Bad Windows

Although Microsoft has characterized itself as happy with Vista adoption so far—and Bill Gates said last week at WinHEC that Microsoft had shipped 40 million copies—the release of the new operating system has not resulted in a significant bump in PC sales. That's the conclusion of a new study from research firm In-Stat, which has tracked sales since Vista's release and is forecasting PC sales through 2011.

In-Stat's conclusions are not surprising, especially given the way in which consumers typically migrate to a new operating system. Those of us who are itching to get our hands on the latest release from Microsoft or Apple are a small minority of the PC-using population. Most people will stick with whatever came with their computer, only upgrading to a new OS with the purchase of a new PC.

So far, getting Vista hasn't been enough of a reason to buy a new PC for most people. In the months running up to Vista's January release, some consumers put off PC purchases in order to get a shiny new Vista installation instead of Windows XP and a coupon for a free Vista upgrade. However, that has proven to be a short-term phenomenon, according to In-Stat. "System sales that had been muted waiting for systems pre-loaded with Vista rather than XP are expected to work through sales channels in the next two quarters," said In-Stat analyst Ian Lao. "However, these sales represent an offset from last year rather than actual new demand creation."

Read more at Ars technica

Linux users are publicly challenging Microsoft to prove its claim that Linux violates at least 235 of its patents. Over 500 people have put their names on a public list posted on a Wiki that invites Microsoft to sue them for using Linux and other open source software.

“If you would like to invite a visit by Brad Smith, Microsoft’s head litigator, please feel free to add your name here,” a note on the Wiki said. The Wiki is part of a blog by Digital Tipping Point, a video project on open source software created by Christian Einfeldt.

Microsoft said it does not intend to sue, at least not in the immediate future. The company earlier said Linux and other software based on open source technology violates 235 of its patents, including patents for its operating system kernel and interface, office productivity software, and e-mail applications.

Linux users listed their names and open source operating systems they used. One user from Turkey said, “As a Linux user for nine years, I believe I deserve to be sued. There’s no escape from justice.”

Read more at AHN

A web application developer has found a way to hack Windows Vista through its User Account Control (UAC) feature. The two-step attack allows malicious code to infect Vista systems even from accounts running under the limited privileges afforded by UAC.

Robert Paveza, a web application developer with marketing firm Terralever, has published a paper titled “User-Prompted Elevation of Unintended Code in Windows Vista” illustrating a two-step process for exploiting Windows Vista’s User Account Control.

The technique uses social engineering to trick the victim into downloading an innocent-looking file that includes a Trojan horse attack.

Paveza said the first step requires that malware called a proxy infection tool be downloaded and run without any elevated privileges needed. That software can behave as advertised while it sets up a second malicious payload in the background.

“For instance, if users believe they are downloading a ‘Pac-Man’ clone, such a game could be run while the malicious software did its work in the background,” Paveza said. “This pattern of infection follows the typical Trojan horse model, piggybacking on what may be otherwise legitimate software,” he added.

Read more at VISTA.BLORGE.com  

I've never been one to follow the waves of mania that occasionally sweep through the IT community when some unstoppable goliath threatens to leave a path of destruction in its wake, but I can't seem to get away from this one. Godzilla is bearing down on Tokyo, and I'm trying to get away on a tricycle with a rusty chain.

Having encountered average consumers and experienced IT professionals alike telling nightmarish tales of losing entire days to this Vista upgrade vortex, I didn't feel the need to add to the hysteria. I already made my views on Windows Vista quite clear in February and had no plans to harp on the matter. My philosophy has always been to make your point and move on. Unfortunately, my days and nights are dogged by the same question from friends, colleagues, and clients: How do I go back to Windows XP?

Then it hit me. Is Windows Vista actually a complex and elaborate stealth marketing ploy — a form of guerilla marketing where the target audience isn't aware it's being marketed to — for a "next generation" Windows XP? Is this a shadowy scheme by the Microsoft intelligentsia to extend XP's life cycle by another decade? They could be amassing their forces as I write this, using Vista as a diversion to fund their real intentions. Maybe they're going to surprise the world with the real Longhorn and introduce the new and improved "Windows XP Millennium Edition" next year.

Read more at Internet Journal

Microsoft has just patched another critical hole in Vista that it knew about as long ago as last Christmas. The delay was similar to its lag in patching the serious (and heavily targeted) animated-cursor flaw I told you about last month.

The new problem involves the way that the OS's Client/Server Run-time Subsystem (CSRSS) handles error messages, and it affects Windows 2000 SP4 and Windows XP too. This flaw may not be as severe as the cursor problem, as Microsoft says you'd have to perform certain unspecified "actions" on a malicious Web site before an assault could succeed. But if you were to get snared, an attacker could run any command or program on the victimized PC. Proof-of-concept code, which often presages attacks, is available, but no active attacks on this hole have been reported yet.

