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The only way that would happen is if they released a new non desktop-metaphor operating system running on singularity. See you in 2020!

"Too weak to be interesting on their own, these products are announced together to create hype they do not deserve--pathetic."

Vista on its own, perhaps...but Office 2007 and Exchange 2007 are major advances from a technology standpoint

Windows2000 had limited driver support when it was released, and the changes in Vista are so huge (as far as driver writing goes) that they have to start completely from scratch.

If you can't remember a Windows launch without driver issues, then perhaps the only Windows launch you've seen is WindowsXP.

Also, the drivers built into the OS are "RTM compatable", and there are also other drivers that have been released on guru3D. I am currently using 97.34

"Nvidia has no RTM compatible drivers"

Bear in mind that the consumer launch is still 2 months away...that's plenty of time for nVidia to cook up some RTM drivers.

Couple of things.

First, Zune has actually moved to #2 in the market, which isn't saying much, especially when you look at iPod's numbers, but still, you make it sound like they haven't sold any units, meanwhile they have moved to #2 in just 2 weeks.

I don't know about Vista (I am sure it will be a highly desired OS after drivers are available for it, and perhaps a SP or 2), but MANY people LOVE Office2007.

Zune is simply retarded. Talk about a Johnny Come Lately.

Office 2007? I'm sure those folks who loves shelling out bucks for the latest and greatest are happy to have something new to throw their money at, but what does it really get you? Just like all the other releases of office in the last 10 years, Microsoft believes that running all the menu items through a randomizer constitutes an upgrade.

In Office 2007, they've just altered the appearance of the menu/toolbar system. Big deal!

Sounds like you know nothing of the underlying changes of Office 2007. Google it, and you shall learn. Much like Vista: Its more than a simple GUI Change.

In Office 2007, they've just altered the appearance of the menu/toolbar system. Big deal!

It is sucha big deal, that it has turned Office from an annoying office suite into one of the best software products money can buy. The new ribbon interface is not just evolutionary, it is revolutionary. OOo already was a pile of crap compared to Office 2003, but when compared to 2007, it's like comparing MacOS X Tiger to Windows 2.0.

But I guess you saw some screenshots, read some anti-MS posts, and made up your mind. Too bad that's all it takes these days to reach +5.

@Thom_Holwerda

I disagree with your assessment of Office 2003 and OpenOffice. I have access to both and I prefer to use OpenOffice. Why? Because it fulfills my needs and works on all the operating systems I like to use. Office 2003 doesn't.

I also disagree with your assessment of the ribbon. It might look nice, but when it comes down to it, it is just another means to access the same old menu items.

If Microsoft, or anybody else for that matter, really wanted to put out an exceptional office suite, it would include things like built-in OCR scanning support, better editing tools, and support an open document format. Not a "revolutionary" system for accessing common menu items.

Perhaps the reason that my comment was given a 5 is not so much a problem with me, but rather a problem with Microsoft, their products, and the public perception of them as a company.

I think people have finally had enough.

Edited 2006-12-01 09:39

...I also disagree with your assessment of the ribbon. It might look nice, but when it comes down to it, it is just another means to access the same old menu items...

sure you can do the same things with the ribbon and without the ribbon, but what Tom was talking about is UI. You can have a bad UI and a good UI with both allowing you to do the very same operations. The difference is HOW you do such things. I have briefly tried out Word 2007 and I have to say I was struck by the ribbon and how it avoids clutter in the UI by grouping similar operation. I am not an experienced Word user as I use Latex form my typesetting work and I found the ribbon quite beneficial.

I would like to mention for all those scientists who happen to hate Latex that Word 2007 features an Equation Editor rewritten from ground up. Finally there is the possibility to set an equation as "in-line" thus avoiding alteration of line spacing. En plus the Equation editor now supports the MathML format. This means that, for example, you can derive an equation in Mathematica, put in MathMLFrom and copy and paste it in Word and bingo! you get a nicely typesetted equation(they finally adopted Latex type fonts)

cheers

Andrea

Office does have built-in OCR support, as far as I know. It's not especially good, but that's what Microsoft Office Document Imaging does (it was one of the new features that came with Office XP or 2000).

"Too bad that's all it takes these days to reach +5."

