[KLUG Advocacy] Re: nice article on Windows XP

[Mike Williams]

>Quoting Sanjay Chigurupati <Sanjay.Chigurupati@lntinfotech.com>:
>
>  
>
>>check this out
>>
>>http://www.hevanet.com/peace/microsoft.htm
>>    
>>
>
>I've only scanned this, but I fail to see the authors point.  He states:
>
>"Not only does the new policy show that Microsoft believes it can make changes
>to its software at any time without review, but the company has shown that it
>believes it can force those changes on the user."
>
>Well, guess what.... they believe this because it is true, for both legal and
>efficacious reasons,  by contract that *EVERY* XP user has agreed to.  It is
>*THEIR* software after all.  The use just bought a license to use it, that
>license is a contract with terms, etc... like every contact.
>
>"If the huge change in direction from Windows 98 is continued, it seems
>reasonable to worry that future versions of Windows could become more dependent
>on Microsoft computers than Windows XP is now. "
>
>Reasonable fear?  They've stated that this is true.  Passport, Palladium, etc...
>
>  
>
Once again, I agree with Adam.  You could argue (as some have) that 
there's no point in creating new protocols like the help system when 
standard ones like HTTP could do the job, but the "help by Internet" 
system is the least of several evils in my opinion.  Options 2 and 3 
that I can think of are to have no online help beyond what is currently 
installed as documentation, or having a few more gigs worth of installed 
documentation that 99.9% of the users will never need.  And that stuff 
will need to be updated (again, by connecting to Microsoft) or it will 
get more and more stale.  While the new protocol for the help system may 
be unnecessary, in principle it's nothing more than an easy way to find 
support.Microsoft.com.

I suppose the Windows Media Player bit is a tiny bit disturbing only 
because you can't turn it off.  There's nothing wrong, though, with 
checking the Net for title information so it can display it.  That's 
what most music players and CD burning programs do to display album art 
and track list. 

Difficulty configuring a firewall for Windows XP:  Well, it's a 
complicated piece of software, folks.  The Internet is out there, it is 
useful, and any operating system that doesn't accept this will soon go 
the way of the dodo.  Maybe the same stuff could be done with fewer 
protocols, but that's Microsoft's decision to make. 

The author also complained about both security vulnerabilities and 
automatic downloading of patches.  Well one is the solution to the 
other.  Microsoft assumed (and worm outbreaks have proven beyond any 
doubt) that if left to themselves most users will not patch their 
systems or secure them properly, so XP does it for them.  You can turn 
this off too if you know better, but defaulting to automatic patching is 
a good thing. 

While I didn't read the entire thing either, the idea was pretty clear 
for what I did read.  The author started with a bunch of disclaimers 
about how he is NOT anti-Microsoft in any way, but the article was 
complete MS bashing.  While I don't particularly like them either, I at 
least confine my complaints to stuff that is specific to Windows.  At 
least half of the complaints I read were not problems with Windows but 
problems with any modern, complicated operating system.  I wonder if the 
author's hypocrisy was intentional or if he's just that deluded.