4 ms·

Does anyone else feel like if Windows was still a classic OS instead of "as a service" then these types of changes would have a chance to get more scrutiny duri

Does anyone else feel like if Windows was still a classic OS instead of "as a service" then these types of changes would have a chance to get more scrutiny during development and hopefully get caught?

toyg 7y ago
Nah. It would have just taken longer to fix, imho.
- buckminster 7y ago
  This. Twenty years ago, if you reported a bug to MS and they agreed it was a bug and they agreed to fix it then you might actually have working code in three years time when the next version of Windows was released. Five years after that all of your customers might have upgraded to this new version of Windows. And then you could rely on the fix. Important customers could get a hotfix. For anyone else reporting bugs was pointless.
  - ChrisSD 7y ago
    In its consumer operating systems, MS used to not consider it a bug for a process to exploit other processes on the same machine. After all, why would you be running untrusted code? I'd also add that Microsoft used to be notoriously bad at security, such that even Mac owners would make fun of them. We're still dealing with the design decisions made during that era. It's only since XP SP1 that security was taken more seriously and it wasn't until Vista that they truly started to grapple with the whole mess from the ground up.
    - ocdtrekkie 7y ago
      > even Mac owners would make fun of them Although, in reality, Mac owners really only were secure by way of being too few and far between to bother writing malware for. Just this past year, Apple essentially implemented UAC into OS X.
      - jamesgeck0 7y ago
        Hasn't Mac software run with non-admin user permissions by default since the first version of OS X?
SahAssar 7y ago
Are you saying that these sort of changes were never part of a patch or service-pack before Win10?
- mehrdadn 7y ago
  Do you think it's sensible for me to make such a claim?
  - SahAssar 7y ago
    No, but that's what it sounded like you were doing.
hedora 7y ago
Since they supported multiple versions at once, important bugfixes were backported, but risky new features were not. For a year or so after each release, the previous release was more stable. This let the customer choose between security/stability and new features. I think it’s a great model, but it breaks down when the new version is a feature/usability regression vs the old version. Once that started happening more often than not, the “aas” models came out, where the vendors started force upgrading users instead of trying to compete with version N-1. This is worse for the users, but better for deadline-focused middle management, so it’s become incredibly popular.

toyg 7y ago

Nah. It would have just taken longer to fix, imho.

buckminster 7y ago
This. Twenty years ago, if you reported a bug to MS and they agreed it was a bug and they agreed to fix it then you might actually have working code in three years time when the next version of Windows was released. Five years after that all of your customers might have upgraded to this new version of Windows. And then you could rely on the fix. Important customers could get a hotfix. For anyone else reporting bugs was pointless.
- ChrisSD 7y ago
  In its consumer operating systems, MS used to not consider it a bug for a process to exploit other processes on the same machine. After all, why would you be running untrusted code? I'd also add that Microsoft used to be notoriously bad at security, such that even Mac owners would make fun of them. We're still dealing with the design decisions made during that era. It's only since XP SP1 that security was taken more seriously and it wasn't until Vista that they truly started to grapple with the whole mess from the ground up.
  - ocdtrekkie 7y ago
    > even Mac owners would make fun of them Although, in reality, Mac owners really only were secure by way of being too few and far between to bother writing malware for. Just this past year, Apple essentially implemented UAC into OS X.
    - jamesgeck0 7y ago
      Hasn't Mac software run with non-admin user permissions by default since the first version of OS X?

SahAssar 7y ago

Are you saying that these sort of changes were never part of a patch or service-pack before Win10?

mehrdadn 7y ago
Do you think it's sensible for me to make such a claim?
- SahAssar 7y ago
  No, but that's what it sounded like you were doing.

hedora 7y ago

Since they supported multiple versions at once, important bugfixes were backported, but risky new features were not. For a year or so after each release, the previous release was more stable. This let the customer choose between security/stability and new features. I think it’s a great model, but it breaks down when the new version is a feature/usability regression vs the old version. Once that started happening more often than not, the “aas” models came out, where the vendors started force upgrading users instead of trying to compete with version N-1. This is worse for the users, but better for deadline-focused middle management, so it’s become incredibly popular.