Buy Vista or Else 539
theodp writes "Upgrade or keep crashing was the tagline when Windows XP was introduced. So how will Windows Vista be marketed? 'I'd hate to see something bad happen to your PC,' seems to be one pitch. Even if new features won't get you to upgrade to Vista, you should buy Vista for the security, urged Windows Chief Jim Allchin. Are commercials featuring Tony Soprano next? Bada Bing!"
Security (Score:5, Insightful)
Vista will not be secure (Score:2, Insightful)
So, try out MacOS X, or Mepis Linux.
Re:Security (Score:5, Insightful)
Its your choice (Score:5, Insightful)
I have for the last two years officially told people - i cannot and will not help you if you are running Windows. I am too busy accomplishing things (photography, videographic analysis) to be bothered with tools that do not just work. I don't care that there are millions of Windows viruses, i don't care if your webpage doens't work with anything but IE and Active X, i just have stopped caring.
I am getting older - i have a family, and i want to create and do things which are special, and i no longer have the time nor the incination to either myself, or have to deal with others who's job it is to spend all day and night defending computers from themselves. I am the architect who doesn't want to deal with the knock-off cheap Chinese crap powertools and hear all the workers bitch about them, or hear about the foreman that tells me i have to keep taking apart all the power tools and putting them back together again... build the fscking house - go get the tools that WORK - and pay more for them if you have to.
The simple fact is - its totally irrelevant to me if a Mac costs $1000 or $3000. If it does what i need - and prevents me from having to fix my tool all day long - the $3000 tool will be far more vaulable in just a week or two. Theoretical, imaginary, or otherwise fantasmic notions that Macs are just as insecure as Windows are irrelevant to me - i work today, and i work now. (well, its saturday, i'm only working a few hours today).
But the flip side of that is - i no longer give a shit what anyone uses. I don't care. Do not bother me or hassle me or get in my way if you can't keep up with me. My friends and family no longer bother me - i bought my family Mac minis, and my friends are all switching.
The world uses Windows?? I'm fscking George Bush of the Mac - i don't give a shit if every person on earth said "jump off this cliff, its the industry standard"
i'm not a lemming - i have things to get done. Whatever you want to do is fine with me, you're out of my "circle of give a shit".
You run Windows. I'm getting things done.
Shiny shiny! (Score:5, Insightful)
SECURITY!?! (Score:3, Insightful)
Security is by design, not as a friggin' afterthought.
This has little to do with MS bashing- it's just that MS doesn't think much about security and everyone knows it (Well, everyone but you, it seems...)
Re:NOT A Selling Point-But a "must have" for secur (Score:2, Insightful)
I've found a relationship (too bad slashdot doesn't do math symbols):
x = the cost of the software product that runs on Windows
y = the chance the software requires everyone using it to log in as administrator
As x -> infinity, y -> infinity
Seriously though, too much windows software, especially vertical apps or expensive commercial apps, still require every user to log in as administrator.
MS should force this issue, you are right. It should be something like Mac OS X does by default, you shouldn't be able to log in as administrator by default. That would at least send the application developers a message that developing your software to assume admin access is stupid.
Re:Security (Score:4, Insightful)
Well, I assume it'll be more secure against you. It is pure doublespeak because it has nothing to do with user security and everything to do with content security. But I assume they'll try to market it as "security", because everyone wants security right?
Upgrade or keep crashing (Score:5, Insightful)
Why was it developed? Compatibility. People wouldn't really drop all their DOS and Windows 3.11 programs, so 9x was the bridge that allowed the smooth transition that ultimately brought the consumer to the NT platform.
The plain logic basically was "we have the better platform, but you want compatibility, so here's a compromise".
Now that 16-bit is a thing of the past, the DOS layer could be removed ultimately resulting in a fully 32-bit protected environment that is Win 2000 and XP. Is Microsoft to blame they sell XP as more stable OS?
Could they have success with any other strategy? I'd say unlikely.
