Can we really trust the software we use?

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Message 1242135 - Posted: 6 Jun 2012, 11:59:08 UTC - in response to Message 1242117.  

Actually, I've used FreeDOS before, and I like it. As an ol' DOS diehard, it might be worth checking out again.
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Message 1242142 - Posted: 6 Jun 2012, 12:37:23 UTC - in response to Message 1242140.  

In it's day MSDOS 5 was the best OS that MS ever produced. OK MSDOS 6.22 added some bells and whistles and functionality, but 5 worked out of the box and did what it said on the tin. And you could tinker under the bonnet.

As I have opined before on these boards. MS get it right every other system

MSDOS 5-6 - Brilliant
Win 95 so so
Win 98 - SEII good
Millennium - marketing disaster
Win XP - good
Vista - rubbish
Win 7 - lukewarm
Win 8 - we will see

Windows history

You missed Win2000 which was a much better choice that staying with Win98 or going to Millennium, and that makes WinXP only a small update.
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Message 1242145 - Posted: 6 Jun 2012, 12:44:56 UTC - in response to Message 1242140.  
Last modified: 6 Jun 2012, 12:46:19 UTC

Agree with the listing.

I think we can put those down to either growing pains/learning pains or maybe both at the same time.

However, I feel that the software companies have become like our politicians.

With all the arguments that O/S wars have given us, Linux users have suddenly started complaining a la Unity, with many bypassing that version as well as trashing it.

Well, it's now Windows turn....just what in hell are Microsoft thinking of? I can understand the moving over to the tablet market, but just what does it's "new" interface have to do with server enviroments?

I throughly agree with this
Maybe all my computers will stay with Win7 and Server 2008 R2.


The thread started off with Google - can it be trusted, now I feel "Can the software industry be trusted?"

:Corrected spelling.
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Message 1242152 - Posted: 6 Jun 2012, 13:17:08 UTC - in response to Message 1242140.  

In it's day MSDOS 5 was the best OS that MS ever produced. OK MSDOS 6.22 added some bells and whistles and functionality, but 5 worked out of the box and did what it said on the tin. And you could tinker under the bonnet.

As I have opined before on these boards. MS get it right every other system

MSDOS 5-6 - Brilliant
Win 95 so so
Win 98 - SEII good
Millennium - marketing disaster
Win XP - good
Vista - rubbish
Win 7 - lukewarm
Win 8 - we will see

Windows history


Be careful that the list doesn't become a self-fulfilling prophecy. The list might have more to do with user psychology than it does with any real empirical truth. Personally, I would say:

MSDOS 5 - barebones and brutish
MSDOS 6 - Better, 6.22 better still
Win 95 - an amazing improvement and a great UI
Win 98/SE - Great polish on an already amazing OS
Win ME - Meh, not a necessary release, but not horrible as some would insist
Win NT - Solid, yet lacking in features and speed
Win2k - Solid and polished
WinXP - Very solid, minor update to 2k
Vista - Great security features with a better, updated UI
Win 7 - New standard in solidity and a beautiful glass interface
Win 8 - Huh? My desktop is not a tablet! I don't want to see large icons of all my apps installed on a big "start screen"! Where's my Start Menu with search feature?


I see a huge learning curve with Windows 8, and in the corporate environment where I work, this is only going to be trouble for our Support Department. Maybe if everyone switches to touch-screens on the desktop, it might make things smoother, but there's just too many people here who don't need it and are too used to doing things "the old way".
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Message 1242235 - Posted: 6 Jun 2012, 15:08:55 UTC - in response to Message 1242182.  

Don't worry, the new UEFI/EFI will finally do away with the BIOS and will fix everything.

(By the way, DO NOT GOOGLE "reverse engineering software tools." That'll let the secret out.)

GDB

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Message 1242258 - Posted: 6 Jun 2012, 15:39:27 UTC

What about Window 3.1?

The Kite Fliers

--------------------
Kite fliers: An imaginary club of solo members, those who don't yet
belong to a formal team so "fly their own kites" - as the saying goes.
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Message 1242265 - Posted: 6 Jun 2012, 15:50:36 UTC - in response to Message 1242258.  

What about Window 3.1?


Win 3.11 WFG was a lot better than 3.1
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Message 1242271 - Posted: 6 Jun 2012, 15:57:03 UTC - in response to Message 1242265.  

What about Window 3.1?


Win 3.11 WFG was a lot better than 3.1


Agreed. Though Windows 3.1 was an improvement over Windows 3.0.
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Message 1242298 - Posted: 6 Jun 2012, 16:18:09 UTC - in response to Message 1242273.  


...the rest are Win XP, and they are staying that way.
/rant :-)


& when the support ends as well as AV companies no longer support it...what then?

