back to article Windows 8 to ship with built-in malware protection

Microsoft's next version of Windows will ship with "tons of security features," including one that automatically scans boot drives for malware and a revamped version of the Windows Defender antivirus program, company executives said. At the company's BUILD conference in Anaheim, California on Tuesday, Corporate Vice President …

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  1. jake Silver badge

    That's all very nice, I'm sure ...

    ... but what can I do productively with Windows 8 that I couldn't do with DOS 5.0 and DesqView, on an i386sx16 (with math-co), 4 megs of RAM and a 40Meg harddrive?

    That's a serious question, and one that Mr. Angiulo and the rest of Microsoft's top brass seem to be forgetting. And also why I haven't used or worked on or recommended anything Microsoft-based since the end of 2009. Too big & bulky; too much glitter; too much "the user has no need to know", etc. etc.

    1. Bear Features

      Well you stick to your DOS 5.0. Who is forcing you to change?

      Let us know how far you get ;o)

      1. jake Silver badge

        @Bear Features

        Actually, I use a stripped down version of Slackware for my day-to-day computing needs. I only install the software I actually use. It works quite nicely. But I could use DOS 5.0 to do the same thing, if I wanted ... I just prefer a unix-style solution.

        All my businesses are profitable (except my fledgling brewery, which should turn a profit in a year or two, and the tack store, which will always operate at a loss ... ).

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      40MB? I have pictures larger than that. Also, I frequently watch movies on optical disks that could swallow your 40MB HDD a thousand times over. If a 386 is all you need, then fine, but most of us moved on a long time ago.

      I also play games that need lots of processing power as well as multiple GB of hard drive space and I work with multi-GB datasets.

      A serious question would be why is Win8 sufficiently better than Win7 that people should make the switch. Though, most people just use the OS that comes preinstalled on their new machine and don't care much about the version number.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        You say that like its a proud boast

        Efficient computing isn't a dick-waving contest. More isn't necessarily better. In fact, usually its a symptom of laissez-faire laziness.

        The Hubble has a 486 processor. That was after an upgrade.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          The Hubble is a camera!!!

          Its got very little processing power because A: it doesnt need it and B:its less weight and less to go wrong.

          Your point is invalid. My watch has more raw power than the hubble but it cant take pictures like the hubble can.

          1. Tom 13

            The Hubble doesn't drop film canisters,

            it ships packets processed from CCD collectors. Therefore more processing power is better. the newer processors don't necessarily mass more than a 486. In the cold temperatures of space, cooling new processors is probably easier. There may be less to go wrong, but the engineering on chips, unlike certain OSes, is pretty solid. Granted, it probably makes more sense to add RAM before boosting processing power for the Hubble, but that sort of makes his original point: the device should be engineered to the specs required for the job. PCs these days are lots of glitz to have the latest bloatware features. Now, I love my bloatware, but that doesn't mean I don't recognize that it IS bloatware.

            1. Adrian Midgley 1
              Thumb Down

              Cooling in space is harder

              No air to blow over things.

        2. Scorchio!!

          Re:You say that like its a proud boast

          "The Hubble has a 486 processor. That was after an upgrade."

          The moon landing was done using XT processor technology, IIRC, but that is only possible for dedicated tasks and a simple OS. Neither of these pieces of kit are designed to carry out the multitasking, multimedia tasks that a modern machine does. You may want to describe it as dick waving, but you miss the point in so doing.

          If you love this old kit - and I started out on punch cards BTW, so perhaps that explains my perspective - then you knock yourself out. You won't achieve as much as other people do, but that's something you'll have to learn the hard way.

          1. jake Silver badge

            @Scorchio!!

            "The moon landing was done using XT processor technology, IIRC"

            You remember wrong. The AGC was built by Raytheon a decade and a half before the XT. Wiki (which I almost never cite, for somewht obvious reasons) has a fairly good overview:

            http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_Guidance_Computer

            "You won't achieve as much as other people do"

            ::heh:: ... Actually, knowing how to surgically apply which tool, where, and when, rather than throwing the kitchen sink at each and every problem, has allowed me to achieve more than most.

            God is an iron ...

            1. Anonymous Coward
              Anonymous Coward

              My stepdad ...

              Was a Raytheon engineer at the time ... he worked with Westinghouse on some of the later FBW adaptions of AGC -- this was how I got into computing. I was learning maths and transistor logic from him at age 12.

              Happy days.

            2. Scorchio!!
              FAIL

              @Scorchio!!

              Indeed I do. Later machines used XT chips, which I remembered having posted prior to fully engaging my CNS .