Perhaps editors should recommend changing the voting method. Once someone gets +5, you cannot mod him down just because you don't agree with him, according to the rules. So don't complain.

And by "revolutionary" I suppose you mean "done by Sun in CDE in the early 1990s"?

// It is sucha big deal, that it has turned Office from an annoying office suite into one of the best software products money can buy. The new ribbon interface is not just evolutionary, it is revolutionary. //

Office 2007 is:
(1) Non-compliant with ISO/IEC standards,
(2) Available only from a single vendor,
(3) Available only for a single platform,
(4) Uses a format that no other current product uses,
(5) Lacks support for PDF,
(6) Lacks support for some web satndards such as SVG,
(7) In all likelihood, with its new GUI, is now unuseable by the disabled (the very criticism that Microsoft used against OpenOffice adoption),
(8) Is very expensive,
(9) Has a format that has (deliberate) dependencies on the Windows platform, making it unlikely that the format will ever be useable on other platforms, and
(10) Has a non-existant user base at this time.

"best software products" ... I don't think so. Not by a long, long way.

Edited 2006-12-02 10:03

They have since dropped off the charts.

> First, Zune has actually moved to #2 in the market,
> which isn't saying much, especially when you look at
> iPod's numbers, but still, you make it sound like they
> haven't sold any units, meanwhile they have moved to #2
> in just 2 weeks.

If you take for example the Amazon Top bestsellers list in electronics, your #2 appears to be #76, and going down. Since the list contains only 100 places, you can expect Zune to get out of the Amazon charts in a day or two.

And what does Amazon.com have to do with actual numbers?

I mean, I really don't care about where Zune's market share is, but I have NO IDEA why you do as well.

My guess is you just want to see it fail, and if so, then get a freaking life.

Is it because the amazon charts are a chart listing on the numbers sold through the site ?

And, if so, by dropping down the chart, does this not mean that after the initial surge of early buyers, no-one else is interested in a zune ?

How does this translate as the guy wants the zune to fail ?

Well, I mean, saying that they were #2 in a short amount of time begs the questions "are they still #2?" and "for how long will they stay there?". Someone observing that they no longer are there at a MAJOR sales site is a defensible measurement of that trend. Let's face it, they're blatantly copying what has been a HUGE success for someone else, not innovating or shaking up the market. It isn't a dumb business move, but you beg for the black eye with the marketing hype. As for people wanting MicroSoft products to fail, the feeling is probably no stronger than MicroSoft's attempt at ASSURING other products fail.

- edited for brain cramp on English 101

Edited 2006-12-02 02:18

Many people USE Office 2007 because they do at work.

Most people USE Windows x.x becuase it comes preinstalled on their computer

I'm not saying that some people don't 'LOVE' Office/Windows but the majority probably over 90% people don't care, as long as it works.

The trolls are pissed. Can you blame them? Their biggest bugaboo (security) is being addressed with Vista, so they won't have as much to complain about. They'll have to come up with all-new complaints.

All new complaints? Vista's security isn't proven yet. No need for new complaints yet. There's a multi billion market for PCs in both Spyware and Security software; Vista is not going to cull that in one day.

"The trolls are pissed. Can you blame them? Their biggest bugaboo (security) is being addressed with Vista, so they won't have as much to complain about. They'll have to come up with all-new complaints."

'Adressed' does not necessarily equal 'solved'.

"No more than have Linux and OS X "solved" security problems. Doubt it?"

I don't doubt for a second that the security of Linux and OSX both offer a much more pleasant experience than the Windows-es already out there. I suspect the same will hold true for Vista, but I'm giving it the benefit of the doubt for now.

"Check out the endless stream of advisories. Anybody who tells you differently is full of cr*p."

<sarcasm>Right. Instead of believing those people who usually back their arguments with data I should just blindly believe you I suppose. </sarcasm>

Edited 2006-12-01 19:05

I'd wait for the exploits to start rolling in (or not) before saying MS has addressed security. Their track record could barely be any worse.

"No need to wait. The betas have been available for a long period of time. You mean to say that malware writers have been on vacation? LMFAO! Rrrrrrright."

Umm, more likely they're simply waiting for an audience. Surely you're not so naive as to believe that crap about Vista being secure do you? <hysterical laughter ensues>

IE 7 only has about 8.84 percent marketshare while IE6 has 70.91 percent.

