Discussion on:

Microsoft bows to feedback and brings back real file backup in Windows 7

Are you frustrated by Vista's Backup Files option and its lack of custom file and folder selection? Does the idea of being able to actually select what files and folders to back up in Windows 7's Backup and Restore tool sound like the right way to go?

Thank god, it was quite difficult to backup the whole system specially if some of the applications are installed on diffrent drives.

Plus as I remember there is complication when it comes to restoring these images. HDD capacity was an issue it should be more than the one used for backup even if the data is less than the new HDD. http://www.borgetsolutions.com/infrastructure-solutions

OMG I'm so over people whining about interface change. Why would M$ make a new os,that looks just like the one they were making in 2003. I have no formal training[but very well self taught] in computers. I repair and build about 25 or 30 pc's per year I'm 45 yo. I went to vista and figured it out quickly. I waited for sp 1. And installed it on a 5 yo dell XPS. It ran perfectly. 3gig P4, 3 gig ram. 6800 gt gpu. I wouldn't be dumb enough to put it on much less. Both the new operating systems are VERY easy to use. I have since built a new high end gaming system, with Win 7 build 7068. It's even easier to use. When I was waiting for my new mobo. I put xp pro on an old thing I trash picked from a dumpster, missing it's hard drive. Just to get me by. 1.5 gig p4 with 768 mb PC 133 ram, 80 gig hd Some tiny little video card 32 or 64mb I cant remember for sure. It ran like crap. Just for the heck of it I installed win 7 beta build 7000. It ran way better, I couldn't believe it. Obviously none of the eye candy worked. But it was very usable, Just checking email, surfing and word documents.
Vista became a very nice operating system. Like XP it took awhile to get the bugs out. For backup there are so many good 3rd party programs. I don't see the point in loosing my mind over windows backup software. Most disk burning suites Have something that will work fine. Most tech people will have stuff like this laying around. Most non tech people are not smart enough, with computers to use any backup software anyway. Unless they have an external hd with some button they can just push. I know, I have to restore enough of their data, after they screw things up. Oh and guess what. They will not keep this current interface forever either. Then a whole new generation will be whining. Boo hoo they made the new OS look different than the old one. And guess what else. It will run like crap on old and low end computers too. There will never be a perfect trouble free OS where everybody likes all the features. And I'm glad, because I like fixing peoples computers. They give me money. I plan to get some certs and do this full time. I seem to be naturally good at it. I like solving problems, and Windows Will always give me plenty of those LOL. I rarely have trouble with my own stuff though. As soon as they get in somebody else s hands. Bam I just don't understand how they can screw one up so easy.

of the old interface. The main one being most people do NOT like change and will want to stay with what they know.

I like your comment re bugs in Vista, there should never have been any to begin with as they only came bout due to unneeded major changes to make it incompatible with XP.

People wouldn't mind the interface change so much if the system was compatible with XP so their other software and hardware would work with Vista, but NO, MS had to make changes for the fun of it and force incompatibility so they can make more money selling a new Office Suite.

None of this worries me now as I no longer use MS software.

Microsoft has the uncanny ability to convice me they hold their customers and users in contempt. Windows backup in Vista is a case in point. They have only fixed half the problem in 7. Now bring back tape support!

I've tried Vista's backup and hate it. Lack of options and features (selections & supported devices ). Since moving to Vista I've completely abandoned the OS backup and moved on to a 3rd party backup product. When it comes to backup I want a feature rich product with support for as many devices as possible.

I recently tried windows 7 back Up today in fact and found it to be useless. It got to about 15% after a considerable time with only a few small test files etc less than a couple of megs and stayed there. So shot over to a machine using Win XP pro and had it done in about 20 seconds. Simular file size.

XP Pro's backup utility allows the backed up data to be verified after backup. You can also select the type of backup such as "Normal, Copy, Differential, Incremental and Daily".. Will Win7 Backup have this capability?

I could not use Vista backup, especially because in some systems, I needed only to backup a certain folder and sub-folders.
I like the change in Win 7, however, setting up the backup requires things that are not needed.
Example -- backup to a network folder requires me to add a logon username/password. Why??? Why is it mandatory? The next box is greyed out. What if I want to use the current username/password, what if the share does not require a username/password? I have a NAS drive at home, and setting this up to backup to it means I need credentials to access, when the NAS unit does not need anything.
I do like however, that they changed from the 'MS knows best what you want backed up' model, and can actually choose what to backup, folder by folder.

It is an improvement, however, I have not tried to backup/restore yet. I just went through the setup and wondered why the logon was a requirement before even the ability to validate access to the share.

The only reason I can come up with, is Microsoft is assuming this will be a scheduled backup with no-one being logged on interactively. In that case, you can supply credentials to access the network resource. Why will it not use 'your' credentials? It could be for flexibility, or time to code the utility, or a little of each.

One of my main bones of contention with Microsoft is that they will spend endless resources on diddling with packaging and the GUI and leave out useful technologies like this in their basic versions.

Let me explain. In XP premium/Vista premium they will put in partitioning and the snip tool, but leave it out of the basic version.

However Microsoft will constantly screw around with the windowing to make it look like an IE web window and search tool constantly wasting time and resources on window dressing to meet some byzantine marketing goal.

Another example is the useless rearranging of the control panel (moving add remove programs and renaming it some useless thing like program features). I think this is what really pissed off many users between XP and Vista. The old 2K interface was just fine. People liked it. They didn't want to relearn a whole new way to "think" about the OS and figure out where the features were. To the rest of us, a computer is a tool and constantly jerking around with the look and feel really exasperates users.

If they just made a well built static GUI with really useful tools for the basic versions, people wouldn't be eyeing Mac or Linux so much.

as we all know that every distro of Linux has everything in the same place with the same name, do we not?

yea, you're right. Among the thousands of things that angered me about Vista when making the transition from XP was the renaming of 'add or remove' programs. it now takes me a good extra 5 minutes to find it every time I need it..
The general OS is so much slower now, as they're obsessed with making it look 'pretty' as opposed to making it ...good.

I wish they'd bring back the old backup we were all familiar with, bring back NTBackup or at least make a version for vista/win7 that can be an optional download.

That would be great! However, NTBackup was written in part by Veritas, the creators of Backup Exec. In fact, I BELIEVE that Backup Exec could restore NTBackup save-sets. Symantec has purchased Veritas and all rights to that company's software, including Backup Exec. It could be that Symantec and Microsoft cannot come to an agreement over NTBackup.
I have heard from several people that you can copy NTBackup w/required dll's and get it running on Vista, but I have not tried it, and I have not heard anything about Windows 7. Anyone hear anything?

