MS Tackle Spyware!

[FastRobPlus]

HopperJF wrote:
AFT.  :pissed:

But even so it seems they can release any heap of crap and watch it sell to the masses.

You mean, like MS BOB?  The MS cordless phone? Someone's in the Kitchen? Freestyle Pro? WinG? IE Channels? Image Composer?  I wasn’t aware the masses were beating doors down to find these!  :-?

Or were you perhaps thinking of DirectX (which beat Glide and OpenGL) and Word (beat WordStar and WordPerfect) and Excel (Beat Quattro and VisiCalc.)  and PowerPoint (beat endless sea of crappy apps)?  

Seems to me, those titles all won on their own merits…

[Vincent]

FastRobPlus wrote:
...and Word (beat WordStar and WordPerfect)

I still prefer Lotus :-P

[FastRobPlus]

Vincent wrote:

FastRobPlus wrote:
...and Word (beat WordStar and WordPerfect)

I still prefer Lotus :-P

Gimme GeoWrite anyday!

-*edit*-
On second thought - only if I get to use an Okimate 20.  None o' this Okimate 10 garbage!

[DonnyEMU]

You mean, like MS BOB? The MS cordless phone? Someone's in the Kitchen? Freestyle Pro? WinG? IE Channels? Image Composer? I wasn’t aware the masses were beating doors down to find these!

Just a note from someone who was a wee bit involved with WinToon and WinG development in the past:

These api's were meant as a bridge between Windows 3.1 and Windows 95. Windows 3.1 video drivers didn't know much about writing to off screen buffers. WinG was never meant as any kind of long term solution. DirectDraw surfaces are an outgrowth of all of that..

IE channels are still KINDA there but hidden.. Most useful are they if you have pocket pc's.

And who didn't love BOB back in the days of Program Manager. Someone had a sense of humor.. The barking dog along with Paperclip made it to MS Word help :-)

The point I am making is a good technology company isn't afraid to experiment and make available short term solutions along with their core technologies..

[FastRobPlus]

DonnyEMU wrote:

You mean, like MS BOB? The MS cordless phone? Someone's in the Kitchen? Freestyle Pro? WinG? IE Channels? Image Composer? I wasn’t aware the masses were beating doors down to find these!

Just a note from someone who was a wee bit involved with WinToon and WinG development in the past:

These api's were meant as a bridge between Windows 3.1 and Windows 95. Windows 3.1 video drivers didn't know much about writing to off screen buffers. WinG was never meant as any kind of long term solution. DirectDraw surfaces are an outgrowth of all of that..

IE channels are still KINDA there but hidden.. Most useful are they if you have pocket pc's.

And who didn't love BOB back in the days of Program Manager. Someone had a sense of humor.. The barking dog along with Paperclip made it to MS Word help :-)

The point I am making is a good technology company isn't afraid to experiment and make available short term solutions along with their core technologies..

Hey Donny.

Did you work on BOB?  If so, I have a question...  The smiley face lolypops they handed out as a ship celebration.  What's thier shelf-life?  Mine's still in my desk from 1995, and I'm worried that it may no longer be safe to eat.

[blobrana]

Hum,
Update:
[color=ff00ff][/color]
 "Soon after Microsoft announced their new anti-spyware offering, I went to download it, and discovered (as everyone else has) that they confusingly hide the actual download behind a process designed to guarantee that you have an authorized version of Windows running.
 If you read the instructions carefully, you can get around actually running that check. While my version of Windows is perfectly legitimate, I saw no reason to tell Microsoft about it again and avoided the authorization check process.

 However, others are beginning to wonder why Microsoft is forcing people to prove they have a legitimate version of Windows just to download their anti-spyware application. After all, the whole reason Microsoft needs to offer this product is because they can't be bothered to actually fix some of their security holes.
This sets up a weird set of incentives for Microsoft, whereby they might think they're better off pushing out buggy code, and then only allowing authorized users to patch it, as a way to catch those who are unauthorized.
 It seems unlikely that Microsoft would actually stoop this low, but there have to be better ways to work on getting more authorized copies of Windows out there."

From techdirt.com


[color=ff00ff][/color]

But apart from that i like it....

[adolescent]

@blobrana

In general the people complaining about this new free software are the ones that can see no good come out of Redmond.  If Microsoft made Windows free, open source, and paid you $20 to use it they'd still find something to complain about.

As a paying customer, I had no problem letting Microsoft validate my Windows license.  It was a good check to make sure nobody had stolen it at least.
   

[blobrana]

Hum,
yeah i agree.
Though i could think up of a simple future scenario of M$ cornering the spam/spyware/viri checker market (with little competition), and those people who don’t or can’t download it (because they don’t have a licence key) will infect others with genuine windows etc...

The software is only as good as the speed of the updates; the virus/flaw usually comes first - then the patches....

adolescent wrote:
@blobrana

In general the people complaining about this new free software are the ones that can see no good come out of Redmond.  If Microsoft made Windows free, open source, and paid you $20 to use it they'd still find something to complain about.

As a paying customer, I had no problem letting Microsoft validate my Windows license.  It was a good check to make sure nobody had stolen it at least.
   

