Vista SP1 Is Even Less Compatible

I Don't Believe in Imaginary Property writes "Microsoft is now saying that Vista SP1 disables some 3rd party applications. The KB article on SP1 incompatibility states: 'For reliability reasons, Microsoft blocks these programs from starting after you install Windows Vista SP1.' It does link to several vendor support pages with updates or workarounds. Unfortunately, at least one of the suggestions consists of merely disabling part of the program, which could leave you with half an anti-virus solution."

AntiTrust concerns?

[gnutoo]

Where have I seen this before? Oh yeah [slashdot.org], nice. New OS, same old Microsoft.

Re:Increased security.

[Atti K.]

Does anybody need Vista anyway?

It's normal

[koro666]

People are quick to slam Microsoft again here. For those reading TFKBA, most of the apps are either:

1. Anti-virus programs. AV programs have a reputation of hooking on undocumented kernel stuff, so of course a major OS update is going to break them off.
2. Other programs which abuse undocumented functions or quirks/bugs in Windows, and these get changed/fixed in a subsequent release.

In conclusion, move along, nothing to see here.

Re:AntiTrust concerns?

[hedronist]

I know this is /., but please RTFA.

All the vendors mentioned (ironically, with the exception of Novell) already have fixes/workarounds either ready or in progress.

I kind of doubt there are any antitrust implications when MS contacts the affected vendors in advance. TFA even notes that "this step was taken with the consent of the affected vendors."

Re:It's normal

[kemenaran]

Sure - plus there are far less compatibility issues with Vista SP1 than with XP SP2 (which was a real pita for a lot of users).

Re:It's normal

[VirusEqualsVeryYes]

There's even less to see here as all the security programs have updates.

Bitdefender AV - A supported version (2008 or a later version) is now available.
Jiangmin KV AV v10 - A supported version is now available.
Jiangmin KV AV v2008 - A supported version is now available.
Trend Micro Internet Security - A supported version (16.1 or a later version) is now available.
Zone Alarm Security Suite - A supported version (7.1.218.0 or a later version) is now available.
Rising Personal Firewall - A supported version (2008 version) is now available.

What is this "half an anti-virus solution" FUD crap in the summary?

Re:AntiTrust concerns?

[Adambomb]

Seeing that SP1 is not even released to public on the windows update stage yet, is it not entirely probable that the companies in question will have patches by the time its the version-de-jour?

I see how there can be an issue, but where is the issue YET?

Re:AntiTrust concerns?

[The MAZZTer]

Exactly. It's for this very reason public betas/RCs are given out... for devs to make sure their software will work with the final release and to give them time to fix and test.

Re:Vista again?

[Atti K.]

For me, XP is gonna be the last Windows I ever use, at least for personal stuff. If my employer will switch to Vista, that's their problem. But my next computer will be a Mac, and if I were not that lazy, I would have switched to Linux my home desktop long time ago (those huge amounts of data on ntfs partitions are one of the reasons - and no, ntfs3g is not perfect). The one Windows-only app I really need is IE (stupid internet-banking site...) which can run perfectly inside a VM.

Re:Vista again?

[webheaded]

You know, I'm honestly really tired of seeing this same lame ass rant over and over again in every single MS article. Kudos to you at least for keeping it relatively short. This happens EVERY SINGLE TIME Microsoft releases an new OS. They can't win, even if they DID write the best software known to man, and you know why? Legacy compatibility. You guys bitch when it doesn't work with your old shit and if it DOES work with your old shit, you bitch because the OS is bloated and runs like shit. There's a price for compatibility and if you think you have the easy and simple solution, you're probably wrong.