I agree, NTBackup does exactly what I need it to do (indeed, the fact that NTBackup doesn't work with Vista is one of the reasons why I'm still using XP Pro).

You can switch to classic view or better yet, just start typing what you want in the search bar in the upper right of the control panel. It's quick and easy.

You type uninstall in the start box. The option to uninstall a program is there.

When both of you say PEOPLE like it, you mean people who were used to it were used to it. That doesn't mean it was a good way to do things. It was an epically difficult way to manage a lot of files and folders, and Vista did a pretty good job of cleaning that up. Windows 7 is even better.

You never added a program from the add/remove programs. Ever. If you were the one kid who thought it was cool to not use the installer built into everything, you're just being niche. If you type add remove program into the start box, the add or remove program feature comes up. If you're going into control panel and looking for it there... well... you're wasting your own time, much less everyone else's when you complain you can't find something.


Windows Vista has been faster than XP for a long time. http://content.zdnet.com/2346-12554_22-277290-2.html

In service pack 1, Vista was already about the same speed as XP. Service Pack 2 was a speed upgrade, and is overall faster.

I've never heard ANY Vista user say with any thoughts of their own that Vista was slower than XP. What I've always seen and read was that the operating system never stops. A program crashes and that's no problem, really, because you can switch to a different one. That things open quicker, and feel snappier, even though the benchmarks were lower. So you're just blowing smoke and jumping on the "Vista Sucks!" bandwagon. Hope you're proud to be a sheep.

I will admit, the first couple of times I wanted to unstall a program in Vista, I went looking for "Add/Remove Programs" only to realize it wasn't there and then I had to scan up and down the list of Control Panel items until I saw "Programs and Features."

But really, there aren't that many Control Panel items that it could possibly take 5 minutes to find it. And after 2 or 3 tries, it pretty much sunk in that "Programs and Features" is what I want. Of course, now when I am stuck working on an XP machine, I go looking for "Programs and Features" and then I have to remember that it's "Add/Remove Programs" that I want.

Rick

It was a weird decision to provide a inadequate backup utility with Vista and not giving users enough power to backup what they wanted, good to hear they are changing it though but I will continue to use scripted Robocopy as my backup of choice its better to be in total control?

Why do I need such a feature that only gives me the same functions as Copy & Paste gives?

That has been mostly why I loathe Vista. That and the fact it is a pig. Win 7, while still saddled with the Vista interface, is an improvement. I suppose if all I did was run a few apps, it wouldn't be a big deal, but I spend a fair amount of time in the OS as that is my job.

Make it fully compatible with Win XP software and peripherals. Then they'll show they've listened to the consumers, but anything short of that is pure BS marketing hype to try and fool us all again.

Well, it seems there are a couple of problems with that idea. First of all, most software that won't run on Vista won't run because it violates basic rules for developing secure applications to run on Windows. XP allowed these programs to run, despite their defects, but Vista enforces more of the rules, preventing defective applications from running.

Personally, I haven't seen too many programs that won't run under Vista, if you set it to run the program in XP Compatibility Mode, or set to always "Run as Administrator," which basically allows the faulty application to get away with being faulty.

As far as getting peripherals to work with Vista, it is really up to the vendors who sold you those peripherals to develop suitable drivers that will work with Vista. Again, it is a matter of poorly designed drivers that they could get away with under XP, but not under Vista due to the tighter security requirements.

If you need to use a lot of old junk software and hardware and do not care about having a more secure computer, you should probably just stick with XP, rather than expecting the rest of the world to be held back.

Rick

You hit the nail on the head Rick

to force incompatibility. If the third party software has security issues in Windows, it's only because MS have previously issued coding and compatibility instructions to force such issues.

The main reason corporations aren't jumping on the Vista and Win 7 bandwagon is they see no reason to have to replace millions of dollars of other corporate software just to be able to use Vista after having spent big bucks to have their fancy software made XP compatible a few years back.

I find it interesting that MS Windows can NOT meet the same security and compatibility standards of any of the Unix or Linux systems despite having much bigger budgets to spend on them.

Oh, nearly forgot - drivers.

The reason the drivers need to be made Vista compatible instead of XP compatible is MS deliberately make Windows to NOT use the industry standard command sets established in the early 1990s to allow Plug-n-Play compatibility of all hardware with all platforms. If the OS is made according to industry standards and the hardware is too, then all hardware is fully compatible with all operating systems and need no drivers.

Drivers are needed for different versions of Windows solely because MS do not use Industry Standard Command Sets and they change them between some versions. The only time a peripheral needs a driver for Linux or Unix is because the company has made the device to be Windows compatible and not by industry standards.

If all the hardware manufacturers made their gear to the Industry Standards and then left it to MS to create the drivers to allow their buggy OS to work with the hardware because of their refusal to do things according to the industry rules, then MS would finally go back to making their OS Plug-n-Play like they did with Win 95.

And the real question is - Why should people have to fork out for new software and hardware when they already have ones that perfectly meet their needs and aren't yet worn out? The MS answer is simple, That doesn't give MS more profits from selling new software to them.

It is unfortunate that so many people feel compelled to make things up, like you do, just to make themselves feel like they know what they are talking about.

While I'm not exactly a hard core Windows software developer, I do know enough about it to know that MS has been recommending, for at least the past several years, that programmers avoid doing things that require elevated privileges unless absolutely necessary. Yet most developers went on and ignored this recommendation, creating software that would only work properly if the user had Administrator rights. They "got away" with this, because most people always make themselves the Administrator anyway.

Now Vista has tightened security, making it more difficult for programs to get elevated priviliges, and all of a sudden, all these sloppy programmers are finding out that their programs don't work anymore.

You can tell yourself that MS made these changes just for the sake of making changes, but the rest of us KNOW that MS made these changes to make Windows Vista more secure. And so far, it appears they have been quite successful.

As for Unix or Linux... I know what the Linux Fanboys say, but let's face it: There are probably more "bad guys" trying to hack Windows than there are programmers developing anything for Linux. We'll never really know how bad Linux is until Linux reaches a large enough population of users that the bad guys start paying attention to it. Until then, all we know is that Linux seems more secure, because no one is trying to break into it. It's kind of like me saying my house is more secure than a bank, because banks get robbed all the time, but in the 50 years I've been around, my house has never been robbed.

