Microsoft Extends XP To May 2009 For OEMs 605
beuges writes "Microsoft has announced over the weekend that it would allow computer manufacturers to receive copies of XP until the end of May 2009, shortly before Windows 7 is expected to hit the market. This should allow users to skip Vista entirely and move straight to 7, which has been receiving cautiously favorable reviews of pre-release and leaked alphas."
New security process (Score:4, Informative)
If they use the same security prompts/process as Vista then Windows 7 will be another one to skip. I have found it inconsistent and incomplete.
* If your account is a local admin then should you be prompted to do some things? Probably, but not more than once. I swear there is a minimum of two prompts by default.
* Why does an admin need to choose "Run as admin" for some things?
* If the system is going to prompt me then make sure I will see it. Sometimes the security prompts pop-under. If I go off to another program while waiting for something to finish only to later find the unanswered prompt still waiting for my response.
* If a program requires admin access or "Run as admin" then clearly give the user direction to do so. Try pathping for instance and you get "0 No resources". Launch cmd "as admin" and it works fine.
The Vista security model is horrible IMHO. We are just getting started with Windows 2008 and it looks like it is going to be more of the same. If I am logged in as admin on a server I sure hope I don't get the same incomplete and inconsistent experience. If so, Windows 2008 will be the Server OS to skip from MS. (I'm sure some slashdotters will say they should all be skipped. :-) )
Re:Windows 7 (Score:5, Informative)
Yeah, I'ved used vista...
M$ feels the pain. (Score:3, Informative)
If we refer to the table here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usage_share_of_desktop_operating_systems [wikipedia.org] you can see how much of the market has started to diversify since Vista came out. I think it would be safe to assume that the market share of Vista is somewhat inflated due to the fact that Microsoft made it very difficult to get anything but Vista on a regular consumer machine for quite some time, and now most major builders charge a fee ($150 at some!) to "downgrade" Vista to XP.
Since Q1 of 2007, Microsoft has seen both of their largest competitors in the desktop operating system market (Apple & Linux) double their penetration. Will this possibly drive them to bring us a better product? On a side note, Microsoft Server 2008 as a workstation is definitely worth taking a look at. You can download and use it free for 60 days, and a quick look at http://www.win2008workstation.com/wordpress/ [win2008workstation.com] will give you some pointers on setting it up. There are definitely some things lacking, but it might give you hope that M$ will do something right in their next major release.
Re:Meet the new version, same as the old version. (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Windows 7 (Score:3, Informative)
At my office we have Vista, XP, OS X, and Linux. Anyone can use whatever OS they prefer, but all are needed for testing. All but one person uses OS X on their desktop. One uses Linux. No one uses Vista because no one likes it.
The desktops we have set up for testing with Vista are nothing but trouble from the second you sit down. Many things need to be constantly installed to get anything done; things that come native with OS X and Linux. Distracting windows and notifications pop up constantly requiring extra clicks. Debugging JavaScript is a breeze in Firefox but a nightmare with IE7. I could go on...
Your experience may be positive. But don't assume that everyone who complains about Vista is lying.
Re:Windows 7 (Score:5, Informative)
That's irrelevant though, my point is, we were CLONING good installs onto identical hardware and were experiencing all manner of rarely reproducible errors.
Re:Windows 7 (Score:2, Informative)
[...] I use Vista at home, I use Vista at work. I have had absolutely no issue with it. [...]
Good for you. But actually you would be the first business user Id've encountered who has not run into an unsolvable problem caused by Vista, be it a technical or one regarding usability.
Vista was about MS standing up to OS X's fizzy design. Nothing more.
Re:Meet the new version, same as the old version. (Score:5, Informative)
apple isn't very popular with enterprise for several reasons.
- price: no competition means higher price. with the PC, the cutthroat competition between hardware makers is what keeps price down.
- openess: the PC is an open architecture, you can choose your box from any manufacturer. even apple recognized this as an advantage and moved to intel/PC arch.
- relationship with developers: say what you want, but working in a large IT shop i know several programers who all agree that MS treats developers a whole lot better than apple. see the strangle hold they keep over that iPhone store.
