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Ask Your Vista Questions Here.
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AfterDawn Addict
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22. February 2007 @ 14:58 |
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Software Missing From Vista's "Official Apps"
Posted by Zonk on Thursday February 22, @03:27PM
from the big-holes dept.
Windows Microsoft Software
PetManimal writes "Microsoft has just released a list of 800 applications it says are 'officially supported' on Windows Vista. What's special about this list, however, are the programs that are not included: 'Popular Windows software that is conspicuously missing from Microsoft's list includes Adobe Systems Inc.'s entire line of graphics and multimedia software, Symantec Corp.'s security products, as well as the Mozilla Foundation's open-source Firefox Web browser, Skype Ltd.'s free voice-over-IP software and the OpenOffice.org alternative to Microsoft Office.' Another area in which Vista has found to be lacking is gaming, as discussed earlier on Slashdot."
GO HERE TO SEE ALL---->800<---- 'officially supported' SOFTWARE FOR VISTA
AS THAT WOULD BE TO MUCH TO POST..
Applications that have earned the "Certified for Windows Vista" logo or the "Works with Windows Vista" logo
LINK
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/933305
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AfterDawn Addict
4 product reviews
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22. February 2007 @ 15:03 |
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Originally posted by ireland:
Software Missing From Vista's "Official Apps"
Posted by Zonk on Thursday February 22, @03:27PM
from the big-holes dept.
Windows Microsoft Software
PetManimal writes "Microsoft has just released a list of 800 applications it says are 'officially supported' on Windows Vista. What's special about this list, however, are the programs that are not included: 'Popular Windows software that is conspicuously missing from Microsoft's list includes Adobe Systems Inc.'s entire line of graphics and multimedia software, Symantec Corp.'s security products, as well as the Mozilla Foundation's open-source Firefox Web browser, Skype Ltd.'s free voice-over-IP software and the OpenOffice.org alternative to Microsoft Office.' Another area in which Vista has found to be lacking is gaming, as discussed earlier on Slashdot."
GO HERE TO SEE ALL---->800<---- 'officially supported' SOFTWARE FOR VISTA
AS THAT WOULD BE TO MUCH TO POST..
Applications that have earned the "Certified for Windows Vista" logo or the "Works with Windows Vista" logo
LINK
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/933305[/quote]
Mmmmm don't you mean applications that have PAID for their "Certified for Windows Vista" logo or the "Works with Windows Vista" logo?
lets face it MS will never b consumer friendly its up to the consumers to fight the OS to get older stuff to work.
Copyright infringement is nothing more than civil disobedience to a bad set of laws. Lets renegotiate them.
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Senior Member
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23. February 2007 @ 09:53 |
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Windows Vista: The Best Case for Windows XP Ever
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Submitted by Pulp on Thursday, February 22, 2007
by Dustin Sklavos
In this editorial Dustin shares his Windows Vista upgrade experience and why he's running with open arms back to Windows XP.
INTRODUCTION
I've been following Vista's development since builds before Beta 1. I've been able to play with Vista as it's grown up. My experience with the RTM version was a positive one, positive enough that I set aside a partition on my desktop explicitly for installing Vista on when it came out. And so when it came out, I got a retail copy of Vista Home Premium to install on that waiting hard drive space.
After using Vista for a bit, I'll be going back to XP and using that partition as a scratch disk for quite a while.
When you use a beta you operate under the assumption that it's a beta, thus flawed, and that these flaws will eventually be corrected. As a result, I was fairly positive about Vista last year. I felt like once these details were taken care of, we might have a worthy upgrade.
Of course, this was before any of us knew just how badly Microsoft was going to screw us, and unfortunately there isn't any better way to put it. Someone, somewhere in the heirarchy decided that "customer" was synonymous with "beta tester." If that were the end of our woes it might not be so bad, but it's not.
So before I launch into what will wind up being a fairly damning tirade, I'll get to what ISN'T so bad about Windows Vista.
WHAT DOESN'T VISTA DO WRONG?
Well, provided you don't buy Vista Home Basic, the "Intel Core Solo" mongoloid inbred cousin of the family that no one talks about, you get to enjoy Aero Glass which is, admittedly, very pretty. If Microsoft did one thing right with Vista, it's with how they handle the personalization of the operating system. It's something they take so seriously that they've actually reorganized these features into a "Personalize" menu that shows up on right-clicking the desktop where "Desktop Properties" used to be. It's a nice touch.
The Games Explorer, ignoring how poor a choice for gaming Vista is right now, is a very welcome addition as well. It's "smart." It's also a part of one of the smarter organizational changes of Vista.
Unless you've serviced a computer or gotten into the nitty gritty of your own, you may not be aware of how asinine the organization of your files is in XP and its predecessors. In Windows XP, your "My Documents" folder is located at:
C:\Documents and Settings\yourname\My Documents
That's not too bad, until you see all the crazy folders scattered around these that lead up to it.
In Vista, it's:
C:\Users\yourname\Documents
Cleaner, simpler. The newly redesigned start menu dedicates individual folders to music, pictures, video, documents, games, and so on. If you click your name, it'll show you these folders and a couple more, including a nicely dedicated download folder. No more downloading crap straight to your desktop or losing it in My Documents.
This abstraction is a far cry from having to make folders in old Windows versions and mixing up all your stuff. It's a really nice organizational touch and one of Vista's stronger, subtler points. Because of it, the casual user will NEVER have to think of the directory tree again.
Windows Sidebar is also a cute feature, but it's one that's better suited to the dual-monitor setups which are becoming a bit more common. It's a nice addition that's unfortunately undermined by a lot of the buggy gadgets floating around online, gadgets that may have worked in betas, but in newer versions have serious problems. Unfortunately, installing new gadgets isn't all bread and roses, as I'll explain later.
Windows Sidebar and Gadgets can be seen on the right side of the screen in this Vista screenshot
The Mobility Center is a nice idea that unfortunately isn't being embraced like it should. This isn't unexpected, it's just a shame. Clumping all of these laptop controls in one place is a great idea, but it's ultimately up to the manufacturers to take advantage of it.
Windows Vista Mobility Center
Beyond Aero Glass, Vista's just plain...nice to look at. Icons are vivid, operations are more animated, and the UI moves more fluidly by virtue of being offloaded to the graphics processor.
Windows Vista Aero in action
And hey, even Solitaire got a makeover.
WHEN "INTUITIVE" STOPS BEING INTUITIVE
Unfortunately, Microsoft's developers hate you. When you use Mac OS X, it's really designed to abstract you from having to deal with the internals of your system. It's all designed to create an experience, and consistency is key.
Now, Microsoft's developers feel that the menus at the top of the screen - you know, File, Edit, and their kin - are past their prime and not the way things should be. They could be right.
The problem is that we've been using those for ten years now. We use them in EVERY OPERATING SYSTEM ON THE MARKET. Even the primary innovators in user interfaces, Apple, haven't disposed of it. Why? BECAUSE WE'RE USED TO IT. Whether or not it's the best way to handle it is irrelevant at this point.
I refuse to believe there isn't a better option for controlling a computer than a keyboard and mouse (it's at least a fact that the QWERTY keyboard layout is not the most efficient). But they've been in use for over two decades. They're pretty much the way it is. Everyone is used to them. Such is the way of the menu bar.
You may wonder what the heck happened to it in Internet Explorer, Windows Media Player, and elsewhere. I know I wind up getting mixed up.
And this is the problem with Vista's interface: it's not intuitive. In fact, it's LESS intuitive than its predecessors. Windows tend to be busy, full of color and information that, while nice to look at, can easily confuse the neophyte. People that have spent years getting used to Windows now need to change their habits again.
Why?
Because Microsoft thinks making you learn a new system is better, underlining the difference between what a programmer finds intuitive and what an average joe finds intuitive.
USER ACCOUNT CONTROL (UAC)
User Account Control (UAC) is a feature that has been relentlessly derided since some of the earliest builds of Vista, and it's easy to understand why. Simply put: it's annoying as hell.
Windows Vista needs your permissioin...again
Let me explain. When you try to install a program, UAC will dim your entire screen and lock up the machine until you respond to the window in the middle of the screen that asks for your permission to run the file. Until you do this, you can't do anything else.
Okay, well...you double-clicked it. I know when I double-click something that usually means I want it to run, but your mileage may vary.
The intended purpose of UAC is security, and the idea behind it is that if spyware or malware tries to install itself in your system, it'll pop up so you can deny that software access to your machine. And that's not necessarily a bad idea.
The problem is that it asks you ALL. THE. TIME. With legitimate programs! I'm no designer so I can't tell you how to solve this problem, but it seems like Apple did.
I'll tell you where it gets really stupid, too. You remember Windows Sidebar? Well, let's say you find a gadget on their site you want to install. Here's what will happen:
1. Internet Explorer will ask you if you want to download file.
2. Internet Explorer will ask you where you want to download the file to.
3. When you try to run the file, Windows will first ask you if you're sure you want to.
4. UAC will then tell you the file is trying to run, and will ask you if you want to allow it.
...that's four freaking steps to install a plug-in for a program that not only comes with Vista, but in fact starts up with Vista by default!
