Yeah, the press in the US is the same way. They shortcut "the Federal Government" by just saying "Washington." The problem is that, in addition to the city named Washington on the east coast, we have an entire state of 6.4 million people out west. But when I specifically say "the government of D.C." it should be obvious to non-morons that I mean the government that manages the area of the District of Columbia, and not the Federal Government.
And, please, idiots in the press? Just say "the Feds." Otherwise, you're just unnecessarily confusing those above-mentioned 6.4 million people for no reason.
It's not reading incomprehension day, it's you-know-what-I-mean day, which seems to be every day at Slashdot. Somebody expresses themselves poorly, gets misread, and whines about people "putting words in my mouth".
I was trying to make a fucking joke. Christ. Lighten up.
And yeah, I don't like to be accused as some crazy anti-government survivalist because: 1) Slashdotters with a big long stick up their fucking ass think I was being totally serious 2) Everybody who speaks English knows the difference between the phrase "government of D.C." and "the Federal Government."
At best, I said "the government of D.C. sucks". Is this like No Reading Comprehension Day on Slashdot? Do people not realize that the city of Washington D.C. has a government which is distinct from that of the Federal Government? WTF.
Some idiot puts words into my mouth and suddenly I'm Anti-Citizen Number 1.
What are you replying to? I didn't say "the" government sucks (in fact, I don't even know which specific government you're talking about-- you seem to think there's only one!) I said the government of D.C. sucks. Now, that's my opinion of course, but it's a far cry from saying "all governments suck" or "the US sucks" or whatever you're imagining I typed.
For the record, I personally am a member of at least 4 governments: - The City I live in has a government - As does the County - As does the State - As does the Nation (the United States, for the record) - And arguably you could include the U.N. as well. (Some people even have a Homeowner's Association, which is basically a more local government than their City.)
I don't think any of the governments I'm a part of particularly suck. Well, maybe Sound Transit.
Which brings me to search. Yes, indexing is a good thing, and I like it, but I don't like the rest of the start menu, which is a hierarchy of folders, requiring multiple clicks to look around and see where I need to go. Say what you will about the old start menu, but I clicked once and moved the mouse around to browse the applications. I have to open each folder individually to look inside them. This may not seem that different to you, but when you're talking two clicks versus 10, it is noticable.
But as for search; we had that capability in XP as well with Google Desktop; and I think Google Desktop did it better. (Google Desktop doesn't have a 64-bit version yet, so I'm still using Vista's indexing.)
Ok, so you don't use the massively more efficient way, but don't argue that it doesn't exist!
As for games related features, I'm 30 years old with no kids, so ESRB ratings aren't important to me. Neither is downloading cover art. And I don't have any idea why the hell averaging the capabilities of my CPU, RAM, and Video Card would give me any sort of meaningful number because they're all going to do different things.
You don't play video games, and so those features don't exist!?
Shadow-copy is of limited utility to me, considering that I have about 1.5 TB of data that I can't afford to lose. I do have it backed up, but multiple copies over time isn't really all that big a deal. As for restoring old versions of the OS, for those cases where it does matter, I -have- an install disc, and can just reinstall the OS anyway. At any rate, these services were provided by third parties for Windows XP - and done better.
Shadow Copy was only available in XP and 2000 if you were a member of an Active Directory, which was not the case for home users. I'm pretty sure I mentioned this in my original post, which you seem to have utterly ignored in this case.
Shadow Copy for all users, even those not on a domain, is a new Vista feature whether or not you use it.
I haven't used the backup utility, preferring to backup manually because I don't want to save operating system files, only my 1.5 TB of video data. Still, I did take a look at it - how do you tell it which files you don't want backed up?
So you don't use the new backup utility, therefore that feature doesn't exist in Vista. I'm sensing a theme here.
And finally, Security/UAE. Vista is still vulnerable to malware. When the cracks in windows XP were patched up, the malware authors simply found new cracks.
Of course Vista is still vulnerable to malware. If only because the majority of malware is user-initiated. ("Do you want to install this spyware program?" "Yes!")
The point is that it's LESS vulnerable, not that Microsoft sprinkled magic dust on it to make it perfectly 200% secure.
And finally the sandboxed IE environment has zero impact on security. Everyone I know uses Firefox, Chrome, or Opera.
Everybody you know uses a different browser, therefore the IE sandboxing feature doesn't exist?
Look, you can't say Vista has no new features, then acknowledge a whole bunch of *gasp* NEW FEATURES. Whether or not you use them, whether or not you even like them, you're a full-on liar for saying they don't exist. This is the exact kind of crap the article is talking about: you're criticizing Vista with ZERO knowledge about it, and when confronted with proof that you're spreading FUD, you just make up more bullshit to cover it up.
They should at least be able to match the "many eyes" advantage.
Microsoft has an order of magnitude "more eyes" finding exploits, too.
No, I don't think it could "magically" fix the problem. But I find it disturbing that a budget of essentially zero often produces a better project.
Are you kidding? Linux apps *still* have issues copying/pasting any data other than text. Copy and paste. Apple had that perfected for everything up to, and including, video clips by version 7 in 1991. Microsoft has had it perfected since 1995. Linux still has issues. (Granted, it's getting better.)
Anecdote. While most of my own experience here has been with XP, it's not uncommon to see fresh installations of Vista need drivers.
Anecdote! In any case, I suppose the "recommended" method is to grab the install CD that came with the drive and shove it in your computer, like it's always been.
