-----Original Message-----
That depends. Weakness is in the eye of the beholder. For instance, the
code for Windows XP (And all other variants) is a closely held MS Secret.
No one knows exactly what is in it except them. This creates an opportunity
for back doors, monitoring etc. I'm not suggesting that they do, but
perhaps if the NSA leaned on MS they would have a back door to recover
encrypted files, login remotely, etc. If I were a foreign government (Say
China) I'd be nervous about that, hence their increasing support of Linux,
which is open source.
Another weakness is its ubiquitous usage. Since everyone uses it, one only
needs to find a flaw in one to access 90%+ of the world's computers. The
integration factor is also alarming, as you will notice on these groups
numerous messages how visiting a website has allowed a spyware app or other
malicious program to invade the system and create quite a headache for the
user. I'm certified in several MS products, but I use Linux as my primary
OS and use Mozilla Firebird as my browser when using Windows (on my own PC
at least).
From a business perspective, price is a weakness. As everyone knows (or is
rapidly learning) a computer that isn't networked is not very usefull. The
costs associated with implementing a Windows network are huge. For instance,
in a small office with 1 server and 10 XP boxes, you need 1) The server
software, 2) 10 copies of Windows XP and 3) 10 Licenses for those XP boxes
to access the server. That's before you even think about installing any
applications.
Bloat is another issue that may crop up, the OS software is so huge that it
could theoretically be running a lot faster if it were
redesigned/reprogrammed. If you've ever noticed, 2000 is a lot slower than
XP so you can only guess that bloat was an issue they tried to address for
XP.
This isn't to say that XP isn't a great evolution in the development of
Operating Systems, it's just that there are weaknesses for everything.
.
