Windows OneCare

Right, this has got me wound up!

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/5032832.stm

Vista is out in a few months, and Microsoft are once again claiming that it will be “the most secure Windows yet”. What sort of message are they giving users when they try to sell a package that makes sure the system is secure? It’s like they know Vista is insecure, but rather than actually make it good they are trying to sell a package that does the job.

Where I work (over 3000 computers) we are thinking about dumping Windows in favour of Linux (Novel’s Suse desktop), and we’re very behind when it comes to these things. How many other businesses are going to go for Linux over Vista?

At home I use my windows computer for gaming, and everything else I do would be better on linux anyway (Apache, php, mysql, smtp server, file server, music server, etc). How many home users are thinking of converting?

i think you're missing an important point here sym:

if microsoft try to build onecare into vista, they would insatntly be sued by symantec et al and would in all likelihood get royally slammed by the monopolies commision (or whatever the u.s. equivalent is) again.

remember the browser issue?

ms are now stuck with the dire security situation that their os's have built up over the years - there is no way that they can now build an os that deals with the security issues itself because it would then destroy a sector of the software market and is therefore anti-competitive

serves them right i say and i hope onecare bombs (although it blatently won't unless symantec pull their finger out)


cole. x

If gaming was better on linuii, i'd be using it right now.

well, i'd have to know how to use it, as well, i guess. but that comes with practice...

You missed an option on your poll:

I gave up on Windows ages ago and prefer the easy to use and secure OS X (although when I get an Intel mac I'll be installing Windows to play Half-life 2)

I didn't want to bring up Apple at all in this post - I've done that too much!

Anyway, Apple are using Darwin with OS X, so you could include that as linux (I know, I know, there is a big difference...we don't need to start talking about it here do we?)

I've been with Apple for years

furry muff.

I'll plonk for Linux in your poll then.

Plumbed for the *nix option even though I'm a mac boi,, as for the one care,, well we're a mac shop at the office and all our servers are either Linux or Irix anyhow and the few win boxes we have are F-secured. Quite honestly i wouldn't trust M$ to deliver my milk so i doubt their security software would be much better.

mmm, how does one edit the poll? I should add something about Macs I guess...

I'm hoping that now apple are using intel that there will be a full port of OS for PC's. (Now that they've made the boot option for windows on macs it seems obvious that they should carry the compatability the other way too)

The sooner I can dump windows but keep support for my software and hardware the better.

justbuyamacjustbuyamacjustbuyamac

i'm not installing boot camp on my mac - am signing up to test this beta virtual machine solution instead:

http://www.parallels.com/en/products/workstation/mac/


cole. x

Yeah We've been keeping an eye on Parallels aswell here in the office,, looks very cool,, and I do like the talk of it or rather tech very like it that should be part of 10.5 when it hits the streets next year.

oh my! Talking about anti-trust:

http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/technology/a...df_support.html

Sounds like 'fun' did you hear the rumblings of M$ that they want to create an new image 'standard' to replace jpeg ?

http://software.silicon.com/applications/0,39024653,39159228,00.htm

I will plump for "I'll use whatever comes on a new computer" I would only buy something that came with OS X.

My dad has recently discovered parallels and likes it so much that he pre-ordered and bought a legit copy of Xp for use with it (and my dad left PCs a loooong time ago )

Well i managed to my pc running Mepis flavour linux on an old spare hard drive i had.

I was super impressed with it. The live cd meant i could just boot from cd to run the whole os and then decide if i liked it. Simply mepis was definitely easy to install but getting it online across my wifi was impossible. Had to use my windoze laptop to go online, download bits and bobs but never got it working.

however my brother got it going online really easy when i was in nz and had cable broadband instead of wifi.

I'd say linux does about 90% of what most windows users use. Simply mepis comes with open office (like ms office only it doesn't triple the size of every file it saves), the gimp (like photoshop, but, er, no it's just like photoshop 5), firefox adn a few other web browsers, a load of text editors, video editor package, nice media viewer, a few games, and loads of other random stuff.

It opens pc files fine from a separate hard drive.

And of course it's free.

I think the only reason businesses don't use linux is cos

a) 'linux' don't have $1,000,000 to spend on advertising

b) they are a little afraid

However i reckon ms have shot themselves in the head with vista. They are making it 64bit, which is cool, but no office i've ever seen has a bunch of 64bit machines. So to switch to vista a business would have to update all their hardware.

If businesses knew of an alternative then the accountants would probably insist on it.

I heard the other day that there's something like 30,000 coders working on vista. Talk about 'too many cooks....' I also heard that they just scraped 60% of the code cos it was junk!!

For me. I love the look of OS X but i use a lot of crazy software that doesn't come for macs. I would love to make a total switch to linux but there's things that really annoy me about it's geekiness. But some things i love too. I dislike windoze intensely and i dispise using it but there just isn't quite a good enough alternative.

What i want is multi boot, probably using VMware of some kind so i can just switch without restarting everything. (But wouldn't install vista before sp2 at least cos it will be buggy as hell. I've got no reason to ditch xp. It's pretty solid, for windoze and plug n play works on everything i've ever plugged into it.)

Then i'd use osX for graphics
linux for freeware stuff and all the crazy linux things
windoze for anything that i can't do by other means (which should be less and less in the coming years)

But it still wouldn't stop me procrastinating when i should be working

i agree with chut's dad - parallels rocks the party

i installed it at the weekend and am very happy

it seems to require some playing around with to get the vm to recognise the superdrive as a dvd player/writer, games to run etc but other than that, it works a treat.

if nothing else, it has solved the 'wmv's play terribly on a mac' problem


cole. x

Mr Coleman sir.... get with the progam ,, flip4mac has been out for aaaaages http://www.versiontracker.com/dyn/moreinfo/macosx/28842 tiz lovely,, no windows media player buffering for me anymore just lovely quicktime goodness. Yeah it doesnt play the heavily drm'd stuff but then neither did M$'s turgid mac client so much of a muchness on that one.

blimey - cheers mr draven

i never used ms media player for mac - i heard it was crap so i skipped it.

i've been using vlc since the switch but i found that it still has quite a bit of trouble with wmv's...

i'll definitely try out flip4mac - thanks for the link


i have to say though, having an xp vm rocks and best of all, it makes me feel 86.4% more cool whenever i use it


cole. x

only 86.4% lol and what gave rise to that figure.

To be honest the main reason i ever use .wmv's are for things mates send me or those lovely news streams on the BBC. Although never could get the streams working until flip4mac came along. Now if only someone made the same thing for Real files lol. Even vlc balks at those when it comes to streaming,, but then again its probably because Real sucks mighty mighty hard.