Interesting.....

[Tiger]

Why does MS need to know what non-MS software I, or anybody else, has installed on their systems?
Linky
Are they going to start providing support and updates for those apps as well?
Damn magnanamous (sp?) if you ask me.

 

[Chaotic42]

Originally posted by: Tiger
Why does MS need to know what non-MS software I, or anybody else, has installed on their systems?
Linky
Are they going to start providing support and updates for those apps as well?
Damn magnanamous (sp?) if you ask me.

Which is one of the many reasons that I don't run Windows Update.

 

[Barnaby W. Füi]

That revelation was not really a surprise.

Pretty sick :disgust:

 

[civad]

What is windows update, after all?

A worthless piece of software that

a. pops up almost everytime you dont need it to (esp. while playing games)
b. Thinks its smarter than the users of OS (which it isnt)
c. provided worthless 'updates' that arent quite necessaary for most normal users
d. Hogs system resources and bandwidth, esp. for dialup users.
e. All of these

...and I hate multiple choice questions. Because they make you use your best judgement

 

[bsobel]

Originally posted by: Tiger
Why does MS need to know what non-MS software I, or anybody else, has installed on their systems? Linky Are they going to start providing support and updates for those apps as well? Damn magnanamous (sp?) if you ask me.

First, small request, can you use a more descriptive title, it makes searching for non subscribers easier when we later yell REPOST 😉

Second, I don't know what the suprise (or concern) here is. Microsoft is providing updates for third party programs in some situations (normally driver updates). For example, thats why WindowsUpdate can give you updated drivers for your 3com nic or U.are.U fingerprint sensor even tho those devices aren't from MS.

Moving forward MS has considered allowing other vendors to publish their updates via WU. They have ALOT of people asking them to do this so there is one location for updates the user needs to go to.

a. pops up almost everytime you dont need it to (esp. while playing games)
b. Thinks its smarter than the users of OS (which it isnt)
c. provided worthless 'updates' that arent quite necessaary for most normal users
d. Hogs system resources and bandwidth, esp. for dialup users.
e. All of these

First, the post was about Windows update not Automatic update (but AU should be collecting the same info). WU update has never popped up on anyones system, its a website. AU does popup (if you don't like that turn it off).

c. provided worthless 'updates' that arent quite necessaary for most normal users

Since most of the updates are security related, your just wrong if you think most users don't need them.

Bill

 

[Barnaby W. Füi]

Second, I don't know what the suprise (or concern) here is.

Hah!

Microsoft is providing updates for third party programs in some situations (normally driver updates). For example, thats why WindowsUpdate can give you updated drivers for your 3com nic or U.are.U fingerprint sensor even tho those devices aren't from MS.

No, those are driver issues, and should be / can be determined by detecting devices attached to your system, it does not constitute a search of installed software.

 

[bsobel]

Microsoft is providing updates for third party programs in some situations (normally driver updates). For example, thats why WindowsUpdate can give you updated drivers for your 3com nic or U.are.U fingerprint sensor even tho those devices aren't from MS.

No, those are driver issues, and should be / can be determined by detecting devices attached to your system, it does not constitute a search of installed software.[/quote]

BingBongWongFooey, in all your posts you have a strong anti-ms bias, so I doubt you really care. But, presuming for a minute you do, the above suposition is wrong. You can't always tell all of the device drivers based on detecting devices attached to your system. You can usually detect hardware device drivers that way, but not demand loaded drivers.

Also, as I mentioned, MS is working on opening the WU channel to third parties. Getting the catalog off box and built is one of the first steps (if MS using this information for anything other than providing the current updates, it's going to be to prioritize which vendors to get onboard first).

Bill

 

[ProviaFan]

Originally posted by: civad
What is windows update, after all?

