Posted on 01/21/2015 2:36:29 PM PST by SeekAndFind
Microsoft gathered a bunch of reporters together in its Redmond, Washington, headquarters Wednesday to show off the next version of Windows, Windows 10, which is expected to come out later this year.
You can check out our live blog of the event at the bottom of this page, but here were the highlights:
* Holograms. The coolest thing was a set of new products that will let people see holographic images. The hardware is called Microsoft HoloLens and looks a lot like Google Glass. There are also software tools within Windows 10 that will let programmers create apps that use holograms.
* Free upgrade: Windows 10 will be a free upgrade to anybody with Windows 7 or later, for one year. There was also a lot of talk about "Windows as a service," but that does not mean you'll pay for a subscription to Windows, like you do with Office 365. It just means Microsoft will push updates to the platform more frequently, and you'll get them in the background. That's not really new.
* Gaming: All Windows 10 devices will have an Xbox app that lets you connect to Xbox Live and play games against Xbox One users. You'll also be able to pause and record games, and stream them from an Xbox One to a Windows 10 device within your home.
* Mobile: This was probably the most lackluster part of the presentation. There will be a version of Windows 10 for smartphones, but it looks and feels a lot like Windows Phone, which has been around for four years. The goal, Microsoft says, is to create experiences that span different platforms. So, for example, you'll be able to start doing a task on your PC than transition to your phone.
(Excerpt) Read more at businessinsider.com ...
Insulting? Perhaps. Ignorant? Not so much. I GET it, Don. My comments were not directed at people in the heavy equipment industry. I know entire shipping dock and harbormaster systems that run on XP through shortwave radio transceiver setups. I know large metalworking shops with two-story tall presses and forges that are using XP for digital operations.
My comments are directed at home and casual Windows users who are living in their online digital world oblivious to their vulnerability. There are likely millions of people around the world still using XP thinking, “It’s okay. I’ll never change! I love you XP!” Those are the people I’m trying to warn.
And no, just because your machine is offline, doesn’t exempt you from being “hacked.” It makes it a LOT more difficult, but not impossible. There was an article just a month ago about hackers being able to tap into the EMR emitted from digital display cables to recreate a disturbingly accurate representation of information being displayed on the otherwise disconnect computer.
I cut my teeth in black hat operations when I was 16 on a 9600 baud modem. The speed of your Internet connection means nothing.
Further, all of the A/V, firewall, and malware cleanup utilities will not and cannot save you from a kernel mode exploit that Microsoft won't patch. It won't save you from a DLL interrupt infection vector in a 20+ year old driver that Microsoft won't remove. Microsoft can't be blamed when your XP machine, which cannot run IE11, is exploited by an .NET runtime buffer underrun configured in a program that you suspected was safe.
I'm not talking about hackers here, upchuck. Hackers are the least of your worries. Hackers, black hat operatives, and actual state sponsored digital pirates are not going to concern themselves with you, you're right. However, the 14 year old kid who found a remote control exploit program that can be used against unpatched XP machines, he's who you have to worry about. He'll turn your unpatched kernel into a digital puppet for his own use to DDoS some online enemy of his in a video game. They'll trace it back to your dialup modem, and you'll get a visit from the local PD or even the feds. It happens all the time, like digital "Swatting."
I'm not asking or telling you to upgrade to Win7 or 8 or even 10. I'm not asking or telling you to get a Mac. Heck, go download a distro of Linux and learn it. Most Linux distros support dialup. I'm just asking that you please consider getting off of XP. You are NOT safe on that OS anymore.
MS likes using the hacker Boogieman tactic. It makes the forced purchases of their crappy downgraded new OS much easier. Windows MiStake 8 had more security upgrades the first year than the entire OS in terms of GB's placed on the HD.
BTW I'm not a MAC user nor a Linux user. I'm just sick and tired of MiStake Corp's Crap Ware OS. W/98 was OK. W/ME was Crapware. W/XP was a reliable workhorse easy for all users. W/Vista more Crap Ware. W/7 I hear is fairly Ok not as many complaints as W/8 and reliable like XP. W/8 the designers should have been fired. The problem with MiStake Corp is they stopped listening years ago. They also very wrongfully just assume all the nation is now on high speed service when much of flyover country in fact is still over a decade or more from seeing it even in populated rural areas.
