Vista's not so bad it seems

[CyberMonkey]

Not always. Older operating systems have no advantages with more ram and often simply don't support it...

[katwalk]

I find it funny, at this point with the major bugs worked out vista is probably on level with everything else assuming it's being run properly but it all comes down to reputation. Fantards of a brand will always tell you X is better than everything else but really they're the same when you count up the pros/cons it's just a matter of personal preference.

[Clegg]

Just installed Vista and, after downloading all of my programs and things again, I find that it actually runs faster than XP ever did on my Laptop. The only gripe I have against Vista is that damn fucking Cancel/Allow dialog box that keeps popping up. Can't for the life of me remember how to turn the damn thing off...

[Vette Boss]

^ Go to run -> msconfig -> Tools -> Disable UAC. Reboot and it's gone for good. You'll probably get another UAC prompt right when you click disable, just for irony.

[Viper007Bond]

Originally Posted by Vette Boss

^ Go to run -> msconfig -> Tools -> Disable UAC. Reboot and it's gone for good. You'll probably get another UAC prompt right when you click disable, just for irony.

Control Panel -> Users -> Disable UAC is easier actually.

[prizrak]

Originally Posted by CyberMonkey

Not always. Older operating systems have no advantages with more ram and often simply don't support it...

XP can use 3GB of RAM and will take advantage of it. Obviously you cannot go beyond the support limit for the OS/motherboard but maxing out the RAM is never a bad thing.

I find it funny, at this point with the major bugs worked out vista is probably on level with everything else assuming it's being run properly but it all comes down to reputation. Fantards of a brand will always tell you X is better than everything else but really they're the same when you count up the pros/cons it's just a matter of personal preference.

LOL. Vista is very far from all the major bugs being worked out. For instance requiring a reboot for things it shouldn't like disabling UAC.

[smib]

I don't see how that's a bug. A little annoying maybe, but it's not an inherent problem with the OS that causes ongoing problems.

[Stiggy!]

vista is okay

[cvrefugee]

Originally Posted by prizrak

LOL. Vista is very far from all the major bugs being worked out. For instance requiring a reboot for things it shouldn't like disabling UAC.

You would have to at least log off. Wait, can you even disable elevated prompts in a Linux-based OS? If I recall correctly, you have to use the sudo command then type your password whenever you make a system change or write to a specific directory.

[CyberMonkey]

if you are logged in as a normal user in windows vista, you are "root" already. That's how users always manage to fuck it up.

[prizrak]

I don't see how that's a bug. A little annoying maybe, but it's not an inherent problem with the OS that causes ongoing problems.

Actually thats a problem with the design of the OS that comes from an earlier era when there was no mechanism to make changes on the fly. This is the main problem with Windows, too much legacy code/functionality is being kept in the new releases for the sake of backwards compatibility.

You would have to at least log off.

Why? It is a settings change, it can be passed to the daemon real time, all is necessary is a special message for the daemon to reread it's settings file/db.

Wait, can you even disable elevated prompts in a Linux-based OS? If I recall correctly, you have to use the sudo command then type your password whenever you make a system change or write to a specific directory.

In short yes you can. In the newest version of Ubuntu there is an ability to automatically grant user "root" permissions for certain actions (and no they do not require even a log off).

Unlike UAC in Linux based OS's everything is written into the /home/<user> directory to which you as the user have full access rights. The only times you have to grant permissions is when you are doing system wide changes, such as software/driver installations, editing GLOBAL settings (not many that you would touch in *nix btw). All the administration utilities that do require "root" access will prompt of a password at the start no need to type anything into the CLI.

To add to that OS X uses the same sudo system as a lot of Linux OS's use and it seems to sit fine with the users.

The problem with UAC is not that it is there it is the way it's implemented. There is no need whatsoever to ask for as many confirmations as it does, this makes users LESS aware of something going on as you just want it to get out of the way rather than pay attention.

To make things worse what MS is doing is basically shifting responsibility to the user. They are making it more "secure" but not through the use of better coding or higher emphazis on security testing. They are saying "here, YOU have full control over what app runs (not really system services still run as they want) and what it can access, YOU decide what is OK and what is not and if YOUR computer is compromised it is YOUR fault not ours, don't look at us we gave you the tools"

This is just the wrong way to go about it, it is obvious that average users are not able to keep their computers secure otherwise we wouldn't have the amount of malware running around the net that we do now.

[CyberMonkey]

I don't really see how MS is supposed to know malware from regular software.

[der_jackal]

Originally Posted by prizrak

Actually thats a problem with the design of the OS that comes from an earlier era when there was no mechanism to make changes on the fly. This is the main problem with Windows, too much legacy code/functionality is being kept in the new releases for the sake of backwards compatibility.

You wanna tell Adobe, Oracle, McAfee, Mozilla and every other company that makes Windows software that they're going to be broken next Winodws Rev?

