How many different consumer online platforms does Microsoft have right now?

• Bing
• MSN
• Windows Live
• XBOX Live
• Zune Marketplace

That’s just a quick braindump; there are probably more, but for the purposes of my quick bout with insanity, this should suffice.  The way I see it, Microsoft is rapidly losing branding focus, and while this doesn’t sound like something that matters in this age of Web 2.name-it-whatever, it is an issue for Microsoft, and it extends beyond the world of Microsoft’s online properties.

Jump to see why I think this is becoming a problem. Yeah, it’s long, but this is one of the few times when an overly long post is justified.

Bing, MSN, and Windows Live share the same origin, which is to say, they all came from The Microsoft Network. MSN came about as a name because it used to be an ISP, though that’s in the distant online past. Later, MSN transformed into a general online content and services platform, with MSN Messenger, the MSN launch page, MSN Search, et al. finding themselves all a part of one platform.

Windows Live found its way into existence after being toyed around as “start.com” (which you’ll now notice redirects to Bing) and later coming into existence as just plain “Live” before becoming Windows Live down the road. While MSN was designed to deliver predefined content much like Yahoo’s default portal, the idea behind Live was to deliver a personalized services experience, from a customizable launch page to various user services such as Messenger. The justification for the Windows Live branding was that Windows Live as a platform was an extension of the Windows experience.

Bing was officially launched June 3, 2009. Before Bing, Microsoft’s search efforts started under MSN before progressing to Live, Windows Live, and then back to Live again in the form of “Live Search". The name itself was chosen because the guys with Kumo (the testing name for Bing) “needed a brand that was as fresh and new as [their] approach. It needed to be like the product — optimized for the Internet.” In other words, it’s yet another web 2.0 name, though thankfully, I seem to have at least been somewhat wrong about the name being a major problem.

So, the end result of this is a jumbled series of online platforms which accomplish only marginally different tasks. MSN is a generic online launch page, while Bing is Microsoft’s version of the plain search page. The customizable launch page concept is now kinda-sorta over at home.live.com, while any further-personal services and extra Windows apps from Microsoft have been tucked under the Windows Live brand name. I can see the logic, but unless Microsoft’s goal is to make some properties look like they’re from Microsoft while making others look as distant as possible while still retaining some association, this sort of fractured online presence just feels much more confusing than it needs to be.

Do you see Google squaring fundamentally similar yet differently functional apps away under vastly different names? GMail (Google Mal), Google Shopping, Google News, iGoogle, Google Google Google Google Great you get the idea. They’re all people-services, and as a result, they all share the same root name. There was a time when Google was slightly branding-confuzzled (froogle), but they’ve rightfully straightened out.

The reason for why I’m busy throwing gray matter at the wall this morning, though, is that there’s just no reason for the Windows brand to fall victim to the same fate. Once upon a time, Windows meant something. The name was directly related to the concept behind the user interface itself, and this has held steadfastly true (the exception being Windows Live, but Windows Live was meant as a tie-in for Windows users) up until Mobile World Congress this year.

Windows Phone 7 is exactly the kind of gradual brandicide that Microsoft really doesn’t need to be committing, whether it’s against Windows or against Zune. I’m inclined to see it as being the eventual downfall of the term “Windows” as a meaningful Microsoft brand for one simple reason:

Do you see any windows in the UI?

Nope. Neither do I. In fact, I see a data-centric user interface in Windows Phone 7, whereas the entire user experience in Windows (including Windows Mobile) up until now has been function/application-centric. With a UI which is so fundamentally different from the original concept of the brand itself, what’s the point of even calling it “Windows”-anything at all? There are no windows, there is no traditional window-oriented multitasking, and the entire UI is many miles away from the Windows concept. In fact, I can explain exactly where this name came from in a few simple points:

• 7 has proven to be worth something in the consumer’s mind thanks to the success of Windows 7.
• Windows 7 and Windows Phone 7 sound similar
• A name close to Windows Mobile was needed so that people could associate it with its completely unrelated cousin without reminding people of the horrors of the old Windows Mobile platform, hence why it’s now Windows Phone.

That’s it. Microsoft essentially decided to take the cheap road and draw heavily from other successful brands despite simultaneously butchering the inherent meaning in the most important name in Microsoft’s history. Whether this was or wasn’t the conscious reason is beside the point; this is absolutely why the name was chosen.

Seriously, do you see any windows in that UI?

Speculation that Microsoft would release a Zune phone, in my opinion, was 100% correct. The only difference is that Microsoft decided to stay away from the Zune name in order to ensure its short-term success. The Windows Phone 7 UI is brilliant in execution, but the problem is that both the name and the UI concept are a huge risk. If Windows Phone 7’s roll-out doesn’t go as planned, if apps stay limited (Zune HD is a great example), or if  Microsoft flubs something up down the line beyond Windows Phone 7 (think Windows Phone 8), more than just that brand will be compromised. Furthermore, if Microsoft proves yet again to know what its doing with its mobile division upon the release of Windows Phone 8, 9, etc., then the brand will further dilute.

