Bad Windows

Once considered by Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer as a plague on all software and the work of the devil, open source software is now accepted with open arms by Microsoft, even evoking their active support.

One major factor in Microsoft's sidling up to open source is the PHP script language, according to Andreas Urban, their manager of open source strategy in Germany. PHP is becoming increasingly more prevalent in Microsoft products. So the Redmond giant put Pierre Joye as head of PHP development in an interface role with the community.

 Read more at Linux Magazine

As someone who has been following Microsoft for over 25 years, I remain staggered by the completeness of the Vista fiasco. Microsoft's constant backtracking on the phasing out of Windows XP is perhaps the most evident proof of the fact that people do not want to be forced to “upgrade” to something that has been memorably described as DRM masquerading as an operating system. But this story suggests an even greater aversion:

Studies carried out by both Gartner and IDC have found that because older software is often incompatible with Vista, many consumers are opting for used computers with XP installed as a default, rather than buying an expensive new PC with Vista and downgrading.

Read more at ComputerWorld

A potentially serious flaw has been discovered in the Windows Vista networking subsystem, but a patch isn't likely until the next service pack.

According to CNet, the vulnerability – discovered by Thomas Unterleitner of security firm Phion last Friday – can cause a buffer overflow condition in the iphlpapi.dll API for the network IO subsystem of Vista. While the issue has only been proven to corrupt kernel memory and cause a system crash, the possibility exists that a specially crafted exploit could run code provided by an attacker.

Read more at bit-tech.net

Despite warnings to businesses about the dangers of skipping Windows Vista, many IT managers and CIOs are standing firm that the risks of migrating to Vista outweigh the benefits. The recent press coverage regarding performance efficiencies seen in the Windows 7 pre-beta (delivered at Microsoft's recent Professional Developers Conference) has dimmed the spotlight on Vista a bit. Also, Vista sales have fallen short of expectations lately: For the fiscal first quarter of 2009, Microsoft's Windows client division revenue increased a mere 2 percent in year-over-year growth, while operating income dropped by 4 percent.

Read more at PC World