Vista is the next step in improving security and it took a lot of effort to develop this OS, the entire submission is a flamebait: if you were Microsoft, would you work 6 years on a new product and give it for free? Yes, imagine, you have to pay for the updates, and yes the purpose of updating is improved security, new features and modern hardware support.
Microsoft isn't forcing anyone to upgrade. It just does its best to demonstrate the benefits of its latest offering, because this is what software companies do with new releases.
Now get over it, and stop ranting.
Re:Security (Score:3, Insightful)
I think you could extend that to "if you want security you must never run any executable file that didn't come with your OS outside of a VM sandbox".
Anything that can be executed is a security threat. Random executables received from mails with "3bl4rg3 yu0r p3n1s" more than others, but few softwares actually have a bug/issue count of 0.
Of course... (Score:3, Insightful)
I guess this is why MS doesn't listen to /. for advice on how to build their new product.
Market Opportunity for Macs and Linux (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Security (Score:2, Insightful)
No thanks. I'll trade a little bit of security for a computer I can actually *use to do things with.*
Re:Security (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Its your choice (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm in the same boat--After spending 20+years eating, sleeping and breathing computers, and acting as the reisident expert in my family/circle of friends/global village/whatever, I no longer support/advise/provide a shoulder to cry on for any one I know who uses a PC. I switched as many family members as possible over to iMacs, and so I now no longer get those late night calls (my screen is blue, what do I do?).
I now claim total ignorance of all things PC, so when someone asks me "is this $399 laptop from Costco a good computer?", I tell them to buy a Mac, 'cause it's all I know. I also tell them to make sure they buy an extended warranty , because they will Sure Need It.
I view the legions of unofficial Windows Support Staff--your Brother-in -law, neighbor, whoever--as part of the hidden cost of running crappy software.
Re:SECURITY!?! (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Security (Score:4, Insightful)
Previously my attempts to move to Linux had been unsuccessful because I had problems getting certain hardware working (video capture, RAID) and was concerned about what software would be available (certain emulators I had grown fond of, video codecs, VirtualDub and other transcoding software), but even Windows 2000 was giving me some problems, such as booting into a blue screen telling me my registry had become corrupt, and also actually getting infected by viruses such as Blaster.
I had everything up to date, all patched up, antivirus installed, etc, but still contracted the virus. A few reinstalls later and I just figured it wasn't worth it putting up with all the headaches.
When I started running Linux, I quickly saw the advantages... Installing software didn't require the usual "Next, Next, uncheck every checkbox, delete desktop and quicklaunch icons, uninstall additional software installed along with the software I actually wanted, check for hidden startup items, make sure program doesn't phone home", when I started my PC I wasn't greeted by millions of splash screens, applications that couldn't make a connection popping up and letting me know, I didn't have to readjust settings that kept resetting for some reason (volume levels, icon positions on the quicklaunch)... GNU/Linux is about using your PC and not just working around problems to get what you want... and then I realized that upon discovering all this I didn't even have to worry about viruses at all, and I had no problems with crashes at all! Even if programs didn't behave in a way I expected I found it simple to find solutions, the error messages meant something and I could see exceptions thrown if I launched an application from a terminal, etc...
Read this or the terrorists have already won . . . (Score:5, Insightful)
Personally I am more afraid of deploying Windows Vista than not, and Microsoft can stick the DRM in the orifice of their choice.
Re:Security (Score:5, Insightful)
It's based on BSD, yes. So's OpenBSD. Vista and XP, similarly, are based on the same thing. The basis is not the point here.
Re:Upgrade or keep crashing (Score:5, Insightful)
Why not? Linus Torvalds did
All joking aside, I agree with you insofar as no-one's giving away major upgrades to commercial operating systems. But you've sidestepped the issue which was first raised by Douglas Adams in 1995 and AFAICT still exists:
"The idea that Bill Gates has appeared like a knight in shining armour to lead all his customers out of a mire of technological chaos neatly ignores the fact that it was he who by peddling second-hand, second-rate technology, led them all into it in the first place."