Microsoft needs to sort its branding priorities. In the online sector, I can understand the split between Windows Live and Bing, but I see no reason for MSN to be separate from either platform. It’s so closely related to both Windows Live and Bing that it can go under either as another subordinate property. On the flip side, keeping branding separate between Microsoft’s mobile and desktop properties would almost definitely be a better idea: Zune HD is a fantastic device which suffers from terrible advertising, while Windows Phone 7 is definitely not a Windows Phone at all. Zune Phone or Zune Mobile would almost definitely have been better names for the OS itself given the interface similarities (heck, just call it Zune OS. It’s not as if people don’t already know that Zune is a Microsoft mobile property anyway). Microsoft has the backing to make sure the Zune name becomes successful, but Microsoft’s marketing teams feel so compelled to keep some of their brands unnecessarily interwoven in order to ensure short-term success that they’re doing damage to the very foundation of the brands in question.

While Microsoft’s mobile product development teams did indeed have the guts to try something new and go metro, Microsoft’s mobile marketing teams seem to be unwilling to take risks (conversely, Microsoft’s online branding teams seem to be taking too many).

In short, name your similar apples apples and your similar oranges oranges, but don’t name your apples and oranges peaches.

Did I get it wrong? Drop me a line in the comments and I’ll either address your thoughts, edit accordingly, or both.

As the first of my interviews from PDC, I noticed that Loic Le Muer was quick to familiarize himself with me as a part of the interview. This fact coupled with his persistent praise for the Seesmic devs who worked on Seesmic for Windows have led me to believe that Seesmic might actually be one of the better small software companies in existence.

Loic demonstrated Seesmic for Windows at PDC 2009 during Tuesday’s keynote. The obvious difference between Seesmic for Windows and Seesmic Desktop (the AIR version) is that the Windows client is native and written on top of the .net CLR. The plus sides to this include far better performance figures, a more Windows-integrated UI, and a lower tendency to leak handles (and fill my ram). The only downside to this is that it’s Windows-only… well, until you realize that moving .net code from a Windows native environment to Silverlight is actually not nearly as bad as writing another app from scratch.

My interview with Loic takes a browse through Seesmic for Windows v. Seesmic Desktop. I also decided to run through Silverlight Seesmic with Loic during our quick block of time, and while the Silverlight version still requires some polish before going live, the Windows preview version is solid enough for everyone to take a look.

Both parts of the interview can be found below the read link. Blame YouTube for forcing me to split a 13 minute video.
My thanks goes to Andrew Lyle from neowin for manning the camera.

The interview with Dan Polivy from PDC 2008 can be found here.

1. The day after 7: perspective… and Brad Brooks (October 23, 2009) (Update: video brightened)
2. The Windows 7 tweet-up in New York City, Winners, etc. (October 24, 2009)
3. The Effects of Leaks: A Candid Interview (October 25, 2009)
4. Unfortunately, the Windows 7 Keynote Interview with  Thorsten Ganz cannot be published due to technical issues.
   

That’s it. Keep an eye on us for PDC!

Thursday evening, I attended and taped the tweet-up which occurred in the Antarctica Bar. Other pressies besides @conhopper (me) who attended include @withinrafael, @thurrott (who organized the event), @tom_warren, @edbott, @maryjofoley, and @inafried. The event can be described in the following concise bullets:

• It was very packed.
• We gave a lot of stuff away. The (almost) complete list of items is in the video.
• A lot of people walked away happy regardless of whether or not they actually won anything.
• Antarctica may have had their best business in a while. You’re welcome, guys!
• A few Microsofties came and contributed to the giving away of items. My thanks in particular goes to Chris Flores, but others were also involved when it came to securing some of the prizes.
• Everyone was generally stunned at how awesome this whole thing was.

In all honesty, this is the first time I’ve seen the power of twitter when it comes to organizing group attendances like this. The enthusiasm here was fantastic, and I met some truly wonderful people as a result (and signed a Kindle. That thing better see some good use).

It didn’t even matter that this was a group of Windows enthusiasts. The discussions ranged anywhere from tech to politics to economics and even to women (I didn’t pay attention to what the women were talking about). One geek even managed to score a girl’s number, and to him I issue a hearty salute for successfully debunking the butt of all jokes in geekdom, at least in his own world.

Anyway, this video here is a tribute to everyone who came even though the people you’ll see here are people who won a giveaway item at the tweet-up. I recorded other video from inside the event, though the question of practicality (do you guys want to see it? What is there to see besides people talking and Ed&Paul giving things away?) still lingers.

The video can be caught after the break.

