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Windows Operating Systems Software IT

Ignore Vista Until 2008 338

Posted by Zonk from the so-sayeth-the-wizard dept.
Blakey Rat writes "According to Gartner in a research note entitled 'Ten reasons you should and shouldn't care about Microsoft's Windows Vista', businesses should wait until 2008 before installing Windows Vista, or 'pursue a strategy of managed diversity' by only bringing in new machines with Windows Vista and not upgrading existing computers. Although acknowledging the security benefits of upgrading, they explain in the report that most of the security-related benefits that come with Vista are available today through third-party software products."
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Ignore Vista Until 2008 More

Ignore Vista Until 2008

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  • The reason not to upgrade is... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Sinryc ( 834433 ) on Friday November 11, 2005 @06:55PM (#14012279)
    if its not broke, don't fix it.

    • Re:The reason not to upgrade is... (Score:5, Funny)

      by .darkaiyen. ( 770089 ) on Friday November 11, 2005 @06:57PM (#14012291) Journal
      if its not broke, don't fix it.

      wait, this IS windows we're talking about, isn't it?

      • Windows works for what I need it, DVDs, Games, Music, ANYTHING I want to do. So, I wont fix it. Also, I will soon be using this machine for DVD productions. :-D
      • Eh? It IS interesting how everyone complains about how broken Windows is... until time comes to upgrade, and then "Well, the old Windows is good enough for my needs".

        It's a weird dichotomy.

        • Re:The reason not to upgrade is... (Score:5, Interesting)

          by birge ( 866103 ) on Friday November 11, 2005 @08:52PM (#14012953) Homepage
          I see your point, but I think it's really more of a polite way of saying "Well, they didn't fix the shit that's REALLY wrong with Windows so why bother." In the case of Vista, maybe they actually will improve security and reliability, but heaven knows the pretty GUI isn't exactly what Windows has been most sorely missing all these years.

          What's wrong with Windows may very well be something that doesn't exist at Microsoft: elegance, simplicity and modularity of design. They are trying for that lately, at least they say they are, but it's going to be hard to change the mindset of everybody at Microsoft. They've always had very clever people but not very smart people, as exemplefied by Bill Gates himself. He's a man who is as shrewd as any suit in the room, but he has no sense of elegance. He's like that guy everybody knows who can do any math problem you give him, but who has the creativity of a field mouse. Elegance goes a long way in design, and a good OS is equal parts design and science, I think. You can have the tightest kernel in the world, but when some dipshit comes up with an idea like the Registry, it's all over.

          • You can have the tightest kernel in the world, but when some dipshit comes up with an idea like the Registry, it's all over.

            What's wrong with the *idea* of the Registry ?

    • if its not broke, don't fix it.

      My NES still works but I bought a SNES. That still worked but I bought a 64 and then a GC. My X-Box still works and someday long after launch I'll get a 360. They weren't broke but I upgraded.

      2000 worked pretty well for the most part(not too broken) but many people are running XP these days. XP isn't too broken but in the future many people will be using Vista. Improvements in functionality, security, and ease of use will eventually lead me to Vista. I don't plan on diving

      • Yes. But would you have gotten an Xbox if it still only ran the same games the NES had? Because that's a more accurate analogy than what you used.

        I would say that Microsoft ran out of ideas years ago, but in their case, it's more like they couldn't find any more to steal.

    • Re:The reason not to upgrade is... (Score:5, Funny)

      by cshark ( 673578 ) on Friday November 11, 2005 @07:19PM (#14012462)
      God willing, I will be ignoring windows vista for much longer than that.

    • Re:The reason not to upgrade is... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by MoogMan ( 442253 ) on Friday November 11, 2005 @07:21PM (#14012474)
      (Unfortunately) this is also the same reasoning for not transitioning over to Linux
    • " if its not broke, don't fix it."

      If it ain't broke, you're not trying. - Red Green

      Don't worry, Microsoft will make sure that XP is broken by 2006. Blaster II is due any month now.

  • Perfectly Right! (Score:3, Funny)

    by c0l0 ( 826165 ) on Friday November 11, 2005 @06:58PM (#14012292) Homepage
    Of course I did not RTFA, but they must be speaking of "Third Party" Software Products such as, for instance, GNU/Linux or *BSD.
    ;-)

  • What 2008? (Score:2, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    I'm still using Windows 98 so I guess I'll be upgrading in 2018 - ?