Probably the most damning aspect of all this is the realization of how little it actually achieves. Sure, it will help reduce the number of spyware and malware infections out there by a little. But it will wind up pissing off a lot more users, and it shows up so frequently that people will just start clicking "Allow" without even thinking about it, much as people did to ActiveX prompts when spyware and malware were just starting to become a problem.
One step forward, two steps back.
What makes it more frustrating is that this feature was routinely derided and complained about throughout beta testing, and has successfully made it to retail release almost entirely unchanged despite frequent and almost universal protests. Why bother accepting feedback on it at all?
DRIVER PROBLEMS
Most people who've used Vista or at least "caught a whiff of it" by now know that it's having some driver issues (putting it mildly).
Two of the major offenders right now seem to be nVidia and Creative. Now while I'll take any chance I get to throw rocks at Creative's drivers, I'm going to be an nVidia apologist. The fact of the matter is that Vista got rushed out. More than that, the designers, despite using XP's architecture for Vista, changed the way the system handles drivers, citing "driver failure" as the leading cause of XP blue-screens.
This is not untrue. 90% of my OS crashes and blue-screens have been from driver failure. (The other 10% was just bad RAM.)
HOWEVER. Graphics driver related crashes that bring the system down almost NEVER occur during normal use of the operating system. XP is surprisingly stable, no matter how much the slashdot crowd wants to throw stones. Graphics driver related crashes and hiccups occur when? During gaming. And if you're gaming with super important stuff loaded in the background, well...why haven't you closed it? You're wasting performance. ;)
The point I'm getting at is that this is a cure that's worse than the disease. I wonder why performance is bad and drivers are having a hard time maturing? Maybe because it's XP but it's not, and everyone has to scramble to write Vista compliant drivers.
This, of course, isn't the worst of it. But the worst of it you can level at the vendors and not Microsoft.
I had to go through the forums here, plus ASUS's website, and use a little old-fashioned know-how, just to get drivers that worked on my Asus A8Jm. Worse than that, the power management software that I enjoyed using in XP was crappy in Vista.
At least nVidia tells you where you can download your wonky drivers. ASUS makes you hunt for it while you stare at that "Windows Vista Capable" sticker on your laptop, wondering "what did I do to deserve this?" and "wouldn't it just make sense to put a Vista link on the front page?"
Oh, and so we're clear, the driver salad I wound up having to install was a nightmare. I know what I'm doing and this was too much, I can't imagine Joe Sixpack having to go through this hoopla.
And for all that effort, what happened? 100% CPU use coming out of hibernate/standby, an internet connection that drops me randomly assuming it works at all, a full 45 minutes less battery life, and for all this it nearly cost me a midterm.
Why was Vista released again?
DEFECTIVE BY DESIGN: DIGITAL RIGHTS MANAGEMENT
This is the one that the Slashdot crowd keeps barking about, and with good reason: no matter how much spin Microsoft or any one of the other bigwigs puts on it, DRM is bad for consumers. They claim that DRM allows them more avenues to release things to you, the consumer, thus giving you more ways to enjoy these...things.
But the reality is that any one of these things, be they music, video, even computer games, could've been released without digital rights management. I used Apple's iTunes store once to buy one album, and when I found that music basically marooned on my iPod because iTunes refused to work properly, I decided it wasn't for me. I paid for it, why can't I do what I want with it?
This is what Vista's DRM promises to do for you. And by for you, I mean to you. Integrated into the system is technology called HDCP (High-Bandwidth Digital Content Protection), designed to "close the analog hole" as the bigwigs like to say. Basically, what HDCP means to you is that if you have an HDCP-enabled monitor, and an HDCP-enabled video card, you can enjoy HDCP-protected media.
Pardon me for being vulgar, but HDCP can kiss my analog ass. I have an HDCP card and an HDCP monitor because I'm an insane enthusiast, but many people don't have these luxuries. To enjoy these, desktop users'll be spending a minimum of $200 on a shiny new flat panel that is HDCP enabled and a minimum of $60 on a shiny new video card that is HDCP enabled, and this is all assuming that these pathetically cheap discounts are upgrades on your existing hardware. And notebook users? Well, it's not like you can change either your monitor or video card.
I don't see HDCP going very far, but its existence is pretty offensive to begin with, and allegedly is going to be tied to HD-DVD and Blu-ray.
Another delightful new technology is the TPM, or Trusted Platform Module. This is hardware that's been quietly shipping for a little while now, and you may or may not know if you have it. It's a little chip in your computer that does the following:
1. Makes your computer distinctly identifiable to you and only you, as no two TPM chips are identical.
2. Makes it so that DRM-encrypted data produced on/downloaded to your computer can ONLY be used on your computer.
More information is available in its Wikipedia article (found here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trusted_Platform_Module).
The first is a massive privacy violation; the second doing nothing more than facilitating even more restrictive DRM.
Windows Vista will inevitably make use of either, but its biggest use at this point is for what Microsoft calls "BitLocker Drive Encryption." For notebook users this is conceivably a good thing, as it allows a user to encrypt more or less their entire hard drive. The problem as I see it, however, is that this encryption is tied strictly to Vista.
I remember going to a seminar delivered by Microsoft when Vista was still in beta in early 2006 and asking the presenter what exactly could prevent Microsoft from basically "switching off" your access to the encrypted volume. He couldn't give me an answer. So if you're pirating a copy of Enterprise, this is food for thought for you. I don't condone piracy, but I don't like the idea of Microsoft reaching out and touching anyone.
Mercifully, BitLocker's only available in Enterprise and Ultimate versions of Vista.
Of course, the nastiest bit of DRM in Microsoft's stable is for "protecting" their own baby, Vista itself. Most of you are probably pretty familiar with Windows Genuine Advantage (WGA), which is a misnomer if I've ever heard one. The WGA included in Vista is capable of shutting down important parts of the operating system; Microsoft's Steve Ballmer has gone on record recently as saying "We have new technologies built into Windows Vista, something we call Windows Genuine Advantage [that] we've really dialed up in capabilities with the Vista release...We [will] really ferret through how far we can dial it up, and what that means for customer experience and customer satisfaction." (http://www.arnnet.com.au/index.php/id;7680622;fp;16;fpid;1)
Most peoples' experiences with WGA in XP have been pretty dismal: some legitimate users have been locked out of their legal versions of XP by it, while some pirates have been free to continue using their illegal copies. So to say that Vista's WGA is even more potent doesn't exactly make me want to race to install it.
Ultimately, Microsoft insists that its stance on DRM, particularly HDCP, was the result of pressure from the movie studios, which I find somewhere between hard-and-ludicrous to believe. Windows is a monopoly; everyone knows it. Just like how the RIAA told Steve Jobs to change the prices on iTunes and he was able to tell them what to go do with themselves, Microsoft could VERY easily have told the MPAA off. But they didn't.
CONSUMER UNFRIENDLY: UPGRADES / VERSIONS
To me, some of the nastiest DRM is when for all intents and purposes you should be able to do something, and you can't. There's no reason you can't other than a flag in the software that says "no." So I can't help but get a little bit irked by the fact that every version of Vista is on each DVD of it sold, regardless of how it's labeled, but you can only use certain features if you have the right key. It makes the differences between the myriad versions that much more absurd.
Oh my, and how many versions there are. First of all, keep in mind there are 32-bit and 64-bit versions of each of these excepting Starter:
* Starter
* Home Basic
* Home Premium
* Business
* Enterprise
* Ultimate
I'll condense the nonsense for you. Starter doesn't exist for most people. Home Basic is the "Core Solo" of the Vista line-up, offering none of the bonuses that most people would want Vista for, namely Aero. Home Premium offers you Media Center functionality (which I admittedly do like), but the Mobility Center (Microsoft's feature geared towards notebook users) is (inexplicably) minorly crippled; I believe the "Sync Center" allowing synchronization with a desktop is missing. Business is more secure and has more fully-featured networking abilities. Ultimate just plain has everything. Enterprise is strictly for business customers.
One of the most damning things about this market segregation is the fact that Microsoft's site doesn't make any of this crap easy to learn. Beyond that, Home Premium is more expensive than XP Home Edition is; I had to pay extra when I ordered my laptop to get Premium instead of the useless pile Basic is, and I'm going to wind up paying extra again to get a copy of XP to install on it so I don't have to use Vista.
It gets worse, though. Here are some other restrictions you should know about:
1. Only Ultimate ships with both 32-bit and 64-bit versions included. All other retail versions ship only with the 32-bit software; you'll have to order the 64-bit discs from Microsoft. Your license WORKS with it, but you need to order the disc if you don't have one handy.
2. OEM versions come in 32-bit and 64-bit only. So if your shiny new notebook came with Vista and you eventually want to make the jump to the 64-bit version, good news! You're going to have to buy Windows Vista. I mean, you already own it, but you'll have to buy it to get the 64-bit version. Sure, you can order an OEM 64-bit version, but you still have to pay for Windows Vista AGAIN.
But wait! There's more!
Let's say you're upgrading to Windows Vista from XP or 2000. Now, somewhat more knowledgable users know that upgrading an existing operating system installation to a new one is generally a bad idea. XP had a scheme wherein if you had the upgrade version, you could do a clean install if you verified you had a CD of the older operating system. Not anymore with Vista!
