Posted on 03/13/2007 1:50:43 AM PDT by Swordmaker
In a new setback to Microsoft's public sector business, the influential National Institute of Standards and Technology has banned the software maker's Windows Vista operating system from its internal computing networks, according to an agency document obtained by InformationWeek.
Tech staffers at NIST, a part of the Department of Commerce charged with promulgating technology standards, are scheduled to meet on April 10 in Gaithersburg, Md., to discuss their concerns about the new operating system, which Microsoft released to consumers in January amid much fanfare and to businesses in December with lesser flair.
According to the formal agenda for the meeting, NIST technology workers will attend a session entitled "Windows Vista Security" to discuss "the current ban of this operating system on NIST networks." NIST officials weren't immediately available to comment.
Word of NIST's Windows Vista ban comes a week after InformationWeek revealed that the U.S. Department of Transportation and the Federal Aviation Administration have both imposed similar blackouts on the operating system, as well as on Microsoft Office 2007 and Internet Explorer 7.
FAA CIO Dave Bowen told InformationWeek that he may forego upgrading the aviation safety agency's computers to Microsoft's latest offerings in favor of desktops running some combination of Linux and Google Apps, Google's new online suite of office productivity tools.
Among other things, Bowen said he is concerned that Windows Vista may be incompatible with many software applications already in use at the FAA.
Goodness . . .
if they keep this up, Microslop might have to join the real world and clean up it's act.
NIST = creator of (non-DoD) federal government computer security standards.
This is quite bad for MS.
Ism't the standard rule for IT shops "nothing from MS until the third release?" (and all that means is that the first General Availability release is really still a beta). No big deal, really, except to the hypefest that is MSM. And if you think Apple doesn't patch the daylights out of their software, you just haven't found the log file directory yet.
This seems to be more of a MS v. Linux match than an MS v. Apple, since the Feds largely use non-Apple Intel-chip machines.
Personally I have a guild-loyalty to the Unix-like microcomputer OS's: both the Free BSD kernel which underlies Mac OS X and Minux, an OS created for student exercises that Linus Torvald bootstrapped into the first version of Linux, were written by category theorists (the branch of mathematics I grew up in, though depending on who you ask I'm now considered a topologist or an algebraist). (I think a lot of category theorists feel that way--I went to a Festschrift conference for one of the noted categorists in Australia, and every laptop in the room was either a Mac or running Linux as its default OS.)
For security, the open-source model, in which every CS type, including the folks who call themselves hackers, but distinguish that from 'crackers'--the bad sort of hacker who does malicious things--get to pick over the guts of the OS, find flaws and propose fixes, is infinitely superior to the proprietary software model MS's business strategy depends on.
(I also hate the fact that virtually every default setting on MS products is the one I regard as stupid, and that the places to change the defaults are always buried several layers down in counterintuitively named menus. But that's just a matter of taste, and as the Romans used to say, "De gustibus non disputandum.")
I am fetting frustrated with Windows as well. I can't stand the fact that they restart my machine whenever they feel like it.
My desktop has lots of pages open. It's cluttered but that's the way I like it. When MS Windows XP Pro decides to reboot over night, it's like someone came in and cleaned my desk and put everything away or threw it away.
Then I have to search the history listing to see what I had opened last but but it's a pain because it shows a trail of my web surfing.
Is there any way to get Microsoft to keep their hands off my Desktop? Or at least put it back the way it was?
Try taking your case off and (sorry for the obnoxious Clintonian image) giving your machine a blow-out with some of that canned air. If you see dust clouds, check your vents and fans (especially around the graphics card). I use a small artist's paintbrush to fine-tune the cleaning. Just stay away from static dusters. And don't forget to ground yourself by keeping in contact with the metal parts of the computer case frame.
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