              However, and to drive my point home (this was edited and lost in Firefox so I'm now using a text editor within a multitasking environment) - I started off using a punch card system, moved on to DOS and was pissed off by its failings, especially when I had to use SPSS DOS to instruct Harvard Graphics to draw and save a graph from my neurophysiology research (you'll know the CPL and CPS restrictions were inherited from the punchcard's physical limitations), and to refine the instructions repeatedly over such a slow, cumbersome and unrelated system, whereas now I use SPSS Win to draw and export a graph to the clipboard/save it to a native format, paste into a document and, if I've done it properly (easy) it will update as my sample (and thus my data) expands, and with no effort my document is updated.

              Kitchen sink? Please. I use a pallette to the bottom left of my screen whether Linux or Windows, and I can do other things at the same time; I do not use a kitchen sink, but rather select appropriate tools as and when I need them, without having to abandon a task, because I am mutiltasking.

              Rather than iron I use stainless steel or even platinum. God? I am an atheist, and my qualifications in neuroscience inform this. Hah.

              1. jake Silver badge

                @Scorchio!!

                For "kitchen sink", kindly read "shovelware". Windows, OSX, Ubuntu, whatever ... anything that attempts to be all things to all people falls under this umbrella. As in "everything, including the kitchen sink".

                The "God is an iron" comment is a Spider Robinson[1] quote ... "if a glutton practices gluttony, god is an iron".

                I'm not an atheist, I'm agnostic.

                [1] If you haven't read the "Callahan's" series, stop everything & head for your library.

      2. jake Silver badge

        @AC23:41

        I have pictures bigger than 40 megs myself[1]. They are stored on my SAN, and cropped and color corrected (etc.) on a dedicated image processing computer, Slackware based, with only the bare bones necessary software installed. My Wife's minimal video needs (horse sales, mostly) are handled quite nicely on an original 256Meg iMac, running an aging, stripped down variation of YellowDog. Neither are "general purpose computers", nor should they be. Only stands to reason ... Hardware is cheap-to-free, and really good OSes are free.

        Games and movies aren't exactly productive, which was an integral part of the question. Agree that "most people" just blindly use what Marketing tells them to use. They are interface users, not computer users.

        [1] I use an aging Hasselblad with a CF39[2] back, when I'm not teaching my nieces & nephews the delights of B&W film ...

        [2] No, I didn't purchase it myself; I'm not prone to that kind of narcissism. It was my Wife's gift to me on our 10th wedding anniversary. To say I was floored would be the world's biggest understatement :-)

    3. Scorchio!!
      WTF?

      Re: That's all very nice, I'm sure ...

      "... but what can I do productively with Windows 8 that I couldn't do with DOS 5.0 and DesqView, on an i386sx16 (with math-co), 4 megs of RAM and a 40Meg harddrive?"

      Many of my audio files are three or more times that size; because I have 4 Tb on my main HDs I don't even bother to calculate. Also with DOS paste linking is not possible, so just how I am going to edit my graphs in the original package with the pastes being auto updated? Meanwhile, back at the PIM, an alarm is going missing in DOS, because it does not multi task that way... ...and doing VOIP whilst I'm editing those SPSS graphs, or some other massive audio or graphic file? No way, so there won't be a collaborative effort with someone a few thousand miles away. Likewise how do my AV et al. auto update, and what about DOS itself?

      Don't misunderstand me; I enjoyed DOS 3 x, Windows 2 x, and I grew up with what was happening. It was marvellous. I do not have a rose tinted perspective of the past though. I can remember wishing it was possible to do a variety of things that I now take for granted. It's over, although I do have a number of DOS packages and can boot up from a USB stick that is several hundred times the size of the largest HD I could use with DOS (oh yes, remember that limitation? Remember UMB?) As I type these lines I remember the difficulty I experienced in trimming my HD so that it was not over populated; as DOS progressed, I remember compressing my HD so that I could squeeze more in to my (by then) 500 Mb HD (I started off with a 32 Mb HD, and had a 720 Kb floppy drive that worked if I put the appropriate Drivparms statement in my config.sys). And Doom on a 486 DX, with 4 Mb RAM and 1 Mb video RAM (the hardware of the time was dictated by the contemporary demand)? Get outta here.

      No, I'm not going back there, but you can. There are plenty of downloadable DOS packages, right down to DR-DOS, which was a favourite of mine. Knock yourself out.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        A modern PC ...

        Has many orders of magnitude the power that a desktop had twenty years ago ... BUT

        a) a Word file still takes the same length of time to type and save

        b) individual productivity is less now than it was twenty years ago.