Re:Security (Score:2, Insightful)
And you have to remember that there is a lot of legitimate Windows software that takes advantage of "features" in the inherently-insecure versions of Windows; the very same features that malware takes advantage of. If Vista is built inherently-secure, these programs simply will not run under it unless the security level is downgraded. Users of such programs might be tempted to switch to a BSD variant or GNU/Linux, even if only experimentally at first, just on the basis that at least it can't be any worse than what they're already having to put up with. Learning a few new key bindings is something you only have to do once; updating anti-virus software and recovering from unexplainable crashes are continuous processes.
Between the release of Windows Vista and the release of GunCC 1.0, whenever that happens, there are going to be some interesting times. A lot of people are going to be bitten, and hard, by bad decisions from the past.
Re:The problem is implementation rather than desig (Score:5, Insightful)
I think Windows with passwords is going to be a bit like a pale imitation of KDE.
Re:Market Opportunity for Macs and Linux (Score:3, Insightful)
Just say it. Apple... You think cool, sleek, well designed, pretty, elite, hip, trendy...
Now say Microsoft... You think Buggy, Bland, Unrealiable, spyware, virii, adware, trojans, security holes, ugly ui, boring, and the biggest thing is... NOTHIng HAS CHANGED.
When you think of Microsoft, you realize that nothing has really improved. Think of their media player? Media Player Classic is better. Think of IE... think of all the shitty spam like bullshit things that hook into IE wether it be toolbars, or whatever.
Think MSN DESKTOP SEARCH... and how ugly it is... how slow it is....
Microsoft has a HUGE problem on its hands. It has a piss poor image and Apple has a hot shit image right now.
Walk into an apple store and realize that they have worked really hard on image. Their UI is more fluid and faster, more inventive... Windows looks bland, kiddy. Oh uh.. Its Nintendo vs Sony all over again...
Microsoft has a very big problem.
People will be jumping ship to MAC this year and more the next year because of IPOD and the perceived value that is APPLE.
Apple provides a better product? I Dont know, but i'm guessing they probably do because thats how i perceive them now. I'm a PC user. I dont use anything apple other than my IPOD. My friends a Film editor and runs mac hardware and its pretty nice from what i can tell.
We're going to see a huge shift. The hardware is the same now, so really you're chosing between Apple and Microsoft. Say their names out loud again and tell me what words come to mind right away.
Re:SECURITY!?! (Score:2, Insightful)
Not even the same code lines (Score:3, Insightful)
Nice FUD, though...
Re:Security (Score:2, Insightful)
The vista kernel isn't even 100% new.. they just seperated logical sections of the kernel, etc. Its quite different, but not all new. Watch that video and you'll see that Microsoft did make security minded changes, and other choices because they screwed up in the past. ini files coming back (in a form) to replace the registry is another example. I learned more from that video than i did from any other source.
You are correct that the WINE hole and the Apple Quicktime hole that are all similar to Microsoft's prove that it might not be the same codebase, but then again it might be as well. Netscape had a gif or jpeg issue similar years ago too.. (netscape 2 or 3?) Security holes happen to everyone. Microsoft is no worse than OSS software and no better either. I'm sure someone can point to 10 projects (or more) that have a great security history and I can point to many more that don't. I can't think of a commercial OS thats not vulnerable to something thats current. Even openbsd had a remote hole. My boss had a windows server get hit by that WMF hole and yet i had trouble convincing him to upgrade quicktime on our clients for the same reason. (idiot surfs on servers)
A really sad commentary... (Score:5, Insightful)
Take a page from Apple (Score:5, Insightful)
It's pretty clear to me that the main reason that Windows has so many security problems is that there is something inherently broken in its design. Remember: when Microsoft first designed Windows, no one was using the Internet, office LANs were pretty much the most networking you were likely to find. So Microsoft didn't have to think about network security back then. Now that the world of computing is increasingly connected to a high-bandwidth Internet connection all the time, it's clear that the model that Windows is built upon is broken.
