Submitted by A new report from Symantec security researchers contends that Microsoft’s much-awaited Vista operating system could harbor a range of vulnerabilities that will make it less secure than previous iterations of Windows. According to research published July 18 by Symantec, a number of Vista’s software components, specifically a handful of protocols related to its redesigned networking technologies, could become security loopholes if Microsoft does not fix the problems or ensure that the product is configured appropriately to hide the glitches when it is shipped.
You might want to read this http://blogs.technet.com/security/archive/2006/07/18/442368.aspx – it is an reply to this report and gives some insight from the people with the exact same job: Making Windows more secure for their customers
While I agree with him on this article (I’d say this is Symantec hoping to take away credibility from a competitor and stir up new customers.), this guy has no credibility of his own work: He has all sorts of entries, which if correct, mean Windows is so far more secure than a Linux based system (IIS+Win verse LAMP type) that we shouldn’t even be seeing Windows security problems… Unfortunately, his favorite metric seems to be “# of vulnerabilities.”
And, like any good marketing shill, he puts on a disclaimer that roughly says: “Everything I say doesn’t mean what it says, so no calling me on it: It doesn’t mean I’m right, just that you’re wrong.”
Vista requirements are already high (1GB a realistic bear minimum). I dread to think what a crippled-by-Norton Vista machine would be like.
Home users have seen computer performance degrade over time. Five years ago, a machine wasn’t preloaded with so much bundled crap or latest Norton bloatware and thus, ran quite smoothly.
Now a user buys a _brand new_ machine and it’s already dreadfully slow thanks to bundeware, and quickly goes down the pan the second IE starts letting everything in through the door. It’s appalling, uterly sickening, and Vista will <strong>not</strong> make it any better.
When Vista ships most of the new PC’s will have an AMD or Intel dual/quad core with at least 1GB of ddr2.
When Windows 98 shipped, all you ever needed was 32MB of RAM (64 or 128 for gaming) and a 10GB Hard Disk. What’s your point?
I know hardware has progressed, but Windows bloat (with added bundleware and Norton bloat) has been progressing faster.
And how much would that machine have costed you vs how cheap you can get a machine now? Back then machine prices were in the stratosphere compared to where they are now.
I’ve seen brand new computers run horribly slow simply because they were running McCafee, and they were scanning ALL THE TIME. It bothers me too.
When Vista ships most of the new PC’s will have an AMD or Intel dual/quad core with at least 1GB of ddr2.
Yeah, and I can use that gig with Slackware and XFCE and have 960 MB free, or I can use it with Vista and barely have enough to turn on Aero.
A gig of memory is a lot, but it’s pretty useless if you need to install another gig just to run anything more than the operating system.
Yes,unfortunately i’m out of modding points,so virtually +1 🙂
Stop the lie campaign. Vista does NOT require 1GB of memory.
Other than, interesting that whenever Symantec says something about OSX/Linux it’s all “oh they want to create a new market by spreading lies”, but when they do it with Vista, an MS product, they suddenly ARE right, and the knight in shining armor.
Intriguing.
The last new machine I installed had 14 tray icons pre-installed, as well as two pages of bundled software in add/remove. Add Norton or McAffee 2007 and Now tell me 1GB isn’t required.
The last new machine I installed had 14 tray icons pre-installed, as well as two pages of bundled software in add/remove. Add Norton or McAffee 2007 and Now tell me 1GB isn’t required.
And a pre-installed XP machine has to do with a vanilla Vista install, how, exactly?
Because an average user buys a computer, not an OS, and the pre-installed OS is sold out to every man and his dog. Do you believe that when Vista lands, Dell will just stop including all bundleware for the sake of machine performance?
Vista can promise all sorts of things, but I go by how 90% of its users will see it. A sluggish OS bogged down by ever increasing bundleware, adware, spyware and more tray icons.
I suspect most OSNews readers don’t use a pre-installed system, so are cushioned from the harsh reality of a million computers a day going out the doors underperformaing by as much as 80% sometimes.
edit: “sold old …” = “sold out…”
Edited 2006-07-20 18:44
Users I doubt will find there PC’s from Dell or anywhere else sluggish at first. If XP is to go for.