Contrast to Sudo, which both allows the possibility of running a shell as the root user (thus escalating everything you do for awhile)
UAC allows that as well. An Installer program only has to authentice once, then it can make dozens of escalated changes to the OS. Also, if you want an escalated shell, you can just right-click CMD and use "Run As Administrator."
But you're utterly, totally, ignorant of UAC so I don't even know why I'm bothering its features to you. You're obviously perfectly happy describing what you believe it can do, as if you were some kind of authority, so you can criticize it. Intellectual honesty? Not here in Slashdot!
In other words, what Apple did with OS X and Classic.
Classic didn't work, though. The whole point of Classic was that Apple could kind of pretend they gave a crap about backwards compatibility, when in fact they didn't... you couldn't drag&drop between Classic apps and other apps, ditto with AppleScript and virtually every other form of intra-process communication. (Of course, a lot of this is impossible with any form of emulation, which is why MS hasn't seriously persued that.) Many, many, Classic apps didn't run at all in the environment, so whatever "emulation" they used wasn't even remotely close to finished/complete.
Did you actually use OS X and the Classic environment? Or are you just full of shit, once again? Apple got away with this shittiness because the vast majority of Apple users aren't reliant on custom-made applications, and they're surrounded by fanboys who celebrate everything Apple does. Microsoft wouldn't even slightly begin to get away with it.
I can't say which came first, but I do know that OS X uses sudo on the commandline, same as anyone.
Wow! You're admitting you don't know something instead of just making up some bullshit and saying it as if it's fact? Remarkable.
I consider that to be a feature, not a bug -- a poorly-written app will thus fail repeatedly, not spam sudo prompts repeatedly.
See above: poorly-written Windows apps usually only prompt for UAC once as well. If you witnessed this behavior on Vista (which I doubt, I bet you made it up), it was probably due to a process spawning other processes which each try to perform a restricted operation.
Since most apps are written to run as a user, this is exactly as rare as it should be.
A Windows feature is that an application can either be installed for a specific user, or for all users. What you're basically saying is that Ubuntu sidesteps this issue by having fewer features than Windows. Now unlike you, I can't confirm or deny this because I haven't run Ubuntu in several years, but I just wanted to point it out.
Were Windows a Unix system at its core, which had trained users and developers to run as root for so long, I doubt sudo would be much of a cure, either.
Yeah; and were my bowel movements diamonds I could own a castle. You go to war with the army you have, not the army you want.
Look, just be happy that Microsoft has a bigger workload than Apple
Why go with X86 if you want low BOM cost ? Any ARM/MIPS/PowerPC SoC with decent Mhz will do it better for lower bill of materials. Try TI OMAP35xx line for instance, one with Cortex ARM and PowerVR graphics all in one chip. Works out way cheaper than anything x86-based. Getting a Beagleboard is a good way to start. And now with Canonical throwing official support for ARM-based Ubuntu, you have got your opsys covered as well.
Yeah, and make sure your UWD is 3SC5F over the KLKO9 link (utilizing M3iQ of course!) and it'll fragulate the Hf$33 better than your OM3223!
Don't forget handwriting recognition; that's a pretty suckful resource. Well, if the tech they're using is any damned good, which frankly it probably isn't.
Considering that Microsoft has billions of dollars to throw at the problem,
Please explain to me how billions of dollars would solve this problem more quickly than it's already being solved.
Keep in mind all the lessons learned from the Mythical Man Month, specifically that projects take longer to complete when you add more staff to them.
and still manages to do worse than Apple or Linux, I think it's reasonable to assume that they're either not working as hard as they could be, or they're simply incompetent.
I think you know absolutely nothing about software development, if you think billions of dollars could magically fix a problem of this nature.
It does, however, rely on the other ones. No matter how educated I am, every time I download an unsigned binary over vanilla http, I open myself up for attack.
If you're educated, and you know you're opening yourself up for attack, and you still do it... well you just made my brain explode.
Question: Has Vista finally disabled autorun by default?
Yes.
But please continue to criticize something you're entirely ignorant about; that's the Slashdot way!!! Sticking to the facts and saying "I'm not sure" or "I haven't used it, so I have no opinion" makes you a loser.
On Vista, what is the recommended way of obtaining the basic stuff I need, including drivers (which will run in Ring 0), which the OS encourages?
I just let the OS take care of it. I haven't had to manually download drivers for anything since installing Vista.
Is it at all secure?
Yup.
And no, bugging your users to the point where they have to disable the UAC service is not "encouragement", it's "badgering".
That only happens when you first install software. Having to expressly give permission for a software install to make system-wide changes is a good thing.
The problem is that when people first install a new OS, they continue to install all the apps they use... so they see the UAC prompt over and over and over the first few days, and in Vista's case, people made the bad assumption that the OS was always that way.
Also, apparently a lot of Vista haters have a large stable of shitty software that was attempting to write in disallowed parts of the filesystem. Those applications were equally buggy in Windows 2000 and Windows XP-- in fact those applications are *the reason* XP runs Admin by default and is insecure. (I know; I ran XP as a normal user account, and a lot of shitty software failed to run correctly. Try it: the same apps that spawn UAC prompts on Vista won't run at all on 2000 or XP with a normal user account.)
How would you have solved this problem? Make applications installed in the first X days after the OS install immune to UAC? Just be insecure, and let buggy software get away with being buggy? I'd love to hear your solution.
I realize it's a ripoff of sudo, but it's a pitiful implementation compared to the way sudo actually works on other OSes.
It's not. If anything, it's a "ripoff" of OS X's authentication. (Sudo is 1. CLI-based, and so no normal human being would ever use it, and 2. doesn't automatically run itself when needed.)