As for "Industry Standard Command Sets," what industry standard are you talking about? The standard that is set by Intel and Microsoft? Or some other standard?

Why does Linux and Mac OS need device drivers, just like Windows does? Plug-n-Play works far better in XP and Vista than it ever did in Windows 95, so I don't know how you can claim that Windows 95 was better at it than newer versions of Windows. Remember how they used to call it "Plug-n-Pray?" And Windows 95 did need drivers to make things work. It wasn't able to magically run things without drivers.

I don't know of any reason why people should fork out for new software and hardware when they already have ones that perfectly meet their needs. And I can't say that I've ever heard anyone say that anyone should do that. Seems to me MS has gone way out of their way to continue supporting XP, W2K, Office 2003, Office XP, etc., for FREE, for anyone who doesn't want to buy something new. Software and hardware designed for Vista generally runs perfectly fine under XP. Office 2007 can save files in formats compatible with Office 97 and up. MS has free compatibilty packs for older versions of Office to make them able to read Office 2007 documents. MS has done nothing to force anyone to have to upgrade and, in my opinion, have gone out of their way to cater to people who don't upgrade.

Of course, I know you aren't going to believe anything I say and you aren't going to agree with me, and that's fine. You can go on telling yourself whatever you want to believe. I get lots of work by keeping up with the times, while people like you live in the past. And that's a good thing. I do not need any additional competition for work in this economy.

Rick

One, the security you say MS have been advocating, funny how they didn't provide the proper capability in the OS to do that in Win 95, Win 98, Win 2000, Win XP despite it being in Unix since the 1960s and in Linux from day one and it was in Win NT. They removed it for Win 2000 as MS didn't see the need for it in a general desktop.

many of the security vulnerabilities in Windows have been known about for a decade or more, yet they've never changed the source code to correct the problems and close them out, just patched over them. And some of the vulnerabilities are actually back doors MS put in Windows to allow their won applications to work faster.

2. The security hierarchies MS are trying to put in place in Vista as an overlay have been built into the core kernel of Unix and Linux from day one. Yet MS can't seem to manage to do that, or aren't interested in doing it.

3. Industry Standard Commands - Yes there are International organisations that decide on things like common standards. Some examples of their output are TCP, IP, HTML, AVI, JPEG, USB, Firewire, Wireless standards and many other things.

Back in the early 1990s the relevant body (the names have changed since and I don't remember the new one) set out a list of commands for use with all common peripherals. When the operating system and the hardware are manufactured to use those commands they have full Plug-n-Play capability. The hardware came in boxes with a note on the side saying 'Plug-n-Play' compatible. This worked well with the properly made hardware in Win 95. But MS didn't like that and walked away from the industry standards. So Windows doesn't use them for the standard peripheral commands. They tried a similar trick with USB when it came out but none of the manufacturers of USB devices were interested in making Windows compatible USB devices, they all made them Industry Standard compatible. Thus Windows was forced to use the Industry Standard in the end. But for a little while you needed Windows drivers to make any USB 1.0 device work on any windows system.

Not all hardware at the time was made or marketed as Plug-n-Play compatible as the companies needed time to redesign their systems to work with the standards and there was still a lot of the old design gear out on the market. The non 'Plug-n-Play' gear needed drivers.

On this issue, if Windows didn't keep changing the command sets you'd only need a Windows driver, not a Win 98, or a Win NT, or a Win 2000/XP, or a Win Vista driver. Any device that works out of the box with Linux or Unix doesn't need another driver to work with any other version of Linux or Unix, they only need drivers if they work out of the box with Windows, then you also need drivers for other versions of Windows than the one it's designed for.

4. Some hardware manufacturers fell to the MS lure and made their hardware to be Windows compatible out of the box. The box says that on the side. Thus they will not work with the Industry Standard commands and need drivers to convert the commands to the standard ones. Such hardware is compatible only with one version of Windows and needs drivers for all the others. Any hardware made to the Industry Standards doesn't need drivers to work with Unix or Linux, they're just Plug-n-Play but need drivers to work with any Windows version.

5. Office 2007 does not work properly on Win XP or Win 2000 and some aspects of Office 2003 and Office 2000 and Office XP do not work well on Vista. Third Party software made Win XP compatible does not work properly on Vista due to the command changes made by MS. thus newer version made to suit Vista are needed to run on them. The same happened with the switch from NT to XP and 98 to XP. All of the above I've personally seen and experienced with client's systems or my own.

6. I've been working on and fixing Windows systems since the days of DOS 3 and worked with every Windows desktop OS and many Windows Server OSs. My personal machines had been Windows until 2003 / 2004 when the introduction of the badly designed WGA caused too much downtime and through poor implementation of the bad code. I then spent a few years testing various Linux versions to find one I liked. I no longer have to constantly rebuild my machine and call MS Australia for a new validation code because their validation server is too stuffed up to work properly.

7. When you find yourself unable to get at your own data because MS wants another monthly licence fee for your OS and web browser first, don't complain to me.

Who CARES about Windows 2000? Your points made about it are irrelevant. Windows XP and Vista are both on the NT kernel.

1960's Unix systems had kernel level security? Well, yes, I guess a fully ROM based system IS pretty darn secure. Of course, since Unix was developed in 1969, your "since the '60's" is a little misleading. Especially since "Unix" wasn't labeled until late 1970. The late 1980's was when it became anything like the system you're talking about, and was well after the Apple in having a GUI.

Linux wasn't around 'til the 1990's.

Plug N' Play was Microsoft's.
And I quote:
"The term Plug and Play was first used by Microsoft in reference to their Windows 95 product. Other operating systems such as AmigaOS Autoconfig and Mac OS NuBUS system, had already supported such features for some time (under various names, or no name[6]), but the term plug and play gradually became universal due to worldwide acceptance of Windows." Windows called it Plug and Play. That was THEIRS. The 'standards' you're talking about are vapor. You're entire argument is 'herf herf herf jpeg is a standard herf herf.' JPEG is a compression algorithm...

Vista's hierarchy of rights works perfectly fine... and has for years.


Your argument about Office is irrelevant. The Windows Team is NOT the Office Team. But Office 2007 DOES work fine on XP. I beta tested it there, and then ran it until I got Vista 2 months after it came out. Obviously, I'm not everyone, but the beta ran fine on my machine. I'd say the problem was on your end.



Microsoft has NEVER charged for a service pack. Unless you think Windows 7 is Vista SP3, in which case, you're an idiot, but I've preemptively struck.