- availability of software: the PC was created by IBM with a focus on business. the Mac wasn't. a huge library of corporate software made the diference on DOS days. the previous item does it today.
and you didn't get GP's point. emulation and virtualization, either in hardware or software helps a lot. and MS is not a newbie on this. in the early days of the transition from DOS to windows 3.0, the version for 80286 PC/ATs couldn't multitaks DOS apps. if you opened more than one DOS app, the one in the background would freeze, but in a 80386 you could multitask DOS apps because the 386 introduced hardware based "real mode" VMs. heck, you can run a binary compiled on an S/360 on a current version of Z/OS running in the latest state-of-the-art IBM mainframe.
apple's several transitions, m68k -> PPC -> intel (hardware) and Mac OS classic -> Mac OS X pretty much afected some few specialized (read: badly written) software. nothing that caused widespread problems.
it can be done, and is only the stuborness of the redmond guys that prevents them from doing it.
Re:Windows 7 (Score:3, Informative)
Have you tried KDE 4.2? Give it a go, I was pleasantly surprised. 4.0 and 4.1 were still a disappointment, but it's definitely better (my configuration is back!)
Re:Windows 7 (Score:4, Informative)
Maybe because it was still using Qt3? If you are that upset about it then just use KDE 3.5.x still and wait for the 4.x line to mature as much.
Re:New security process (Score:5, Informative)
You're a Unix guy, you should get this instantly. The "Administrator" account in Windows Vista is the equivalent of being in the sudoers file on Unix for a normal account. Basically, you don't have any administrative privileges on the system until you need to do something that requires. As in a Unix system (where you would type out sudo or a kdesu window would pop up), Vista prompts you for your password before granting you time limited and application limited elevated privileges. This is the Unix way basically.
Even Mac OS X does this, with the locks on the system preferences and for installing software. Bashing Microsoft on this, but not OpenSolaris, HP-UX, Mac OS X, Ubuntu or any other Unix type system is fanboyish. Some don't even offer a root account by default anymore, you need to explicitly activate it.
Re:Windows 7 (Score:2, Informative)
You could have installed Linux and just told the customer it was an early release of Windows 7 and much more stable. Just tell them Wine is for backward compatibility with existing Windows programs. Slap a on flying toaster screen saver and a Windows desktop image and they'd never suspect a thing.
Re:New security process (Score:3, Informative)
* If your account is a local admin then should you be prompted to do some things?
Yes, because being an "admin" just means you can elevate your privileges, it doesn't make them (much) higher by default.
* Why does an admin need to choose "Run as admin" for some things?
See above.
* If the system is going to prompt me then make sure I will see it. Sometimes the security prompts pop-under. If I go off to another program while waiting for something to finish only to later find the unanswered prompt still waiting for my response.
You need to be fairly quick to beat a UAC request before it darkens the screen, but even if you do it will sit flashing in the taskbar.
* If a program requires admin access or "Run as admin" then clearly give the user direction to do so. Try pathping for instance and you get "0 No resources". Launch cmd "as admin" and it works fine.
This is an application issue, not an OS issue. The OS tries to detect when admin privileges might be necessary (which is more than any of its peers), but by the nature of this it cannot be 100% accurate.
The Vista security model is horrible IMHO.
It's using the same security model as OS X and modern Linux distros. "Admin" means you have the ability to raise your privileges on demand, NOT that you are running with Administrator privileges all the time. It's just like being an "Admin" in OS X or Linux (which means you can sudo, not that you're root).
Re:Windows 7 (Score:2, Informative)
Right-click on the start menu, and click "Properties", then click on the "Customize" button in the dialog that pops up.
Scroll down almost all the way to the bottom of the list that pops up. Select the checkbox called "Run command". Click "Ok", then "Ok".
Boom! Run command in the start menu.
Re:Windows 7 (Score:1, Informative)
Windows vista does that.
If you install the EXACT same install onto 5 identical machines. You will end up with 5 slightly diffrent end results. I've tested it over and over.
It's fucking retarded it does that. But it does.
XP does that too. but to a far far smaller degree.
The same applys to installing one copy of vista onto a single machine 5 times. You'll get slightly diffrent results every damm time.
Sounds stupid. You assume you made a mistake. But nope. Triple check everything all the way and you'll see it still happens.
Now do it for 1000 machines company wide... haha... fuck that shit. you'll have plenty to do.
vista is instant job security. unless you get fired for reccomending it or something.
Re:Windows 7 (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Just OEM? (Score:3, Informative)
2) You can buy XP - here [newegg.com]
Re:Windows 7 (Score:5, Informative)
[windows key] + R
The "R" is for Run.