If you buy the upgrade versions of Vista Home Basic or Premium, you'll need an activated installation of XP already on your system. So if you reformat your system once in a while (I do it almost pathologically), you'll now need to install TWO operating systems to get an install of Vista going.
As of the writing of this article, the only way to get a clean install of an Upgrade version is to install from the CD without using a CD key, and instead of activating it, promptly do an in-place upgrade of Vista with the key. This is a hole that I suspect will be closed at some point.
People like me who would've considered buying the upgrade version of Home Premium are now basically looking at spending up for the retail version if they want the freedom to do a clean install. Hooray!
64-BIT HOSED AGAIN
How Microsoft can continue screwing the pooch on 64-bit operating systems, I'll never know. The hardware is by and large out there. The majority of shipping notebooks now have 64-bit capable processors. The VAST majority of shipping desktops have 64-bit capable processors.
So when I look at Apple, who can change their underlying hardware from 64-bit to 32-bit to 64-bit and the end user NEVER NOTICES, I have to wonder why Microsoft has to ship different versions at all.
64-bit Vista has inherited all the problems of XP 64-bit as well: no 16-bit application compatibility, touchy 32-bit compatibility, hit-and-miss hardware compatibility. It requires 64-bit drivers even though I seem to remember at some point Microsoft saying that Vista would use a unified driver for 32-bit and 64-bit versions of Vista. Oh well. Who needed WinFS anyhow?
64-bit processing is supposed to IMPROVE performance, but performance in 64-bit Vista is generally down over the 32-bit version (whose performance is also down from XP!)
What really concerns me is that 32-bit Vista is the one being rolled out right now, even on 64-bit hardware, which is again going to seriously cripple widespread adoption of 64-bit computing. And remember what I said about OEM versions of Vista not being licensed for 64-bit? ;)
This wouldn't be a huge deal if it wasn't for the fact that high end users like yours truly are about to hit the 4GB limit of system RAM. 32-bit Vista (and XP) can only address a total of 4GB of RAM; even then, the operating system will never show that much RAM installed. Usually it displays an amount between 2.75 GB and 3.25 GB being available. Long story short: the RAM limit in 32-bit computing is about to get hit, with even mid-end notebooks now shipping with 2GB of RAM installed.
Vista was supposed to be the great savior for 64-bit computing, but it's a bust.
CONCLUSION
Windows Vista is Windows ME Part 2. It took five years to develop because three of those were spent building a brand new code base that didn't work at all and wound up getting scrapped, and the remaining two were spent just tweaking the XP code base. Almost all the features we were promised early on were discarded and what we end up with is a warmed over Windows XP that doesn't even do us the dignity of working properly out of the box. I think it's particularly telling that they've already announced the next major Windows release for late 2009.
It shouldn't have been rushed out. It shouldn't have even been released in its present state. This launch is vastly worse than XP's was, and reeks of arrogance on Microsoft's part, leveraging a monopoly on a world of consumers. I couldn't NOT get it on the laptop I ordered from HP. I'm not going to sit here and preach about Linux, which I still think is even LESS ready for primetime than Vista is. What I AM going to tell you is that against XP, the security features in Vista aren't worth it if you compute smart (something I wrote an article on a while back), DirectX 10 will take a while to reach critical mass for gamers, and frankly...XP just works. And it works a heck of a lot better right now.
Microsoft doesn't want to wait another five years for its next operating system release, but have you noticed anyone really complaining about the wait for Vista? I only complain because I think for five years of development you should have something to show other than an interface overhaul and widgets. We didn't NEED Vista the way we needed XP when it was released.
Vista offers no compelling reason to upgrade. There are other, better places to spend your money, and the only reason I can think of for forcing OEMs to produce machines with Vista AND ONLY VISTA is to make some extra money on all those copies of XP that they're going to sell when consumers figure out what a pile Vista is and make the jump back to XP.
AVOID.
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25. February 2007 @ 14:48 |
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How To Disable Windows Defender From Starting In Vista
Feb 25, 2007 - 2:02 PM - by Digital Dave
Of course before you do this you do want to make sure you have a replacement anti-spyware ready to install.
If you have other anti-spyware programs, they will most likely be better than the Windows Defender Microsoft ships with vista. You can disable this from running at startup and save yourself some valuable resources and make your boot times faster. Here?s what you do:
wordpress.com
How To Disable Windows Defender From Starting In Vista
25 02 2007
If you have other anti-spyware programs, they will most likely be better than the Windows Defender Microsoft ships with vista. You can disable this from running at startup and save yourself some valuable resources and make your boot times faster. Here?s what you do:
1. Hold the ?windows key? and press the letter ?r?
2. In the box type ?msconfig? and press enter
3. Click ?Continue? on the message box if you have one
4. Select the ?Startup? tab at the top
5. Locate the Startup item called ?Windows Defender? and uncheck the box
6. Click apply, click ok, then reboot
That?s it! No more windows defender loading at startup. And if you ever want it to load again, you can just repeat these steps and check the box again.
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4 product reviews
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25. February 2007 @ 14:57 |
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ireland
Question dose Windose Defender black list programs MS frowns on or just spy ware in general?
Copyright infringement is nothing more than civil disobedience to a bad set of laws. Lets renegotiate them.
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25. February 2007 @ 15:07 |
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ZIppyDSM
sorry i do not know the answer..
as if ye remember i pulled the vista hard drive the other day..and no longer using vista..to much crap to fix and i can not stand vista..may be in a year or two i will retry vista again..and i put in the windows 2000 hard drive..that i am posting from now..
Visual Tour: 20 Things You Won't Like About Windows Vista
link
http://www.computerworld.com/action/arti...ticleId=9000829
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4 product reviews
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25. February 2007 @ 15:14 |
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Originally posted by ireland:
ZIppyDSM
sorry i do not know the answer..
as if ye remember i pulled the vista hard drive the other day..and no longer using vista..to much crap to fix and i can not stand vista..may be in a year or two i will retry vista again..and i put in the windows 2000 hard drive..that i am posting from now..
Visual Tour: 20 Things You Won't Like About Windows Vista
link
http://www.computerworld.com/action/arti...ticleId=9000829
*noogies yur green skull*
XP sp2 up to date (6 months ago) has it ya silly :P
Copyright infringement is nothing more than civil disobedience to a bad set of laws. Lets renegotiate them.
This message has been edited since posting. Last time this message was edited on 25. February 2007 @ 15:20
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25. February 2007 @ 15:22 |
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Quote:
*noogies yur green skull*
XP sp2 up to date (6 months ago) has it ya silly :P
i do not have Windose Defender installed on xp-pro or home..ya silly..its junk...
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25. February 2007 @ 15:30 |
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ZIppyDSM ya silly :P
Windows Defender fails in new malware test
windows defender Windows Defender has been slated in a new test that found it could detect barely half of the malware thrown at it during the last year.
According to Australian testing company Enex Testlab, in full scanning mode the anti-malware scanner could only pick up 53.3 percent of an unspecified list of malware threats thrown at it during 2006, with the quick scan scoring a detection rate of under half. This contrasted with the superior scores achieved by a number of other anti-malware software, including a top score for PC Tools Spyware Doctor.
Critics will point out that the test was paid for by PC Tools itself, which offers an easy way for Microsoft to attack the results. The program has also spent 2006 in an unfinished state and was only released for XP in October of 2006, which one might think would make criticism of it misleading and unfair. Techworld.com - Security News - Windows Defender fails in new malware test Linked by shanmuga Wednesday, 21st February 2007 11:53PM
Windows Defender fails in new malware test
By John E. Dunn, Techworld
Windows Defender has been slated in a new test that found it could detect barely half of the malware thrown at it during the last year.
According to Australian testing company Enex Testlab, in full scanning mode the anti-malware scanner could only pick up 53.3 percent of an unspecified list of malware threats thrown at it during 2006, with the quick scan scoring a detection rate of under half. This contrasted with the superior scores achieved by a number of other anti-malware software, including a top score for PC Tools Spyware Doctor.
Critics will point out that the test was paid for by PC Tools itself, which offers an easy way for Microsoft to attack the results. The program has also spent 2006 in an unfinished state and was only released for XP in October of 2006, which one might think would make criticism of it misleading and unfair.
Equally, there is some evidence that the software might not be the best on the market. A test by another rival security company, Webroot, found Windows defender to be even less effective in spotting spyware and potentially unwanted programs (PUPs) when pitted against a sample list of 25 threats. It missed 84 percent of them.
?We wanted to prove through an independent and unbiased review - where PC Tools did not choose or supply the sample-set, that Vista?s anti-spyware protection is in fact inadequate, and could result in a false sense of security to consumers,? said PC Tools CEO Simon Clausen.
Clausen also criticised the Webroot test, accusing it of being unhelpfully selective. ?While we agree with the overriding conclusion that Vista security is lacking, this approach fundamentally contradicts the laws of statistical analysis, and clearly creates a bias result. By hand-picking the sample-set, it is easy to return results showing whatever you want. It would even be possible to show Vista had zero percent blocking ability,? he said.
PC Tools achieved a full scan detection rate of 88.7 percent in the Enex Testlab tests, which some might point out is good but far from foolproof. Comparing oneself with the least developed product on the market looks a bit complacent in this light.