XP new on a machine runs quite nicely in 256MB. Its only after using it for a while that it tends to need more memory. That everybody but the anal experiences. If what you said was true Dell would not be selling such cheap PC’s. The its slowed down so we will replace it is a reality and thats on of Dell’s biggest market.
While I agree that Dell and others bundle stuff in with the OS clearly you have not been keeping up with the EU rulings, Microsoft will include most of that bundled rubbish. Spyware removal/Spyware checker, Instant Messenger etc. etc.
I don’t know, I’ve got a DELL here at work with 512MB of RAM and a 1.7 GHz P4 running WinXP, and I simply cannot use Photoshop CS2 on this baby, even if it is the only application running. It’s like move a layer, wait 3-5 seconds, do something else, wait 5-10 seconds… Also Firefox is rather lame on this machine.
I just got my MacMini (1.6 Ghz Intel Duo Core and 2GB of RAM) and this baby in Photoshop CS2 is running circles around the DELL despite the fact, that it’s executing PPC code in Emulation on the Mac (!).
BTW there is no spyware on my machine whatsoever, it’s pretty much locked down by our systems department, who are very concerned about security. Something is seriously wrong with WinXP if that’s the performance I get from an 1.7 GHz P4.
Even my humble 1GHz G4 PowerBook at home is much smoother using Photoshop than the DELL. I would bet running Linux on the DELL would completely kick the shit out of WinXP.
A friend’s mother bought an off the shelf Compaq (or maybe HP, not much difference) less than a year ago with 512MB of mem and a decent socket 754 Sempron cpu…and you know what? It *was* really sluggish because of all the pre-installed crap. Mostly trial-ware with 30-60 day expirations plus an awful bloated control center app. Took forever for the desktop to fully load and it was anything but snappy even afterwards.
That doesn’t sound like MS’s fault, sounds like it is the OEM’s fault, they always cram a bunch of useless and bloated crap into a new system. PErhaps you should turn your ire that way?
I don’t know what your getting so upset by. In reality IMO for smooth running *XP* needs 1GB to run smoothly.
Its not even an OS vs OS lie. I’m sat here on linux running XFCE4, and “free” gives me 783Mb used.
The reality is the only lie is it says 1Gb instead of 2Gb, which in reality by the time 2007 2Gb will be both cheap and needed.
“In reality IMO for smooth running *XP* needs 1GB to run smoothly.
The reality is the only lie is it says 1Gb instead of 2Gb, which in reality by the time 2007 2Gb will be both cheap and needed.”
Thats three “realitys” already
> Its not even an OS vs OS lie. I’m sat here on linux running XFCE4, and “free” gives me 783Mb used.
That’s an unusual high memory usage, sure you aren’t looking at the total used memory(buffers and chache included)?
Memory usage on linux and windows are two seperate things.
@czubin I am, your right, but then I’m only running Terminal, Firefox, Mldonkey, X , XFCE, Thunar and I didn’t mention my 128MB onboard graphics usage.
I’m fairly well stripped, I upgraded my freinds XP box and had to live with his 256MB, while I bought some super-ninja memory for myself, that made no discernable differance.
I moved to XFCE becuase everything else was unusable at 256MB, and I need my windows95 feel, and found I didn’t really need anything in KDE.
I come here to improve my knowledge, and was disappointed with the E17 thread as it seems a real replacement for me; XFCE, only pretty, and all people could do was winge about the long release times, bah.
Anyhow. I found 256MB too tight, for a *Modern* desktop experiance on stripped linux, 512Mb would have is enough. I would expect a most new users to at least experiance one of the more functional, memory hungry desktop enviroments. Simply because people find in a dialog more friendy, and less effort than a CLI, and for that plus a real office alternative your talking 1GB
Its not even an OS vs OS lie. I’m sat here on linux running XFCE4, and “free” gives me 783Mb used.