What makes it "pitiful" in comparison? I'm curious. Windows has also had the "Run As..." service (with associated GUI) since Windows 2000, so try to avoid arguments that ignore its existence.
What I'm trying to get at is that MA is a *different market* than the one Microsoft is in. The US, if you haven't noticed, it pretty goshdarned big, and it's perfectly possible for one region of the country to have no available experienced IT workers while another part of the country has a glut of them.
Look, if those experienced IT people can't get jobs, maybe they should stop demanding so much pay. Or move elsewhere. That's how the world works, the H1B program doesn't change anything about that. I can assure you there are no roving gangs of unemployed experienced IT people where Microsoft does its hiring.
I'll ignore the rambling part of the post and concentrate on the bullet-points.
- Stability - Early versions of Vista were unstable. This has since been fixed, but it is now only as stable as Windows XP SP2 once was. (Started negative, then no change.)
I don't really understand this argument... I think what it really amounts to is third-party drivers, really, which Microsoft has (obviously) little control over (otherwise they would have had better driver support.)
I find, personally, that Vista is much more stable than XP-- for example, in XP when my video card driver bit the dust, I had to reboot. Vista can recover from that situation and go on as if nothing happened.
BTW, 32-bit Vista can use 32-bit XP drivers, it just really gripes at you when you install them and won't install them automatically. Once installed, they work fine.
- Usability - Vista doesn't add any usability, and the new Explorer and Start menus actively detract from usability. (Net negative)
They do!? Do you use the new search feature in the Start menu? I'm not going to argue that Microsoft invented it (having used Quicksilver on OS X before), but it's a vast improvement over finding applications in the old Start menu. Detract from usability? Seriously!? Even Alt-Tab is better, it does the graphical preview by default.
The only "detraction" of usability for Explorer was removal of the "Film Strip" view for image files. The added "Slide Show" view simply isn't as good. Other than that I think it's identical as far as I'm concerned-- could you elaborate on what you feel Explorer in Vista is lacking?
- Utility - What can you do in Vista that you can't in Windows XP? (No change)
I admit there's not a lot here, but it's not like Vista has nothing new: 1) Games-related features, like limiting certain user accounts to ESRB ratings, downloading cover art, giving you a numeric performance indicator for your computer, are all new to Vista. 2) Shadow-copy is now available to users without a Active Directory domain, that's new. 3) The Backup utility is basically rewritten from scratch and vastly, vastly improved.
I will say that I think Windows Mail is a slight downslide from Outlook Express.
- Efficiency - Vista requires more hardware than XP does; the fancy "in the background" tasks don't really do anything. The one thing that Vista does to use the computer more efficiently is to have support for 64-bit computing; something that Microsoft could have had if they developed WindowsXP 64-bit. (Net negative.)
Possibly true, although I think XP 64-bit was a lost-cause from day 1, since hardware makers never got behind it, even less than they did Vista.
BTW, one of those fancy "in the background" tasks does file indexing for the new Start menu search that I love so much, so please don't tell me it does nothing-- it vastly increases the usability of the Start menu.
- Security - User Access Control doesn't really help, as we now know. (Started positive, quickly resulted in no change)
Could you elaborate on that? What about the sandboxed IE environment, do you also believe that has zero impact on security?
--
I'm glad you're a lot more open-minded about Microsoft OS upgrades than the average poster to this site, but after reading your bulletpoints I'm kind of curious how long you used Vista... you're either very ignorant of Vista's benefits, or you haven't really used it much at all. I don't get it.
Slashdot has an irrational hatred of the Registry. They'll promote this as the solution to everything from security holes, to bowel cancer. Just ignore it, there's no point trying to argue.
First, stop making the product so absurdly exploitable. In no way should it be possible to contract malware from simply visiting a website, or leaving a network cable plugged in.
Oh yes, all Microsoft needs to do is put:
#Define FixAllSecurityBugs
At the top of the file. You make it sound as if this is something Microsoft isn't already hard at work on, but, maybe, JUST MAYBE, the decades of old code take more than 10 seconds to inspect and fix? Just maybe?
We're already to the point where the vast, vast majority of attacks rely on tricking people into opening files.
Second, make it obvious what you're doing, but not actually intrusive. It should not be possible to download and execute a program without realizing what you're doing. For an example of how to do this wrong, see VBA -- I should not be able to contract malware from a fucking office document.
An example from this century might be more compelling. VBA has been fixed for ages; if you're getting attacked by VBA, that's because you specifically told your Office application to run them.
Third, provide known-good channels for obtaining new software. See: Linux package managers and repositories. Tie it in to Microsoft Update.
And get nailed by more anti-trust actions? Christ, you people are in some kind of fantasy-world where Microsoft would be able to implement something like this without getting sued by everyone from Adobe to Bill's Big Heap 'o' Software Emporium.
And finally, educate your users. The only computer which is secure from a user's own idiocy is one which doesn't let the user do anything worth protecting. Not limited to Windows, either
Ding ding ding! We have a winner! The only suggestion on your list which is both possible and not already in-progress.
though it would help if the OS encouraged more secure, rather than less secure, modes of operation.
You mean like Vista already does? Oh wait, did you just give a reason for upgrading to Vista or Windows 7? OMG! Turn in your Slashdot ID right now!
Look, if you don't want the features, just don't buy a new copy of Windows. But stop whining, whining, whining to those of us who DO like the new features, ok? It's just fucking annoying.
Ok, I'm going to answer your post in 6 words, see if you can follow:
Because it does more than XP.
Windows 7 is literally putting lipstick on a pig!
