Microsoft rarely gives out sales numbers, but Vista is another story. Due to bad press, the company apparently wants to remind everyone that Vista is still selling well. The software giant recently announced that it would be putting resources into launching a marketing campaign that will fight back against Apple's ads and incorrect Vista assumptions and will instead tell the "real Vista story."
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Member since:2005-08-27
Yes, the last Windows I used primarily on my own desktop was win 95. I've used Linux, NetBSD, and Solaris since that time. I mentioned 3.0 since it was a more revolutionary introduction amid a much smaller playing field.
Regarding the "bypass command", here is what the ireboot team did in Unix terms. They did nothing more than make a setuid root shell script, runnable as any user, that modifies a standing cron entry which fiddles the boot entry (if cron had an @shutdown similar to @reboot). You still have to install their program {pkg,port,deb,rpm} as root.
IE, there is no bypass since you have to allow, through UAC, their program to install to set these things up. The term, "give enough rope" applies in all OS worlds.
http://neosmart.net/blog/2008/ireboot-and-working-around-uac-limita...
Osnews linkage: http://osnews.com/story/19686/Coding_Around_UAC_s_Logon_Limitations...
Notice how they mention the installer of their program.
"The resulting application has an installer - which requires admin privileges, of course - which installs and launches the background service."
So, they are actually creating a more secure program by coding within, not around UAC vs an older Windows system with no UAC and full rights to certain accounts.
Edited 2008-07-22 09:59 UTC
Member since:
2008-04-10
If you haven't used Windows for 9 years, that would mean that your previous Windows experience would have been 95 or 98, or the corresponding NTs. While I'm not a fan of Windows, I'm not posting to bag it, and I'll try and keep this post devoid of fanboy-bitterness. XP was a massive improvement over previous versions, and a step in the right direction in terms of stability and ease of use. Vista is another step in the right direction, in terms of security, though some old concepts deeply embedded in the OS cripple it; such as the tight integration of IE making any IE security holes a problem for the whole system. The new user permissions are probably borrowed from various *nix, or they could just be a flash of sanity, but it's just some fancy trimmings on the same old problems. Not real permissions management. If I remember rightly (but it's a vague memory, so apologies if I'm wrong), Vista's UAC has a built in "Jedi mind-trick". A bypass command that programs can issue to it telling it not to ask the user, and just allow. That there just renders Vista susceptible to the same problems as XP, after a small modification to an old virus. Again, I may be wrong, but I think I remember reading about it months ago.
Standard disclaimer: I am not a professional technology reviewer or analyst (read "person with an opinion and a Wordpress blog"). Comments are to be taken with a liberal helping of salt, if you're stupid enough to take them internally...