Microsoft: Vista has fewer first-year vulnerabilities than any modern OS
By Thomas Ricker 
posted Jan 24th 2008 7:31AM
posted Jan 24th 2008 7:31AM
[Via Slashdot]
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Now if only manufacturers would release drivers for it.
I only had that problem at the very beginning of Vista's release (I started using it a month or so after Businesses got copies).
The one thing I do know is that it is resistant to OS crappage. What I mean is... every 3 to 6 months I *needed* to reformat XP because either the registry was fucked... or some random program FUBARed my system.
Haven't had the same problem with Vista and have yet to need to format it (and I play games).
But first year vulnerabilities? Maybe they're so low because hackers don't feel like learning the new ways around windows security when there are still tons of XP machines to make into zombies.
No joke. I ran Vista, but couldn't get my pdf maker to work (Adobe's fault). I have since switched back to a free copy of XP. I will admit, Vista was secure as hell. I didn't even install antivirus software on it.
I really wish people who don't run Vista would stop fucking writing misinformation. I haven't had any issues with Vista drivers since two months after release, when nVidia finally got the 8800 drivers out. I'd like to point out that Mac Pro users running OS X are having the very same issues one year later.
I wish Apple would allow manufacturers to write drivers for OS X, presenting game developers with incentive to write games for OS X. Anyway, fanboi's continue to harp on M$ problems that don't actually exist anymore. The world is listening...
@ Ty
"[Apple users don't understand drivers] Like, how operating systems that support third party hardware require drivers"
trolling? or are you really that out of touch?
That's like saying "yeah, it's like how Apple users don't understand .dll files scattered all over their hard drive, you know, like when an OS supports third party software."
there's a better way, Ty.
@Ty
A bit off topic for this discussion, but to continue your point:
I really wish people who don't run OS X would stop fucking writing misinformation. 3rd parties are more then free to write drivers for their hardware on OS X, and ATI does this for their graphics cards. You can go to ATI.com right now and download graphics drivers for their retail products. For now, the listing only goes up to 10.4 as 10.5 includes a newer driver already, but ATI will likely have a 10.5 section up when the built in stuff is outdated.
And what issues are the Mac Pros having with drivers? The 8800GT in the second gen Mac Pro and sold as an upgrade kit doesn't work due to a firmware incompatibility, one that is being addressed by NVidia. It's not a driver issue. And any PC that decided to also adopt EFI would be in a similar situation.
I had problems with my intel integrated graphics drivers while using dual monitors up until about a month and a half ago, when intel finally fixed it. I love vista, always have. Hated XP
Okay so the driver comment was a low blow intended for Apple user's who don't realize that OS X is deigned to run on a narrow set of Apple-chosen hardware, not all modern PC hardware. It wasn't intended for you guys, who obviously realize this fact.
That said, I wasn't referring to video cards specifically when I was mentioning manufacturer's not having drivers for OS X. I was alluding to the fact that you can't pop an eVGA mainboard, turtle beach sound card, Areca RAID controller, etc. in your Mac Pro and expect it to work, or build a box and expect OS X to run on it flawlessly. You're saying that all these companies are free to write OS X drivers and release them? And the hardware would presumably work perfectly fine?
@Ty
Yes, thats exactly what I'm saying. Why? Because many Mac users do this all the time. I bought an eSATA expresscard for my Macbook Pro, and OS X didn't have a built in driver for it. So I went to the manufacturers web site, downloaded the OS X driver, and the card works fine. VPN clients often install their own driver. There are several networking cards that can be added to a Mac Pro with OS X drivers. Same for storage cards, and so on. Apple even provides all the tools to do it for free. Install XCode off the Leopard DVD, or download it free from developer.apple.com and you can write your own driver.
Apple doesn't restrict hardware companies any more then Microsoft does. Both companies have certification processes to gain official logo support "Designed for OS X or Designed for Vista, etc" and processes for including the drivers in the base OS install, but neither side mandates such programs.
You get irritated when people spout inaccuracies about Vista, but yet turn around and do the same for OS X. I'd recommend in the future taking your own advice on such things. Yes, fanboys of any color are annoying, but doing the same thing as them doesn't help any.
I would like to see -for each OS- how many new installations are we talking about. If this is just a simple count or a percentage of all the new installations in the first year. If Vista was installed on 5,000 PCs and XP on 50,000... how many bugs/failures will be exposed to the public? Also I would like to see how different is Vista than its predecessor XP. If Vista uses the same core than XP than obviously it will have less vulnerablities...