The origins of Windows Defender lie with a product the company acquired in 2004 when it bought anti-spyware company Giant Software in contentious circumstances. The product was known as Windows Anti-Spyware until the 2005 RSA conference after which it was reborn as Defender. The software is available for all versions of Windows, including Vista, and
excluding Windows 2000.thank god its can not be run on windows 2000,i use spysweeper
http://www.techworld.com/security/news/index.cfm?RSS&NewsID=8073
This message has been edited since posting. Last time this message was edited on 25. February 2007 @ 15:32
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AfterDawn Addict
4 product reviews
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25. February 2007 @ 15:34 |
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ireland
I knew it failed just was wondering how bad :P
of coarse it fails MS is getting money from some of the spy ware people heaven forbid they block the stuff their getting paid to let in *rolls eyes*
Copyright infringement is nothing more than civil disobedience to a bad set of laws. Lets renegotiate them.
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AfterDawn Addict
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26. February 2007 @ 09:21 |
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Tricking Vista's UAC To Hide Malware
Posted by kdawson on Monday February 26, @07:42AM
from the protective-coloration dept.
Security Windows
Vista's User Account Control, love it or hate it, represents a barrier against unwanted software getting run on users' computers. A Symantec researcher has found a simple way to spoof UAC and says that it shouldn't be completely trusted. The trick is to disguise the UAC warning dialog in the color associated with alerts generated by Windows itself.
Vista's UAC Warnings Can't Be Trusted, Symantec Says
Hackers can trick Windows Vista's User Account Control to hide malware, researcher found.
Gregg Keizer, Computerworld
Thursday, February 22, 2007 06:00 AM PST
Windows Vista's User Account Control (UAC), a system that Microsoft says makes the new operating system safer from attack, can be spoofed and shouldn't be completely trusted, a Symantec researcher said on Wednesday.
Ollie Whitehouse, an architect at Symantec's advanced threats research team, first used a blog entry Tuesday to point out how a hacker could use a file included with Vista to disguise the UAC warning dialog in the color associated with alerts generated by Windows itself.
Spoofing a UAC Dialog, Step by Step
The process to spoof a UAC dialog is roundabout, but doable, said Whitehouse. It would start with a user falling for any one of the current hacker tricks. "The most likely scenario is that a user gets compromised by malicious code, from a Trojan [horse] or a vulnerability in a third-party application like Office or a browser," he said in an interview.
Next, the malicious code would drop a malformed .dll file onto a part of the hard drive that the user, who would presumably be running as a restricted Standard User, was allowed to write to. Because the user has rights to write to the disk, a UAC wouldn't pop up at that point.
Finally, the malicious code would call the "RunLegacyCPLElevated.exe" -- the Vista executable that provides backward compatibility to older Windows Control Panel plug-ins -- which in turn runs the .dll. That pops up a UAC dialog, but because RunLegacyCPLElevated.exe is set to run those Control Panel plug-ins with full administrative privileges, the dialog is bordered by Vista's own greenish color to signify the file is part of the operating system. As soon as the user clicks the "Confirm" button, the malicious code is granted administrative privileges, giving the code -- and thus the attacker -- full access to and complete control of the machine.
Colors Key to Trust
"The different colors imply the level of trust," Whitehouse argued. "The green color signifies the warning is coming from Vista. Blue-gray means it's a third-party application, but it's signed. Yellowish-orange means it's not signed and the source can't be guaranteed." Vista also borders some UAC dialogs in red to note applications it's automatically blocked.
The bottom line then, said Whitehouse, is: "Would the user treat this UAC with the same amount of caution?" His answer: No. Users will, as Microsoft intended when it selected those colors, note the teal border of the spoofed UAC and likely click through without a second thought, he said.
"This does require some user interaction, but we can mask something [malicious] in a way that makes it look less alarming. UAC is just one of the tools that Microsoft architected into the OS to allow the user to make more informed judgments. But it's somewhat undermined" by this, he said.
Microsoft: Not an Issue
Whitehouse said he contacted the Microsoft Security Response Center (MSRC) about two weeks ago to describe his findings. "They did not see it as an issue," he said. Instead, the MSRC pointed him to the "Security Best Practice Guidance for Consumers."
"It's very important to remember that UAC prompts are not a security boundary -- they don't offer direct protection," said Whitehouse. "They do offer you a chance to verify an action before it happens. Once you allow an action to proceed, there may be no easy way back. So while Microsoft may use the word 'trust' in relation to UAC in some of their [other] documentation, in actual fact, even the data these UAC prompts provide you with can't be trusted."
Microsoft officials were not available for comment.
Symantec has regularly slammed Vista's security provisions -- including a public spat over the 64-bit version's new kernel-protection technology, dubbed PatchGuard. Last month, Symantec executives talked up research it was doing on UAC, which may result in software to give users more control over how frequently Vista pops up the alerts.
Whitehouse denied that there was any connection between his research and possible UAC-related product plans
http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,129268/article.html
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AfterDawn Addict
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26. February 2007 @ 13:38 |
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Vista codec Package 4.2.9
Author: Shark007
Date: 2007-02-26
Size: 23.4 Mb
License: Freeware
With Vista codec Package installed, you won't need to install any other codec or filter. Many user suggested default settings are implemented. It does not contain a media player. It does not associates filetypes. With this package installed you will be able to use any media player (limited only by the players capabilities) to play DVD's, movies and video clips of any format. Streaming video (real and quicktime) is supported in web browsers. Visit the homepage to get a 64bitAddon which enables XviD, DivX and DVD playback in Vista's MediaCenter.
Codecs have always been a pain in the butt. This package takes from the best, all the big name creators, several small guys too, and compiles all this into a single pack. All possible conflicts are already dealt with, many user suggested default settings are implemented.
This package does not contain a media player. This package does not associates filetypes. With this package installed, you will be able to use any media player to play DVD's, movies and video clips such as quicktime, realmedia, AVI, mpeg, Flv, swf, wmv, etc. Streaming video can be played within web browsers. By default, you shouldn't need to make any adjustments to enjoy playback immediately.
Users now have the ability to choose what is installed using the public redistributable and after an unattended install, you can select to remove specific portions without removing the entire package. Future releases will recognize previous releases and perform upgrade installations.
Changelog:
MAJOR CHANGES to the Installation Architecture
require a clean installation - DO NOT UPGRADE
- fix installation errors caused in previous release (428)
- Update FFDShow components to t969
download here
http://www.majorgeeks.com/download5326.html
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AfterDawn Addict
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27. February 2007 @ 06:58 |
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FREE,WINDOWS VISTA UPGRADE ADVISOR..........Windows Vista Upgrade Advisor is designed to help Windows XP users identify whether their PCs are ready for an upgrade to Windows Vista, which edition of Windows Vista meets their needs, and which features of Windows Vista will be able to run on their PCs .....(free).....GO THERE!
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/detai...splaylang=en&tm
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AfterDawn Addict
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27. February 2007 @ 07:12 |
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Vista WGA problems confirmed
Feb 26, 2007 - 11:04 PM - by Digital Dave
Oh I would have been so pis*****. Oh... the email I would have written.
When I installed a beta version of Acclaim's 9Dragons role-playing game (protected, apparently, by nProtect's GameGuard anti-cheating software), Vista dropped a bomb on me. A time bomb, that is. The software convinced the Windows Software Licensing service that the operating system was being tampered with, deactivating the system and starting a 72-hour countdown to "reduced functionality mode." This image gallery documents the process:
blogs.zdnet.com
This morning I reported on Vista activation and validation problems I've been hearing and reading about in the last few weeks. This afternoon I have a firsthand report.
When I installed a beta version of Acclaim's 9Dragons role-playing game (protected, apparently, by nProtect's GameGuard anti-cheating software), Vista dropped a bomb on me. A time bomb, that is. The software convinced the Windows Software Licensing service that the operating system was being tampered with, deactivating the system and starting a 72-hour countdown to "reduced functionality mode." This image gallery documents the process:
I'm baffled that this Windows error message doesn't actually mention Windows. It just says "your license" and "your software." How am I supposed to know which license and which software. And in the left-hand-meet-right-hand department, where's Windows Defender in all this? I'm installing a piece of software that is tampering with my operating system, according to the Windows Software Licensing module. So why is Windows Defender looking the other way while this dastardly deed is being done? Why doesn't it detect and block this software?
In this case, closing the game and restarting the computer allowed me to reactivate over the Internet, but other people haven't been so lucky, based on reports filed at Microsoft's Vista Validation Issues forum.
For the record, I think Acclaim deserves a share of the blame for this problem. This problem has been known for a month, maybe much longer. When I installed the 9Dragons software today, it auto-updated itself to the latest version. Supposedly, nProtect has had a patch available for some time, so why doesn't Acclaim include it?
Still, shifting the blame around is cold comfort to a Windows user who downloads and installs a perfectly innocent-looking program only to discover that they've actually pulled the pin on a grenade that will go off in 72 hours unless it's disarmed.
So far, it looks like most of these problems respond to simple treatment: uninstall the game or program and reactivate, by phone if necessary. Still, it's a hassle to deal with, and nontechnical users are likely to be thoroughly confused.