No, it's literally a computer OS made by Microsoft Corporation. You must be looking at some kind of arthouse movie or something, and just confusing it for Windows 7.
And when Netscape did the exact same thing, that was... sunshine and roses?
This is when you tell me that Microsoft is a "convicted monopolist", and so anything they do is evil and wrong, while anything any of their competitors does is the best thing ever. Because Slashdot is all about double-standards.
Wow, how quickly we forget. No, they did not just include it. They actively tried to undermine competition, among other things, by threatening OEMs to only bundle IE. They could do so because of their monopoly position. So they abused their monopoly to prevent competition. That's illegal.
Yeah, but that hasn't been the case in ages.
Also, OEMs will install a "HTML viewer". No problems there. And this time they can choose whatever they want, such as Chrome, for search revenue from Google.
*Is* there one that has the same DLL interface as MSHTML.DLL that could serve as a drop-in replacement? I think you're full of shit. Link me to a drop-in replacement, if such a thing exists for OEMs to bundle.
I continue out of honest curiosity then, how is the Internet separated from the OS for security purposes if it's underlying functions are built into the OS. Is this true for Linux as well?
My understanding is that it runs in a separate user account from the desktop use, an account that has extremely limited permissions. I don't know for sure, though. I also have no clue what Linux does.
Because there is already a browser. If there weren't, you don't think that would change anything?
But there *has* to be a browser. The entire OS depends on having a library for viewing HTML, and most third-party apps do as well. You can't ship a modern OS with no HTML library, period.
All "the browser" is is a quick and dirty UI to the underlying HTML library. Same thing as Safari on Macintosh. So, yes there already is a browser, because 99.9% of the work of making a web browser is in the HTML library, and every OS needs a HTML library.
Now OEMs could, if they wanted, remove the IE shortcuts from every place it appears and install their own browser. There's nothing stopping them from doing that right now, and there's no need for anybody to sue for their "right" to do that, since they already have that right.
yes, and that is simply not the case. There is NO lack of experienced, skilled, and available talent in the U.S.A. to state otherwise is simply a lie.
No, it's not. Our company, being in Seattle, is competing with Microsoft for talented IT people-- they aren't out there, Microsoft or one of the other 5,000 IT companies, has already hired them up. It takes us 8+ months to fill even entry-level positions. I don't know where you live, but what you're saying is complete bullshit for Western Washington State.
The H1B visa program allows companies to hire people from out of the country willing to work less than the prevailing wage and thus reduce the prevailing wage.
Microsoft pays H1B visa employees on the same scale as all other employees. If they're trying to "reduce wages", then they're doing it in an intensely stupid way.
Are there some companies somewhere that abuse the H1B program? Possibly. Is Microsoft one of them? No.
I haven't used Vista that much and have an honest question. If this is true can I uninstall IE in Vista?
Depends on what you mean by "uninstall."
If you mean, "does it appear in Remove Programs control panel?" then the answer is no. If you're asking, "can I delete iexplore.exe and all shortcuts/file associations for it?" then the answer is yes, but you could also do this in XP or 2000, so nothing new here. If you're asking, "can you remove mshml.dll and still have a functioning copy of Windows?" then the answer is no.
IE on Windows is like Safari on Mac. You can remove the front-end IU for it, but you can't remove the HTML rendering libraries-- too many other parts of the OS rely on it.
Besides, I have a sneaking suspicion that w/o IE built in OEM's would just preinstall a browser of their choosing. I doubt the end user would have to do it themselves.
The OEM could do that now, but they don't. This decision from the EU won't change anything there.
You could separate ftp functions from browsing functions.
You *could*, but then you're telling a company to tear out functional, debugged code so they can then re-write the exact same code in a slightly different way, and the end user would see absolutely no difference between the two. That's idiotic, and a burden Microsoft shouldn't have to shoulder for the benefit of whiny Europeans.
In fact if MS would separate things a little more, IE's security problems wouldn't necessarily become Windows security problems.
That's already true in Vista and Windows 7, in which IE runs in a "sandbox" security environment.
Whether or not there is an anti trust violation, security is probably the best reason to support efforts to make MS separate the browser from the OS.
Fine; as long as it's MS's decision to make.
Currently I am just pointing out that a built-in full featured browser is not necessary to download software easily.
Yes it is. You obviously have no understanding of the capabilities of the average computer user. In fact, I'd say a good percentage of average users are not even capable of downloading and installing software with a browser.
Security updates can also be done w/o IE and as I understand it(I may be wrong)
I'm not 100% sure on this, either... I know you can do the updates through the Control Panel on Vista and Windows 7 without ever engaging IE, but I'm not sure if it uses IE's HTML rendering libraries somewhere in the background.
Microsoft is not successful because they were selling the best software, or even the second best software. They are successful because of a good business strategy (regardless of the legality of it).
I would just like to point out that Oracle, PeopleSoft, and IBM are all "successful", and they all sell god-awful software. If Outlook isn't first or second best, well, it's still about 10 steps above Lotus Notes. And I'm sure half the country has had a wrong paycheck, or a late paycheck, due to PeopleSoft.
It's the IT version of the moronic "those illegal immigrants are stealing our jobs!" idiocy. Possibly racism, too. I love the H1B visa program; our QA team consists of a Chinese woman, a Indian woman, a Armenian man, and an British man, all top-of-their field. The H1B program is the kind of "mixing pot" laws that made America great, and will continue to do so.