Every time one of these comes out there's someone ranting about the downfall of Microsoft and Windows and blah blah blah, and it never happens. They usually get Insightful mod points and everyone has a circle jerk over it. You've been doing it since Slashdot came into existence. It's ridiculous and it makes me laugh to see it keep happening over and over again and people don't even realize that they ARE doing it over and over again. Is Vista perfect? God no, not by any means. Is it a step down from XP? For the time being, perhaps. It has it's merits...I use it on a daily basis so I've got a pretty good leverage on the subject, unlike 90% of the people bitching who are using Linux at the moment and have spent all of 5 minutes on Vista. Shit changes from release to release...it happens. It sucks...it's annoying. It frustrates the hell out of me when they arbitrarily move things around just because they think it looks pretty. Was there a point in renaming "Add/Remove Programs" to "Program and Features" really? No...is the world going to come crashing down because of it? No probably not.

Also I keep seeing you guys whine about RAM usage...have none of you even read what the features of Vista are? It uses lots of RAM and caches your most frequently launched programs there...no matter what you are doing, you will always have high RAM usage...why are we even debating that? Furthermore, again, this happens every time they release an OS. It always requires better hardware. Trying to run it on an old piece of shit computer probably causes at least half of the problems we see. They can't forsee every conceivable hardware configuration...they just can't. It's impossible. I mean for christ's sake...Apple has problems too and they've got an EXTREMELY limited amount of hardware to accomodate for. What does that tell you? It tells you that it's REALLY hard to account for these things and if you think Linux does it so much better, I'd have to laugh at you. Linux still supports a laughable amount of hardware compared to Windows. Not necessarily Linux's fault, but it's still not there and people still have problems with it.

What I'm really trying to say here is that I really wish people would take a realistic and logical look at this kind of stuff. The rampant fanboyism disgusts me sometimes. If you like Linux, good for you. That's awesome. I like it too. I like Windows as well...for different reasons. They both have their merits...so does MacOSX (it's quite sexy I'll admit). Just because you like one thing though...does that mean you have to have fangasm and go apeshit about every competing product's flaws while completely ignoring the flaws of your favorite? Furthermore honestly...who even gives a shit? I'm sure most people here that aren't rabid fanboys are really getting sick of seeing the same shit like this over and over again, you know?

Re:Vista again?

[Anonymous Coward]

I think it's frustrating that a lot of people ignore what Vista gets right and simply say XP is always better. For example, in Vista, if a video driver crashes, the system reinitializes it like nothing happened. To my knowledge, XP didn't do that. I've been hit with that one a few times a week, since NVIDIA and ATI put out such crappy, perpetual-beta drivers that probably haven't been tested with my motherboard/GPU combination.

Or take the fact that Internet Explorer now runs as a different user. It's not the perfect solution to the problem of buggy browsers (there could still be a privilege escalation somewhere, or a bogus ActiveX control that wants to be escalated), but you have to admit, it does mitigate the problem in a way that Firefox on Linux certainly doesn't today. (And yes, Firefox does have security holes every now and then.)

Or the fact that you now have to click-through a menu to do an Administrator task. Yes, this conditions users into clicking "Accept" all the time without thinking about it (undeniably bad), but for users that are careful about it, it can be an improvement. (By the way, Mac OS X and several Linux distros have this feature too, although they prompt for your password. But nobody complains about this feature in these other systems, do they?)

But, since it takes a long time to copy a file, or since they've had small difficulties deploying the service pack, or since they've changed the UI so it's no longer what people are used to, all of a sudden it's a complete failure, and its merits get ignored. Yeah, the situation with Vista is far from perfect, but when has Windows ever been so? I'm personally curious on how Windows 7 can improve upon the situation.

Re:Bit of a catch-22, isn't there?

[tomhudson]

My point was that various security products (including firewalls) are affected, and we all know how quick an unprotected windows box can get p0wned.

As for "switching to linux", I can't switch. I'm already there - been there off and on since slackware 3.x, My last Windows purchase was Windows 95.

Re:Vista again?