I was fortunate enough not to reach "reduced functionality mode." Adrian Kingsley-Hughes has an excellent image gallery showing exactly what that looks like. (Hint: not fun.)
I'm still waiting for a response from Microsoft.
GO HERE TO SEE THE PIXS WITH THE STORY
http://blogs.zdnet.com/Bott/?p=221
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AfterDawn Addict
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27. February 2007 @ 07:16 |
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Realtek High Definition Audio for Vista 1.60
Feb 27, 2007 - 7:19 AM - by Digital Dave
Updated for the folks who just might need them.
majorgeeks.com
Realtek High Definition Audio for Vista 1.60
Author: Realtec
Date: 2007-02-26
Size: 15 Mb
License: Freeware
Requires: Vista
DOWNLOAD HERE
http://www.majorgeeks.com/_Realtek_High_...ista_d5513.html
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AfterDawn Addict
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27. February 2007 @ 08:05 |
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Windows XP vs. Vista: The Benchmark Rundown
Patrick Schmid, Achim Roos
January 29, 2007 09:16
Is Windows Vista Faster Than XP?
Our Windows Vista coverage began with a hands-on diary by MobilityGuru's Barry Gerber, followed by an assessment of gameplay under Windows Vista by graphics presidente Darren Polkowski, as well as a complete feature rundown of Vista. Barry took the new operating system and its look & feel with a grain of salt, while Darren was disappointed because OpenGL support was dropped along the way, meaning that Windows Vista currently offers horrible performance for graphics applications utilizing the Open Graphics Library.
We are sure that mainstream users will appreciate the improved usability of Windows Vista, and the average office/multimedia user will likely never notice the lack of OpenGL. However, a chapter on the overall performance of Windows Vista requires more dedication. In particular, two things require an in-depth analysis:
* Basic Windows Vista Performance
How does Windows Vista perform compared to Windows XP? Will applications execute equally quickly, or will they even run slower due to the new features and the AeroGlass interface?
* Windows Vista Performance Enhancements
With SuperFetch and ReadyBoost, Windows Vista introduces two features to make use of today's technology in order to improve the user experience. This means that more application data should be actively cached into all available memory (SuperFetch), whether that is physical RAM or a USB Flash memory device (ReadyBoost). Microsoft's goal was to create balanced performance by removing delays in everyday work.
This article deals with basic application execution under Windows Vista Enterprise, which is representative of the other editions. We put together a high-end test system and performed a comprehensive benchmark session both with Windows XP Professional and with Windows Vista Enterprise to see if there are differences. And indeed, we found that there are some...
Software And Vista
Although the main Windows Vista core has undergone lot of modifications, many of your applications will work with Vista. There is, however, no guarantee. You should definitely try any essential software on Windows before you upgrade.
Process scheduling and thread pooling have been improved in Vista; a deadlock protection mechanism and hardware partitioning for virtualization support were added, together with many more features.
We tried lots of different programs under Windows Vista Enterprise, and came up with a list of software that definitely works.
Games
* Call of Duty 2
* Far Cry
* F.E.A.R.
* Unreal Tournament 2004
Applications
* Adobe Acrobat 8
* Adobe Photoshop CS2
* Autodesk 3DSMax 8.0
* AutoGK 2.4
* Hamachi
* KeePass 1.06
* LAME MP3 Encoder
* MainConcept H.264 Encoder
* Miranda Messager 0.5.1
* Microsoft Office 2003
* Microsoft Office System 2007
* Mozilla Firefox 2.0.0.1
* Mozilla Thunderbird 1.5.0.9
* Nokia PC Suite 6.82.22.0
* Ogg Vorbis 1.1.2
* OpenOffice 2.1
* Picasa 2
* Putty
* Skype 2.5.x and 3.0
* SmartFTP 2.0
* Sungard Adaptive Credit Risk Calculation 3.0
* SonyEricsson PC Suite 1.30.82
* SQLyog 5.22
* Symantec AntiVirus 10.2.0.224
* UltraEdit 32 12.10
* WinRAR 3.70
* XviD 1.2.0
Benchmarks
* 3DMark 06
* Cinebench
* PCMark05 Pro
* SiSoft Sandra 2007
* SPECviewperf 9.03
In other cases there were some issues.
We found Vista updates for the Futuremark benchmark programs 3DMark and PCMark, as well as the popular data compression tool WinRAR. Lots of video-related software such as DivX could no longer be installed; new versions are required. The popular audio player WinAMP 5.32 throws up an error at startup, yet it works properly. Quake IV can still be executed, but the installation program did not work. Applications that run their own memory management won't benefit from Vista's SuperFetch function. For example, Adobe Photoshop takes care of creating a temporary work file every time it launches - Vista has no access to this process and cannot speed it up.
There are some types of software that you should only use if they have been specifically designed for Windows Vista: firewalls, anti-spyware and anti-virus software needs to be Vista-Ready.
this is a 11 page article
http://www.tomshardware.com/2007/01/29/xp-vs-vista/
What You Should Know About Benchmarking
Knowing that Windows Vista has its SuperFetch feature, it is important to set up your test system to receive maximum performance that is reproducible. This means that you should either make sure SuperFetch works as efficiently as possible, or that it doesn't have a varying impact on your benchmarking. The latter is only possible by returning to a cold memory state before commencing the benchmarking. Cold memory means that SuperFetch doesn't know about applications that it wants to buffer into the main memory. You can accomplish this by reinstalling Vista, or by restoring a system image that you created earlier.
The opposite of a cold memory state is a highly populated main memory. SuperFetch will adapt to usage patterns, proactively putting applications into the main memory, and keeping them there unless the memory is needed by other applications. Please note that this is different from conventional application caching, which leaves application data in the main memory after it is terminated.
In order to make Vista/SuperFetch aware of a popular application, it makes a lot of sense to train the system. This training is important for benchmarking purposes - which we'll talk more about in an upcoming article - but also is appealing to enthusiasts, who would like their systems to run as smoothly and quickly as possible. To train the system, make sure you execute your applications and workload several times before you start measuring performance. This might not have much of an impact on single applications, but benchmarking suites such as SYSmark can show significant differences between the first runs and later repetitions with SuperFetch flexing its muscles.
Our everyday work with Vista became more pleasant as Vista learned about our preferred applications: Microsoft Office Outlook launched noticeably faster, and Skype launched almost instantly. This smoothness, however, doesn't mean that applications run faster. It simply means that they are available much more quickly by relocating frequently accessed files from the slow hard drive into the quicker main memory.
Benchmarking Checklist
* Tweak the OS: turn off animations and AeroGlass for maximum system performance.
* Disable User Access Control to prevent it from interrupting certain benchmarks.
* Have the OS process pending idle tasks
* Turn off system restore
* Install all applications, and execute them several times (with restarts in between) to make SuperFetch aware that you want them to be available.
* Don't use the system after reboots during your SuperFetch training period: this way, Vista gets sufficient idle time to "superfetch" applications.
Test Setup
System Hardware
Processor Intel Core 2 Extreme X6800 (Conroe 65 nm, 2.93 GHz, 4 MB L2 Cache)
Motherboard Gigabyte GA-965P-DQ6
Chipset: Intel P965, 82801HR (ICH8), BIOS: F8
Common Hardware
RAM 2x 1024 MB DDR2-800 (CL 3.0-4-3-9)
Corsair CM2X1024-6400C3 XMS6403v1.1
Graphics Card HIS Radeon X1900XTX IceQ3
GPU: ATI X1900XTX (650 MHz)
RAM: 512 MB GDDR3 (1550 MHz)
System Hard Drive 1x 150 GB 10,000 RPM, 8 MB Cache, SATA/150
Western Digital WD1500ADFD
Data Hard Drive 1x 150 GB 10.000 RPM, 8 MB Cache, SATA/150
Western Digital WD1500ADFD
DVD-ROM Teac DV-W50D
Software
Vista ATI Graphic Catalyst Suite 8.31.100.3.2.1
XP ATI Graphic Catalyst Suite 7.1.40211
Intel Chipset 8.1.1.1010
DirectX Vista Version: 10.0c (4.09.0000.0904)
DirectX XP Version: 9.0c (4.09.0000.0904)
OS Windows Vista Enterprise, Build 6000.16386.061101-2205
Benchmarks And Settings
Benchmarks and Settings
3D-Games
Call Of Duty 2 Version: 1.3 Retail
Video Mode: 1280x960
Anti Aliasing: 4x
Graphics Card: medium
Timedemo demo2
FarCry Version 1.33 build 1395
1280x1024 - 32 Bit
quality options = High
F.E.A.R Version: 1.0 Retail
Video Mode: 1280x920
Computer: High
Graphics Card: High
Options/Performance/Test settings
Unreal Tournament 2004 Version: 3204
1280x1024, 32 Bit, Audio = off
THG8-assault-single
3DMark06 Version 1.1.0
1280 x 1024 - 32 bit
Graphics and CPU Default Benchmark
Video
AutoGK Version: 2.4
182 MB VOB MPEG2-source (704x576) 16:9
XviD Version: 1.2.0 SMP Beta 08/12/06
Encoding type: Twopass
Target size (mbytes): 100
MainConcept H.264 Encoder v2 Version: 2.1
2:19 min MPEG2-source 1920x1080 to H.264
Profile: High
Audio: AAC
Stream: Program
Audio
Lame MP3 Version 3.97 Beta 2 (11-29-2005)
Audio CD "Terminator II SE", 74 min
wave to mp3
160 kbps
OGG Version 1.1.2 (Intel P4 MOD)
Version 1.1.2 (Intel AMD MOD)
Audio CD "Terminator II SE", 74 min
wave to ogg
Quality: 5
Applications
SPECviewperf 9 Version: 9.03
All Tests
Winrar Version 3.70 Beta 1 (Multi-Core)
(303 MB, 47 Files, 2 Folders)
Compression = Best
Dictionary = 4096 kB
Autodesk 3D Studio Max Version: 8.0
Characters "Dragon_Charater_rig"
rendering HTDV 1920x1080
Adobe Photoshop CS 2 Version: 9.0.1
VT-Runtime Script
Rendering from 5 Pictures (66 MB, 7 Filters)
Cinebench Version 9.5
64 Bit
nCPU, 1 CPU
SunGard Adaptiv Credit Risk Calculation
Version 3.0
Synthetic
Everest Version 3.5.761
Cache & Memory Benchmark
PCMark05 Pro Version: 1.2.0
CPU and Memory Tests
Windows Media Player 10.00.00.3646
Windows Media Encoder 9.00.00.2980
SiSoftware Sandra 2007 Version 2007.5.11.17
CPU Test = CPU Arithmetic / MultiMedia
Memory Test = Bandwidth Benchmark
Memory Latency Test = ns
this is a 11 page article
GO HERE TO READ THE TOTAL ARTICLE
http://www.tomshardware.com/2007/01/29/xp-vs-vista/
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AfterDawn Addict
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27. February 2007 @ 09:26 |
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Vista Worse For User Efficiency Than XP
Posted by kdawson on Tuesday February 27, @01:27PM
from the two-steps-back dept.