We'll see alot more bugs uncovered by the time IE7 reaches 70 percent usage.

Mark my words.

So far, you're batting zero. IE7 is holding up against hackers.

Nope, they are not on vacation. But since malwarewriters are in the business for the money, they don't waste time on a system that nobody uses.

AmigaOS is pretty safe from such attacks as well. The question is how the malwarewriters will attack Vista when it has been widely adopted.

It's true WinXP was heavily targetted during beta-testing but back then it was more ideology than money that drove the "machine". Things has changed, so today malwarewriters are concentrating on the most profitting target -> WinXP.

Linux is also under malwareattack due to its widespread adoption on servers, and has had its own share of trouble.

There can be no doubt that malwarewriters will attack Vista, but it is also without doubt that they are going to get a hard time due to the increased security in Vista. The absolutely weakest part will be the user. However, user stupidity is not something one can blame Microsoft for. At least, it would be most unreasonable.

//Linux is also under malwareattack due to its widespread adoption on servers, and has had its own share of trouble.//

Source?

Evidence?

Comparison of level of threat compared with six-figure and rising known malware for Windows?

Comparison of number of "Linux botnets" compared to "Windows botnets"?

This should be interesting. I wait with anticipation for a (fair and considered) reply. Something tells me I won't be getting one.

Edited 2006-12-02 10:23

Just for fun

"Linux Kernel has 100+ holes.
Firefox has 64 critical security holes this year
OS X has 110 critical security holes this year.
Apache 2.x has 30+ security holes

IIS6 has 3 minor security issues in 3 years.
SQL 2005 has none."

Eh?

Thats a mismatch of statistics if I have ever heard them. Mind you you seem to have missed out all say Microsofts Operating system, and the bundled applications like say IE6 and outlook and that messenger, or maybe a little office application which we know.

Comparisons are really difficult to do, and almost all contain bias, but your list is a bit...strange. Its like you have intentionally left out a few things.

Linux Kernel has 100+ holes. from which only 2% have leaded to direct system access.

XP home edition has 133+ from which 17% is still unpatched and 51% give direct system acess.

http://secunia.com/product/16/?task=statistics

Firefox has 64 critical security holes this year

Internet explorer 6.x has 90 from which 35% give direct system access.

http://secunia.com/product/22/?task=statistics


Apache 2.x has 30+ security holes

since you ofcourse flattered your results by taking latest and greatest i'll take apache 2.2.x here.

also 3 advisories of which none are remote.

http://secunia.com/product/22/?task=statistics


conclusion:Any software product has flaws,bugs,vulnerabillities,which we allready know yet a vulnerabillty on any windows platform tends to give more often direct system access.Not so curious if you take into account all the trouble MS has been going trough to harden it's XP successor Vista.Though we'll see how well they succeeded.

So software can have vulnerabilities Mr NotParker, tell us something new.

Edited 2006-12-02 07:04

I think Microsoft record in the last few years for the products that have gone through the SLC process are excellent and is much better than open source.

I don't think 5 years is beneign.Must have been some SLC that took them more than 5years.We'll see if Vista can hold up to the expectations.My educated guess is crackers&co have their weapons arsenal ready since the early beta days just waiting for the appropiate moment to release them.And then the whole circus is the same as XP only with more sophistication.

2 cents is certainly to much

RedHat 4, only out for less than 2 years versus XP's 5 years. 240 according to Secunia

...of which a whopping 0% are unpatched!

Lots of critical ones here:

Did you even follow the link? The majority of those are not OS vulnerabilities, but application ones!

35% of 90 is still less than the 64 Firefox critical security holes this year.

Do you mind giving us a link for those alleged 64 "critical security holes"? Because Secunia has only 38 security advisories, of which only 4 have been left unpatched, and none of them is critical.

Meanwhile, IE7's 3 security advisories are still unpatched (ranger from low to medium criticality).

Edited 2006-12-02 15:55

...of which a whopping 0% are unpatched!

But not a good record.

Did you even follow the link? The majority of those are not OS vulnerabilities, but application ones!

If the Linux server is running Apache or openSSh or openSSL and it is compromised does that matter?

Do you mind giving us a link for those alleged 64 "critical security holes"?

I apologize. I was mixing up security holes and critical ones.

It is 37 critical. Out of 64 this year.