1. Microsoft is fully shifting focus to Windows 7. Windows Vista, of which the sheer length of the development cycle was inversely related to the level of approval and favor it garnered as time passed, has turned into something of an elephant in the room for Microsoft employees. Using the same metaphor and finding an excuse to quote an anonymous Microsoft employee I overheard yesterday afternoon, Windows 7 is the equivalent of a reputational wrecking ball designed for the sole purpose of “getting that elephant the f*** out”; it was the first Windows consumer OS born almost entirely from what the user wanted (read: what the average user hated about Vista). Now that it’s out and it starts replacing what was a good OS blighted by pre-SP1 bugs with what is a good OS right from the get-go, Microsoft has switched into what’s essentially a massive damage control mode.
2. Adoption rates and momentum are high, at least according to an analysis by Rob Enderle. Based on his analysis of a study done independently from Microsoft by Laura DiDio and Sunbelt Software, he believes that Windows 7 adoption rates are “unmatched since Windows 2000” adoption rates almost a decade ago. Consumer adoption rates are also up there, with PCMag using the line “Windows 7 More Popular Than Harry Potter” to carry their point. Given that Windows 7 beat Harry Potter on Potter’s home turf, I’m going with the notion that PCMag and Amazon UK are right.
3. Apple created more ads specifically for launch day. Yes, that depressing and uninspired ad campaign which Apple has continued for the last 4 years saw three new additions to the lineup. That’s three new ads released on the same day, which makes sense given the massive dearth of negative press against Windows 7. When a competitor simultaneously launches three attack ads specifically for your product launch, it’s a sign of desperation and a good enough reason for you to pull out your grill and refill that propane tank.

Hey, it wasn’t just me. The vast majority of Engadget’s commentators happen to agree.

Despite the recession and the subdued projections stemming as a result, it’s fair to say that all of the excitement is actually making jobs easier. Microsoft’s PR teams have an easier time when products don’t suck, and the press can move on to fuming at something more important, like the name of the next celebrity’s adopted baby.

The benefit to you? Better apps, higher developer morale, a solid OS, a higher willingness to publicly be a fan of Windows 7, and enough free time for a quick and awesome interview with a certain keynoting executive and perhaps the new face of Windows client by the name of Brad Brooks (Brandon LeBlanc would wisely and accurately like to remind me that there is no single face to Windows).

You can catch the video after the break. This interview happened near the end of our day, so the detailed questions were reserved for others who were around the event. You’ll see all (but one) of them over the coming week.

Download links coming in a bit.

On Tuesday, some no-good hackers decided to post a vulnerability, complete with a proof-of-concept Python script, that can remotely crash any Windows-based computer that has the SMB 2.0 network protocol enabled, which includes any system running Windows Vista or later. So like anybody with a bunch of free time would do, I cracked open a couple of VM’s and had some BSoD fun with Vista but noticed that 7 didn’t budge whenever I sent the exploit packets, so I suspected that they probably tested the RC version against this exploit

Well my gut feeling was right, and Microsoft released a security advisory later that day stating that it only affected Windows Vista and Server 2008, as well as the Windows 7 RC, but no mention of the 7 RTM (or Server 2008 R2). Plus, the scope was narrowed further when it was revealed that Public network locations were unaffected (they blocked incoming connections anyway). So nothing that bad to get riled over.

Of course, until a hotfix is released, if you’d like to completely protect yourself from the exploit you can follow the directions to either

• Block ports 139 and 445 from inbound connections using a firewall
• Disable the SMB2 driver
• Both (why not? unless you’re actively using file/printer sharing)

Oh hey, seems like Windows 7-E is making a comeback (source-link is German) after having lived and died a very uneventful life in the EU. The German-language Microsoft Store is selling it for 299 euros, and the box art (as well as the page) clearly notes the lack of internet explorer on this version.

Mistake? Joke? A sign that Microsoft might’ve gotten pissed at Opera’s and Mozilla’s recent efforts to milk even more out of them? Who knows, but the box art for “Ultimate-E” has a weird stuttery look to it.

Credit goes to Andre Da Costa for pointing me to the buy page via MSN. I can’t read German, but from the presence of the box art, I’m certain this is for a retail copy of Windows 7-E.

With that aside, let’s get to it.

Brian Chen, a self-admitted Mac user (I’ll explain why this is bad at the end) and writer for Wired Magazine, has come out swinging hard at Windows 7, likely out of his own fear of seeing Apple’s marketshare decrease once Windows 7 gains traction. His current piece, eloquently titled “7 Reasons to Avoid Windows 7” strikes at the most commonly misunderstood points in Windows without properly dissecting the logic behind any of Microsoft’s decisions. In this piece, I’ll be going through each of Mr. Chen’s points, one by one, in order to explain exactly why both Windows 7 should be embraced and why Mr. Chen’s writings should be avoided. Awesomeness exposes itself after the jump.

