8 ms·
China bans use of Windows 8 on government computers
- yulaow 12y agoI do not understand what they are planning. So they do not want to upgrade to win8... are they considering win7 or they just want to keep using xp indefinitely? There was not a plan of Ubuntu to ship a personalized os version in china some time ago? Where it ended?
- freehunter 12y agoSounds like they're trying to force MS to continue supporting Windows XP. Doesn't MS already do this if you pay them? If so, China is trying to force Microsoft to continue to support XP for free. A bold move.
- mnw21cam 12y agoMicrosoft has a yearly increasing price for supporting XP. It wouldn't take very many years of that for it to become silly.
- yulaow 12y agoAnd also microsoft keep supporting xp ONLY IF the client had made a plan with deadlines to upgrade his current configurations.
- vijayr 12y agoSo what happens if a huge client (like the Chinese govt) says either Microsoft support XP or they drop windows for ubuntu (or something similar)?
- freehunter 12y agoI would imagine Microsoft wouldn't much care at this point. They give away Windows 98 for free. If people demanded they support XP for free forever... I don't think they're going to do that.
- gretful 12y agoNah, they want to grow their own internal software ecology. This is all about weaning Chinese off of foreign software.
- Juha 12y agoI do agree that China might want to do that but how does not upgrading to Windows 8 help grow their internal sw ecology?
- sz4kerto 12y agoPrediction: they are going to get to an agreement pretty soon. MS seems to react quite quickly recently.
- yiedyie 12y agoGiven the recent issues between the two governments on cybernetic issues, I guess its sensible for MS to discuss it first home and then react. That would slow the reaction a bit.
- Already__Taken 12y agoI doubt it, China would only be happy if they could vet & build the source code themselves. MS wouldn't be too clever to give them that. If this is really about security and not to pull off exactly that above.
- drdaeman 12y agoRumors say, that happened with Russia with Windows 7 (and I've heard similar stories about Windows 98, 2000 and XP). Why not China? http://www.zdnet.com/microsoft-opens-source-code-to-russian-secret-service-3040089481/ http://www.zdnet.com/microsoft-opens-source-code-to-russian-...
- Already__Taken 12y agoIn my completely uneducated opinion based on heresy China seems to care a great deal less about intellectual property, patents and licencing right of companies that aren't Chinese. Given its regular practice of trying to get companies to manufacture goods in Chine to steal their process' and technology. This is also the exact reason SpaceX don't file patents and do not use anything from Microsoft.
- alandarev 12y agoIs not that an irony? Microsoft closes support of XP in hopes people move to W8, while China bans W8 because Microsoft closed XP support.
- johnduhart 12y ago> Microsoft closes support of XP in hopes people move to W8 Do you really think that's why Microsoft dropped support for a 12 year old OS?
- Ihmahr 12y agoCan I start hoping for linux and FOSS funding!?
- Yuioup 12y agoI expect to see a headline soon reading "Not so fast, Linux!" with an article explaining that this is nothing more than a negotiation tactic to get Microsoft to offer cheap support.
- levosmetalo 12y agoChina can say whatever they want as a reason for banning, but the fact that they don't believe a US company to provide them with an operating system that even has a slight chance to be NSA secure feels quite sensible. I guess in the long run we would see a Linux or *BSD sponsored by Chinese government to be used as an official OS. It's not like they lack talent to do it.
- jmnicolas 12y agoIf they fear NSA spying why still use XP ? If you use Windows 8 you're vulnerable to talented crackers and governments. If you still use Win XP you're vulnerable to anybody. Maybe they're just afraid of integration of Azure / Skydrive / whatever the new name is that could possibly create embarrassing sharing mistakes.
- yiedyie 12y agoMaybe because they've fixed XP for their security concerns: http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/qihoo-360-announces-its-360-safeguard-xp-shield-withstands-13-hours-of-non-stop-attacks-without-a-breach-254115871.html http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/qihoo-360-announces-...
- unicornporn 12y agoInteresting. Can't find any info about in on http://360safe.com/ http://360safe.com/ though...
- toni 12y agoIt's part of their "360 Safe Guard"[1] software. But I think it's only available in Chinese. They also have an "enterprise" edition. [1] http://www.360.cn/weishi/index.html http://www.360.cn/weishi/index.html
- unicornporn 12y ago
- gtirloni 12y ago"windows 8" site:.zycg.gov.cn returns 1050 results. Too bad I can't open them from the US to verify the news myself. Anyone with access can confirm it with details?