Take a closer look at the results from ‘free’. Most people look at the “Mem:” line when they should look at the “-/+ buffers/cache” line. You’ll probably note that you are actually using much less memory and it is using the extra for buffers and caching — this is the information Windows reports to you when you check how much memory is used.
I read this and at first just laughed – pleased with the fact that I’m now (mostly) running linux on my desktops.
Then the cold harsh reality struck – why would Symantec say otherwise? With MS no doubt going to tout security as one of the biggest upgrade features from XP Symantec surely has to ensure that it stays relevant as a company – no corporates would forgo security software – but you don’t want “Joe Sixpack” to fall back in to a false sense of security that MS is selling him.
Microsoft have replaced old; secure code, offsetting it against new benefits.
Symantec is absolutely right, you don’t need to be a security expert to reach that conclusion.
Whats difficult to get is how insecure it, or how quickly if at all the new code can reach the same level or exceed that of security.
…and yes it is Symantec, saying they are still needed in the Microsofts more secure OS(sic) ever. They are probably right.
Well, you certainly don’t need to be an expert on software security or quality to understand that overhauling enormous amounts of code is sure to inject enormous amounts of bugs.
I don’t envy Microsoft, they’re in a pretty tough situation. They need to catch up with everything that’s happened in the PC industry in the past 6+ years and get it mostly right on the first shot. Of course there’s gunna be bugs, and there’s probably going to be several times more bugs in Vista RTM than there are in fully patched Windows XP SP2. The way that most software vendors smooth out the spikes and roll-offs in the defect rates across release cycles is by keeping the cycles relatively short. Two years seems to be good rule of thumb for the largest software projects. Beyond that, the number of new feature requests makes the release of a high-quality product highly unlikely.
I believe that the success of Windows 2000, XP, and Server 2003 was largely due to the relatively short release cycles and the relatively modest set of new features in each release when compared to its (architectural) predecessor. With Vista, MS has let the feature requests completely dictate the release management policies. The result is that they’ve sacrificed the stability of the (Windows Server 2003) codebase and potentially moved in a direction that doesn’t exactly agree with those of its customers.
W2K was another 5 year gap release. It had less in it over NT4 than Vista has over XP, but it did add a large number of new features and was a coordinated server and client release.
They added PNP, Active Directory, DirectX, EFS, and tons of other stuff to NT between NT4 and W2K.
HAHAHAAHAH
I laugh! very loud! xD
What did mister Balmer said? “Quality Quality Quality!” ?
HAHAHA
XP released 2001 – Microsoft had 6 years of development, and that’s the result?
OK it’s still beta, but 6 years! LOOOOOOL
microsoft sucks.
You do realize that in that 6 years, MS released XP SP2 and a boatload of other products, right?
loool
the biggest software company in the world released “XP SP2 and a boatload of other products” in 6 years?! That’s really a bad joke.
Apple – a much smaller company – released from 2001 four Operating Systems (Jaguar, Panther, Tiger and Leopard is coming this year, too), every year a iLife package and a lot of other things.
Edited 2006-07-20 23:25
Apple – a much smaller company – released from 2001 four Operating Systems (Jaguar, Panther, Tiger and Leopard is coming this year, too), every year a iLife package and a lot of other things.
Well, there is a difference there though.
MS is writing an OS from scratch, more or less.
Apple tried to write an OS to replace the original MacOS; after three attempts (Taligent/Pink, Gershwin and Copland) and millions wasted, they admitted defeat and bought a Unix clone, which they have been poking and tweaking ever since.
The first releases of OSX was little more than a beta you had to pay for; it took them another TWO YEARS to get it into a half-decent state; pretty good going when you consider that NeXT was in damn fine shape when they bought it.
Jaguar, Panther, Tiger, Leopard? These are not new operating systems, they’re the same operating system Apple bought years ago; aside from adding one UI on top of another, a few tweaks (Automator, Dashboard), they haven’t actually done much apart from bug fixes.