Windows GUI
erikvlie writes "Pfeiffer Consulting released a report on User Interface Friction, comparing Windows Vista/Aero with Windows XP and Mac OS X. The report concludes that Vista/Aero is worse in terms of desktop operations, menu latency, and mouse precision than XP ? which was and still is said to be a lot worse on those measures than Mac OS X. The report was independently financed. The IT-Enquirer editor has read the report and summarized the most important findings."
Windows Vista Hinders Creative Users? Efficiency Even More than Windows XP Did
Created: February 26, 2007
By:
Erik Vlietinck
Guess what? Despite Microsoft?s efforts to provide for a more fluid and agreeable interface with Vista?s Aero, Pfeiffer Consulting found Vista to be even worse than Windows XP (SP2) --and of course Mac OS X. Their conclusion is backed with cold, hard research. Pfeiffer Consulting conducted the research based on an independently financed series of benchmarks that establish how Vista impacts User Interface Friction (UIF) and user efficiency.
Pfeiffer Consulting, a Paris/France based international research and consulting operation specialised in technology and media, just recently released a report on Windows Vista User Interface Friction (UIF). UIF is a Pfeiffer concept, which describes and quantifies the perceived differences in efficiency and user experience between operating system, applications, and digital devices. UIF defines the fluidity and productivity that can be observed when performing the same operation on different computer systems, programs or devices.
Pfeiffer Consulting looked for a specific number of issues that it knew under-performed in previous versions of Windows. With Windows Vista, Microsoft claims to have re-invented the Windows interface, making it simpler and more efficient to use. Some Mac users pointed out from the beginning that Aero looked suspiciously close to what Tiger has to offer. With Pfeiffer?s report in mind, their observations seem to miss the point. Even if Microsoft has been playing copycat all over, the results are simply lousy --there?s no other word for it.
The benchmarks run on Vista?s performance were a selection of what Pfeiffer can measure. The results of this new report are therefore nowhere near a complete assessment of the Windows Vista environment where it matters for creative professionals. The first benchmark Pfeiffer measured is Mouse Precision Mouse precision is essential for those who use the mouse to accurately position elements: CAD, graphic design, page layout, web design, etc.
Lack of Precision, Slow Menus and Desktop Operations Rule in Vista/Aero
The lack of precision is detrimental to such work, but can also affect daily tasks on a subliminal level. Pfeiffer says it may go unnoticed for many users, but can have a significant ripple effect in terms of efficiency and computer-related stress. In the area of Mouse Precision, Windows Vista scored worse than Windows XP. Where Mac OS X scored 0.08, Windows XP scored 0.40 and Vista/Aero 0.52. The lack of precision has worsened, but perhaps not by much.
However, other User Interface Friction has worsened by a substantial amount, even when compared to Windows XP. Pfeiffer?s report also covers Menu Latency --the slight lag that Windows imposes when displaying menus and submenus. Here, the report concludes Vista/Aero has worsened by no less than 20% compared to Windows XP.
Finally, Desktop Operations --such as opening folders, deleting elements, etc) also show Vista/Aero has become worse than Windows XP. The lag has increased by 16%.
Pfeiffer Consulting advises to think very carefully before migrating or upgrading to Windows Vista in the creative department. Their benchmarks show that creative professionals will actually become less productive than they would be when using Windows XP. Of course, Mac OS X remains a clear winner in this area. The reasons why that is so is explained in Pfeiffer?s full report on the matter.
http://www.it-enquirer.com/main/ite/more/pfeiffer_vista/
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AfterDawn Addict
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28. February 2007 @ 11:44 |
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Microsoft can activate Vista even if it doesn't need to
It's blinking amazing
By INQUIRER staff: Wednesday 28 February 2007, 19:54
SOMETIMES, it appears, that you might be asked to activate Windows Vista on a computer on which activation wasn't required before.
The problem "rarely occurs" says the Vole, but might happen if you install a device driver, install a program, run a new program or remove a program.
So far the problem seems to be confined to Vista machines, but if it starts happening to XP machines because of the WGA, be sure to let us know.
Here is the Volish note.below
It is like walking through narrow corridors in Byzantium we are given to understand. But luckily we've never walked through narrow corridors in Byzantium. In the meantime, here's a pic of Al Gore a reader mocked up for a us a year or two back while you contemplate your Vista perambulation. µ
http://www.theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=37917
You may be prompted to activate Windows Vista on a computer on which Windows Vista activation was not previously required
View products that this article applies to.
Article ID : 931573
Last Review : February 15, 2007
Revision : 2.1
On This Page
SYMPTOMS
CAUSE
RESOLUTION
To resolve this problem if it has already occurred
To prevent this problem
Windows Vista
Windows Vista for 64-bit Systems
STATUS
MORE INFORMATION
SYMPTOMS
You may be prompted to activate Windows Vista on a computer on which Windows Vista activation was not previously required. Although this problem rarely occurs, it may occur during typical use of a Windows Vista-based computer. For example, this problem may occur under one or more of the following conditions:
? You install a device driver.
? You install a program.
? You run a new program.
? You remove a program.
Back to the top
CAUSE
This problem may occur because a specific system setting is removed when a program runs with administrative credentials. The removal of this system setting may cause a BIOS validation check to fail. The BIOS validation check is part of the system activation process. Therefore, you may be prompted to activate Windows Vista, even though the system did not previously require activation. For example, this problem is known to occur when you use Intuit QuickBooks 2007. However, this problem may also infrequently occur when you install other programs or device drivers.
Note This problem does not occur because of an issue in the installed program or device driver. This problem is caused by a system problem in Windows Vista.
Back to the top
RESOLUTION
To resolve this problem if it has already occurred
To resolve this problem if it has already occurred, use one of the following methods:
? If you have been prompted to activate Windows Vista, and you have not used the product key to manually activate Windows Vista, install update 931573, and then restart the computer.
? If you have been prompted to activate Windows Vista, and you have used the product key to manually activate Windows Vista, install update 931573, and then activate Windows Vista by telephone. For more information about how to activate Windows Vista, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:
925616 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/925616/) Error message when you start Windows Vista: "Your activation period has expired"
Back to the top
To prevent this problem
To prevent this problem, install update 931573. To do this, visit the following Microsoft Web site:
http://windowsupdate.microsoft.com (http://windowsupdate.microsoft.com)
The following files are available for download from the Microsoft Download Center:
Windows Vista
DownloadDownload the Update for Windows Vista (KB931573) package now. (http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=5549C98D-421A-4F77-97F3-4E82A4D6471B)
Windows Vista for 64-bit Systems
DownloadDownload the Update for Windows Vista for 64-bit Systems (KB931573) package now. (http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=C4BC5D31-3CEA-4992-84D7-334D29580EF1)
Release Date: January 30, 2007
For more information about how to download Microsoft support files, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:
119591 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/119591/) How to obtain Microsoft support files from online services
Microsoft scanned this file for viruses. Microsoft used the most current virus-detection software that was available on the date that the file was posted. The file is stored on security-enhanced servers that help prevent any unauthorized changes to the file.
Back to the top
STATUS
Microsoft has confirmed that this is a problem in the Microsoft products that are listed in the "Applies to" section.
