Microsoft's Most Successful Failure 354
m4dm4n writes "As we near the end of mainstream support of Win2k The Register looks back at what it has achieved. What was meant to be Microsoft's most secure OS ever turned into a disaster. Worm after worm changed the face of internet security in Win2k's first 2 years. Five years down the line the battle is far from won, but the improvements are dramatic." From the article: "Things were different in the year 2000. Programmers felt vindicated that the Y2K bug didn't turn out to be that big of a deal. We made it past January 1st, and then it was time to move on. Windows 2000 came out that first quarter, just as security was becoming more interesting to more people -- and Windows was a good place to start. It was also seemed to be the start of a new breed of Windows hackers."
Learning Experience (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Learning Experience (Score:3, Insightful)
Get yourself a job in government.
Re:Learning Experience (Score:3, Insightful)
Lessons Learned - a paraphrase. (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Lessons Learned - a paraphrase. (Score:3, Insightful)
Microsoft execs - remember you have a fiduciary responsiblity to shareholders to do what's in the shareholder interest. Clearly your newfound obsession with security hype is not playing to your strenghts
I would say not ignoring security and leaving yourself wide open to customer negligence lawsuits while alienating your client-base is in the shareholders best interest.
Why must so many investors and (by extension) pro-business people have such a short-term outlook these days? Screwing over the customer/
Re:Lessons Learned - a paraphrase. (Score:3, Interesting)
Credit card companies manage it well -- it's not too hard to steal a credit card - but it's not too hard to use them either. They balance these decisions very carefully.
Car companies also balance many things against security in their products - including fuel economy (heavier cars are safer) and c
Re:Learning Experience (Score:5, Insightful)
Windows 2000 is one of the rare times in the Microsoft world when you actually want to upgrade due to it actually being a clearly superior product than its predecessors. There is no question that Windows 2000 is a better OS than any of the Dos-based ones. It's also more stable and easier to install than NT4, and has better driver support, plus it adds some of the nice touches introduced with Windows 98. This is completely unlike the Windows 2000->XP "upgrade", or the essentially identical last 4 versions of Office.
Re:Learning Experience (Score:4, Interesting)
You can't build a monopoly without producing something a lot of people will come along and buy.
Re:Learning Experience (Score:3, Informative)
say what you want... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:say what you want... (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm a big fan of the "best tool for the job". I like Windows for a desktop, Linux for a server environment...but Windows server environment is improving. I still think it sucks, but it's improving....
Re:say what you want... (Score:3, Funny)
Are you a biased pro-GNU/Linux reader?
A. Yes.
B. No.
C. I'm a troll.
Re:say what you want... (Score:3, Funny)
[Now, where's that fire extinguisher...?]
Re:say what you want... (Score:2, Funny)
maybe it's because it's true (Score:3, Insightful)
So am I, and I think the best tool for both desktop and server at this point is something in the UNIX family (Linux, BSD, etc.) with one of the X11-based desktops (Gnome, KDE, etc.).
The NT kernel is just a bloated design (and an even worse implementation).
There is one thing Microsoft has done well recently: C#, a Java derivative that fixes many of the most annoying problems of Java. Unfortunately, they are spoiling it with the same kind of poor library desig
Re:say what you want... (Score:2)
Rumor has it that Linux makes a hell of a good server platform, but all my experience with it has so far been desktop, and it just doesn't cut it at that level. I know all the rationales, but the real bottom line is this: I want a desktop to be as polished and elegant and quick as possible. Windows does that.
And when the time comes that I need a rock-solid server that just sits there and does its thing, with no need for a fancy desktop
Re:say what you want... (Score:2)
So, that means that MacOS X is the green lightsaber representing the enlightened Jedi, right?
Try purple. They combine the good side of the force (BSD base -- some open source software) with the bad (DRM in iTunes, proprietary hardware, etc).
Re:say what you want... (Score:3, Funny)
Try purple.
Hell yeah! I knew Macs were badass, but Mace Windu badass? Awesome!
"Do I look like a bitch?"
"N-no."
"Then why are you treating me like Windows 95?"