Totally agree with Brendan, I've been on the same Vista install for over 1 year and it runs just as fast as it did on the first day. With XP I would find things with collapse quite often, particularly with boot issues. Vista is running flawlessly and handles anything I throw at it exceptionally well. So well in fact I currently have it installed on 3 desktop PCs, 2 notebooks and 1 HTPC. And they're all licensed copies too! :)
Bitter much, Thomas?
Reall!
I guess he hopes that enough Microsoft bashers will show, spread enough FUD, and somehow twist the whole thing as being a bad thing, or that Microsoft is lying, or to redefine "vulnerabilities" so that it makes Vista look bad.
Hey, if the talking points dont fit anymore, move the bar and make it fit.
Haha yeah, I had to scroll up and re-check the author. Could've sworn it was Ryan Block.
Shame its slow, sluggish and bloated.
Also almost every os task in Vista takes at least one extra mouse click compared to XP.
You're comment is so troll-like, it's not funny.
If people believe Vista is bad because of shotty journalism and biased blogs then they will believe it's true. If this site would get its nose out of Steve Jobs ass maybe we might have some proper perspective around here.
Stop being a sheep. Look at the benchmarks, Vista is only 2-5% slower than xp in gaming. Honestly you wouldn't know this unless you were told.
And this is from year-old data. imagine how much better it would do now with current drivers.
You know, when Mac Os X first came out pretty much everybody hated it.
It was REALLY slow compared to classic, it was buggy, it didn't have enough drivers or native software.... yet it turned out to be a great OS eventually :)
I'm not saying vista will turn out the same way, but a slow start does not mean it won't eventually be very popular!
Got to admit my first install of Vista did not go well. Everything take minutes longer to run. Turned out it was just a freaking video card driver.
Now all of my 3 computers are happily running Vista. But then again this was months ago when Vista first came out, drivers were rare and online help are hard to find.
I don't think Vista is crap because of shoddy journalism, I have it on my PC, and use it every day. 1st hand experiance taught me it was crap
Vista came with my new gaming laptop. Performance sucked, as well as just about everything else about it. When I tried to open "My Music" it told me access denied. That's when I almost broke out the hammer. I payed extra on my next laptop just to get XP.
i'm actually very impressed by vista
sure 8 months ago there were a few driver issues and it does occasionally lock up sometimes but since i've done a repair install months ago the only driver that has ever stopped working is the crappy one hauppauge won't update for my tv card
now that i've basically got it to the same software spec as I had on XP there's very little difference, and startups and shutdowns are much faster and more reliable. I've also never had one single virus with Kaspersky 7 running in the background, and like i said the only driver problem i've had since the repair install 2 months after i got it (i don't htink it upgraded properly) has been the hauppauge one
it seems no one remembers when windows XP came out and people were opting to keep windows 98 over upgrading beacuse there was no drivers...oh wait...is thats whats happening again? At least Vista uses the same kernel as XP...seems like everyone forgot the hard switch from the Monolith to NT Kernel. Vista isn't working very good yet...but give it time and it might change...YES the UAC is annoying as hell..but my OSX machine pops up and asks for my damn password every time i try and install something so ummm whats harder, clicking continue or typing a password...also you have an option in vista to turn it off...which I can say is the same for the Mac. Vista has potential...and its forcing computer companies to actually start putting out some beefed up hardware rather then still ridding on technology that's years old.
The performance of Vista depends on the Hardware. My PC I built running Ultimate 64 performs fast, stable, and basically better than any box I have used before. My Acer Lappie however crashes regularly, and is apparantly because ATI graphics drivers for the x2500 are badly, well just bad. If you have trouble with Vista it is likely the hardware and not the OS itself.
I own and use Microsoft Vista. I too believe it is bloated (my install of Home Premium somehow runs around 16GB); and until you turn off that over-protective UAC rubbish, everything *does* incur at least one more click than XP.
It's not terrible by any means - other than the struggle to find drivers for certain pieces of hardware, I don't think it's any worse than XP - but after using it side by side with Mac OS X, it does nothing to justify costing up to three times as much. Nothing.
Wait, I'm just saying those things because I am a media-deluded sheep with my nose up Steve Jobs' arse.