Yep, Vista has been a dog’s dinner of a development effort, but until Apple actually WRITES an operating system of their own, as opposed to just adding freebies to one they bought at a fire sale, no-one can really say whether or not they could have done a better job.
I tried to resist but can’t.
Since 2001 Microsoft has released 2 full blown OS’s (XP/Win2k3 which were not incremental increases like Apple’s releases), and numerous OS service packs including XPSP2 which was almost a complete rewrite of the core OS.
They have also released:
2 new versions of commerce server
2 versions of biztalk server
a new version of CMS
a new version of SQL Server
3 versions of .Net and correlating versions of Visual Studio
2 versions of ISA server
2 versions of Exchange Server
2 versions of Office (and 2007 will be released later this year)
and that’s just some releases from their business related portfolio. God only knows how much consumer software they released.
Yes, it’s a boatload indeed. They don’t have thousands of developers working for them for no reason. Their software portfolio is HUGE.
(this comment should be deleted, it’s double entry of the post before)
Edited 2006-07-20 23:24
I have to say:
these kinds of reports are utter hogwash,
1st: its beta, and there are fixing bugs still
2nd: vista has alot of major changes under the hood, and most include pretty solid designs.
so even if there are bugs and holes, and i am sure there will be, it will be easyer to fix cuz of the better designs.
3rd: windows IS securable, i run 1000s of workstations
and dont have all these unstablity issues people here on OSnews talk about.
just like linux, its all about the sysadmin.
for the record: i admin both windows and linux
-Nex6
Yes he said quality quality quality and thats what he meant… the fact is symantec just wants to be in the news and try to make the stockholders feel happy that “theres still a place for us in a vista world”
There are know known bugs in the code … and the fact is you all are a bunch of double talkers… first if microsoft builds on top of code to improve it… such as with the kernel from 2000->2003->vista people say they are building on buggy software and just trying to pass on old code… blah blah ms bash ms bash…… and now that they said you know what our network code isnt good enough and scrapped it to make it faster and more suited for todays networks they get flamed that its “new insecure code” … the fact is theirs no proof its insecure.. symantec has not shown 1 way that its insecure they are talking out of their a$$es.
Nex6 i have to back u up on the fact that windows is secureable … i also run a fairly large network… about 450 xp machines and 10-12 2003 servers… we are upgrading them all to vista when it comes out as well as several of our servers are getting the GUIless version of longhorn server to more streamline the file hosting they do…
The reason for the upgrade to vista is… while XP is very secure if handled right, new features and memory protection as well as the huge slew of under the hood changes that made vista much better… that no one really takes note of… thats the reason to upgrade to vista… its funny all the “Tech Guru’s” *ha* that hang on osnews keep saying why do i want vista just for a new glassy theme… the fact is that shows how uninformed they are… they dont pay attention to the giant leaps in security done under the hood … and the fact that network is indeed 10-25% better performing on vista (sometimes … there are still some companys with driver problems but many are seeing these kind of gains) i’m just sick of companys and lame kiddies trying to bash microsoft for no apparent reason.
First thing just becuase its a pet hate we are talking about Vista not Microsoft.
If we were talking just of Microsoft I would say companies like Symantec only exist becuase Microsoft produces insecure code. Its why there is a billion pound industry to *fix* windows.
You talk of double talk. When in reality its you with the double talk, built on old code more secure, becuase bugs fixed. Total new code to get rid of the old code.
What will have happened, is some code will be replaced, some rewritten, some will stay the same. Hopefully for those who move to Vista these will be beneficial.
The reality is Vista is a closed source appliation its impossible for you to know what has changed under the hood, or even if that code is more secure.
The truth is lots and lots of code, bound to be security holes all over the place, and the malware industy is just too profitable.
…but most importantly Symantic is not under any circumstances trying to protect itself from “Vista world”(sic) its saying its still needed in a world where Microsoft is trying to enforce its Monopoly on the billion pound industry of third party products used to protect the windows user.
Oh I modded you down for lame kiddies, I’m just too old to called that as an insult.
The reality is Vista is a closed source appliation its impossible for you to know what has changed under the hood, or even if that code is more secure.