Re:say what you want... (Score:2)
For GUI tools, I have high hopes for Wink [debugmode.com]-based documentation, though it's by necessity quite task-oriented. What would you consider a decent source-level documentation tool for developers, apart from Doxygen? As in, what's better?
--grendel drag
Re:say what you want... (Score:2)
Warning (Score:5, Funny)
4 years to get better printer support (Score:3, Insightful)
That's a good strategy: you don't like the argument, so you attack its syntax... Here's a newsflash: not everyone here is a native English speaker. So most reasonable posters show some grammatical leniency and instead focus on the author's intent.
The parent was undoubtedly referring to the pitiful state of printer support Linux at the time of the Windows
2k was excellent except for one thing.... (Score:3, Insightful)
Users (including the usual PHBs) got used to that paradigm and now do not value a proper web server setup!
And people think something does not work when a link points to "C:\Dave\Projects\budget.xls" does not work on their computers!
Re:2k was excellent except for one thing.... (Score:5, Interesting)
My boss and I were talking a week or so back, and we were talking about taking a bunch of our libraries and somehow making them into something we can use everywhere. Now realize that we, unfortunatly, have about 200 applications to maintain, across Visual Basic, Delphi, Java, C++ in many flavors (Borland and MS are the majority) and a slew of other crap, including some VB scripts.
Now, obviously, a plain DLL isn't going to cut it... VB would be a pain in the arse to translate all of the declares to, and Java would need something similar to use a native library.
This IS where ActiveX control/libraries come in. And thanks to even automation, I can EVEN use said libraries in the windows scripts via a magical CreateObject.
The nightmare of using ActiveX controls on a webpage shouldnt blur the actual usefulness of the technology possibly elsewhere.
Re:2k was excellent except for one thing.... (Score:4, Interesting)
Most people who bash ActiveX controls haven't really been in enterprise development environments where they have used them.
While their security aspect is a bad thing, they're quite useful in their own way.
Re:2k was excellent except for one thing.... (Score:2)
That's the main problem I have with Microsoft. (Score:3, Insightful)
The same can be said about almost every Microsoft product/technology/implementation.
Microsoft focuses on functionality even when it means making something completely insecure.
So, it all comes down to which do you value more, functionality or security?
Re:2k was excellent except for one thing.... (Score:2)
Re: ActiveX on a webpage (Score:2)
MetaEditing? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:MetaEditing? (Score:2)
Failure -- A bit harsh? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Failure -- A bit harsh? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Failure -- A bit harsh? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Failure -- A bit harsh? (Score:2, Insightful)
A properly configured windows XP box is also probably faster than a properly configured Win2k box. Especially WinXP64.
Re:Failure -- A bit harsh? (Score:2)
Re:Failure -- A bit harsh? (Score:2)
Re:Failure -- A bit harsh? (Score:2)
And XP does have some really good features for the power user.
Re:Failure -- A bit harsh? (Score:2)
XP scripting is worse. I used to have a script for my mother in-law to insert her memory stick in the reader and click an icon for the image processing to happen.
The processing I had is that images would be moved from the media into a backup location and a working location and resized via ImageMagick into an Email directory.
XP considers the script malicious now so now she has to manually process the photos.
The only one I can thnk of is auto complete
Re:Failure -- A bit harsh? (Score:2)
Re:Failure -- A bit harsh? (Score:2)
Most of our computers at the office that still run Microsoft systems are running Windoze 2000. The rest run Linux, OpenBSD, and OSX.
We have one single purpose Windoze 98 still running and the only reason we haven't changed it to 2000 is because the distribution for the single software package it runs is long gone.
And we have two Windoze NT machines. I'd like to get rid of both of them, but can't.
Accounting has a single Windoze XP machine.
The remaining Windoze machines are Windoze 200
Re:Failure -- A bit harsh? (Score:2)
Beware (Score:2)
Pardon me, but weren't most of the worm issues in (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Pardon me, but weren't most of the worm issues (Score:5, Informative)
I think it's a shame that they're twilighting the support for the OS. I still use it and have no real reason to upgrade to XP. I tend to wonder if the only "big deal" with XP is that it included a software firewall.
Re:Pardon me, but weren't most of the worm issues (Score:2)
Re:Pardon me, but weren't most of the worm issues (Score:2)
Things in XP that I use every day and would go nuts not having if I went back to 2K.
