Windows 7 RC

[Caliante]

Haha, I just enter the prefix 'solved' to the title of the thread to be funny :e

I just installed Windows 7 the other day on an old machine (you can down it from MS now and get a key that's valid for 13 months). I was impressed: install went smooth except for the fact that it didn't recognize my network adapter (simple 3Com 9Cx, nothing not known to around a zillion of computers :stud) and consequently asked me if I wanted to go online to look for a driver (duh. How difficult is it to have an exception in that 'wanna go online driver program' to distinguish between network adapter drivers and other drivers?).

Anyway, I have to admit: it is fast, way faster than XP is. In this new Windows they have managed to hide all the functions even better, so you are really looking and looking and looking to find stuff that had a normal place in XP.

Of course, for me it is a road without and end; MS is exit for me, and XP is the last Windows I will have used. But just thought I'd share my experience with you all.

[graudeejs]

he he he, vista was a pain to configure Wifi (i was searching for few hours first time)

[Beastie]

it didn't recognize my network adapter [...] and consequently asked me if I wanted to go online to look for a driver

Hahaha, Windows never ceases to amuse me.

System failure: unable to detect the keyboard.
Please, press F1 for help.

[rliegh]

My laptop came with Vista, and I tried W7 on it; the upgrade went great but it's not really compelling enough to be worth having to wipe everything off of it when it bricks next year -and the FAQ says that you'll have to do a clean install even if you want to upgrade from the RC to the full version.

In the end, I simply put Vista back on it.

[Pushrod]

I have a few peers that have installed Windows 7, and it seems pretty solid. I've never had any problems with Vista, so if W7 is any better, then it's going to be good.

Recent Windows with Cygwin = the best desktop OS at the moment. That's my opinion (and probably no one else's).

[hedwards]

I have a few peers that have installed Windows 7, and it seems pretty solid. I've never had any problems with Vista, so if W7 is any better, then it's going to be good.

Recent Windows with Cygwin = the best desktop OS at the moment. That's my opinion (and probably no one else's).
Honestly, I haven't yet tried Windows 7, but Vista was in general significantly better than any previous Windows version.

It's kind of a shame that MS finally *beep**beep**beep**beep*ed with me to the point that I won't have any business relations with them in the future. (Entendre not particularly intended, but too good to edit out)

One of these days I want to try portable Ubuntu. Basically a version which is sort of similar to Cygwin, but without requiring an installation. Last time I tried Cygwin it was a pretty big pain, although that was years ago.

EDIT: Makes me wonder how people named *beep**beep**beep**beep* ever manage to post their real name here.

[fbsduser]

Tested W7. Same junk as every other version of Windoze. M$ does nothing except polishing the same turd.

[DrJ]

One of these days I want to try portable Ubuntu.
Try UWin, from Korn at Bell Labs. It has worked well for me.

I've tried W7, and actually rather like it. It is the first Windows product that I've really liked since W2K (though they have all worked fine for me, including Vista).

[SirDice]

Hahaha, Windows never ceases to amuse me.

System failure: unable to detect the keyboard.
Please, press F1 for help.

That's a BIOS message and has nothing to do with Windows :stud

[fronclynne]

It is the first Windows product that I've really liked since W2K (though they have all worked fine for me, including Vista).
NT4 was okay, but 5 (I guess I can accept "2k" if you look like Angela Bassett) was naggy and service-rich in a way that rubbed wrong on me. Long I for the days of yore and simple, simplistic interfaces? Aye, 3.1 was the best.

I anticipate the day when the pointless incrementing of version numbers makes the "Windows2000"* nonsense look foolishly shortsighted.

But, really, I just surf a bit of some tubes and play a couple of text games. I don't think windows can do that anymore, unless you install the double-silverlightdotnet4.0ie8wmp13.9# plugin.



*It occurs to me that if you could get HAL working under cygwin on windows 2000 you would probably end up accidently killing Doctor Bowman.

[DrJ]

Long I for the days of yore and simple, simplistic interfaces? Aye, 3.1 was the best.

I do hope you are not being serious. I booted my old 3.1 box a week ago (from circa 1992), and the UI is clunky and very, very dated.

For a simple but effective window manager, SunView (that ran on SunOS before the switch to SPARC and SysVR4) was pretty good.

[Carpetsmoker]

I had ``Windows 7 readiness training'' at work last week, the feature most praised by our Microsoft representative was the fact that Windows 7 can now automatically change backgrounds, I think he spent about 6 or 7 minutes ``explaining'' this feature.

Just an example to show that Microsoft seems to have slightly different priorities than FreeBSD ;) They are still using NTFS for example with all it's shortcomings and design flaws ... But you can change your background automatically now !! wheee!!!!

[DrJ]

... Windows 7 can now automatically change backgrounds.

Just an example to show that Microsoft seems to have slightly different priorities than FreeBSD ;)

Ya think? Did you get "sensitivity training" too, so that any background displayed should at least have clothes on?

I never think Windows is as great as its proponents claim, nor as bad as its detractors would like you to believe.

[Oko]

I never think Windows is as great as its proponents claim, nor as bad as its detractors would like you to believe.

The same could be said for all proprietary operating systems. The other day I fired old SGI and I was must reminded that you can telent to SGI to a root account without a password. Old good times;)

[DrJ]

The same could be said for all proprietary operating systems.

Or most things in life. We seem to live in polarized times.

[graudeejs]

I had ``Windows 7 readiness training'' at work last week, the feature most praised by our Microsoft representative was the fact that Windows 7 can now automatically change backgrounds, I think he spent about 6 or 7 minutes ``explaining'' this feature.

Just an example to show that Microsoft seems to have slightly different priorities than FreeBSD ;) They are still using NTFS for example with all it's shortcomings and design flaws ... But you can change your background automatically now !! wheee!!!!

now that was funny

[ericturgeon]

excuse me but windows 7 gone suck more!!! Why virus spyware zombie bug and all shit like and we have to pay for that crap!!!
I don't Wont try this shit!!! I stay with my open source.

[jdr]

hi all im new here, thought i would throw in a post here...my girlfriend has Vista Home/Basic..We put 7 on it, and I have to admit, its rock stable. I really enjoy using her computer when she isnt glued to facebook. Alot faster then Vista, and seems more modular.

Speaking of old OSes, I remembered my mind was blown like a kid with a sack of good weed when Win95 came out. But does everyone remember OS/2? What about BeBox(?)? Or the NeXT cubes?

[ChuckOp]

...the feature most praised by our Microsoft representative was the fact that Windows 7 can now automatically change backgrounds...

Just an example to show that Microsoft seems to have slightly different priorities than FreeBSD ;)

Obviously that little feature is not "a priority". The people giving you the training and spending several minutes on something like that are not those charged with setting design priorities.

How much time was spent on the multi-touch features? The Libraries feature? The improvements in boot and shutdown time?

They are still using NTFS for example with all it's shortcomings and design flaws

NTFS is a very robust file system. Can you give an example of some "design flaws" it has?

[ChuckOp]

I was impressed: install went smooth except for the fact that it didn't recognize my network adapter (simple 3Com 9Cx, nothing not known to around a zillion of computers :stud) and consequently asked me if I wanted to go online to look for a driver (duh. How difficult is it to have an exception in that 'wanna go online driver program' to distinguish between network adapter drivers and other drivers?).

Well, in my Windows laptop, there are several network adapters; WiFi, GigE, Bluetooth, Firewire, and anything I connect via PC-Card or USB. I *would* like it to hunt online for those drivers.

I get what you mean, but you should think through the implications of your desire.


Anyway, I have to admit: it is fast, way faster than XP is. In this new Windows they have managed to hide all the functions even better, so you are really looking and looking and looking to find stuff that had a normal place in XP.

Example please? I'm sincerely curious.

[Oko]

I'm sincerely curious.

Hi there.

You look like somebody who works for Microsoft. I was
always wondering do you guys have a copy of pristine Windows without legacy support and all unnecessary PR crap. I would really like to see how that works since I can not imagine such big bunch of very smart people putting out half backed OS with gazillion wholes.

Best,
OKO

[Carpetsmoker]

How much time was spent on the multi-touch features? The Libraries feature? The improvements in boot and shutdown time?

None.

NTFS is a very robust file system. Can you give an example of some "design flaws" it has?

The first three that spring to mind:

o The ACl implementation is just stupid.
o Fragmentation (And thus performance) is *horrible*.
o Lack of symbolic links (Vista does NOT have proper support for symbolic links)

[Carpetsmoker]

I never think Windows is as great as its proponents claim, nor as bad as its detractors would like you to believe.

