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Ms Delio;
I hope I am not taking liberties in using a direct
Email; but, I was curious about what you had written and thought you might
be interested in my thoughts on your article entitled "Worm Exploits Weak Link: PC Users".
Microsoft is exactly analogous to the stereotypical
image of a poorly run government. They have gotten so large and
cumbersome; with no organized oversight or Q/C, that sometimes I wonder
how any of their products still work and this concept is easily
demonstrable if one looks closely.
If one downloads and installs a "WindowsUpdate"
component manually, it is never listed as having been installed by the
site! I reported this to them as a bug almost two years ago, and
haven't seen it fixed or even the courtesy of a reply (other than an
autoresponder).
Older users learned long ago that updates or newer
versions didn't necessarilly work. I will go to great lengths not to
install any update or version upgrade that I do not have stored locally on
my drive. IE4, as an example, blew up many a computer and, when one
called Microsoft, users were told to reinstall it, That was mighty
hard to do when it was downloaded and installed via the internet, the
download obliterated itself during installation, and IE no longer
works
Anecdotal and aside; but illustrative, the most common
problem with Windows 95 was that the CD would stop working and, when the
user did what Microsoft suggested, they were merrily presented with "
Insert the Windows 95 CD and press any key when ready".
And new users still suffer. Updates for one part
of Windows break some other part. The HTML Help security patch broke one
woman's computer such that she couldn't print from IE or her Email.
Not so bad until she tells you that she gets her company's bank deposits
via Email and has been printing a copy every day, for years.
IE6, which WindowsUpdate tries to ram down everybody's
throat, breaks Windows 98 and ME ( some Win 2k's also) by installing
files for WindowsXP. It's an insidious break, too; one that causes
almost every application to blow up, seemingly at random and often eating
whatever file the user is working on. Again, I know Microsoft knows
about this ( I told them over a year ago, with technical details) and it
is all over the net, if you look; but, you won't even get the faintest
whisper at Support, Technet, or MSDN. Occam's razor, in
fact, concludes that this is a deliberate conspiracy to
force users to upgrade.
Even Microsoft's own presenter made a joke about
WindowsUpdate problems during their presentation on Server 2003 and the
features involving local updates wherein users get their updates from the
local server after IT has tested them. Hmmmm?
So, yes, I encounter users who have tons of updates
ready to install; but have never installed any of them, and users that got
annoyed and turned it off altogether. I also encounter users that
don't realize that the virus being reported on CNN has anything;
whatsoever, to do with their computer.
There are also; though, millions of users that have been
bit, sometimes quite hard, by Microsoft's updates and upgrades that are
inclined to never upgrade, or, to wait a few months and let other folks be
the guinea pigs.
Since our initial subject was virus related, I will
close with the mention that good, current, antiviral software catches 95+%
of the attacks attempting to exploit the security flaws and pursuing that
end to the masses would result in a much safer computing environment for
far less effort.
Sincerely,
Davis M McCarn P.S. What do you think of this statement from the president of a local
competitor: "No, we don't check their computers. Viruses are good
for business!" |
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