This gets long, so here’s a summary of my rebuttals for those who would probably end up commenting with TL;DR:

• Upgrading from Windows XP requires a clean install: Users who bought computers between 2006 and 2007 (not including corporate boxes) without the intention of upgrading to Vista later on are likely out of luck and will need to back up their stuff before doing a clean install. My highly forgiving guess puts this at 5 percent of all computers in the United States once all corporate boxes and older XP boxes are accounted for, but there are no scientific stats to actually put a number on this group. Corporate networks, the largest source of XP computers in most studies, will be completely unaffected by the clean install mandate. Netbook users will also be mostly unaffected due to the direct correlation between the willingness to install Windows 7 on a netbook without an optical drive versus technology savvy-ness.
• The Upgrade is Expensive: So is the upgrade to Leopard. Users are already being charged for a service pack, and users who bought their computers with Tiger without moving to Leopard will be charged even more, unlike XP users moving to 7.
• It’ll Cost You Time, Too: but many more businesses are willing to upgrade to Windows 7 now than they were at around the same time back when Vista was first released, XP was first released, and so forth. It all boils down to doing cost-benefit analyses, which is something Brian Chen didn’t look into or even consider.
• It’s Still Windows: but Windows is more usable, far easier to use securely, is much more stable on a much wider hardware base, and is already a home run with critics, analysts, and anyone who isn’t a fanboy or Brian Chen.
• Security Isn’t Automatically Better: actually, it is. By default, Windows Vista and Windows 7 are more convenient to use securely than XP, which is enough of an incentive to upgrade. Unlike OS X which I can use without an antivirus because of security by obscurity, I can use Windows 7 without an antivirus because of security by ease-of-use and common sense.
• Built-In Support for Egregious Hardware-Based DRM: The DRM exists in Windows to satisfy the MPAA and RIAA, but it has hardly been implemented at all by any content distributers. Brian even admits that this is a reason derived from fear than from substance.
• Snow Leopard Is Almost Here: Windows 7 is more usable than OS X, to the point where Apple blatantly copied Aero Peek straight from Windows 7. That’s not including how easy it is to use Windows out of the box (unlike Brian’s argument that it doesn’t “just work,”); almost every possible hardware configuration capable of running Windows 7 is supported out of the box, and new drivers can be downloaded after installation to make those configurations which don’t work, work.
• Brian Chen is a Self-Admitted Mac User: actually, this isn’t a rebuttal. It’s just confirming the truth. I suppose this one might actually require you to read everything I wrote, which starts below.

Upgrading from Windows XP requires a clean install

because, you know, supporting an upgrade from an OS which liberally encouraged bad resource usage as well as being nearly a decade old is definitely a wise choice. Keep in mind that the vast majority of users “upgrading” from Windows XP to Windows 7 will not be doing so at home. Most computers running XP will most likely be corporate machines, and not only will this network upgrade not be immediate, it also won’t be an upgrade.

System Administrators don’t go around putting in an upgrade disk for every single computer on the network. Smart sysadmins always isolate a segment of the corporate network, test the applications which they use in order to ensure that said apps will work with the new OS, and once all of this is done, they either

• sysprep an image on a sample machine with the apps they need followed by distributing that image across the network to all computers, or
• do a network install using the disc itself (or the iso) followed by installing the needed apps, or
• do a clean install for individual machines followed by the necessary applications (or a finished image), as needed.

That’s assuming they don’t just buy new hardware.

In IT, there’s no such thing as doing an upgrade. It’s taboo to even speak the term with regards to using the upgrade feature on an OS, let alone running such an upgrade en masse. I’d go so far as to call it career suicide.

Getting to the point: the minority tend to be the loudest. Here’s a rundown of computers likely running which OS:

• Computers bought prior to 2006 (which likely won’t support most of Windows 7’s customer-enhanced features anyway): XP 
• Computers bought between 2006 and early 2007: XP, upgradeable to Vista/7.
• Computers bought after 2007 strolled along: Vista (most likely).
• Netbooks: XP (most likely), Vista (least likely), Linux

So, the users most likely to want to upgrade are XP users who purchased their computers between 2006 and 2007, as well as some netbook owners. Keep in mind that a solid chunk of all computers running XP which are recorded in stats such as this are on corporate networks, and as noted above, these c
omputers will either remain on XP until end-of-life or be clean-installed up to Windows 7.

First of all, if you want to upgrade the OS on a netbook, unless you bought Windows 7 as an upgrade early on when it was cheap, you’re spending too much money for what’s almost a disposable computer. Second, I can’t think of a single netbook which actually comes with an optical drive, so how does a layuser plan on installing Windows 7 onto his/her netbook in the first place? The technically savvy user will find some means, but these users are also likely the ones to care least about upgrading in the first place. There you have it; netbook users have been ruled out.

Moving on to the 2006/2007 group: this is the group which will likely suffer the most from not being able to upgrade directly to 7, but this is also a minority group. Anyone who purchased a computer during this window specifically for the sake of upgrading to Vista once it came out… well, they’re now running Vista. Those who are still left on XP are the only unfortunate casualty of the decision to not allow XP upgrades, though in the long run, this is better for them in terms of functionality and in terms of making sure the press doesn’t bash Microsoft for failed XP-to-7 upgrades. Businesses which have computers in this block don’t care because, as noted earlier, they’ll just clean-install their way up or replace hardware down the road.