If you like Linux, cool. Leave me alone. I tried Linux. I hated it. Spent so much time fixing it that it wasn't even worth my time as a workstation. I tried Mac. I spent so much time trying to figure out how to make it work as well as Windows that I finally gave up on it.

Switch from NT to XP?

insults around.

The official release of the software known as Unix was made in 1969 after some years of development and in-house use prior to release and it being given the name. That is, the development occurred prior to the release, since it was released in 1969, the development was in the 1960s. Should I try saying all that in words of only two syllables for you?

Standards have been developed and issued all along, but MS rarely takes notice if they feel they can ignore them to their profit.

As to an Industry Standard Command Set, I've scanners and Printers that are old and use the ISCS - when I plug them into an old Win NT box they work, an old Win 95 box they work, an old Linux or Unix box they work, a new Linux or Unix box they work. But a new Windows box requires a driver to allow them to talk to the new Windows OS as it doesn't use the standard commands.

Standards and Bodies.
The main International body controlling communications was called CCITT when I first came in contact with it in the 1970s. It's now called the ITU (International Telecommunications Union). Others are Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF), as is the Joint Photographic Experts Group, Organization for Standardization, Internet Architecture Board (IAB), Internet Society (ISOC). All issue standards those in the IT industry are supposed to use.

Here's some wiki links for you

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CCITT
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joint_Photographic_Experts_Group
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_Engineering_Task_Force
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISO
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_Architecture_Board
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_Society

They are all aimed at getting everyone talking together and working as a whole. You may want to check out some of the standards listed here:

http://www.apps.ietf.org/rfc/stdlist.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ISO_standards
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_IEC_standards
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_DIN_standards

Maybe you should read some like

# ISO/IEC 8613 Open Document Architecture

which MS totally ignore, amongst others; as they do not care if they work in with the rest of the world. The numbers aren't issued in chronological order as some are in groups and some are updated over the years.

The current PC is based on the IBM architecture that is now known as ISA (Industry Standard Architecture) and originally called IBM and IBM clone, the IBM personal Computer before becoming ISA when accepted as the standard by the relevant standards bodies. In the early 1990s the relevant bodies (and I forget which one it was) brought out a set of standard commands for all hardware and operating systems to follow - these meant you no longer needed drivers for any device using this system.

Here's some other info sources for you too

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plug-n-play

There is no question that early versions of Windows were never designed to be secure at all. They were designed to be simple to use. They were designed so that any idiot could buy a few Windows computers, connect them together on a small network, and be able to easily share files and printers, etc.

It was only after everyone started connecting their Windows computers to the Internet that the general public began to realize the need for a more secure OS.

So you can bring up Windows 95 all you want, but no one really cares. That is ancient history.

As for ISA standards from the 1990s, it's pretty much the same thing: ancient history. I remember using ISA devices in the 90s, and I also remember needing drivers for every device. I also remember struggling to get things to work, dealing with IRQ conflicts, and so on. But that was then and this is now. I haven't seen an ISA device in years. Everything now is at least PCI, if not PCIe. Hardware today has capabilities no one could've imagined back in the 1990s. New commands and new capabilities had to be added to support newer hardware. This is not unique to Windows or Microsoft. It is across the board on all platforms.

Sure, Windows, like Linux, supports some basic functions out of the box. For example, you can boot up Windows with pretty much any video card, and it will work as a generic, standard, VGA video card. No special drivers needed. And I hear Linux users complaining all the time: Oh, I have my nice video card and my nice 2 monitor setup which works great in Windows, but when I run Linux, it all functions as a generic VGA 800x600 video card - no dual monitor support, no fancy stuff, just plain, generic VGA.

That may be all you want or need in life, but for most of us, that just won't do.

My daughter has been running Office 2007 on her XP laptop for probably close to 2 years now without any issues. At my kids' high school, they have Office 2007 on all their XP computers and no one seems to have any trouble with it. Who cares if Office 2007 runs on Windows 2000 or earlier. If you can't afford to upgrade from Windows 2000, you probably shouldn't be wasting money on Office 2007, either.

My brother still uses Office XP on Vista. So far, I have only heard one complaint from him: Outlook XP has a problem storing his e-mail password, so he has to manually type in his password every time he uses Outlook XP. While not perfect, that's still not bad considering how old Office XP is.

Most XP compatible software works just fine in Vista and vice-versa. You say you stopped using Windows 5 or 6 years ago, so how would you really know what works or what doesn't? You probably just repeat whatever nonsense you hear from the MS bashers and Linux Fanboys, without having any real experience of your own to back it up.

I have been working with PCs since I got my first Apple ][ computer in 1979. The first IBM PC I worked with was in 1981 or 1982. So, yeah, I'm an old guy like you and have been doing this stuff for a long time. The difference is I keep up with the times while you cling to the past. And again, I will repeat: That is just fine with me.

Rick

Maybe you should check Wikipedia. Unix was not named Unix at that point. It was named Unix in 1970.

Multics is NOT Unix.

Saying 'it was in development' as Multics is like saying that Windows was in development when Xerox came up with the idea of the GUI. It's just as stupid as you are.

The Unics project was in 1970. It's what made Unix. Furthermore, comparing 1970's Unix to modern Unix is like comparing a calculator with no ability to run programs to Deep Blue.

You act like I'm being ridiculous but your only evidence is decade old standards that were a joke in the first place. Drivers allows customization. Most products work NATIVELY with Windows.

If Microsoft chooses not to follow your vaunted 'international standards (AKA bullocks),' then they have the right. If people don't like it, they will stop making products for Windows, and users will cease to use Windows. They didn't.

Go back to using your command line driven POS. I'll stick with a computer that can do everything I ask of it without me having to lift a finger. Windows automatically finds, downloads, and installs the drivers for hardware. I have a video card from Hp in my laptop that's a modified GeForce 8800M GTS. Windows used the default driver, but linked asked if I'd prefer to use the customized driver from Hp. I clicked yes, and it opened me directly to the HP download page for the HDX 9000T CTO. As opposed to Linux... where I'd have to find someone who's modified the driver NVIDIA released.

You claim to have worked for what, 30 years? And yet you're so far behind in technology. I guess the market just moved too quickly for you. Stop trying to slow everything else down just because of your incompetence.

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Yesterday I tried a new Nvidia card in my linux system, didn't even have to download a driver to have it work at full capability. it did come with a nice disc loaded with Win XP and Win Vista drivers. My son tried it in his nice XP Pro system and was limited to 800 x 600 until the fancy drivers were loaded. So Windows doesn't just work.