Wrong. Vista will be tested over the next several years. You will know whether it’s secure or not — regardless of whether you see the code or not.
i hate to tell you guys this also… but 1gb? I have 3 test machines with 512 and they run fine… 1 doesnt use glass because it doesn’t have a dx9 card but works just fine… they all especially run great on the latest build…
99% of performance problems in the betas has been attributed to poorly performing and rushed drivers from ATI/NVIDIA/INTEL… which microsoft is trying to force them to fix ASAP…
Yes 1gb does feel nicer and 2gb even nicer than that… but the fact of the matter is it was the same story in XP.. more ram = more smooth feeling OS… its nothing new…
And for those bi*ching about 1gb… give me a break stop whining skip burger king for a few days and go get a gig … its 50$ my god can we stop whining
http://www.pcprogress.com/product.asp?m1=pw&pid=MDD333%2D128X64
i hate to tell you guys this also… but 1gb? I have 3 test machines with 512 and they run fine… 1 doesnt use glass because it doesn’t have a dx9 card but works just fine… they all especially run great on the latest build…
I tested both the 32-bit and 64-bit versions of Vista.
To be honest the network performance has increased.The overall performance (on 2.2 GHz 1 gb ddr amd64 fx5700 graphics card 128 MB AGP 8x) was miserable.Only with deactivated system-restore,indexing,and the theming engine the (perceived) performance was reasonable an on par with XP.Real multitasking? forget it..
Yes 1gb does feel nicer and 2gb even nicer than that… but the fact of the matter is it was the same story in XP.. more ram = more smooth feeling OS… its nothing new…
Vista GUI (aero) is remarkably slower.
No way! They must be lying. Most likely Symantec is having an agenda of their own, right?
Right, guys?
guys..?
cchance:
yup, i agree with you, windows XP/2k3 have some fine security features if you use them, and a standard well documentated image will go along way.
-nex6
Windows a secure OS?
How do you define secure?
Go online with a standard XP installation without Antivirus and Firewall software. After 20 minutes you can do the install again because everything is full of spy-, ad- and malware!
In conclusion you have to invest much time to make windows secure.
And, what security features are you talking about?
A example for security is OpenBSD, it comes secure as default, with SECURITY FEATURES like w^x, proactive security and so on.
Lets talk about the server aspect.
Windows Vista need a lot of more memory as Linux or BSD. In Linux and BSD you can shutdown the graphical interface if you don’t need it. That saves a lot of RAM and CPU. But in windows, you can’t do that!
The last point: the costs
Windows: I don’t know the price exactly, about 79€
Linux, BSD: free
So windows for server? never – and vista is trash against real security.
This is pretty typical response I expected
and Nobody goes online with a default install of any OS. if you do, you get what you deserve.
and i use anti virus, but i dont REQUIRE it on my XP install. cuz my machine is set correctly.
and no you dont have to invest more time, I have hardened windows, and plenty of Linux distros and its about even moreso with linux if you want to really get dirty.
openBSD is pretty secure by defualt sure, but what if you want to run a blade server running quad processors?
or need to run, a Nix cluster of some kind?
what about if you need to run asp.net?
use whatever is the best tool for the job, dont blindly spew about….
and about memory fedora is a hog just like windows
and “vista” is not a server its workstation, and wndows server 2003 is pretty solid, stable wise and security wise. if its not its your problem not the OS.
This won’t take long. Shall we slaughter your argument, piece by piece?
>> Windows a secure OS?
>>How do you define secure?
Is an actual statement forthcoming? Generally when debating you bring up a point, or attack someone else’s argument.
>> Go online with a standard XP installation without Antivirus and Firewall software. After 20 minutes you can do the install again because everything is full of spy-, ad- and malware!
Your batting 0/1000 my friend. You don’t even understand that XP comes with Firewall software. Anti virus is not included, that is true. Now after 20 minutes you can do it again because..
what happened?
Next time you add your theory about what happened here. Please, lets continue..
>> In conclusion you have to invest much time to make windows secure.