* Tray Icon Hiding. Too many apps put icons on the tray and it's very nice to get rid of them.
* The new Start menu. I c
Re:Pardon me, but weren't most of the worm issues (Score:2)
I feel the same. It is hard to believe I am going to have to shell out hard cash to replace an OS that meets all my needs because it will no longer be updated. What is worse is that I do not want / need to run XP. I have never really liked it. I bought one copy and within a few weeks reinstalled Win 2K. I guess this is one more reason to switch to Linux.
Re:Pardon me, but weren't most of the worm issues (Score:2)
Re:Pardon me, but weren't most of the worm issues (Score:2)
Re:Pardon me, but if you can't separate the browse (Score:2)
where would we be.... (Score:2)
Obviously they are caused by irresponsible programing, but just imagine if the nature of the stack wouldn't allow them. If some kind of mechanism beside a simple jump had been used. Like registering an address in the CPU via an instruction and then calling that jump. Would we have had half the problems?
Re:where would we be.... (Score:5, Interesting)
Would it annoy you to no end if I explained that you've just described the segmented memory model that has been available on the 386 and up since 1986? It just so happens that today's "Modern OSes" (right load of bull that is) map only two memory segments, then completely ignore the GDT, LDT, and TSS after that? It is, of course, done all in the name of "Performance", the mini-god for which many a programmer has sacrificed his first born for, but has never actually managed to show that this "performance" was worth it.
<sarcasm>But wait, we must claim that Java is slow in order to appease this mini-god! </sarcasm>
Re:where would we be.... (Score:2, Insightful)
Do you know why? It's because segmented memory models SUCKED. Have you ever tried to program for a 80286? It was an incomprehensible nightmare. Few if any programming languages provide appropriate models for the non-uniform memory space introduced with segments. You're on your own handling the details of ugly, klunky pointer models. The paging fe
Re:where would we be.... (Score:2)
ld 0,0x10(1)
mtlr 0
blr
Of course, then you wonder what the ld 0,0x10(1) does. r1 is the stack pointer, and 0x10 is the standard offset onto the stack for storing the return address. Yuppers, you still need somewhere to store the return address, and the stack is the obvious place for that.
So my answer is that yes, you would have had exactly the same problems with that mechanis
What about "Trusted Computing?" (Score:2)
Re:What about "Trusted Computing?" (Score:2)
Re:What about "Trusted Computing?" (Score:2)
The figures you want to see are proportional to how widespread the OS is. Windows 2003, though quite capable, is not that widely deployed. Netcraft backs me up here.
Re:What about "Trusted Computing?" (Score:3, Insightful)
Trustworthy Computing was the response to high-profile security failures like Sadmind and Code Red. And if you think Trustworthy Computing is dead, just compare Windows XP SP2 to an unpatched XP install.
Win2k, a failure? (Score:5, Interesting)
It was successfull, kind of... (Score:5, Interesting)
Security became a joke, but stability was superb.
It was a gigantic leap from the 9x series.
Cheers,
Adolfo
Re:It was successfull, kind of... (Score:2)
Security didn't become the dominant issue until later. Seems to me that the Register/Security Focus has a short (dare I say "revisionist") memory.
*(That is, it was stable relative to MS products, not really stable. Viva Novell Netware!!)
Re:It was successfull, kind of... (Score:2)
Security for desktops, yes. But security for servers was an issue long before.
Which is where my memory diverges from TFA. When MS first started writing an OS and software destined to be for servers, security should have been a major concern -even at that time. That it wasn't is simply an indication (to me) that MS, a desktop company at the time, didn't do its h
Windows ME was far worse (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Windows ME was far worse (Score:2)
Re:Windows ME was far worse (Score:2)
What was so blasted different about ME and 98SE other than cosmetic changes that affected the operating system?
No System restore doesn't count. That's an add-on feature that could have been purchased for Windows 95.
I'm talking like the difference between 98 and 98SE which was a pretty major difference.
Oh for one last time..... (Score:5, Insightful)
It was a big deal. Lot's of us here worked very hard to make sure that nothing bad happened and this really gets to me when people throw around the opinion that it was all a fuss over nothing.