ANd many of the 37 are multiple bugs.

Still, 37 this year is still more than all the critical ones on Secunia for IE6 for 3 years.

Not a good stat!

Meanwhile, IE7's 3 security advisories are still unpatched (ranger from low to medium criticality).

True. But pretty trivial ones.

Edited 2006-12-02 16:46

XP home edition has 133+ from which 17% is still unpatched and 51% give direct system acess.

Not only that, but there has *never* been a version of Linux that would get automatically hacked in 15 minutes when you connected it unprotected to the Internet, like WinXP SP1 did.

Ah, good times. As a local family/friend support technician, I've begun to tell people I will no longer help them fix their PCs if they still use pre-SP2 XP. You'd be surprised at the number of people who still use these highly insecure versions of the OS.

In all fairness, the security of MS products *is* improving...of course, they're coming from so far down, they really didn't have any way to go but up!

We'll see how Vista fares. I also believe that it's only a matter of time before *severe* vulnerabilities come up.

Not only that, but there has *never* been a version of Linux that would get automatically hacked in 15 minutes when you connected it unprotected to the Internet, like WinXP SP1 did.

"Between April and December 2000, seven default installations of Red Hat 6.2 servers were attacked within three days of connecting to the Internet. Based on this, we estimate the life expectancy of a default installation of Red Hat 6.2 server to be less then 72 hours. The last time we attempted to confirm this, the system was compromised in less than eight hours. The fastest time ever for a system to be compromised was 15 minutes. This means the system was scanned, probed, and exploited within 15 minutes of connecting to the Internet. Coincidentally, this was the first honeypot we ever setup, in March of 1999."

http://www.honeynet.org/papers/stats/

Of course, I meant *on average*. If you're going to compare "shortest times" with honeypots, then I'm afraid it looks even bleaker for Windows:

"The Windows honeypot is an unpatched version of Windows 2000 or Windows XP. This system is thus very vulnerable to attacks and normally it takes only a couple of minutes before it is successfully compromised. It is located within a dial-in network of a German ISP. On average, the expected lifespan of the honeypot is less than ten minutes. After this small amount of time, the honeypot is often successfully exploited by automated malware. The shortest compromise time was only a few seconds: Once we plugged the network cable in, an SDBot compromised the machine via an exploit against TCP port 135 and installed itself on the machine."

According to the link you gave, one could imagine that the average time it takes to hack an uprotected an unpatched Red Hat 6.2 was at least a couple of hours...with an unpatched Windows 2000/XP, the average is less than 10 minutes.

PS: the Honeynet project is where I had gotten my original figure in the first place, but I have also seen it happen "live"...it's quite scary, actually, and it's still going on with millions of unpatched XP machines relaying tons of spam every day. Thanks, MS!

People have a right to express their opinion.
And before quoting Gates (who is delusional anyway): he has some unique (read: false) idea about what "new generation" is. Win95 was really something new, no more DOS (they've hidden it..kinda), all everything in GUI, ... That was a true next gen (for Microsoft). Nextgen usualy involves some evolution and since this is not 1980 anymore, changes done to Windows in last 6 years are way smaller than changes in competitive OSes in past 6 months ...sure, they gave it a new GUI since this is the first thing users see + some "security" stuff they think we need, but this product is really poor quality (yes, I have tested it, also the final version) and has some major bugs still present, not to mention how customers will respond when they see most dialogs still EXACTLY (minut theme) the same as in XP, with all the options, annoyances and bugs. I wouldn't call this a "new generation". I'm pretty sure a same group of excellent coders working on Vista should be able to rewrite an OS from scratch in that period, especialy fulltime paid coders. So are we supposed to pay for same old shit, just painter differently? Be my guest.

My 5 cents.

Edited 2006-12-01 09:00

(...)and buy Intel graphics cards.

What intel graphic cards? Last time I checked they only supplied integrated solutions. And those (made by Intel) are worthless when it comes to any gaming or 3d productivity.

PS. Maybe things will change a bit with that new GMA X3000 - time will tell.

yeh sorry about that, i meant buy Intel integrated cards,
i like AMD but intel is open source, yeh they are a little under par, but please understand they are not worthless, they have comparable performance to an X300se radeon, and 98% per cent of users don't even know what 3d productivity is. regardless i will still buy integrated Intel (sigh) because we really have little choice on Linux. soon enough though when Intel becomes a serious player among the vega card manufactures then it will force others to open their drivers. which is why i laugh when ATI or nVidia talk about trade secrets, well Intel fears nothing and for that i admire them. and yes hopefully intel will make more powerful vega cards.