I guess Apple users don't understand the concept of drivers. Like, how operating systems that support third party hardware require drivers, and the quality of these drivers (which are developed by the manufacturers of said hardware) is directly proportional to the performance of the operating system.
People keep saying that "Vista is not bad at all" as if that is some kind of lavish praise. Why the hell would I pay HUNDREDS OF DOLLARS for an OS that is "not that bad at all"? For that price it better freaking knock my socks of compared to XP or I'm going to stay with XP! Given that I'm using both Vista and XP this very moment (I'm at work on two desktop machines), I feel qualified to comment on the comparison.
So what is so much better than XP to make it worth the hassels and extreme cost of upgrading?
Apple OS X 10.5: $109.99 on Newegg.com.
Windows Vista Home Premium OEM: $109.99 on Newegg.com.
Except... In the span of time since Microsoft released a new operating system, (XP in October 2001) Apple has released 4.
OS X 10.2 "Jaguar" released August 2002 at $129
OS X 10.3 "Panther" released October 2003 at $129
OS X 10.4 "Tiger" released April 2005 at $129
OS X 10.5 "Leopard" released October 2007 at $109
Enjoy your iTax!
So i guess this isn't a sinking ship like most have though.
Considering that it sold 20 million copies in a month (it took 3 for Leopard to reach 5 million) and is now well above 100 million sales, it is only sensationalist (read: irresponsible) journalism that has suggested otherwise. You can see that in the little stab at Vista with the insinuation that the fact that XP is still being sold indicates poor market acceptance on Vista's part. How long was Win2k & Me still on computers after XP came out; a couple years. Was it because XP sucked, naturally not. It was because XP was a departure from the norm so some consumers were resistant to the change, but more importantly, some businesses are *very* slow to adopt a new OS (I know the company i work for just finished a 1 year trial of vista and is just beginning large scale rollouts in february, which is what they do with *every* new OS). The numbers show that market adoption for Vista is faster than any other OS in history.
As for the actual story, Jeff may be biased, but his numbers aren't. They match the National Vulnerability Database numbers, which is in turn pretty accurate. Leopard has already had 14 vulnerabilities since October, Vista only has 21 since November of 2006, and those vulnerability numbers are gathered independently rather than from the vendor (and for those who cry "silent fixes" towards MS, there is no such thing. Even if MS didn't disclose a fix the people who reverse engineer patches to find vulnerabilities, the primary way malware authors do find vulnerabilities, would notice the fix. Since malware authors do so, so do researchers, and those numbers would be reported to the NVD)
That's because no one is using Vista; can't find what you can't see. How about a chart of vulnerabilities vs. units in service?
Notice how non-Microsoft products have a higher percentage of fixed vs unfixed? There may be fewer but they stay around forever.
ya, they keep saying they've sold so many copies. unfortunetly most of that is due to inclusions in new systems, and many of those have been wiped clean with xp.
my 3 friends that have recently got vista have all asked for an xp disc. they'd rather have a cracked copy of xp then a slow, cumbersome legal vista.
that's gotta say something about it..
I'm all for the vista 'look', ... that's why I skinned xp though. that's as far as it'll go.
It's funny, I'd like to see that same comparison for Macs as well...
Yes, they absolutely more secure, but if you're going to do a "per units sold" type thing how much better would they make out then?
The number of copies sold has no barings on the number of vulnerablities the systems has. Only the number of people who are affected by the vulnerablities.
MS spokesperson "yeah you see we count that as an XP vulnerability that happens to also work in vista, oh and that one we count as IE vulnerability and that's crossplatform so not a vista one"
you kid, but it's true.
Of course this can't be true, since Vista is a horrible OS. At least that's what all the people who have never used Vista say.
Why don't you try it yourself instead of relying on other peoples opinions?
the "if you hate it it's becuase you're naiive and have never used it" arguement is getting a little old.
I used it. and got rid of it. some of need our system resources for pro apps.
I'm sure vista is great for surfing pr0n and checking email though where it doesn't matter your OS just ate 3gb of ram.
dj-kenpo :
Vista's using that RAM to cache your commonly used applications and documents for fast access and deallocates that memory when requested by another application. Fair enough, "vista haters have never used vista" is a poor argument, but you should get your facts right before complaining about vista eating resources that you need for whatever "pro apps" you are using all the time.
You're an ass.
Fine, then. You apparently need to hear from someone who HAS used Vista and still thinks it sucks.
