Windows 7 Beta

Sure...as long as we're talking about facts and an actual understanding of what's going on.

What's being purported above is simply not true in terms of what the DRM within Vista does, and for that matter, it's conflicting, e.g.:


the fool in nz has actually been proved correct
Click to expand...

followed by

He was proven wrong only bewcause he raised enough of a flag
Click to expand...
(emphasis added)

I would hardly call this raising a flag...I would call this running around spouting baseless claims and letting everyone on the "we love to hate Microsoft" bandwagon jump on for the ride to the point where they were forced to respond.

I take this rather personally since I have to deal with this usually on a monthly basis from some Java or *nix guy who claims that Vista is the bane to all existence and starts floating this FUD around organizations.

We have a pretty good track record...hundreds of thousands of machines upgraded to Vista, probably on the order of 10-15k or so within our own organiztion...and none of these problems have ever surfaced in our communities. Not to mention thousands of consultants obviously aggressively using these features at home with cutting edge systems and media centers.

As you'll recall HCS, you also floated the idea that Vista was greatly hampering network file transfer speed and I posted screen shots to the contrary, for multiple operating systems. Again, FUD that originates from some obscure source on the interwebz that takes off because everyone loves to hate Microsoft...and ignoring the fact that there are other underlying conditions that can contribute to the problem.


Said researcher able to flap his arms around and oops...won't answer questions from the press for documentation of his "research":

http://blogs.zdnet.com/Bott/?p=286

More fun articles from ZDNet

http://blogs.zdnet.com/Bott/?p=284
http://blogs.zdnet.com/Ou/?p=673
http://blogs.zdnet.com/Ou/?p=718

...and these were nearly a year and a half ago.

I will by no means claim this to be a perfect operating system, but it's hardly the big brother or hinderance some people choose to make it out to be.
 
nattyg said:
Sure...as long as we're talking about facts and an actual understanding of what's going on.

What's being purported above is simply not true in terms of what the DRM within Vista does, and for that matter, it's conflicting, e.g.:




followed by

(emphasis added)

I would hardly call this raising a flag...I would call this running around spouting baseless claims and letting everyone on the "we love to hate Microsoft" bandwagon jump on for the ride to the point where they were forced to respond.

I take this rather personally since I have to deal with this usually on a monthly basis from some Java or *nix guy who claims that Vista is the bane to all existence and starts floating this FUD around organizations.

We have a pretty good track record...hundreds of thousands of machines upgraded to Vista, probably on the order of 10-15k or so within our own organiztion...and none of these problems have ever surfaced in our communities. Not to mention thousands of consultants obviously aggressively using these features at home with cutting edge systems and media centers.

As you'll recall HCS, you also floated the idea that Vista was greatly hampering network file transfer speed and I posted screen shots to the contrary, for multiple operating systems. Again, FUD that originates from some obscure source on the interwebz that takes off because everyone loves to hate Microsoft...and ignoring the fact that there are other underlying conditions that can contribute to the problem.


Said researcher able to flap his arms around and oops...won't answer questions from the press for documentation of his "research":

http://blogs.zdnet.com/Bott/?p=286

More fun articles from ZDNet

http://blogs.zdnet.com/Bott/?p=284
http://blogs.zdnet.com/Ou/?p=673
http://blogs.zdnet.com/Ou/?p=718

...and these were nearly a year and a half ago.

I will by no means claim this to be a perfect operating system, but it's hardly the big brother or hinderance some people choose to make it out to be.
Click to expand...

zdnet at the time was doing it's best to defend vista at the time. Ms changed only because of this researcher. I know what i ahve experienced back then..ms has made big changes in terms of the sensitivity of the drm but it's there..it's still there inside windokws 7.

Either way it's still based on nt code that's pushing over 20 years old..MS REALLy needs to stop this treadmil..aka make windows 7 the last version and start over form scratch.
 
correct me if im wrong but your referring to the dll and registry system right HCS? I've heard that those are the roots of most problems in the windows structure and if they went to a different organization structure it could be alot faster.
 
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Atown said:
correct me if im wrong but your referring to the dll and registry system right HCS? I've heard that those are the roots of most problems in the windows structure and if they went to a different organization structure it could be alot faster.
Click to expand...

The registry is not the cause of most problems...arguably the cause of most problems is people running their machine at the highest privilege level then visiting questionable websites, or....say, thottbot or whatever WoW site it was a while back that had some things on there.

