Koreans Advised to "Avoid Vista" for Now

An anonymous reader writes "The Chosonilbo reports that several government ministries in South Korea are advising users not to install Windows Vista, at least until popular online services can be made compatible. The problem is that ActiveX is pervasive in the Korean webspace, employed by everyone from web games to online banking. Upgrading to Vista is expected to render many of these services unusable. Portions of the popular "Hangul" word processor, a major competitor to Office in that country, are also not functioning under Vista. The Ministry of Information is planning to publish compatibility information for popular websites, and urging users to carefully research the implications of upgrading."

Server side FTW!

[MrNaz]

Many people ask me why I insist on server side web apps unless there is absolutely positively no way around it. Now they know why. Client side processing means client side requirements. Server side processing means the client can be using anything from a PC with Firefox to an iPhone with... oh wait :P

why even use ActiveX?

[Joe The Dragon]

ActiveX is pervasive in the Korean webspace.
They should move to something that work in linux, mac os, and windows.

Only prudent.

[RightSaidFred99]

I'm actually a MS user and I don't have a rabid irrational hatred of them like many around here. However, I'm not moving to Vista anytime soon. First, there's no compelling reason for me until DX10 games start hitting. Second, Vista is new and has many known issues, including performance issues. Third, all kinds of crap is going to break.

I think we're going to see Vista be the most slowly adopted OS Microsoft has ever released.

Users != businesses

[DragonWriter]

I thought all businesses were avoiding Vista...

Perhaps they are. While businesses are computer users, not all users are businesses.

Re:Only prudent.

[Anonymous Coward]

"I don't have a rabid irrational hatred..."

I don't have a rabid irrational hatred of Microsoft either, just a rational one.

Windows or Linux...

[lazycam]

I never upgrade when there is a new release. This is responsible thinking and planning on the Korean government's part. Now, if we could only convince our government and other consumers to follow suit.

Re:Only prudent.

[Rosco P. Coltrane]

I'm actually a MS user and I don't have a rabid irrational hatred of them like many around here.

Neither do we. We have a perfectly rational rabid hatred of them.

Seriously though, that preamble was unnecessary: it's perfectly okay to be a happy MS user and not be so hot about installing a new product from them. But hot or not, one of these days you'll have to bite the bullet anyway.

Re:isn't everyone?

[The Bungi]

I thought all businesses were avoiding Vista...

Maybe you shouldn't use Slashdot as your source of news? Just a thought.

A company in the midwest I do some consulting for just did a 1,200 desktop test rollout to one of their divisions. They didn't have any legacy problems and were upgrading to Office 2007 anyway, plus they had fairly new machines.

Like XP vs W2K before, Vista uptake will necessarily be slow, but eventually it will be installed everywhere. In fact, I'm guessing it will be even a bit more successful than XP because all those Windows 2000 holdouts are probably overdue for a machine upgrade as well.

Re:isn't everyone?

[spun]

I'm surprised to find a windows consultant claiming that a new version of windows will be successful. It's almost as if his business depends on people paying him to install this kludgy piece of crap, but that just makes no sense.

Okay, sorry for the sarcasm and the cheap shot.

I think perhaps the truth lies somewhere in the middle. Vista will not be a complete flop, but it will sell well under what Microsoft expects.

Re:I used to think...

[yoasif]

Cross browser/OS compatibility isn't important at all?

MS just can't win can they?

[GFree]

They create ActiveX; it's has its uses but the security flaws are far too large to ignore.

People criticize MS for ActiveX, so...

They remove ActiveX; now there's less of a push for it but existing ActiveX systems are screwed.

People criticize MS for removing ActiveX, so... ...

PROFIT?

Re:isn't everyone?

[hobo sapiens]

I think perhaps the truth lies somewhere in the middle. Vista will not be a complete flop, but it will sell well under what Microsoft expects.

Unfortunately, build quality and commercial success are quite unrelated. It will be a success. Windows is too entrenched for any other outcome. If Vista is proven to cause spontaneous human combustion then maybe, just maybe, it will be unsuccessful from a sheer number-of-deployments stance.

why mention korea?