        Only difference is storage is both cheap and plentiful and processors are insanely fast. They HAVE to be to deal with the bloat in modern operating systems.

        All that power. All that speed. To completely no advantage. It isn't being leveraged. That was jake's original point.

        Go figure.

    4. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      @jake

      Hey if it works, then fair play to you, that's a pretty mean feat to keep that going. To all those ragging on jake, take a moment think where your priorities and interests lie and think where they may go next.

      When I was young and dopey I chased the bleeding edge. I had to have the fastest machine I could build with the latest O/S, huge memory and big disks. One day, 8 years ago, my little girl suddenly arrived on the scene and all that stuff didn't seem to matter anymore. My priorities changed almost instantly.

      Everyone has different prioriities in life, I no longer care much about machines at home. I have couple of NAS's for dumping stuff, a couple of old iMacs the family use and a CentOS box for media streaming. My desktop is now a 3 year old, second-hand iMac, my only hobby,when I get time, is digital photography. I have a 3 year old iPhone 3G my wife gave me when she got a new phone, it's good enough for me.

      The only thing that makes me laugh is that the R&D dept my company has only just finished the Windows7 eval and testing, getting ready to roll out. They may play with Win8 but I can't see that after 9 months of testing Win7 they will be in hurry to start running all those user tests again!

      I always enjoy the release of a new O/S though! The fervour of the fans, the ad's gearing up to make the sell, the big build up to the launch day. Then sitting back reading the rabid fans on forums defending theirs and attacking the other guy's O/S, helps pass the lunchtime at work!

      1. jake Silver badge

        @AC 12:44

        I don't see anyone ragging on me.

        I do see several people who can't read for context.

        My question was "what can I do productively with Windows 8 that I couldn't do with DOS 5.0 and DesqView" ... Keyword "productively".

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Go easy, jake

          I don't think these kids can read.

        2. Syntax Error

          Difficult to Answer

          As Windows 8 is not out, depends what you mean by "productively" as DesqView and DOS 5 are so ancient I have serious problem knowing what you could with such OSs. You would certainly have a problem using the internet unless you just like text. I don't think there is a web browser You would only be able to connect to the internet via SLIP or PPP.

          I doubt you could record sound.

          Printing colour would be very difficult. Inserting pictures into text documents? Possible but not easy. .Creating web pages would be tricky. No web browser.

          You wouldn't be able to make a powerpoint presentation.

          Modern PCs and OSs make people far more productive certainly in work. Ask any Secretary or PA.

          Your whole set up sounds eccentric. If you have been using it for donkeys years and it satisfies your requirements then good for you. You cannot enjoy the pleasures of 21st century web browsing, video, music and other what you call non-productive tasks, but then maybe you don't want to,

          Windows7 is a lot more useful than DOS and a lot more fun!!

          1. jake Silver badge

            In lieu of multiple responses, I'll reply to Syntax Error ...

            "depends what you mean by "productively""

            Uh ... getting useful work done?

            "DesqView and DOS 5 are so ancient I have serious problem knowing what you could with such OSs."

            So why offer up an opinion?

            "You would certainly have a problem using the internet"

            No. I was using TehIntraWebTubes[1] before Microsoft existed ...

            "unless you just like text."

            That's a problem in your mind? 99% of the useful content available online is text. Seriously, think about it ...

            "I don't think there is a web browser"

            There was (and is); it's called "lynx" ... Once HTTP became common, anyway. Prior to that, we used telnet and ftp, for the most part.

            "You would only be able to connect to the internet via SLIP or PPP."

            Today, I use a modem to connect to TehIntraWebTubes[1] about one week a month, at 9600 baud on a good day. Most days it's more like 2400 or 1200. Fort Bragg, CA weather & an ailing cable plant make for a piss-poor signal/noise ratio.

            "I doubt you could record sound."

            Yes, I could record & edit sound. In stereo, even.

            "Printing colour would be very difficult."

            CMYK dot matrix printers were available.

            "Inserting pictures into text documents? Possible but not easy."

            PageMaker made that almost laughable easy.

            "Creating web pages would be tricky. No web browser."

            The WWW was very young in this time-frame. It was pretty much all text (kinda like Gopher). Everything was created using a text editor. And guess what? All of those pages are STILL readable (if they still exist). Unlike some stuff created with so-called "modern"' software that exists to lock consumers into corporate advertising bullshit, thus locking out people who refuse to conform.

            "You wouldn't be able to make a powerpoint presentation."

