filePro and Vista

[Fairlight]

Confusious (Walter Vaughan) say:
> Fairlight wrote:
>
> > I don't know why anyone would willingly leap into Vista, however.
> > Windows 2000 is now in a second phase of its life, but even that is
> > supported through mid 2010, as announced my MS themselves.  XP should
> > likely be good through 2015 before EOL.
>
> Remember you don't own XP, just a limited time license to use unless you
> purchase a retail license, and even then it's a right to use for three(?)
> serial, non concurrent installs. IANAL but its much closer to a lease, or
> rather its a game with WGA that m$ is playing. They (M$) say before they
> EOL XP they will let you download a "self activating patch" so you can
> continue to use.

It's that way will all software packages--the license to use part.  The
term varies from 1yr to EOL to infinite depending on the software, but you
never own it.

Are you trying to say that Vista abandoned the license model and you own
it?  If not, I'm not getting your point.  Unless it's that they had to
produce -something- to appease idiots that caved and bought into the whole
WGA argument and "platform", in which case it's still a bad idea from the
get-go.  Rereading your paragraph, that may have been your point--cost
justification.

Thing is, until there's a new generation of hardware that requires a new
HAL, there really isn't a -need- for a new Windows.  People are tossing
money at nothing for no reason...or worse, in the case of WGA, tossing good
money after bad just so they don't "waste" the previous expenditure.

> Right. And how does that benefit m$ shareholders? Don't you know how
> dangerous it is to use XP on a network...

In a portable WiFi DHCP context, XP SP2 is safer than 2000 Pro.  You can at
least turn it on and patch it before getting infected, and compared to most
MS products it's paranoid in its first-line security at the network stack.
Too bad the applications and half the architecture (DCOM, et al) subvert
this.  But overall, you can safely take a brand new SP2 laptop to a hotel
and update it over wireless without undue worry.  Conversely, I won't do a
2000 install without being behind a hardware firewall.

> All I want for christmas is a bunch of Mac Mini's with 3 Ghz dual core
> CPU's...

Don't think Apple's tantamount to automatic immunity.  They've been
infected before, and due to the BSD underpinnings of OS/X, it's now a
larger target because the underlying system is much better and more widely
understood compared to their proprietary Mac OS Systems 6-9.  Security
forecasts indicate a probability of steadily rising attacks in future.  As
the adoption curve rises, so will the potential security exposure.

I wouldn't get too cocky about running OS/X.  Nothing is immune.  Nothing.
Better, yes.  Perfect, no.

mark->
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