[angelwalkwithme]

When i listened to national public radio the other day they were advising the same thing. To wait on Vista until all the bugs are worked out. I really fail to see why the fact that Koreans were advised the same thing makes that big a difference. The title should have been "Users warned to wait until upgrading to Vista".

Re:isn't everyone?

[The Bungi]

all those cheap used machines with copies of XP on them will flood the used market and undercut many people's motive for upgrading to Vista.

Corporations don't buy used computers. And Joe Windows doesn't normally hop on eBay to buy used computers.

Re:Only prudent.

[Anonymous Coward]

Why should I have to ask Microsoft's permission for my software to work? They're the ones who suck.

Re:I used to think...

[yoasif]

Why not just make it a Windows app then? I'm sure any company that has a Intranet also has VPN, so offsite computing isn't a problem. Also, a Windows app would work even if Apache/IIS went down, but the DB backend stayed up.

It's disengenuous to ignore that ActiveX is a technology that is meant to use MS's dominant presence on computing to balkanize the web.

Re:Korea.. what a strange place

[drinkypoo]

Most of them still using CRT's yet high spec computers for gaming.

Maybe you didn't get the memo, but CRTs are superior to LCDs for gaming in every way but the usual reasons to buy LCD, size and weight. LCDs have one resolution, CRTs can do many resolutions (and true multisync CRTs, which are admittedly a rarity these days, can do all KINDS of things.) The best LCD has a refresh rate and is chunky compared to a CRT, which has persistence due to phosphors.

SED is supposed to address the issue of persistence, but won't solve any of the other issues.

Re:isn't everyone?

[that this is not und]

I go to University Surplus Equipment auctions where the small businessmen who sell to 'Joe Windows' buy the used machines cheap. Believe me, there is a thriving business for used PCs. So much so that now Dell is trying, in the false name of 'recycling', to suck all the old gear back to Dell Central so they can make sure it's dismantled and (most likely) shipped to China for disposal.

A lot of the buyers of the used PC gear at auction now are people of color, who recycle/rebuild for their local communities. Lotsa good stuff gets out to people who can make good use of it that way. It's only a matter of time before these people discover they can continue on using the inexpensive machines much better and even use current software by not letting anything Redmond touch the hard drives.

The right way to enable Active-X

[Bryansix]

There is one right way to enable active-x on a website that pervasively needs it. That is to add the website to your trusted sites list and change the settings only for trusted sites to allow active-x. I'm sure a lot of people just edit their settings for all websites though after getting tired of clicking allow 20 time in one banking session.

Re:Server side FTW!

[DimGeo]

You can't offload security input validation to the client. I mean you can, but you have to check the input again on the server anyway.

Re:MS just can't win can they?

[grcumb]

They create ActiveX; it's has its uses but the security flaws are far too large to ignore.

People criticize MS for ActiveX, so...

They remove ActiveX; now there's less of a push for it but existing ActiveX systems are screwed.

People criticize MS for removing ActiveX, so... ...

PROFIT?

I believe the technical term for this situation is 'Hoist by their own petard.' (Reference here [wikipedia.org] for the literarily challenged.)

Re:Only prudent.

[oneiron]

For a couple of reasons:

-his OS is the most vulnerable to malware attack
-his OS is forcing closed standards on the rest of the world, and he's contributing by using it (debatable)
-the company that makes his OS is leveraging its monopoly position to bully other potentially more valuable contributors to our culture

Forcing isn't difficult. All you have to do is buy into an ideology, and we all do that on a daily basis. Looking at it from a balanced perspective, it seems obvious enough to me that MS is causing more harm than the alternatives. I'm being rational about this. I know this isn't the only correct perspective. I just think it's the most obviously correct one to any human being without a vested interest.

Bottom line, you're right. I shouldn't vocalize my assumption that he has to force something. Others probably won't interpret force in the same way that I intended it (the softest possible way). Sorry about that... I tried to hint at my stance with the joking comment at the end.