            Cry me a river. As a consultant who is brought in to fix b0rken c0rporate c0mputing, one of the first things I do is fire the middle management who claim (on a survey I provide) to "rely on powerpoint". Powerpoint has wasted more meeting hours ($$$) than any other bit of corporate bullshit that I can think of ... That said, read up on "Aldus Persuasion".

            "Ask any Secretary"

            Ask any secretary who worked with a Displaywriter if a current Microsoft-based system is better. But get ready to duck, you'll probably get slapped.

            "Your whole set up sounds eccentric."

            Ta :-)

            "You cannot enjoy the pleasures of 21st century web browsing"

            Yes, I can. My main box is Slack-current. Horses for courses and all that.

            "video"

            I have dedicated video gear. Including production.

            "music"

            I have a dedicated sound system. Including production.

            "and other what you call non-productive tasks"

            Are they productive, or entertainment? If entertainment, are they really required at work?

            "but then maybe you don't want to"

            I don't think you really grasp my point ...

            "Windows7 is a lot more useful than DOS"

            Post proof, or stop regurgitating Microsoft's marketing babble.

            "and a lot more fun!!"

            Ah. Glitter rules, then. Sorry, bub, I use these tools to make a living ...

            1. Anonymous Coward
              Anonymous Coward

              @Jake

              Proof that Windows 7 is more useful than DOS?

              My mum, my niece (4yo) and many other non-computer professionals can use Windows 7, they found it very hard or impossible to use DOS.

              Or: More people use Windows 7 therefore it's of use to more people than DOS, therefore it's more useful than DOS.

              1. Marcelo Rodrigues
                Devil

                Non sequitur?

                A billion flyes can´t be wrong! Go, give it a taste!

                You do realise that you are, still, missing his point. Don´t you?

              2. jake Silver badge

                @AC 12:54

                Me DearOldMum (mid-70s and computer incompetent) & Great Aunt (late 90s and computer illiterate) use a version of Slackware that I provided for them. Their support calls have dropped from several times per month for software issues with MS products, to once or twice a year for hardware issues.

                My 9 nieces and nephews (two families, aged roughly 4 to just over 14) all use a similar variation of Slackware. The eldest found a "free" Celeron-based PC and managed to install her own copy (from my install DVD) without any help from myself or her parents. Including networking & printing. Her brother (barely 13) is in the process of figuring it out for himself with a blank computer I provided when my brother asked if I had any spares I could "donate".

                The "more is always better" argument falls flat on it's face if you take note of the lard-asses who subsist on fast-food here in the USofA ...

            2. Anonymous Coward
              Anonymous Coward

              Printing in colour? Jeez ...

              I was hand-editing colour-separated PostScript files in 1990 on a DOS PC and sending them to a PostScript printer or Monotype imagesetter ...

              COPY THIS.PS LTP1:

              I was also able to check them first (to make sure they would actually work) by using GhostScript to give me a beautiful full-colour preview -- this also in DOS. Also used an identical process on a UNIX workstation -- which I also used to digitise fonts.

              I also had eMail (command line based natch and still do prefer it this way) and today I still regularly use lynx -- and when I *do* use a graphical browser I tend to use Readability to just show my the plain text content of the page without all the peripheral shit around it.

              All this and infinitely more was possible on a 386 with 8Mb memory and a 40 (later 80) Mb hard disk. I also actually used to write Windows programs IN DOS because that was the ONLY WAY to DO IT for years. Native compilers running under Windows didn't even exist.

              I would say these were the most productive computer-using years of my life.

        3. pitagora
          FAIL

          I have a feeling that "productively" for you means office apps like wordperfect for DOS :)) You know so people's needs go beyond typing documents. I for instance need synchronization of documents with my coworkers and versioning (Office 2008), access to ERP and reporting software (powered by hopefully a fast database preferably not stored in a file on my DOS system but somewhere where my colleagues can access too - even those working in other locations then me), need some CRM software preferably integrated with our voip phone system. My colleagues at marketing also need a powerful image editing software, email applications (not text only!!!) to be able to send drafts of their work, etc.

          As for other people, "productive" applications also tend to include engineering design applications (and please don't tell me AutoCAD R12 for DOS because at today's standards there isn't much you can do with it), architectural design applications, simulators, etc. Most of these tasks couldn't be done with the software or hardware available in that period. Without them we'd all just be living 80s-90s, without all the technological advancements done since. If we are at it, why don't we just give up technology entirely and live caves like we used to, right?

          1. jake Silver badge

            @pitagora

            "I have a feeling that "productively" for you means office apps like wordperfect for DOS :))"

            No, "productivity" means running my businesses without the computers getting in the way.

            "I for instance need synchronization of documents with my coworkers and versioning"

            We were doing that with UNIX[tm] back in 1973.