A worthless piece of software that

Well, Automatic Update is totally worthless and annoying; it's the first thing turned off by me when I install Win2k or XP.

a. pops up almost everytime you dont need it to (esp. while playing games)

Then turn off Automatic Update

b. Thinks its smarter than the users of OS (which it isnt)

Then you have to be smarter than it.

c. provided worthless 'updates' that arent quite necessaary for most normal users

So you think security and stability updates aren't important?

d. Hogs system resources and bandwidth, esp. for dialup users.

Nobody (well, most people don't) cares about tight coding and good web design to make life easier for us dialup-ers. It's not just Microsoft.

Still, it is stuff like this that makes me more motivated to have not just one, but all of my systems Linux or BSD based.

 

[Barnaby W. Füi]

BingBongWongFooey, in all your posts you have a strong anti-ms bias, so I doubt you really care.

No, I don't really care 😉, but I do enjoy good discussion/debate/etc, and I try to be fair.. 🙂

But, presuming for a minute you do, the above suposition is wrong. You can't always tell all of the device drivers based on detecting devices attached to your system. You can usually detect hardware device drivers that way, but not demand loaded drivers.

Ok, good point, instead of detecting the devices then, it should just detect what drivers are installed. Detecting drivers is one thing (and expected.. since windows update provides driver updates), but detecting all installed software is quite another. Do you really thing it's ok that they know every piece of software that's installed on your system (without notifying you)?

 

[bsobel]

Do you really thing it's ok that they know every piece of software that's installed on your system (without notifying you)?

I'd probably agree with you if they had a way of tieing user specific information to the data collected. Since all they have is the activation string from the system, and since I never registered (other than indicating I'm in the US), MS doesn't know what I have on my machine. They just know 'some user' (in my case) has Quicken, IE, NAV, etc. When you figure out how many users have Quicken vs some other product you starting seeing how they can prioritize which vendors to approach to include first.

I can also think of a number of other legitimate users for the info (one that sprang immediately to mind is warning users if a known application update with a pending patch might conflict, for example Quicken uses IE alot, if an IE update would break Quicken I'd prefer that WU at least warn me of that automatically).

I suspect we'll just have to disagree on this one (no surprise eh?) 😉

Bill

 

[Barnaby W. Füi]

b. Thinks its smarter than the users of OS (which it isnt)

Then you have to be smarter than it.

And that's where my big problem is with all supposedly modern GUI-based operating systems, they try to anticipate things for you. They try to think for you. I would rather control everything myself, and have a system that encouraged openness and user modification.

A decent knowledge of a scripting language or two can go a long way to weaning one off of complex gui programs that try to think for you, and instead let you do the thinking and create things that work for you, not you work for them 🙂

 

[bsobel]

And that's where my big problem is with all supposedly modern GUI-based operating systems, they try to anticipate things for you. They try to think for you. I would rather control everything myself, and have a system that encouraged openness and user modification.

Then go run one, or if you stay on XP change your shell to be cmd.exe and have a blast. But you have to realize the mass market doesn't want that, they want a device that approaches the easy of use of a VCR (and they can't even set the time on that without it being done automatically).
Bill

 

[Barnaby W. Füi]

I'd probably agree with you if they had a way of tieing user specific information to the data collected. Since all they have is the activation string from the system, and since I never registered (other than indicating I'm in the US), MS doesn't know what I have on my machine. They just know 'some user' (in my case) has Quicken, IE, NAV, etc. When you figure out how many users have Quicken vs some other product you starting seeing how they can prioritize which vendors to approach to include first.

I can also think of a number of other legitimate users for the info (one that sprang immediately to mind is warning users if a known application update with a pending patch might conflict, for example Quicken uses IE alot, if an IE update would break Quicken I'd prefer that WU at least warn me of that automatically).

Alright, that is fairly reasonable, however they still don't notify you that they are taking the information, don't you think they should?

And you also have to take the "slippery slope" argument into consideration, if they're taking anonymous info about what's installed now, what will they do in the future? What about people who *have* registered? It's sorta like when XP came out, everyone bitched about the activation and refused to use it and all that, now you see a vast majority of those same people (members here, is who I am talking about) running XP and praising it. People seem to abandon their morals and ideals very easily, I don't understand why.

