dsmith

Stable ?

My Win2K Laptop has never BSOD once in 3 1/2 years. I patch it regularly (vital for ANY OS) and have AV running. I dont install any old ****e and it works faultlessly for me.

There is very little excuse for large IT dept struggling with Virus these days. Having good access policies and rigid enforcement within a corporate LAN should be enough to keep the ****e out on the internet where it belongs.

Muppets will screw up any os eventually.

Dean

CTR

Boomer, although that article has some valid points, I have to disagree with some of them

"And because Windows administration is so GUI-dependent, it is often necessary to log in to the admin account to get anything accomplished, which again encourages home users to work from it by default. UNIX-like systems can be administered easily from a user account, either by logging in to a shell as root, or by using a GUI admin interface such as SuSE's YaST or Mandrake's DrakX and logging in as root."

Erm, doesnt that paragraph basically say you have to do the same thing. You have to log in as Admin to administer windows, and you have to log in as root to administer unix? Fine you have to actually log out, and log in on Windows, I dont see the problem with that.

"Transparency
UNIX-like systems are transparent to users and administrators. It's easy to see what processes are running, and to understand the dependencies among them. A Windows system often has scores of processes running, and it is often difficult to determine what effect killing one will have on another."

Really, so a user using Unix will understand all the processes and dependencies among them, how? If they are a techie then perhaps, but your average user wont. You can see what processes are running in Task Manager, Im sure the names are just as comprehendable as Unix process names.

"Windows also stashes data in numerous obscure locations, such as the Registry, making data hygiene difficult to practice. It has numerous databases like those maintained by the Indexing Service, the famous index.dat files, and the Registry. Configuration files are difficult to locate, often unreadable, and options must be chosen with proprietary tools like Regedit and GUI interfaces. UNIX-like systems, on the other hand, use simple text configuration files that are easy to locate, and that can be edited, and even write protected, easily."

So the registry is harder to find than a text file. Why are configuration files harder to find on Windows than Unix, there are were they are designed to be put. As for using proprierity GUI apps to administer them, I dont see that as such a bad thing, at least you can do some validation of what the user is typing in. I rarely dig around in the registry, because most applications are configured through their GUIs and installations.

"So, while openness provides a couple of security advantages in itself, the chief reason why Linux and BSD offer superior security is not so much because they're open source, but because they're not Windows."

Good arguement, the person who wrote this is obviously a Unix lover, Microsoft hater. Having used open source stuff in my work, its just as buggy as anything else. The documentation is usually sh!te, the stuff is written by techies who hate documenting things, so all those text based configuration files are a pain to set up, unless you know exactly what you are supposed to put in there. As for "white hats" finding and fixing flaws and bugs, they will, just as "black hats" will continue to find them. No piece of software is ever going to be bug free, and if they keep developing it, more bugs will appear. Another thing the people who write the open source stuff I have come across, seem to have little interest in fixing boring things like memory leaks etc. Sure I could fix them myself, but I rarely have time in projects to sift through other peoples code and fix it.

CTR

That I have to agree with.

class_A

XP already has a firewall built-in, it's just not turned on by default as it would "confuse users"

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/p...orking/icf.asp

SP2 will add a GUI to allow easier administration of this firewall.

angrynorth

Like I keep saying, I'm just trying to encourage people to try other systems and not be so blinkered. I've tried Windows lately, seen a working beta of Longhorn too and they are just not good enough. The future looks bleak for Windows at the moment.

GaryK

an,

Unlike William H. Gates III's bank balance

Gary

angrynorth

So true, if only it were mine eh?

ChrisB

Beta of Longhorn - it's hardly to going to be release quality is it? It's a beta

Can you address the question of how good (or bad) your IT dept is to end up with a virus infected LAN please?

WinXP Pro on my laptop comes in and out of hibernate serveral times a day without a problem and has done since I installed it (I had the laptop new in May 2002 and put XP on reasonably quickly IIRC).

gregh

I decided to take a long trial of Linux, so set up dual boot on my laptop. I've now deleted the Linux partition?

Why? Because Linux on my laptop couldn't support:

Offline email like Outlook 2003 does
Reliable suspend/hibernate
Little/no power management
Ximian is always trying to copy Outlook, and doesn't have many of the features in Outlook 2003.
OpenOffice was ok
There was nothing to choose between boot time.
The linux system was no more reliable than XP (in fact was probably less so)
Couldn't find anything as good as Dreamweaver for Linux

regards,

Greg

Hanslow

I find it's pretty much a catch 22 situation though. People don't want to move over to another OS/system as they have all the software they want on the system they currently use. Developers will probably not develop it for another system as there is no demand because people are sticking with what they have. If it carries on like this, people will just stay with what they are happy with. Guess it's mainly a case of supply and demand?

angrynorth

Its poor, really poor. Take a look at the GUI for instance, its a mess Paul Thurrots Imaginatively titled Windows Super Site

Even if this is Beta you would expect much more considering its been in dev for 2 years already.

The IT department here are actually very good at what they do, one of the sales people brought in a laptop with a virus on which managed to bring down the LAN after being plugged into the network, subsequently spamming everyone in the building.

The other company I was talking about (the ones who won't even consider other options) are just plain bad at everything.

CTR

I have to say I dont like the UI on XP, too noddy for my liking. The new UI on those Longhorn pictures looks even more Noddy.

ozzy

what are you expecting? there's so many desktop themes around you could change the look 'n feel in seconds

It doesn't look any worse than some of the **** KDE/Gnome desktops I've used in the past. I'm sure with some simple design, it could look exactly like a Mac OS.

I'm quite prepared to look at any alternative to running MS (in fact before this job, I spent 6 years working with NetWare and loved it).

