Microsoft Wants Infected PCs Booted Offline

[Giovanni]

[citation][nom]marraco[/nom]I don't like at all the idea of some company disconecting me from the world with any excuse.[/citation]
Allways liked the individualist who thinks he can do whatever he pleases, and the rules don't apply to them, so thank you very much of the 4000 spams this week in my mailbox...moron...

 

[pc_glazing]

news flash "Tom's Hardware Reader wants Toms Hardware members linfei & zzz12 booted offline for spamming the forums"
also most people saying they have never had a virus in umpteen years internet usage are probably using some crappy security software that couldn't find a virus on a pron site from Nigeria.
you need more than 1 anti virus application to detect everything.

 

[Guest]

PCs running Windows should be quarantined from the Internet.

 

[techguy378]

[citation][nom]guzz46[/nom]As someone previously said the problem isn't with the internet, the problem is with Microsoft's poorly designed OS.[/citation]
Windows Vista SP 1 and Windows 7 along with their server counterparts are the most secure operating systems available. Also, Microsoft releases security updates on a set schedule. With most Linux distributions security updates are released as soon as an exploit is discovered which can create major headaches in the IT world.

 

[guzz46]

[citation][nom]techguy378[/nom]Windows Vista SP 1 and Windows 7 along with their server counterparts are the most secure operating systems available. Also, Microsoft releases security updates on a set schedule. With most Linux distributions security updates are released as soon as an exploit is discovered which can create major headaches in the IT world.[/citation]

You must be joking right? and how can having security updates released as soon as an exploit is discovered be a bad thing?

 

[techguy378]

[citation][nom]guzz46[/nom]You must be joking right? and how can having security updates released as soon as an exploit is discovered be a bad thing?[/citation]
Having security updates released at soon as the exploit is discovered is normally a great thing. In a business environment, however, it causes headaches. I'm not sure if you work in the IT field, but imagine how much downtime constantly installing OS patches could potentially cause. Where I work we use Windows XP along with software phones and I can tell you first hand it's not fun when I'm on a business call with someone and I get a prompt stating Windows Update will reboot my PC in 10 seconds while I'm in the middle of a phone call.

 

[guzz46]

[citation][nom]techguy378[/nom]Having security updates released at soon as the exploit is discovered is normally a great thing. In a business environment, however, it causes headaches. I'm not sure if you work in the IT field, but imagine how much downtime constantly installing OS patches could potentially cause. Where I work we use Windows XP along with software phones and I can tell you first hand it's not fun when I'm on a business call with someone and I get a prompt stating Windows Update will reboot my PC in 10 seconds while I'm in the middle of a phone call.[/citation]

Thats one of the advantages with linux, you don't need to reboot after an update, unless its a kernel update but even then you can use ksplice to patch the kernel without rebooting.

 

[Guest]

They are thinking of the internet as one big computer and not a unlimited free speech medium. If i desire to run an infected computer i should be allowed. Im sure if Microsoft had its way they wouldn't make such certificates open source and force linux users to waste hundreds of thousands of hours to reverse engineer their sh*tware for the novel idea of connecting to the internet. After which all virus makers would have a snippet of code to be able to spoof certificates. This is clearly Microsoft trying to get an idea thrown into the backdoor law congress is trying to pass.

 

[techguy378]

[citation][nom]guzz46[/nom]Thats one of the advantages with linux, you don't need to reboot after an update, unless its a kernel update but even then you can use ksplice to patch the kernel without rebooting.[/citation]
Unfortunately, despite all of Linux's improvements hardware support is still a big problem. Also, most businesses rely heavily on Microsoft Office and OpenOffice.org doesn't quite compare. The vast majority of hardware and most commonly used software applications are designed with Windows in mind. Everything else including Mac OS X is an afterthought.

 

[guzz46]

[citation][nom]techguy378[/nom]Unfortunately, despite all of Linux's improvements hardware support is still a big problem. Also, most businesses rely heavily on Microsoft Office and OpenOffice.org doesn't quite compare. The vast majority of hardware and most commonly used software applications are designed with Windows in mind. Everything else including Mac OS X is an afterthought.[/citation]

I disagree, windows probably supports more peripherals but linux will install on almost anything where windows only supports a few chipsets, and you can probably find an open source application replacement for almost anything, you may even find that you like it better than what you were using in windows. And all of this still doesn't address windows design flaws which is the whole reason for this article.

 

[techguy378]

[citation][nom]guzz46[/nom]I disagree, windows probably supports more peripherals but linux will install on almost anything where windows only supports a few chipsets, and you can probably find an open source application replacement for almost anything, you may even find that you like it better than what you were using in windows. And all of this still doesn't address windows design flaws which is the whole reason for this article.[/citation]
Windows will install on any x86 computer as long as it has enough horsepower. The chipset is largely irrelevant. Intel, AMD , VIA, Nvidia and SIS to name a few are all supported under Windows 7. The only thing that matters is the processor and amount of RAM you have.

Linux and Unix are extremely expensive for most businesses on the desktop side of things. It costs a lot of money to retrain employees on totally new and different software.