AT&T isn't upgrading. Cable new construction is at a halt. DSL is a 3 mile or less from the Central Office service so that leaves what? Computer on a cellphone? No Thanks. Their prices are far out of my range.
There's a fair amount of industrial software that is unsupported beyond XP. Neither cheap nor stupid. It works, changing is very expensive in both upfront cost and in training.
BTW I had to give up on Internet Explorer 11 on dial up. Two out of three times it would time out with can not be displayed” screen and opening more than three windows caused it to crash. Windows Browser hates for persons to open windows. You’ll like “Tabs” or else /sarcasm... Freeware Browser Pale Moon which has not had these issues took it’s place. If a company can make a quality Browser at no cost to users how come MiStake can’t make a decent Browser even despite the fact they charge you for the misery?
That falls into both of those categories.
If you can’t afford to upgrade a 13 year old OS, then don’t expect MS to subsidize your lack of foresight or money by patching XP forever because some software they bought was never updated beyond that.
These people were not caught off-guard, they just though the if they whined hard enough that MS would cave and keep XP going so they could save a buck.
I’ve not heard a single person who’s upgraded to Win8.1 complain about the OS. There’s a learning curve, yes, but all of the utilities are where they’ve always been.
As a Microsoft professional, I find it irresponsible to not warn XP users that they ARE at risk. At some point there will be a zero-day exploit that goes unpatched and will affect any user on an XP machine.
Caveat emptor. That’s all I’m saying.
Would you care to comment on this?
http://www.cvedetails.com/product/739/Microsoft-Windows-Xp.html?vendor_id=26
I give it 15min of hype and a future of bah..
If you’re referring to the decline in vulnerabilities, you’re missing the point that OEMs haven’t distributed XP in the retail market since 2010. XP’s market share has declined precipitously since then. Microsoft is no longer supporting or providing patches for XP as of April of last year. Those 7 vulnerabilities in 2014 are likely still exploitable.
I was wondering about the veracity of your claim that “hundreds of new exploits (have been) announced for XP since MS stopped patching it”.
So how long would it take me to download windows 10 onto my windows 3.1 computer mainframe with my new 28k modem?
LOL! You think this is the extent of the exploits? There are exploits out there right now, for multiple platforms, that are NOT announced due to the severity. Black hat organizations, Certified Ethical Hackers, provide extensive data sheets to security organizations to allow them to patch before they’re made public.
If you think this chart is exhaustive, again, you’re not thinking it through.
I have some recommendations:
• There is yet no ability to enable tabbed browsing in File Explorer, without which multiple windows are open for multiple locations. A couple free utilities enable this but are flaky. Tabbed browsing would make it like modern Internet browsers in this regard.
Restoring the Favorites bookmarks would also be better than “include in library” I think. I place a shortcut to Favorites (C:\Users\Daniel\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\Favorites) in the Send to folder for that purpose.
• A “copy to” and “move to” feature should also be standard in the right click menu of File Explorer. You can get a reg. Script to do that.
• Internet Explorer overall has minimal customization ability and remains out of the running for power users, lacking even the ability to choose multiple tab rows, save multiple sessions, choose from a multiplicity of themes. See my favorite Firefox/Pale Moon extensions below.
• Change File (Windows) Explorer which opens up to “Home,” and insists on placing One Drive and Microsoft’s default folders on top of list, and places drives on bottom of left navigation pane.
Moreover, you cannot eliminate the left navigation pane by a simple X as in windows, and eliminating it so as to have a compact single pane means losing the view of drives, and a normal means to navigate to them.
• Better personalization options. As with W/8, there is no way to change colors for aspects of applications and menus as enabled under XP and 9x OS versions, and W/8 and WTP has no color wheel for the little color that you can change. Except for High Contrast themes, which is more like XP capabilities, but is problematic in High Contrast themes, due to color conflicts.
