Half Of Windows Vista Adoption Driven By Security
I think I earned my paycheck this week :)
https://www.informationweek.com/news/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=199701141
Comments
Anonymous
May 22, 2007
LOL, just like adopting a coal power plant for it's reduced emission.Anonymous
May 23, 2007
anonymous, analogies are rarely valid: http://blogs.msdn.com/michael_howard/archive/2006/03/09/547575.aspxAnonymous
May 23, 2007
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May 23, 2007
anonymous, you clearly need to read up on what we did in Vista - it goes wwwaayyy beyond what you mention.Anonymous
May 23, 2007
You don't need to lesson me, I'm fully aware of the changes specific to Vista. And some like SafeSEH are really good. Now do they justify an intentional privilege escalation path and a trivially spoofable shell view? I don't think so.Anonymous
May 23, 2007
Vista is such a regression in performance and flexibility that security is Microsoft's chance to say "Hey, we got SOMETHING right..." There usually are only one, maybe two categories of design that are "done right" in each new product. Historically, though, it has been rare for security to be the thing that Microsoft "gets right" about a new product... Windows Server 2003 perhaps excepted.Anonymous
May 23, 2007
Matt I'm certainly not claiming we "got it right" - we certainly made a great deal of progress :)Anonymous
May 23, 2007
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May 23, 2007
It's obvious who hasn't used Vista. After two weeks it's hard to imagine going back. I don't really find I need UAC to protect me. However, it does act like a ZoneAlarm type tool to warn you someone was seeking out Admin permissions. That's not quite exactly what it does, and I wish it was more like that (instead of guessing setup.exe needs Admin privs. But hey, if I didn't start setup.exe that is obvious to me.) For an average user, I'm seeing how it is a major improvement. Its trivial for them to run as a less privileged user for the 99.999% of the time they are merely typing in Word or checking their email. Then, when the time comes to install a new game that needs to write to HKLM, it's easy to get the privilege needed. In XP, that person would have just run 100% of the time as Admin. That alone is a major improvement. A criticism I was worried about was average users becoming accustomed to UAC prompts and reflexively clicking to allow. But I should have known the Mac ads were lies. After initial setup, UAC disappears from daily use. The average users I have talked to about this say they think it will be obvious to know when some piece of malware is trying to get elevated privileges. They didn't start anything!Anonymous
May 23, 2007
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May 24, 2007
Sadly, getting security "right" is not to be equated with a vulnerability-free product. That's not a Microsoft-specific problem, or even a software-specific one. However, Vista is undeniably a large improvement in security. In other respects... it's nowhere near as clear whether Vista improves upon or even maintains the status quo.Anonymous
May 28, 2007
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May 29, 2007
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May 29, 2007
LostAussie, i utterly agree with you, that's one of the reason LeBlanc and I wrote Writing Secure Code for Windows Vista. But, FWIW, we still see 'guidance' from vendors stating you should disable the firewall or turn off A/V software so their stuff works correctly :(Anonymous
June 09, 2007
I wouldn't bother myself with "anonymous"'s outrageous statements. Windows Vista is by no means less secure than Windows XP, no matter if it still has security vulnerabilities. This is just plain outrageous. However, I think Windows Vista could have half other adoptions because of performance. Unfortunately, Windows Vista's performance has regressed just as it's security has progressed. Still, Microsoft developers do deserve a congratulatuion.Anonymous
June 09, 2007
And as for the company who advices you to disable UAC. I'd write them: