Is Windows Vista Living up to the Dream?
section: windows, for your questions: KezNews forum, 28.1.2008
Windows Vista has had by no means an easy ride throughout 2007. That much is for sure. The latest Windows client has come under a barrage of criticism, and despite the fact that it has passed the 100 million mark by the end of the past year with its install base, it is still perceived as a Wow shot and miss.
But if Vista was indeed suffering in terms of performance, stability, reliability, incompatibility and support, there is one aspect where the operating system has obliviously outperformed its predecessor. Even though it features no new security barriers in comparison to Windows XP, but just added mitigations, Vista, without being bulletproof, does offer a superior level of protection.
"I think that it’s fair to say that Windows Vista is proving to be the most secure version of the Windows to date. Our investments in the SDL and our defense in depth approach to building Windows Vista seem to be paying off. Let’s take a look at some areas that we’ve made progress in: the impact of defense-in-depth; Internet Explorer 7’s protection of personal information; vulnerabilities and infections; and cost savings," explained Austin Wilson, director of Windows Client Security Product Management.
Because of extra security measures such as the User Account Control and Internet Explorer 7 Protect Mode, no less than 13 security bulletins patching flaws throughout 2007 have a reduced maximum severity rating on Vista compared to XP. Of course that in the end, the purpose of the Software Development Lifecycle is to decrease the severity level of the vulnerabilities that do manage to get through to the final product.
"Internet Explorer 7, which is the default browser in Windows Vista, also helps protect the personal information of end users. We’re seeing almost 1 million phishing attempts blocked per week, representing a large number of potential cases of identity theft or credit card fraud that were stopped. In addition, there are over 3500 sites with Extended Validation SSL Certificates (EV SSL) representing an improved level of authentication for securing transactions on these sites. Internet Explorer 7 is the first browser to fully support EV SSL," Wilson added.
Wilson also turned to another relevant metric that is connected with security - patch events. As far as businesses are concerned, each time a vendor releases security bulletins, the company has to activate its internal patch management process. But such a scenario at the level of its IT infrastructure automatically results in higher costs of ownership. In XP's first year on the market, users had to patch the operating system in 26 different days. In Vista's first year, users only plugged the operating system on nine different days.
"Windows Vista in its first year had significantly fewer fixed and unfixed vulnerabilities than Windows XP in its first year: 36 fixed/30 unfixed for Windows Vista vs. 68 fixed/54 unfixed for Windows XP," Wilson said. "Since Windows Vista was released, there were three months in which Windows XP had updates and Windows Vista did not (December ’06, January ’07, and November ’07). This means that an organization running all Windows Vista clients would have had three months in which they wouldn’t have had to deploy an OS update to their clients at all."
Wilson also cited data from the Microsoft Security Intelligence Report from 10/07, revealing that in the first half of the past year, Vista was affected by 60% less malware and 2.8 times less potentially malicious code than XP SP2.
source:
news.softpedia.com
Send link 2 friend | Permalink
MORE RELATED ARTICLES:
DeskScapes 2.0 Preview - Now all Vista users can Dream || NOD32 3.0 – A Dream Come True? || Windows Vista SP1 vs. Windows Vista RTM vs. Windows XP SP2 || Windows XP SP3 Twice as Fast as Windows Vista – Leaves Vista SP1 in the Dust || Windows Vista Wow! Forget about Vista SP1, XP SP3 and Windows 7!
Comments(26)
lets see...vista has uac, the most annoying feature to ever exist in an os, it is the
first thing most people turn off after being tortured by the endless barrage of popups.
ah yes, then there is ie 7 'protected mode'. when protected mode is enabled it will not
allow users to even download files.
this is a fact. after turning the 'sandbox
mode' off i was again able to download files. anything vista can do xp can do better,
faster. i guess some people like the mac os eye candy.
the dream died with longhorn.
vista is a disapointment and only exists as a cash cow for microsoft.
vista is m$' greatest failure to date...
stupid me, i spent close to $400 for vista and what do i get?
the worst
nightmare on elm street.
your crazy
but i still doubt that 100 million install base.
with vista even typing can be a chore: "on a brand new £1300 notebook built (one would
think) with vista in mind, the operating system should fly, especially when no
applications are running. not so; it's a complete dog. it's so slow that applications
often won't register that i've hit the space bar until i'm halfway through the next
word. i'm a fast typer, but not that fast.... after tracking the ever increasing speeds
of processors and computers for the past 15 years i'm left somewhat dismayed to see menu
bar so sluggish, and finding myself waiting around for the os to do the most simple of
tasks."
