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Microsoft Won't Fix Windows 7's UAC
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| After lots and lots of user complaints about how people were annoyed by UAC
| prompts in Windows Vista, Microsoft gave in to the whiners, and created
| something called auto-elevation, which allows certain parts of the system to
| auto-elevate themselves without bringing up any UAC prompts. This way,
| Microsoft was able to bring down the amount of prompts.
|
| A clever programmer - not a security researcher - quickly found out that this
| was a pretty braindead decision by Microsoft, as it is now possible to
| quickly, easily, and silently bypass UAC completely by anything injecting
| code into the memory of another process, a process with auto-elevation
| capabilities, using standard, documented APIs. Some noted that this only
| works for administrators and not for standard user accounts, but since
| Microsoft still defaults to administrator accounts, that point becomes a bit
| moot.
`----
http://www.osnews.com/story/21653/Microsoft_Won_t_Fix_Windows_7_s_UAC
Recent:
Why I chose Ubuntu after trying Windows 7
,----[ Quote ]
| A couple of years ago I would probably easily dismiss the idea of trying out
| a new version of Windows on the basis of a Free Software ideology or the
| chorus of voices of Free Software or Open Source fans saying how it just
| sucks and I better not bother. But things have changed and while some may
| accuse me of betraying my own four freedoms or even worse the sin of
| promoting subjugation of computer users, my "evolution" (or de-evolution,
| perhaps, in some views), has exactly a lot to do with freedom. For what
| that's worth to would be detractors, it's freedom that I rediscovered, not
| that I betrayed.
|
| [...]
|
| I think it is becoming rather obvious why Ubuntu rears itself as a better
| choice here. Availability of production software is an issue that I face only
| a small minority of time. I mainly do web development or writing which I can
| easily do with tools readily available. Fun stuff like watching movies,
| listening to music, watching videos online, chatting etc. is all well
| supported. So the things that are missing are things which I need too
| sparsely to warrant switching to a new OS, let alone paying for it.
|
| [...]
|
| All in all, a good case is being built for popular, well supported Linux
| based OS's like Ubuntu.
`----
http://www.nuxified.org/blog/why_i_chose_ubuntu_after_trying_windows_7
Windows 7: Vista Mark II
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| For sometime earlier this year, there was much talk about how Windows 7 was
| going to play saviour to rescue its creators from the cesspit that Vista had
| created. Now it looks like even the biggest fans of that company in Redmond
| have realised that it is another dud.
| I guess the disillusionment has begun with the netbook; for a while Windows 7
| was going to run on netbooks at speeds that would rival that of XP. But when
| Microsoft decided that netbooks needed to be redefined - the classic tactic
| of moving the goalposts when your argument misses its mark - then the scales
| fell from admiring eyes.
|
| There's no need to wonder anymore: Windows 7 will be Vista Mark II. The time
| for illusions is over and the real stuff is being jammed into the innards of
| this great operating system - to use bizspeak, " as we speak, 24/7,
| seamlessly."
|
| What has passed for a netbook all this time never was. No, the new specs
| which Microsoft has brought to the table are those of a low-end laptop. You
| need to pay through the nose for a toy too.
|
| [...]
|
| If you're the kind who likes freedom, then GNU/Linux is there in all its
| glorious flavours. You have the out-of-the-box working kind, or you have the
| fiddly kind where you learn things that make you appreciate the hard work
| that goes into creating a multiuser, secure operating system.
`----
http://www.itwire.com/content/view/25319/1090/
Is Microsoft listening on Windows 7 pricing?
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| Even a $100 upgrade fee would be "cheap" for Ultimate, cheaper than the $700+
| price charged in Australia, but still $100 more than Ubuntu.
`----
http://www.itwire.com/content/view/25240/1103/
Windows 7 netbook performance: can MS make it faster?
