Linux security is a ‘myth’, claims Microsoft

Nick McGrath, head of platform strategy for Microsoft in the UK, said that the myths surrounding the open source operating system are rapidly being exploded, and that customers are dismissing Linux as too immature to cope with mission-critical computing.

 

"The biggest challenge we need to face centres on the myth and reality. There are lots of myths out there as to what Linux can do. One myth we see is that Linux is more secure than Windows. Another is that there are no viruses for Linux," said McGrath.

 

"Who is accountable for the security of the Linux kernel? Does Red Hat, for example, take responsibility? It cannot, as it does not produce the Linux kernel. It produces one distribution of Linux.

 

"In Microsoft’s world customers are confidant that we take responsibility. They know that they will get their upgrades and patches."

 

McGrath went on to claim that another Linux myth centres on the number of open source developers who work to create the operating system.

 

"There a myth in the market that there are hundreds of thousands of people writing code for the Linux kernel. This is not the case; the number is hundreds, not thousands," he said.

 

Read the rest here

 

I agree with Nick very much about the part concerning the Linux community promoting the idea that thousands of people around the world working on the Open Source OS is not true. A Business week article on Linux and Linus Torvald proved such as point, that Linux is actually being developed by a small group of people allocated by large company’s such as Intel, IBM, Novell. When you look at it that way, its actually not open source anymore.

MSN Desktop Search won’t be bundled with Windows

The leading search vendors discuss technology strategies, marketing plans, and business models for searching enterprise and personal information during a panel at the Harvard Business School’s Cyberposium, and a Microsoft executive says the software giant has no plans to integrate its MSN desktop search application into Windows.

 

CAMBRIDGE, Mass.—Microsoft Corp. has no immediate plans to integrate the MSN desktop search application into its operating system, a company executive said at a conference here this weekend.

 

Read the rest here

 

MSN Toolbar suite is a different matter, I don’t have a problem with it being an optional feature. Its not WinFS. I do believe Microsoft is working on enhancing the Windows Search feature for Longhorn, which is different from MSN Desktop Search. So, nothing startling here.

Correlating the past with the future

For a long time, Microsoft laboured on its latest newest version of Windows for release in 1995. To effectively use Windows , you should have a reasonably powerful microcomputer system. This would include a ‘386 microprcessor or better, at least four times as much memory as required for DOS, and a hard disk drive.

Computer Essentials, Second Edition 1996

 

Most PC owners will find Windows NT far more than they need. It is most useful for engineers and others who use workstations and who require massive amounts of computing power at their desk. A second category of users consist of those tied together in “client-server” networks with “file server” computers.

 

Despite its power, Windows NT hasn’t been very popular. To run Windows NT, a computer must be configured with at least 16 MBs of main memory and 60 MBs of extra hard disk space. Some industry onlookers think Windows NT’s lagging sales are the result of its large memory and disk requirements.

Computer Essentials, Second Edition 1996

 

People are still talking in that same mentality. Regardless of the memory and hard disk requirements, Windows NT still turned out to be the number one client operating system, it was not tied to only one market, both businesses and consumers were using the operating system. Most of you who are disrespecting Longhorn right now are today’s industry onlookers who still don’t have a clue about Windows or Microsoft and continue to make these doomed predictions that actually turn out to be smelly farts. Its even worst, you are doing it when its still in Alpha Beta, which is even more ridiculous when you don’t even have the slightest idea of how beta 1 is gonna look or act.

 

Again, stop making bad predictions about the product, not until beta 2 should you be conjuring up your conclusions whether Longhorn is a dud or stud. Another thing is the “why its taking so long?” bashing. Windows 95 took just as long, its just that people then were not obsessed with Windows as we are today. I’m not sure but development of Windows 95 started back in 1992 when it was supposed to be released as Windows 93, but it was delayed and eventually released in August of 1995 instead. That was a four year timeframe between 1992 to 1995. Longhorn was not mentioned until mid 2002, with an expected release in 2006. Thats a 5 year time frame for development, not bad considering the changes in architecture since 1995, one extra year for development is not gonna kill anyone. So, just be patient and wait.