[dummondwhu]

When XP came out, I said, "I'm sticking to Win2K as long as a I can and never going to XP. Bah, the only thing that keeps me on Windows is games." Then I got a new PC with XP installed and realized it was pretty decent. Then I said, "I'm sticking with XP as long as I can and never going to Vista. Bah, the only thing that keeps me on Windows is games." Then, I got a PS3 and that was good enough to satisfy my mild gaming interests. Finally, I had no reason to stick with Windows. Then, I got a new laptop with Vista installed and realized, "Hey, this isn't as bad as the hype."

In my college days and for a while after, fiddling with hardware and building a working box with linux really interested me. Now, I'm tired of dealing with drivers and all the b.s. I just want an OS that lets me do what I need to do. I don't have unusual needs for hardware so I don't give a shit if Vista won't support this or that. I whipped up an order from Dell and it showed up and it works and that's that.

Vista isn't perfect and never will be. But neither is any OS from any vendor. And certainly, Vista needs some work in the short term. But, when some linux distro is robust enough to unseat Windows, it will. That's the way markets work. Until then, I just don't have the time to pretend anymore that Windows is soooooo inferior for the vast majority of users that just surf the web, read e-mail, play DVDs and other typical stuff.

Re:Vista again?

[rhizome]

There's a price for compatibility and if you think you have the easy and simple solution, you're probably wrong.

No, the price of compatibility is closed-source software. To recognize how little value both of these conditions have, consider that I can still compile current versions of tcpdump or fvwm or openoffice on RedHat 6, FreeBSD 5 and Solaris 8. While you ably demonstrate that a reasonable argument can be made for Windows improving over the years, your point boils down to the fact that Windows used to be worse than it is now. This is not a glowing endorsement and speaks little of the standards that they should be held up to. Microsoft's problems are due only to their own policies, and "compatibility" is only an indicator that they've built a fence that they have trouble climbing.

Sadly optimistic was: Re:ReactOS

[damn_registrars]

Once that hits there will be a Windows alternative with absolutely 0 Microsoft code. It has the potential to make them irrelevant.

Even if ReactOS is capable of running 100% of windows software, it would be nearly impossible for them to reach the level of market saturation that microsoft enjoys. And it would be very difficult to describe a product with such high presence as being so easily made irrelevant.

With that said, I'll also say that I would be first to celebrate any such falling of windows. I run any OS I can in the place of windows, anywhere I can. But saying that ReactOS has the potential to make windows "irrelevant" is unfortunately a bit silly.

Re:AntiTrust concerns?

[_KiTA_]

Exactly. It's for this very reason public betas/RCs are given out... for devs to make sure their software will work with the final release and to give them time to fix and test.

Shouldn't it be the other way around? Shouldn't Microsoft fix their OS so it doesn't break the software everyone's already using?

Re:AntiTrust concerns?

[Anonymous Coward]

Shouldn't Linux not break their ABI with every new kernel release?

Re:AntiTrust concerns?

[Adambomb]

Not if the functionality being used by said software was insecure or bugged to begin with.

Now, if the AV companies legitimately do NOT have enough time before SP1 is pushed to the public, then I could see getting up in arms.

Otherwise, isnt this just common sense? Fix whats insecure and broken, advise the third parties of the changes, then release after a suitable dev delay?

Re:AntiTrust concerns?

[Myen]

MS should try, yes, but sometimes the existing software just has bugs (i.e. violates what the API says you should do). It previously worked if the OS had matching bugs that made it work.

Kinda like how people who write web pages by testing with IE and seeing it broken in Firefox etc. because the app they tested with wasn't quite obeying the standards, really...

Re:AntiTrust concerns?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, the antivirus vendors bitched when Vista was released because, particularly in Vista x64, they were locked out from fucking with the kernel. This was done for security reasons and if anyone but Microsoft did it this would be considered good practice. Microsoft listened and decided that in Vista SP1 they would provide an API through which the antivirus vendors could explicitly perform the actions they wished to perform at the kernel level.

So, Microsoft listened to the complaint and fixed it which requires that the antivirus companies change their programs to adhere to the published API. Exactly what is the problem again?

