Vista or Not

[mbpark]

TW,

I invite you to try any app that relies on a serial port and DOS-style timing APIs to do its work. I also invite you to try some of the older direct APIs (which were part of previous standards) for direct printer port access .

When I worked in the controls field, we had all machines that had Windows 95 booted into DOS mode for a reason. Windows was not (and still isn't) a hard real-time system. OS/2 was quite better at handling timing, and you had to rewrite everything to use the Windows API and pray that it worked. Many good apps were written close to the hardware in DOS to get the timing right.

However, change is good. Many of those apps have been rewritten for other OSes. Windows is still a decent SCADA platform, but not much else .

Windows Vista is a good step forward for enhanced security. However, we need to evaluate how the product works on the market for a few months before drawing any conclusions. Remember, Windows XP was the most secure Windows ever (as said by MS themselves).

There will be victims of this approach, as there have been at every previous generation (Novell, WordPerfect, Ashton-Tate), however there will be new software vendors to replace them.

Originally Posted by tw

Clearly to gain security, then backwards compatibility is at risk. However previously we were told MS-DOS applications would not work on NT. Some did not only because they were written in violation of previous standards for code writing. But most all did contrary to the rumors.

As I understand it, Microsoft had a 'change of heart' concerning Windows. They invited security experts into a large meeting. As a result of MS 'new attitude', this meeting is said to have continued all through the night and into morning. MS was given an earful.

Some things are said to have changed with Vista. MS has provided security coders deeper access into NT's core functions. MS's Operating System group is now working more cooperatively with non-MS application software vendors. This would have happened earlier had MS been broken up. As a result of 'turning the ship', even the head of MS's Operating Systems group lost his job. He could not implement the change.

So yes, Vista is the beginning of big changes. History says we will learn what really does and does not work with Vista. History also says some hardware manufacturers are so anti-innovative as to not adapt their drivers, properly, to Vista security requirements. Yes there will be some software that cannot make the cut. History says, at this point, we don't know how much 'legacy compatibility' will be lost.

My guess is that security enhancements to Vista will be as major (only in the Operating Systems group) as the need to adpat to Internet was maybe a decade earlier. Back then, MS was on the verge of going like DEC only because MS had ignored the Internet - until some MS employees kept Bill up all night showing him this thing called Internet. Same could be said of MS Operating System group ignoring security for too long.

Products will 'fall off the deck' as the SS Microsoft turns abruptly - as did MS mailbox based programs and Netbios, NetBeui, etc before MS discovered the internet (without Al Gore's help).