You’ve made a slam dunk assumption. Way to go! Please don’t waste any time proving your point.
>> Lets talk about the server aspect.
Windows Vista need a lot of more memory as Linux or BSD. In Linux and BSD you can shutdown the graphical interface if you don’t need it. That saves a lot of RAM and CPU. But in windows, you can’t do that!
My god that is a terrible thing. You will have to buy ram to use your operating system. Great that it’s the cheapest component, isn’t it?.
Listen.. be fair to yourself. You don’t know anything about computers. It’s ok. But pretending you do on the internet won’t make you look any cooler.
Cheers
Morglum
PS) Stop posting incessantly.
First regarding the memory requirements. To date I have installed several builds of Vista on both PCs and Vmware machines, each of which were limited to 512MB. The most was a VMWare image that I gave 1GB temporarily. Now keep in mind I think 1GB works just great with XP, I do not necessarily see the arguement that not having 1GB makes the OS unusable as some alude to. So Vista will require 1GB. Well, I think a lot of people might as easily say that XP works better with 1GB already.
Lastly, as the article states, some of these security holes were only present in earlier builds. This is after all beta software, so I am under no illusion to its stability and security. Many of these same issues came to bear in regards to XP.
It seems there are a large number of Linux geeks out there that seem to be absolutely obsessed with Vista. Why bother? Linux gaining market share on the desktop has far less to do with Vista. The only thing holding back Linux is linux itself. Frankly they should just dump the idiotic desktop Linux all together and focus on the server realm.
Vista is very important to linux users.
Linux users, have to work and live with Microsofts products in one form or another. Simply becuase most work in computer industry, and Microst is insalled on a few machines.
Trusted Computing/DRM Vista has this in spades its very likey that you will be unable to play your bought media, on a linux PC, without breaking copyright. Or in the case of Trusted computing not able to send e-mails, or attach to Windows networks.
New formats/Protocols, will it be possible to connect to windows machine, co-exist on a windows machine, read data from a windows partition, boot a live CD or use a pen drive.
…and things I cannot begin to imagine.
Linux market share has lots to do with Microsoft. Linux is by no means perfect. It can do cheaper everthing most home users want, but most users only know Microsoft. Linux is by no means perfect but its cheap.
Oh and in Linux every Desktop PC is a server. It doesn’t have that Vista crippled this and that.
Modded you down for “linux geek” as offensive.
Modded him back up because I’m a ‘geek’ and the term isn’t offensive.
I won’t argue with you on the nuances of the English Language, simply becuase I am not good enough.
I’m sure you modded him up because he used the term “linux geek” as a compliment.
I modded his down simply because I thought it was meant as an insult.
Oddly the only OSist jibe I ever thought had any class is “Fruit Lover”.
Edited 2006-07-21 17:44
Slightly offtopic, but I can’t take Symantec seriously. Of course they make valid points (new code has new bugs and vulnerabilities for sure), but (like stated in some previous postings) they mainly need to keep their business alive.
Dealing with infected computers on daily basis, Symantec/NAV does often happily co-exist with various trojans. There are some products (F-Secure for example), which usually can keep PC clean – although I couldn’t recommend such products either – too heavy resource usage (in par with NAV).
Example of one Symantec product:
http://symantec.com/home_homeoffice/products/overview.jsp?pcid=vp&p…
It’s very good that Linux doesn’t support DRM and TCPA!
TCPA is the biggest bullsh** I’ve ever seen! It’s NOT to protect you against threats, YOU can’t decide what’s a threat and what’s trusted. Because the industry does that already for you. And “they” decided not to trust you! So, when they don’t trust you; why should you trust them?
And DRM, for example mails with DRM are able to delete them self after a couple of day – but that are my mails!
And so on …
Even encrypted DVDs – why are they encrypted?! I’ve already bought it! arg.
It’s very good that Linux doesn’t support DRM and TCPA!
Although I consider DRM/TCPA evil, not supporting these isn’t always good.