100 million install? but how many reverted back to xp?
vista is a pregnant pause. type a few characters and vista pauses - you wait a little,
wondering how many seconds before vista wakes up - you wait another second. great now you
can type. okay, now open the save as dialog box - whoops, its going to be few seconds.
sometimes five seconds, sometimes 20 seconds, sometimes up to 60 seconds before you regain
control of your application. now the nice thing about vista is only that one program is
offline so you can switch to another application and get some work done while waiting for
the deep freeze to end and your program to come back to life. now that's progress.
for me vista has been the best windows since 3.1. xp was a monumental pain with all its
issues. like xp? good you can keep it. i've moved on to something better & more stable.
never looked back.
i don't get all your repeated bagging of vista it works fine for me and i have had a
dual boot xp vista configuration but have now dumped xp all together im not using it
anymore vista is a tiny bit slower i cant even notice it on my system maybe because i have
a fairly new comp and it runs fine and as for it been slow on a laptop you must have a
slow one i have have it running on my new work laptop works fine that speed thing is just
crap even all the latest magazine articles say its not that much slower i think your so in
love with xp you dont want to change witch is okay if you want to keep it but there is
nothing wrong with vista i went for it for dx10 witch works good crysis looks great i have
the settings all the way across
vista is ligth-years ahead, needs just a little tweaking and optimization, far more
secure and stable from xp.
vista is much faster than xp for me. had to re-install xp 5 times when i got my computer
6 months before vista. it kept crashing and fast extremely unreliable even on a fresh
install with new drivers. installing was also a big pain as it asked to many questions in
the middle of an install like network config. changed to vista when it came out and have
not re-installed it once. no blue screens and no crashes and i use it for hardcore gaming
aswell.
vista svcks with torrents because browser is slow at getting web pages, because bandwidth
used for torrents and no tcp patch, but i just installed sp1 744 so maybe its better lol
vista will always, no matter the 'tweaking' involved be slower than xp because it is
simply put 'bad programming'. or, you cannot polish a turd. its absurd to think this,
and apparently microsoft agrees. the lame sp1 will not address any of these issues.
microsoft will not fix it because they are hard at work creating windows 7, they know
vista is a failure and will not fix it. if you knew that they were coming out with windows
7 by december of 09 you wouldn't spend the big bucks to buy vista and they wouldn't
recoup their losses on a dog of an os now would they? after trying the last 3 renditions
of vista sp1 i switched back to xp. what a relief! man! xp is pure performance, my
intel quad core 3.0 ghz, 4 ghz ddr3 memory just hummed along merrily! i was tired of the
freezes and slow downs. its a memory hog. i will look for windows 7, or a mac, maybe
linux if microsoft puts another me 2 out-again!
tell me what i can't do with xp, that vista can do. is out there any kind of software
that requires vista? nooo! and we're reading about windows 7?! who gives a f_ck about all
those stupid oses when we still have xp. i don't wannt to buy a new pc just to find out
that vista is "fast".
more important: it's free of charge and it's powerful
what a losers here, complaining without good arguments. pfffrrrrttttt!!
windows explorer crashed on me almost on a daily basis with rtm, now with sp1 build 17128
it's light years beyond anything xp has ever done on this same computer.
the
slow adoption of vista is to be expected what with the relatively unchanging needs of the
average computer user. the fact remains that most people do not make use of the latest
hardware technologies which are unsupported in xp because it was designed when these
technologies did not exist. as soon as software catches up in the next couple years,
people will be forced to look into either vista, linux, or mac because xp will have fully
run its course. this is the same reason why windows 98se is obsolete: its code lacks the
ability to handle modern hardware, ie. usb 2.0.
but if you like rationalizing
your resistance to change, or your apparent cheapness to upgrade to new hardware even
though you think it's time to upgrade, or you have nothing better to talk trash about, be
my guest. those of us who recognize the benefits of vista over xp for our own computing
needs are already using it. for one thing, xp's less intuitive user interface is obvious
every time i sit down at a computer runnng it.
tell me what 'latest hardware technologies' you are talking about that xp does not
support right here right now? you're blowing smoke out your a.ss and you know it!