The faults of Windows that need to be solved, Immediately.

…and the evil that is Partition Magic 8.0

 

Well, this has been a very tumultuous weekend for me, which involved rebuilding my machine, software wise. From reinstalling Windows, re-merging partitions, creating new partitions, most of all backing up the data that was created. At the moment, I have to resort to my handy Zenith (133 MHz, 32 MBs of RAM) Windows 2000 Professional and Word 97. I’m not at the Office where I can access the luxuries of Windows XP Professional and Office 2003 Professional Enterprise Edition on a super fast Dell 8300 Dimension (3.2 GHz, 512 MBs of RAM).

 

The problem all started with Partition Magic 8.0. I was trying to redistribute some free space by merging with a primary partition that was running low. This was on my laptop computer, which was running perfectly, but my interference and the evil Partition Magic caused all of this unnecessary work right now. In the PM8 window, I did the procedure for redistributing the free space, but it required a reboot. I was very hesitant of this, but I said to myself, if it does ruin up the boot sector (which it did the last time), I could simply use my PM8 Rescue disk and set back the Primary partition active. This time, it was worst, an operating system boot file became corrupt as a result of both the primary and free space disk spaces sharing the cluster file at the same time to create the single partition. This is all, confusing, I know.

 

This is why I recommend you stay as far away as possible from the product, which is only meant for destroying Master Boot Records and data. Its not a well thought out product, neither is the documentation, which had knowledge of the problem, but suggested I use CHKDSK/F command to solve the problem. That was nothing more than a blatant lie!

 

This is where Microsoft comes in. First of all, better partitioning tools that setup partitions for specific purposes, whether it maybe for data backup, applications or additional operating systems on separate partition is needed in Windows. The need to get rid of DOS Setup in Windows would be victory for human kind. They also need a better Recovery Console. These are probably two of the worst features of Windows, which do not seem to work when you are in your most difficult dilemmas. WinPE also needs to be integrated in both retail and OEM edition/versions of Windows. Maybe I would have had less migraine and worry trying to recover my precious data. There is also no way of easily accessing the data off the hard disk from another computer using the NIC. It was a complete nightmare for me this past weekend and I hope it never happens to you. It does show that Windows has a lot learn, and I hope they at least show that they are learning from past mistakes with the next version of Windows. I have so many applications, files and settings to restore its gonna be a nauseating experience I predict. But, that’s what happens when you have a she-devil product known as Partition Magic and unintelligent, fuddy-duddy rescue tools in Windows.

 

Some how, I was able to set one of the other partitions as primary and active, which was a pane in the ass. At first, I said, maybe I could use my XP installation disk and just do an upgrade repair, and also had integrated XP SP2 with my old disk just make sure everything worked, instead, it said the partition has an unknown file system. Since when did NTFS become an unknown file system to an NTFS recognizable OS? The last time I checked, Windows XP supported NTFS. Anyway, like I said, I managed to set another partition active and wipe out some data off it, but, that was a trade off. I needed the space to install Windows XP which required 1,054 MBs for installation. This is all a fault of the products and components of Windows XP I mentioned. Seriously, I can’t take it anymore.

 

Windows needs to have built in utility that makes integrated disk with the latest OS Service Pack. Its predictable that we will always have Service Packs, so the Windows CD Burning Wizard should at least have such a feature and also make disk damn bootable. I have tried every article online, from Paul Thurrott, ET Planet to Justin Wojas, and I still cannot get my disk bootable, and yes I did it down to a T. Its really horrible what has happened to me this weekend, its a night mare when you think that your data is walking on a thin line. And don’t preach anything about Back up. I should be circumspect of a product Microsoft preaches as reliable? Hell, No! They should know better.