Get a clue.
Re:Oh for one last time..... (Score:5, Insightful)
It's kinda like there's a big office building on fire downtown. The news reporter is standing in front of the blaze, speaking in a calm voice layed thinly over barely-contained hysterics: "As you can see behind me, the fire continues to burn! If left unchecked, this fire could spread to nearby buildings, and from there continue to spread, until eventually the entire metropolitan area is burned to the ground. From there, who knows how far it could spread! Civilization itself hangs in the balance! Flee, flee for your lives! And buy duct tape!" Meanwhile, fire fighters work like hell to put out the fire, and it eventually dies. The next day everyone is wondering what the hell the big deal was and what they are going to do with all the duct tape they bought. Feeling gullible and duped, they forget that there really could have been a disaster if the fire fighters had just sat on their thumbs watching the building burn...
Re:Oh for one last time..... (Score:2)
But in my town, in the month or so prior to Y2k, people were charging insane ammounts to make house calls to check people's desktops for compatibility. Of course, all they did was set the date ahead, play with it, and set it back.
Also, we had a town meeting where people asked such rediculous questions as:
- Will my car still run?
- Will my gasoline generator still run?
- Will I still have fresh wate
You're damned right! - Re:Oh for one last time.... (Score:2)
Re:Oh for one last time..... (Score:2)
I can understand taking a MEASURED look at the situation and deciding it's not worth the money. But you're claim of totally ignoring the problem borders on negligence.
Actually it IS negligent.
Of course by now I realize you are but a troll Mr AC and couldn't be the head of anyth
OS "Feel" (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:OS "Feel" (Score:2)
Its a lot like cars. Even though sedans might look alike, indeed might only be a few years apart from the
Habits (Score:2)
Menus were laid out differently. There are different transition effects (e.g. menus fading in and out). In terms of visual layout, XP has brighter colors and more rounded edges (compared to the very boxy stuff that came before.)
I forget which, but various L&Fs have single-click rather
Microsoft's Most Successful Failure (Score:3, Insightful)
Microsoft Bob! [toastytech.com] Oh, wait. Successful failure... hmm... Ah! Windows Millennium Edition (ME) [aroundcny.com], without a doubt! This insecure, rushed, overhyped, bug-ridden excuse for an operating system should've gone the way of Bob and New Coke even before it was officially released.
Even more "successful" failures (Score:3, Insightful)
How's that NIS treating you for security?
Kernel "user/group/world" security should be enough for anybody.
You guys need to realize that you can't have credibility without objectivity. You would have a lot more success convincing people to switch to Linux if you didn't come across as zealots all the time.
A Failure? (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm a fervent Linux fan, but I'm also logical.
Win2K was by far much better than Microsoft's earlier OS offerings in terms of reliability and security.
It's like they finally realized that desktop PC monopoly didn't get them a free pass into the mainframe and server market. Realizing that, they actually produced a credible OS that wouldn't get themselves laughed at. MS has intelligent people that can do a great job (if they're not tasked with creating obstacles and artificial cross-ties in the company's product lines.) Like they did with IE before the Netscape threat was effectively vanquished.
Win2K will be humming along for many years to come.
How can you knock Windows 2000? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:How can you knock Windows 2000? (Score:2)
Re:How can you knock Windows 2000? (Score:2)
Re:How can you knock Windows 2000? (Score:3, Informative)
Think about what Win2k gave us! Plug and Play, protected memory (when apps crash, the OS survives), NTFS, and USB support
Actually, protected address spaces and NTFS were around long before Win2K, all the way back to the first versions of NT.
Was it Win2K, or IE/OE? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Was it Win2K, or IE/OE? (Score:2)
Seriously, if the company itself says "IE is an integral part of the OS", then bugs in IE _are_ bugs in the OS. Almost the same with OE: if they make the system and the app so broken that malware can infect the system so easily through email, they get to be blamed.
Mostly IE/OE, but a little of both (Score:2)
The OS itself is comparatively easy to secure. Its interactions with the outside world are fairly simple. IE and OE are expected to execute untrusted code, either from Javascript or once upon a time from VBScript (now THERE was a dumb idea) or ActiveX compo
I know two things: (Score:2)
2.) When they moved to Windows XP, those same Gateway computers felt like the POSes they are.