Slashdot Mirror
Yeah, the press in the US is the same way. They shortcut "the Federal Government" by just saying "Washington." The problem is that, in addition to the city named Washington on the east coast, we have an entire state of 6.4 million people out west. But when I specifically say "the government of D.C." it should be obvious to non-morons that I mean the government that manages the area of the District of Columbia, and not the Federal Government.
And, please, idiots in the press? Just say "the Feds." Otherwise, you're just unnecessarily confusing those above-mentioned 6.4 million people for no reason.
It's not reading incomprehension day, it's you-know-what-I-mean day, which seems to be every day at Slashdot. Somebody expresses themselves poorly, gets misread, and whines about people "putting words in my mouth".
I was trying to make a fucking joke. Christ. Lighten up.
And yeah, I don't like to be accused as some crazy anti-government survivalist because:
1) Slashdotters with a big long stick up their fucking ass think I was being totally serious
2) Everybody who speaks English knows the difference between the phrase "government of D.C." and "the Federal Government."
Cripes. I never said "the government sucks."
At best, I said "the government of D.C. sucks". Is this like No Reading Comprehension Day on Slashdot? Do people not realize that the city of Washington D.C. has a government which is distinct from that of the Federal Government? WTF.
Some idiot puts words into my mouth and suddenly I'm Anti-Citizen Number 1.
What are you replying to? I didn't say "the" government sucks (in fact, I don't even know which specific government you're talking about-- you seem to think there's only one!) I said the government of D.C. sucks. Now, that's my opinion of course, but it's a far cry from saying "all governments suck" or "the US sucks" or whatever you're imagining I typed.
For the record, I personally am a member of at least 4 governments:
- The City I live in has a government
- As does the County
- As does the State
- As does the Nation (the United States, for the record)
- And arguably you could include the U.N. as well.
(Some people even have a Homeowner's Association, which is basically a more local government than their City.)
I don't think any of the governments I'm a part of particularly suck. Well, maybe Sound Transit.
Which brings me to search. Yes, indexing is a good thing, and I like it, but I don't like the rest of the start menu, which is a hierarchy of folders, requiring multiple clicks to look around and see where I need to go. Say what you will about the old start menu, but I clicked once and moved the mouse around to browse the applications. I have to open each folder individually to look inside them. This may not seem that different to you, but when you're talking two clicks versus 10, it is noticable.
But as for search; we had that capability in XP as well with Google Desktop; and I think Google Desktop did it better. (Google Desktop doesn't have a 64-bit version yet, so I'm still using Vista's indexing.)
Ok, so you don't use the massively more efficient way, but don't argue that it doesn't exist!
As for games related features, I'm 30 years old with no kids, so ESRB ratings aren't important to me. Neither is downloading cover art. And I don't have any idea why the hell averaging the capabilities of my CPU, RAM, and Video Card would give me any sort of meaningful number because they're all going to do different things.
You don't play video games, and so those features don't exist!?
Shadow-copy is of limited utility to me, considering that I have about 1.5 TB of data that I can't afford to lose. I do have it backed up, but multiple copies over time isn't really all that big a deal. As for restoring old versions of the OS, for those cases where it does matter, I -have- an install disc, and can just reinstall the OS anyway. At any rate, these services were provided by third parties for Windows XP - and done better.
Shadow Copy was only available in XP and 2000 if you were a member of an Active Directory, which was not the case for home users. I'm pretty sure I mentioned this in my original post, which you seem to have utterly ignored in this case.
Shadow Copy for all users, even those not on a domain, is a new Vista feature whether or not you use it.
I haven't used the backup utility, preferring to backup manually because I don't want to save operating system files, only my 1.5 TB of video data. Still, I did take a look at it - how do you tell it which files you don't want backed up?
So you don't use the new backup utility, therefore that feature doesn't exist in Vista. I'm sensing a theme here.
And finally, Security/UAE. Vista is still vulnerable to malware. When the cracks in windows XP were patched up, the malware authors simply found new cracks.
Of course Vista is still vulnerable to malware. If only because the majority of malware is user-initiated. ("Do you want to install this spyware program?" "Yes!")
The point is that it's LESS vulnerable, not that Microsoft sprinkled magic dust on it to make it perfectly 200% secure.
And finally the sandboxed IE environment has zero impact on security. Everyone I know uses Firefox, Chrome, or Opera.
Everybody you know uses a different browser, therefore the IE sandboxing feature doesn't exist?
Look, you can't say Vista has no new features, then acknowledge a whole bunch of *gasp* NEW FEATURES. Whether or not you use them, whether or not you even like them, you're a full-on liar for saying they don't exist. This is the exact kind of crap the article is talking about: you're criticizing Vista with ZERO knowledge about it, and when confronted with proof that you're spreading FUD, you just make up more bullshit to cover it up.
They should at least be able to match the "many eyes" advantage.
Microsoft has an order of magnitude "more eyes" finding exploits, too.
No, I don't think it could "magically" fix the problem. But I find it disturbing that a budget of essentially zero often produces a better project.
Are you kidding? Linux apps *still* have issues copying/pasting any data other than text. Copy and paste. Apple had that perfected for everything up to, and including, video clips by version 7 in 1991. Microsoft has had it perfected since 1995. Linux still has issues. (Granted, it's getting better.)
Anecdote. While most of my own experience here has been with XP, it's not uncommon to see fresh installations of Vista need drivers.
Anecdote! In any case, I suppose the "recommended" method is to grab the install CD that came with the drive and shove it in your computer, like it's always been.
Contrast to Sudo, which both allows the possibility of running a shell as the root user (thus escalating everything you do for awhile)
UAC allows that as well. An Installer program only has to authentice once, then it can make dozens of escalated changes to the OS. Also, if you want an escalated shell, you can just right-click CMD and use "Run As Administrator."