anything vista can do xp can do better. and no, i will never , ever use vista because i am
waiting for windows 7. you claim the 'benefits of vista over xp'...what a joke! maybe
you mean that vista even with sp1 is a complete oinker gobbling up cpu threads and ram
like a kid in a candy store maybe?! or is it useless features like uac or 'protected
mode' in ie that will not even allow the user to download a file? vista will be
discarded like windows millinium was, a poor example of programming, a mistake. its like
a train wreak. and the cost! $399.00 for ultimate, what a rippoff! vista is like an
unwanted pregnancy, it should be aborted off everyone's harddrive. its unfair of
microsoft to even attempt to force it on the general public. its forcing people to mac,
linux distros. if they're smart they'll rush windows 7 out and continue support for xp.
if they do not they will have businesses and people migrate away from windows.
what is this? explain in english plz...
to service packer:
well, be my
own guest and explain us what are the "new computer technologies" that are unsupported
in windows vista and not in xp? as elric the red says you have to clear this out cause we
don't really know. ipv6 maybe? b*llsh*t. ms is going along the worldwide sh*t that
promotes the industry growing. fools will run to buy a new pc just to run vista. it's
obvious to what kind of consumers microsoft is targeting.
don't tell me i'm blowing smoke out of my a.ss, tell that to everyone else who
switched. mine is just the opinion of one person. if xp really was better than vista in
every respect, there would be zero people using it throughout the world.
ipv6
that actually works, shadow copy, bitlocker, vastly improved tablet pc functionality, and
rudimentary (for my needs) speech recognition are all features that xp cannot deliver.
and don't complain about uac or protected mode as those can be turned off and
everyone does turn them off because their effectiveness is far overshadowed by their
impracticality. there is a balance between useful features and useless ones in every
operating system...xp is no different. even sp2 has horrible wireless networking, system
restore that doesn't work when you need it, bsod's every other day, slow lan file
transfers, and least of all an ugly interface.
how do you explain all those
people who run a pirated copy of vista? they obviously like it enough to want it for
reasons other than thinking that the insanely high cost justifies the expense.
ipv6 is non go for a home user. try protowall and ipv4. it'd be good for you.
bitlocker?hahaha! try an encryption utility instead of buying a new device that supports
the function.
tabletpc? again hahaha! i always had a ppc.
anyways you
don't really seem to know what are you talking about my friend. because people try vista
that doesn't prove that they do need it. have a nice day and don't be a believer. ms is
making billions. try ubuntu ;)
fudge packer: people who buy a new pc in many cases are not given the option of anything
but vista. dell will let people choose xp currently, on certain packages. look at how
microsoft hid even basic functions like the 'run' command under layers and layers of
c.rap. people are forced to relearn where basics are for no good reason. oh lets take
control away from the poor dumb user. most of the so called security in vista is designed
to protect the user from themselves. i'm sorry, i don't want an os that is designed to
tell me i do not have the rights to do what i need to do. you can have it.
i’m not going to stick up for microsoft at all but i tend to agree about all the crap
that microsoft incorporated into vista but once it all off there is nothing wrong with
vista. it’s not what you got; it’s how you use it. we here the same old winning bs story
every time a new os becomes available and it make me want to vomit. for thoughts of you
that complain about vista crashing all the time well perhaps if you stopped downloading
infected pirated software, going to infected adult sights and gaming sights etc then
perhaps vista or any other os you may use wouldn’t crash on you all the time. i‘ve been
working on computer for over 15 years and 80% of the problems found are nothing more the
virus and spyware related. so let’s get real life here people and perhaps educating
yourselves a little better would help considerably regardless the os.
agree with you ramrod, but don't miss the point. it isn't about crashes. after agnitum
bullshits i never had a single crach on xp sp2-3. the whole idea is why we should switch
to vista. my opinion is , we need to , just to support intel - ibm - microsoft and
partners. th hardware industry grows side by side with software industry which "creates"
the fake needs. i'll start using linux, not that i like it but because i don't want to
be a victim anymore. "how we use it" that's wise not "what we have".
face it. for those who are not having significant issues with vista - great. but the
sad but true fact is that vista has a lot of technical issues that have gone unresolved in
the first year (quality is a non-issue at ms). alot of us have tried vista, troubleshoot
vista, and pulled our hair out with vista.
we are real people too and we
don't mime microsoft press releases because it works for us and we want to appear cool
(how uncool it is to be a ms parott).
wake up and understand what so many
people are saying - vista has too many flaws. fix the flaws and vista is a vast
improvement over xp. fix the cripple backup, networking issues, file system and
application pauses...jeez, the list is long.
vista works for you - great.
but don't discount the testimony of so many for whom it does not work well. xp would be
a non-issue if vista worked the way it was intended.
No new comments are allowed for this article.
For your questions use our KezNews Forum
Vista more secure than XP? Not really...
By Wild Bill on 29.01.2008 - 01:01