VARs Ripping And Replacing Vista For XP At Breakneck Pace

[VirtualLarry]

http://www.crn.com/white-box/200900857

Glen Coffield, president of Smart Guys Computers, an Orlando, Fla.-based retail chain with six stores in central Florida, said his No. 1 service job right now is wiping Vista off sysetms and replacing it with Windows XP. In the last 90 days, Smart Guys has ripped Vista off more than 1,000 systems and replaced it with Windows XP Professional.

Many clients see Vista as nothing more than a prettier interface and they aren't buying the claims that it provides better security than Windows XP, said Coffield. "No one believes that Microsoft knows anything about security," said Coffield.

A CRN Test Center review in May found that users of Windows Vista and Windows XP are equally at risk to viruses and exploits and that overall Vista brings only marginal security advantages over XP.

 

[InlineFive]

*sigh*

Features new to Windows Vista
Technical features new to Windows Vista
Security technologies new to Windows Vista

 

[mechBgon]

Symantec on current threat survivability on Vista's default setup In a nutshell, >90% of the tested malware either fails completely, or won't survive a reboot. Snip:

Several classes of threats were expected to fail, but were included simply for the sake of completeness. In particular, because of UAC, rootkits inevitably fail as do Trojans, which by design try to load drivers or modify system-wide settings.

IE7 Protected Mode versus 10000+ malicious websites Now that's what I'm talkin' about This matches my personal experience hunting malware with Vista. If there is a Windows for people who don't use antivirus software (VirtualLarry) then I think Vista is the one.


Introduction to Windows Integrity Control Very enlightening 2-page article. Snip:

In Windows XP or older systems, whether or not the malware succeeds is more or less a function of the rights and privileges of the logged in user and whether or not the system and Registry have been hardened or protected in any way to block such attempts. With Vista, because everything related to the Internet runs at a Low integrity level, the malware will be unable to modify, delete or interact with virtually anything else on the system.

Mac-pwning security researcher: Vista > OS X A controversial viewpoint from a Mac security researcher. Snip:

I have found the code quality, at least in terms of security, to be much better overall in Vista than Mac OS X 10.4. It is obvious from observing affected components in security patches that Microsoft?s Security Development Lifecycle (SDL) has resulted in fewer vulnerabilities in newly-written code. I hope that more software vendors follow their lead in developing proactive software security development methodologies.

With the ongoing scourge of botnets, I think Vista's time has come. User education is another necessity; that's one of my goals as an MVP, although it seems to be like herding cats most days

Yes, Vista breaks some stuff. I'm building a bridge and getting over it

 

[stash]

Doesn't this forum have a rule against post and runs?

 

[mechBgon]

Originally posted by: stash
Doesn't this forum have a rule against post and runs?

I believe that's enforced in Politics & News, where someone copies and pastes most/all of an article but adds no meaningful commentary of his/her own. Other than that, the AT Forum Guidelines don't have an explicit rule forbidding it.

 

[InlineFive]

I'd like to propose that we have one thread for all of the Vista bashers and lock the rest. Most are completely uninformed FUD and just serve to clutter the forum.

 

[stash]

Originally posted by: mechBgon

Originally posted by: stash
Doesn't this forum have a rule against post and runs?

I believe that's enforced in Politics & News, where someone copies and pastes most/all of an article but adds no meaningful commentary of his/her own. Other than that, the AT Forum Guidelines don't have an explicit rule forbidding it.

I respectfully request a change to that policy I don't see any reason to limit that to a particular section of the forum. Posting a link, portion of or whole article with no commentary is just as egregious here as it is in P&N, IMO.

 

[Noema]

Originally posted by: stash

Originally posted by: mechBgon

Originally posted by: stash
Doesn't this forum have a rule against post and runs?

I believe that's enforced in Politics & News, where someone copies and pastes most/all of an article but adds no meaningful commentary of his/her own. Other than that, the AT Forum Guidelines don't have an explicit rule forbidding it.

I respectfully request a change to that policy I don't see any reason to limit that to a particular section of the forum. Posting a link, portion of or whole article with no commentary is just as egregious here as it is in P&N, IMO.

I agree. Operating Systems has become a trollfest as of late.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Originally posted by: stash
Doesn't this forum have a rule against post and runs?

I dunno, are we not allowed to post relevant news articles? Suffice to say that I'm not "running" anywhere.

Edit: My "commentary" was posted as the sub-title on the thread.

 

[mechBgon]

Originally posted by: VirtualLarry

Originally posted by: stash
Doesn't this forum have a rule against post and runs?

I dunno, are we not allowed to post relevant news articles? Suffice to say that I'm not "running" anywhere.

Edit: My "commentary" was posted as the sub-title on the thread.

