Microsoft has been gazing at its navel and started to think about the much maligned Vista operating system and its place in software history.
According to a presentation by a Microsoft security expert at the Usenix Security Symposium, being held this week in Washington, DC Vista OS was instrumental in finally bringing to the world a secure version of Windows.
To make matters more amusing, it was the most hated aspect of Vista, the User Access Control (UAC) which is the main reason we have more secure computing.
But Crispin Cowan, a Microsoft senior program manager for the Windows core security team, told PC World that it did not make things better in the way you might think.
As users moaned like crazy about the annoying UAC pop-up boxes many application developers were inspired to rewrite their programs so that they did not require full administrative privileges to run.
As a result users started to slowly grow more comfortable running in more limited, but safer, user modes.
Before Vista, everyone had administrative privileges and used programs that were not needed. UAC killed off a population of ill-behaved Windows programs and the number of programs asking for admin rights fell.
Cowan said that before Vista, Window's reputation for security was deserved admitted. Even today, Windows XP, lacks most of the security provisions needed for today's environments.
In the early days it was easier to stress usability over security, as well as interoperability among different programs, Cowan said.
Windows 7 made UAC more user friendly without relaxing the strict divide between user and administrator.
The UAC on Vista was/is very annoying, I'll give you that. But I still can't understand why everyone slates it quite as much as they do.
Sure, it's not as good as Windows 7 and on a lower-specced machine it's not as good as XP. But on a decent enough machine, it wasn't that bad an OS. I started using it about 10 days after it RTM'd (so long before OEMs had released drivers) and I still had no problems (apart from a short wait for a driver for my card reader).
All the slating in the news back in 2007 about it not working with stuff was all the device manufacturer's fault, not Microsoft's; one of the reasons why Win7 is so much "better" is because Microsoft have *forced* the device manufacturers to a) write proper drivers, dammit and b) include them in the OS.
A very good way for MS to do it, but they shouldn't "have" to do that - and you can't really blame them for not having done it with Vista.
That's my penny's worth, anyway. Feel free to disagree :) :)
You can layer all the bling you want on a pig, but it's still a pig.
I do have to applaud Microsoft for starting down the process of forcing application developers to structure their products properly for security, but they still have a LONG way to go.
Now clunky freezee' xp has gone & deep in software freezes gone with changeover. -=7=- still coexists with hardware flukes, yet software is readying for all language SP1 & maybe next year, late;SP2. Nice Smooth hardware & software build. hopefully 8 will do 6,8,12,16 core bobs' like Champion. maybe as Late as 2013, or sooner. 8 fallen from lotto contest of specualtion for Now. finally 64 bit is smoothee'.
vondrashek md