True, I have worked with it every day for the last 10 months orso, and for all it's problems, it does work. Which is more than can be said of some Xorg ``releases'' for example (...But this is a different topic...).

[DrJ]

...for all it's problems, it does work. Which is more than can be said of some Xorg ``releases'' for example (...But this is a different topic...).

Windows makes a huge effort in backwards compatibility. That has its own issues, but it does mean that usually things work. MS still issues security patches for Windows 2000! On OSS, you are out of luck after a couple of years, usually. And I've never seen anything like what has been happening recently with xorg in the Windows world.

[fronclynne]

I kick puppies.

Eugene McCarthy liked pizza and Mountain Dew during long nights of coding device drivers.

Bok Choy is better than arugula(r).

Hedy Lamarr's contribution to mobile phone technology is more important that yours.

Oswald and Ruby sank the Titanic.

[kpedersen]

Hi there.

You look like somebody who works for Microsoft. I was
always wondering do you guys have a copy of pristine Windows without legacy support and all unnecessary PR crap. I would really like to see how that works since I can not imagine such big bunch of very smart people putting out half backed OS with gazillion wholes.
OKO

If Microsoft workers get a "special" copy... They certainly kept it a secret from me haha! Guess I am just a student intern though so perhaps its for senior management only!
I'll keep you updated :)

[drhowarddrfine]

I bought a notebook last month that I was going to convert to FreeBSD but, since I code web sites, I find it convenient being able to test Internet Explorer when I'm moving around. Otherwise, I live in Firefox and cygwin and never use anything else.

[ChuckOp]

You look like somebody who works for Microsoft.

At this moment I'm employed by Microsoft, but that's ending soon as I'm moving from the Seattle area to Florida.

I was part of the Windows 95 Program Management team, and also worked on Windows 98, Windows 2000 and Windows XP. I was part of the group that implemented speech recognition in Windows Vista and Windows 7. I also worked on Internet Explorer, versions 3 through 5. When I wasn't working full-time for Microsoft, I was writing books and doing consulting work on LDAP and directory services.

Of course my comments are solely my own and not reflective of any of my employers.

FYI, I'm not trolling - I love FreeBSD and have been using it on-and-off since 4.3. I've always loved "true" Unix and can't stand Linux.

I was always wondering do you guys have a copy of pristine Windows without legacy support and all unnecessary PR crap.

I don't know what "PR crap" you're referring to, but what makes you think that the people at Microsoft, like any organization, don't need legacy support? We have badly designed internal websites that do incorrect version checking just like any other company for just one example. I know of at least one co-worker who was using the DOS version of Microsoft Word for notetaking up until a few years ago.

I would really like to see how that works since I can not imagine such big bunch of very smart people putting out half backed OS with gazillion wholes.

There is nothing half-baked about Windows. In fact, I would put it's stability and robustness up against any other OS in a heartbeat. Testing at Microsoft is simply the best and finely honed.

Now, obviously there are compatibility issues. The ability to load kernel-level drivers exposes users to system crashes, but that rarely happens with Microsoft provided drivers. Third-party, particularly unsigned drivers, are often the culprits.

The original architecture that allowed for all sorts of hooking into the operation of the shell has also led to a number of issues. It's amazing how much software interweaves itself into the OS without good reason. Everytime you right-click on a folder or file item, the shell has to load the code from all the applications that want to provide functionality. If any of them fail, the shell can recover, but it's often slow and painful user experience. The shell team has done a good job of working around the worst offenders (app compat hacks that have to be done for third-party software).

That's the problem with being hugely popular - is that you simply can't say "well, we're fixing an issue that causes a number of crashes" because if that means a popular application or utility will cease to work, you've just given organizations reason not to upgrade. You have to work with the third-party companies to fix their own problems, and when they won't or can't, try as much as possible to fix it for them or work around it.

A really good blog on this stuff is Raymond Chen's "The Old New Thing" that discusses many of the problems of legacy support.

Anyway, when I see statements that slam Microsoft and Windows, which is easy to do, I push back. :)

[graudeejs]

Now be honest, does MS use Linux for their servers (just joking)?

[ChuckOp]

The first three that spring to mind:

o The ACL implementation is just stupid.


Oh, I strongly disagree. The access control lists are system-wide and apply not only to filesystems, but to kernel objects and even network directories (LDAP-based).