Back to the top
MORE INFORMATION
For more information about how hotfix packages are named, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:
816915 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/816915/) New file naming schema for Microsoft Windows software update packages
For more information, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:
824684 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/824684/) Description of the standard terminology that is used to describe Microsoft software updates
The third-party products that this article discusses are manufactured by companies that are independent of Microsoft. Microsoft makes no warranty, implied or otherwise, about the performance or reliability of these products.
Back to the top
APPLIES TO
? Windows Vista Ultimate
? Windows Vista Starter
? Windows Vista Home Premium
? Windows Vista Home Basic
? Windows Vista Enterprise
? Windows Vista Business 64-bit EN
? Windows Vista Business
? Windows Vista Ultimate 64-bit edition
? Windows Vista Home Premium 64-bit edition
? Windows Vista Home Basic 64-bit edition
? Windows Vista Enterprise 64-bit edition
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/931573/en-us
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AfterDawn Addict
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28. February 2007 @ 11:53 |
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Quote:
Why Does Vista Use All My Memory?
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 2007-02-28 19:29:57 UTC
Jeff Atwood explains why Vista uses so much memory. "You have to stop thinking of system memory as a resource and start thinking of it as a a cache. Just like the level 1 and level 2 cache on your CPU, system memory is yet another type of high-speed cache that sits between your computer and the disk drive. And the most important rule of cache design is that empty cache memory is wasted cache memory. Empty cache isn't doing you any good. It's expensive, high-speed memory sucking down power for zero benefit. The primary mission in the life of every cache is to populate itself as quickly as possible with the data that's most likely to be needed - and to consistently deliver a high 'hit rate' of needed data retrieved from the cache."
PLEASE GO HERE TO READ THE TOTAL ARTICLE...ALSO THERE SOME PRETTY PIXS THERE
http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/archives/000688.html
CLICK HERE
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janrocks
Suspended permanently
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28. February 2007 @ 13:13 |
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Nice 1000 reasons to not buy or install vista there.
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ddp
Moderator
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28. February 2007 @ 13:32 |
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worked on my 1st vista computer last saturday. customer bought a hp with vista home on it & wanted info saved off old xp home pc. got his info transferred but had problems with address book. had to do a round about way to do it as i couldn't find a way to unhide hidden files.
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AfterDawn Addict
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28. February 2007 @ 16:09 |
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Vista Download Disaster
02.28.07
Is there a fundamental flaw in Microsoft's Vista download program?
By Lance Ulanoff
In the world of operating systems, Microsoft Windows Vista is just a baby. It's just now toddling along on new systems being sold throughout the U.S. And, like a small child being dropped by the stork to new parents, it's available to older desktop PCs via Microsoft's download-to-buy program.
Giving early adopters such easy, unfettered access to the somewhat untested OS was a bold move by Microsoft. The company had to know that people like those who work at PC Magazine would be among the first to test-drive this new installation option. Many of us have two- to three-year-old machines that meet or beat the minimum specs for running Windows Vista (with Aero). Why shell out another $1,000 to $2,000 for a new system when we can simply download the OS for $159 and get the "Wow!"? That was, to some extent, what was on PC Magazine publisher and tech-savvy computer user Jim McCabe's mind when he decided to upgrade his laptop with the latest OS.
I ran into Jim early one morning after he had installed Windows Vista Home Premium. He wasn't smiling, and the tale he told me made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. It left me worried and wondering about how many other Vista download customers are currently thisclose to smashing their PCs with the nearest heavy object.
McCabe's been at the magazine long enough to know to ask the right questions before embarking on a technology quest. He had read our stories and talked to editors about the Vista experience. His Averatec 3300 laptop PC was no powerhouse, but its 1.6-GHz processor, 1GB of RAM, and 80GB hard drive were all ready to handle Vista's basic requirements. Downloading the software seemed like a great option. He found you could even do it from one of Microsoft's retail partners. McCabe chose Circuit City, and soon he was ready to install the OS.
Because it's getting harder and harder for Microsoft to support the millions of different system configurations out there, the Redmond software giant will always recommend a clean install. It's a nice thought?not particularly realistic, but a very quaint one. For me, though, and I assume for Jim, the real "Wow!" would happen when your old PC, with all its hardware and software, becomes your new PC. It's like taking the motor out of your beloved 1956 Chevy Bel Air and putting in a new engine. You still have that great body, but the inside is humming like never before.
Installation took an hour and went off without a hitch. During the process, Windows Vista asked Jim if he wanted to have all updates installed automatically, to have only the critical ones installed, or to handle updates manually. McCabe chose the first option because, as he put it, "You editors told me to." I'm sure we did, Jim, and I would do the same thing.
At first glance, McCabe's PC looked great. All the settings were maintained?right down to his screen saver. The Averatec and Vista did as Jim had instructed during installation and immediately connected to the Internet and downloaded the Vista updates. Within minutes, he saw a message telling him that all of the updates were successful, and then the laptop began a necessary reboot.
At this point, the story sounded pretty commonplace, but the look on McCabe's face told me a different story. He continued on and arrived at the tale's turning point.
McCabe's Averatec began its reboot and within seconds lapsed into a horrifying blue screen of death. Jim's a wily guy, so he quickly disabled Vista's automatic restart and captured the on-screen info. Then he tried all the strategies Windows Vista recommended to untangle his system mess: Safe mode, Disabling the Network, and so on.
Vista also asked him to place the Windows Vista DVD in the system, restart, and then choose "Repair." Great idea, except McCabe didn't have an install DVD.
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1895,2098770,00.asp
It was time to call in an expert.?next: Microsoft Customer Service >
The Microsoft customer service rep was nice enough and walked McCabe through every step he had already tried on his own. Obviously stumped, the tech asked Jim to use his Windows Vista DVD and choose the "Repair" option.
"But I don't have a DVD," said McCabe, explaining he had downloaded the OS from Circuit City. The tech seemed unaware that Microsoft is offering the OS as a download. "He seemed kind of baffled by it," McCabe told me.
The tech recovered with a brilliant idea: "Can you borrow it from a friend?"
"He wanted me to walk next door and ask my neighbor if he had a Windows Vista installation DVD," explained an exasperated McCabe.
I could barely believe what I was hearing. If this were a Windows XP install, I'd almost understand. Heck, virtually everyone is running Win XP. I could probably find five install discs on my own block. But Windows Vista is not yet a month old. Hardly anyone has it. Sales of the OS are, for the moment, a bit slow. This will change, but for a support tech to recommend that a customer try to find an install disc to recover his PC is, well, beyond the pale. It's the kind of dead-end solution you offer when you no longer care or are simply too ignorant to have a reasonable answer.
Jim's an enterprising sort, and though he too was appalled by the support tech's suggestion, he wanted "to see this thing through." This time, his journey took him back to the local Circuit City store. McCabe figured that since he had purchased the download from them, perhaps they'd give him a DVD.
No dice. McCabe eventually bought a new Windows Vista DVD (he figured he'd stop payment on the download).
This time McCabe did a clean install, which meant that all of his software and hardware would be shoved into a Windows Old folder (a resting place for things you'd likely never see or use again). Windows Vista now worked flawlessly?even with the updates?but McCabe did not have his old system. Yes, it looked like the old Averatec, but everything else?all the settings, all the apps, and his trusty hardware?had been pushed out of reach.
You know what comes next. Jim took a recent backup image of his Averatec hard drive and reverted to Windows XP.
Where did Jim go wrong? Apparently, it was when he took a risk on the downloadable version of Windows Vista.
Microsoft has made a number of small missteps here, but the biggie is that it won't send out a Windows DVD to download customers. If the only way to "repair" Vista is to use that DVD, Microsoft must send them one. To say no is inexcusable.
Jim McCabe's experience may not be the same as everyone who goes this route, but if it can happen to a tech-savvy user like him, it could happen to you. I will say this: Hearing this Microsoft Windows Vista story did make me say "Wow."
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1895,2098778,00.asp
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AfterDawn Addict
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28. February 2007 @ 16:32 |
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Symantec Vista White Paper Links to PatchGuard Crack
By Scott M. Fulton, III, BetaNews
February 28, 2007, 5:08 PM
In a curious decision on the part of a security software company, a white paper released today on the Web site of Symantec - whose opinions of Microsoft's implementation of PatchGuard protection on 64-bit Windows Vista are well known - contains the address of an independent research paper which includes a demonstration of defeating PatchGuard, complete with source code, in an early Vista beta.
The address of the PDF white paper entitled "Bypassing PatchGuard on Windows x64" -- which was released in December 2005 and has since acquired a modicum of fame and respect -- is located in Symantec's 16-page analysis of Microsoft's security technologies, in a footnote to this sentence: "As demonstrated during the development process of Windows Vista and during its release, hackers can and will subvert PatchGuard."
One of the linked paper's authors, however - a professional developer and Microsoft MVP named Ken Johnson, using the handle Skywing - is certainly no "hacker" by the more negative connotation, working for a company that produces virtual private network software for Windows, and performing legitimate reverse engineering as a hobby. Johnson originally co-authored the thoughtful and well-researched paper as a wake-up call for Microsoft well prior to Vista's release.