Or how about the millions of customers that are going to blame MSFT because their 5 year old copy of hello kitty's fantasy island doesn't work? It has to be a weening process. Unlike Apple who can just break things as they like because they're Apple, MSFT is damned if they do, damned if they don't.

Originally Posted by prizrak

Why? It is a settings change, it can be passed to the daemon real time, all is necessary is a special message for the daemon to reread it's settings file/db.

It's more than that, it also requires change at the kernel level. You can't make that change inflight.

Originally Posted by prizrak

In short yes you can. In the newest version of Ubuntu there is an ability to automatically grant user "root" permissions for certain actions (and no they do not require even a log off).

You can do that in Windows as well, it's in the Group Policy settings for those tasks.

Originally Posted by prizrak

Unlike UAC in Linux based OS's everything is written into the /home/<user> directory to which you as the user have full access rights. The only times you have to grant permissions is when you are doing system wide changes, such as software/driver installations, editing GLOBAL settings (not many that you would touch in *nix btw). All the administration utilities that do require "root" access will prompt of a password at the start no need to type anything into the CLI.

To add to that OS X uses the same sudo system as a lot of Linux OS's use and it seems to sit fine with the users.

The problem with UAC is not that it is there it is the way it's implemented. There is no need whatsoever to ask for as many confirmations as it does, this makes users LESS aware of something going on as you just want it to get out of the way rather than pay attention.

I wrote a pop up blocker for my OS.

Originally Posted by prizrak

To make things worse what MS is doing is basically shifting responsibility to the user. They are making it more "secure" but not through the use of better coding or higher emphazis on security testing. They are saying "here, YOU have full control over what app runs (not really system services still run as they want) and what it can access, YOU decide what is OK and what is not and if YOUR computer is compromised it is YOUR fault not ours, don't look at us we gave you the tools"

You'd be amazed how much of your theory is wrong. Users are stupid, stupid people on the whole and are more to blame for virii and malware than MSFT. The CERT alerts for the majority virii on Windows XP start off with "The user is lured to a site..." "The user is aksed to execute..." "The user opens a..."

But at the end of the day, it was all MSFTs fault before, it's all MSFTs fault now, and it will all be MSFTs fault at the end of the universe.

Originally Posted by prizrak

This is just the wrong way to go about it, it is obvious that average users are not able to keep their computers secure otherwise we wouldn't have the amount of malware running around the net that we do now.

And as I noted above, vast majority of that malware requires user invocation. That user is socially engineering to execute code and since most people don't give two bing cherries about their account levels, they would do so at the adminstrator level which in Windows XP was your Administrator account which was full access to session 0 (root in *nix terms). Abstratcing elements of that session 0 access in to a protected space was the right move.

And really the easier and more secure of the two solutions was chosen. You either run around and attempt to educate every user out there to not use Administrator, or you change the nature of the default Administrator account which everybody seems to use.

Having an OS pop ups was so fully the wrong move I can't even beging to describe it.

And again, MSFT is damned if they do, damned if they don't.

[prizrak]

I don't really see how MS is supposed to know malware from regular software.

Why are there so little malware for other OS's then? And don't say that its because of fewer users there are tons of servers out there running *nix systems yet there are still very few viruses for them.

You wanna tell Adobe, Oracle, McAfee, Mozilla and every other company that makes Windows software that they're going to be broken next Winodws Rev?

Or how about the millions of customers that are going to blame MSFT because their 5 year old copy of hello kitty's fantasy island doesn't work? It has to be a weening process. Unlike Apple who can just break things as they like because they're Apple, MSFT is damned if they do, damned if they don't.

I absolutely would, MS has more than enough pull to tell all of those companies to start doing shit differently. When XP came out alot of software had to be rewritten damn near from scratch for the NT architecture that XP was based on. They very much could have thrown all the old useless code out and put new code in at the time when everyone was told what to expect and there was very weak competition from Apple and Linux in the desktop market. (well Linux is still not that much of a threat but is way bigger than it was in 2001) They had 7 years to develop weesta (did you coin the word first? I can't remember) and to allow ISV's to prepare for the switch. Although I do think the time for them to act was in 2001 not now, now they are pretty much stuck.

It's more than that, it also requires change at the kernel level. You can't make that change inflight.

Why would it require a kernel change? They must have some seriously elaborate implementation of the UAC dialog, all I would do is create a variable that would be permanently set to "true" or "accept" or w/e if the user chooses to turn off UAC. Basically make UAC work in the background and always accept the change.

I wrote a pop up blocker for my OS.

You are pretty damn far from an average user I suspect

You'd be amazed how much of your theory is wrong. Users are stupid, stupid people on the whole and are more to blame for virii and malware than MSFT. The CERT alerts for the majority virii on Windows XP start off with "The user is lured to a site..." "The user is aksed to execute..." "The user opens a..."

But at the end of the day, it was all MSFTs fault before, it's all MSFTs fault now, and it will all be MSFTs fault at the end of the universe.