I suspect we'll just have to disagree on this one (no surprise eh?) 😉

If everyone agreed, life would be boring as hell 😉

 

[Barnaby W. Füi]

Originally posted by: bsobel

And that's where my big problem is with all supposedly modern GUI-based operating systems, they try to anticipate things for you. They try to think for you. I would rather control everything myself, and have a system that encouraged openness and user modification.

Then go run one, or if you stay on XP change your shell to be cmd.exe and have a blast. But you have to realize the mass market doesn't want that, they want a device that approaches the easy of use of a VCR (and they can't even set the time on that without it being done automatically).
Bill

They can't set the time on the vcr because the lame gui interface on all vcr's is crap. If they had a keyboard for their vcr and they could just type "time 3:45pm" I bet people would be alot less intimidated. The command line is not arcane, it makes alot of sense depending on how it is implemented and what the purpose is.

[snip]Then go run one, or if you stay on XP change your shell to be cmd.exe and have a blast. [/snip]

What do you mean by "go run one"?

And cmd.exe is NOT a competent command line interface. I know most people think that command line is command line is command line, but if you saw some of the amazing things you can do in a nice unix shell, vs. what cmd.exe can do, I think you would see a big difference.

 

[bsobel]

And you also have to take the "slippery slope" argument into consideration, if they're taking anonymous info about what's installed now, what will they do in the future? What about people who *have* registered? It's sorta like when XP came out, everyone bitched about the activation and refused to use it and all that, now you see a vast majority of those same people (members here, is who I am talking about) running XP and praising it. People seem to abandon their morals and ideals very easily, I don't understand why.

I suspect the reason why is all the disinformation and plain lies that where spread before they even saw XP on how horrible the activation process was and how intrusive it was. I think when the vast majority of people realized it really didn't step on their toes at all, they realized that XP was actually pretty good. Not to change the debate (we can do this one later), but I see the exact same thing happening with all of the anti-palladium posts/arguments.

If everyone agreed, life would be boring as hell 😉

🙂

Bill

 

[bsobel]

If they had a keyboard for their vcr and they could just type "time 3:45pm" I bet people would be alot less intimidated. The command line is not arcane, it makes alot of sense depending on how it is implemented and what the purpose is.

The command line is arcane. Most users simply do not (and will never) understand it. Most should never have to. You realize we are selling computers to people in WalMart and Kmart? Those are not the target user base of command line users!

And cmd.exe is NOT a competent command line interface. I know most people think that command line is command line is command line, but if you saw some of the amazing things you can do in a nice unix shell, vs. what cmd.exe can do, I think you would see a big difference.

I know quite well what I good shell can do, I was just making an example. Replace cmd.exe with the shell of your choice and XP with the OS of your choice. Point being, noone was stopping you from doing what you said you wanted. However you see to think that whatever is good for you should be good for the mass market, and that's obviously not true.

Bill

 

[Barnaby W. Füi]

Not to change the debate (we can do this one later), but I see the exact same thing happening with all of the anti-palladium posts/arguments.

I agree, most people don't care about the core issue of handing over control, they just care about whether it will keep them from being able to pirate music/video/software. I care about the freedom part, and I will never support any TCPA/Palladium/DRM/etc technology at all. It is my computer, I want to do what I want, leave me the f@#% alone, RIAA/MPAA/MS/etc.

 

[bsobel]

Originally posted by: BingBongWongFooey

Not to change the debate (we can do this one later), but I see the exact same thing happening with all of the anti-palladium posts/arguments.

I agree, most people don't care about the core issue of handing over control, they just care about whether it will keep them from being able to pirate music/video/software. I care about the freedom part, and I will never support any TCPA/Palladium/DRM/etc technology at all. It is my computer, I want to do what I want, leave me the f@#% alone, RIAA/MPAA/MS/etc.

