Full disclosure: While my paycheck and livelihood comes from working for Microsoft, I want to make it clear that the following has nothing to do with that fact. I'm speaking strictly as a technologist trying to make his way in the world.
Like a lot of folks in the software biz, I get a lot of e-newsletters each day, and I try to at l
east peruse each one to keep current with what's happening in the industry.
The past week, one specific newsletter has contained so much vitriol about Vista and what a piece of crap it is that I felt compelled to put a post together on it. And keep in mind, this wasn't the only article that expressed this view point. It's just the one I decided to pick on. There is plenty of Vista-bashing material circulating out there these days.
The article was entitled, Patch Tuesday: Vista dinged again. The gist of the article was that Vista isn't living up to its promises on the security front. To quote from the article:
The carefully crafted image of Windows Vista as the most secure operating system of all time is beginning to take a beating.
For the second time this month, Microsoft has shipped a security bulletin with patches for a “critical” Vista vulnerability that puts millions of users at risk of code execution attacks.
It's half-baked, inflammatory comments like this that force me to spend so much of my time trying to convince people that Microsoft really is a responsible company that is trying to write software that people will want to use instead of helping them understand and implement technology better.
First of all, I don't recall anyone stating that Vista would be the "most secure operating system of all time," only the most secure version of Windows ever released, and without a doubt, it is.
And the fact that Microsoft has identified and released patches to its customers twice in one month should be grounds for praise, not disparagement. There are well over 100M lines of code in the Vista OS. The idea that a team of developers, no matter how skilled and careful, could produce a product of that magnitude bug and vulnerability free, is ridiculous.
There has never been a piece of software that wasn't initially released with some bugs and/or security issues. No matter how good you are, you aren't perfect and you probably don't have clairvoyance to foresee ever possible attack strategy that could come at your application. You do the best you can and respond as quickly as possible when issues are identified. And honestly, that is what Microsoft is doing.
Has Microsoft had problems with the security of their products in the past? Absolutely without a doubt.
Has Microsoft truly made security "job 1" in the development of its products? Absolutely without a doubt. And this is hardly new. BillG's so-called "Trustworthy computing" memo of January 15, 2002 really set the focus on security for all Microsoft product development going forward.
Being on the inside at Microsoft, I can attest that this isn't just marketing fluff. The security of not just Vista but all of Microsoft's products is taken very seriously by everyone. And it has actually yielded positive results, as is apparent in a recent article showing Symantec has rated Vista as the most secure OS on the market!
So, issues will be identified in Vista and Microsoft will continue to aggressively develop, test and release patches to address those issues. And Vista will continue to get better and better as a result. More patches isn't a sign of a "bad" product. It's the sign of a company standing behind it's product and taking its upkeep very seriously. How is this bad for users of our software? The answer is, "It isn't."
So, what do I think of Vista? Well, I've been using it for about four months now, and here are my opinions on the new OS:
- The user experience is so much better than XP. It's subtle, to be sure, but if you start to focus on how you do things in Vista versus how you used to do them, you really develop a better appreciate for the attention to detail that has been paid in this area.
- UAC is a good thing. This is one of the most contentious areas of Vista as far as I can tell. I found the UAC dings annoying at first, but given the choice between the system confirming that I want to do something and assuming I want to do something, I like that Vista errs on the side of asking me.
- Windows Defender is a great addition. I used to have to re-pave my kids' laptop every two weeks because of the amount of malware that would get past my anti-virus program. Since upgrading them to Vista, I've had no issues. Between UAC (they have significantly decreased privliges on the machine) and Defender, the machine is as clean today as the day I set it up.
- I have not seen the compatability nightmares we were supposed to have with Vista. I'm running all the software on my machine that I ran on XP. Granted, I had some problems getting some of it to run intially, but the compatability tools cleared those up. Also, the virtual file system and registry features of Vista work seemlessly. I didn't even realize how the OS was accomodating my older applications until I dug into the file structure on the machine a little deeper.
- Device drivers have been the biggest issue in upgrading to Vista. However, I had device driver issues when I upgraded to XP. If the hardware manufactures are late getting drivers posted, that's not really the OS's fault.
- Search. What else can I say.
I welcome a discussion or debate on this topic. Please post your thoughts.