But you're utterly, totally, ignorant of UAC so I don't even know why I'm bothering its features to you. You're obviously perfectly happy describing what you believe it can do, as if you were some kind of authority, so you can criticize it. Intellectual honesty? Not here in Slashdot!
In other words, what Apple did with OS X and Classic.
Classic didn't work, though. The whole point of Classic was that Apple could kind of pretend they gave a crap about backwards compatibility, when in fact they didn't... you couldn't drag&drop between Classic apps and other apps, ditto with AppleScript and virtually every other form of intra-process communication. (Of course, a lot of this is impossible with any form of emulation, which is why MS hasn't seriously persued that.) Many, many, Classic apps didn't run at all in the environment, so whatever "emulation" they used wasn't even remotely close to finished/complete.
Did you actually use OS X and the Classic environment? Or are you just full of shit, once again? Apple got away with this shittiness because the vast majority of Apple users aren't reliant on custom-made applications, and they're surrounded by fanboys who celebrate everything Apple does. Microsoft wouldn't even slightly begin to get away with it.
I can't say which came first, but I do know that OS X uses sudo on the commandline, same as anyone.
Wow! You're admitting you don't know something instead of just making up some bullshit and saying it as if it's fact? Remarkable.
I consider that to be a feature, not a bug -- a poorly-written app will thus fail repeatedly, not spam sudo prompts repeatedly.
See above: poorly-written Windows apps usually only prompt for UAC once as well. If you witnessed this behavior on Vista (which I doubt, I bet you made it up), it was probably due to a process spawning other processes which each try to perform a restricted operation.
Since most apps are written to run as a user, this is exactly as rare as it should be.
A Windows feature is that an application can either be installed for a specific user, or for all users. What you're basically saying is that Ubuntu sidesteps this issue by having fewer features than Windows. Now unlike you, I can't confirm or deny this because I haven't run Ubuntu in several years, but I just wanted to point it out.
Were Windows a Unix system at its core, which had trained users and developers to run as root for so long, I doubt sudo would be much of a cure, either.
Yeah; and were my bowel movements diamonds I could own a castle. You go to war with the army you have, not the army you want.
Look, just be happy that Microsoft has a bigger workload than Apple
Well, Cisco sucks. And the government of D.C. sucks. So if I had to choose, I'd go by whoever was wearing the longest tie last time I met them.
Why go with X86 if you want low BOM cost ? Any ARM/MIPS/PowerPC SoC with decent Mhz will do it better for lower bill of materials. Try TI OMAP35xx line for instance, one with Cortex ARM and PowerVR graphics all in one chip. Works out way cheaper than anything x86-based. Getting a Beagleboard is a good way to start.
And now with Canonical throwing official support for ARM-based Ubuntu, you have got your opsys covered as well.
Yeah, and make sure your UWD is 3SC5F over the KLKO9 link (utilizing M3iQ of course!) and it'll fragulate the Hf$33 better than your OM3223!
(Seriously, try English next time.)
Don't forget handwriting recognition; that's a pretty suckful resource. Well, if the tech they're using is any damned good, which frankly it probably isn't.
Considering that Microsoft has billions of dollars to throw at the problem,
Please explain to me how billions of dollars would solve this problem more quickly than it's already being solved.
Keep in mind all the lessons learned from the Mythical Man Month, specifically that projects take longer to complete when you add more staff to them.
and still manages to do worse than Apple or Linux, I think it's reasonable to assume that they're either not working as hard as they could be, or they're simply incompetent.
I think you know absolutely nothing about software development, if you think billions of dollars could magically fix a problem of this nature.
It does, however, rely on the other ones. No matter how educated I am, every time I download an unsigned binary over vanilla http, I open myself up for attack.
If you're educated, and you know you're opening yourself up for attack, and you still do it... well you just made my brain explode.
Question: Has Vista finally disabled autorun by default?
Yes.
But please continue to criticize something you're entirely ignorant about; that's the Slashdot way!!! Sticking to the facts and saying "I'm not sure" or "I haven't used it, so I have no opinion" makes you a loser.
On Vista, what is the recommended way of obtaining the basic stuff I need, including drivers (which will run in Ring 0), which the OS encourages?
I just let the OS take care of it. I haven't had to manually download drivers for anything since installing Vista.
Is it at all secure?
Yup.
And no, bugging your users to the point where they have to disable the UAC service is not "encouragement", it's "badgering".
That only happens when you first install software. Having to expressly give permission for a software install to make system-wide changes is a good thing.
The problem is that when people first install a new OS, they continue to install all the apps they use... so they see the UAC prompt over and over and over the first few days, and in Vista's case, people made the bad assumption that the OS was always that way.
Also, apparently a lot of Vista haters have a large stable of shitty software that was attempting to write in disallowed parts of the filesystem. Those applications were equally buggy in Windows 2000 and Windows XP-- in fact those applications are *the reason* XP runs Admin by default and is insecure. (I know; I ran XP as a normal user account, and a lot of shitty software failed to run correctly. Try it: the same apps that spawn UAC prompts on Vista won't run at all on 2000 or XP with a normal user account.)
How would you have solved this problem? Make applications installed in the first X days after the OS install immune to UAC? Just be insecure, and let buggy software get away with being buggy? I'd love to hear your solution.
I realize it's a ripoff of sudo, but it's a pitiful implementation compared to the way sudo actually works on other OSes.