Read more at Networkworld  

With the launch of Microsoft's Windows Vista, the days are looking numbered for Windows XP. Every business will eventually have to switch, but not necessarily to Vista. Because an operating system transition is inevitable, this may be a good time to consider Vista's competition – Linux on the desktop.

Dell Computer Corp. recently began shipping some desktop PCs with Ubuntu Linux, one of several popular "distributions" of the open-source operating system. Dell's move is a sign that Linux is entering the desktop mainstream, says Carmi Levy, senior research analyst at Info-Tech Research Group in London, Ont.

"In the very near future, we'll probably see most major vendors have some kind of Linux-based offering," he says.

Linux is "far, far more cost-effective," says Ross Chevalier, chief technology officer at Novell Canada Inc. in Toronto. The company offers SUSE Linux for $60 a year, support included, and "the vast majority of everything you need is going to be included," he says.

Read more …  

The Free Software Foundation has announced the creation of an "activist campaigns team" to try to spread the word on software freedom. This group will be run by John Sullivan and Joshua Gay; it will start by managing the BadVista.org and Defective By Design efforts.

There is also a new campaign called PlayOGG.org, intended to promote use of the Ogg Vorbis audio format. "OGG is your safest bet to be free from patent litigation when using compressed audio. This is especially true given the recent upswing in patent-based lawsuits. What is most frightening, and underscores the landmine metaphor often used to describe software patents, is the recent $1.5B preliminary judgment against Microsoft. Microsoft thought it had a paid-up nonexclusive license to practice the patents in MP3. This judgment demonstrates that there is no good way to protect yourself from these threats. The only viable solution right now is to switch to OGG, and work for the abolition of software patents."

LWN.net

Seven weeks ago, when we first reported Vista was causing many machines to stall indefinitely while deleting, copying and moving files, we were sure the problem was caused by a bug that would be fixed relatively quickly. After all, Vista is Microsoft's flagship product. It's also an operating system. And everyone knows deleting, copying and moving files are among the most basic tasks any operating system can set out to do.

Now we don't know what to think. Vista's Long Goodbye, as we've come to call this bizarre phenomenon, continues unabated. No amount of diagnosing by the untold number of confounded sysadmins sheds any light on the problem's cause, and Microsoft has yet to acknowledge its full extent.
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"I just wanted to say…that I have tried everything…in this section..till yesterday (May 13 2007) and none of it worked," a user who goes by the name SR_1976 posted today in a Microsoft TechNet forum discussing the glitch. "I have tried my best to work with Vista ….did not work…so, gone back to XP…and all my problems are gone. Vista was more stable than XP (for me…)and does have some good features…but enough is enough.." (The discussion, by the way, is the longest TechNet thread we've ever seen.)

Read more at Channel Register  

A company that took its time, did everything right, and migrated to Vista recounted the full horror of the experience. According to their account, company employees found Vista to be slow, Explorer to be problematic, and other quirks that left them less than satisfied.

The Transit company took the optimal path. They waited for the typical new release bugs to be worked out. They purchased a new PC from a major vendor, Lenovo, that had Vista pre-installed in order to avoid upgrade nightmares. Finally, they kept the installed software on the computer at a minimum to avoid complications.

The verdict? "…we've found nothing that works better than in Windows XP, dozens of things that are annoyingly different without being a functional improvement, and several things that work at best intermittently and at worst not at all. On the whole, we wish we'd never moved," Angus Kidman said in a Blog report carried by ITWire.

The first observation was that Vista was "hideously slow" even on a new Vista certified PC with twice the RAM and a faster processor. Boot times were longer than the predecesor. The connection to the Linksys router failed, and heroic support from Microsoft failed to resolve the problem. "…if you can't get basic IP working in 2007, something pretty fundamental is going wrong," Mr. Kidman wrote.

Read more at the Mac Observer  

Free software is great, and corporate America loves it. It's often high-quality stuff that can be downloaded free off the Internet and then copied at will. It's versatile – it can be customized to perform almost any large-scale computing task – and it's blessedly crash-resistant.

A broad community of developers, from individuals to large companies like IBM, is constantly working to improve it and introduce new features. No wonder the business world has embraced it so enthusiastically: More than half the companies in the Fortune 500 are thought to be using the free operating system Linux in their data centers.

But now there's a shadow hanging over Linux and other free software, and it's being cast by Microsoft (Charts, Fortune 500). The Redmond behemoth asserts that one reason free software is of such high quality is that it violates more than 200 of Microsoft's patents. And as a mature company facing unfavorable market trends and fearsome competitors like Google (Charts, Fortune 500), Microsoft is pulling no punches: It wants royalties. If the company gets its way, free software won't be free anymore.

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