People often fail to realize the *benefit* of the registry, in particular its ability to provide a single location for derefrencing locations. For example, if a vendor installs a program, but the user selects a different location of said program, the registry provides a manner to locate it easily. This is particularly important in add on and integration scenarios. Further, it's role as a COM repository is becoming marginalized due to the prevalence of .NET. This was arguably the largest "problem" of the registry, but moreso due to incorrect programming practices rather than the approach itself.
 
Atown said:
DRM isnt going to go away though and although it can be limited, shouldt the focus be on a more usable and efficient O/S?
Click to expand...

DRM is a fact of modern content...if you want to be able to play premium content, e.g. HD movies, HD content from a encrypted QAM tuner, etc... DRM has to be in place.

Do you really want efficient or do you want added functionality and value to the end user? Efficient would be giving you a command prompt. Added functionality and value is giving you PowerShell. A small example, but it makes the point.

You can make things "efficient" all day long, but at the end of the day, if a user doesn't buy it, there's no point in it. There's a reason why more people use Windows than *nix ;)
 
Atown said:
correct me if im wrong but your referring to the dll and registry system right HCS? I've heard that those are the roots of most problems in the windows structure and if they went to a different organization structure it could be alot faster.
Click to expand...

also, DLLs are kind of mandatory for the existence of modern software ;)
 
Hescominsoon said:
zdnet at the time was doing it's best to defend vista at the time. Ms changed only because of this researcher. I know what i ahve experienced back then..ms has made big changes in terms of the sensitivity of the drm but it's there..it's still there inside windokws 7.

Either way it's still based on nt code that's pushing over 20 years old..MS REALLy needs to stop this treadmil..aka make windows 7 the last version and start over form scratch.
Click to expand...

/sigh

There was no ease of restrictions of DRM...DRM is dicated by the policy of the content creator...Vista just enforces it. There have been minor issues where certain flags were interpreted in the most strict manner, e.g. for a *very* narrow few broadcast shows (and that was because the broadcaster set the flag...Vista just followed the instructions).

Also, what *specifically* is based on 20 year old code exactly? Further, why is "based on" a bad thing? It's not like it just sits there and stales over a period of time without review or updating. NTFS is not the same NTFS that existed when NT came out, as an example. ACLs are different, there are different kinds of ACLs, the driver model is completely different, the kernel is different...I'm honestly just at a loss when stuff like this gets thrown out there.
 
nattyg said:
The registry is not the cause of most problems...arguably the cause of most problems is people running their machine at the highest privilege level then visiting questionable websites, or....say, thottbot or whatever WoW site it was a while back that had some things on there.

People often fail to realize the *benefit* of the registry, in particular its ability to provide a single location for derefrencing locations. For example, if a vendor installs a program, but the user selects a different location of said program, the registry provides a manner to locate it easily. This is particularly important in add on and integration scenarios. Further, it's role as a COM repository is becoming marginalized due to the prevalence of .NET. This was arguably the largest "problem" of the registry, but moreso due to incorrect programming practices rather than the approach itself.
Click to expand...

the biggest issue is hte design of windows itself. Ie even as a limited user has a direct conduit to the kernel via the system user via activex. As ong as that conduit exists windows is going to have issues.
 
the kernel is different? wrong answer. there's plenty of backwards code from xp and earlier in the kernel....among others..it's widely documented. Just look at the security alerts including zero days that affect 2008 all the way back to 2k...
 
Hescominsoon said:
the biggest issue is hte design of windows itself. Ie even as a limited user has a direct conduit to the kernel via the system user via activex. As ong as that conduit exists windows is going to have issues.
Click to expand...

I would encourage you to open up the COM+ control panel and see direct evidence how that is not the case. ActiveX (i.e. COM) cannot elevate the user's permission level arbitrarily...the system simply does not allow that to take place.
 
nattyg said:
I would encourage you to open up the COM+ control panel and see direct evidence how that is not the case. ActiveX (i.e. COM) cannot elevate the user's permission level arbitrarily...the system simply does not allow that to take place.
Click to expand...

I think you need to read the various activex exploits that have come out over the past year for vista..it most assuredly can.
 
afaik...they're from buffer overruns which aren't constrained to COM. This is writing arbitrary code into another processes' space which may have elevated privileges. Example, the old .HTR bug which allowed you to do all sorts of things on IIS servers that, while not running under an admin, you could do anything.

COM is an entry point...not the reason the exploits occur. Sloppy programming and 10000000000000000s of people trying to take down the eveil MS are ;)
 
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