I hated Red Hat - it's just so cumbersome, the GUI was very slow and it was a huge PITA to install anything.

Apple's are fantastic pieces of kit (my Brother works for a huge reseller), but you have to invest everything into one company and that's no better than investing everything in a Microsoft solution.

Common belief is

PC's = low-cost, high maintenance
Mac's = high-cost, low maintenance

Personally, our PC network is very low maintenance. XP and Windows 2003 is proving very stable. I've been with this company for nearly 3 yrs and very rarely did our NT4 servers let me down. The migration was a complete PITA though.

If you could suggest an OS, Office-type app and mail client (for Exchange) that will run on x86 platform, I'll happily use it as a desktop for the next few weeks.

Stefan

ozzy

Oh, and we receive viruses on a daily basis here and (touch wood) I've never had an infection in 3yrs. I have NAI/McAfee to thank for that, not MS.

Stefan

angrynorth

OS: Lindows
Office app: Microsoft Office
Mail client : Lindows Mail

Even if they have got the most blatant copy of the Apple site I've ever seen!
Lindows

Jye

One word. Games. Macs are still sheeite for em compared to windoze.

SomeDude

Good thread, but it also depresses me a bit.

If a new OS comes around, and it can capture a (paying) audience, it will. Isn't that what we call "free market" ? Or have we all turned into communists and the working mass "hasn't seen the light yet"

Give me a break.

At the moment, there is no alternative. Sure, Mac UI's have always been better, and I love the Mac, but I could not run my business or development on it.

Microsoft are what they are because there are a lot of clever people in that company. They make loads of mistakes, and I'm a number one moaner when it comes to their quirks.

For the people that still think (that thought has been around for a few decades) that unix is much more secure, I can recommend the "Unix Haters Handbook" Do a Google, read it, and then come back to me

I also totally agree with ChrisB and CTR on this one BTW.

Larry from Oracle tried. He failed, miserably. Not because of lack of money etc, but because his products plainly suck (apart from the databases, they are so secure and store data so well, no one will be able to get the data out again )

It is fun to see competition, and I do have sympathy for them (Linux and other free student stuff). Sometimes something very good comes out of them (Apache !), but if you think for one moment I would change my company to Linux, I would have to say something boring like "can I have a bit of what you are smoking ?"

And if you want to crap on Windows, blame Compaq [] They were the "rebels" that actually turned the industry to MS.

Oh, and VB is an anomaly, what a nightmare

angrynorth

Just making the point that lots and lots of people aren't willing to look elsewhere.

You could run your company on a Mac. Loads of programes are out and those that aren't you can just load up Virtual PC

SomeDude

LOL, VirtualPC as a copout

I do look at the alternatives, I did load SuSe etc, but for my work (IT developer) it just didn't "make it".

AS400's never have trouble with virii, are robust etc... would you like to run one of those to go onto Scoobynet ? VMS ?

Microsoft is as much a victim of their success as the end users are. The virus stuff angers me, but much of that is due to this reasonably new thing called "The Internet"

I never had virusses on Compuserve, should we go back to that ?

Irony, if MS had not put in tcp/ip into WinNT 3.0 and 3.11, there would never have been a "security" problem.

They would also probably not exist anymore.

Scoobynet would also very probably not exist...

Sooo...

You have a legacy of "interrupts", badly written software that people swear by (Lotus 123, Multimate), and you want to move ahead. Would you have been able to do that ? I wouldn't, and I'm a top class programmer. They did.

So yes, I did look at the NeXT (remember ? , I do know that Apple were a few years ahead most of the time (maybe they stole better from Xerox Park ?), and I often curse the Win32 API, but don't ask me to switch. Yet.

There simply is no alternative. Yet.

GaryK

SD,

some very valid points raised, however I think M$ are the incumbent. There is too much legacy and history which stems all the way back to Win3.x which is why there is such a large installed user base. It was well known at the time that win3.x had no copy protection and (not sure exactly the figure) but there were something like 4/5 pirated copies of Win3.x to every legit copy - worldwide. Did this harm M$? no way either thru luck or very shrewd judgement this swelled their userbase to such an extent it was a natural progression for them to move to Win32 platforms. Coupled with the fact that at the time Mac/Unix and OS/2 offered no real alternative or more importantly weren't agressively marketed as windows was.

Ive tried linux in extensively in the past, all this crap about how it runs better on a lesser spec machine etc., bollox load up KDE 2.x or worse 3.x or Gnome and it takes as longs as and runs about as fast as windows.

As for switching to another OS, 6 months I would agree I wouldnt do it cos of business and development but then I never stopped to *really* think about what I needed. Now I am seriously considering moving to OS X. Why? Well for my business I need word/excel/powerpoint/adobe/internet/email/sql client o and messenger . I also (less now) do delphi s/w dev. work and for that I would keep a Wintel box. Everything else I can run native on OS X with full office compatbility and what I cant I'll just run virtual PC. I still run win2k because Im not one of those 'fvck knows why or what it will give me I just gotta have the latest OS' people anyway so I guess kissing Windows goodbye is less of an issue. I dont 'do' the latest stuff as someone very smartly said to me Winxp is just Win2k in a clowns suit!

I think M$ software is all going the same way - tons and tons of features that most people dont need/use and M$ working hard to persuade us into buying/upgrading!

Gary

angrynorth

I'm not asking you to switch, in fact I'm not asking anyone to switch. I'm just merely pointing out that many people on this forum who are having problems with Windows might be better off looking at alternatives rather than torturing themselves.

Also some IT departments could do with opening their eyes a bit too.

Buckrogers

Windows is great...long live MicroSh!te