Re: Does Microsoft Need a New Source Code for the Future?

On Fri, 25 Jul 2008 10:39:19 -0700, Dan wrote:

Windows 9x may be dead somewhat to Microsoft but it is alive and kicking
everywhere else with Mozilla still supporting it with their web browser as
well as AVG 7.5 supporting it as well. People do not realize how stable it
has become.

Just because some application vendor's products run on Windows 9x still
does not mean they are supporting it. If a vulnerability is discovered in
the OS, the app vendors are not about to provide a patch for it. Windows 9x
is no more stable now than when it was originally released.

Heck, 98 Second Edition for me is more stable than XP Professional. Vista
while it is stable enough for me still suffers somewhat with compatibility
issues. However, Vista is indeed tops with external security. However,
Windows 9x has the internal safety and less surface area to attack because it
does not have the services that XP has and XP likes to throw all the
information back compared to 98 Second Edition which is a lot quieter and
runs really well on older PC's.

Compared to Vista and XP, Windows 9x has almost no "internal security"
which is a false term in the first place.

You talk about a great opportunity for all
those used computers that cannot run XP and why not have them run 98SE
instead of being tossed in the landfill. I am sure there are many people
around the world that would see having a computer as a great luxury.


Since the discussion is about security, the above has nothing at all to do
with the topic at hand.


Thanks for replying though and I appreciate your views and I already know
about the end of life software date of July 11, 2006. BTW, did you know this
fact on the Microsoft 98 Second Edition page:

http://support.microsoft.com/ph/1139


What "fact" are you referring to? If you're referring to the end of life
date, that is well known and can be found on lots of pages on the Microsoft
web site.


It sounds like Microsoft does care for 98 Second Edition users like myself
who are looking into ways for the company to expand and explore new avenues
into the future of information technology. Microsoft is really great about
supporting their legacy users and I feel that Microsoft has a much better
track record of caring than say Apple who thinks their products are, oh so
great, that Apple can charge a huge premium for them when Apples are based
upon open source code anyway.

This makes no sense at all.


You talk about how ironic that is. Furthermore, Bill Gates and Microsoft
are the bad guys in many people's eyes but that is simply not true because
Microsoft is gladly willing to help its users and Bill Gates is now working
to make the world a better place for people who have limited opportunities
and are starving and sick with Aids and Malaria through his Foundation.

Again completely irrelevant.


So you see that Windows 9x is not truly dead. The reason being is that it
still has life in it and why do you think Microsoft has not sold the 9x
source code if it is useless. The great thing about 9x is that it is
compatibility with older software and games and uses MS-DOS as a maintenance
operating system compared to Vista.
I am using 98 Second Edition as I post back to you and it never seems to
have any issues anymore as long as you don't use too much ram.

Microsoft has not sold the source code because they don't sell source code.
You can assign all the motives you want to this but the bottom line is that
not selling the source code has nothing at all to do with whether or not
Microsoft thinks it is useless or not. It is Microsoft's intellectual
property and they simply don't sell it. MS DOS 4.0 was a piece of crap and
the source code hasn't been sold. MS BOB was a piece of crap and the source
code hasn't been sold.


I use 512 megabytes of ram with it and editted the system.ini to recognize
less and have a 256 megabyte ATI video card. Nope, it is Windows XP Service
Pack 3 that is having the issues right now with people having trouble getting
updates for it without the proper patch to register the *.dlls again. In
addition, Windows Vista has great external security but lacks the internal
safety of a 9x operating system.

Again, you have no idea what you're talking about here. You really need to
expand your horizons beyond your pet MVP. His opinions are not well
regarded in the security community.


I use XP Professional in a dual-boot on the same machine on a seperate hard
drive. It is NTFS file system compared to the Fat32 file system of 98 Second
Edition.

So?


The thing is when the APS domain was hacked into last summer (2007), the
hacker(s) got into the XP Professional side of my machine because the
external security of the network was destroyed. However, I was also using
VPN to link with the Intranet of the APS domain and 9x did not get hacked
because it has internal safety of a smaller surface area, no rpc, a true
maintenance operating system of MS-DOS, etc. So you can see how 9x machines
were meant to be stand alone. In this ever increasing digital age, I am
surprised that more home consumers do not rise up and demand another 9x
operating system to be able to be more stand-a-lone and not report in to
their boss and/or the government all of the time. Are people really that
willing to give up their precious freedoms to others and end up having the
equivalent of a network computer that does not have an essence of its own
individuality.

It surprises that so many people do not see this and the coming danger of
willing to have just one easily hackable source code out there. You must
have a comprehensive internal safety and external security solution with
closed and open source technologies available from Microsoft and others to
make the best operating systems out there possible and to help mitigate any
incoming threats that may want to harm the Matrix FrameWork and Subsystems of
the Network.

Wow, you've really drunk the Chris Quirke kool-aid here and you really have
no concept of what security is all about.

--
Paul Adare
MVP - Identity Lifecycle Manager
http://www.identit.ca
If a train station is where the train stops, what is a work station?
.

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