..another 6 rigs added to a botnet!
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Message 1242345 - Posted: 6 Jun 2012, 16:49:21 UTC - in response to Message 1242273.  

In addition hardware manufacturers will want to make sure that any future kit will be the latest OS system ready. And of course don't forget the memory manufacturers, every new OS that comes out needs more memory, and of course MS lies through its teeth to you!

They say Win XP will run with 512Mb of memory. Yes it will boot up, but try and do anything with it and it falls over. You're looking at 1Gb to do anything reasonable, and 2Gb to use it properly. Vista and Win 7 need 1gb minimum and will only work properly with 3-4GB. Of course with a 32bit system that limits you to 3.25Mb anyway. A lot of older pc's only have 2 memory slots with a max of 1Gb in each slot. Slightly newer ones have 4 slots with 1gb in each. Only later kit can take 2Gb sticks.


I have to disagree a bit here. Again, I think this is a case of users being spoiled with faster/newer/cheaper whatever.

When XP first came out, if you had 512MB of RAM, you were considered rich. Most people were still running with 64MB or 128MB and things ran fine. Then RAM got cheap and we stuffed more into our systems, some of us found the limitations of our motherboard maxed out at 512MB or 2GB as you said. We saw the speed improvements that came with putting more RAM in and we wondered how we ever got along with "only" 128MB - go quickly got spoiled with the speed increases.

I think the same goes for Windows 7. Sure, more RAM makes everything run smoother and less swapping, but the average, causal internet user hardly needs a 3-4GB of RAM system. Case in point; I have my step-father setup with an old Pentium 4 3.06GHz CPU (533MHz FSB, w/HT) and the motherboard is maxed out with a full 2GB of RAM running Windows 7. All he does is run AOL for his email, play POGO.com games and watch DVDs (I hooked up his computer to his 27" LCD TV). He doesn't have any issues with low memory, though things do run slowly due to his outdated CPU.

Though with today's software having an increasing demand on RAM, I've seen quite frequently cases where users in my company are quickly approaching the limits of 32bit computing, and I'm trying to push the rest of our team in getting 64bit supported and in wide use - preferably with 8GB of RAM since RAM is so cheap.

At the end of the day there is a worldwide cartel between the OS producers, the hardware suppliers, and the memory factories, to try and force everybody to spend money to update everything every 3 years of so for their own corporate benefits. And don't let's forget the processor people here. How often is it that every new motherboard they bring out whether Intel or AMD, there is always a new socket configuration, which means you can't upgrade an earlier board without buying a new one.


Progress is happening much more quickly these days, so it stands to reason that hardware changes happen more frequently, giving a shorter lifespan to existing systems. While its easier to say that every company is out to screw the end user, I just don't think that's the reality of the situation.

Unfortunately, the computer industry is also a victim of its own success. Because progress is happening so quickly since the PC has entered people's homes, computers have become just another throw-away device. With the CPU integrating everything from the memory controller, to the video chip, to a PCI Express controller... the more things you add to the CPU, the more pins are required to allows those components to address the rest of the system. I don't think there's an engineer alive that could design a universal socket that could last for 10 years while allowing for any future integration into the CPU alone. The last time Intel tried designing a CPU connector that was supposed to be the last we'd ever need, Slot 1 died off after just two generations of CPUs (Pentium II and Pentium III).

Then again, there's also the same perception of "forced" upgrades or spoiled users. I just gave an example earlier of my step-father who is running just fine on an old Pentium 4 machine. The question is: what do you do and how much do you want newer/faster/better? One doesn't need the latest and greatest, but we convince ourselves that we do, and the marketing departments all push us along toward upgrades for a better experience. The marketing departments can't convince us of anything we aren't already contemplating in the back of our minds and are looking for justification in spending our dollars. Of course, the older we get, the more we tire of the justifications, but we tend to do it anyway because we know its progress (then we complain about it later).

The truth is folks, that the general public are being screwed from backend to breakfast time 24/7 by the computer industry worldwide, and it is high time that we called a halt to it. I run 8 rigs, 2 are win 7 out of curiosity, the rest are Win XP, and they are staying that way.

/rant :-)


I don't think the general public is being screwed at all. As stated above, most people see the computer as a device that needs to be upgraded or its performance degrades (not even remotely true). Much of this perception is taken advantage of by the marketing departments, but the only way to battle that is user education - something that most users don't care to learn. They just want technology to work, and if that means buying a new device, they'll do it.

No one is going to stop the advancement of progress by refusing to buy upgrades. They'll just get left behind while the rest of the world keeps moving forward. In the microcosm of the user's world, its hard to see the progress and easy to question where we're going if they haven't a clue, and it doesn't help if they don't understand the technology as it gets more sophisticated, so its easy to claim that no real progress is happening, but the viewpoint is ultimately very, very wrong.