Ultimatebadass i admire your tack, and you are quite right, but i beleive we have to do somethig if we are going to coerce manufactures into FOSS drivers and documentation

Yep, that's a great way to convince people to use linux. - posting stupid "I hope Microsoft choke" messages full of acronyms and saying "spyware will get yoooou!".

Oh, and Intel graphics chipsets are useless. Not just for gaming - even for general desktop use.

nVidia have pretty much done everything they can to make nvidia drivers easy to install whilst keeping them closed source. And with the amount they spend on R&D for their cards, are they really going to open source them and let their competitors steal their hard work? I think not.

And as an ex-Java programmer now using C#, let me tell you that java is evil. Pure evil.

Your comment appealed to me. I'm not sure why

"Yep, that's a great way to convince people to use linux. - posting stupid "I hope Microsoft choke" messages full of acronyms and saying "spyware will get yoooou!".

I agree, but this is not good comment to make about anything. To be fair Vista/Office come with spyware built in.

"Oh, and Intel graphics chipsets are useless. Not just for gaming - even for general desktop use."

Having used an old chipset on linux for a couple of years. I can say this intel hardware used to be incredibly difficult to set up, and wasn't very supported (read hell on earth)...and I used to use an onboard sis. In the past year, every release has been an improvement. They have done a wonderful job. It did everything flawlessly. I would have bought a low-mid range cards from them *if* one had been available. I bought a r300 card Ati recently and that was because beryl came out, as binary drivers are simply too much hassle for a part time gamer. I think what you have said is untrue.

There are lots of excuses floating around, about why nvidia and Ati mid-high end cards are binary only. To be fair If I was a serious gamer. There are a couple of really *interesting* consoles just out, that simply offer a better gaming experience for cheaper than a gaming PC.

"And as an ex-Java programmer now using C#, let me tell you that java is evil. Pure evil."

I never liked Java, and it has started to have a bad reputation. What will be interesting is watching *what* happens now its open-sourced. I suspect whatever happens there will be big changes.

Hi

I haven't touched Intel graphics chipsets since the intel 810 but that was enough to put me off for life. Even with GL support, it couldn't handle the bouncing cow screensaver at above 2fps on an idle system, never mind TuxRacer It was the same story on Windows.

As for Java, we may well see big changes, we'll just have to wait and see what pans out

And with the amount they spend on R&D for their cards, are they really going to open source them and let their competitors steal their hard work?

I'm sorry, but I'm not convinced that publishing open-source drivers would allow any competitors to steal their hard work. It's not as if ATI would changer the internal structure of their graphics chips overnight because they might get to copy one of Nvidia's ideas...

I believe there are other issues at hand here, i.e. perhaps Nvidia uses licensed software in their drivers, and the owner doesn't want to open-source that bit of software.

In any case, there are persistent rumors that ATI (now owned by AMD) will open-source its Linux drivers in the coming months.

In any case, there are persistent rumors that ATI (now owned by AMD) will open-source its Linux drivers in the coming months.

If that will come true and it will be implemented so every linux will support ATI graphics card out off the box so to speak i will be certainly willing to look at an ATI card first the next time i buy a graphics card.

If i just want to write a letter now and then would i need Office 2007 ?

"If i just want to write a letter now and then would i need Office 2007 ?"

:) I think you know the answer already!

----------

I forgot to say: I would love it if MS would port Access to OS X, but I don't see that happening anytime soon.

Of course not. You'd be fine with WordPad or even Notepad, both of which are included in every version of Vista.

Naah... Wordpad should be sufficient, unless you want to make fancy looking letters. In that case any office suite from the last 10-15 years would do the trick

(I wouldn't recommend using WP6, but it would do the job.)

The article that you cite refers to three worms that infect systems by tricking third party email clients into running malware attachments. So what? Microsoft's own email apps (Outlook and Vista's bundled mail app) block those worms. And even the email clients that don't block them won't run the attachments with admin priveledges under Vista (unless the user is running as admin and turned off UAC), so it's no less safe than any other OS. Sophos is rasing an alarm so people still buy their security stuff, but the flag that they're rasing could just as easily apply to other OSes.