  • Amazing (Score:5, Interesting)

    by shmlco ( 594907 ) on Friday November 11, 2005 @07:01PM (#14012318) Homepage
    Amazing how many things stay the same. I remember reading the same headlines for XP, W2K, and NT.

    Though this article is pretty lame. First time I've read, "Ten reasons you should and shouldn't care about Microsoft's Windows Vista client," in a summary and the linked article doesn't even bother to list them.

    This is news?

    • Re:Amazing (Score:4, Informative)

      by Blakey Rat ( 99501 ) on Friday November 11, 2005 @07:25PM (#14012497)
      The wrong text is linked. That text is the title of the Gartner article that the zdnet.uk article is written about. The Gartner article itself isn't available for public consumption, as far as I can tell.

    • Re:Amazing (Score:5, Insightful)

      by smartin ( 942 ) on Friday November 11, 2005 @07:26PM (#14012514)
      Exactly, I wish I had mod points to mod you up. Each new generation of Microsoft operating system is suppose to fix the problems of the past, but each new generation continues to have them. The reason of course is that they simply can't throw the old crap away because they want backwards compatibility. M$ should really take a lesson from Apple when they switched to OS X. Toss the old code base and start new with a tried and true Unix kernel. Provide an emulation environment if you have to but toss it all out and go with what is known to work.

    • Re:Amazing (Score:3, Informative)

      by bahamat ( 187909 )

      the linked article doesn't even bother to list them

      I was also rather disappointed at the lack of a list. TFA even italicizes the name of the research paper, but doesn't link it. Even a Google search [google.com] comes up with nothing, and everybody around here is too busy making "I've got one good reason" jokes to even realize it.

      So...um...anybody got a link to the reasons?

    • Amazing how many things stay the same. I remember reading the same headlines for XP, W2K, and NT.

      And it was true then, too. I worked for a business for a few years who stuck with NT 4 when XP came out. Why? Because there was no reason to upgrade. For the last decade, Microsoft has been its own biggest competitor. For what most people do, Windows NT and Office 97 is entirely sufficient.

      For the record, I think the company finally upgraded to Server 2003, but only because support ran out. The big reaso

    • Re:Amazing (Score:3, Informative)

      by kzinti ( 9651 )
      I remember reading the same headlines for XP, W2K, and NT.

      You've probably heard it about linux, too. When 2.6 came out, I remember hearing lots of people say things like "That's nice, but I'll wait until about 2.6.10 before it's stable enough to try." And that took a full year, at least according to the timestamps at kernel.org.

  • So.... (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Doc Squidly ( 720087 )
    ...is this more about the quality of Microsoft's current offerings or their inability to make any advances that would provide value to the business customer?

    Or...Does a business really need a 3-D desktop?

    • Re:So.... (Score:2, Funny)

      by Shinaku ( 757671 )
      (Ignore above post, meddling kids!)

      "It's been years since I used a 2 dimentional control interface, how ever did we manage?" - Julian Bashire from an imperfect DS9 future

    • Re:So.... (Score:2, Funny)

      by Dan_Bercell ( 826965 )
      Well if the differences in Office 12 require Vista to have all the new UI things then YES. The new features in Office 12 will mean a huge increase in productivity.

      • Re:So.... (Score:2, Insightful)

        by Bassman59 ( 519820 )
        "Well if the differences in Office 12 require Vista to have all the new UI things then YES. The new features in Office 12 will mean a huge increase in productivity."

        Phooey. Most users don't bother with 90% of the features of the current Office.

    • Re:So.... (Score:3, Insightful)

      by NanoGator ( 522640 )
      "Or...Does a business really need a 3-D desktop?"

      Heh. "Does a business really need color monitors, sound cards, 3D acellerators, and DVD burners?"

      Considering that this 3D desktop paves the way for 300 DPI LCD screens down the road, the answer is most definitely yes. The catch is that it may not be an instant hit.

  • Summary: Too Little, Too Late (Score:5, Interesting)

    by rsborg ( 111459 ) on Friday November 11, 2005 @07:02PM (#14012328) Homepage
    Seems as if Gartner, the analyst who was deeply in love with Microsoft in the nineties, has turned sour on them lately.
    The majority of improvements in Vista will be security-related and most of this functionality "is available via third-party products today"
    Ouch.
    "Search is slow in Windows XP and files, email and calendar objects cannot be found with a single search." While Microsoft has tried to remedy this in Vista, "competent third-party desktop tools are already available" from companies like Google, Gartner pointed out.
    I'd hate to be furniture in Ballmer's office.

    My main problem with the article was the lack of options specified:

    The analysts acknowledged that companies who use IE7 and Vista will have fewer points of weakness.
    Or you could just install Firefox, with the foxie plugin, and get completely secure browsing for all sites, and great Triton/IE support for intranet/extranet legacy webapps.

    • Re:Summary: Too Little, Too Late (Score:5, Insightful)

      by dslauson ( 914147 ) on Friday November 11, 2005 @07:11PM (#14012401) Journal
      "Seems as if Gartner, the analyst who was deeply in love with Microsoft in the nineties, has turned sour on them lately."
      Keep in mind that he's still recommending Windows. He's not so soft on it that he's tell you to install Linux or BSD.

      To me, it sounds like the guy's not really trying to rip on Windows, so much as he's offering sound business advice. Right? I mean, what's the benefit of rushing out and buying the latest version when the current one coupled with the third party software that you probably already have installed, is perfectly adequate?

    • While installing Firefox with various plugins may be a simple decision for you as a personal user or small business, it is often a much large decision for a Fortune 500 company. Previous applications, particularly internally built and deployed applications, may rely on IE for functionality. YES -- you'll say that was a stupid decision, but given time/cost constraints and corporate sprawl, can you *really* prevent that from happening in a large organization? OK, with that out of the way, switching browser

    • Or you could just install Firefox, with the foxie plugin, and get completely secure browsing for all sites, and great Triton/IE support for intranet/extranet legacy webapps.

      What, this Foxie? [getfoxie.com]

      It's not a Firefox plugin at all. It's an IE plugin! It's not related to Firefox in any way except that they are hijacking the brand name. Don't let them get away with it.

  • 11th Reason.. (Score:4, Funny)

    by loconet ( 415875 ) on Friday November 11, 2005 @07:04PM (#14012344) Homepage
    It will be delayed again.
  • Does this mean it will be released before 2008, then?
  • "Don't install a brand-new software that hasn't yet been thoroughly tested." Of course that's a good advice, but is it really necessary to tell this to people? Well, maybe it'll add some credibility to the IT staff's complaints when someone from middle mismanagement wants to switch the entire infrastructure to Vista or soething...
    • How is it news? Vista is only Microsoft's big company gamble in attempting to maintain relevance and revenue after six years of stagnant Windows XP. Along with the hardware upgrade cycle they missed this year, things are looking dour for MSFT.

  • Ten reasons?? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by d3ac0n ( 715594 ) on Friday November 11, 2005 @07:06PM (#14012360)
    Heck. I can give you ONE reason not to move to Vista, and it's all you need.

    Trusted Computing.

    'nuff said.

    • Re:Ten reasons?? (Score:3, Insightful)

      by dumeinst ( 664891 )
      aye aye.
      People who don't know what this really implies are going to be dumbfounded when they find out
    • Not that I'm looking at it as an advantage with Vista ;-), but how is it really an advantage to NOT use an OS that supports "trusted computing"?

      So far, it seems like it'll be like this -- download DRM HDTV movie from the web, and Vista with its trusted computing initiative will require a special monitor to playback it, or show it in reduced resolution. Sure, that sounds horrible, but what will you get in another OS? Yes, either the same behavior (DRM feature supported), an illegal version (DRM feature crack
      • If no-one buys into trusted computing then media companies won't require it to play their products.
      • DRM as you're thinking of it is only the tip of the "trusted computing" iceberg. The ultimate goal is to lock out cheap independent software (especially, but not limited to, F/OSS) and bring us back to the bad old days when the only way to get software for any particular task was to choose from a small number of outrageously expensive proprietary solutions.

        • Re:Ten reasons?? (Score:4, Insightful)

          by Proc6 ( 518858 ) on Friday November 11, 2005 @10:31PM (#14013393)
          "The ultimate goal is to lock out cheap independent software (especially, but not limited to, F/OSS)..."

          I never understand comments like these. How exactly does DRM do that? How does DRM "force" a developer to charge a whole lot of money? If DRM were in place today and I was a freeware developer, what prevents me from just issuing a DRM key (or whatever the process is) and making my terms of agreement "anyone who requests one gets one and I charge nothing". Or does Microsoft beat down your door and say "NO, YOU HAVE TO CHARGE $500 PER USER!!11!!"