Security - the early versions of Unix and Linux had the security measures in place that MS is now trying to put into Windows, and doing a poor job of doing so according to the experts in the field. Windows is about two decades old now and only just getting around to doing what others have done from scratch.

I love your comment about people stop making products for Windows, that's exactly what some have been doing in regards to Vista and why so much software is NOT available for Vista. The changes MS introduced to Windows makes it not portable to work natively on Vista and the companies who write it aren't investing the resources to rewrite it to suit the changes made by MS.

On your comment about final names - your approach would claim Longhorn had absolutely nothing to do with Windows, and the early NT had nothing to do with Windows as the very early PR on it only called it NT not Windows.

I do find it interesting that you find it necessary to get personally abusive as a way to get around actually addressing all the points.

MS does well simply because of huge marketing budgets and predatory marketing tactics. this allows them to sell to people who don't really know what's available. their work at pushing planned obsolescence and fracturing the industry will tell against them. The trend is already on the way.

The MS announcement several years ago about the limited support and life spans for their operating systems saw them lose the opportunity to sell millions of systems to companies embedding software in equipment with designed life spans of more than a couple of years; things like manufacturing equipment and military hardware. As more and more people get fed up with their ' take what we give you' approach, they will lose more and more of the corporate and government market, and that will lead to losses in all other areas.

MS may decide to back flip and make Win 7 natively compatible with XP software and thus woo the corporate users back.

So... you're comparing current linux, to the decade old Windows XP? Glad to know that Linux is that fare behind...

I'm doing research at the Georgia Institute of Technology right now. Know what the students are required to have? Windows Vista, or an alternative that's equivalent, but will be unsupported. Why is that? Ah, could it be because Windows is supportable, runs every program you need, and is one of the most stable systems created? Why yes, it is.

A mac user's view, in webcomic form:
http://questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=1411

>Yesterday I tried a new Nvidia card in my linux system, didn't even have to download a driver to have it work at full capability.

I'm curious what your definition of "full capability" is? Full support for dual monitors? Full acceleration of 3D video games and video editing software? Full support for all the filtering and shading and rendering and so on that modern video cards do? Somehow I doubt it.

A few years ago, I decided to try Ubuntu Linux, just to see what it would do. All I know is there were no "drivers" available to make my ATI video card do everything it can do under Windows. Yeah, the video card "worked," it displayed an image on my screen, and I could adjust the resolution, etc., but that was it. No dual monitor support. No 3D acceleration. No color management. No nothing beyond turning it into a cheap, standard, generic video card.

>Security - the early versions of Unix and Linux had the security measures in place that MS is now trying to put into Windows, and doing a poor job of doing so according to the experts in the field.

According to which "experts?" I keep reading about how there are now more vulnerabilities being found in Linux in the past year than in Vista. And given the huge number of people trying hack into Vista compared to the tiny number of people trying to hack into Linux, I think that really says something postive about Vista.

>Windows is about two decades old now and only just getting around to doing what others have done from scratch.

Clearly, Windows was never designed to be a secure system in the beginning. It was designed to be easy for the average user to set up and use. It wasn't designed as a multi-user system. It wasn't designed to be connected to a public network where anyone could gain access and try to hack in. It wasn't designed to be a system that requires system administrators to install and maintain and configure. It was designed for the average Joe to be able to buy it and use it like TV or a dishwasher. Take it home, plug it in, and it just works. There is no question about it, Windows was not designed with security in mind, early on.

>I love your comment about people stop making products for Windows, that's exactly what some have been doing in regards to Vista and why so much software is NOT available for Vista.

Hmmm... seems to me the only vendors not upgrading their products to support Vista are vendors who are either going out of business, or who never made products for Windows in the first place. Given that Vista now has at least 20% of the PC market, it would be insane for any vendor to refuse to get with times.

>The changes MS introduced to Windows makes it not portable to work natively on Vista and the companies who write it aren't investing the resources to rewrite it to suit the changes made by MS.

I'm not sure what you mean about "not portable to work natively on Vista." Most things that work with XP will work on Vista. And anyone who depends on selling products to Windows users is a fool if they think they're going to stop the rest of the world from moving forward to Vista and 7.

> MS does well simply because of huge marketing budgets and predatory marketing tactics. this allows them to sell to people who don't really know what's available.

It's obvious that you have a very strong hatred for Microsoft and will say anything to make MS look bad, but I don't agree with you here. Until just recently, I've seen A LOT MORE advertising for Apple than Windows. So MS isn't the only one with a big marketing budget. And people who do know what's available usually end up choosing Windows because just about everything imaginable is available for Windows, with a huge variety of options from cheap to expensive, simple to sophisticated, and so on. With Macs, the selection and variety is nowhere near as deep. And with Linux... well, it seems like all I've ever seen for Linux is software that looks (and works) like what you'd expect from Freeware in the Windows world. Which is not to say that Freeware is all bad. On the contrary, I've seen some very nice Freeware for Windows. But the majority of it is worth what it costs: nothing. If you need something really sophisticated, like a video editing system, let's face it: no one is going to invest the resources into making something that can only be given away. Companies like Adobe, Sony, Avid, etc., invest huge amounts into making their products. And they do it because they can sell their products to large numbers of users and make a good return on their investment.

>The MS announcement several years ago about the limited support and life spans for their operating systems saw them lose the opportunity to sell millions of systems to companies embedding software in equipment with designed life spans of more than a couple of years;

A couple of years? Now you're just making things up. W2K has been getting support 8 or 9 years now. XP is not far behind, and will continue to be supported until 2014, or something like that. No other software vendor provides free support for any software longer than that.

> MS may decide to back flip and make Win 7 natively compatible with XP software and thus woo the corporate users back.

Well, I know you have yourself convinced that MS purposely made Vista incompatible with XP just make life difficult for people. I also know you're just plain wrong about that, and MS will not re-open the security holes in XP just so a handful of losers can run old junk software that is so full of bugs that it can't be made to work with Vista or Windows 7.

Rick

I guess the Hot Air Machine ran out of gas?

This is so typical of Linux Trolls. They can blow all kinds of hot air, but when you try to pin them down with specific questions and specific details, they fold under pressure.

Oh well... I already knew all the answers to the questions I asked of Deadly Earnest, I just wanted to give him a chance to try to come up with something.

Rick

because they get huge discounts to encourage its use and also profits off the sales through the institution shop.