I get it that it leads to confusion - for example you can have a read-only restriction on a file "share" (which is a system-object) while the directory (a file system object) allows for read-write access.

It's not at all like Unix and that bothers many people. Access control can be very fine-grained and is intergrated with auditing, which is important for many organizations.

o Fragmentation (And thus performance) is *horrible*.

Fragmentation is a problem greatly reduced in NTFS than in the FAT-family of file systems.

Since Windows XP and Windows Server 2003, background defragmentation keeps the problem to a minimum. The strategies used by UFS and ext3 to reduce fragmentation are dependent on physical characteristics of the discs themselves, something that cannot be depended upon in NTFS.

While I agree that fragmentation can be more of an issue in NTFS than in UFS, I disagree that the result is horrible performance. It depends on how applications create, read and write files. Given the same application logic on both platforms, I assert that NTFS performance will be within -/+5% of UFS performance. If under a particular application logic fragmentation is a serious problem, that can be countered with out changes to the application.

I don't agree that "fragmentation" is a design flaw, it happens on all file systems.

o Lack of symbolic links (Vista does NOT have proper support for symbolic links)

Oh please! NTFS has supported hard and soft links since Windows 2000. Symbolic links are used throughout Windows Vista (for example, the default user AppData directory points to \ProgramData). The resource kit includes mklink and all the regular filesystem internal commands (dir, rm, del, etc.) understand and support links.

Don't confuse the shell .LNK files with symbolic links. The shell .LNK files are not the same, but provide similar functionality for GUI users.

[Oko]

At this moment I'm employed by Microsoft, but that's ending soon as I'm moving from the Seattle area to Florida.

I was part of the Windows 95 Program Management team, and also worked on Windows 98, Windows 2000 and Windows XP. I was part of the group that implemented speech recognition in Windows Vista and Windows 7. I also worked on Internet Explorer, versions 3 through 5. When I wasn't working full-time for Microsoft, I was writing books and doing consulting work on LDAP and directory services.

Of course my comments are solely my own and not reflective of any of my employers.

FYI, I'm not trolling - I love FreeBSD and have been using it on-and-off since 4.3. I've always loved "true" Unix and can't stand Linux.



I don't know what "PR crap" you're referring to, but what makes you think that the people at Microsoft, like any organization, don't need legacy support? We have badly designed internal websites that do incorrect version checking just like any other company for just one example. I know of at least one co-worker who was using the DOS version of Microsoft Word for notetaking up until a few years ago.



There is nothing half-baked about Windows. In fact, I would put it's stability and robustness up against any other OS in a heartbeat. Testing at Microsoft is simply the best and finely honed.

Now, obviously there are compatibility issues. The ability to load kernel-level drivers exposes users to system crashes, but that rarely happens with Microsoft provided drivers. Third-party, particularly unsigned drivers, are often the culprits.

The original architecture that allowed for all sorts of hooking into the operation of the shell has also led to a number of issues. It's amazing how much software interweaves itself into the OS without good reason. Everytime you right-click on a folder or file item, the shell has to load the code from all the applications that want to provide functionality. If any of them fail, the shell can recover, but it's often slow and painful user experience. The shell team has done a good job of working around the worst offenders (app compat hacks that have to be done for third-party software).

That's the problem with being hugely popular - is that you simply can't say "well, we're fixing an issue that causes a number of crashes" because if that means a popular application or utility will cease to work, you've just given organizations reason not to upgrade. You have to work with the third-party companies to fix their own problems, and when they won't or can't, try as much as possible to fix it for them or work around it.

A really good blog on this stuff is Raymond Chen's "The Old New Thing" that discusses many of the problems of legacy support.

Anyway, when I see statements that slam Microsoft and Windows, which is easy to do, I push back. :)

Now that is really very, very nice and informative post from somebody who knows his job. You exactly pinpointed the things which makes systems like BSDs "superior" to Windows. Unlike MS open source projects can easily break backward compatibility and in particular they can brake compatibility with third party software. Your post also explains correctness of OpenBSD team approach which doesn't allow third party binary blob drivers nor kernel loadable modules which makes OpenBSD so incredibly stable.

I wish you could elaborate little bit about difficulty to support such a wide variety of often crappy hardware. Also Windows supports incredible wide amount of features not found on any other OS. For that reason Windows kernel is large comparing to Linux (probably not for a long time ) but in particular compared to BSD kernels.