Re:Hahahaaa 7 before vista isnt cold dead yet (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Windows 7 (Score:5, Informative)
@echo off
echo Starting Background Intelligent Transfer Service (BITS)...
net start bits
echo Registering DLLs...
REGSVR32 WUAUENG.DLL
REGSVR32 WUAUENG1.DLL
REGSVR32 ATL.DLL
REGSVR32 WUCLTUI.DLL
REGSVR32 WUPS.DLL
REGSVR32 WUPS2.DLL
REGSVR32 WUWEB.DLL
REGSVR32 WUAPI.DLL
echo Killing Windows Automatic Updater Service...
net stop wuauserv
echo Destroying Update Cache...
rmdir
echo Re-enabling Windows Automatic Updater Service...
net start wuauserv
echo Magic!
Re:Windows 7 (Score:2, Informative)
On OS X, we know this as Time Machine.
Gerry
Re:Meet the new version, same as the old version. (Score:3, Informative)
That is not really accurate. When the transition to OS X started, for instance, all new Macs came with a version of OS 9 called "Mac Classic", which could be installed to run all your old applications on the new machine. There was also an interim development framework that allowed developers to easily port their programs to the new OS, until they were able to re-write them in native code.
As far as I remember, this was adequate for most users, and it helped make the transition virtually seamless.
Moreover, when Apple switched from the PowerPC to an Intel architecture, they also allowed for emulated modes and transitional frameworks, in order to ease not only users, but developers also, into the new platform. For a time, most applications for download or purchase came as "universal packages", which was just a file containing a binary for each platform. The OS launcher then could pick whichever it recognized, when executing the application. This all worked fairly seamless.
So, if anything, Mac users are conditioned to expect their applications--and their OS--to work reasonably consistent across versions, platform changes and operating system upgrades.
-dZ.
Re:New security process (Score:3, Informative)
Yes, but in Linux or OS X, whenever I try to perform an action to which I have no privileges, by mere fact that I am in the Adminstrators group (or sudoers file), I get prompted for my password immediately. I do not have to ask special permission to "run as admin"; if it requires to be "admin" to run, then run the damn thing as admin already and demand authentication or confirmation from the user, and then abort if they fail to respond accordingly.
-dZ.
Re:New security process (Score:4, Informative)
You were mostly correct, except for this line. Vista doesn't prompt an admin ("sudoer") for his password on elevation - it just pops up that infamous "Allow/Deny" prompt. There is a reason for that; sudo asks user for password, because otherwise any app running under his account (e.g. an exploited web browser) could get elevation by execing sudo and piping "yes" (or whatever confirmation there is) into it. Requiring to enter the password ensures that it's user who consciously does the elevation, and not an app doing it under cover.
Now as to why Vista doesn't do it: the way they display that "Allow/Deny" prompt is specifically implemented so that no other running app can interact with it (and, for example, imitate a mouse click on "Allow", or send a window message simulating the activation of the button, etc). I don't know the details of this thing, but MS refers to that as "notification running on a separate desktop", and apparently that's what causes that screen flashing briefly when it pops up. They also disable all interaction for all other windows, so that a malicious app cannot trick the user into clicking "Allow" by overlaying its own window with deceiving labels which is transparent for mouse events on top of the notification window. It is claimed that all these measures, when combined together, achieve the same security as the simple trick used by sudo. I do not know whether the claim is true, but I haven't heard of anyone describing a working hack/workaround, so I have to assume that it is.
Rewarding the "Culture of Laziness & Sloppines (Score:2, Informative)
That's both lazy and sloppy.
Call me Old School, but if one needs this much babysitting when using a PC, one should go back to the ease of pencil and paper and save some serious cash.
WinXP (and even Win2K) is fine!
Re:New security process (Score:1, Informative)
UAC can ask for a username/password however.
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc709691.aspx [microsoft.com]
Look for "To change the elevation prompt behavior for administrators"
Re:Meet the new version, same as the old version. (Score:3, Informative)
Re:you're still buying vista even if you skip it (Score:3, Informative)
I wonder if they will let you buy the windows 7 upgrade for xp though?
From what I've seen over the years, Microsoft generally allows "upgrade" versions to work on at least the two previous versions. Upgrade versions of Vista work on Windows XP and Windows 2000 [microsoft.com]. Upgrade versions of XP work on Windows 2000, NT 4, ME, and 98 [windowsreinstall.com]. Upgrade versions of Office 2007 work on Office 2000, XP, and 2003 [microsoft.com].