Speaking off the record, I don't think the Forums exist for the purpose of being an RSS feed. Having your own viewpoint is fine, and supporting and defending it with facts is the right idea. I personally think you picked some pretty bad support material in the form of that hilarious CRN security "review." If you thoroughly study the links that InlineFive and I provided, and then read their "review" again, I think your own critical-thinking skills will show you that they missed the forest for the trees. (edit: actually, I'm not sure they saw the trees, either )

If you want more insight, learn the basic use of Microsoft Network Monitor 3.1 and begin plowing a default-setup, UAC-enabled, IE7-Protected-Mode-equipped Vista system (and/or a default WinXP Pro system) into malicious websites and study what's going on. This is harder than doing selective Google searches for stuff you like the sound of, but very educational.

 

[AllGamer]

Well regardless of what it is, many large corporate prefer XP over Vista, mainly to avoid the extra overhead on Price and Hour lost having to swap the entire company to Vista.

Most IT department would rather work with their current tools and scripts, than having to mess around and waste time on getting everything to work again on vista, to then waste 2 to 4 weeks on mass deployment to the entire company of sales flying all over the world just so they can come back to the office and line up for the laptops to be Ghosted again....

give it another couple of years, maybe more, until Vista becomes more mainstream, as it is right now Vista is just like a tiny speck in serious business operation, and gamers community. Which are the 2 main forces the drives the PC industry anyways.

 

[Noema]

Originally posted by: AllGamer
Well regardless of what it is, many large corporate prefer XP over Vista, mainly to avoid the extra overhead on Price and Hour lost having to swap the entire company to Vista.

Most IT department would rather work with their current tools and scripts, than having to mess around and waste time on getting everything to work again on vista, to then waste 2 to 4 weeks on mass deployment to the entire company of sales flying all over the world just so they can come back to the office and line up for the laptops to be Ghosted again....

give it another couple of years, maybe more, until Vista becomes more mainstream, as it is right now Vista is just like a tiny speck in serious business operation, and gamers community. Which are the 2 main forces the drives the PC industry anyways.

That is usually the case; I remember IT at my former college being completely against XP and intent on keeping Win98 for the campus computers Q).

This is a normal reaction that will change as soon as app and driver support for Vista improves.

 

[stash]

Wow I just read the article. Can I have those two minutes of my life back? One dude complains about "bugs" in Vista that prevent third party apps from running, while simultaneously ranting about how Microsoft knows nothing about security. 100 bucks says those "bugs" are shit apps that require admin rights to run, which means by ripping Vista and replacing it with XP, he is making his customers less secure.

Mind-boggling.

 

[ITJunkie]

This all is getting old...really. Vista this, Vista that, it sucks, etc.

I have used vista on and off for awhile now. This last go round I have forced myself NOT to uninstall it and just deal with the UAC prompts and one thing I've noticed is that I'm rarely prompted anymore. Personally I would much rather spend the 3 seconds it takes me to deal with that prompt than the HOURS it took me to deal with a damn spyware infestation.
Security in Vista is leaps and bounds ahead of XP and, as always with a new OS, you are going to have software and driver incompatibilities until those vendors get up to speed.

 

[AllGamer]

if UAC becomes too much of a problem, just disabled it, which is what i've done, i've no use for it anyways.

UAC is usually what most people (usually Gamers) complain about when they don't even understand what it is for.

for me the only thing that Vista bugs me the most is the lack of more Software and Hardware support, and that is because Vista it's relatively new still, is not even a full year yet.

but if by the 3rd year people (Manufactures) are still lagging behind in Vista support, then it's going to get ugly.

But who cares, by then, i'm gonna be getting a new Rig for sure

By then i seriously hope they have Full Vista capable drivers and software for the hardwares, and not Half cook drivers, with lack of software support for the other Half of the hardware features.

 

[Nothinman]

Originally posted by: stash
Wow I just read the article. Can I have those two minutes of my life back? One dude complains about "bugs" in Vista that prevent third party apps from running, while simultaneously ranting about how Microsoft knows nothing about security. 100 bucks says those "bugs" are shit apps that require admin rights to run, which means by ripping Vista and replacing it with XP, he is making his customers less secure.

Mind-boggling.

It's not mind-boggling at all, people would rather have something that runs their apps than something that doesn't no matter who's fault the problem is and developers of those ***** programs are usually the slowest to update them as well.

The really mind-boggling part is that "A CRN Test Center review in May found that users of Windows Vista and Windows XP are equally at risk to viruses and exploits and that overall Vista brings only marginal security advantages over XP.". I wouldn't be surprised if they disabled or totally ignored any UAC prompts in their tests but sadly the site doesn't say anything about that. Another interesting thing is that they don't say whether any of the viruses, trojans, etc that they ran actually worked. They only comment on whether or not they started up and Windows Defender detected them or not.