This is why is so important IHMO that BSDs remain simple systems for power users instead of accommodating clueless n00bs. If any system once goes down that path it is just going to become another Windows and I do not mean that in derogatory sense.

Can you explain why is MS so often offender of various RFCs? Is that a
conscience decision to put other Vendors out of business? Is there are any particular reason but PR to have for instance your own mail protocol
(exchange) or for poor implementation of open protocols.

What about security? Could you compare the feature of Windows with OpenBSD?

Could you also elaborate about one of the biggest problems of Windows deployment and that is the lack of truly competent Windows system administrators and users.

[ChuckOp]

Now that is really very, very nice and informative post from somebody who knows his job.

Thank you, very kind. :e

You exactly pinpointed the things which makes systems like BSDs "superior" to Windows. Unlike MS open source projects can easily break backward compatibility and in particular they can brake compatibility with third party software.

What is "superior" or "inferior" is just a matter of matching a solution to a set a of requirements. When it comes to legacy support and the attendant problems; Windows is a victim of it's own success.

Your post also explains correctness of OpenBSD team approach which doesn't allow third party binary blob drivers nor kernel loadable modules which makes OpenBSD so incredibly stable.

I don't know much about OpenBSD, but if that's the case, then of course. Few drivers in the Windows world require kernel access, but in the case of graphics adapters, it's a requirement - otherwise you can't get the speed necessary.

All of Windows' security certifications are predicated that only signed, certificated drivers are used.

I wish you could elaborate little bit about difficulty to support such a wide variety of often crappy hardware.

There's not much to elaborate on - it's difficult. The biggest problem is not the coding, after all it's only written once. ;) The biggest problem is in the testing matrix. x86, AMD64, IA64 architectures, several dozen languages (including middle eastern, Far East, right-to-left reading order), and then add several product editions. To get good testing coverage for a particular feature, you have to test on them all. The build process alone is incredible.

Also Windows supports incredible wide amount of features not found on any other OS. For that reason Windows kernel is large comparing to Linux (probably not for a long time ) but in particular compared to BSD kernels.

A friend of mine and a reviewer of my Active Directory book, Mark Russinovich, has written extensively about the Windows kernel, including a comparison of size and functionality to Linux.

This is why is so important IHMO that BSDs remain simple systems for power users instead of accommodating clueless n00bs. If any system once goes down that path it is just going to become another Windows and I do not mean that in derogatory sense.

Depends on your requirements. All systems conform to evolving requirements. For Windows, supporting "clueless n00bs" is a requirement!

Can you explain why is MS so often offender of various RFCs? Is that a conscience decision to put other Vendors out of business? Is there are any particular reason but PR to have for instance your own mail protocol (exchange) or for poor implementation of open protocols.

First let's dispel a few myths. Microsoft gains no advantage anywhere by closing out other vendors. The success of Windows (Microsoft's cash cow) is predicated on a very healthy software ecosystem.

I think you'd find that any organization supports standardization as much as it needs to and not much more. No one buys a product because it's "IETF approved!" :P

For 6 months in 1999, I worked on "Platinum," the codename for Exchange 2000. The roots of Exchange go back to the late 80's and Microsoft Mail. From that came the Mail API (MAPI). MAPI was a rich, heavy-weight programming interface that fully supported various transport protocols, clients and servers.

This was around 1992-1994, and it was not clear that any of the email RFC's in existence at the time were sufficient for the needs of large organizations. MAPI became the way Microsoft did email, and it was very complete and worked well. Just like Lotus, Novell, IBM and any number of software vendors of the 90's, each had their own email protocols and only implemented SMTP to transfer mail in and out of their own systems.

MAPI supported secure authentication long before SMTP/SSL was commonly available, and organizations did not want employees using IMAP/POP clients sending clear-text passwords either. So, organizations opted for the proprietary Exchange-MAPI-Outlook end-to-end system.

I know Exchange 5.5 and certainly Exchange 2000 supported SMTP, IMAP4, and POP3; in addition to MAPI.

