Microsoft’s “latest and greatest” isn’t even able to get a larger share than the acknowledged failure that is Vista. I’ve been telling clients that Windows 7 is a worthy replacement for XP. Nice to see some independent data to back up my thoughts.
Category: Microsoft
As the world’s various media outlets start talking breathlessly about how dangerous UPNP is anyone who has talked to me(every one of my clients knows about this) I’ve always maintained UPNP was a huge security hole. I’ve seen Microsoft among others talk about how it’s not a security threat to allow something inside your network to automatically open holes into your firewall without the network admin’s knowledge. me and others(like Stever Gibson0 have been vindicated once again. UPNP has ALWAYS been a a hackers dream…it just took someone a while to prove to the rest of the world what the security guys have been saying base on common sense for years now. Everyone NEEDS to test their routers now. You can do it here. if you fail the test please contact ECC immediately. Sophos explains the danger in this blog post.
Tens of millions of network-enabled devices including routers, printers, media servers, IP cameras, smart TVs and more can be attacked over the Internet because of dangerous flaws in their implementation of the UPnP Universal Plug and Play protocol standard, security researchers from Rapid7 said Tuesday in a research paper.UPnP allows networked devices to discover each other and automatically establish working configurations that enable data sharing, media streaming, media playback control and other services. In one common scenario a file-sharing application running on a computer can tell a router via UPnP to open a specific port and map it to the computer’s local network address in order to open its file-sharing service to Internet users.UPnP is intended to be used primarily inside local networks. However, security researchers from Rapid7 found over 80 million unique public IP Internet Protocol addresses that responded to UPnP discovery requests over the Internet, during scans performed last year from June to November.
via Researcher: UPnP flaws expose millions of networked devices to remote attacks | PCWorld.
I have a client’s laptop and he has windows 8 on it….of course he hates it. So i advised either take the laptop back or buy windows 7 and upgrade to Windows 7. I’ve been trying for a couple of hours just to get into the UEFI in this thing…finally found it in the insanity that is windows 8. Once i finally got it to boot to the dvd…guess what? The screen shifts to a red box that says secure boot failed operating system is invalid. This machine is so locked down YOU CAN’T INSTALL ANYTHING OTHER THAN THE PREINSTALLED WINDOWS 8. So now my clients have something to think about:
1. Stick with Windows 8.
2. Take the machine back
3. Buy an Apple
4. Have ecc build you a tower that doesn’t have this crazy lockin.
5. Hope the vendor gave you an option to kill secure boot so you have control of your computer.
Luckily in this case i was able to kill secure boot so i could wax the hard drive and put a real operating system on the machine.
The team behind the Samba Project has released version 4.0 of its open source Windows interoperability software suite, the first version to offer full compatibility with Microsoft’s Active Directory protocols.
The Samba stack is by far the most popular solution for networking non-Microsoft platforms with Windows machines, but previous versions only provided Windows NT Domain Controller functionality.
According to the Samba Team’s press release, Samba 4 can now act as an Active Directory Domain Controller and offer services to any currently supported versions of client-side Windows, including Windows 8.
Servers running the new Samba support typical Active Directory features, including Group Policy and Roaming Profiles. They can also integrate with Microsoft Exchange servers, and they can even be managed using Microsoft’s own administration tools.
In addition, the new version offers full interoperability with Microsoft Active Directory servers. A Samba 4 server can be joined to an existing Active Directory domain, and Microsoft Active Directory Domain Controllers can join a Samba 4 server.
What all of this means is that for the first time, organizations have the option of replacing one or more Microsoft Active Directory servers – currently priced starting at $501 apiece for the small business version and scaling up to the Moon – with alternatives based on 100 per cent free software, via Samba 4.0 running on Linux or some other free OS.
via Samba 4 arrives with full Active Directory support • The Register.
An interesting Article and one that bears watching with Windows 8. I’m not moving to it…
Scenario is that you have external Hard Drive that you were using in Mac OS X as perhaps a Time Machine backup drive and you now want to erase this drive in Windows. But you find that you cannot remove the 200MB EFI System partition. Here is how:1On the command prompt type diskpart and answer to any possible UAC prompt.2On the new diskpart prompt, type list disk. Note the Disk Number column.3 Type, select disk no. with no. being the partition you wish to delete. Usually partition 0 and with those 200 MB of size4 Finish by typing, clean.This should only take a short moment and it will be complete. There is no message letting you know this has been done. Just quit from the command prompt after a moment.You should have a fresh hard drive ready for format and Windows use.
So this OS lives online. Considering the lack of password strength I’ve seen just in my clientbase alone…this one is going to lead not only to live.com hacks but now you’ll be able to easily compromised ANY Windows 8 machine…anywhere. This “feature” alone should make Windows 8 a total non-stater for any business that is concerned about privacy or data disclosure regulations.
You can now log into any Windows 8 PC with a Microsoft ID. Boom: your wallpaper, online mail accounts, contacts, photos and SkyDrive contents are instantly available. (SkyDrive is Microsoft’s free seven-gigabyte online hard drive.)
This is going tob e the next Vista but for a different reason. The tile interface I can handle..however Windows 8 is a badly done hybrid. There’s the tile interface and then the regular interface and Win8 jumps back and forth between the two. What MS should have done is made the tiles for mobile and the modified desktop for well…desktops. if you aren’t on a touchscreen the desktop experience is now a jarring, undecided experience. What’s worse is server 2012 is also cursed with this undecided interface as well. Hit the link below this excerpt for the full details.
This may be the biggest week in Microsoft’s 37-year history. The company is releasing its very first computer the Surface tablet, a new phone operating system Windows Phone 8, and, believe it or not, two PC operating systems.RelatedState of the Art: Sleek Tablet, but Clumsy Software October 24, 2012Enlarge This Image Stuart GoldenbergEnlarge This Image Internet Explorer 10.Enlarge This Image The new operating system is partly designed for touch screens. I’m not talking about Windows 8 and Windows RT, which are, in fact, two new and distinct operating systems from Microsoft. I mean the two different worlds within Windows 8 alone, one designed primarily for touch screens, the other for mouse and keyboard. Individually, they are excellent — but you can’t use them individually. Microsoft has combined them into a superimposed, muddled mishmash called Windows 8, which goes on sale Friday at prices ranging from $15 to $40, depending on the offer and version.You can easily imagine how Microsoft got here. “PC sales have slowed,” some executive must have said. “This is a new age of touch screens! We need a fresh approach, a new Windows. Something bold, fluid and finger-friendly.”“Well, hold on,” someone must have countered. “We can’t forget the 600 million regular mouse-driven PCs. We also need to update Windows 7 for them!”And then things went terribly wrong.“Hey, I know!” somebody piped in. “Let’s combine those two Windows versions into one. One OS for all machines. Everybody’s happy!”Whoops.Let’s tackle each version one at a time. A note: I have written a how-to manual for Windows 8 for an independent publisher; it was neither commissioned by nor written in cooperation with Microsoft.