I got Vista Home Premium when I got a new PC and I really tried to give it a chance to prove itself. I let it go for about three months until such time as it was clear to me that it sucks and is still in beta. A lot of Vista is pretty slick, but the vast majority of that is just eye candy.
Looking Glass ... er ... Aero is a big-time resource hog; the annoyance of having the verify every f**king action that you want to take cannot possibly be understated; and the major video editing applications that I use regularly do not work on Vista because of the changes to the hardware layer of the operating system. Capturing over firewire, previewing while editing using hardware overlay, audio previewing, and other such functions -- none of them worked. One of the applications finally released a Vista-compatible upgrade that I could download, but it's more of an entry-level application that I cannot use for serious video editing. (And, no, I neither want a Mac nor do I have the desire to pay twice as much as a PC for the "privilege" of owning a Mac.)
After three months of fighting with Vista and having to shut off most of the "features" just to get it to run smoothly, I finally upgraded my system back to XP. It's not given me any problems since and all of my applications run just fine.
So, do you have any more self-righteous, pointless platitudes that you care to throw at us?
Let's see, I've istalled Vista on two machines, both of which had XP on them. One of them is a Gateway laptop that still does not have third party support from Gateway for Vista, and one that I built myself. Vista works great on both for some odd reason. So forgive me for liking a well built OS.
If you like it, that's fine. I don't have a problem with that, nor did I state otherwise. I have need for specific types of applications that not everyone uses and they don't work with Vista. My issue was with your correlation that those who criticize Vista are those who have not used it. I have used it, I tried by best to give it a chance to prove itself, and it failed; but I never said that because it failed me that it would fail everyone.
John_B:
So in other words, Vista sucks because the you use software from companies that are too lazy to update their software to run correctly on Vista?
Yes, Vista added updates to their system to ensure more stability and security, this broke a lot of things that needed direct hardware access, however, the fix is as easy as the companies getting off their asses, making new drivers, and resubmitting them.
So, without Vista people bitch and moan about how it crashes and is insecure, with Vista, people bitch and moan about how their software sucks and somehow that's Microsoft's fault. Bottom line, people just like to complain.
JohnB - I hear you on application support, but honestly dude you sound like someone who screams that OS X "sucks" because you can't run games on it. Developers write software for operating systems. Not the other way around. Operating systems change and this causes compatibility issues.
You should be mad at the developers of whatever software you use for not writing a Vista version. It's painful that they work in XP and not Vista, I know, but change is painful.
dj-kempo... considering that I have two gigs of RAM in the rig I built that runs Vista, I'm pretty sure it doesn't eat three gigs of RAM. In fact, I'm pretty sure it uses less than 512 megs of RAM most of the time.
Unfortunately all my classic apps worked just fine in osx and all my old osx apps worked flawless on x86 mac. So I'd say it is possible to make an app that worked on a previous OS still work in the current one. Rosetta is a prime example of forward thinking.
Too bad that, despite your claim that XP ships standard on many PC's, the article you linked to only proclaims that people can choose XP if they want to. And hey, a quick glance on the Dell site clearly shows that Vista is shipped by default on PC's, while users have to explicitly choose XP.
Maybe next time you'd like to research your stuff a bit more before writing an angry news post?
"yet XP continues to ship standard on many PCs?"
That's what the article says. Note: many; not all; not most; just many.
Define 'many' and show me these many retailers that ship XP by default. Also, what was that link to the Dell article supposed to prove?
In case you didn't get it: it's FUD. And it has absolutely nothing to do with the article, but apparently Thomas couldn't live with himself if he had to write a Vista article with only positive news. Even if he has to make the bad news up.
got to agree with jeff here. This post is pretty ridiculous.
It would be nice this people define what "moderm" OS means, because OpenBSD has only one bug in the default instalation since ever! and if I have more packages (case of RLES or Ubuntu) i probably going "to produce" more bugs... its not about "better coding" its about "more software avaliable from vendor"
kde 4 on pc-bsd...mmm...
hell, might even take os x for a run in, say, 5-7 years.
Hi,
Actually that's "two remote holes in the default install in 10 years". Which, to be fair, they get away with largely by shutting off everything by default. The default install is largely useless. You have to add ports and if there's a bug in them, that doesn't count towards their 2 holes.
And there have been errata bugs as well. Not security compromises but there are other bugs in there.