I believe that Exchange 2000 defaulted to using ESMTP as it's internal transfer protocol. Whether or not organizations use the IMAP/POP client interfaces is up to them. I know that I'm using IMAP to get my chuckop@microsoft.com email via Thunderbird on FreeBSD 7.2. :e

Regarding incomplete support of RFC's; it's a matter of what the customer needs. Do they need 90%? 99.9%? RFC's are a moving target that do not conform to product design and shipping schedules. We build in what we can, when we can, as long as it's important to the customer. Customers usually don't put standards support in their top requirements. When customers do put standards support in their requirements, we support the standards as best we can when the product ships.

Open source products have much more of a need of interoperability with a wide variety of other products and thus depend more on standards. Also remember that standards often follow inovation and engineering advances. Products usually exist before the need for standards emerges. If everyone did exactly what the standard states and nothing more - on what basis would you sell the product?

FYI, I attended W3C meetings when HTML4 was being debated. Some of the same people who are now working on Mozilla were at those meetings in 1996 wanting to see Netscape's <LAYER> tag be implemented instead of CSS. Microsoft was pushing for CSS because it was a better from a engineering point of view, whereas <LAYER> was a kludge derived from graphic design constructs. So whenever someone says "Microsoft isn't supporting CSS2.1 100%" I think back to those meetings, when we were the ones advocating CSS in the first place. I've also been a part of the W3C's working groups on web accessibility and on the various Voice XML standards.

What about security? Could you compare the feature of Windows with OpenBSD?

I can't really. My Windows security knowledge is limited and I have no idea of what OpenBSD brings to the table in that regard.

Could you also elaborate about one of the biggest problems of Windows deployment and that is the lack of truly competent Windows system administrators and users.

Well, I wouldn't say that exactly, but I understand what you mean. As with any complex system, be it high performance automobiles, aircraft, you-name-it, it all comes down to how it's operated.

One of the nice things about the BSD-world is that it's user-unfriendly-ness keeps the entry bar pretty high. Windows on the other hand strives to be accessible to anyone. People who use Windows assume that they can manage Windows as well and that leads to problems.

As with anything complex, those with more education and experience will get better results.

Look at it another way. Windows has an installed base of nearly 1 billion users. If 0.5% are "clueless n00bs", that's still 5 million people! :e

Thanks for the message,
-Chuck
chuckop@gmail.com
http://friendfeed.com/chuckop/

[ChuckOp]

Now be honest, does MS use Linux for their servers (just joking)?

Actually, the building I was in for 2 years had the "Linux Lab" on the first floor. I had a friend who worked in that group.

I know your post was in-jest, but the mantra at Microsoft is to "eat your own dogfood". Meaning that you are constantly using the development builds of your own product on your main machine. It brings stability to the product very quickly in the development cycle and rapid feedback as features are added and refined. During Windows 95, I would kick off automated installations of the build from the previous day, assuming it made it out of the build lab okay ("self-host" vs. "self-toast" :) )

I think Hotmail was running non-Microsoft software for a few years after acquisition, but that was eventually changed.

[DrJ]

Windows on the other hand strives to be accessible to anyone. People who use Windows assume that they can manage Windows as well and that leads to problems.

Thanks for the interesting posts.

The irony is that I can get FreeBSD to stand on its head and do tricks. While I use Windows a lot (from 98SE to Win7, harkening back to the earliest DOS versions) I have no clue on how to do the same things there. So I'll personally never confuse myself with a Win expert in any flavor.

BSD is a snap in comparison.

[graudeejs]

ChuckOp, Very interesting post :D
Thanks

[SirDice]

I think Hotmail was running non-Microsoft software for a few years after acquisition, but that was eventually changed.
AFAIK hotmail was running on FreeBSD (before MS bought it), they started off by replacing everything with W2K. Unfortunately for them that didn't work out too good (it more or less buckled under the load). To solve that they put back the FreeBSD servers on the backend but left the frontend W2K. I'm pretty sure it's all Windows these days.

And as for security, I do know a fair bit about it. Having worked for many years as a security specialist for a large banking/insurance company and a renowned security company. When most people blame Windows for having glaring holes and stating that *nix is so much more secure it basically tells me two things, they don't know anything about windows and they don't know anything about *nix either.

Most (security) problems users have with Windows stem from the fact nearly all of them work as an Administrator (and it doesn't help when this is the default). On *nix you would have a similar situation if everybody just used root. The mantra on *nix has always been don't login as root however. Quite a lot of the current malware on windows simply doesn't work if you remove the administrator rights from your day to day account. There's no way a regular user can install a rootkit, keyloggers or BHOs.