            "access to ERP"

            My granddaughter erped on me a couple hours ago ... and in my mind, that was far more useful than so-called "enterprise resource planning" ...

            "need some CRM software preferably integrated with our voip phone system."

            Ah, I see. You're a marketard. You've drunk the coolaid. Poor bastard.

            CAD systems & the like should be dedicated systems, and use whatever hardware, OSes, and software are required to run said systems. This kind of kit is specialized, not common-or-garden desktops. Or should be.

            Side-note: I still use ACAD for DOS, it manages my Ranch infrastructure quite nicely. I drew the place up in it, I made changes to those plans in it, and I continue to document changes in it. Why do you have issues with this?

  2. Thomas 18
    Thumb Down

    Video wouldn't play with NoScript in firefox so...

    Started downloading it with DownloadHelper. Stopped after the 2GB mark (unknown max file size). I'm interested in Windows 8, but not 2GB interested.

    1. E 2

      No you do not understand

      You can format your disk with fat, fat32, exfat, ntfs. None of those are a function of the OS except that M$ includes one or the other in various 'versions' (starter, home, pro, ent, give-me-a-break-the-shit-is-too-deep) of it's OS. Some file systems support big files, others do not.

      The only real advances M$ has made in approx 17 years was (1) 32 bit support [Win95], (2) pre-emptive multitasking [NT], (3) 64 bit support [XP 64].

      Everything else has been Window-dressing.

  3. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Impressed so far

    .

    This looks very promising I have to admit.

    .

    .

  4. Dalen
    FAIL

    "Windows 8 to ship with built-in malware"

    That was how Google Reader displayed the article name for me. Somehow, I was not surprised.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Joke

      mal-ware ?

      I think MetroWare is a much better description :-)

  5. Charles Manning

    I don't want tons of security features

    I just want a simple security model that works behind the scenes that I don;'t even need to know about.

    Security is one are where less is more. Joe Sixpack does not want to learn how to use tons of features to secure their system. Any system that has tons of features won't work because it won't be used properly.

    1. phlashbios
      Meh

      Tons of security features?

      You seem to think that "Joe Sixpack" has to learn how to use tons of features to secure their system. While I wouldn't wish to comment on the effectiveness of Windows Firewall, Windows Defender and Microsoft Security Essentials, the first two come with the OS and MSE is a download from the MS website. None of them require the user to have to learn to use tons of features, in fact they need minimal interaction from the user at all, other than during operation, asking the odd question of you regarding whether you wish to allow an action that the products have detected might have questionable consequences.

      MS make great efforts to ensure their OS's and products are as painless as possible to use for end users. While the IT crowd might argue against what they see as the dumbing down of operating systems and the hiding of the nuts and bolts, there is little doubt in my mind that the average end user just wants it all to work, in the same way as they want the TV to just work, and I fully expect Windows 8 to be a positive iteration of Windows 7 in that many things will work very well, without tying up the average user in endless configuration questions that they do not wish to even begin to try and understand.

      We live in an age where computer technology is sold in the same way as all other consumer technology is sold - i.e. you can turn it on and it just works. There is a reason why Apple do so well for example, and it is not just down to marketing. It is because they can deliver products to the consumer that the consumer feels just work out of the box and are simple to use. Why would we criticise MS for doing the same thing. I look forward to Windows 8, confident that it will be a refinement of Windows 7, which is already a relatively painless OS to use.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      err...

      ...well clearly you have not used a Windows product for sometime.

      I've never really had to touch or modify 99% of them and Windows Essentials must be one the most simple ones to set up and install going.

  6. neutrino
    Alien

    registry?

    I just wish they'd do some work on the registry ! it's (becomes) bloated & inefficient, and I have to wonder how much it is required!! it should be only for the operating system itself, it's not 100% required for installing programs! The operating system does virtually no updating of the registry when files are moved, uninstalled, deleted etc etc - these should at least be recorded in a temp directory, and a registry update should be performed either at a set time, or on system shut-down. This is an area that is in serious need of a complete makeover!

    Though ha~ that might bring an end to all those registry cleaners/optimisers/fixers that generally do little to improve anything, and can cause major problems.

    1. E 2

      Registry

      Well, friend, UNIX has survived since about 1975 using text files for almost all it's config. So I'm gonna say the registry is not strictly speaking needed.

      1. Scorchio!!

        Re: Registry

        "Well, friend, UNIX has survived since about 1975 using text files for almost all it's config. So I'm gonna say the registry is not strictly speaking needed."

        I remember .ini files. Oops! They're still there, so I find myself wondering in a circular pattern; the registry is easier to protect and so on. Hmm.