"Wait, they counted IE6 in WINE? What the..."
^_^
Would they do such a thing?
[Reported by Engadgeters as Possibly Inaccurate] Ha!
Well, look at it this way. I could come out with an operating system tomorrow and claim it has no vulnerabilities and fix them all behind the scenes without reporting them but nobody would believe me. So, I come up with a low number of the most severe claims to report to make the competition look bad.
"[Reported by Engadgeters as Possibly Inaccurate] Ha!"
That should tell you there that MS's report is accurate.
/. is the last place anyone should go for unbiased news about Microsoft.
"As contentious as the report is, is anyone else reflecting on the fact that Vista is more than a year old for businesses (almost exactly one for consumers) yet XP continues to ship standard on many PCs?"
Am I the only one who remembers the XP launch and the few years following it? People love to stick with what they're familiar with. Vista is fine apart from some driver issues, but if you have an older machine (512MB RAM or something) and are really reliant on hardware that doesn't have working Vista drivers, it's a no-brainer to stick with XP SP2 (and soon, SP3)
Why do so many people hate Vista? I'm running it on my computer, and it works great. I even dual-boot Vista and XP, and I haven't used XP in months. Vista works perfectly for me, I can even play all of the games in Orange Box beautifully. And I'm not running some kind of super computer, just a year old Dell laptop.
The reason why Colin, is because people think it to be 'cool' to rip on everything Microsoft does regardless of if it works properly or not. I have come to realise over the past year or so that XP was actually very bad compared to Vista at the same points in it's life cycle & that XP SP2 isn't all that everyone cracks it up to be. I keep hearing all these people try to say "Vista is a memory hog", but they don't understand what Vista is actually using that memory for & that it is automatically freed up if another application requires it.
Another commonly used excuse to bash, is that games run slightly slower in Vista than XP SP2. Maybe so, but games ran even slower, if at all, going to XP SP2 from Win 98SE.
What also doesn't help is wannabe hacks & 12 year olds running blogs who had never heard of the internet or used a computer before XP, stating things that they have read in the magazines they read in the Dentists waiting room, that slate everything that has not come from Steve Jobs because they think external styling is more important.
I get a hell of a lot less support calls from people running Vista than I do XP, and my clients that are running Vista are actually getting more work done because of the lack of problems. Rolling them out with Vista is actually costing me money with the general public that have listened to me with the lower amount of maintenance required but business maintenance contracts are actually more profitable to me for the same reason.
For the record, I don't hate Vista. I hate what it does and what Microsoft does with it. Vendor lock in, proprietary formats, proprietary APIs, little to no real interface customization, bloat, closed formats, hidden (undocumented) APIs, forced applications (IE, Media Player, Movie Maker [was in XP, assuming it transferred]) that you can't remove before installing or without a special install...
I also dislike the lies the Microsoft continues to propagate. For instance, and on-topic, security issues that they claim don't exist, but low and behold they come out later and say they do. (Google "Microsoft admits" for a list.)
Nomad: AMEN! This is what I've been trying to tell people for months. Whenever I talk about Vista there is always 1-2 people that seem to automaticly seem to say "Oh, I've heard Vista is terrible".
Then, I ask them "Have you used Vista?"
100% of the time: "No."
Now, Okay, I did buy a new computer with Vista. I would not have the same kind of hardware problems as someone who upgrades on an old computer. Maybe the old hardware would not work as well, but that is a risk that they take when they install it. They need to check on these things before they install. The same hardware that works on Windows XP is not guaranteed to work on Linux or Mac either!
On another note- Most people don't like Vista because of it's annoying security (actually, none of us can argue that Windows needs LESS security), or hardware and driver issues. This has nothing to do with security vulnerabilities, which this report has published. I have no doubt that Vista's new security has prevented vulnerabilities. Security holes is not why people say they "HATE" vista.
I used vista cause came preinstalled on my new desktop (dell).
-Tested: slow (1gb), incompatible (at least with one specific program) and new measures of security can be good for noobs but for a seasoned engineer this measure is almost worst that linux with max security. So rollback to XP (piracy) in just 3 hours.
I find the assumption that because more vunerabilites have been FOUND in other OSes than have been FOUND in Vista amusing. Perhaps the most vunerabilities have been found in the non-Windows distros because they have a larger commitment to security? Maybe if you're looking for security vunerabilities more closely, you find more of them? Maybe it also reflects the technical ability of these OSes users? Is it possible, for example, that a Red Hat user is more likely to find and notice security vunerabilities than a Vista user is?