- randunel 12y agoFrom the uk: 1,090 results
- wogong 12y agoyou can see the news here. http://www.zycg.gov.cn/article/show/242846 http://www.zycg.gov.cn/article/show/242846 5. 所有计算机类产品不允许安装Windows 8操作系统。 5. all computer products are not allowed to install Windows 8 operating system. (Google Translate)
- deleted 12y ago[deleted]
- diabloneo 12y agoI think Chinese government will use Windows 8 together with government sponsored Linux based OS.
- dawkins 12y ago8 hours ago I read this and the reasons where because Windows 8 was expensive in China, now they are talking more about security: http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/china/2014-05/20/c_133347210.htm http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/china/2014-05/20/c_1333472...
- piokuc 12y agoI feel it may have something to do with the recent news that US charges "five Chinese army officers with espionage charges for hacking into major US companies": http://nypost.com/2014/05/19/us-to-charge-chinese-military-officials-with-cyber-spying/ http://nypost.com/2014/05/19/us-to-charge-chinese-military-o...
- msvan 12y agoThere could be a wide range of reasons for this, but I'm pretty sure a large part of it is protectionism. The Chinese government is pretty hostile towards foreign software in China, and they are probably displeased with China's dependence on Windows. When I lived was in China, I contemplated starting a business there. Burgeoning market, and all. But I came to understand that it's a terrible idea. If you're a foreign national that manages to successfully launch a business in China, you are either morally corrupt, have given substantial bribes or have connections within the government. And if you were to become too successful, the Chinese government will make sure that you either cooperate or become insignificant. I can't help but think that this strategy will damage their economy in the long run, but for now they are doing pretty well. Kudos to them for being one of few countries that actually manage to resist the massive influence of the US. If the PRC hadn't been protectionist, the Chinese would be using Google and Facebook just like the rest of us.
- netcan 12y agoThis doesn't really make sense in this case. Facebook & Google have chinese alternatives. The alternative to Windows 8 is presumably some older Windows.
- cushychicken 12y agoI'd say that's correct - XP is all over the place in China.
- glasslion 12y agoNot true, in the government.
- willvarfar 12y agoRed Flag Linux is, I think, defunct; but they can copy Red Star OS from North Korea?
- chilledheart 12y ago
- BuildTheRobots 12y agoGermany did similar 9 months ago; except they specifically state the TPM is _not_ to be trusted [1] [1] http://www.zerohedge.com/contributed/2013-08-26/german-government-confirms-key-entities-not-use-windows-8-tpm-20-fearing-cont http://www.zerohedge.com/contributed/2013-08-26/german-gover...
- rainmaking 12y agoOh this is great, this seems to be the most plausible reason.
- mcintyre1994 12y agoWow, I think I somehow missed what TPM actually does, if "The goal is Digital Rights Management and computer security" as stated in the article that sounds horrible. A backdoor for the USA and hardware-level DRM, great.
- ds9 12y agoThat's actually a contradiction. DRM and security are mutually exclusive. The level of control that enables a remote party to "trust" a computer makes it impossible for the owner to have a rational basis for trusting it. For security you have to have the possibility of complete information and control at every moment, and that is exactly what DRM is designed to exclude.
- sidmkp96 12y agoThis link won't open up in Safari 7.0.3. Every time I try, CPU shoots up to 100% and nothing happens. Works fine in FF though.
- ntakasaki 12y agoIs Windows 7 banned too? Otherwise this doesn't make much sense regarding the so called security reason. EOL for Windows 7 is 2020, EOL for Windows 8 is 2023. If security is the real issue, they should be banning Windows 7 in favor of Windows 8 (or perhaps Windows altogether in favor of some OS that is a lesser target for malware etc., but I don't see any hint of this).
- higherpurpose 12y agoOr maybe it does: http://news.techworld.com/security/3465259/is-windows-8-a-trojan-horse-for-the-nsa-the-german-government-thinks-so/ http://news.techworld.com/security/3465259/is-windows-8-a-tr...
- ntakasaki 12y agoThat article makes even less sense. It confuses UEFI secure boot with TPM and Bitlocker. Also claims UEFI secure boot makes things less secure by locking out other OSes. What?! Can't find the link right now, but if I remember correctly, they backtracked on those claims about Windows 8 and made them more general about OSes. There is nothing in Windows 7 that makes it more secure or less vulnerable than Windows 8.
- higherpurpose 12y agoUEFI caused a ton of problems for Linux operating systems in the early days, and it took Linux vendors to compromise on getting the keys from Microsoft to make it work for the most part. So that part of the analysis was quite correct.
- glasslion 12y agoNo. Actually any Windows 8 computer bought by Chinese government will be downgraded to Windows 7.
- ntakasaki 12y agoIf that's the case then it's not about security. It's not about saving money. It's not about dependence on MS/US software. That makes it similar to most corporate places where Windows 7 is preferred and Windows 8 is "banned" because of both the big UI changes in Windows 8 that are touch and consumer oriented plus compatibility testing etc. with software.