What do you do, when you get DRM protected mail or dosument? Install DRM supporting OS? You may decide to ignore such documents, but maybe your future will depend on this mail or document? Not good.
From other side, simple fact that some/many users cannot read DRM protected documents, can avoid widespread use of this technology – which is good. Like always – every coin has two sides…
“XP new on a machine runs quite nicely in 256MB. Its only after using it for a while that it tends to need more memory”
Well, XP by itself is useless. You need antivirus, antispyware, office package, a good browser and other programs if you are using it for anything more than surfing internet.
After you installed all that things is where it gets heavy.
“…and yes it is Symantec, saying they are still needed in the Microsofts more secure OS(sic) ever. They are probably right.”
They aren’t needed. Any good antivirus, like AVG (gratis), the included firewall, and spybot search & destroy, plus a little common sense is all you need to survive the worms/viruses/spyware. Who needs Symantec bloatware? What’s needed is some tech guys that preinstall new computers with free/freeware software (good ones) and configure by default the computers to be more secure. Of course that doesn’t happen when providers have deals with these companies that produce such crippled software. You end paying a lot for what? For having a slowish, bloated, crashware internet experience.
“3rd: windows IS securable, i run 1000s of workstations
and dont have all these unstablity issues people here on OSnews talk about.
just like linux, its all about the sysadmin.”
My sister here doesn’t know how to turn its computer more secure. Perhaps she should be a sysadmin…
“What do you do, when you get DRM protected mail or dosument?”
Delete it, as in “delete the spam”. If someone asks you about if you received that mail, just say “no, nothing here”. If you install DRM, you support DRM. The only way DRM will desappear is becoming useless/obsolete by not using it.
Its hard to stop using something that built into the OS and most users will never know its there.
Its hard to stop using it in an X86 world where it is being planned to be implimented by both AMD and Intel.
Oh yeah, because I’m running OS X and Linux.
If you’re running as a non privledged user, are you still suseptible to spyware/etc?
yes, but the risk is reduced, most spyware comes through activeX and or java/javascript scripting.
-Nex6
Offcourse you are, but only restricted to your account and it cannot go break the system like spyware/malware etc is doing at windows xp.
Much more easy to remove it too.
Try identifying spyware from all the processes(some are services) and remove them to start up from the hundreds of registry places.
etc etc
Thank you both kindly. I’m a network admin and have always heard, “As long as you run as non-privledged users (Power Users in XP), you’re fine.”
Nice to know that it’s not a failsafe.
Have a look at this one:
http://www.heise.de/ct/ftp/04/15/110/
It deals with restricting the registry even more to practically make the life of ad/spy ware miserable.
Just a personal point: In my every day computer usage i use SuSE 10.1 which is faster and with more eye-candy than my XP. I can do everything with SuSE except gaming and use of special medical applications-peripherals. As you imagine I have tried vista beta, which are comparable with SuSE but slower with less problems in gaming but with no usability for my med apps. Also IMHO beagle is better than anything I have tried.
As for the memory issue I have 1G of memory which again IMHO linux handles better.
there are no “security features” in vista that other operating system already have.
huh?
sure, i see lots of ‘sandbox’ application frameworks in ther OS’s.
and for the record:
ALL OS’s copy from each other, so almost no-one is doing a whole lot that is original. i mean sheesh Linux desktop is all about copying macOSX and windows, and Windows is all about copying macosx and linux. macosx is all about copying linux and windws see….
-Nex6
Apple has ASLR? Linux has to integrate security changes while staying binary-compatible?
This puzzles me:
Other issues include undocumented IP protocols with no known purpose in the product and problems with some new protocols deep within the operating system’s so-called network stack
It reminds me of the abundance of services run in XP whose purpose is not well known, or unnecesary. And also of XP’s reliance on RPC (Remote Procedure Call) for quite some services, including network ones.
I’m not an expert, but I’ve read many times that this reliance of services on RPC is a bad thing; and makes hard or impossible to remove some unneeded services.
Does anybody knows if Vista will have the same dependence on RPC for network protocols and other services as XP has?