Critical Windows vulnerability under attack, Microsoft warns

Posting about Linux here?

Disclosure: I program Windows from application to driver level as well as using it to watch movies, edit DVDs, 3D render, play games etc. I also program Linux to driver level, have embedded Linux to run on Intel and non-Intel platforms and custom hardware, do real-time mods to the Linux kernel, use it as a mission critical server etc. etc.

To all of you posting about Linux here: how about relocating the many fine Linux forums which abound on the net. In case you haven't noticed, this is about a bug IN WINDOWS. If you don't like Windows, why are you even here?

Each time a Windows bug is mentioned a cacophony of "rah rah Linux" starts up which is about as helpful here as a truckload of manure (which most of you are shovelling at a great rate). You are just creating noise.

In a word: FUCK OFF!

@AC

"A high perentage of windows users are NOT TECH SAVVY, they get confused by mice and double clicking let alone anything else. Comments like yours just reinforce the fact that windows is better for the average users becuase hte average user WOULD need a course/book to help them switch to anything else anyway! let alone anything that requires command line and can't be done with a double click."

I think the point Geoff was trying to make was that it requires as little savvy (arguably less) to use a modern desktop linux as it does to use a windows. If something needs CLI config, then it's something A Bit Hard, something these people probably couldn't do under windows either. 99% of anything people with understanding problems need to do is done with a nice simple GUI these days (or, more likely, auto-configures itself). Not sure when you last tried a linux, but it's got a great deal more user-friendly over the last few years.

@DS

Have you ever actually TRIED working on a Windows machine in non-admin mode? I have two dedicated Windows XP machines for my kids to:

(1) Play games I've installed

(2) Use Firefox to play games on the Web at sites I've OKed and bookmarked. (And yes, I have NoScript installed in case they wander or click on any links).

I originally set them up with user accounts. Over 2/3 of the games I'd installed couldn't run in user mode. Similarly, most of the nefarious Web sites such as PBSkids.org didn't work correctly. Drivers wouldn't work, simple applications wouldn't open, files wouldn't save, and I ended up having to troubleshoot every single time they tried to do something new.

Now take that to a work environment for a software company, where you're constantly installing your company's own software to test/use/take screen shots of it. Can't do any of that in user mode!

In short, user mode wasn't even good enough to surf the Web, play games, or edit files. If it can't do that, then what the h*** good is it?

(OK. I guess I could have spent a couple of hours sorting through Windows security permissions to figure out which ones to enable to make all those things work, but it was a heck of a lot easier to give the kids admin permissions and tell them not to install anything without my permission).

Joe

I'm just saying...

... that all the new OS's from M$ since 2002 don't have this bug. Inference is that they are slowly learning to program more secure operating systems. There's little point criticising M$ for something they have already learnt from.

If Windows 7 has some design flaw leading to security holes then you'd expect them to sort that out by the time Windows 8 rolls along.

answering back

@Joe

"Fuck off" is two words.

Windows is a piece of shit, sold by a company that owes more to Black Beard than any reputable company.

Do you know how much money they have stolen from School Budgets with their vendor lock in and multi-year contracts?

The hospitals?

The Governments?

Most of you don't even care.

How can you claim any kind of moral awareness when you continue to give money to thieves, bullies and liars?

Cus it's easier than bothering to grow up and learn something new?

Of course Linux gets mentioned whenever there's another "new hole found in Windows" story. Not because Linux doesn't have any holes but because Windows is so bloody easy to exploit.

Run levels, the need to run as Admin online or get faced with "you don't have the necessary permissions to install this plugin" messages (cus they're too stupid and stubborn in Redmond to copy the Unix security model).

Linux was designed by Users. Windows was designed by bitter twisted dwarves in a cave somewhere (or so it would seem from the way it behaves).

It's not that Windows users aren't tech savvy - it's because Microsoft brag about how safe each new Windows release is and they believe. Gullible perhaps - ignorant - not really.

Can't say I've ever noticed iTunes fucking up cd writers and I've run it on Windows and OSX (with 3rd party writing apps in both cases).

YMMV as the saying goes.

trolls everywhere

If MS is so worthy of defending, why do its defenders usually respond to the obvious Linux troll rants rather than the sensible posts? Because they're trolls too. It's one thing to say (quite rightly) that you can't leave MS because you're already locked in, but why when making such a statement do so many people frame it as a good thing? Because they're trolls.

If I see one more person joining in an OS flamewar here I'm going to post links to every Reg article on Digg. I'm not bluffing!

@Vincent

1) I agree with what you say.

My point is that it's wrong that it is happening. It ought not to be this way. Why should tools be withheld from the poor? It's outrageous.

In just the same way that certain people are OK with the idea that in a world where we have the where-with-all to treat everyone for a lot of low level medical issues, we don't. We shrug and put the medicine in the cupboard and say "when you can afford it you can have it" - this is a monstrous crime. And while I realise that software isn't the answer to the world's problems, it, like everything else, is kept in the cupboard for those who can afford it.

And this way of thinking and behaving stinks to high heaven.

(Spare me any diatribes on motivation and any grotesque nonsense about "capitalism is the best system we ever had" - (if that's true there is no hope)).

2) Waste of time money and electricity. Though of course, if you need more than one pc running at any one time then yes, you're right.