 

[Smilin]

Originally posted by: Nothinman
The really mind-boggling part is that "A CRN Test Center review in May found that users of Windows Vista and Windows XP are equally at risk to viruses and exploits and that overall Vista brings only marginal security advantages over XP.". I wouldn't be surprised if they disabled or totally ignored any UAC prompts in their tests but sadly the site doesn't say anything about that. Another interesting thing is that they don't say whether any of the viruses, trojans, etc that they ran actually worked. They only comment on whether or not they started up and Windows Defender detected them or not.

The "test" is a sham. Go read that article. It's some sad sad testing and journalism.

First, They ran the test in may looking to see if the OS (not antivirus software ) would detect a potential virus that had definitions available since april. In other words either machine should have been fine although not as a result anything the OS did.

Second, they dismiss results that clearly indicate Vista (as shipped) is more secure than XP. Windows defender for example:

"Vista was able to pick up one of the IEPlugin spyware. Yet not all variants of the same spyware were detected through IE 7"
"XP with IE 6 missed all of the sites with spyware"

"Vista was able to detect adware built into the Zango player"
"XP did not provide any warnings about Zango"

"Vista's Windows Defender successfully blocked a trojan executable called Backdoor.Win32.Hupigon.emb."

... this list goes on. I would have to quote a big portion of the article..

Third, they are also guilty of lying by ommision:
"Two scripts had spyware embedded in them, and some of the scripts used code obfuscation to hide their signatures. Since Finjan looks for behavior, the scripts were detected by the appliance. However, Vista and XP failed to flag them."
...ahem, when did we start running scripts off websites without warning?


Lastly, who the fvck is CRN? It ain't CERN. It's like going to the jewler and being sold genuine diamels.

 

[tdawg]

Originally posted by: VirtualLarry
http://www.crn.com/white-box/200900857

Glen Coffield, president of Smart Guys Computers, an Orlando, Fla.-based retail chain with six stores in central Florida, said his No. 1 service job right now is wiping Vista off sysetms and replacing it with Windows XP. In the last 90 days, Smart Guys has ripped Vista off more than 1,000 systems and replaced it with Windows XP Professional.

Many clients see Vista as nothing more than a prettier interface and they aren't buying the claims that it provides better security than Windows XP, said Coffield. "No one believes that Microsoft knows anything about security," said Coffield.

A CRN Test Center review in May found that users of Windows Vista and Windows XP are equally at risk to viruses and exploits and that overall Vista brings only marginal security advantages over XP.

Wow, so a small retail chain says he's replacing Vista with XP (I can't believe their selling 1,000 pcs in 90 days) and you're going to extrapolate that to the entire pc buying public? This is like taking statements from CompUSA's tech "gurus" or Best Buys Geek Squad telling the world that Vista sucks and XP is better and we're supposed to believe them?! When did Glen Coffield become the mouthpiece of the computer industry? Did I miss that memo?

The size of the grain of salt we need to take VirtualLarry's posts with has it's own gravitational pull.

 

[Smilin]

Originally posted by: tdawg
The size of the grain of salt we need to take VirtualLarry's posts with has it's own gravitational pull.

QFT.

LOL

 

[Noema]

Originally posted by: tdawg


The size of the grain of salt we need to take VirtualLarry's posts with has it's own gravitational pull.

:laugh: :thumbsup:

I have to agree.

 

[nweaver]

As far as companies being slow to adopt Vista, that's actually NORMAL. Buisness (especially large ones) are slower to adopt something as drastic as an OS change. Why? because it's expensive and takes a lot of time to test all the security, apps, scripts, login/domain/security compliance stuff, so they won't even think of rolling until that is done. After that, the won't onsie twosie a rollout, they will wait for their next major upgrade cycle, and roll out Vista at this time. Many large companies, whose computers are not doing things that are CPU bound (or even memory/disk bound) are on 3+ year upgrade cycles, so look for full Vista adoption sometime in the next 3-5 years for most large companies. This is not to say Vista sucks, this is to say that this is normal.

 

[AllGamer]

and by then support for vista would be more mainstream than what we have no in days.

 

[nweaver]

Originally posted by: AllGamer
and by then support for vista would be more mainstream than what we have no in days.

I did a major install (900+ PC's) for a Bank's telebank center, and they were removing XP and putting 2kPro on. This was about 3 years ago. Are you telling me that 3 years agoi, XP had crappy support, and shouldn't have been used?

 

[AllGamer]

if i'm not mistaken, that's aproximately when the SP2 for XP was introduced and finally solved all the XP problems from SP1 and pre-SP1

i do recall no companies wanted to switch to XP until SP1 was released.

 

[nweaver]

Originally posted by: AllGamer
if i'm not mistaken, that's aproximately when the SP2 for XP was introduced and finally solved all the XP problems from SP1 and pre-SP1

i do recall no companies wanted to switch to XP until SP1 was released.

It had nothing to do with SP1, it had to do with budgets, upgrade cycles, and testing/upgrading/modifing apps. Companies do not use the MS Patch schedule to determine when they roll an OS out.