Windows XP is NOT a decade old to start with, it's nearing eight years.

Security wise Vista isn't as secure as Win NT was, and that's a decade and a half ago, while Linux was secure from day one, as was Unix.

Windows is not, and never was a stable system - do some research on BSODs, still very common with all Windows.

As to supporting all you need in software, if you restrict yourself to the MS Office suite, yeah, it will - for the current set relevant to the version of Windows you have.

i love the way every time I answer something you can't deal with you switch the subject area.

to be compatible with a specific version of Windows - so it needs Linux drivers to use the standard commands, but switch to a different version of Windows than the one it's supposed to work out of the box for and you got the same problem.

Windows up to Win 98 was designed to be on a system not connected to anything, except for Win NT. From Win 98 on its supposed to be secure and safe for the Internet and Win 2000 was based on the Win NT kernel and code, but a lot of the security was stripped out. Even Vista doesn't have all the security Win NT had. And one wonders why they took it out when security has been the big MS marketing cry for the last decade.

Win NT, Win 2000, and all since have been marketed as being multi user, but not designed that way from the base. Even Win Vista isn't designed for security from the kernel base out, but does it all with and outer layer.

on the first page of TR discussion responses when I've looked at it for some time, so I'd not been aware there was anything to reply to. But it's there today, so I'm picking up the older posts as well; probably they were made the day I was out most of the day.

OK, if the system being worked on and tweaked to be Unix is nothing to do with Unix, then Win 98, Win 2000, and Win XP are nothing to do with Win Vista.

I use an OS with a great GUI, AND I don't have to worry about frequent system freezes, crashes, or simply locking up because I got another load of updates from MS.

All along I've said you can stay with, and play with, the people who play hand in glove with MS; that doesn't make them perfect the way you try to make out. MS uses predatory tactics and have an inferior OS, I've never said you can't use it.

You keep talking about these so called Industry Standard Commands... what kind of standard is it if only a small number of vendors support it? And why does a Google search for "Nvidia Linux Drivers" turn up many many pages of information and discussion about drivers for Nvidia video cards to be used with Linux?

Why does the Nvidia web site say "Open source drivers for NVIDIA nForce hardware are included in the standard Linux kernel and leading Linux distributions?" Why is there all this talk of "drivers" when you claim that Linux doesn't need drivers? Just because a particular driver comes "pre-installed" doesn't mean it isn't a driver. Windows comes with many "built-in" drivers for lots of hardware, too. So I fail to see the difference.

I also don't understand your on-going claims of ATI video cards being designed "to be compatible with a specific version of Windows." When I look at the ATI web site, they have drivers for most video cards for more than one version of Windows.


>Even Vista doesn't have all the security Win NT had.

Can you be more specific? What is this incredible security that NT had that was stripped out in later versions of Windows? This is the first I've ever heard of such a thing.

>And one wonders why they took it out when security has been the big MS marketing cry for the last decade.

The security "marketing cry" never started until after XP kept getting hacked and infected over and over, making news headlines all the time. XP SP2 seemed like it was the first half-way serious attempt at making Windows more secure.

>Win NT, Win 2000, and all since have been marketed as being multi user,

Really? I've never seen any such marketing. Windows Terminal Server is the only thing close to a "multi user" Windows I've ever really seen. Yeah, I guess you can have multiple users defined to a single Windows PC, but it's not really meant to have multiple users logged on and working simultaneously. Maybe we have different ideas of what "multi user" means.

>Even Win Vista isn't designed for security from the kernel base out, but does it all with and outer layer.

I suppose what you claim is open to some interpretation. There is no question that Windows was not designed for security from the start. It is also clear that there are some limits to how far MS can go in terms of changing things, while still retaining some measure of backwards compatibility (and I know you deny that Vista has any backwards compatibility). However, I have seen many articles, such as this one: http://www.symantec.com/avcenter/reference/Windows_Vista_Kernel_Mode_Security.pdf, which say things like:

"Windows Vista introduces a number of security enhancements over prior versions of Microsoft Windows (including Windows XP SP2). The new kernel-mode security features in Windows Vista include among them:
? Driver signing [1]
? PatchGuard [2]
? Kernel-mode code integrity checks [3]
? Optional support for Secure Bootup using a TPM hardware chip [4]
? Restricted user-mode access to \Device\PhysicalMemory [5]
These changes may secure the kernel of Windows Vista 64-bit Edition significantly; even when compared to that of Linux or Mac OS X."

While it may not be perfect, it is undoubtedly an improvement over previous versions of Windows.

At the end of the day, here are the things that matter most to me:

1) Security: In 33 years of using computers, only one computer in my charge has ever gotten infected with a virus/trojan/malware: It was a computer that belonged to an employer, and that employer had a policy of not installing Windows Updates or Anti-Virus updates for weeks - often months - after they were made available. Needless to say, that policy had to change. No computer that I actually own and have full control over has ever been infected.

2) Stability/Reliability: In the two years I've been using Vista on several computers, I've only seen two Blue Screen crashes. One was due to a faulty video card driver that was released shortly after Vista first came out. The second was due to a hardware device failure.

3) Usefulness: Everything I need to use, from audio/video editing applications, to business management/accounting applications, to exciting, high quality games are available for one, and only one OS: Windows.

As I mentioned in another post, I tried Ubuntu Linux just to see what it was all about. And I will admit, if all I needed a computer for was to surf the web, send e-mails, maybe do a little word processing, Linux would be a fine choice. However, if I get one virus every 30 years now, what will Linux buy me? One virus every 40 years? If I get an average of 1 Blue Screen crash a year with Vista (due to hardware failures, not Windows failures), what will Linux get me? If the hardware fails, I'm sure Linux will crash just like Windows. So why on earth would I want to give up all the usefulness and functionality I get with Windows just to be able to say I have an OS that *might* be slightly more secure or slightly more reliable? It just doesn't make sense.

Rick

At one time nVidia used to design to be out of the box compatible with Windows. Some of the extra chips on modern video cards (like the FX chips etc) need additional code to what work fully, they aren't covered in any of the standards yet, so they need extra drives to utilise the special effects as against providing basic graphics.

Standards, this has been thrashed to death in another thread - here's a couple of links to start with:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Organization_for_Standardization

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ISO_standards

Think organisations like IEEE, ASA, etc - think TCP/IP, and Plug-n-Play, etc.