Sorry, that first sentence should say "I find the assumption that because more vunerabilities have been FOUND in the other OSes than have been FOUND in Vista, there must actually be less vunerabilties in Vista, amusing." It doesn't make much sense otherwise.
I find your comment stuffed with rhetorical questions amusing, take a stand with your opinion and not dance around the issue. It's no secret that Vista has not been well accepted among the tech savvy community. Claims of it being "bloated" and therefore slow, are legitimate, but have nothing to do with security. I have a hard time believing that Windows users are not concerned about security and are not looking for security issues because they are not intelligent enough. Your questions are far too broad with no sign of solid evidence backing either side.
I AM taking a stand, TeMP. I personally think that this only shows the security vunerabilities which have been found in the OSes mentioned and that it doesn't follow that there must therefore be less vunerabilities in Vista than in the others. That's my stand, and I haven't expressed that in a rhetorical question because I am certain of it.
You make the excellent point that I have no solid evidence, while criticising me for using rhetorical questions. The REASON for using rhetorical questions is that those are only thoughts on why the conclusion being drawn by Jeff Jones may be incorrect. I never claimed my opinion as fact.
I did not mean to imply that "Windows users are not concerned about security and are not looking for security issues because they are not intelligent enough." When I asked whether looking for vunerabilities more closely might result in finding more of them, I wasn't referring to users of any OS. I meant to refer to the corporations and organisations behind these OSes, and was suggesting that the OSes with worse results in this study might have gotten those worse results because those who created and maintain them have a higher commitment to security. The fact that we don't know the answer to that, means we can't draw the conclusion Jeff Jones has attempted to draw. Also, when I asked whether Red Hat users might be more likely to find and notice vunerabilities than Vista users, I meant that all Red Hat users tend to be technically-savvy, whereas with Windows users range from the technically-savvy to the much less knowledgeable. The makeup of the respective OSes' users is a variable which could have an impact on results. Red Hat users are very often system administrators, security professionals etc whereas Windows users can be system administrators, security professionals etc. but they can also be office workers, general home users etc (and the less technically apt users are bound to be in the majority with the most commonly used OS in the world).
I wanted to post just what Stephen said, i mean, an OS comes out and has vulnerability problems, the love and care of a software house has to be measured on how much and how quick they solve problems.
See the percentages, vista and xp are the only two "modern os" that show only (almost) half of the bug fixed.
I prefer someone who tells me "this software could have bugs, but we'll solve 'em with your support" far more than someone who imposes his software as standard not caring about end users satisfaction.
(it's also true that novell has just taken a step in this way with the recent bug reporting issue)
in the report, page 4, he says that this report does not determine that any os is more secure than another. it tracks all bugs, even related to controls. to him he says that fewer bugs focused on means more time to focus on developing fixes for those bugs. but what that means in context is that vista has fewer managed/tracked bugs, but they are more detrimental though smaller in number. where as, ubuntu for example, had a lot of such security bugs, but the holes in total were smaller, and because it is community based far more bugs are tracked regardless of the intensity of their effect.
in the report, page 4, he says that this report does not determine that any os is more secure than another. it tracks all bugs, even related to controls. to him he says that fewer bugs focused on means more time to focus on developing fixes for those bugs. but what that means in context is that vista has fewer managed/tracked bugs, but they are more detrimental though smaller in number. where as, ubuntu for example, had a lot of such security bugs, but the holes in total were smaller, and because it is community based far more bugs are tracked regardless of the intensity of their effect.
sorry for the double post. someone delete this.
I understand that these are found security flaws, which means that it might take a bit more intentional hunting than your average stability or usage issues, but wouldn't the smaller user base have an impact on the lower number of flaws reported? Also, does anybody besides me find it ironic that, while the number of flaws reported might be smaller, the proportion of fixed to unfixed is an almost a 1 to 1 ratio for both Windows versions, but the number of fixed to unfixed flaws in other OSes is significantly larger? Come on, Microsoft. If you don't have that many flaws to fix, what's taking you so long to get through them?
To be fair, though, currently my only method of using OSX Leopard in a stable fashion is to use the command line to disable Bonjour. No sign of a fix, either. How cool is that?