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| Why is this? What has Microsoft added to the RC code to slow things down? Why
| does XP still feel so much faster than Windows 7, when earlier Windows 7
| builds screamed along on netbooks in comparison?
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http://www.itwire.com/content/view/25218/1105/
Microsoft has cold feet?
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| At the moment this appears merely to be a rumor, but theres opinion on the
| net that Microsoft may be removing the three app restriction on the starter
| version of Windows 7. You can see the article here.
|
| It must be stressed that I have not been able to confirm or deny this at
| current time.
`----
http://openbytes.wordpress.com/2009/05/22/microsoft-has-cold-feet/
Microsoft, analysts tell companies to kill Vista plans
http://news.idg.no/cw/art.cfm?id=45E5512E-1A64-6A71-CE0D8CC8D6EE20C8
Windows 7: 83% Of Businesses Won't Deploy Next Year
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| The survey, of more than 1,100 IT professionals, is one of the first
| extensive looks at Windows 7's early sales prospects. It found that a
| whopping 83% of enterprises plan to skip the OS in its first year. While the
| business market typically tends toward caution when it comes to new products,
| the figure is nonetheless surprising given that almost no large companies
| migrated to Vista and as a result most have been using XP much longer than
| planned.
|
| [...]
|
| The open source Linux OS also could benefit from slow uptake of Windows 7 in
| the enterprise market, as could Google's Android OS -- which some computer
| makers are reportedly testing as a netbook platform. Fifty percent of those
| surveyed by Dimensional Research said they've considered switching to a
| non-Windows OS to avoid Vista or Windows 7
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http://www.informationweek.com/news/windows/operatingsystems/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=216500331&subSection=News
The Windows 7 beta testing disaster
,----[ Quote ]
| So what are Windows 7’s damning problems?
|
| –Windows usage is on the decline, and while Windows XP was an acceptable OS
| from the standards of 2001, both the Mac OS X and Linux distributions such as
| Ubuntu have matured. Microsoft also launched many other business ventures
| that it had hoped to subsidize entirely as loss leaders using Windows and
| Office sales to run the other guys out of business, but with sales of those
| faulting combined with massive XBOX 360 hardware failures, giving up on the
| Zune 2 years in with 4% of the market, and failing to put a chink in Google’s
| services, Microsoft is getting desperate.
|
| –They’re not listening to real users, they’re listening to a focus group if
| that, and the focus group gave us the McLean Deluxe, which was a total
| disaster for McDonalds. But unlike McDonalds, Microsoft has the advantage of
| no competitors. If we want to put Windows in the McLean Deluxe analogy,
| Windows thrives because all restaurants are McDonalds, all grocery stores are
| closed, and the only thing on the menu is the mystery meat. At least til
| lately.
|
| –Abusing their OEM partners for years hasn’t won them any friends, and
| mainline PC vendors such as HP and Dell are marketing Linux systems now with
| no Microsoft Tax. This isn’t helped by the fact that the only thing Microsoft
| has that is nimble enough to run on the Netbooks that they totally failed to
| see coming is 8 years old (XP) and that they are giving Windows away in a
| massive dumping operation to keep Linux off these things, because Linux is
| far more capable.
|
| –There’s no way to actually file detailed bugs and communicate with Windows
| developers or to have any ETA on a patch if one is coming. If you need help
| it costs $49.99 per incident to get someone that probably knows less than you
| do on the phone. You can’t just go to an IRC room and talk to the person that
| wrote it.
|
| –Windows 7 is in short, Vista all over again. It may be masquerading as a
| huge upgrade but the changes have been trivial, superficial, and usually skin
| deep at best, and “eat my data” and “fail to even load my program” at worst.
| Even my dad saw it running on my test system while he was over the other day
| and thought it was Vista. I had to point to the Windows 7 build number on the
| desktop because there’s almost no way to tell them apart otherwise.
`----
http://izanbardprince.wordpress.com/2009/04/14/the-windows-7-beta-testing-disaster/
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