According to a notation tucked into the DOJ's joint statement with Microsoft regarding continued compliance with various agreed-upon standards and remedies, Microsoft expects Service Pack 1 for Vista to be in beta by the end of the year. In addition, a Microsoft security executive released data Thursday showing that, six months after shipping Windows Vista, his company has left more publicly disclosed Vista bugs unpatched than it did with Windows XP.
To view parent comment, click here.
To read all comments associated with this story, please click here.
Member since:2006-12-06
Why would not exaggerating a my experiances managing computers hurt my credibility?
What I was stating was that there was a ton of spyware, pop ups and every other problem you can think of but never viruses I own a IT group with 21 employees under me and still to this day I have only detected one virus (every workstation or home pc that comes through our door to be analyzed or at the job site depending on the contract gets scanned by 3 major AV venders software)
one thing we stress in our business to teach our clients is prevention. I personally believe that with proper prevention such as what documents are more likely to have viruses when recieved by email whenever there is a new worm (most of our employee's and myself are news junkies including myself)we first find a temp solution or the patch required and have it deployed in each business or email each home user and make sure the fix is deployed that day. The difference is the home users usually are lax with their security which is why I made my statement about the unpatched systems with spyware.
We do use server based virus scanning (Web,SharePoint,Exchange) but there is no reason with a properly designed infrastructure to have client installed A\V
Edited 2007-06-23 00:40
Member since:2005-11-10
I think you're perfectly fair in your assertion. A well looked after Windows install can remain perfectly virus free given the users have been properly clued up on the basics of being security concious.
The announcement of Vista SP1 is good news, esp. since a number of reviewers have been saying "stave it off until SP1".
Member since:2005-11-10
Sounds like a whole lot of damn work.
The only way we got our virus levels down is to take all admin rights and ability to install programs from users.
Then we had to spend weeks (Still do) and months to make GPO's for our network to get 100's of applications to run without admin privileges.
What a mess. But we have lowered the amount of worms and viruses (Even though we have spent almost as much downtime making GPO's)
Member since:2005-11-10
Yeah, not too many people got away from the blaster worm or Sasser.
I have worked with 1000's of Windows machines also and at the government agency I work at when the blaster worm came out some of our machines got hit. (Not all)
But the DMV for the state of MD went down (5000 plus PC's and servers)
I mean Windows is more secure now then it has ever been but Windows has been exploited more then any other OS.
The thing that is funny is that the Internet runs on Unix and Linux yet the internet hummmmms along with very few problems. (There are some) But if the net was mostly Windows we would have ALL kinds of issues.
Uptime issues, patch issues, worm and virus issues.
Member since:2005-12-15
Member since:2006-10-08
"The thing that is funny is that the Internet runs on Unix and Linux yet the internet hummmmms along with very few problems. (There are some) But if the net was mostly Windows we would have ALL kinds of issues.
Uptime issues, patch issues, worm and virus issues."
Because "Windows" PCs do participate on the Internet, we actually do have these issues. Why do you think the majority of mail service loads is spam (more than 90%)? What makes DOS attacks successful? How do criminals gain subnet and server informations en masse that easy today?
Of course, the "innermost" parts of the Internet, such essential services as routing, ARP et al. are usually not done by "Windows" PCs. I won't try to imagine how the Internet would look today if it would... but remember, kids, MICROS~1 invented the Internet... :-)
I hope (!) that "Vista" and its successors will be a less important threat to the Internet as its predecessors were. But if I'm honest, mostly it's not the OS that is the main problem, it's the users that do not care leaving their PC easily accessible to criminals. Maybe reducing the responsibility for users is a way here, because educating them and trying to make them aware about the danger they are to theirselves and to others does not work, sadly. So I hope MICROS~1 will be able to stuff the majority of security holes and OS problems with this early service pack, furthermore I hope OEM traders will have it already preinstalled if they need to sell their PCs with "Vista".
Member since:2006-01-06
To say you've seen only one virus since Windows 3.1 totally destroyed yer credibility. Ain't a PC tech on the planet could make that claim.
Why? It's really not a big deal to secure Windows boxes from NT on. All that you have to do is ...
1. Make sure that your users run as non-Admins.
2. Keep the software updated.
3. Use a decent firewall.
Done. The general problem is that many organizations don't do these things and, hence, they suffer the consequences.
I follow these simple principles and I've never been burned by a virus, spyware, etc. Am I atypical? Sure, I am. But suggesting that it isn't possible to do this is ridiculous, unless you simply don't know what you're doing.
Member since:
2005-10-19
"I have seen 1 virus infection in all Windows computers that I have worked on since Win 3.11 "Ripper Virus on a local BBS" (I have worked on over 10,000 PC's since then."
You live is Utopia, or Never Neverland?
I'm not sure it's possible for me to go a week without seeing a Windows system infected with a virus(s), and I've worked on a hell of a lot more than 10,000 pc's over the past 22 years.
To say you've seen only one virus since Windows 3.1 totally destroyed yer credibility. Ain't a PC tech on the planet could make that claim.