Excuse the non-sequitor, presuming you watch TV do you have satellite, cable tv, or and over the air antenna?
Bill

 

[Barnaby W. Füi]

The command line is arcane. Most users simply do not (and will never) understand it. Most should never have to. You realize we are selling computers to people in WalMart and Kmart? Those are not the target user base of command line users!

I don't like how people simply assume this. Yes, it is old, it has been around since at least the 60's, but the phone keypad has been around since earlier than that, and it's still around (well, there are phones that you can talk to to dial numbers...:Q), the steering wheel/gas/brake setup in cars has been around for even longer (I believe), just because an interface is old does not mean it is bad. You can say "it's too hard for most people to learn", but that is simply defeatist. By saying it's too hard, you offset the responsibility to the software manufacturers to make everything super easy to use. Software breaks and has bugs. That just puts you in the position of having to wait for a fix from the manufacturer for something broken to work. Do you think steering wheels should be replaced by buttons? Instead of analog gas/brake pedals, we could just have "go faster" and "go slower", I mean, gas and brake are just means of changing speed, right? No, of course not right 😉 There are too many intricacies and complexities which necessitate the two pedals. I think the same is the case with computers. They are just too damn complex and powerful to try to fit complex functionality into little gui buttons (and a bad implementation at that, in the form of windows).

I know quite well what I good shell can do, I was just making an example. Replace cmd.exe with the shell of your choice and XP with the OS of your choice. Point being, noone was stopping you from doing what you said you wanted. However you see to think that whatever is good for you should be good for the mass market, and that's obviously not true.

I don't think what is good for me is good for everyone, but I do think there is a middle ground.

 

[Barnaby W. Füi]

Originally posted by: bsobel

Originally posted by: BingBongWongFooey

Not to change the debate (we can do this one later), but I see the exact same thing happening with all of the anti-palladium posts/arguments.

I agree, most people don't care about the core issue of handing over control, they just care about whether it will keep them from being able to pirate music/video/software. I care about the freedom part, and I will never support any TCPA/Palladium/DRM/etc technology at all. It is my computer, I want to do what I want, leave me the f@#% alone, RIAA/MPAA/MS/etc.

Excuse the non-sequitor, presuming you watch TV do you have satellite, cable tv, or and over the air antenna?
Bill

I don't watch TV, except for conan occasionally, yeah, I'm a media whore for enduring the commercials 😉

I live with my mom (heh, that makes me sound alot less reputable all of a sudden 😉), she has cable, but I don't use it / watch it / pay for it.

I do however, sense your point about how I am a puppet of mass media and commerce as much as anyone else, and you are right. At the very least, I realize it, try to do things to lessen it, give alot of thought to the situation, and try to spread some intelligence about the whole subject. I could move to a unabomber style shack and just shut myself off from the rest of the "evil" commercial american world, but then again, I also want to have *somewhat* of a life 😉

 

[bsobel]

I don't like how people simply assume this. Yes, it is old, it has been around since at least the 60's, but the phone keypad has been around since earlier than that, and it's still around (well, there are phones that you can talk to to dial numbers...:Q), the steering wheel/gas/brake setup in cars has been around for even longer (I believe), just because an interface is old does not mean it is bad. You can say "it's too hard for most people to learn", but that is simply defeatist. By saying it's too hard, you offset the responsibility to the software manufacturers to make everything super easy to use. Software breaks and has bugs. That just puts you in the position of having to wait for a fix from the manufacturer for something broken to work. Do you think steering wheels should be replaced by buttons? Instead of analog gas/brake pedals, we could just have "go faster" and "go slower", I mean, gas and brake are just means of changing speed, right? No, of course not right 😉 There are too many intricacies and complexities which necessitate the two pedals. I think the same is the case with computers. They are just too damn complex and powerful to try to fit complex functionality into little gui buttons (and a bad implementation at that, in the form of windows).