          If you think that Microsoft is somehow going to force all software developers to pay some rediculous per application fee, thus forcing them all to charge for their app, thus whittling down the market to like 3 major apps, your tinfoil hat is on too tight.

          If there's one thing Bill Gates knows its that his fortune was built on Windows having zillions of developers covering all possible realms of software from Diet Calculators to 3D Animation. Maybe the phrase "Developers! Developers! Developers! Developers!" rings a bell. Developers have to eat too, and once all of them can't afford to turn a profit off writing code for Windows unless they're one of the few working at Symantec or Microsoft or Adobe, they'll find a new career or OS to write for.

          About the last scenario Microsoft wants is ONLY the major software developers like Adobe and Macromedia left standing, because they consistantly port their applications to OSX. If you were "forced" to quit using your $50 Paint Shop Pro, and replace it with $500 Photoshop instead, well then theres a 50/50 chance you may just become an OSX customer.

          Microsoft may be corporate-evil, but they definately believe in small developer shops and know legions of developers and all their varying business models from freeware to $5,000/user licenses are the foundation of the Microsoft machine.

          • Re:Ten reasons?? (Score:3, Insightful)

            by RoLi ( 141856 )
            If DRM were in place today and I was a freeware developer, what prevents me from just issuing a DRM key (or whatever the process is) and making my terms of agreement "anyone who requests one gets one and I charge nothing".

            The ultimate goal is to create a DRM-structure of Microsoft-"approved" software, ie just like drivers. And a freeware developer can't afford that.

            Of course you will be able to run not-approved software (with scary warning dialogs) at first, but the final goal is to create a closed syst

  • I'd rather have a more secure product out of the box, rather than having to not plug it in without installing a virus scanner, pop-up blocker, spyware blocker, et al. This has always been the evolution of operating systems, rolling in things that only third party applications did before. /me afk, installing Dave.

  • By that time... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Spy der Mann ( 805235 ) <`moc.liamg' `ta' `todhsals.nnamredyps'> on Friday November 11, 2005 @07:10PM (#14012390) Homepage Journal
    ...I'll already have ReactOS [reactos.com] installed in my PC. Oh, btw, this week ReactOS reached version 0.2.8.

    Of course, ReactOS will be installed in a dual-boot with the latest Linux, which I hope, will be user-and-hardware friendly by then.

  • As long as Linux keeps providing me with... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by ylikone ( 589264 ) on Friday November 11, 2005 @07:10PM (#14012391) Homepage
    ... a cheap, free (as in freedom), reliable solution, I will continue to ignore Microsoft products for the forseeable future. Everybody knows MS is dead in the long run.
  • ... most of the security-related benefits that come with Vista are available today through third-party software products ...

    Besides ruining the entire rational of a Microsoft Solution (i.e., upgrade the sucker and pay the man), why invest in third-party products that you're going to discard when you upgrade to Windows Vista? Just bite the bullet and enjoy the pain. Or wait until the first Service Pack comes out.

    • Sure, and while you are waiting for Windows Vista to actually ship you can just run your business with some paper and a stack of pencils.

      Gartner has this one right. Unless you are willing to eschew using computers altogether you have to invest in the third-party products now. When Vista does ship you could toss that investment out the Window (ha ha) and pay extra to get Windows Vista, or you can simply hold off on purchasing Windows Vista until purchasing new machines. Considering the number of busines

  • Nukem Forever (Score:3, Funny)

    by Megane ( 129182 ) on Friday November 11, 2005 @07:12PM (#14012409)
    So will OS X be at version 10.6, 10.7, or 10.8 by the time Vista is released? Will Duke Nukem Forever be released by then? Will we achive sustained nuclear fusion? Will we have flying cars? Warp drive?

  • Isn't this Already the "Word on the Street"? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by eno2001 ( 527078 ) on Friday November 11, 2005 @07:21PM (#14012478) Homepage Journal
    Where I work we still have more Win2K than XP Pro because the move from NT4 to AD was a long and involved process for 3000+ machines and a team of 3 people to do it. When we got to Win2K AD (we STILL have NT4 domains because of crap legacy software we HAVE to have!) the move to XP was not relished. We've been doing it a building at a time now (60 buildings) and it's going. But this is 2005 going on 2006 and XP came out in 2002. So, you could say we are doing "managed diversity" in a big way. I don't see how this approach to Vista is any different than the way most wise insitutions proceed.
  • I can't even *think* of ignoring Vista yet, I'm still too busy ignoring XP !