Having not read through this thread completely, all I can say is that when I downloaded it i used firefox and no validation of my windows licence was carried out.

When I rebooted into my Windows XP x64 partition, I used IE and I let it validate my licence.  I've even let Visual Studio Beta send feedback to MS from XP x64. :-o

I'm carrying out a little experiment, XP64 will only have microsoft software (other than winuae), and I want to see how long it is before everything dies. :-D

[Hammer]

Hyperspeed wrote:
Whilst I agree that they are trying their best to correct the problem,
the situation is pretty much like it is in Iraq.

People will always have the urge to attack Microsoft because they are
a big monopoly, crushing diversity and opinion in their path.

People start using Linux and then Microsoft goes on about how Linux
infringes patents and starts threatening them.

I don't like to see anyone ganged up on, but I suspect Microsoft have
had their fair share of government tax cuts and slack cut for them.
Just as I suspect the Japanese government has for it's big player
Sony.

Japan has already two sizeable PC vendors e.g. Parkard Bell (NEC) and Fujitsu.

[Hammer]

mdma wrote:

adolescent wrote:
@blobrana

In general the people complaining about this new free software are the ones that can see no good come out of Redmond.  If Microsoft made Windows free, open source, and paid you $20 to use it they'd still find something to complain about.

As a paying customer, I had no problem letting Microsoft validate my Windows license.  It was a good check to make sure nobody had stolen it at least.
   

Having not read through this thread completely, all I can say is that when I downloaded it i used firefox and no validation of my windows licence was carried out.

When I rebooted into my Windows XP x64 partition, I used IE and I let it validate my licence.  I've even let Visual Studio Beta send feedback to MS from XP x64. :-o

I'm carrying out a little experiment, XP64 will only have microsoft software (other than winuae), and I want to see how long it is before everything dies. :-D

Windows XP x64 beta is time bombed btw.

[Hammer]

adolescent wrote:
@blobrana

In general the people complaining about this new free software are the ones that can see no good come out of Redmond.  If Microsoft made Windows free, open source, and paid you $20 to use it they'd still find something to complain about.

   

For the effects of free MS Windows; one could look at pirated Windows rates in Asia.

Hammer wrote:

mdma wrote:

adolescent wrote:
@blobrana

In general the people complaining about this new free software are the ones that can see no good come out of Redmond.  If Microsoft made Windows free, open source, and paid you $20 to use it they'd still find something to complain about.

As a paying customer, I had no problem letting Microsoft validate my Windows license.  It was a good check to make sure nobody had stolen it at least.
   

Having not read through this thread completely, all I can say is that when I downloaded it i used firefox and no validation of my windows licence was carried out.

When I rebooted into my Windows XP x64 partition, I used IE and I let it validate my licence.  I've even let Visual Studio Beta send feedback to MS from XP x64. :-o

I'm carrying out a little experiment, XP64 will only have microsoft software (other than winuae), and I want to see how long it is before everything dies. :-D

Windows XP x64 beta is time bombed btw.

I really expect it to die on me before the 360 time limit runs out!

[blobrana]

Hum,
Yeah, well it’s free...
(er, like viruses)

But i suppose if M$ had made a secure produce in the first place, then there wouldn’t be all those jobs created to fix it...
Prepare thyself for 13 security updates on February 8th...
(for Windows, Office, Media Player, Messenger, Sharepoint and Framework...)

[HopperJF]

FastRobPlus wrote:

HopperJF wrote:
AFT.  :pissed:

But even so it seems they can release any heap of crap and watch it sell to the masses.

You mean, like MS BOB?  The MS cordless phone? Someone's in the Kitchen? Freestyle Pro? WinG? IE Channels? Image Composer?  I wasn’t aware the masses were beating doors down to find these!  :-?

Or were you perhaps thinking of DirectX (which beat Glide and OpenGL) and Word (beat WordStar and WordPerfect) and Excel (Beat Quattro and VisiCalc.)  and PowerPoint (beat endless sea of crappy apps)?  

Seems to me, those titles all won on their own merits…

No, no and no.
Word sucks, its unstable, even the OS X version. I find the good free Abiword program just as useful and its free.
Excel does nothing most other half-decent spreadsheet packages do. Powerpoint, well.. you can always tell the difference between a Scala and a Powerpoint presentation.

Internet Explorer sold to the masses. So did Microsoft Windows.
Two major examples how MS get away with anything.
If any other company had released such tripe then they would have been dead and buried many years ago.

[JaXanim]

blobrana said:

"...But i suppose if M$ had made a secure produce in the first place, then there wouldn’t be all those jobs created to fix it..."

And Hindsight is a wonderful thing.

If M$ could really have anticipated everything that any friggin' malware creep might ever manage to spawn against dopes like me and had tried to legislate against it, we'd still be running in DOS and the Amiga would be where the pc is today....issuing anti-spyware downloads and requiring us to register our OS25 license numbers....hmmm

I just spent all weekend reinstalling Win98 'cos I got a spy in my box on Friday, which knackered the whole shebang.

Well I'm going for it...'cos hindsight is a wonderful, wonderful thing!

JaX

EDIT: Seems that users of Win98 need not apply....bugger!