Windows 7 is less secure than Windows Vista

[reactosguy]

http://www.india.com/technology/computers/windows-7-less-secure-vista_6365


That's right, an analyst says that Windows 7 is user- and malware-friendly.    Woot! And I haven't used Windows 7 yet. Lucky me.


Post your thoughts on this. I also heard that Sophos said, on a Yahoo! Canada Tech Blog article, that Windows 7's loosened UAC feature only caught 1 out of 8 viruses based on their study.


If I am forced to get Windows 7, it's time for a Mac mini.

[Lead Head]

I've noticed that with Wndows 7, it does not constantly nag you. Vista constantly nagged you about every single little thing, no matter how small.

[Refalm]

Windows 7 does give you warnings, but it's more hidden.

There's a flag icon, which you have to click on. It only nags you with security difficulties after three days.
It doesn't really matter, most Windows Vista users just ignored all the "you got no anti-virus" warnings. And then proceeded to click on every e-mail attachment they could find.
It's also a bit said that Windows needs anti-virus, because Windows PC's directly connected to the internet are constantly probed by bot-nets, so you'd have a worm in no-time.

Microsoft made Windows 7 less annoying again, like Windows 95 or Windows 2000, which is great for people like me who use Windows in school.

[Aloone_Jonez]

I've never used Windows Vista or 7 so I don't know from first-hand experience but here's my understanding of the situation:

Vista was set up more like UNIX in that the user didn't log on as administrator by default. The trouble was that lots of old Windows programs assume they have administrator privileges and crash if they don't. MS cobbled together a system for Vista which makes old programs think they have administrator access and warned the user if they were up to no good. The trouble was that many users found this annoying so in Windows 7 they weakened the protection giving programs more privileges, making it more like previous Windows versions.

What can MS do? If they completely locked Windows down, like UNIX, they'd be criticised because it won't run old software and if they don't it poses a higher security risk?

In my view they should fully lock down Windows 7 and ship it with a stripped down version of MS Virtual PC with XP as the host (currently only the most expensive Windows versions do this), that way they'll be less problems with viruses and people will be able to run the software they need.

Of course this doesn't stop users from installing shitware of their own stupidity, no OS can do that.

[reactosguy]

Wow! When I tried Vista for almost two years, UAC wasn't annoying to me. Then it got slower because I installed 100 applications on a 60GB hard drive. Tried to uninstall? I was on admin and Vista said that I wasn't. Don't do business with these ASSholes.


P.S. Microsoft is an acronym of "Microsoft Idols Can't Roll Over Sacks Of Fruity Teabags"!

[worker201]

The obsession with backwards compatibility has been Microsoft's biggest burden all along.  They've built their whole business on convincing customers to "buy again".  Which forces them to kludge like crazy, which in turn leaves all these security holes wide open.  And, it can be argued that this business model has actually discouraged innovation - if software written in 1992 will work on an operating system from 2009, what's the point of improving the software?  Unfortunately, Microsoft has painted themselves into a corner - they can't redesign their business model now, and they can't just dump support for antique enterprise and mission critical software just to protect granny from wormbots.  So they'll continue to write kludges and hope that people keep forking over money for increasingly powerful hardware.  Except the new netbooks are fucking that up too.  Yes, Microsoft is doomed - it's just a matter of time.

[Aloone_Jonez]

I agree, Microsoft's greatest competition is their old software.

I'm still using XP and I don't see any reason to change.

I use it under a restricted account which prevents most malware from installing, believe me I've tried installing some before and it refused to work. ;D

No doubt the article just refers to Windows 7 under its default configuration and can be locked down if needs be.