- seanliuxx 12y agoBoth peers are bad, but hate the ideas to make this proceed. Also a funny to find another post that "Game of thrones author" working on DOS... Lol http://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/windows-not-coming-game-thrones-author-writes-dos-n105156 http://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/windows-not-coming-gam...
- xiaq 12y agoChinese here, would love to share some observations: 1) It's likely that the ban on Windows 8 has nothing to do with "power-saving". To me power-saving is just a buzzword in the title of the notice. 2) This notice is concerned with a specific round of bid. So it's not an administrative order, but rather a requirement list for the bidders. If I understand correctly this only applies to computers to be purchased during the bid. I'm not sure about how large the scale of the bid is, though; it may affect 1% of the government computer installations, or 99%. Either is possible without further information. 3) This notice doesn't say anything about Windows 7. What this means that bidders are allowed to provide computers pre-installed with Windows 7 and IMO this is pretty likely. Yes there are conspiracy advocates who would rather stick with Windows XP (I have never been able to understand their reasoning...), but I believe the computer vendors are more sensible. After all it's they who have to provide customer service. 4) This notice is also only concerned with the pre-installed OS. It's totally possible that the government officials may replace the OS with anything they like (which are, unfortunately, most likely pirate copies). I don't know about the central government, but it's common practice in local governments. The central government has very weak executive power when it comes to such detailed things. (Why bother enforcing such regulations after all?)
- denom 12y agoInteresting, given that the US Government itself does not run windows 8 yet.
- lotsofmangos 12y agoThen it follows that there must be US government procurement documents that ban Windows 8 on government computers, as it would be part of the spec. Perhaps someone should tell Reuters, they might have forgot in all the excitement.
- Retric 12y agoThat's not how things work. US procurement is not going to leave the OS choice up to a third party so they may require win 7 but there not going to ban win 8. If for no other reason that offline computers are 'secure' enough for testing and the government has a lot of proprietary apps.
- whoismua 12y agoIIRC, large customers--and China's Govt is one of them--have access to the Windows source code so safety and security probably aren't the top concern. They can surely audit the code, they have the expertise, money and manpower. My guess is that US and China went to war over cyber-spying...
- Zigurd 12y agoNobody but Microsoft and perhaps the US government has access to all the Windows source code, and nobody outside of Microsoft has the ability to build a runnable Windows.
- shmerl 12y agoThey probably worry about backdoors?
- deleted 12y ago[deleted]
- njharman 12y agoI'm somewhat surprised they didn't do this long ago. Unless they have the source I'm surprised any government uses any operating system.
- ant_sz 12y agoI think even windows 8 is banned, the government may still keep buying win7 PCs. Although there are many company in this country are developing linux distribution such as Deepin, the products are still far from easy to use. But as a Chinese I support this action because this may contribute to free this country of a heavy dependence of MicroSoft's products. Let the younger generation knows there exists not only one operating system in the world will help improve this countries' average computer knowledge.
- sirdogealot 12y agoTo be honest I am surprised that they ever sanctioned the use of Windows software at all in China given their general distrust of the west.
- leccine 12y agoWhat they mean is, you are not supposed to install a paid copy of Windows 8 on any government computer. (downvoters, hint irony)
- superduper33 12y agotl;dr Windows 8 is a piece of crap.
- Thiz 12y agoA super power that doesn't have their own OS is not really a super power.
- nitrobeast 12y agoIt is very likely that the Chinese government prefers Windows 7 to Windows 8. Why the fuss about XP, protectionism?
- jiyinyiyong 12y agoThere's also a discuss on Zhihu (think it as Chinese Quora..). Some assumptions: http://www.zhihu.com/question/23831190?rf=23837828 http://www.zhihu.com/question/23831190?rf=23837828 * maybe its for pushing Ubuntu Kylin OS to market * The gap on user interface might bring difficulties in govenment * might be some time bofore the source code is examined. * might be new startups on this market
- tom_jones 12y agoThe idea that competing governments, financial institutions, telecommunications and energy companies, etc use the same software – when it’s proven that there is no such thing as real security – is ludicrous. Perhaps Microsoft’s next big profit will be through developing unique software for single government and corporate entities with connectivity for general information but totally secure for trade and government secrets and personal identification.
- jeveloper 12y agoIt's definitely political and its no secret. However, they should follow what city of Munich did by systematically switching to Linux (MuLix) http://www.cio.co.uk/news/change-management/munich-open-source-completed-successfully/ http://www.cio.co.uk/news/change-management/munich-open-sour...