I am still amazed by what today's machines can do compared to 10 years ago, 20 years ago, 30 years ago, etc., and I'm always impressed by the way users tend to use their devices, and the way they wish their devices would work to make things easier. Progress is the demand of the users and not an illusion created by marketing.

If you're not demanding progress, you're complaining about the speed of it and getting left behind.

[old man rant] Now who invented those infernal "AM radios" and how do they make my life easier? [/old man rant] :-P
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Message 1242359 - Posted: 6 Jun 2012, 17:08:37 UTC - in response to Message 1242358.  

&
when the support ends as well as AV companies no longer support it...what then?

..another 6 rigs added to a botnet!


AV software supports any computer whatever OS they happen to be running. Whether that OS OS is supported by the OS supplier is another matter.



you sure? Can't seem to find any that supports Win 98 (still using that for certain programs under VM)
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Message 1242367 - Posted: 6 Jun 2012, 17:20:04 UTC - in response to Message 1242359.  
Last modified: 6 Jun 2012, 17:20:33 UTC

&
when the support ends as well as AV companies no longer support it...what then?

..another 6 rigs added to a botnet!


AV software supports any computer whatever OS they happen to be running. Whether that OS OS is supported by the OS supplier is another matter.



you sure? Can't seem to find any that supports Win 98 (still using that for certain programs under VM)


I can't find anything for my Windows 3.1 machine either, and yes, I have IE 5.0 16bit on there so it can browse the web (though not many websites support IE 5.0 anymore).
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Message 1242820 - Posted: 7 Jun 2012, 15:49:47 UTC - in response to Message 1242462.  

If you go to these websites, you can download earlier editions that support Win 98. But I don't know if they are updateable.

Old AVG

Alternatively try this one

Clamwin

Avast 4.8 should work as well

Avast



Well, old avg is not updating itself, either program wise or definitions wise - either it doesn't support win 98 or it could be a dodgy download. Clamwin - forget it, tried that many times in the past with nothing but problems.

As for Avast, no chance, creates nothing but problems with server & that's all versions!
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Message 1242997 - Posted: 7 Jun 2012, 19:19:22 UTC

Can we really trust the software we use?


You certainly can't trust using any 'anti-virus', and you shouldn't even rely on the use of a firewall. Both methods are like trying to lasso a horse after it has already bolted through whatever open door or window...

Far better is to only rely on systems that are secure by design.

Secure-by-design still means they are perfectly usable.

A good second aspect is to have the systems completely open and open to peer review and external scrutiny so that the systems are reviewed and known to be robust. "Security by obscurity" is more an excuse for hiding shoddiness rather than being 'secure'...


It is what we make it...
Martin

See new freedom: Mageia Linux
Take a look for yourself: Linux Format
The Future is what We all make IT (GPLv3)
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Message 1243024 - Posted: 7 Jun 2012, 19:57:47 UTC - in response to Message 1242997.  

Can we really trust the software we use?


You certainly can't trust using any 'anti-virus', and you shouldn't even rely on the use of a firewall. Both methods are like trying to lasso a horse after it has already bolted through whatever open door or window...

Far better is to only rely on systems that are secure by design.

Secure-by-design still means they are perfectly usable.

A good second aspect is to have the systems completely open and open to peer review and external scrutiny so that the systems are reviewed and known to be robust. "Security by obscurity" is more an excuse for hiding shoddiness rather than being 'secure'...


It is what we make it...
Martin

Ah, like SHA1 hash schemes used to store passwords on open systems ...

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Message 1243030 - Posted: 7 Jun 2012, 20:06:22 UTC

Can we leave the O/S war where it belongs - in the garbage bin.

This thread is producing interesting & helpful info, I'd like it to continue in that vein.
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Message 1243061 - Posted: 7 Jun 2012, 21:17:02 UTC - in response to Message 1243030.  

Can we leave the O/S war where it belongs - in the garbage bin.

This thread is producing interesting & helpful info, I'd like it to continue in that vein.

The point being lazyness rulez in security holes. SHA1 is O/S independent. It has also been known to be breakable for some time. That it still is being passed off as the default on many systems is shameful. People read old material that says it is secure and haven't a clue they are reading old material. The open standards people are very reluctant to drop anything because it might "break" something. Well it should break as it already is broken. Just ask on a C group if "gets" should disappear from the language.

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Message 1243065 - Posted: 7 Jun 2012, 21:23:45 UTC - in response to Message 1243061.  

Valid point. However, my post can then serve as a reminder to all - no O/S wars.
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