The Upgrade is Expensive

However, Apple plans to sell its next OS, Mac OS X Snow Leopard, for $30 to current Leopard users. This Apple power move alone makes Windows 7’s pricing look pretty steep. [emphasis added]

Brian’s argument here is self-defeating, as those outside the Apple Sphere of Influence rightfully see Snow Leopard as nothing more than a service pack. Apple is charging $29 for the same quality and number of features as what Microsoft delivers in a typical Windows service pack (the best example would be Windows XP SP2), and all of Microsoft’s service packs are free. Apple’s $29 charge is almost as bad as charging iPod Touch users $10 to upgrade to newer firmware (this is, quite plainly, analogous to highway robbery, but I digress).

Of course, that $29 price doesn’t come without a rather demeaning list of caveats, which can be seen on a post written two months ago by Ed Bott. The biggest point of contention here is that Tiger users have to pay the equivalent of upgrading first to Leopard and then Snow Leopard. Worse, there’s only one way to do it if you want to go straight from Tiger to Snow Leopard, and that’s by buying the Mac Box Set, which isn’t cheap and doesn’t offer anything which you can’t already get for free.

Brian himself noted that this is a power move by Apple to stunt Microsoft’s pricing on Windows 7, which means it’s nothing more than a marketing maneuver, which is clearly evident from the fine print of Apple’s upgrade terms.

As for this service pack business, I wrote about that two months ago as well.

It’ll Cost You Time, Too

That’s right. Everything costs time, and corporate IT departments realize this better than anyone else. That’s why most IT departments will wait until Windows 7 has been battle-tested before upgrading, but while the logic is simple, it’s not as plain as Brian makes their avoidance out to be.

This piece by Ina Fried tells a much better story of what’s going on. As of the survey [pdf] referenced in her article, 59.3% of respondents had no plans to migrate to Windows 7. The remaining 40.8% (rounding discrepancy: 0.1%) have either already begun deploying Windows 7 or will be doing so before the close of calendar year 2010.

That’s a lot of companies committing to a migration to Windows 7 before its release, and it’s a lot more than the 12-14% adoption rate of XP within XP’s first year.

Not considered in Brian’s highly subjective analysis of the business situation right now is a cost-benefit analysis of upgrading to Windows 7. It differs for each company, but the fact that so many respondents said they’re looking to migrate to Windows 7 prior to the end of 2010 means that they’ve done the CBAs and they’ve concluded that the benefits outweigh the costs of upgrading. Those who said they have no plans either executed CBAs at this point and decided that migrating now wouldn’t be beneficial to them or they’re just waiting to see how it goes everywhere else.

The same goes for the antiquated software argument brought up in Chen’s piece. This also gets factored into CBAs, and businesses will eventually have to migrate from antiquated software on upwards as the cost of maintaining older configurations increases versus the drop in technicians with the knowledge to support said configurations.

It’s as simple as that.

It’s Still Windows

Despite delivering an intuitive, modern interface in Windows 7, this OS is still Windows. In our first look at Windows 7, we complained about the OS’s inability to recognize an Adobe AIR file followed by its failure to search for software to run the file.

Also, Windows 7 doesn’t immediately know what to do with some pretty obvious tasks. When you insert a thumb drive, for example, you must tell Windows 7 what to do with it (i.e. open the folder and view the files) and customize a setting to get the OS to automatically behave that way. In short, when getting started you’ll have to do a lot of tweaking and customizing to get moving smoothly. That’s unfortunately an experience all Windows users are accustomed to — things don’t “just work.”

The fact that the Adobe AIR argument was the most important argument to list against Windows 7 being “still Windows” is an indication of the lack of objective substance in this argument, and that’s barring the fact that this is a already a highly atypical scenario (all Adobe AIR apps will check for AIR before being installed).

As for the “pretty obvious tasks,” the thumb drive example is a far better usability model than Apple’s “let’s just mount the drive and let the user do whatever he wants” model. The fact that Windows throws a prompt asking if the user wants to see a slideshow, play music, or simply open the files is highly welcomed by anyone I’ve spoken to who has used both PCs running Windows and PCs running Mac OS X. In fact, I’m quite certain that this is indeed an example of the things in Windows which “just work.”

Another example of things which “just work” in Windows would be the vast majority of hardware. Unlike Apple, which circumvents this issue by bottlenecking hardware supply and charging your soul for new hardware, Microsoft’s open hardware ecosystem lets users use whatever they want, and when the drivers (not written by Microsoft!) are WHQL-certified, the hardware almost always works flawlessly. I’ve yet to have a BSOD on Windows 7 RTM, and I’ve only had a few bad-ram-related bluescreens on Vista. Compared to my record running Snow Leopard and Leopard on the Macbook from which I’m writing this article, Windows Vista and Windows 7 have been far more stable, forgiving with hardware (even with Apple’s intentionally poorly-written drivers), and more responsive.