Creating 2-D and 3-D Dynamic Animations in “Avalon”

Summary: Karsten shows how to build an animated version of Task Manager using the 2-D animation infrastructure provided by Avalon, then moving into the world of 3-D, showing how to create a dynamically animated 3-D mesh. (13 printed pages)

 

Applies to:

   Public November 2004 "Avalon" Community Technology Preview

Read more and download the sample file here

AntiSpyware Beta 1 – Problems Running Batch Files

This seems so obvious a problem that I’m surprised everyone isn’t complaining. Maybe that means it is something specific to my PC’s configuration.

Having installed MS-Antispyware, whenever I launch a batch file using a shortcut a warning window of some sort scuds up the right hand side of my screen too quickly to read – let alone try clicking on its buttons.  Specifically this is a problem when launching Cygwin (the "free" POSIX shell environment) from "quick start".  The only way I’ve been able to launch Cygwin has been to disable MS-Antispyware. I do not believe Cygwin to be a spyware threat – but even if it were, a warp-speed-warning that can’t be read isn’t a particularly helpful countermeasure.

 

Suggestion

 

The window is unreadable because you have the start bar docked on the side of the screen. This is a known issue which we are working to fix in a future release. As a workaround, dock the start bar at the bottom of the screen and allow the application change.

AntiSpyware Beta 1 – Browser Hijack

I installed AntiSpyware (Beta) a couple of days ago. I have real time protection enabled and I have performed a number of scans but my browser keeps getting hijacked. I have the latest spyware updates. Does anyone have any suggestions on what is going on?

 

Suggestion

 

1.  Run your anti-spyware in Safe Mode.
2.  Quit going to those sites and downloading the junk.
3.  If you don’t have WinXP SP2, get LSP-Fix – a free program to repair damaged Winsock 2 stacks.

http://www.cexx.org/lspfix.htm
save it because you might need to repair the Winsock 2 stacks after removing the culprit. For WinXP SP2 this command will restore the Winsock stacks if you can’t connect after clearing the malware.

Go to Start | Run and type “CMD” with out quotes
In the command window type “netsh winsock reset” with out quotes
Then get CWShredder http://www.intermute.com/products/cwshredder.html

 

Antispyware Beta 1 – Updates, Norton Internet Security

When Antispyware beta 1 is trying to update, you receive the following message from Norton Internet Security,  GIANTAntispywareUpdater.exe is attempting to connect to a DNS server. 

Suggestion:

1. Always block connections from this program on all ports.
2. Always allow connections from this program on all ports.
3. Manually configure internet access.

Microsoft Antispyware warns you as you install it that it needs to access resources on the Internet for several purposes which are clearly laid out, I believe.  Some of these purposes you can opt out of, but, for example, you will want to be able to obtain new spyware definitions.

In order to obtain new definitions, it must connect to a DNS server to find the server which provides the definitions.

I would choose either option 2, or, if you wish to be very careful, you can choose option 3 and configure NIS to allow access on ports 80, and 443, TCP. I have no experience with NIS, and can’t help you with option 3, but it should be possible.

AntiSpyware Beta 1 – Error 1304 during Installation

When trying to install MS AntiSpyWare, I get "Error 1304.Error writing to file C:\Program Files\Microsoft AntiSpyware\gcasServ.exe. Verify that you have access to that directory."

 

Suggestion

 

Are you installing as an Administrator on your machine?
Try installing to a non-standard directory–try c:\msas  for example.

AntiSpyware Beta 1 – Disabling Antispyware at Start-up

I need to turn off MSAS so it will not run start up when Windows starts – I couldn’t find a way to do it gracefully.  I could take it of the start-up manually but I want to put it back in later. 

 

Suggestion:

 

I would recommend msconfig.  Start, run, msconfig <enter> Click on the startup tab, and uncheck the box next to gcasServ When you restart, you will need to check an additional box to request that msconfig not alert you to the disabled startup item at each startup.