They're comparing vulnerabilities found in the first year so they're comparing Vista in 2007 to XP in 2001 not XP in 2007.
If I were a Microsoft guy I'd be much more worried to see that half the vulnerabilities are still no fixed when other OS's vulnerabilities are quickly patched.
I wouldn't exactly call that good press ^^
Well, this would be because the people who make those other systems actually go searching for vulnerabilities so that they can close them as soon as possible, before they get exploited. Notice how only a miniscule fraction of Ubuntu 6.06 (that's the LTS version number) vulnerabilities remained open after a year?
Compare with Vista, where Microsoft waits for someone to exploit a vulnerability, and then takes six weeks to patch the hole. That's why they have a lower "vulnerability" rate, but a higher number of unfixed vulnerabilities.
yes, and he actually said that in the report. they focus on fewer vulnerabilities, and make less frequent patches on purpose, that way they have more time and manpower to spend on development.
that statement sounds to me like they have written off vista as a windows me and are focusing on the next version.
God Thomas, bias much. Vista beats 'Apple's own OS X' in some aspect, so its best we remind people what OSX has going for us... ...
I currently work for a company that plans to roll out over 100,000 Vista desktops this year. I can say, with absolute certainty, that Vista is a major productivity step backwards. The Microsoft-DRM-big-brother-saturated nature of this OS makes it the worst modern OS of all time. I am not naive - all newer versions of a previous OS will be more "bloated", however they should always outperform the previous release in the standard feature set. Remember how much faster XP seemed to boot over 2000?
Heck, can't anyone (meaning MS execs) see that there is a reason that people are buying a $400 Asus Eee over a comparably priced Vista-based lappy? It _is_ about the OS.
For those wondering, I am not a MS basher, or an Apple fanboy (although I started programming on an Apple II in 1982) - I say bring back OS/2!!!
WHAT DRM??????
Ive used Vista since it was first released, and have yet to be blocked from doing what Ive always done on XP with this supposed DRM, or anything of the sort. What the hell are you going on about? People are floating around the term DRM like politicians float the term "liberal".
And bloated my ass. I have Leopard on a G4 iBook 1.2 and its a bloated piece of shit, preventing me from conducting a task comfortably (i have to wait for all the keys Ive entered to show up on the URL bar on Safari, when this was a non-issue with Tiger and Jaguar). But i understand that my laptop is underpowered, which is what a lot of these jack-asses on these boards don't realize about any newly released OS (save for Linux, which has so many builds that your bound to find one that runs on any PC).
And the reason people are buying the Eee is not because of the Linux thats on it and a Microsoft OS not being on it, because as reviews have said, its not a great build. Its the form factor of the hardware itself.
Yes, I remember how much faster XP booted than 2000. Do you know how much faster Vista boots than XP?
Ruben,
First - not sure what you are so angry about - it's a little concerning
Second - That Vista PC of yours tracks EVERYTHING that you do on your machine. They are very concerned with every single file that goes on that box: what type, the metadata on digital assets, etc. You may be right that DRM is not the correct term for this service(s), but it is generally in the same category. It is a major drain on the overall performance.
Third - (and onto the subject I posted about) - It's naive to make statements like "But i understand that my laptop is underpowered, which is what a lot of these jack-asses on these boards don't realize about any newly released OS".
Finally - Everything I have read on the Eee has specifically pointed out the simplification of the UI compared to Vista alternatives. Maybe I have _only_ read the articles that express this concept that people seem to be embracing.
Happy Vista!
I don't focking care.
i will use Vista if Explorer.exe doesnt crash every 20 seconds and then reboots like normal.
dude are u still using the beta build?!?!
Even then
The ultimate build comes with my laptop...
I was just having this argument on pdalive.com ... here's my 2 cents:
2 people i work with run games on a couple high end Dell systems with no hitches now ... one had issues with Vista when it was brand new but soon after a few driver/system updates poof it runs great.
Another person i work with just bought a new Toshiba laptop with VistaPremium and loves it. I played with her laptop and it run pretty fast ... very responsive ... i think Vista goes out of the way to look pretty.
Most issues have been resolved at this point. The negative feelings toward Vista that's lingering is a direct result of Apple's ongoing "buy a mac because vista sucks" campaign and people who don't even use the Vista platform parroting Apple's statements. (i don't think parroting is a word but i needed a parrot reference) :) I still haven't ran into anyone who hates Vista that owns a Vista machine.