It’s still Windows, and as a result, it still just works, and it’s now even more usable, unlike Brian’s operating system of choice.

Security Isn’t Automatically Better

Computerworld’s Steven Vaughan-Nichols stands firm that Windows 7 won’t change anything from a security perspective: “Windows 7 still has all the security of a drunken teenager in a sports car,” he wrote. “Millions of lazy Windows users are the reason why the internet is a mess. If you already do all the right things to keep XP running safely, you’re not going to get any safer by buying Windows 7.”

Good point. Because Windows 7 is still Windows, you’re again the primary target of attack for hackers and virus coders. Therefore, it’s up to you to protect yourself with anti-virus software and running update patches to keep the OS as secure as possible. (Compare this experience to Mac OS X Leopard, for which many don’t even run anti-virus software, because it’s more secure out-of-the-box compared to Windows.) Though Windows 7 does deliver some security enhancements, such as data encryption for thumb drives, and a feature for IT administrat
ors to control which applications can run on a corporate network, these are not general security improvements that change much for the overall user experience.

Steven Vaughan-Nichols is incorrect on a number of footings:

1. Being lazy on Windows 7 just means Windows 7 will be more secure by default than Windows XP
2. Windows 7 makes it easier to be more secure than Windows XP, which means layusers won’t have an incentive to become unlazy and disable features like UAC. Windows XP’s limited user mode was highly inconvenient because it didn’t offer an easy means of temporary escalation for admin-related tasks, which is why most users just kept their accounts with admin privileges. Windows Vista and 7 made life safer and easier both for standard privilege accounts (UAC prompt asks for a password for approval of administrative tasks) and for admin accounts (UAC asks for approval).
3. Windows XP users running in limited privilege mode are practically nil because it’s not convenient (as noted in #2), which means the number of people affected by security usability improvements in both Vista and 7 will be much higher than Steven’s argument tries to imply.

Chen tries to build on this with his “still Windows” argument. He admits that Windows is a target because of its expansive size but then chooses to say that Mac OS X is more secure out of the box without explaining that this security comes from the sheer lack of ubiquity, not from the code itself. While OS X gains its security by obscurity, Windows 7 can be used without an antivirus thanks to security by ease-of-use and common sense. There’s a huge difference between the two: security by obscurity falls apart if obscurity gives way to ubiquity.

Thing is, this security convenience (UAC) is a massive improvement for the overall user experience. Not only did it get more users to run under standard privileges, it got more developers to fix their code and write for non-administrative resource settings, thus making everyone safer overall and making UAC much less of the annoyance that it was when Vista first launched.

You’d be right to assume that this was Microsoft’s plan all along.

Built-In Support for Egregious Hardware-Based DRM

This argument was around during the Vista days as well, and it never took off because the DRM was both invisible by non-pirates and hardly used by anyone at all. It was only added by Microsoft to satisfy the MPAA/RIAA. This argument doesn’t hold any substance at all, and Brian even admits that this is mostly an argument of fear than anything else

Still, there are going to be people cringing in fear that one day PUMA and PVP will screw them over.

Right.

Snow Leopard Is Almost Here

Are you using a PC running Mac OS X? Sure, go ahead and get Snow Leopard. Are you using a PC running Windows Vista? You’re better off sticking with the more usable OS (hint: it’s the OS without a bite taken out of it).

Some of you likely remember my interview with Jensen Harris of Office UX fame. The tactics used in designing the Ribbon UI in Office 2007 were also applied to Windows 7’s user interface development, which means that Windows 7 is quite possibly the most intuitive operating system in the history of operating systems. Bold claim? Sure, but at least Microsoft actually researches usability rather than arbitrarily implementing features which look cool but have a steep learning curve.

That’s not including the features Apple copied from Microsoft, the support they dropped for PowerPC, the sheer length of time it took for Apple to implement 64-bit support, and the fact that they didn’t embrace touch support in Snow Leopard at all, despite the fact that multi-touch environments are becoming the way of the future.

Brian Chen is a Self-Admitted Mac User (I’m not rebutting this one)

and boy does it show. If you just read through all of the above, you probably caught onto a well-justified trend: Brian Chen’s entire piece had hardly any substance to back it up.

This is typical of the attacks implemented by Apple during their WWDC keynote and also typical of many Apple loyalists I’ve run into. It’s the cult of Mac which keeps many people from switching to Macs and has actually inspired many of my friends to switch away from Macs. I’ll leave it to Maddox (not work safe) to show how this unsubstantiveness comes into play as well as expose the phenomenal powers of marketing behind Steve Jobs.

My free copy of Windows Live Writer running on Windows 7 on top of my 1st gen MacBook which almost died on Snow Leopard would like to thank you for reading this ridiculously long thesis on 8 reasons not to avoid Windows 7.

The company stands by UAC in its final form, but they’re taking it a step further by blocking the program that causes the exploit using their own security software.

