Geek musings
Monday, 23 December 2002 07:57![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
pneI found a TCPA / Palladium FAQ linked from somewhere and had a read through it.
That made me a little more insecure. I'm already a bit wary of buying WinXP and am trying to avoid it, largely because I think I shouldn't have to put up with re-registering just because I upgraded my computer or because I re-installed my system after it crashed.
On the other hand, it's attractive because it's got better Unicode support than WinNT (which we have at work) and much better than Win98 (what I have at home)... but then Unicode support in Win9x is pretty much nonexistent. And it's also said to be one of the most stable Windows versions.
So will Palladium versions of Windows come with so many attractive features that people will ignore the difficulties? Or will it be a slippery slope that's not difficult at first but once they've got customers locked in, they'll turn them on? Or am I just being paranoid?
People can get used to a lot of things, I think. A bit like boiling frogs.
I wonder whether this is an opportunity to switch operating systems.
(Oh, and I also don't believe that TCPA will get rid of spam and viruses. The "spam" argument is only valid if all people sending you legitimate email sign their messages on another TCPA platform, which will take a while since not everyone upgrades, and is possible now with something such as PGP already. Otherwise you'll get legitimate non-signed mail that you can't distinguish from spam just on the basis of a signature. And the FAQ makes the interesting point that spammers will just get TCPA machines and sign their spam.
Another interesting point was that nearly all software gets hacked eventually if it's "interesting" enough for hackers to do so... and what would happen if a fake revocation certificate were posted for the BIOS code for popular mainboards and millions of computers fail to boot up because Fritz thinks the computer is insecure?)
That made me a little more insecure. I'm already a bit wary of buying WinXP and am trying to avoid it, largely because I think I shouldn't have to put up with re-registering just because I upgraded my computer or because I re-installed my system after it crashed.
On the other hand, it's attractive because it's got better Unicode support than WinNT (which we have at work) and much better than Win98 (what I have at home)... but then Unicode support in Win9x is pretty much nonexistent. And it's also said to be one of the most stable Windows versions.
So will Palladium versions of Windows come with so many attractive features that people will ignore the difficulties? Or will it be a slippery slope that's not difficult at first but once they've got customers locked in, they'll turn them on? Or am I just being paranoid?
People can get used to a lot of things, I think. A bit like boiling frogs.
I wonder whether this is an opportunity to switch operating systems.
(Oh, and I also don't believe that TCPA will get rid of spam and viruses. The "spam" argument is only valid if all people sending you legitimate email sign their messages on another TCPA platform, which will take a while since not everyone upgrades, and is possible now with something such as PGP already. Otherwise you'll get legitimate non-signed mail that you can't distinguish from spam just on the basis of a signature. And the FAQ makes the interesting point that spammers will just get TCPA machines and sign their spam.
Another interesting point was that nearly all software gets hacked eventually if it's "interesting" enough for hackers to do so... and what would happen if a fake revocation certificate were posted for the BIOS code for popular mainboards and millions of computers fail to boot up because Fritz thinks the computer is insecure?)
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no subject
Date: Monday, 23 December 2002 08:15 (UTC)While WinXP does appear to have slightly more Unicode things in it than Win2k, Win2k certainly suffices even for linguaphiles like us. Also, Win2k is more stable (from what I've heard, at least) and it doesn't have all the unnecessary Schnickschnack (still looking for a good English word for that) which bloats WinXP.
Win2K
Date: Monday, 23 December 2002 08:19 (UTC)True, Unicode support appears to be better under Win2K (for example, apparently 2K supports Unicode Plane 1 using UTF-16 surrogates while NT doesn't), but (a) apparently some software (especially games) doesn't run as well under Win2K as under the Win9x series or even WinXP and (b) I don't think Win2K is available any more.
(b) above is the big'un -- if it were still around, I might consider buying that version. But I don't think that Microsoft sells it any more now that XP has been out for months.
So I agree with your evaluation but it doesn't help me a lot :(
Re: Win2K
Date: Monday, 23 December 2002 08:50 (UTC)Re: Win2K
Date: Monday, 23 December 2002 08:55 (UTC)And in the case of my home machine, the system I could potentially upgrade.
However, at the moment it looks as if I'll be remaining at Win98SE for quite a while. As long as I can, I suppose.
no subject
Date: Tuesday, 24 December 2002 05:59 (UTC)I've been using WinXP for I-dunno-how-long, now... I think, since beginning of this year, or so... And I am very content with it. It is indeed very stable. While my former Win98 crashed with a rate of about .5 to 3 times per day, WinXP hardly goes bye-bye in 2 weeks. Well, I dunno about Win2k, though. Of what I've heard, is, that the menus and options and all that stuff in WinXP are very different from the other Windowses. But you'll get the hang of it. I think,
Hope that helped a bit.
no subject
Date: Tuesday, 24 December 2002 16:47 (UTC)I guess so. I am having trouble staying objective when it comes to Win2k vs. WinXP. I usually try to force myself to remember that I don't really know WinXP at all. It's just that what I've seen of it, other than Schnickschnack, was meaningless error messages, esp. the one we got when we were trying to set up Internet Connection Sharing on your computer.
I am not claiming that Win2k has better menus or dialogs than WinXP. I can see how some of it gets confusing if you don't really know very much about computers or networks. WinXP's wizards seem promising - if only they'd actually do their job, which they didn't when we tried, and if only they'd coexist with the dialogs they've replaced. I like Win2k because I, personally, have the expertise to perform changes in settings myself and do not need wizards, so I'd rather prefer to search through a few dialogs to find the option I need if it means I can still have access to every option there is without having to go through entire wizards.