        1. Tom 13
          Pirate

          Except that based on the way malware re-writes the registry

          it seems it isn't actually easier to protect. So maybe it would be better if the ini files were still the primary configuration location and you could just copy a good one from a known trusted location.

          ...

          Oops, that migh frackup the DRM that prevent pirating, never mind.

          1. Scorchio!!

            Re: Except that based on the way malware re-writes the registry

            Hence my cautious comments, in which I implied a circular argument. Rather than go that way, whereas in saving some problems others were caused, wanna buy a good HIPS and a good registry protector?

  7. Ryan 7

    "You choose the picture – and the gestures you use with it – to create a password that's uniquely yours."

    Isn't that the whole point of *any* type of password?

    1. Scorchio!!

      @Ryan 7

      ' ""You choose the picture – and the gestures you use with it – to create a password that's uniquely yours."

      Isn't that the whole point of *any* type of password? '

      All passwords are equal, but MS passwords are more equal than others?

  8. Blitterbug
    Unhappy

    Wait for the 'tards...

    This is encouraging, but wait for the brainless comments to follow...

  9. Marty McFly Silver badge
    Terminator

    Symantec?

    Ha! If MSFT had produced a secure OS in the first place, SYMC would have never grown into the company it is today.

    "Microsoft is not a security company. Security is important, but it's just a little part of Microsoft," Arno Edelmann, Microsoft Business Security Product Manager, as reported on ZDNet.

    'nuf said.

    1. dogged
      Thumb Down

      name one secure OS. Just one. I'll wait.

      1. jake Silver badge

        @dogged

        Secure OSes? TOPS-10, TOPS-20 and VMS spring to mind. Yes, I run all three.

        OS/390 and zOS are fairly decent. Hell, OS/2 (ecomstation, these days) is better than any other consumer-grade OS that I can think of ...

        1. dogged

          None of these are secure once connected to the Internet. For example, VMS passwords can be bruteforced in under twenty hours. In general, a VAX is reasonably secure, but only because it tends to be an isolated box.

          1. jake Silver badge

            @dogged

            I'll assume you're typing at me ... There is a reason we invented titles.

            ANYway ... You can't brute-force my TOPS systems, my VMS system or small cluster of vaxen, for the simple reason that they are behind a firewall based on their great-grand-kid, my variation of one of the BSDs. If you can figure out how to finger my system, it'll provide instructions on how to join the MUD I run. (I don't actually play the game, I provide it & admin it ... it was a provision in the terms that allowed me to take possession of the hardware).

            Modern network security isn't "one size fits all", it's a layered thing ... Which is exactly where Microsoft falls down on the job.

      2. eulampios

        naming insecure

        It easier to name insecure one: MS Windows. Let's see, microsoft.com strongly recommends an AV on all of its desktops and servers. Redhat or Debian do not, except for the Windows clients...

        1. dogged

          And you think that's responsible behaviour, do you?

          You're in Marketing, right?

  10. Wile E. Veteran
    Linux

    New life for a creaky laptop

    I replaced Vista (don't laugh, it came preloaded) on this creaky Celeron-based laptop with Xubuntu - the minimal eye-candy flavor of Ubuntu. I thought I'd gotten a whole new laptop! I do have to replace the keyboard because I use it so much some key-tops are falling off but I can do that for under $20 by buying a NOS keyboard off of Tat 'R' Us (oops, I mean eBay). I can do absolutely everything I have or want to do with this setup so I won't be in the market for a Win8 machine. Others may **have** to use some flavor of Win so maybe Win8 will be an improvement for them. I'm just glad I'm not one of them!

    DISCLAIMER: I have *nix experience going back as far as a Bell Labs V6 work-alike, various flavors of SysV, NetBSD, FreeBSD, HP-UX, SunOS and Solaris not to mention various "distros" of Linux so I am not at all uncomfortable with The Unix Way. This Xubuntu is the nicest (for personal use) I've run across yet. I also have MS experience back to MS Basic on a VIC-20 not to mention every version of DOS and Win since then except Win7.

    1. E 2

      Oh come on now

      Linux desktop distros have grown up. Your and my 20 years of UNIX experience are not really needed any more.

      What is needed is game dev and distro houses to support Linux. If that happened then Windows would vanish down the ash-hole of history faster in a flash.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        "What is needed is game dev and distro houses to support Linux. If that happened then Windows would vanish down the ash-hole of history faster in a flash."

        Aren't you forgetting that business still buys and wants MS/Windows? They don't give a flying monkey about what o/s games run on. Even when there's a free alternative they usually go with what they (and, let's face it most of their users) know - MS/Windows/Office/Exchange.

