 |
The Vista parade may be forming up, but there are a few clouds in the area:
After releasing Vista Release Candidate 2 on Friday, Microsoft pulled the public download on Monday, but that was because it had already hit the download limit they had planned. More ominous is that RC2 testers are still spotting obvious problems (e.g. [1], [2], [3], [4]) including Microsoft’s Corporate VP of Microsoft Client Marketing, Mike Sievert, who hit a Vista bug during his demo keynote at the Digital Life 2006 show. Of course this isn’t entirely unexpected, but some are regressions from RC1. I’m guessing there will be a nice juicy service pack in short order after launch.
And while we’re talking bugs, Vista RC1 got a security fix on Patch Tuesday this week. Will Vista really mean that Patch Tuesday’s will be a thing of the past? Count me as dubious.
Whatever the overall security state, Vista’s PatchGuard is still secure from 3rd party software developers as Microsoft stands firm:
Microsoft is still talking with partners who are complaining about how the Redmond, Wash. developer has set up Windows Vista’s security, but it won’t budge from its decision to lock down access to the kernel, a company security manager said Thursday.
Meanwhile a security researcher predicts PatchGuard will be hacked soon after Vista’s release. All of which reminds us that the European Commission’s chief rainmaker Neelie Kroes has yet to be heard from.
Last but not least, Ed Bott and Robert McLaws have been reading the fine print in the Vista End User License Agreement (EULA) and find that Microsoft slipped in some new restrictions compared to Windows XP.
| S | M | T | W | T | F | S |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| « Nov | ||||||
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | |
| 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 |
| 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 |
| 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 |
| 28 | 29 | 30 | 31 | |||
October 13th, 2006 at 10:22 AM
[...] I was wondering yesterday when we were going to hear from European Competition Commissioner Neelie Kroes and with an invitation like the above, how could the old publicity hound resist? [...]
October 14th, 2006 at 10:37 AM
[...] Just the other day, Microsoft was “standing firm” on PatchGuard, but everything is mutable, I guess. Frankly, none of these actions are a big deal for Microsoft and don’t really seem all that useful for competitors except for the security changes. The key point, though, is that while they aren’t a “Get Out of Jail Free” card, Microsoft has clearly managed to placate the EU bureaucrats at minimal cost which is just what they should be doing. “You can catch more flies with honey than with vinegar.” [...]