It's not. If anything, it's a "ripoff" of OS X's authentication. (Sudo is 1. CLI-based, and so no normal human being would ever use it, and 2. doesn't automatically run itself when needed.)
What makes it "pitiful" in comparison? I'm curious. Windows has also had the "Run As..." service (with associated GUI) since Windows 2000, so try to avoid arguments that ignore its existence.
What I'm trying to get at is that MA is a *different market* than the one Microsoft is in. The US, if you haven't noticed, it pretty goshdarned big, and it's perfectly possible for one region of the country to have no available experienced IT workers while another part of the country has a glut of them.
Look, if those experienced IT people can't get jobs, maybe they should stop demanding so much pay. Or move elsewhere. That's how the world works, the H1B program doesn't change anything about that. I can assure you there are no roving gangs of unemployed experienced IT people where Microsoft does its hiring.
I'll ignore the rambling part of the post and concentrate on the bullet-points.
- Stability - Early versions of Vista were unstable. This has since been fixed, but it is now only as stable as Windows XP SP2 once was. (Started negative, then no change.)
I don't really understand this argument... I think what it really amounts to is third-party drivers, really, which Microsoft has (obviously) little control over (otherwise they would have had better driver support.)
I find, personally, that Vista is much more stable than XP-- for example, in XP when my video card driver bit the dust, I had to reboot. Vista can recover from that situation and go on as if nothing happened.
BTW, 32-bit Vista can use 32-bit XP drivers, it just really gripes at you when you install them and won't install them automatically. Once installed, they work fine.
- Usability - Vista doesn't add any usability, and the new Explorer and Start menus actively detract from usability. (Net negative)
They do!? Do you use the new search feature in the Start menu? I'm not going to argue that Microsoft invented it (having used Quicksilver on OS X before), but it's a vast improvement over finding applications in the old Start menu. Detract from usability? Seriously!? Even Alt-Tab is better, it does the graphical preview by default.
The only "detraction" of usability for Explorer was removal of the "Film Strip" view for image files. The added "Slide Show" view simply isn't as good. Other than that I think it's identical as far as I'm concerned-- could you elaborate on what you feel Explorer in Vista is lacking?
- Utility - What can you do in Vista that you can't in Windows XP? (No change)
I admit there's not a lot here, but it's not like Vista has nothing new:
1) Games-related features, like limiting certain user accounts to ESRB ratings, downloading cover art, giving you a numeric performance indicator for your computer, are all new to Vista.
2) Shadow-copy is now available to users without a Active Directory domain, that's new.
3) The Backup utility is basically rewritten from scratch and vastly, vastly improved.
I will say that I think Windows Mail is a slight downslide from Outlook Express.
- Efficiency - Vista requires more hardware than XP does; the fancy "in the background" tasks don't really do anything. The one thing that Vista does to use the computer more efficiently is to have support for 64-bit computing; something that Microsoft could have had if they developed WindowsXP 64-bit. (Net negative.)
Possibly true, although I think XP 64-bit was a lost-cause from day 1, since hardware makers never got behind it, even less than they did Vista.
BTW, one of those fancy "in the background" tasks does file indexing for the new Start menu search that I love so much, so please don't tell me it does nothing-- it vastly increases the usability of the Start menu.
- Security - User Access Control doesn't really help, as we now know. (Started positive, quickly resulted in no change)
Could you elaborate on that? What about the sandboxed IE environment, do you also believe that has zero impact on security?
--
I'm glad you're a lot more open-minded about Microsoft OS upgrades than the average poster to this site, but after reading your bulletpoints I'm kind of curious how long you used Vista... you're either very ignorant of Vista's benefits, or you haven't really used it much at all. I don't get it.
Slashdot has an irrational hatred of the Registry. They'll promote this as the solution to everything from security holes, to bowel cancer. Just ignore it, there's no point trying to argue.
First, stop making the product so absurdly exploitable. In no way should it be possible to contract malware from simply visiting a website, or leaving a network cable plugged in.
Oh yes, all Microsoft needs to do is put:
#Define FixAllSecurityBugs
At the top of the file. You make it sound as if this is something Microsoft isn't already hard at work on, but, maybe, JUST MAYBE, the decades of old code take more than 10 seconds to inspect and fix? Just maybe?
We're already to the point where the vast, vast majority of attacks rely on tricking people into opening files.
Second, make it obvious what you're doing, but not actually intrusive. It should not be possible to download and execute a program without realizing what you're doing. For an example of how to do this wrong, see VBA -- I should not be able to contract malware from a fucking office document.
An example from this century might be more compelling. VBA has been fixed for ages; if you're getting attacked by VBA, that's because you specifically told your Office application to run them.
Third, provide known-good channels for obtaining new software. See: Linux package managers and repositories. Tie it in to Microsoft Update.
And get nailed by more anti-trust actions? Christ, you people are in some kind of fantasy-world where Microsoft would be able to implement something like this without getting sued by everyone from Adobe to Bill's Big Heap 'o' Software Emporium.
And finally, educate your users. The only computer which is secure from a user's own idiocy is one which doesn't let the user do anything worth protecting. Not limited to Windows, either
Ding ding ding! We have a winner! The only suggestion on your list which is both possible and not already in-progress.
though it would help if the OS encouraged more secure, rather than less secure, modes of operation.
You mean like Vista already does? Oh wait, did you just give a reason for upgrading to Vista or Windows 7? OMG! Turn in your Slashdot ID right now!
Look, if you don't want the features, just don't buy a new copy of Windows. But stop whining, whining, whining to those of us who DO like the new features, ok? It's just fucking annoying.
