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Thread ID: 52096	2004-12-09 10:24:00	--OT-- Longhorn	noone (22)	Press F1

Post ID	Timestamp	Content	User
301405	2004-12-10 00:34:00	The problem with windows are the attitude of MS,the people making attacks on it,and the home user. And department stores shipping out comps that are in no condition to go on the internet.	metla (154)
301406	2004-12-10 00:39:00	what i dont like is that windows is too overpriced, its insane. no wonder ms have problems with piracy	Prescott (11)
301407	2004-12-10 00:41:00	$150 bucks? that is dirt cheap.	metla (154)
301408	2004-12-10 00:45:00	As you have said this is a Longhorn thread so I won't go on at length in reply. One point I cannot let go - >_You_ replaced the OS? Not your sister? For sure - but she was not capable of reinstalling WIndows either so what is the difference? I did reinstall ME first but she had lost the product keys. Then I installed SuSE and the install and configuration of hardware was no harder - only different!	JohnD (509)
301409	2004-12-10 01:17:00	> > I'll give you my IP address.... If you can hack me, > you're a bloody legend! > > I could say the same about my Windows XP PC > > > Linux is more secure from the ground up, simply > because user has permissions to modify what would be > the windows equivilent of c:\documents and > settings\username (And the user CANT modify anything > else). > > Windows can be set up like that too. Wrong, it is simply not possible to set Windows up in a similar fashion to Linux. The two have completely different architectures, user permissions or not, how they are dealt with and what user/software can actually communicate with the kernels of the respective OS's is so totally different that the only similarities are that they are OS's, although even then Windows is acting more and more like an application with every add on. Yes, I agree you can armour Windows but, you can not change the basic way the OS is set up without a complete redesign and Longhorn was not that by a long stretch and is even less so now that many of the "good" bits are dropping by the wayside. The reasoning that it is shear numbers and jalousie that attracts malware to Windows is off the mark, part of the FUD campaign. The only malaware that would fall in to the numbers category is commercial spyware, even spam is not valid because it is cross platform and only relies on an email client as a common denominator. However, there are many aspects of Unix type OS's that will be just as vulnerable as Windows on the user software side, but compromise of the user app's does not carry over to the OS, so, when you say Linux or BSD or Unix, your wrong, you should say software that runs on them could be just as vulnerable ......., etc. All that superior architecture (and it is superior) doesn't necessarily make alternatives to Windows the best thing since sliced bread. As has been pointed out, they're not always the easiest things to use, but again, that's more the app's than the OS along with fact that most of us have been brought up using Windows, getting in the way of our ability to adapt rather than a fundamental flaws. Add to that the (commercial) reality that many companies will not provide driver support for Linux, and I think you'll find that Windows will be around for a while yet.	Murray P (44)
301410	2004-12-10 01:31:00	My comment of > > Windows can be set up like that too. was in answer to >> And the user CANT modify anything else. It's not that hard to completely protect the WIndows enviroment to protect the user from themselves. >>> The reasoning that it is shear numbers and jalousie that attracts malware to Windows is off the mark, part of the FUD campaign. The only malaware that would fall in to the numbers category is commercial spyware, even spam is not valid because it is cross platform and only relies on an email client as a common denominator. However, there are many aspects of Unix type OS's that will be just as vulnerable as Windows on the user software side, but compromise of the user app's does not carry over to the OS, so, when you say Linux or BSD or Unix, your wrong, you should say software that runs on them could be just as vulnerable ......., etc. It's not malware that is attracted to Windows, it's the idiots who create it. If I was the sort of idiot who wanted to attack millions of computers, I'd go up against Windows - because there are more Windows PC in the world, but also because there are more people using Windows who don't know what they're doing. For those two reasons alone Windows is a soft target. I remember when there were no virii on the Mac - not because macs were immune, but because it wasn't worth while attacking Macs at that time. But I do agree that Unix derivatives are superior. Perhaps it's because we end-users demand backwards compatability. That constrains MS a lot IMHO.	Spout (6433)