This is no guarantee though, it still leaves you open to viruses, trojans and worms (the fact that most of them don't work without admin rights says more about the virus writer then the security of the OS). Their reach is severely limited and that'll make it easier to clean up. Unfortunately from that user's point of view this really doesn't matter. S/He is still going to be pissed when the MP3 collection or all your scriptures get deleted. Which is also the reason linux or bsd users should be careful. Even though you're not running root I'm sure quite a lot of the desktop linux/bsd users use the same account every day. And there are plenty of spaces an ordinary user can write to. It's also quite simple to get something to start automatically when you login (HKCU on windows, ~/.login on *nix e.g.). Heck, you can even leave it running in the background when the user logs off.

[drhowarddrfine]

I've had an issue with two laptops. My son moved into an apartment in Chicago where he goes to school and I went there to visit. He has Vista. I had just bought a brand new laptop and had it for only a week so Vista was still on it. I could not connect using a direct connection to his cable modem. Never did figure out the problem but there are hundreds of links in Google to "local access only" and I can't get on the internet but it works fine at home.

I was able to get a Linux Live CD and that accesses the net just fine.

My wife is in Chicago now and has the exact same problem with her Vista laptop.

[drhowarddrfine]

There is nothing half-baked about Windows. In fact, I would put it's stability and robustness up against any other OS in a heartbeat. Testing at Microsoft is simply the best and finely honed.I read an article by an ex-Microsoftie, recently, that the problem is the internal testing works great at Microsoft because it's finely honed to Microsoft's internal setup but doesn't work outside of this test area.

[drhowarddrfine]

FYI, I attended W3C meetings when HTML4 was being debated. Some of the same people who are now working on Mozilla were at those meetings in 1996 wanting to see Netscape's <LAYER> tag be implemented instead of CSS. Microsoft was pushing for CSS because it was a better from a engineering point of view, whereas <LAYER> was a kludge derived from graphic design constructs. So whenever someone says "Microsoft isn't supporting CSS2.1 100%" I think back to those meetings, when we were the ones advocating CSS in the first place. I've also been a part of the W3C's working groups on web accessibility and on the various Voice XML standards.
Do you have any comment on the long fight between Brendan Eich and ECMA trying to get Microsoft to show up on time for voting? And when, after the vote is done, Microsoft shows up to object to the vote?

Do you have any comment on Microsoft's Chris Wilson not showing up for HTML5 Working Group meetings, his lack of participation and not returning emails or phone calls even though he's the co-chair of the group?

Any comment on IE8 being 11 years behind all other browsers in web standards support?

[drhowarddrfine]

I think Hotmail was running non-Microsoft software for a few years after acquisition, but that was eventually changed.

Tis true. Hotmail ran FreeBSD till MS switched it over to whatever they use now.

[Oko]

When most people blame Windows for having glaring holes and stating that *nix is so much more secure it basically tells me two things, they don't know anything about windows and they don't know anything about *nix either.

Now, are you suggesting that I should use Windows machine as a firewall for my OpenBSD desktop;)




On *nix you would have a similar situation if everybody just used root.
Which is actually true for quite a few less know "user friendly" distros of Linux.



There's no way a regular user can install a rootkit, keyloggers or BHOs.

What about daemons (services)? To me Windows was always a black box so I am genuinely curious about that.


This is no guarantee though, it still leaves you open to viruses, trojans and worms

What is Windows partition scheme really? Again having only / and swap on Unix doesn't make it very secure either.


(the fact that most of them don't work without admin rights says more about the virus writer then the security of the OS).

Script kitties of course. Qualified attackers especially one paid by major nation states are harder to defend against.



Even though you're not running root I'm sure quite a lot of the desktop linux/bsd users use the same account every day. And
I hope this is not true at least in BSD world.

[Beastie]

Even though you're not running root I'm sure quite a lot of the desktop linux/bsd users use the same account every day.

I hope this is not true at least in BSD world.

What do both of you mean by that?

[fbsduser]

At this moment I'm employed by Microsoft, but that's ending soon as I'm moving from the Seattle area to Florida.

I was part of the Windows 95 Program Management team, and also worked on Windows 98, Windows 2000 and Windows XP. I was part of the group that implemented speech recognition in Windows Vista and Windows 7. I also worked on Internet Explorer, versions 3 through 5. When I wasn't working full-time for Microsoft, I was writing books and doing consulting work on LDAP and directory services.