Oh yeah, Slashdot. You have to complain otherwise people might notice that you're 45 and still living in your parents' basement.

Re:AntiTrust concerns?

[Derosian]

When I was younger in a moment of anger at Microsoft I once exclaimed "I'm gonna write my own O/S one without any bugs at all!" to which my friend sagely replied, "So your not gonna let anyone write any software for it?" This is something to think about.

Re:AntiTrust concerns?

[siyavash]

Hate to ruin your day but where I come from, posting an URL without any other description or info is called SPAM. Specially when the URL is neither related to parent or the article in question... but then again, it's Slashdot so you might even get modded up just because it's some linux distro.

Re:AntiTrust concerns?

[GigaplexNZ]

AV vendors claiming antitrust? I find that ironic, considering their industry is based solely around the insecurity of Windows. It is in Microsofts and every users best interest for Windows to be made bullet proof, but then the AV vendors would sue for more antitrust violations. It is an industry that shouldn't even exist.

Re:Vista again?

[BeanThere]

Sorry but this is slashdot. Sticking it to Microsoft NEVER gets old.

I'm about as anti-MS as they come, but even I'll stop sticking it to Microsoft the day they start making good products and start using quality as their primary market differentiator instead of strategy, deception and lock-in. It is as simple as that and the bashing will stop.

To Eddy: Vista may be a joke but it's huge and is selling by the million because most people get it with their new computers and don't know better, and crap as it is, it's the platform of the future that will run the majority of computers sold for quite some time to come ... also, ISVs (of which many of us develop for) HAVE TO use it to make sure our apps run on Vista for our customers --- so yes, here in the real world, all these Vista messes ARE news on a tech site where many of us will have to deal with the fall-out in one way or another (whether it's on the corporate side or just helping grandma with her computer etc.).

Re:Vista again?

[dummondwhu]

Well actually, I *do* care about computers. I just don't want to have to mess around with a bunch of headaches to finally get to the point where I can do whatever I'm there to do in the first place.

Have you ever tried to build a MythTV box from scratch? That's the biggest pain in the balls I've ever experienced. Sure, I obviously didn't hand pick the correct hardware. But that's the point. I don't want to. Same thing for virtually every linux box I've ever built. Some went better than others. Things that have caused me headaches over the years include getting modems to work, getting video card drivers to work, getting lirc to work, and a host of other things. On the flip side, Windows boxes I've built went a lot more smoothly.

Of course, Windows isn't the answer to everything and it certainly has problems.

I write software for a living. Where I work, we don't use Vista. At work, I deal with XP, RH EL4, and Solaris 8/9. When I get home, I'm doing the simple shit. I don't care if Ubuntu gives me my e-mail in a snappier fashion, I only care that it's fast *enough*. I don't schedule my day down to the same granularity as you, I guess. I can spare a few milliseconds to wait for Thunderbird to give me my mail while it's being handicapped by Vista.

Sorry if I'm not geeky enough for this place, but if you'd step out of your mom's basement for a few minutes, you'd realize that the general public feels mostly like I do. Please spare me the "but but but but but we love computeeeeeeeeers!" routine.

Re:AntiTrust concerns?

[Goldberg's Pants]

No, you're wrong. It's none of those things. It's a cheap attempt to gain karma, and VOILA! It worked.

Ubuntu is not the solution in this case. Going back to XP is. (Since I want to keep my games and all the other cool stuff that Ubuntu just can't do.)

Re:Microsoft is being extraordinarily abusive.

[Anonymous Coward]

Will it buy Windows XP, a product that Bill Gates, software's Dr. Death, has declared is Mainstream Support Retired [microsoft.com] on 4/14/2009? If it does, it will be forced to pay extra when Microsoft desides to stop supporting Windows XP.

