 5 months before Konfabulator and over 2 1/2 years before MacOS 10.4.
But then, BeOS had widgets way back in... er, whenever-it-was; certainly way before 2000.
Come to think of it, BeOS also apparently had Spotlight/Vista-style instant search a good 10 years before Spotlight and Vista.
but even the most recent ones (bought about a year ago) don't have the required hardware (TPM) to run it FWIW, you don't need a TPM module to use the drive encryption; you can store the key on a USB flash drive (though you'd be well advised to make a backup flash drive and keep it in a safe in case the main one breaks).
When using a laptop and traveling much, my ip-adress will often fluctuate. To show my IP-adress under XP, i doubleclick on the connection-icon in the systray and change to the second tab. Under Vista, i doubleclick the connection-icon and end up in the Connection-Center. From there, i have to choose the common Task to manage connections. There i have to rightclick on the connection and click on properties. THERE i have to click on the advanced-button. IIRC, one of the resons behind the Vista Sidebar was to make oft-accessed information just like this very easily accessible. Sure enough, a quick Find More Gadgets search reveals:
My IP -- "a compact gadget to display your current IP address"
Alternatively:
Wireless Network Controller -- "a gadget to display your wireless network's current status and details. The gadget displays the SSID and Signal Strength; click on the SSID to open the Details flyout for all the network details such as Signal Quality, Security Status and IP Address."
The possible display modes are, IIRC, reported by the video card driver. Get the latest driver from the manufacturer's website. If the manufacturer's driver isn't reporting the correct display modes (which you can check in display settings -> advanced settings -> list all mdoes), maybe try uninstalling it and reverting to Windows' generic driver, and see if that will let you set your correct resolution (advanced settings -> properties -> driver -> uninstall)?
The fact that Dell's godawful bundled wireless utility is presenting UAC prompts suggests that they haven't updated it since XP and so it's demanding admin privs for no particlarly good reason just because it had them in XP. Next time, I suggest running the laptop through the Dell DeCrapifier before setting up the wireless networking to remove it, and use Windows own networking tools, which are actually much improved in Vista compared to XP. No UAC prompts, and connected first time for me (of course, YMMV).
It took 45 minutes to get past the 'Starting windows for the first time' (Rebooted 3 times) to a usable desktop.
45 Minutes with Vista pre installed. Give me a break. I installed Vista from scratch a few days ago onto my desktop onto a blank hard drive -- it took about 45 minutes and rebooted 3 times. I also set up a new IBM laptop with VIsta preinstalled for someone -- it took 5 minutes (most of which was getting them to decide on a username and password) and no reboots. I can only imagine Best Buy "preinstalls" Vista for a rather low value of "preinstalls"...
wouldn't that be a huge issue when it comes to other memory vulnerabilities that you have a bunch of prefetched data just waiting to be read? According to Wikipedia, Vista uses Address Space Layout randomisation, which would help.
Have you considered that maybe it's a hardware problem? Computers don't last forever; every component has an expected lifetime. If it seems like random crashing, freezing, etc; my first guess would be the RAM -- if you've got more than one stick, try running only on first one, then the other; see if that changes anything.
And all those other features that'd have made Vista functional? Just out of interest, whenever anyone talks about all the myriad features MS cut from Vista; the only one they ever mention is WinFS. Ever. What are all these other mythical features that were suuposedly cut?
Slashdot Mirror
Yes they did.
They sued Apple in the late 1980s for copyright infringement of their GUI. The case was dismissed because the three year statute of limitations had expired.
(I was slightly confused by the statement that programs "can still hide with user-mode rootkits", though -- surely if a rootkit is running with LUA privs, it wouldn't be able to hide itself? I thought the whole point of a rootkit was that it allows malicious programs to maintain root (i.e. highest privilege) access undetected, which would make "user-mode rootkit" a bit of a contradiction in terms, unless I'm misunderstanding somewhere...?)
(And whilst I'm posting, "...a social engineering attack scenario where a fake elevation prompt can be used to trick users into clicking "allow" to give elevated rights to a malicious file"? If it's a prompt that will give a malicious program elevated rights when the user clicks 'allow', what part of it is fake? Surely a fake/spoofed dialogue box wouldn't *actually* be able to grant elevated rights (pretty much by definition); and the text in the *real* elevation prompts can't be changed, since they run in 'secure desktop' sandbox mode, no?)