NT used to have a user security set up better than the Vista UAV, also the OS itself had a lot less built in vulnerabilities too. It was designed as a multi-user system for use on servers and for connection to servers on a general use basis. Windows for Work Groups was designed to make the best use of the NT capabilities. But we're talking of the mid 1990s, it's that far back. I worked most of the 1990s in places with NT networks and they worked very well.

When MS started selling Win 2000 they used the line of it having the extra security and being safer for Internet use. The same with XP.

Rick, feel free to keep spending thousands of dollars on MS software, I save a fortune by not using MS software and get great performance and security. One advantage I do have with my Linux is when I get infected emails from people they do no damage as the systems immediately isolates them and I get to email my contacts and friends with the great news they got infected.

At the moment Linux and open source software can do things the MS equivalents can't, that alone is a good enough reason to use them over MS. The ability to get a longer working life out of peripherals, the ability to safely open older files that must be kept and accessible for legal reasons.

I know one place just had to payout a lot of money to get some old files on twelve year old contract negotiations printed out for a court case. They were created in MS Word and Excel, but none of their current versions of MS Office can open the files without corrupting them, however Open Office does it nicely.

Oh, I nearly forgot, I haven't had a BSOD or system crash since I switched to Linux, except for a major power outage taking the system down because the UPS had died too. I did have on item of hardware die, but the rest of the system kept working OK. When I got the new hardware I powered down and replaced the item. My system is usually on 24 / 7.

>At one time nVidia used to design to be out of the box compatible with Windows.

I guess I'm still not clear on what you mean by this. I've never seen an nVidia video card that would work fully without drivers. On the other hand, I know that ALL video cards do have some basic, standard functions that always work the same. This is why the BIOS can display messages on the screen without having to install a driver first. This why Windows can run in Safe Mode, and use the video card without loading a driver. This is why any OS can be booted up for the first time, and use the video card in some limited fashion, until a driver is installed to get the full functionality of the card.

Disk controllers, keyboards, mice, and many other hardware devices have similar standard, basic functions that allow them to be used by the BIOS, or by any OS without drivers. However, all of these limited functions are just that: limited. They are not "full functionality."

>Some of the extra chips on modern video cards (like the FX chips etc) need additional code to what work fully, they aren't covered in any of the standards yet, so they need extra drives to utilise the special effects as against providing basic graphics.

And of course, the reason we pay good money for video cards, sound cards, etc., is to have all these additional functions that aren't covered by any standards and that require drivers to make them work. Thus, I am still lost on your suggestions that some video cards are designed to be compatible with Windows, while others aren't, and that Linux can somehow provide "full functionality" with an nVidia card, without any drivers.

Also, you never answered my question about your definition of "full functionality." Do you really get full functionality, meaning dual monitor support, 3D acceleration, etc., in Linux without any drivers?

>Standards, this has been thrashed to death in another thread

That could very well be true, but I haven't seen this other thread, so I am not aware of what was said.

>Think organisations like IEEE, ASA, etc - think TCP/IP, and Plug-n-Play, etc.

I am familiar with all of the above, but I had never heard that any of these organizations had standards for video cards that covered every detail of every operation a video card could possibly do, to the extent that any video card could be built to have full functionality with any OS without using a specialized driver. I don't believe this is even possible, because technology changes way too fast for any standards organization to possibly keep up with. Furthermore, you even said yourself that drivers are needed to access the more advanced functions of video cards. Why would I pay $200 or $300 for a video card just to have it function as a 15 year old, standard VGA card?

>NT used to have a user security set up better than the Vista UAV, also the OS itself had a lot less built in vulnerabilities too.

It is true that NT had a lot less of everything, compared to Vista. I suppose an argument could be made that if the OS can't do a particular function at all, then it probably can't be attacked by exploiting that function.

For example, my Apple ][ computer can't be attacked by a virus on a USB drive, because it doesn't support USB. It can't be attacked by an Internet worm, because it can't connect to the Internet, doesn't support TCP/IP, doesn't have an Ethernet port, etc. It can't be attacked through a vulnerability in QuickTime, or Adobe Reader, because it can't run those programs.

In the same way, my first car, a 1966 Mustang, couldn't have a problem with the power steering, because it didn't have power steering. It couldn't have a problem with the air conditioning, because it didn't have air conditioning. It couldn't have a problem with the Electronic Engine Control computer, because it didn't have an Electronic Engine Control computer.

Clearly, the more features that are added to anything, the more possibilities there are for something to break.

>I worked most of the 1990s in places with NT networks and they worked very well.

I seem to remember the 1990s a little differently. I remember people thinking NT was a joke compared to Novell. I remember NT machines crashing all the time. My experience has been that modern versions of Windows work way better than NT ever did.

>Rick, feel free to keep spending thousands of dollars on MS software,

Personally, I don't own that many computers to spend thousands of dollars on MS software... unless maybe I made a habit of always buying full versions of everything at full list price, and went on re-buying software I already owned, instead of just re-installing the same software when the time comes that I need to re-install something.

Quite frankly, I spend A LOT MORE on 3rd party software than I do on MS software. To me, the cost of MS software is a pittance compared to the cost of first replacing all my other software with something else and second, the cost of the time and effort it would take to re-learn everything I know and redevelop all the skills I have with using the software I use now. More importantly, much of the software I use has no substitute in the land of Linux. The only real alternative for me would be to switch to a Mac, and that is certainly not going to save me any money.

Beyond that, I earn money with my MS software skills. I can't earn money with Linux skills, since virtually no one uses Linux, except for computer geeks (who aren't going to pay me to work on their computers when they can do it themselves) and people who don't want to spend any money (who also aren't going to pay me to work on their computers because they don't want to spend any money). So, for me, I would actually be losing money big time if I were to give up my Windows-related skills.

>One advantage I do have with my Linux is when I get infected emails from people they do no damage

First of all, I almost never get any infected e-mails, since pretty much all e-mail servers these days are equipped with anti-virus software of some type that almost always strips out infected attachments, or blocks malicious e-mails from even being delivered. In the rare event that something gets past that, my anti-virus software will almost always catch anything malicious that does get through. And then, even if the A/V software fails, I know better than to run an exe file or click on an unknown link in an e-mail. This is why I have never had any computer I own get infected with anything in 30+ years.

>At the moment Linux and open source software can do things the MS equivalents can't,

Such as? Anything that would be of any value to me?

>The ability to get a longer working life out of peripherals,

I have computers, printers, and other hardware that I have been using for many many years without issue. I simply cannot buy into your suggestion that using Windows somehow limits your ability to use old hardware for as long as you feel like using it.