Now that Apple will be transitioning to x86 architecture, hopefully a situation will emerge where Windows 2K can be run safely in virtualization under MacOS X. XP will never sully a computer of mine. I know you can already run Windows 2K in virtualization under Linux. But I'd like to do it under MacOS X. It probably woul
Define failure (Score:2, Insightful)
If 2000 was a failure (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:If 2000 was a failure (Score:2)
Television: Corporate America in your mind.
Both of which are consumed voluntarily.
Some thoughts on Microsoft and Pintos (Score:3, Interesting)
stop complaning... (Score:2, Informative)
That whole story is a myth (Score:4, Interesting)
Before Win2k, reliability was what everybody complained about, blue screens of death, constant crashing, runing out of resources, that sort of thing.
Microsoft listened, claimed reliability was their priority, and eventually released Win2k which fixed all of those problems. Win2k has crashed on me all of 3 times while using it both at work and at home for nearly five years, twice due to worn out CPU fans, and once due to hard drive failure. So while my experience is anecdotal I must say Win2k was an incredible success - more than I thought was possible from that company, it certainly changed my view of Microsoft.
Fast forward a few years (2002 - 2003ish), BSODs are now a thing of the past, leaving the increasing viruses and malware as the #1 headache on Windows.
Microsoft listens, claims security is now their #1 priority...
Will their security push be as effective as their stability push? only time will tell, but after the magic they worked with Win2k I'm no longer putting it above them.
Personally I care little, Windows boxes I've had connected to the internet for years without a virus checker are still clean. It appears Windows viruses so far have been limited to inexperienced users and boxes that aren't behind a proper firewall.
Noooo (Score:2)
Lol took them long enough to "get concerned" (Score:3, Insightful)
You mean more interesting to Window users. Other operating systems have always been concerned about security
Comment removed (Score:3, Funny)
Win 2000, a worthy OS (Score:3, Insightful)
Windows 2000 is the high water mark in increasing feature creep for MS operating systems.
Future systems, especially on the server side will be significantly easier and simpler.
MS has learned that combining a large number of different recently written technology together causes more problems that it is worth.
I look to see MS developing much simpler de
Re:oldie but a goodie (Score:2)
Most hardware was complete compatible. However it was that odd printer or bizaare combination doitalljazz card that always ever quite worked.
Re:oldie but a goodie (Score:2)
Re:oldie but a goodie (Score:2)
I still have an A1200 up in the closet that I busted out to play with a little bit ago. After reminiscing about Amigas and college (which was its glory days for me) I went to turn it off. After looking around the menus for a bit looking for the shut-down option I smacked myself in the head when I remembered that all you have to do is turn it off;-) At the present rate, I wonder if someday you'll have to use a menu otpion to "safely" turn of
Re:Previous name (Score:2)
"More innocent times" .. yeah right (Score:5, Insightful)
Article is pure MS propaganda.
- They're trying to divert attention away from all the security problems that XP has had. XP is BY FAR the "biggest disaster" of any OS in the history of humankind when it comes to security. Something like 25% of XP boxes are still to this day infected zombie machines. Typical time-to-infection of any pre-SP2 XP system hooked up to the Net was something in the order of seconds or minutes. But wait, let's rewrite history by claiming that 2K was far worse, so that people think don't XP was so bad in retrospect, and that people think MS were already improving their security between 2K and XP.
- They're trying to pretend, yet again, that 2K and XP were written in "more innocent times" when "security problems" were unknown - so that the public is tricked into thinking that their shocking neglect of security was somehow excusable. Spin, spin, spin. All of today's security problems were very well-known by any IT professional even by the 80's; even Java in the 90's touted security over and over as one of its major selling points, and when started pushing their ActiveX-based "trust" model in response ('hey, we have an object model, let's just pretend it's secure and market it heavily') anyone who knew anything was already warning that that was going to be a disaster.
Microsoft knew that security was going to get this bad, but they ignored it in favour of pushing for better time to market to be ready for upgrade cycles and attrition sales.