Today, I just happened to download the zip file that causes the exploit when Microsoft Security Essentials greeted me with a nice dialog telling me that what I just downloaded is malware, specifically HackTool.Win32/Welevate.A and HackTool.Win64/Welevate.A (depending on architecture). While I’d agree that this can be considered a form of malware, it’s just a very bad way of dealing with the situation. However, Leo noted that Windows Defender in Vista did not detect this exploit, and Bryant confirmed that the same is true for Windows 7 (where the trick would actually work), so this seems to be exclusive to Microsoft Security Essentials.

It’s not clear what method the signatures take to detect it, but I promptly recompiled the source code under the Visual C++ 10.0 toolkit using VS 2010 Beta and the application ran undetected. Not a very good solution if it actually hash checks for the specific applications.

Leo, and I (or Bryant) will update our respective pages accordingly as we discover more. Bryant is seeking official word from Microsoft on what’s going on. Meanwhile, you can see the VirusTotal report here and grab the exploit here.

Update (~Bryant): let’s take a look at what’s going on here from a different approach. Microsoft says that the vulnerability here is not actually a vulnerability and is, in fact, by design. However, they’ve also classified Leo’s proof-of-concept as malware. Logically speaking, if a process whose sole purpose is to exploit a perceived vulnerability is marked as malware, then it’s reasonable to assume that the perceived vulnerability is indeed a significant problem. Basically, Microsoft contradicted themselves by listing the proof-of-concept as malware.

Update 2 (~Bryant): A friend of mine proposed one particular argument as a potential explanation to this issue, whereby this is a bug within Microsoft Security Essentials. The reasons I don’t believe this to be the case are:

• This exploit was specifically named as HackTool:Win32/Welevate.A (A quick googling shows only three links; one is to the aforementioned virustotal link, the second and third to a Microsoft encyclopedia entry.
• This particular label only applies to this specific proof-of-concept
• A reasonable vulnerability assessment (”Medium”) was applied to this particular proof-of-concept, which makes sense given that this security vulnerability in UAC is only really an issue if either a user runs a malicious application or if some other internet-facing application were to be compromised. I covered the latter in an older post of mine where I explain how this flaw essentially raises the vectors of attack many-fold.

Leo and Bryant contributed to this post.

This is the final part in a series of two.

Yesterday, I focused on the un-selling points of the new MacBook Pro line as announced during the WWDC keynote. Today, my focus is going to be on Snow Leopard, Apple’s rather depressing tendency to bash Microsoft, and the rather nasty turn-off this all happens to be. Granted, most of Apple’s recent ad campaigns have comprised of “let’s make things up about Windows!” in order to try and gain market share. Microsoft is only avoiding suing Apple because of the potential for the world’s worst Streisand effect, which is depressing given the libelous nature of the ads themselves.

Having said this, it’s no surprise to see this mentality persist throughout this year’s WWDC keynote, so I’ll pick up from yesterday and explain just why Snow Leopard in and of itself is nothing more than hypocrisy.

I won’t even bother to discuss the Mac v. PC non-Ad that opened the WWDC keynote. Instead, I’ll start with

“Even more complexity is present in Windows 7 – the same old tech as Vista. Just another version of Vista.” -Bertrand Serlet, 10:19 AM

So he slams 7 as another version of Vista and follows it (within the same minute) with:

“We come from such a different place. We love Leopard, we’re so proud of it; so we decided to build upon Leopard. We want to build a better Leopard, hence Snow Leopard” -Bertrand Serlet, 10:19 AM

Holy crap, that’s a new time record for admitting to being completely hypocritical! But wait, there’s more!

“Adding Exchange support to Snow Leopard. We’ve got chills. Chills we tell you!” –Bertrant Serlet, 10:20 AM

If the audience in that room had any idea as to who makes Exchange, I’m sure we would have seen many bricks in their chairs.

Bertrand later admits to the three major changes coming to Snow Leopard: refinements to the operating system, a few new technologies here and there, and Exchange support. What are these refinements of which he spoke? Nothing much; just a few under-the-hood changes to Finder and an installation process which is 45% faster and takes up 6GB less space! It sounds remarkable on face value until you realize that they dropped support for PowerPC.

PowerPC is a platform which Apple stopped using only three years ago, and Snow Leopard has already slapped it down to the pits of hell. If Microsoft had discontinued support for an older hardware just like that, there would’ve been a massive uproar, but apparently Apple users will follow along. Add the fact that Windows 7, which can run on hardware Vista couldn’t run, also installs faster than Snow Leopard and Windows Vista as well as the fact that Leopard is less stable than Windows Vista (let’s see how many times you run into that Rainbow Swirly of I-Want-To-Pull-My-Hair-Out compared to a Blue Screen of Death), and we’ll see which platform is the better platform to build off of. Bertrant talks about how bad a platform Windows Vista is, and yet, Leopard is sadly worse.

Let’s get to these so-called “new technologies.” Which new technologies did they add? How about Aero Peek?

“Next up, the Dock: We’ve had a feature that we use to deal with clutter, called Expose, and now we’ve built it into the dock.”