Seriously -- according to the wiki article, the only bit of NGSCB that actually made it into Vista is Bitlocker's ability to use TPM chips. Which was pretty much the only good part of it. Are you seriously arguing that MS's leaving the rest out was a bad thing?
OMG OMG, XP support ends at 20:14 -- that's an hour, 35 minutes away! M$ are going to FORCE us to switch by ending XP support lifecycle so soon after release!!
...Oh, wait, sorry, it's 2014. 7 years away. Since most companies AFAIK work on a approx. 3 year replacement lifecycle, the point is entirely moot.
Wikipedia is your friend.
Not quite: If you're logged in as a standard user it'll ask for a password; if you're logged in as an administrator it won't.
Applications written with the assumption that the user will be running with administrator privelages experienced problems in earlier versions of Windows when run from limited user accounts; often because they attempted to write to machine-wide or system directories (such as Program Files) or registry keys (notably HKLM)[1]. UAC attempts to alleviate this using File and Registry Virtualization, which redirects writes (and subsequent reads) to a per-user location within the users profile. For example, if an application attempts to write to C:\program files\appname\settings.ini and the user doesnt have permissions to write to that directory, the write will get redirected to C:\Users\username\AppData\Local\VirtualStore\Prog
"ipconfig" works fine in Vista; but if you need to check it often, having it in the sidebar a quick key combination (winkey+space) away is a lot quicker than typing "cmd /k ipconfig" -- and a lot less intimidating for people who aren't very comfortable using the command line.
Alternatively, if you want it to work like Dashboard (i.e. gadgets appear temporarily over the top of your current applications), the shortcut is winkey+space, which brings the sidebar and any desktop gadgets to the front (and in focus), from where you can use winkey+g to cycle through them.
In fact, if you hide the sidebar altogether and just use desktop gadgets, and use winkey+space to bring them to the front when necessary, you can pretty much exactly emulate the functionality of Dashboard.
BTW, For what it's worth, the first version of MacOS to have gadgets was released in April 2005. The initial release of Konfabulator was in February 2003 (November 2004 for the Windows version). Windows Sidebar, meanwhile, was demonstrated as a Microsoft Research project called Sideshow in the summer of 2000 and first turned up in a public Longhorn build in September 2002, 5 months before Konfabulator and over 2 1/2 years before MacOS 10.4.
But then, BeOS had widgets way back in... er, whenever-it-was; certainly way before 2000.
Come to think of it, BeOS also apparently had Spotlight/Vista-style instant search a good 10 years before Spotlight and Vista.
So -- everything's ripping of BeOS?
Meh.
My IP -- "a compact gadget to display your current IP address"
Alternatively:
Wireless Network Controller -- "a gadget to display your wireless network's current status and details. The gadget displays the SSID and Signal Strength; click on the SSID to open the Details flyout for all the network details such as Signal Quality, Security Status and IP Address."
Another alternative; And another, etc..
The possible display modes are, IIRC, reported by the video card driver. Get the latest driver from the manufacturer's website. If the manufacturer's driver isn't reporting the correct display modes (which you can check in display settings -> advanced settings -> list all mdoes), maybe try uninstalling it and reverting to Windows' generic driver, and see if that will let you set your correct resolution (advanced settings -> properties -> driver -> uninstall)?
"Ouch"
"Oo-mox!"
"A lampost requires elevated privaleges in order to insersect with your head. Cancel or allow?"
The fact that Dell's godawful bundled wireless utility is presenting UAC prompts suggests that they haven't updated it since XP and so it's demanding admin privs for no particlarly good reason just because it had them in XP. Next time, I suggest running the laptop through the Dell DeCrapifier before setting up the wireless networking to remove it, and use Windows own networking tools, which are actually much improved in Vista compared to XP. No UAC prompts, and connected first time for me (of course, YMMV).
45 Minutes with Vista pre installed. Give me a break. I installed Vista from scratch a few days ago onto my desktop onto a blank hard drive -- it took about 45 minutes and rebooted 3 times. I also set up a new IBM laptop with VIsta preinstalled for someone -- it took 5 minutes (most of which was getting them to decide on a username and password) and no reboots. I can only imagine Best Buy "preinstalls" Vista for a rather low value of "preinstalls"...
Have you considered that maybe it's a hardware problem? Computers don't last forever; every component has an expected lifetime. If it seems like random crashing, freezing, etc; my first guess would be the RAM -- if you've got more than one stick, try running only on first one, then the other; see if that changes anything.