I think it would benefit Microsoft to do a fundamental redesign of Windows. Apple did this about five years ago when they made the transition from Classic Mac OS 9 to Mac OS X. They designed an API that permitted developers to write software that ran natively on both operating systems (Carbon) and gradually phased it out in favor of an API that was completely native to Mac OS X (Cocoa). At the same time, there were many applications that would only run on Mac OS 9 -- i.e., those that were not Carbonized -- that ran in a (mostly transparent) virtualized environment. Microsoft could follow the same pattern as Apple and redesign their operating system from the ground up with security as a primary focus.
The thing that's going to get people to upgrade to Vista isn't the desktop search or any new multimedia features. It's the security and the performance. Right now, Microsoft keeps tacking on bloat after bloat to the existing Windows codebase. This has the effect of making Windows slower. Also, these "ad-hoc" additions, I think, have a tendency of opening up security holes. Microsoft, it's time for you to reevaluate the design of your operating system. Instead of focusing on devising as many different editions as you can for Vista -- which, by the way, baffles the hell out of a lot of your customers -- it's time to wipe the slate clean and start over.
I know we've all said at one point or another, "if I'd known then what I know now, I would have done things completely differently." Well, Microsoft, you do know stuff now that you didn't know 20 years ago. It's time to do things completely differently. Your model no longer works; find a new one.
Re:Security (Score:4, Insightful)
FreeBSD *is* viable alternative to XP.
Today I have even installed Windows-only Tutenstein game from kids.discovery.com on it for my little daughter using wine. A few days ago I have installed Linux binary Fentun to open winmail.dat file I have received form an Outlook/Exchange user.
FreeBSD has more then 14000 ports available.
It has got everything an ordinary user needs.
Office, mail, browsers, chat, much greater number of supported media files than most Linux distros
I know, It is comon belief FreeBSD is more difficult to install than XP.
Well, Joe Sixpack isn't able to install Windows either.
And tell me, how many users can remove dozens of malware, viruses, rootkits and other unwanted crappy applications from Windows?
You install FreeBSD for a non-technical user once, and you do not have to come back to clean it up.
Re:linux? OS X? (Score:2, Insightful)
Laptops will start shipping with a secondary LCD screen that's accessible when the machine is closed. So you will be able to do things like checking the status of your e-mail, IM, stocks, weather, whatever -- without taking the machine out of sleep mode, spinning up the hard drives, etc.
That sounds to me like something outside of the operating system otherwise there is no point.
- Tablet PCs will have touch screen functionality in addition to just pen-based input. In addition, the handwriting recognition will "learn" from the files that Vista has indexed on your hard drive -- so if you're a doctor and you're always using words like "phenylketonuria," it will pick that up and recognize those words more readily.
Touch screen is again a hardware improvement; indexing your files to pick out common words for recognition is very clever though.
- As I mentioned in another post, Vista will ship with Windows Collaboration, a Groove-like networking feature that lets wireless users quickly form ad-hoc network and share files and even screen real estate in an easy way.
This just scares me!
- Microsoft will stop talking about power states like "Standby" and "Hibernate" when Vista ships. There will only be "on" or "off." When you hit the power button on your laptop, essentially it goes into Standby. Meanwhile it will be writing out a Hibernate file. After it figures out you won't be coming back, it sinks into Hibernate mode. But (and I'm a little unclear on this) even then it will still be sending a trickle of power to the memory only to keep the memory alive. The idea is that fast on and off will be a way of life and people won't be rebooting their computers all the time.
Isn't that simply removing functionality? I'm sure it will be great for novice users but removing the ability to switch a computer off is not a 'feature' I'm all that keen on.
- You will be able to associate with a new generation of LCD projectors wirelessly. No more showing up to a meeting and fumbling with monitor cables etc. Just find the projector and route PowerPoint through it.
Again this seems more like a hardware improvement - and more of an improvement in LCD projectors than anything else.
Sorry if this seems all very negative but the only positive feature I can see in Vista is the ability in non-admin accounts to enter the admin password to complete admin functions - such as installing software. Hopefully making them usable for the first time in windows.
