Vista SP1 Is Even Less Compatible 278
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."
Blocks or warns? (Score:3, Interesting)
Vista again? (Score:5, Interesting)
Why are we still even talking about Vista? Is anybody really using Vista these days? Governments and Organizations have spoken out against Vista, Office 2007 and it lives in infamy everywhere else. Even Microsoft's Eric Traut [youtube.com] has somewhat spoken out against Vista and Windows in general.
Everywhere I go people say I'll stick to XP for as long as I can, even in the Enterprise. These type of /. submissions are getting really old really fast since they all repeat the same message: stay the hell away from Vista.
Re:AntiTrust concerns? (Score:5, Interesting)
AV vendors have been claiming antitrust for eight months. SP1 causes great inconvenience to their customers, what a suspicious coincidence. If the vendors were really cooperating SP1 would have contained their improvements, not a little note or a lock out.
Re:Vista again? (Score:3, Interesting)
ReactOS (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Vista again? (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:Wine for Windows (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:"Oh look, a mote in Microsoft's eye" (Score:3, Interesting)
It's at the bottom, where it should be, so you read all the comments in the thread before posting one of your own, thereby reducing the likelihood of redundant comments.
Of course, there is still the possibility of posting a comment similar to one which was posted after your copy of the page loaded. Hey, it happens.
Also, seemingly redundant comments on separate branches of a thread are not redundant. They're in response to entirely different comments.
Comments which restate their grandparent in response to a parent who obviously didn't get the point are not redundant. They're trying to clear up the issue for others who may not have understood what their grandparent was stating.
Re:AntiTrust concerns? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:AntiTrust concerns? (Score:5, Interesting)
I read an interesting article way back when about how Microsoft has had to bend over backwards, replicating old bugs and inconsistencies so that existing software won't break when users upgrade. At this point, I think it's safe to say that all those efforts, combined with the other political stupidity microsoft has done (like integrating IE into the OS) is now starting to bite Microsoft in the rear. Vista is just the critical mass of all bugs piled on top of bugs on top of API changes, etc.
I think Apple had the right idea when they made OS X. Redo the whole OS, and then include the old OS in a compatibility VM. That way you get a clean start while still supporting older apps.
Re:AntiTrust concerns? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:AntiTrust concerns? (Score:3, Interesting)
Trend Micro [fsf.org] works but Novell [fsf.org] does not. Let that be a lesson to those who would cooperate with Microsoft, it never lasts. They may reward you today but they will punish you tomorrow.
Re:AntiTrust concerns? (Score:3, Interesting)
SP1 actually has some changes in it to placate the AV vendors. Windows x64 introduced a feature called Kernel Patch Protection [wikipedia.org] which as the name implies blocks (at least as much as humanly possible) attempts to patch or otherwise hook things in to the kernel. This has been something that Windows has been needing for some time since it stops certain malware/rootkit vectors along with lazy software authors dinking around with the kernel causing it to crash. But most of the AV vendors simply keep brining their code forward from earlier versions of Windows, where they used kernel hooking to set up their access method for real-time virus scanning. Ergo Windows x64 caused a huge problem when AV vendors couldn't use kernel hooking, and while there were real APIs that worked about as well, they were not in the least bit happy about the issue and hence all the bitching in recent months.
With SP1, Microsoft is scaling back the KPP functionality in Vista x64. Now Microsoft is going to let certain parties patch the kernel again, providing an API to do so. This will make the AV vendors happy, as they won't have to rewrite a bunch of code for x64. The loser of course is the rest of us, Microsoft basically had to scale back some of Vista x64's security so that AV vendors could make their own wares work better (and in a roundabout way make them more necessary).
The AV vendors don't really have a problem with SP1 breaking any existing software since they're getting kernel hooking back, which is a far bigger win for them.
Re:Vista again? (Score:4, Interesting)
Heck, they could do this for each generation of windows too. Like "C:\Compat2K\", etc. In fact, I could see this as a very nice upgrade path as well. There are tons of opportunities here to keep the legacy optional and very functional. I just don't see why no-one at MS seems to have thought of this.
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Re:Bit of a catch-22, isn't there? (Score:4, Interesting)
You'd be wrong.
A couple of years ago, a study were performed using XP, XP SP1, XP SP2, OSX (Panther, I think), and some version of Red Hat.
In the study, the computers were connected to the net and timed to see how long each would be compromised. XP and XP SP1 were compromised within seconds (like 12 or so, IIRC), but XP SP2, OSX, and Red Hat systems ran for two weeks without being compromised, at which point the test was ended. The study showed that XP SP2 was attacked orders of magnitude more than OSX and Red Hat, but the attacks failed.
Re:AntiTrust concerns? (Score:2, Interesting)
This has been one of the complaints in the anti-trust lawsuits against Microsoft is that they don't follow standards and when they provide documentation, usually large portions of it do not match their implementation.
There's one note in the DirectX 5 API that basically said, this is how you should do it, but because of a bug you can't. It will be fixed in the next version. Which that bug survived until at least DirectX 8 and now has been replaced by new functionality. Unless it's a bug that affects end users, Microsoft doesn't care about fixing it.
In Windows 2000 and Windows XP the multimedia timer was broken. This was Microsoft's recommended way of keeping audio and video playing at the right speeds. They said that it was a flaw in their design of the system and because it's in the Kernel we would have to wait for the next version of Windows to fix it, until then we were to find a work around.
I'm not even going to go into the horror that is the Winsock API.
Basically Microsoft tells us to work around their shoddy foundation. Then they start modifying support pillars to balsa wood and ripping out other ones, while in the rare case fixing one or two. Then we are blamed for their screw ups.
It doesn't help that they keep tacking on new APIs that do the same thing as the old ones. What they really need to do is sit down, actually design their systems and implement them correctly. The problem is that is not in their best interest. If they actually made something that worked and kept working, people would not have a reason to upgrade their Visual Studio. It's not in Microsoft's best interest to make something that is well designed and implemented because developers would have no reason to upgrade. Nor would users. We are seeing this with XP versus Vista.