You've got to be kidding. Dr. Death? Which OS maker gives "mainstream" support for their previous version for longer than Microsoft? XP's successor (Vista) was released about 13 months ago. That's more than 2 years of continued mainstream support for XP after Vista was released and more than 7 years of mainstream support over XP's lifetime.

OS X 10.4 (Tiger), released in April 2005, will stop being supported when OS X 10.6 is released if Apple continues their support lifecycle "pattern" (Apple has no official support lifecycle policy). The current Long Term Support (LTS) version of Ubuntu desktop (released in June 2006) will stop being supported in June 2009 (the next LTS is coming this April).

And every Microsoft customer needs official support because of the huge, huge number of vulnerabilities that are found in Microsoft products.

Your link [microsoft.com] also mentioned that Windows XP will receive "Extended Support" until April 2014, which includes [microsoft.com] paid support, free security updates, and updated Knowledge Base articles.

Operating systems don't naturally have so many vulnerabilities. Users of Mac computers don't even bother to run anti-spyware and anti-virus software because they don't have problems. Large numbers of vulnerabilities are a built-in shortcoming of Microsoft products; apparently Microsoft doesn't let its programmers finish their work. Huge numbers of vulnerabilities force an unnatural connection with the supplier; the user is dependent on the supplier for patches; that creates opportunities for control. Vulnerabilities make more money for Microsoft because people are forced to "upgrade".

More inane gibberish. Operating systems don't naturally have Microsoft's installed base. The vast majority of XP's vulnerabilities take advantage of users always running in Administrator mode, which Microsoft was forced to allow because incompetent developers of popular applications (e.g. Intuit) never got their apps working in standard user modes (and never got certified for XP). For every crappy application that doesn't work with Vista SP1, there are several (in some cases dozens) of competing (and better) apps that work just fine.

Re:Blocks or warns?

[dbIII]

People buy computers for the applications. If Vista gets in the way of AutoCAD or whatever they will use WinXP, 2000, 98 or whatever else will run it.

set the wayback machine to 2001...

[Anonymous Coward]

Hey kids, remember way back when Windows XP was released and ZoneAlarm had compatibility problems? That certainly doomed Windows XP.

Lets just all go read that thread instead of posting all the same things again:
http://slashdot.org/articles/01/08/04/1159203.shtml [slashdot.org]

Re:AntiTrust concerns?

[LinuxLuver]

Most existing Windows software isn't supported on Vista anyway.....Trying buying any language tutorials ....XP or 2K only.

Re:Microsoft is being extraordinarily abusive.

[Sadsfae]

You've got to be kidding. Dr. Death? Which OS maker gives "mainstream" support for their previous version for longer than Microsoft? XP's successor (Vista) was released about 13 months ago. That's more than 2 years of continued mainstream support for XP after Vista was released and more than 7 years of mainstream support over XP's lifetime.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux provides support for up to 7 years after its release.

http://www.redhat.com/security/updates/errata/ [redhat.com]

Re:AntiTrust concerns?

[Myen]

Hmm? No, it's not Microsoft's responsibility to work around bugs in apps; it's a service they're doing for their customers (the people with their new OS who want to use old software). I view it as a best-effort thing.

Not having to do something doesn't mean you shouldn't, sometimes. Some times, of course, you just shouldn't :p

Re:AntiTrust concerns?

[drsmithy]

I find that ironic, considering their industry is based solely around the insecurity of Windows.

False. The primary purpose of AV software is to deflect the bullet when the user tries to shoot himself in the foot.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Lazy programmers, sloppy code

[Anonymous Coward]

You guys have been whining about windows security for years.

Now that ms is actually trying to do something about it, you're whining and giggling with glee even more.

Half the problem is that the software *relies* on the inherent insecurities of previous incarnations of the OS. Many of these problems are coming to light because programs that EXPECT to run with admin rights and do what the hell they please, can't.

What, Vista hasn't been around long enough for the software authors to make sure their software runs on it?

I, for one, won't be running any software that gives me a hard time installing or running it on Vista. And I won't be blaming MS.