    Really, by the time Vista actually sees the light of day, won't there be Intel Powerbooks sitting around soaking up any spare attention I might have ?

    Laughing at these articles is as much attention as Vista is likely to get from me ( or the company I work for ) any time soon...

  • #1 - expected release date is 2008(*)...

    * With adjustment for slippages from expected 2006 release date
  • Isn't that what /.'ers are already doing?

  • #11 (Score:2)

    by Tom ( 822 )
    I hope they didn't forget to include the main reason, or if they did, consider it #11:

    Microsoft has never, ever, got anything right on the first try. If you even consider switching a company network to Vista before Service Pack 1 is out, you should be liable for any damages due to gross negliegence.
  • I would still be using win2000 if it had cleartype and remote desktop. As for search features, I dont think it will help Thunderbird, so no reason to upgrade. And firefox instead of IE and tabs.

    Firewall, I have a nat router for that reason and turned off upnp, and avg freeware.

    Quicker tcp/ip stack, now if it improves my downloads or ping, maybe we have a winner.

  • I still haven't tried XP properly, and here I see Win2K running pretty much everywhere. It's stable, well known, and works on fairly old computers. No need to upgrade to something newer.

    Linux is different though. Some distributions stay fixed, some like Gentoo are gradually upgraded. But at least they don't suddenly switch to a new interface, start requiring twice the amount of memory and introduce restrictions that are only for Microsoft's benefit.
  • One important reason *to* upgrade to Vista is its improved Kerberos support - it will finally support AES Kerberos tickets. Not only is this more secure than Microsoft's current RC4-based tickets, but it should make interoperability with other platforms much easier.

  • This is the LAST Windows you'll ever buy!! (Score:5, Funny)

    by malraid ( 592373 ) on Friday November 11, 2005 @07:36PM (#14012570)
    That's right, every version afterwards will most likely be rented. Vista is just to get everybody slowly by slowly dependant on DRM for day-to-day activities.
    • Actually isn't that the direction Microsoft is taking their licensing? They want an annual fee for each copy out there, not a one time upfront charge. So yes they want you to have to pay each year in order to run your computer. Plus that gets them in a position to have a recuring revenue stream they can count on. They can only sell so many new copies of an OS each year. With the number of computers that are out there now much larger than new systems being sold they want to get paid for all of those sys
    • Too late -- the last version I truly "owned" was their pinnacle version (IMHO): Windows 2000 "Professional".

      With Windows XP I won't be able to install/use it in 10 years if I so desire (and yes, I recently just installed
      a fresh usable MS-DOS box). With Windows 2000 I will be able to do this in 10 years (and block it from
      Internet access altogether [as is already practice for Windows boxes in our offices :]. When Microsoft
      discontinues XP what do you think the average Joe will do when it comes time to activat

  • You need 10 reasons? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by vertinox ( 846076 ) on Friday November 11, 2005 @07:44PM (#14012619)
    I only need 4 reasons not to upgrade.

    1. OS X
    2. Ubuntu
    3. Win2000
    4. $250

  • "Upgrade" boycott doesn't ignore Vista (Score:4, Insightful)

    by CDPatten ( 907182 ) on Friday November 11, 2005 @07:44PM (#14012623) Homepage
    A big problem with his premise is no companies would be able to purchase a computer from Dell, HP, IBM, etc. until 2008. As soon as Vista is released they will stop offering XP (almost immediately), and start offering only Vista. It's the way of the world. You can erase vista and install XP, but that would be foolish, not to mention they got a license for Vista with the purchase of the machine.

    I'm also disagree with his reasons, but I'm not going to take the "flame-bait" ;)
    • Big companies re-image every new computer they buy, and have been doing so for years. That's how they kept using W2K even after XP started shipping.
    • A big problem with his premise is no companies would be able to purchase a computer from Dell, HP, IBM, etc. until 2008. As soon as Vista is released they will stop offering XP (almost immediately), and start offering only Vista.

      Err, I don't know about HP or IBM, but Windows 2000 just dropped out of Dell's product line about a year ago. Three years after XP's release.

      I would expcet Dell to offer a similar choice after Vista is released, and for just as long.