Like the way Aero Peek is built into the amazingly more usable Windows 7 taskbar? It’s funny because their particular implementation is the most minor thing, and yet it somehow warrants inclusion within a keynote. Aero Peek is more functional than Expose and a bigger boost to productivity than Expose all because it allows for full window previews, thus boosting productivity in the office, and yet the best Apple can come up with is just adding Expose to the dock. They have three buttons dedicated to it on the keyboard, which lends one to the idea that the only reason they even attached Expose to the dock was because Microsoft successfully created a more usable taskbar than their dock.

Of course, that’s not all. Apple finally started trying to truly join the x64 club, and this is what we have:

“So first, 64-bit. The obvious reason is to take advantage of a lot of memory. When you run in 64-bit, the memory limit is… 16 billion GB. It’s unlimited.”

First of all, it’s actually over 17 billion, but I won’t pick nits. The point is that Windows has been doing this since the days of XP, and that Vista and 7 have basically mastered the art of 64 bit. Apple has been so late to the game that Adobe actually stuck with Microsoft for a 64 bit implementation of Creative Suite 4. The Windows world has almost completely finished adapting to the 64bit world, and Apple is only just now beginning to arrive.

“All the major system apps run in 64-bit mode in Snow Leopard.”

Wow, it’s not even a complete transition! They only ported the major apps over to 64bit; the minor processes and non-system-essential applications are still stuck in the last decade.

Sure, Snow Leopard isn’t a complete disaster. There is one technology which Apple did well to include, and that’s Grand Central Dispatch. The thing about GCD is that it will allow for programmers to easily create their own multithreaded applications without actually having to worry about the threads, which is a wonderful addition to the OS and is a tool I hope developers use to their advantage to create better applications.

Then there’s OpenCL, which stands for Open Computing Language. It’s essentially a framework that can run code along any processing-capable path, such as CPUs and GPUs. Kudos to Apple for making it open, but it’s not even Apple’s technology anymore. While Apple still holds trademark rights (which they’ll no doubt abuse), the Khronos Group is now the managing force behind OpenCL, so anyone can include it if they fit the bill.

However, that’s basically it in terms of any new technology. In the end, Snow Leopard is a partially-64bit OS comprised of Safari 4 (standalone included), Quicktime 10 (standalone included), Grand Central Dispatch, OpenCL, Exchange 2007 support, tweaks to Expose and Stacks, performance fixes to the Finder, and an update to the Common Unix Printing System, all while dropping support for Macintoshes more than three years old.

Apple is charging 29 dollars for this? Keeping in mind that the only new technologies are Grand Central Dispatch, OpenCL, 64bit readiness, and Exchange 2007, it’s time to start picking this price apart for what it is: a rip-off.

Vista Service Pack 1 brought the finalized Server 2008 kernel to Windows Vista. That’s an enterprise-quality near-bulletproof kernel added to consumer versions of Windows for free! In addition to boosting performance just about everywhere (not just in Explorer), Vista SP1 also introduced support for an entirely new filesystem, exFAT. Following this was Service Pack 2, which brought a new version of Windows Search, support for Bluetooth 2.1, native support for burning Blu-ray discs (something Apple still doesn’t support even reading), a new framework for wifi connection management, support for VIA’s new 64bit CPUs, as well as a new power management framework which actually puts an emphasis on saving power both for desktops and laptops as opposed to just being efficient with how it’s all used.

Together, these service packs introduced more performance boosts and features to an already fast and powerful operating system for free. Apple is not only introducing less new features, what they’re introducing is either behind the curve or won’t directly impact productivity, and Apple is still charging 29 dollars for previous Leopard users. Worse yet, if you happen to be one of the holdouts still using Tiger because you figured out that Leopard is an unstable sack of crap for an operating system, you’re out of luck; Apple’s going to flip the bird and charge you “full price,” whatever exorbitant amount that is for a gimped service pack to an operating system which you already didn’t like.

Let’s not forget that Apple dropped support for the ZFS filesystem, which was one of the features many Apple users were looking forward to the most.

As usual, share your thoughts and suggestions in the comments.

Update: Sam chimed in via WLM with the following:

Sam says:
You’ve got to be kidding me.
I just wrote this long comment to explain why Snow Leopard is worth $29.
Just as I was thinking Safari is naturally going to crash now, it disappeared.

Nice.

Update 2: I thought about it a bit longer and decided that not only is Apple issuing a gimped service pack, they’re also doing nothing to embrace the future. Tablets are one of the handiest business and graphics design tools in existence, and yet while Apple could easily have dominated the game, they didn’t bother. Now, Windows 7 is more touch-ready than ever, allowing for a far more favorable user experience on capable computers (such as on the HP TouchSmart and the Dell Latitude XT).

Not only has Snow Leopard seemed to not have any purpose, Apple itself seems to have gotten a bit distracted and lost any desire to improve usability, whereas Microsoft made usability one of their major goals with 7.