        1. eulampios

          schools overfed with M$ and Mac

          And how do they know that?

          One professor in my grad school was notorious in cramming all his diffeq courses with super expensive Mathematica. No wonder, he had a grant paid by the Wolfram Res. Now you ask , why do engineers have such extravagant tastes? Why not go with free and equally powerful octave, gp, maxima etc?

      2. KjetilS

        I'm guessing proper Steam support would help a great deal here.

        Seeing that Steam already supports OSX natively, Linux support shouldn't be *that* difficult.

    2. Scorchio!!

      Re: New life for a creaky laptop

      As of now the two XP machines here are slowly being edged out; this machine is a Vista machine. I've disabled all of the 'security' features using a tweaker; the machine is essential for a business email package, which relies on the MS windows explorer extensions that MS broke in Windows 7. The package's database is encrypted using Stac technology (meaning it's also in a single file), and contains research stuff going back over about 20 years. I could use the VM with Windows 7, but that would run in full multimedia mode, and for some of this stuff it's essential.

      So how is this being edged out at the moment? Because of the DRM fixation MS had in Vista I'm also using a Linux machine for recording stuff. Unfortunately my network drives are NTFS, so I'm using FAT USB drives. I don't know about Windows 7 or 8. I'll always need a machine that can read several Gb of mail database, and I'm stuck with that for the time being.

      As to Vista's mistakes, there was a beautiful article about them here: http://chalain.livejournal.com/ . I couldn't find it just now, but someone in Nigeria (how appropriate) has made use of it, though they have acknowledged the original user at the bottom of the quote:

      http://chxta.blogspot.com/2007/02/so-beautiful-so-disturbing.html

      When I read it my eyes popped out; I remember when PC Plus put a .wav file on their Superdisc (which I think was a 5 1/2 floppy); 'welcome to the PC Plus superdisc'. It played through the inadequate on-board speaker, and I couldn't imagine how things would progress. The Chalain article, if the author did but know it, has barely scratched the surface. One day.....

      1. Vic

        Re: New life for a creaky laptop

        > Unfortunately my network drives are NTFS, so I'm using FAT USB drives.

        Why?

        Linux has had decent support for NTFS for many years...

        Vic.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Indeed

          NTFS is not an issue for Linux. HFS+ is OK too.

          Linux. It does filesystems.

          1. Scorchio!!

            Re: Indeed

            Once bitten twice shy. I do not play dice with my data.

        2. Scorchio!!

          Re: Re: New life for a creaky laptop

          "Why?

          Linux has had decent support for NTFS for many years..."

          Hmm. I have a NTFS reader installed on my notebook and it has caused problems with my Seagate portable drive. I'm sure you'll give me good reasons for why this is so, but I've changed my strategy. I use FAT when linking the two OSs. It means using sneakernet, but I don't mind. I trust me.

  11. Tony Paulazzo
    Go

    My Optional Title (now I don't have to, I can't stop myself)

    Isn't that too little too late now we've got BIOS munching malware?

    Actually installed the developers preview on my HP touch smart laptop and not hating it yet, except, how are you supposed to exit those (fullscreen) apps solely through touch? only way I've found so far is to re engage keyboard and alt tab out (the tx2 hides the keyboard away under the touch screen), also the pen text recognition feels a bit sensitive, but early days I guess.

    I look forward to playing with it more and that has to be a good sign.

  12. E 2
    Linux

    Currently with Win7 I get to listen to my disk spin madly while I am not using the PC; I get to listen to the disk spin madly after I log in - until I try to investigate with Task Manager at which point the offending process instantly relents; I get to answer "Are you sure" *system modal* nag dialogs every time I update a bit of s/w; I cannot look into the contents of many many directories on C: (who owns this computer anyway?); I get to experience the disk spinning madly while I play L4D or Civ5 while my frame rate drops through the floor; ... . The love from Microsoft never ends!

    What more could I want that could be included in Win8?

    Perhaps I want a dialog box pop up at PC boot that informs me: "You are denied use of your property because a bunch of fuckwits in Redmond WA are using it."

    Then my Windows Experience would be complete!

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Windows experience

      Maybe you should get a friend who is good at computers to have a look at that for you.

  13. E 2
    Thumb Down

    ""tons of security features," including one that automatically scans boot drives for malware..."

    ".. the technology is ... uefi ..."

    OK, let's get a few things straight here:

    - EFI and UEFI are not 'M$ tech'. EFI has been around for ten or more years, are the product of multi-corp consortium intended to replace BIOS. UEFI is just an elaboration of EFI - again by a consortium. No M$ brilliance here except in committee with other computer companies.