 

[guzz46]

[citation][nom]techguy378[/nom]Windows will install on any x86 computer as long as it has enough horsepower. The chipset is largely irrelevant. Intel, AMD , VIA, Nvidia and SIS to name a few are all supported under Windows 7. The only thing that matters is the processor and amount of RAM you have.Linux and Unix are extremely expensive for most businesses on the desktop side of things. It costs a lot of money to retrain employees on totally new and different software.[/citation]

Windows 7 will install on x86, x86_64 and maybe ia64. Debian linux will install on alpha, arm, armel, hppa ia64, x86, x86_64, m68k, mips, mipsel, powerpc, s390 and sparc64.

And according to this http/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linux_adoption most businesses save money switching to linux, the FAA saved 15 million dollars moving to linux, France's police force so far has saved 50 million euros switching to linux.

 

[techguy378]

[citation][nom]guzz46[/nom]Windows 7 will install on x86, x86_64 and maybe ia64. Debian linux will install on alpha, arm, armel, hppa ia64, x86, x86_64, m68k, mips, mipsel, powerpc, s390 and sparc64.And according to this http/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linux_adoption most businesses save money switching to linux, the FAA saved 15 million dollars moving to linux, France's police force so far has saved 50 million euros switching to linux.[/citation]
Linux is great for servers. Itanium and the non Intel platforms you mention are rarely used on the average office desktop computer which is what I was referring to. Unless you work in the medical or scientific field you don't need a non x86 platform. The same goes for Linux. Most people use Microsoft Office and there is not a single Linux alternative that provides 100% MS Office compatibility. Not even OpenOffice.org.

 

[guzz46]

[citation][nom]techguy378[/nom]Linux is great for servers. Itanium and the non Intel platforms you mention are rarely used on the average office desktop computer which is what I was referring to. Unless you work in the medical or scientific field you don't need a non x86 platform. The same goes for Linux. Most people use Microsoft Office and there is not a single Linux alternative that provides 100% MS Office compatibility. Not even OpenOffice.org.[/citation]

Linux is just as good for the desktop as it is for servers, my 64bit Debian install after boot uses just 150mb of ram with xfce and compiz running, so a modern linux distro will still run fast on old hardware where windows wouldn't even install, and most people would be fine with open office, it can even save documents in ms office format.

 

[techguy378]

[citation][nom]guzz46[/nom]Linux is just as good for the desktop as it is for servers, my 64bit Debian install after boot uses just 150mb of ram with xfce and compiz running, so a modern linux distro will still run fast on old hardware where windows wouldn't even install, and most people would be fine with open office, it can even save documents in ms office format.[/citation]
If you have to choose between Windows 2000 or 98 and Linux then yeah Linux is a lot better. As good as Linux might be on your home computer, most businesses aren't going to switch because Linux support contracts still cost money in addition to what the business spent on Windows. A lot of medium sized businesses don't have much of an in house tech support team.

 

[guzz46]

[citation][nom]techguy378[/nom]If you have to choose between Windows 2000 or 98 and Linux then yeah Linux is a lot better. As good as Linux might be on your home computer, most businesses aren't going to switch because Linux support contracts still cost money in addition to what the business spent on Windows. A lot of medium sized businesses don't have much of an in house tech support team.[/citation]

I'm comparing it to windows 7, and in the long run switching to linux should save businesses a lot of money as in one of my previous posts France's national police force saved 50 million euros on software licensing alone between 2004 and 2008

 

[techguy378]

[citation][nom]guzz46[/nom]I'm comparing it to windows 7, and in the long run switching to linux should save businesses a lot of money as in one of my previous posts France's national police force saved 50 million euros on software licensing alone between 2004 and 2008[/citation]
The cost of a support contract will likely make up the difference in cost between Windows and Linux.

 

[guzz46]

[citation][nom]techguy378[/nom]The cost of a support contract will likely make up the difference in cost between Windows and Linux.[/citation]

I don't think so otherwise the French police force wouldn't of said they saved 50 million euros, here is a quote from that article

Gendarmerie has saved up to €50 million on licensing and maintenance costs as a result of the migration strategy... Moving from Microsoft XP to Vista would not have brought us many advantages and Microsoft said it would require training of users," said Lt. Col. Guimard. "Moving from XP to Ubuntu, however, proved very easy

And a quote from Sterling Ball in 2003, the world's leading maker of premium guitar strings

I saved $80,000 right away by going to open source, and each time something like (Windows) XP comes along, I save even more money because I don't have to buy new equipment to run the software

and when asked about the total cost of ownership once you add support

What support? I'm not making calls to Red Hat; I don't need to. I think that's propaganda...What about the cost of dealing with a virus? We don't have 'em

 

[techguy378]

@guzz46 - Any small or medium sized business owner that thinks a support contract is propaganda is a moron. Fact is, most people that work at these types of businesses are computer illiterate and they generally don't have much of an internal IT department. Linux is certainly no Mac OS X (even though Ubuntu tries to be).

 

[guzz46]

[citation][nom]techguy378[/nom]@guzz46 - Any small or medium sized business owner that thinks a support contract is propaganda is a moron. Fact is, most people that work at these types of businesses are computer illiterate and they generally don't have much of an internal IT department. Linux is certainly no Mac OS X (even though Ubuntu tries to be).[/citation]

Just as most people that use desktop pc's are computer illiterate, and not being OS X is a good thing by the way, but if you really need support then you can buy it, its still a much much cheaper alternative to running windows