Of course my comments are solely my own and not reflective of any of my employers.

FYI, I'm not trolling - I love FreeBSD and have been using it on-and-off since 4.3. I've always loved "true" Unix and can't stand Linux.



I don't know what "PR crap" you're referring to, but what makes you think that the people at Microsoft, like any organization, don't need legacy support? We have badly designed internal websites that do incorrect version checking just like any other company for just one example. I know of at least one co-worker who was using the DOS version of Microsoft Word for notetaking up until a few years ago.



There is nothing half-baked about Windows. In fact, I would put it's stability and robustness up against any other OS in a heartbeat. Testing at Microsoft is simply the best and finely honed.

Now, obviously there are compatibility issues. The ability to load kernel-level drivers exposes users to system crashes, but that rarely happens with Microsoft provided drivers. Third-party, particularly unsigned drivers, are often the culprits.

The original architecture that allowed for all sorts of hooking into the operation of the shell has also led to a number of issues. It's amazing how much software interweaves itself into the OS without good reason. Everytime you right-click on a folder or file item, the shell has to load the code from all the applications that want to provide functionality. If any of them fail, the shell can recover, but it's often slow and painful user experience. The shell team has done a good job of working around the worst offenders (app compat hacks that have to be done for third-party software).

That's the problem with being hugely popular - is that you simply can't say "well, we're fixing an issue that causes a number of crashes" because if that means a popular application or utility will cease to work, you've just given organizations reason not to upgrade. You have to work with the third-party companies to fix their own problems, and when they won't or can't, try as much as possible to fix it for them or work around it.

A really good blog on this stuff is Raymond Chen's "The Old New Thing" that discusses many of the problems of legacy support.

Anyway, when I see statements that slam Microsoft and Windows, which is easy to do, I push back. :)

Long time *NIX user here and quite new to Wintendo, got a few questions for you. How can I run "PC" games in my Linux PC without Wintendo? How do I activate Wintendo´s built-in quick-save/quick-reload. There was a tuto in youtube to activate it, but it was removed and all I remember is it said something about placing a file called hiberfil.sys in the root of the Wintendo system partition.

[fronclynne]

There's no way a regular user can install a rootkit, keyloggers or BHOs.

So, no buffer overflows anywhere that allow privilege escalation? It's all written in befunge now!? MS continues to amaze and delight!

[roddierod]

I just wanted to share my experience with installing Windows 7.

The Machine:
Dual AMD Opteron 246(2 Ghz), 2GB, 72 GB Hitahchi U320 drive.

1st Attempt:
Windows 7 Enterprise, disk image created by my employer.
This image would not boot on my machine although the hardware guys told me it was bootable, so I ran it from XP. Once the installer started I had to choose to overwrite my install since direct upgrades from XP aren't allowed by Windows 7. I choose advanced setup which only gave me an option to format my hardrive. No choice on my "components" to install or not. Click next and it off....after an hour, it finally reboots and hangs at finishing installing components or whatever the exact message was.

Hard Reboot. Computer boots say it uninstalling Windows 7 because it can't finish install...ok. While it was at it, it also overwrote GAG that was on an entirly different disk!

2nd Attempt:
Disconncted all drives except the drive being used for Windows 7.
Do all the same things...this time after the hour and the reboot it gets further I actually get a black screen that says Windows 7 is starting, and the new fancy Windows logo glows...but it never does anything....HARD REBOOT.

3rd Attempt:
For this attempt, I used my Windows 7 Ultimate from MSDN, thinking something must be wrong with the Enterprise disk image...This install goes faster maybe 20 or 30 minutes. It reboots and I back to the black screen with the fancy glowing logo...hang! HARD REBOOT.

I start in safe mode so I can read what's loading...it hangs at CLASSPNP.SYS, Do research, find out that the Vista bug that caused problems with AMD processors is still present in Windows 7, work around turn off ACHI in the BIOS. Do that. System boots into Windows 7 - but only one processor is showing up. Download and install the 38 patches (36 or 37 of them were critical). Go back into the BIOS and fiddle with different ACHI settings, get the machine to boot with some ACHI setting on, still no 2nd processor...turn off machine. Have not tocuhed Windows 7 since (about 3 or 4 weeks).