Re:Korea.. what a strange place

[delphi125]

Cathode = Very high voltage at the back of your computer

Computer = Box with a transformer at the back of it High voltage = Van der Graaf generator = not necessarily dangerous Monitor = at least a foot from your face Cell phone = one inch from your brain, recent development = health & safety concerns we have now = no-one would ever go for it CRT = a frikken TV with laser beams! Seriously, the electro-magnetic spectrum needs to be treated with respect, but CRTs (invented in 1897) are just one application. Cell phones are another, and there are the odd crazies who think they are bad. Anything to excess is bad, but don't blame it on the electrons, photons or beta particle emissions without taking the complete picture.

Compatibility = working for all users...

[patio11]

...and if there is only one browser used, well, you're compatiblity woes were just eased quite a bit.

Microsoft has made significant efforts to make Windows/Office/etc responsive to the needs of Korean developers and users, just like they do everywhere else. I don't know many of the specifics about the Korean effort, but the Office Japan team did some serious surgery because typical Japanese documents are structured differently than typical American documents (to make a long story short, think tables. LOTS of tables), and as a result Office is a big player in Japan (along with a few Japanese competitors) and many foreign developed programs like, oh, that "OpenWhatever" thingee are not. (My boss, who is in charge of OSS promotion at my technology incubator, calls it OpenWhatever. He tried it once, and uninstalled it within 15 minutes because he couldn't coerce it into writing a travel report in the form our employer requires.)

What have the other browsers/OSes decided to do for Korea, other than saying "Well, we'll provide the tools and the Koreans can build themselves usable software to compete with the Microsoft ones that already work"? Browse on over to Apple Korea's website and you can tell that they really value that market... click on "Switch" and you're taken to a wonderful presentation on the benefits of Mac, written entirely in English. Whoopsie! Well, at least you can use all the wonderful Made4Mac software... oh, English again. .Mac? .English And those are just half the examples from clicking one single click down on their topmost interface.

Well, maybe OSS is doing a better job? Depends a lot on the distribution. I prefer Ubuntu personally, but good luck using it with an Asian language. After you've installed it you've got about 15 minutes worth of configuration to do (using a command line, naturally) to enable non-critical features like, oh, typing in non-Western scripts. I rather doubt you'll have to hexedit any config files in Vista Home Premium (Korean edition) to be able to type in hangul.

Korea might not be compatible with Mac/OSS... what has Mac/OSS done to be compatible with Korea?

Re:isn't everyone?

[anagama]

You mean... Slashdot doesn't always tell the truth?

No. Slashdot is always truthful.

"Hangul" word processor?

[jonadab]

You know, I could have sworn Hangul was a writing system used for the Korean langauge, and that various word processors supported it. I seem to recall knowing a guy in college who had the Hangul version of Word Perfect, for instance.

Is there really also a word processor _called_ "Hangul", or is the article writer just deeply confused?

Re:Only prudent.

[Steve001]

shawngarringer wrote:

Huh, the activation hotline is open 24/7, I've called them in all hours of the day and night to activate windows. It took like 30 seconds.

I don't see why this is such a major gripe of people.

It has been said in various forms by others, but I think one of the reasons it is a major gripe of people is that fact that if your system shuts down (for whatever reason) and must be reactivated you must go to Microsoft itself (and only Microsoft) to get your system running again. You cannot get it running again by yourself, or with help from any other source. If you are not able to get a reactivation key, your system is basically rendered unusable.

A concern I've had is about what happens when support for XP is dropped. I know there was a bit of an uproar when Microsoft was no longer going to support some of its past OSes.

Re:Server side FTW!

[Shaper_pmp]

Web Developers' Mantra:

Do Not Trust the Client.
Do Not Trust the Client.
Anything sent to the client then returned is suspect.
Anything provided by the client is doubly suspect.
Regexps and validation are your friend.
Do Not Trust the Client.

Oh, and it's also always useful to remember:

There is no such thing as a "hidden" HTML field.

CSS and Javascript are not security layers, they are presentation layers. Using presentation for security is like hanging a sign on a door saying "please don't open this door" instead of locking it.

Assume the user can see every single byte your server sends out (yes, even the HTTP headers), and remember "the user" also includes any in-between server, router or proxy-owners.

Paranoia is the only appropriate mindset for web application developers. Given the sheer number of crackers, hax0rz, viruses, trojans and automated scripts on the net, everyone really is out to get you.

Act accordingly.