If the users are stupid then giving them an "allow" button is really not going to stop anything. MS's design of the OS was wrong from the get go, there was no reason to root the browser so deeply into the OS that any html code could execute with "System" permissions. Remote registy access being defaulted to "On" in XP didn't really help either. Of course the fact that 1st account is ALWAYS defaulted to admin (even on weesta) and that the Run As... functionality was damn near useless as you couldn't even run a system update with it.

To add to that the fact that an XP SP2 machine survives on the internet about 4 minutes users are hardly the only way for Windows to get infected. A simple fact is that a Windows machine without an A/V and a Firewall will get infected w/o any user input. A *nix based machine will not (at least 99.9% of the time).

There are many ways to get users to think about what they are doing. Require a password for all accounts and ask for it for any system wide change. When you have to type in a password you WILL think about what you are doing as it is more involved than clicking "OK".

Having an OS pop ups was so fully the wrong move I can't even beging to describe it.

And again, MSFT is damned if they do, damned if they don't.

The reason for that is simple, MS did it wrong the first time around and is paying for it. Apple did it wrong the first time around but being so tiny no one cared managed to change overnight. MS is basically stuck with their earlier decisions. They are basically facing the "width of two horses' asses" problem.

[der_jackal]

Originally Posted by prizrak

Why are there so little malware for other OS's then? And don't say that its because of fewer users there are tons of servers out there running *nix systems yet there are still very few viruses for them.

There's more than you think, but the more serious problem is users. Not the OS. MSFT has the largest "stupid" user base, and as such, it's the most lucrative target. CERT vulnerability warnings across the platforms are pretty much on par. So if you wanna talk about focusing on coding and such, there's your benchmark. Virii that do NOT require user interaction on Windows can be counted on one hand.

You hear constantly about people hacking in to company DBs, you think those were all Windows machines? Hacking is a form of virus and malware, localized and singular, but the same principle. Exploit a known hole for gain. Since you can't get users at those machines to execute code, the attacks are far more sinister.

Originally Posted by prizrak

I absolutely would, MS has more than enough pull to tell all of those companies to start doing shit differently. When XP came out alot of software had to be rewritten damn near from scratch for the NT architecture that XP was based on. They very much could have thrown all the old useless code out and put new code in at the time when everyone was told what to expect and there was very weak competition from Apple and Linux in the desktop market. (well Linux is still not that much of a threat but is way bigger than it was in 2001) They had 7 years to develop weesta (did you coin the word first? I can't remember) and to allow ISV's to prepare for the switch. Although I do think the time for them to act was in 2001 not now, now they are pretty much stuck.

They've already been to court once. There are enough law suits out there against MSFT being the big bad gorilla.

Originally Posted by prizrak

Why would it require a kernel change? They must have some seriously elaborate implementation of the UAC dialog, all I would do is create a variable that would be permanently set to "true" or "accept" or w/e if the user chooses to turn off UAC. Basically make UAC work in the background and always accept the change.

UAC is far from just a shell / user mode infrastructure. The dialog is just the end result.

Originally Posted by prizrak

You are pretty damn far from an average user I suspect

Some days are better than others.

Originally Posted by prizrak

If the users are stupid then giving them an "allow" button is really not going to stop anything. MS's design of the OS was wrong from the get go, there was no reason to root the browser so deeply into the OS that any html code could execute with "System" permissions. Remote registy access being defaulted to "On" in XP didn't really help either. Of course the fact that 1st account is ALWAYS defaulted to admin (even on weesta) and that the Run As... functionality was damn near useless as you couldn't even run a system update with it.

Told you I hated the pop ups. People were conditioned to click OK on all those browser pop ups which is why MSFT got in to the problems in the first place. "Would you like to install zomfg.vbs on your system"...YES, just gimme Angelina Jolie nudiez

Originally Posted by prizrak

To add to that the fact that an XP SP2 machine survives on the internet about 4 minutes users are hardly the only way for Windows to get infected. A simple fact is that a Windows machine without an A/V and a Firewall will get infected w/o any user input. A *nix based machine will not (at least 99.9% of the time).

Huh? The guy posted back to an article stating the 4 minute was a myth and nowhere in the article did it mention SP2.

Originally Posted by prizrak

There are many ways to get users to think about what they are doing. Require a password for all accounts and ask for it for any system wide change. When you have to type in a password you WILL think about what you are doing as it is more involved than clicking "OK".

Yup, requiring passwords is a nice one, but again, users are stupid on the whole.

Originally Posted by prizrak

The reason for that is simple, MS did it wrong the first time around and is paying for it. Apple did it wrong the first time around but being so tiny no one cared managed to change overnight. MS is basically stuck with their earlier decisions. They are basically facing the "width of two horses' asses" problem.

They're not stuck, they just can't go 180 degrees with out suffering more than what you've seen with Vista. Seriously, we're here talking in this post largely because of the FUD surrounding Vista most of which comes from people screaming about how this app or that app wouldn't work because of the chagnes.

Damned if they do, damned if they don't.