Re:linux? OS X? (Score:2, Insightful)
Laptops will start shipping with a secondary LCD screen that's accessible when the machine is closed. So you will be able to do things like checking the status of your e-mail, IM, stocks, weather, whatever -- without taking the machine out of sleep mode, spinning up the hard drives, etc.
What?? - Explain to me how one is to interact with a machine in sleep mode. Either A) M$ is only turning off the primary LCD, Touchpad, Keyboard, etc. off and calling it "sleep mode," OR B) The machine continuously displays info on the second LCD. With A - That's a sucky sleep mode, and with B - that would drain power all the time, which is even worse.
Tablet PCs will have touch screen functionality in addition to just pen-based input. In addition, the handwriting recognition will "learn" from the files that Vista has indexed on your hard drive -- so if you're a doctor and you're always using words like "phenylketonuria," it will pick that up and recognize those words more readily.
Ummm... I thought that the whole point of a tablet PC was that it had touch screen functionality. The second idea is good, although rather old. ANY handwriting recognition software uses previous recognition data if there is any room for data storage at all.
As I mentioned in another post, Vista will ship with Windows Collaboration, a Groove-like networking feature that lets wireless users quickly form ad-hoc network and share files and even screen real estate in an easy way.
First off, ad-hoc wireless networking is not new in any sense of the word. File sharing protocols (zero configuration, no less) have been around for a while. Remote Desktop viewing/controlling applications are both old ideas that have been implemented--even on Windows.
Microsoft will stop talking about power states like "Standby" and "Hibernate" when Vista ships. There will only be "on" or "off." When you hit the power button on your laptop, essentially it goes into Standby. Meanwhile it will be writing out a Hibernate file. After it figures out you won't be coming back, it sinks into Hibernate mode. But (and I'm a little unclear on this) even then it will still be sending a trickle of power to the memory only to keep the memory alive. The idea is that fast on and off will be a way of life and people won't be rebooting their computers all the time.
"Standby" and "Hibernate" are not new to Windows either. Most laptops have this feature that activates (wait for it....) when you close the lid. Microsoft's "Fast on" sounds more like a "wakeup" than anything else. [given the confused explanation of this "feature", it's hard to say exactly what they mean]. The other point about this "feature" is the lack of an ability to turn off the laptop with the "off" button.
You will be able to associate with a new generation of LCD projectors wirelessly. No more showing up to a meeting and fumbling with monitor cables etc. Just find the projector and route PowerPoint through it.
Apparently Microsoft has managed to coordinate a zeroconf wireless LCD projector standard without anyone knowing--or is this simply support for bluetooth screens.
Vista is going to be a major, major upgrade... way more than anybody is giving it credit for yet and enough so that Apple should definitely be looking over its shoulder. Maybe Microsoft still won't be able to offer customers anything to compare with the iPod experience on a Mac, but business users in particular are going to be all over this.
On the iPod note -- did you miss Microsoft's press release about their "iPod killer" this week (or was it last week)? As to the "Apple should be looking over its' shoulder," please see the definitions of FUD and vaporware, as that is all that your argument seems to be based on.
Re:Security (Score:3, Insightful)
I sincerely hope you're wrong about that, but I fear you're probably right. My hope is the fact that they're calling the feature "optional" will allow me to get away (since I don't intend on using DRMed media), but it might lead to more widespread adoption of such nonsense technology.
Re:linux? OS X? (Score:3, Insightful)
Second, the "user mode drivers" have a rather obvious use: coupled with the plans for "trusted computing" style authentication of software, they provide a robust means for digital rights management of both software and hardware. The plan seems to be to require authenticated software to access CD and DVD readers and burners. And by integrating it in at the trusted computing driver level, the drives can be designed so that they cannot be used without the vendor's signed software, disabling all access to the content except with the vendor's approved software.
It's a logical consequence of the "trusted computing" approach to software, and you'd better believe that it's being pushed for if not already directly integrated into Vista.