C
CJT
Peter said:
Why trade one set of problems for another?
Why trade one set of problems for another?
P
Peter
So, why do you use Win2K?
Because that is in a game plan. Otherwise OP would not run MS OS at all.
Because that is in a game plan. Otherwise OP would not run MS OS at all.
C
Carlos Moreno
Peter said:
At the risk of turning this into an endless flamewar
Let's say that Win2K was the last thing I got from Microsoft
before my mind crossed the "I'm absolutely fed up" threshold.
That, plus the fact that Windows XP has not given me any
reasons to make me trust it -- you only hear horror story
after horror story; compound stupidity service pack after
service pack... Yes, I know that those horror stories one
hear contain only a given fraction of truth in them...
True that many of those horror stories apply mainly to the
very initial release, and many of those problems have been
fixed. But still...
True also that the fact that the very only thing I use from
Microsoft is the OS alone is an advantage; I have never in
my life executed the Internet Explorer (really, not a single
time! -- on my machine, that is), and it's been more than
seven years since the last time I used MS Office... So that
should get me covered on the security front.
Carlos
--
P
Peter
So, why do you use Win2K?
Trust is a very subjective thing, I guess there are many brave souls out
there who decided to run XP/2003.
BTW, while MS is committed to fixing bugs, it seems they are fixed much more
thoroughly in a current OS or other current product. I'm sure there is a
reason for that.
While it reduces your vulnerability, it does not eliminate it completely.
Good to hear that it works for you. I had to install AV, antispyware and run
security updates in sync with MS bulletins.
At the risk of turning this into an endless flamewar
Let's say that Win2K was the last thing I got from Microsoft
before my mind crossed the "I'm absolutely fed up" threshold.
That, plus the fact that Windows XP has not given me any
reasons to make me trust it -- you only hear horror story
after horror story; compound stupidity service pack after
service pack... Yes, I know that those horror stories one
hear contain only a given fraction of truth in them...
True that many of those horror stories apply mainly to the
very initial release, and many of those problems have been
fixed. But still...
Trust is a very subjective thing, I guess there are many brave souls out
there who decided to run XP/2003.
BTW, while MS is committed to fixing bugs, it seems they are fixed much more
thoroughly in a current OS or other current product. I'm sure there is a
reason for that.
While it reduces your vulnerability, it does not eliminate it completely.
Good to hear that it works for you. I had to install AV, antispyware and run
security updates in sync with MS bulletins.
C
Carlos Moreno
Peter said:
Yes, you are of course absolutely right! I didn't disclose
the entire version
My Windows machine is not connecteddirectly to the Internet -- it's connected to a Linux machine
with a dual NIC; one for the internal home LAN, and one to
the Internet. I have current updates on this Linux machine,
and have it with iptables in *absolute* full-stealth mode
(plus a particular unconditional block for any sort of traffic
on ports 137 to 139 -- no matter where they're coming from and
where they're going to, internal or external network)
In addition to that, as I said, I don't use IE (and of course,
much less Outlook!!) or MS Office -- I also do not open any
attachment *ever*. Period. Only exception is when it comes
directly from some family or relative and I directly talk to
them (e.g., over the phone) and they confirm that *they* sent
me the attachment (as opposed to their machines because they're
alive
).So, seeing how paranoid I am, are you still surprised that I
haven't switched to Windows XP?
Well, I guess at this point we're already waaaay off-topic...
I'll drop it for now.
Cheers,
Carlos
--
F
Folkert Rienstra
Eric Gisin said:
Does this mean that Disk Manager, like Fdisk, still relies on the BIOS?
Surely Windows doesn't use BIOS so that can't be it.
And BIOS won't foldback, that is a driver flaw.
C
Curious George
Peter said:
At the risk of turning this into an endless flamewar
Let's say that Win2K was the last thing I got from Microsoft
before my mind crossed the "I'm absolutely fed up" threshold.
Funny. Win2k was the first thing MS produced that brought me back
over. I'm still traumatized by _all_ the prior versions. To call
that stuff sh*t is to compliment MS unjustly.
Yeah XP was a little of a dip, reliability wise over 2k. SP-1 & 2 as
well as improved 3rd part driver & SW support over the years has
brought that up significantly. Win 2K3 is, I think, is also big bump
up.
IMHO 99% of "horror stories" with win2k & above come from sloppiness
in computing practices, buggy software, & immature & unstable HW
platforms. If you're disciplined, know what you are doing, and are
using decently reliable HW & drivers you shouldn't be having problems.
I mean you really have to try hard to load it with crap to screw it up
bad purely software wise. Unstable HW will make anything look bad.
Remember that MS has no controll over the kind of cheap junk you may
want to run it on or run on it, at the same time as them trying to be
all things to all ppl.
This, though, pretty much applies to all modern OS's. It's not all
that hard to bork any OS or leave it/make it insecure with
carelessness or crap. You also have to factor in the steeper learning
curve of many other OS's and their smaller market shares and what that
translates to in HW support and availability of mature & reasonable &
competitive SW.
Understand I'm not saying MS products are the best or the greatest
thing since slices bread, but to imply that present MS products are
crappy and uncompetitive is just flat wrong. I haven't had a
_serious_ problem with any MS service packs or updates in years on my
networks. [I think I smell something burning
Ack! get a firehose!]
Yeah. Everything else in invulnerable
http://forums.techguy.org/t332806.html
http://www.securiteam.com/exploits/6W00J2K8UI.html
in fact go to
http://www.securiteam.com/cgi-bin/htsearch
and search Mozilla, Firefox, Netscape, etc
As long as there is software, there will be software exploits. A
smaller market share may mean a smaller target on your back, but there
will always be a target there nevertheless.
F
Folkert Rienstra
Folkert Rienstra said:
Well Eric, does Disk Manager, like Fdisk, still rely on the BIOS or does it not?
E
Eric Gisin
Don't be stupid. Win NT has always gotten logical CHS from the BIOS.Folkert Rienstra said:
F
Folkert Rienstra
Eric Gisin said:
Maybe I'd better leave that to you then.
That's like saying that the NT flavors diskmanagement
is only good for preparing drives upto 8GB.
Thank you Eric for that completely useless answer.