Never met a Vista user who hates it? Well now you have. I work with it every day. I support it every day. It is bloated, slow, it is unstable and the driver support stinks. The average user out there can hardly function in it.
Does this factor how unusable the OS is? Also, it's hard to break into an OS when inconsistent permission errors run rampant throughout.
does this mean that apple will start telling the truth in the ads on tv. Porbably not since apple nation can get away with it and people don't care about facts
You know, I'm sick of all this "more people still prefer XP" BS. If took a second to actually THINK about why this is so you would realize that it makes perfect sense and is in no way an insult to the quality of Vista. Windows is the most widely used OS among businesses. Upgrading dozens, hundreds, or even thousands of computers is expensive. Therefore, it would make perfect business sense to not upgrade from a stable system to a new one until it yielded a business advantage. Anyone with any knowledge of a typical business's IT strategy would know that company tend to drag their feet as long as the current system "works". Couple that with the fact that people are more likely to use the same OS at home that they do at the office and it makes perfect sense. Sorry, successful businesses don't have the need to have the "latest and greatest" "just because" like your typical Apple fanboy. They're more concerned with the bottom line, and it's always cheaper to stick with what you got than to buy something new.
MS makes no mention of any Linux distros (like Linspire, SUSE, Xandros and others) that bowed down and signed on the line. Interesting.
The Borg from Redmond would have you believe that Vista is the way to go. Right. Sure.
In just real world examples I can tell you this;
My friend's computer with Vista is always struggling to run. He has to continually try to stay ahead of viruses, adware, spyware and trojans. Yet, no matter what he does, they get on his machine. He's had his HP laptop for 6 months and has re-installed Vista 3 times already. THREE TIMES.
In my house we have 3 Macs and 1 Ubuntu box. NEVER have we had to do any of this crap. People that run Vista and defend it are the types that like to work on Fiat's all the time. Under the hood. Troubleshooting and maintenance. Something always goes wrong but, they pride themselves on their ability to fix it. I've been ther. Done that. Now? I just use computers that work. Vista users that buy what Ballmer and Jeff Jones say deserve what they get. Most people are waking up now and getting Macs.
Of course Microsoft is attempting to make themselves look better, it was published by them. They are taking factual data and deciding which numbers to show, if other OS’ are superior, why would they outright show it? It doesn’t make sense. By the sound of it, I would guess that regardless of the OS, your friend will be encountering problems.
the only problem with your argument is that the number of people that actually use those distributions of linux are so little (in the grand scheme of things) that they really don't matter at all.
I feel your friend must be an absolute technological moron, because there is no reason to reinstall Vista or any other OS 3 times in six months, unless you fuck with the registry, look at porn constantly, or are something equally stupid- either that or this supposed "friend" doesn't exist.
Sidenote: I would feel that the fact that you supposedly have 3 Macs and an Ubuntu system, might make you a bit biased, and also that you don't mention any personal experience issues you've had with Vista shows that you've never tried it. I've tried it, and everyone that I know likes it, because they have systems that are up to the task of running it.
Vista is the worst thing that happens to the computers world in the history. And XP is a joke, and that chart is pure bullshit.
UBUNTUUUUUU RULEEEEEEEEES !!!!!!
Am I missing something? Vista has fewer first-year vulnerabilities than any other OS... so what? The other OSes mentioned aren't one year old anymore. Who cares if they had more vulnerabilities then? Who freaking has the lowest vulnerabilities (and least significant ones) AT THIS POINT in time?
thats too bad everyone bashes Vista...i run two Visual Studio 2008 instances, plus NetBeans all at the same time with no performance decrease. this is on a machine w/ only 2 gb of ram and a dual core 1.6 ghz processor....full with aero themes. dont bash vista unless uve used it and upgraded all your drivers. if it still doesnt work after that, then go rite ahead and bash it
Um, yeah the only reason it has fewer vulnerabilities is because there are a lot less users! When XP came out most computers were shipping with XP because sadly enough people wanted it.
Wtf are you talking about. Don't speak unless you know what your talking about, everyone HATED XP when it came out. No home user wanted to switch from the monolith to NT kernel. And home PC peripherals with only win 98 drivers? Forget it! they were impossible to find. stop trying to sound smart. Vista is doing a lot better with updates then XP did (took them over 2 years)...so give it time before you mindlessly bash.