Edited 2006-12-01 18:35

I was under the impression the malware bypassed UAC and was caught by Windows Mail simply because the virus definiton file included all these. Perhaps it wouldn't have found them if this were new malware that hadn't already ravaged millions of XP systems.

I'm sure we'll see UAC bypassed if this wasnt an indication already.

But like you say, Linux and other non-Windows OSes have the same security features that will further improve thanks to competiton from Windows Vista.

One thing you haven't mentioned is the far smaller marketshare of these alternative operating systems.

They are further secure through obscurity. Plus the users who use these other OSes are often as smart or smarter than the people who write these viruses and malware. So they simply know how to deal with them even if malware did/could exist.

Edited 2006-12-01 19:30

I just read the descriptions on Sophos' site. These so-called "worms" are pretty ridiculous and I don't understand why they're not called "trojans." They send themselves out through mass emails and rely on a user to open some file to get infected. Sure, anti-virus is meant to stop this, but if you're smart enough not to open files sent through mass emails then you won't get hurt by this virus. There's very little an OS can do to avoid this sort of attack: if the user manually runs an EXE and has the right to send emails, what can one do to stop the trojan from spreading?

If by "shamelessly ape" you mean a brownish and orange and a brownish beige are in the same color family then yes, you are right. Otherwise there is little similarity. MS has 3 columns, Ubuntu has 2. Ubuntu has a summary box at the top MS does not. MS has menu on the left, Ubuntu has it on the right.

I think you're really reaching on this one.

By "Shameless Ape," he's talking about Steve Ballmer.

Oh... I get it now. My apologies :p

"The fact is people are trying to make vista seem less secure than it is... microsoft can only do so much before it comes down to COMMON SENSE, if an internet explorer window pops up with an image of a pictur thta says "you have xxxxx virus" and some idiots click it to download a "antivirus" thats not microsofts fault thats just stupidity."

I really am uncomfortable with both your perception of people and your misguided approach to security.

He is right, though. You cannot blame MS for user stupidity. "Common Sense" _is_ the best defense.

@markoweb I hate posts like your too much to reply to

"I wonder why people have the dillusion, that as soon as a new OS comes out, it need's to be 100% reliable, completly secure, able to run all the previous apps, etc-etc??
Seems to me, that most people commenting here have an IQ of less than a 100. "

Even with my IQ Microsoft will sell Vista under the banner that it will be reliable, secure, run previous apps.

I try to understand you home+office bit, but I don't most people need the same software they use at work, and can use it etc etc.

3 months is good ... unless you plan to run Linux for more than 3 months.

Of course but by correctly configuring the bundled software, 3 years is a more accurate figure.

it would have been very vulnerable had code been written to compromise its system

I would be very interested to know which holed 'would have been' compromised by these hackers.

What would Savannah and Debian gurus have to do with Mac OS holes?

3 months is good ... unless you plan to run Linux for more than 3 months.

In another note that XP SP2 default config was not compromised.

More dishonesty from you...the RedHat servers in the example you give were not protected by a firewall, andhad services running, while the XP SP2 default is protected by a firewall, and has no servers running.

You're so predictable: every single comparison you make is between different setups. I understand that you resort to such dishonesty, as being honest would mean admitting that you were wrong...

To keep things simple i could use windows 3.11 or w95 as honeypot and get a lot of "flattered" results.

Don't run without a firewall, no matter which OS you are using.

That goes without saying: a system is only as secure as its admin makes it. Case in point, from your own example:

"Of these, only four Linux honeypots (three RH
7.3 and one RH 9.0) and three Solaris
honeypots were compromised. Two of the
Linux systems were compromised by brute
password guessing and not a specific
vulnerability."

So, that means that only 2 out of 19 Linux machines were compromised due to actual vulnerabilities (and not weak passwords, as is the case for the other two). That is actually a pretty good record! Thanks for providing this example which showcases the good security of Linux machines (I guess you should have read it more carefully before posting it, huh?)

Not just linux but *any* system.

Yes. Which is why I said: "Don't run without a firewall, no matter which OS you are using. "

Unless you are behind a router on a trusted network.