301411	2004-12-10 02:11:00	> My comment of > > > Windows can be set up like that too. > was in answer to > > > And the user CANT modify anything else. > > It's not that hard to completely protect the WIndows > enviroment to protect the user from themselves. Ok, I'll give you one example to back my reasoning: Internet Explorer is a user app you can not wall it off from the Windows kernel, short of removing it completely, no matter how hard you try. Yeah, ok I picked on the easy one, but why not, I could have said OE or Outlook or any number of .dll files that run as app's and must be allowed by admin or user for the OS to function decently. Therefore, no matter how you wall it and restrict users (lock down), the vulnerability is inherent in the OS and to a large extent has been added to it to provide user functions which should be running purely as app's and not within the OS. > > > > The reasoning that it is shear numbers > and jalousie that attracts malware to Windows is off > the mark, part of the FUD campaign. The only malaware > that would fall in to the numbers category is > commercial spyware, even spam is not valid because it > is cross platform and only relies on an email client > as a common denominator. However, there are many > aspects of Unix type OS's that will be just as > vulnerable as Windows on the user software side, but > compromise of the user app's does not carry over to > the OS, so, when you say Linux or BSD or Unix, your > wrong, you should say software that runs on them > could be just as vulnerable ......., etc. > > It's not malware that is attracted to Windows, it's > the idiots who create it. If I was the sort of idiot > who wanted to attack millions of computers, I'd go up > against Windows - because there are more Windows PC > in the world, but also because there are more people > using Windows who don't know what they're doing. For > those two reasons alone Windows is a soft target. In part yes, but if it wasn't so easy the script kiddies at least would have given up long ago. The numbers game could also be played with the servers that provide internet content. Most of those are Unix based, you can affect a huge quantity of computers of all persuasions by getting at those, even bring down chunks of the net with no need to attack individually at the end points. So what have the biggest most successfull targets in these types of attacks been, has it been Windows machines and/or the software or MS software running or Unix machines? (there are buffer issues on the software that runs on Nix machines) > I remember when there were no virii on the Mac - not > because macs were immune, but because it wasn't worth > while attacking Macs at that time. > > But I do agree that Unix derivatives are superior. > Perhaps it's because we end-users demand backwards > compatability. That constrains MS a lot IMHO. I'm sure someone like Graham L can make a modern Linux behave and perform pretty like and older Nix or install older app's on it and, you can strip back just about any distro to run on old hardware. That's one thing that has peeved me about MS is that they have changed formats and made things deliberately incompatible so that you either stick with the old or are forced to make a great leap, both software and hardware wise. Mind you dropping DOS out of XP wasn't a bad thing except, it's still there, albeit mainly brocken to the user. What I'd like to see is, MS start from the ground up and build a new OS. It needn't be the raciest OS around or an immediate replacement for their current line, but something to get the ball rolling in the right direction, something that they can build on instead of continually painting themselves into an ever tighter corner with each new release, upgrade and patch. A nice small, fast, secure OS which did the basics well but left the bells and whistles to applications would be great :)	Murray P (44)
301412	2004-12-10 02:27:00	> What I'd like to see is, MS start from the ground up and build a new OS. It needn't be the raciest OS around or an immediate replacement for their current line, but something to get the ball rolling in the right direction, something that they can build on instead of continually painting themselves into an ever tighter corner with each new release, upgrade and patch. A nice small, fast, secure OS which did the basics well but left the bells and whistles to applications would be great Isn't that what NT was supposed to be?	Spout (6433)
301413	2004-12-10 02:45:00	> Isn't that what NT was supposed to be? NT --- > Wndows 2000 --- > XP --- > Longhorn, oh bugger!! Hang on though, they didn't build NT from the ground up. With all the talent they have on tap, I'm sure they could build a great OS from scratch. Maybe they could even start with the NT kernel in the state it was before they fiddled with it, no IE, Dx, .dll's, ActiveX, GUI, may as well not bother with a shell as we know it in Windows. To get things going we should think of a suitable name for this marvelous new OS.....hmmmm, got any ideas?	Murray P (44)
301414	2004-12-10 02:55:00	how about OSX?? > NT --- > Wndows 2000 --- > XP --- > Longhorn Isn't it more like this: DOS Win 3.1 Win 95 Win NT Win 98 Win 2000 Win ME Win XP Win XP	Spout (6433)
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