    - All M$ has done here is write a program to the EFI spec that compares some checksums. I dunno about you but I think this is not very amazing.

    - Boot drive virus scanners are not news.

    - Pre-infected OS install disks are hardly a serious threat.

    Just more BS for the easily impressed, courtesy of M$.

  14. This post has been deleted by its author

  15. mark l 2 Silver badge

    secure boot

    "Michael Angiulo demonstrated an early version of Windows 8 that automatically scanned an infected USB drive used to boot the next generation operating system. Before the OS was able to load, the computer stopped the process and displayed a warning that the boot volume contained an "invalid signature" indicating it had been compromised."

    Thats all well and good with a lab created virus to demonstrate, but how well it will work in the real world when the proper virus writers get hold of it remains to be seen

  16. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Viruses

    "a revamped version of the Windows Defender antivirus program"

    'cos the last one was rubbish?

    1. N2

      But it works!

      'It stopped not only the EICAR test file, but more than a dozen malware items in Metasploit"

      so just another couple of hundred thousand or so others to detect

      snigger

  17. Tom 7

    @Charles Manning

    So what you want is simple security that works? But then you'll find computing hard. So you'll turn off the simple security and it wont be secure.

    Simple secure computing is an oxymoron - a bit like learning to drive without reference to the highway code. And computer security is generally not much more complicated than traffic lights but no-one seems prepared to learn it.

    Its OKish in a business environment where you can afford to employ someone to shout at when it goes wrong after you told them to relax the security so you could download and run a new game but when your on your own at home and its your credit card details going missing its a different matter.

  18. Nameless Faceless Computer User
    Thumb Down

    When is an OS not an OS?

    An operating system should not be creeping into my BIOS. The real reason they're doing this is to further Microsoft's vision - to turn the PC into an entertainment system. Downloadable music and video must not be copied. They tried and failed encrypting the hard drive and the introduction of Vista. So, they've finally gotten into the BIOS.

    This is not about squashing virus. This is about control. I don't want or need a PC to be a home entertainment system. I need a PC to be a PC.

    I switched to Mac. Yes, it's better; much better.

    1. dogged

      you don't like creeping control over what you can do so you switched to a Mac.

      Right.

      Excuse me, my head will be exploding over here for a while.

    2. EyeCU

      You switched to a Mac

      But despite your own rant about control you fail to see the irony

      1. Scorchio!!

        Re: You switched to a Mac

        "But despite your own rant about control you fail to see the irony"

        Harriet Harperson OS. [Disclaimer; I am not a parent.]

  19. Joe Montana
    FAIL

    Secure boot..

    UEFI is nothing new, it's been around for years and MS just happen to be the last OS that bothers to support it. Linux has had support for it for many years, and OSX has required it ever since they made the switch to x86.

    It's very dangerous including AV in the OS, if you have a single dominant AV product then it becomes too big of a target for the malware authors, who will simply write new malware specifically to neuter the AV.

    AV was only ever effective against relatively dumb malware... It is useless against active and organised groups, these people can download the latest av signatures themselves and modify their malware to be sure it's not detected. It's really not hard, there was a competition to do this at defcon a few years ago. And if you make your AV too sensitive to try and pick up new malware, you will end up getting false positives.

    And does anyone else think the boot sector checking is more about making sure you haven't installed a linux boot loader rather than keeping the users secure? And speaking of which, i played with reactos yesterday and found it had a feature windows has been seriously lacking for years - it doesn't blindly overwrite your MBR, it gives you the choice!

  20. Tom Chiverton 1
    FAIL

    Video fails to play on WinXP/FireFox. Appears to claim I don't support Silverlight (I don't), and the direct download link goes to an XML file rather than something VLC might have a hope of playing.

    Flash would be a better fall back...

  21. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    I think it's great they are including it. Security Essentials isn't a bad product, and runs a hell of a lot better than Symantec or McAffee. This OS is (re)entering an area that is brand new for hackers to exploit, and it's dragging a lot of bad coding habits with it.

  22. Dave 15

    When...

    When MS manage to make a windows PC running windows act as fast as that dreaded apple imac running an emulator then I'll be impressed. My upteen million ghz madkine with its lorry loads of memory still takes > 5 minures to load a mini right click menu

    1. Scorchio!!

      Re: When...

      "My upteen million ghz madkine with its lorry loads of memory still takes > 5 minures to load a mini right click menu"

      I don't know what you are running; perhaps a corrupted registry? I rarely wait for more than a second.

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