"In the interest of not identifying a problem without also proposing a solution," Johnson and his co-author wrote in the paper's conclusion, "each bypass technique [presented here] has an associated list of ways in which the technique could be mitigated by Microsoft in the future."
Symantec's reference to Johnson's work comes by way of a newly refreshed indictment of Microsoft's PatchGuard technology, whose intention in 64-bit Vista is to disable unauthenticated programs from direct access to the system kernel. While such technology was designed to disable rootkits, it also prevents anti-virus programs including Symantec's and McAfee's from being able to detect when other unauthorized programs are attempting to bypass the system, whether or not such attempts would be successful if left unmonitored.
In its white paper, Symantec lumped PatchGuard together with two other Microsoft technologies formally adopted by Vista: code integrity for ensuring the legitimacy of installed executables by means of hash signatures of their binary contents, and driver signing for verifying the authenticity of low-level programs written by third parties.
"The kernel integrity protection mechanisms that are present on 64-bit Windows Vista can only be described as a bump in the road," Symantec's paper suggests. "That is, while these technologies may slow down an attacker, they may not provide a meaningful defense against a determined one."
Researchers for Symantec's paper analyzed all three 64-bit Vista security innovations, and came to a dire conclusion: "Results have shown that all three technologies can be permanently disabled and removed from Windows Vista after approximately one man-week of effort. A potential victim need make only one mistake to become infected by a threat that does the same."
But as if that didn't say enough, the paper then makes a very sweeping and potentially unsubstantiated claim: that all three technologies are left capable of being "stripped from Windows Vista in their entirety." Later in the paper, Symantec did demonstrate how a group policy object editor can be used (by design) to turn off a different Vista security feature, User Account Control - which stops the system and notifies users whenever a system-changing event is about to occur. Many security firms, among others, have touted UAC as more likely to be seen as an annoyance than a feature by users, probably likely to be turned off anyway.
Symantec advises against doing so, however, and in its paper's conclusion gently admonishes users at large for even thinking about such things - even when someone else puts the idea in their heads. "Symantec continues to see the user as the weakest link," the paper concludes, "as social engineering attacks become more elaborate in order to undermine the security technologies within Windows Vista."
But in the conclusion to Johnson's 2005 treatise, ironically, he just as gently chastises large security companies - Symantec being named among them later - for paying less attention to the details and engineering of PatchGuard bypasses than even Microsoft.
"While security software vendors may not make use of techniques used to bypass PatchGuard due to marketing and security concerns," Johnson wrote, "it can certainly be said that malicious code will. As such, malicious code actually gains an upper-hand in the competition since security vendors end up with their hands tied behind their back. In order to address this concern, Microsoft appears to be willing to work actively with vendors to ensure that they are still able to accomplish their goals through more acceptable and documented approaches."
Since Johnson's writing, Microsoft has pledged to open up avenues for legitimate kernel access to security companies, in a technology update the company says will be part of Vista Service Pack 1.
But Johnson went on: "Another important question to consider is whether or not Microsoft will really break a vendor that has deployed a solution to millions of systems that happens to disable PatchGuard through a bypass technique. One could feasibly see a McAfee or Symantec doing something like this, although Microsoft would hope to leverage their business ties to ensure that McAfee and Symantec did not have to resort to such a technique. The fact that McAfee and Symantec are such large companies lends them a certain amount of leverage when negotiating with Microsoft, but the smaller companies are most likely going to not be subject to the same level of respect and consideration."
Maybe...maybe not. While it's a noteworthy company in its own right, Sophos is indeed smaller than McAfee or Symantec, and yet it states Microsoft's partnership on security issues has been most forthcoming.
In a post last month to his personal blog, Ken Johnson predicted that Microsoft is indeed learning significant lessons from its deployment of PatchGuard - lessons that company may very well put to use in its next operating system revision. There, Johnson believes, Microsoft will pair PatchGuard with virtualization technology to produce a patch-proof system that Symantec and others will truly have to reckon with, by means other than open complaints.
Johnson writes: "When PatchGuard is hypervisor-backed, it won't be feasible to simply patch it out of existence, which means that ISVs will either have to comply with Microsoft's requirements or find a way to evade PatchGuard entirely."
http://www.betanews.com/article/Symantec...rack/1172700498
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janrocks
Suspended permanently
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1. March 2007 @ 01:27 |
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Post by Mark Hachman
Just 104 applications have been certified to run under Windows Vista, according to an update published on Microsoft's Web site.
Version 1.2 of Microsoft's list, dated Thursday, lists 104 apps that have earned the "Certified for Windows Vista" logo. Of those, 23 are Microsoft applications, meaning just 81 third-party apps have earned the Vista logo.
Those numbers are slightly misleading, however; another 682 applications have been certified to "Work With Windows Vista" which means, I assume, that they, well, work. Of these, 80 are Microsoft applications.
The difference between the two lists seems to be the large number of older products that have been tested against Vista; for example, one of Microsoft's self-published games, Dungeon Siege 2, carries the "Works With Vista" logo but not the "Certified" logo? probably because the game was released in 2006, before Vista was launched.
Just a few popular apps carry the Vista certification: Cyberlink's PowerDVD, Nero 7 Premium, Raxco's PerfectDisk disk optimization tool, Trend Micro's PC-cillin, and Ulead's VideoStudio 10.
Slightly more worrying, though, is the relative unimportance of a vast majority of the applications carrying the "Works With" logo. Here's a quick rundown of the apps I think most users would find significant:
?ALWIL's avast! antivirus
?AOL 9.0
?Autodesk's suite of apps
?Corel's WordPerfect, Painter, and Snapfire
?Google's Desktop
?Intuit's QuickBooks suite
?Laplink's PCmover
?Magix's Foto suite
?Software from Mamut
?Pinnacle Systems' Mobile Media Converter
?ScanSoft's NatuallySpeaking and PDF Converter
?Ulead Systems' Intervideo and TrustView apps
That's about it. There are other minor pieces of software that you may use, such as SpectraSoft's AppointmentsPRO; but honestly, for every Stamps.com application, there's Absolute Entertainment's Absolute Poker.
According to Microsoft, "there are many applications that are compatible and work well with Windows Vista but that are not listed in this article. This is because such applications have not yet gone through the Windows Vista logo program or are still going though this program."
While certainly true, it also means that validating whether a particular application works on Vista means either quite a bit of experimentation, or poring through a number of support forums. While it's quite clear that over time, the vast majority of recent software will be certified for Vista, the number of current apps that play nice with Vista leaves something to be desired.
From a reply by lloyd.
No, the problem here is DEFINITELY Microsoft. The DRM (Digital Rights Management) that Microsoft built into Vista makes 1984's "Big Brother is Watching You" seem rather tame by comparison. It has so much security built in (it actually encrypts data that travels in the busses inside your computer) that it's amazing any audio or video application can be made to work at all.
And if you are running "premium content", any hardware output that might "leak" that content outside the computer is either disabled entirely, or its output is intentionally degraded.
There's even more than one documented case of people that can't play content that they themselves created, because the stupid DRM somehow thinks they are violating copyright.
Add to that that drivers MUST be certified by Microsoft, or OS won't allow the associated hardware to run at all (no more accepting uncertified drivers. You have NO CHOICE in the matter).
No, you can't blame the software developers for this one. Microsoft has chosen to develop this monstrosity and try to foist it off on us.
If you think that I'm exaggerating, or even making this up, have a look at http://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/~pgut001/pubs/vista_cost.html It's all there, chapter and verse with direct quotes, hyperlinks, cross references and footnotes.
I for one will NEVER, EVER install Vista on any machine I own, or buy a computer with Vista on it (I'm glad we dodged that bullet by buying my son's laptop late last year, because I didn't know what I know now about Vista). And to the extent that I can, I will encourage other people to shun Vista as well. This is not inconsiderable, because a number of people rely on my advice in such matters.
If you gave me a computer with Vista on it, I'd install a different OS. If there comes a time that Microsoft is only supporting Vista, I will simply switch to a different OS, and never look back.
http://www.appscout.com/2007/02/where_ar...s_.php#comments
And from experience keeping notes in the shop since vista released..
Total pc's repaired... 72
Vista upgrades........ 8
XP kept............... 59
Vista downgrade to XP. 6 (some of these were the ones "upgraded")
Other OS.............. 2
Other OS installed.... 1 (from Vista to other, one customer was very dissatisfied with vista)
We don't do macs, there is another shop which specialises. Tomorrow we have a NEW pc world machine arriving for vista replacement.. The owner can't use it to convert his home movies to dvd which he has happliy been doing with XP for the last 4 years. I advised him to demand a full refund of the cost of vista from pc world as it is not suitable for purpose. Instead we have decided to return the (unopened) vista package (disk/certificate and the rest of the crap) to M$ for a refund, with our complaints included... DRM strikes again...
This message has been edited since posting. Last time this message was edited on 1. March 2007 @ 01:44
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AfterDawn Addict
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1. March 2007 @ 07:28 |
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FOR THOSE THAT WANT TO KNOW HOW MICROSOFT VISTA WORKS AND NOW IT HAS NO BLUE SCREEN OF DEATH,
IT NOW HAS THE BLUE BALLS OF DEATH...
This message has been edited since posting. Last time this message was edited on 1. March 2007 @ 12:13
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