• Alt and Tab does not work right, but goes to File first unless you hold it down longer.
• As with W/8, text from a windows sometimes shows through Task bar, with no way to adjust opacity.
• As with W/8, WTP still shows shortcuts to folders that are not accessible or do not exist. Also, shortcuts should just show a simple arrow versus “shortcut to.”
• Unlike under XP and 9x OS versions, W/8 and WTP cannot change the icons for different file types, though you can for normal folders.
• Speech to text showed no discernible improvement. I think this is an app that has much potential and and could be a strong selling point. Enable better recognition and make custom commands, etc.
•Windows default images viewer has minimal capabilities, not even able to provide a slide show.
• You still cannot get seconds shown on the clock. T-clock 2010 does this and more.
• There should also be a simple meter showing the CPU cycles and available RAM in the system tray.
• Right click>Open file location no longer allows browsing to find a missing location.
• Windows Media player automatically makes itself the default player for most formats, even those it will not play, and even though you chose to select them yourself. Then the next window would not allow deselecting.
• Windows 10 had the same problem as Windows 8 did in awaking from sleep by itself. The solution was to go to Network connections (Windows key and X) and right click on the Network icon> Properties>Configure>Power Management and deselect “Allow this device to wake up the computer.” Also check the box “Allow the computer to turn off this device to save power” if it is not. And under Advanced, deselect anything under Wake-on.
Just trying to improve as I thank God for such tools I can use!
Thank you so much for your unhelpful suggestions.
Unhelpful? You want me to tell you it’s going to be roses and butterflies on XP? You have to upgrade. There’s no helping you if you don’t want to heed the warnings. Sheesh.
Tells me you have vested interest in selling MiStake W/8. Oh and also defending it no matter how sorry a design it is. I used MS from W/98/2 - current W/8. W/98/2 even with it's bugs was not the PITA W/ME was horrible and so is W/8. XP was MS design at it's best. I reckon they peaked.
Now their entire R&D is aimed at Gaming, cell phones, and Tablet markets. IOW the teenager to early thirties age group mainly. The attitude seems to be well if it is dysfunctional on a laptop or desktop gee too bad. Again they are ignoring a sizable market.
Actually MS could have made more money simply by re-licensing a clean New XP OS and Support. I would have paid for it. Many if not most XP users would have paid to keep XP.
I drive a 95 Ford Pick Up. It has lots of years left in it and just 117k miles. I can get repairs, parts, anything I need for it. Ford licenses out the rights for parts manufactures to support and replace parts which repairman or myself install. Of course the same ones who want a new OS every year are likely suckers for the deceitful marketing tactic car makers are using by installing high performance engine sounds. Little things amuse little minds.
My Doctor last year went from W/XP to W/7 and he is in a large practice. You suppose their IT guy knew W/8 royally sucked and it would cost them a fortune in down time for training? Or perhaps his contract for failing to advice them of such? Of course he did.
I had XP figured out and configured in hours. I bought three XP machines in the time it was out. All still function. W/8 took weeks to learn the HIDDEN Configurations. I'm not interested in more of the same of W/8. I'm not interested in CLOUD either. I'll keep my Documents to myself. If someone wants a Peek-A-Boo at them fine. Get a warrant instead of a friendly corporate deal for look sees.
Your diatribe leaves no doubt in my mind that attempting to discuss the finer points of IT system administration would be lost on you.
You’re entitled to your opinion. I have a vested interest in my career, and I’m damn good at what I do. You seem to be focused solely on the desktop operating system, and that’s fine, you’re not a technical expert, I get it. Your screed comes across in the same vein as those elicited from people who have no interest in learning something new. That’s fine.
You continue to enjoy your XP, unsecured, but please remember this conversation when you’re infected from a ransomware exploit that you got from what you thought was a legitimate website. No technical person can help you then, and if you want to go over to Apple or Linux, have at it. If you think there isn’t a learning curve for either of those operating systems, you’re in for a rude awakening.
Thanks for the info. Know all that and a lot more. I’m comfortable where I am.
Thank you.
If anybody ever offers you a customer-facing position do yourself a favor and say no.
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