    • Re:"Upgrade" boycott doesn't ignore Vista (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Whatchamacallit ( 21721 ) on Friday November 11, 2005 @08:36PM (#14012877) Homepage
      Big companies have corporate site licenses for Windows without Product Activation, etc. We install WinXP or Win2k from the network. We boot a new machine out of the box with a networkable boot cd and kick off a ghost image onto the hardware. The only people actually installing Windows onto hardware the manual way are engineers putting together a new ghost image. The boxes coming from HP, IBM, etc. are never even booted into the OS that comes with them before they are wiped out. The engineers will probably play around with Vista but it is unlikely they will approve it for rollout to 12,000+ PC's until at least the first service pack.
  • It sounds like vista is to xp, as ME was to win98. I don't see anything revolutionary in it that is worth spending money upgrading. The article hits it right on the spot I think. It doens't seem to improve the core OS, it just seems like they are adding/fixing other software like IE7 and Windows Defender. Most people I know have moved to firefox to fix their browser security issues and have at least a few anti-spyware solutions.

    Correct me if I'm wrong, but it doesn't seem like they could even break soft

  • Ignore Vista Until 2008 (Score:5, Funny)

    by oztiks ( 921504 ) on Friday November 11, 2005 @07:46PM (#14012640)
    Only until 2008? I was hoping to ignore it for much longer then that :)
  • Funny as hell! A little off topic but here it is anyway.

    Developers [achurch.org] [mirror] [tarmo.fi]

  • Have you tried it? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by JcMorin ( 930466 ) on Friday November 11, 2005 @08:01PM (#14012721)
    Did you run Windows Vista for real? I did, not just a few hours to write a review. I'm running Windows since the October 1st as my main OS.

    - Software development (VS Studio 2003)
    - Email / Browsing
    - Gaming

    First impression, wow this is great.
    After 6 weeks, my impression have change, Vista (as of currently is pretty crap). I've got multiple reboot, blue screen, IE 7 is having a lots of issue (page not rendering properly, JavaScript error for example Google Spell checker not working properly on IE 7). The search "engine" is not that great, why we can't keep our old *.exe find?

    Over that many application not working at all, some desktop application, other are game that just don't launch. Even stable program like SQL Enterprise Manager crash on Vista... :(

    Vista new graphical engine is deadly slow too, all is on graphic card but this cause issue like to see the backbuffer when switching application and more. Application are not build like game with "Begin drawing" and "End drawing" so that cause to constantly redraw the screen and see flicker everywhere...

    Iwill receive my new portable next week and I will definitely not install Vista on it... for me I agree with the report... I stay with Windows XP for a few years.

  • I already have a plan. (Score:3, Funny)

    by Quiet_Desperation ( 858215 ) on Friday November 11, 2005 @08:50PM (#14012938)
    I'm going to ignore it until 2200.

  • A single decision doomed Windows security (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Myria ( 562655 ) on Saturday November 12, 2005 @03:51AM (#14014396)
    People don't understand the truth about Windows security. It can be traced to a single fateful decision.

    In Win32, every module (EXE/DLL) is contiguous in the process virtual address space. The code and data are next to each other in each module, but not between modules. The stack and heap are allocated as blocks at essentially random addresses. The memory layout looks like this:

    empty code data empty stack empty code data empty heap ...

    The problem is that there is no single address that you could choose that says "only code is allowed below this address, and no code is allowed above this address".

    On the x86, before AMD64, it was impossible to tell the processor that certain memory addresses cannot be executed. Anything that was readable was also executable. This means it is possible to execute from the data areas, a fatal flaw.

    However, the x86 *does* have a feature that allows you to say "no code is allowed above this address". This is known as the "CS limit". By setting this, any attempt to execute from a data area would crash the program. Crashing the program is a lot better than taking over your computer.

    Win32's memory layout prevents this feature from being used, because if you try to set a limit, either you have data in the code area, allowing exploits, or you have code in the data area, preventing legitimate code from executing.

    AMD tried to correct this with the NX bit in the AMD64 chips, but it was too late. Too many Win32 programs rely on the ability to execute from a data section. As a result, in XP SP2 and Vista, the feature is only enabled by default in a few programs. You can turn it on for all, but then a lot of copy-protected games won't run.

    Linux usually has the same problem. However, because most Linux programs come with source, it is possible to modify every application in the system to work this way.

    Melissa

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