And cars had manual starters too, old hand cranks. I suppose you'll argue next we should add those back? Who needs all that darn easy of use right? The increase in ease of use due to the move to GUI's has clearly moved the computing market forward. If your really claiming otherwise, you either havent' been in the computing field very long or are simply applying revisionist logic.

Tell you what, you really need a real world example. Please privately post some pictures of your family online and then go teach your grandmother how to use a command line interface to acccess them. If your going to respond and tell me she already does, then go teach MY grandmother to do the same. Once that is complete, we'll continue the debate 😉

Bill

 

[bsobel]

I do however, sense your point about how I am a puppet of mass media and commerce as much as anyone else, and you are right.

Actually that wasn't my point. My point was that your cable box contains DRM, as does my satellite dish. Without DRM in those boxes, I wouldn't be able to watch Six Feet Under tongith on HBO as they couldn't exist with their current revenue model. Like the cable/satellite industry drm controls via palladium/tcpa/etc will enable new kinds of markets. Now, as with HBO, no one is going to force you to have to participate (but it's there if you want it). Most or the disinformation around palladium is based on this thought that it will keep you from doing stuff with your own content, it only comes into play when you bring content in from providers who've chosen to protect it.

Now before you accuse me of being a tcpa cheerleader, I do think there are some privacy and other issues around some of the technology. But few people really know enough about the design and implemenation to post anything than made up theories about what it will do. Someone had just posted that when palladium ships MS was getting rid of the shareware market because getting your code to run on a palladium box wold cost 100k minimum. That kind of disinformation doesn't help people have an honest debate about the technology. That said it should be weighed in context of what it provides. Almost every posts I've seen on the subject is a rant (and usually an incorrect rant) on what palladium is and why it's evil. I'd much rather see a fair pro and con discussion, but I doubt few here are willing (and in some cases capable) of doing that.

Bill

 

[civad]

First, the post was about Windows update not Automatic update (but AU should be collecting the same info). WU update has never popped up on anyones system, its a website. AU does popup (if you don't like that turn it off).

I might have got a little carried away by the whole update things 🙂. The only windows machines I am 'exposed' to are my cousin's Win ME system and the Win XP system at workplace. (They also have Win 2k systems at my workplace which I asked for, and got recently to use...) Both these machines have 'AU's, so I kind of assumed that WU= AU. However, it is only recently I found out that AU can be turned off.

Since most of the updates are security related, your just wrong if you think most users don't need them.

I should be more specific: most so-called security-related updates are not for everyday users. I think that the one security-related update every Win user *must* have is regarding the omnipresent IE. Other than that, I wonder how many people would even bother to understand, say what Microsoft Jet or ODBC is, in order to 'do' a WU?

 

[civad]

Quote
b. Thinks its smarter than the users of OS (which it isnt)
Then you have to be smarter than it.

Well.. that could be a problem 🙂

So you think security and stability updates aren't important?

I never said that security and stability issues aren't important. I think I have clarified (though very briefly) regarding the security updates in my earlier post.

 

[bsobel]

I should be more specific: most so-called security-related updates are not for everyday users. I think that the one security-related update every Win user 8must8 have is regarding the omnipresent IE. Other than that, I wonder how many people would even bother to understand, say what Microsoft Jet or ODBC is, in order to 'do' a WU?

Your right that many people won't understand what components the updates address (other than IE and Outlook), but most of the others (to end users) are just seen as an OS updates. I just don't see any reason to leave a vulnerability (in jet using your example, or anywhere else) available for others to exploit even if the user normally may not interact with the exploitable component.

AU has been a great thing for the security community. In the past it was almost impossible to get a majority of end user systems patched against an exploit, with AU at least the majority of users get the update and have a chance to install it. I don't have current percentages on AU (e.g. the number of people who leave it on, the number of people who install what it suggests), but I suspect the number stays fairly high (since it's defaulted to download mode). I just wish MS made it automatically install the updates in the consumer releases (configurable off of course).

Bill