Ok, I'm going to answer your post in 6 words, see if you can follow:
Because it does more than XP.
Windows 7 is literally putting lipstick on a pig!
No, it's literally a computer OS made by Microsoft Corporation. You must be looking at some kind of arthouse movie or something, and just confusing it for Windows 7.
And when Netscape did the exact same thing, that was... sunshine and roses?
This is when you tell me that Microsoft is a "convicted monopolist", and so anything they do is evil and wrong, while anything any of their competitors does is the best thing ever. Because Slashdot is all about double-standards.
Wow, how quickly we forget. No, they did not just include it. They actively tried to undermine competition, among other things, by threatening OEMs to only bundle IE. They could do so because of their monopoly position. So they abused their monopoly to prevent competition. That's illegal.
Yeah, but that hasn't been the case in ages.
Also, OEMs will install a "HTML viewer". No problems there. And this time they can choose whatever they want, such as Chrome, for search revenue from Google.
*Is* there one that has the same DLL interface as MSHTML.DLL that could serve as a drop-in replacement? I think you're full of shit. Link me to a drop-in replacement, if such a thing exists for OEMs to bundle.
That hasn't been true for a decade.
I continue out of honest curiosity then, how is the Internet separated from the OS for security purposes if it's underlying functions are built into the OS. Is this true for Linux as well?
My understanding is that it runs in a separate user account from the desktop use, an account that has extremely limited permissions. I don't know for sure, though. I also have no clue what Linux does.
Because there is already a browser. If there weren't, you don't think that would change anything?
But there *has* to be a browser. The entire OS depends on having a library for viewing HTML, and most third-party apps do as well. You can't ship a modern OS with no HTML library, period.
All "the browser" is is a quick and dirty UI to the underlying HTML library. Same thing as Safari on Macintosh. So, yes there already is a browser, because 99.9% of the work of making a web browser is in the HTML library, and every OS needs a HTML library.
Now OEMs could, if they wanted, remove the IE shortcuts from every place it appears and install their own browser. There's nothing stopping them from doing that right now, and there's no need for anybody to sue for their "right" to do that, since they already have that right.
yes, and that is simply not the case. There is NO lack of experienced, skilled, and available talent in the U.S.A. to state otherwise is simply a lie.
No, it's not. Our company, being in Seattle, is competing with Microsoft for talented IT people-- they aren't out there, Microsoft or one of the other 5,000 IT companies, has already hired them up. It takes us 8+ months to fill even entry-level positions. I don't know where you live, but what you're saying is complete bullshit for Western Washington State.
The H1B visa program allows companies to hire people from out of the country willing to work less than the prevailing wage and thus reduce the prevailing wage.
Microsoft pays H1B visa employees on the same scale as all other employees. If they're trying to "reduce wages", then they're doing it in an intensely stupid way.
Are there some companies somewhere that abuse the H1B program? Possibly. Is Microsoft one of them? No.
I haven't used Vista that much and have an honest question. If this is true can I uninstall IE in Vista?
Depends on what you mean by "uninstall."
If you mean, "does it appear in Remove Programs control panel?" then the answer is no.
If you're asking, "can I delete iexplore.exe and all shortcuts/file associations for it?" then the answer is yes, but you could also do this in XP or 2000, so nothing new here.
If you're asking, "can you remove mshml.dll and still have a functioning copy of Windows?" then the answer is no.
IE on Windows is like Safari on Mac. You can remove the front-end IU for it, but you can't remove the HTML rendering libraries-- too many other parts of the OS rely on it.
Besides, I have a sneaking suspicion that w/o IE built in OEM's would just preinstall a browser of their choosing. I doubt the end user would have to do it themselves.
The OEM could do that now, but they don't. This decision from the EU won't change anything there.
You could separate ftp functions from browsing functions.
You *could*, but then you're telling a company to tear out functional, debugged code so they can then re-write the exact same code in a slightly different way, and the end user would see absolutely no difference between the two. That's idiotic, and a burden Microsoft shouldn't have to shoulder for the benefit of whiny Europeans.
In fact if MS would separate things a little more, IE's security problems wouldn't necessarily become Windows security problems.
That's already true in Vista and Windows 7, in which IE runs in a "sandbox" security environment.
Whether or not there is an anti trust violation, security is probably the best reason to support efforts to make MS separate the browser from the OS.
Fine; as long as it's MS's decision to make.
Currently I am just pointing out that a built-in full featured browser is not necessary to download software easily.
Yes it is. You obviously have no understanding of the capabilities of the average computer user. In fact, I'd say a good percentage of average users are not even capable of downloading and installing software with a browser.
Security updates can also be done w/o IE and as I understand it(I may be wrong)
I'm not 100% sure on this, either... I know you can do the updates through the Control Panel on Vista and Windows 7 without ever engaging IE, but I'm not sure if it uses IE's HTML rendering libraries somewhere in the background.
Microsoft is not successful because they were selling the best software, or even the second best software. They are successful because of a good business strategy (regardless of the legality of it).
I would just like to point out that Oracle, PeopleSoft, and IBM are all "successful", and they all sell god-awful software. If Outlook isn't first or second best, well, it's still about 10 steps above Lotus Notes. And I'm sure half the country has had a wrong paycheck, or a late paycheck, due to PeopleSoft.
It's the IT version of the moronic "those illegal immigrants are stealing our jobs!" idiocy. Possibly racism, too. I love the H1B visa program; our QA team consists of a Chinese woman, a Indian woman, a Armenian man, and an British man, all top-of-their field. The H1B program is the kind of "mixing pot" laws that made America great, and will continue to do so.