> I know one place just had to payout a lot of money to get some old files on twelve year old contract negotiations printed out for a court case. They were created in MS Word and Excel, but none of their current versions of MS Office can open the files without corrupting them, however Open Office does it nicely.

So why didn't they just download Open Office themselves? I know for a fact that Office 2003 can open documents created with Office 97. Office 2007 is supposed to be able to do it, too, but I have to admit I haven't actually tried it myself.

>Oh, I nearly forgot, I haven't had a BSOD or system crash since I switched to Linux, except for a major power outage taking the system down because the UPS had died too. I did have on item of hardware die, but the rest of the system kept working OK. When I got the new hardware I powered down and replaced the item. My system is usually on 24 / 7.

My Windows server runs 24/7, but I don't have the money to burn leaving all the rest of my computers running 24/7. 90% of the time, we either Sleep, or Hibernate our computers. So the net result is that it is similar to running Windows without actually rebooting for long periods of time.

It may very well be true that Linux can run longer without crashing than Windows can. But, as I said before, what does that really buy me? If Windows can easily run for a year without crashing, what does it mean to me to be able to go two years without crashing? Maybe if I was running an online service that needed to be up 24/7, it might make a difference then. But for my purposes, and I believe for most people's purposes, having a computer crash once or twice every couple of years is not that painful, compared to the cost of changing to a different platform, having to replace expensive 3rd party software, having to relearn and replace many years of experience, and so on.

Again, Linux is probably fine for people who just want to surf the web, read e-mails, type a document, etc. But as soon as you get beyond some very basic things, making the switch becomes a much bigger deal for a very limited return on investment - or, in my case, a net loss of income.

Rick

The only hardware that doesn't work with vista. Is a bunch of old school outdated crap. Linux is just some cobbled together thing. If it was as good as Microsoft. The PC makers would be using it. Instead of MS which they have to pay for. I have been messing around with computers for 5 years now. I have been hearing you people, the whole time talking the same old crap. I want you to tell me something. How many more decades, will you keep on believing that Microsoft is going down. And that Linux is taking over. I bet many years before I got in computers. You people have been saying the same thing. Apple could probably get a much bigger share if they weren't so over priced, and restrictive about letting you make hardware changes with inexpensive aftermarket stuff, like video cards. I can do some smart shopping. And build a 1200 dollar system that will smoke a mac that cost as much or more. And let's put two identical systems together. Then put vista on one and Linux on the other. Then lets see which one is totally, up and running with everything configured properly. With all the programs working. When I put a second gtx 275 video card in my 780i SLI system I guarantee It will work perfectly. Without a bunch of messing around It doesn't matter if I'm running W 7 or vista. I will just work. I very highly doubt that would be the case with Linux. You would be screwing around with it. OMG I just goggled ' SLI Linux' It looked pretty ugly. See that's a pretty basic thing, it's not like it's bleeding edge technology. Now that's just one example. Linux is OK for someone who just likes to tinker with stuff like that. I don't want to have to be typing commands and stuff just to make my new hardware work. And neither does the majority of the population. Seriously I can hear you 10 years from now.
Still saying M$ is going down. Linux is taking over. And the hardware makers don't want anything to do with Microsoft. And who's software, do you think the best coders would rather work on, Linux or Micro$oft? Sorry I had to give you the hard truth, but at least I didn't call you a troll.

I've worked on several Vista systems for clients, the biggest problem for many was they couldn't get their less than a year old printer or scanner etc to work with Vista as there were no Vista drivers, the gear was designed to work out of the box with Win XP. I wouldn't exactly call that ancient crap.

PC makers use Windows simply because they get to charge you a lot more for putting it on than they pay MS for putting it on and they get the good price by contracting to sell Windows on every machine. MS threaten to cut their discounts if they misbehave.

I like they way you say Linux is good for tinkerers, the main clients I'm loading it on systems for are older people who want a system that's easy to understand and use, that just works for them. Vista doesn't meet that bill, while Kubuntu or PCLinux does.

I don't know what the prices are like where you are, but I've priced systems to match the Macs locally, and when you match the same level of hardware and the software, the Macs are a lot cheaper than the equivalent of the MS systems. I don't buy Macs simply because i can do the same for cheaper by not getting the extra software I don't use. Also, by using Open Office and other Open Source software instead of MS products, I can save thousands more, be it for a Windows system or Linux system.

I only switched to Linux about five or six years ago as I got fed up with Windows needing a full rebuild every few months thanks to WGA crashing my system when I did upgrades. Seems MS didn't like the fact I'd reloaded my software a lot of times due to having made hardware changes and the system needing a reload to work on the new hardware. thus they had my licence tagged as a pirate, despite being bought direct from MS Australia.

At least Linux isn't using behaviour like in the thread:

http://blogs.techrepublic.com.com/security/?p=1716

This is typical MS behaviour to stop others pushing them out of their market share. MS has been pushed out of the embedded system market, they have trouble in the server market - due to not being robust and secure enough. They do currently have a strong lock on the desktop market but are slipping. I doubt they'll totally crash and burn, due to their size, unless they continue to shoot themselves in the foot the way they did with ME and Vista.

And Vista is a great example of the MS hype. For over a decade they've been telling us how secure and safe Windows are while pushing out regular security updates to patch vulnerabilities, many there by MS design. They tout their new versions like Win 2000, Win XP, and Win Vista as being even more secure and safer than the last - after telling us it's perfect, yet the first new sets of patches are to fix vulnerabilities that were in the last one as the kernel has never been cleaned up and fixed, just patched over. Win Vista is touted as the best and greatest and MS say it's doing great, all set to take over the world. Yeah, it's doing so great they're bringing forward the release of the next version by three years as they need to replace Vista already.

The best coders write the more secure software, and that isn't coming from MS.

I am so tired of advice about backing up data, whether on-line (which stinks) or to an alernative hard drive (the best and they are dirt cheap). Why this should be an issue these days? BECAUSE DUMB PEOPLE DON'T DO IT!!!

A PROFESSIONAL DOES and we are way beyond that.

And for totally weird, my neighbor gave me a MYBOOK to restore from - lost all of his data - and it comes up on my system as a LINUX partition. I called him. Oh, the Cisco router told him to do that??? IDIOT - Found a free Linux read utility to scrape the data off and it is coming off but the drive itself is also rather damaged too.

Gee, any smart person should backup. I do and my rule is three tiers of storage.