Vista's one-year security checkup
Note: This is one in a series of blogs looking at Windows Vista on the first anniversary of its consumer launch.
Microsoft took Windows Vista in for a one-year security checkup and came back with, if not a completely clean bill of health, at least signs that the infant is healthier than most babies.
According to the report, Microsoft issued 17 security updates fixing 36 vulnerabilities in Vista in the 12 months following its commercial launch in November 2006. By comparison, the company issued 30 security updates encompassing 65 vulnerabilities in XP's first year.
The report's author, Microsoft's Jeffrey Jones, says those numbers compare with more than 100 vulnerabilities fixed in Mac OS X Tiger's first year, more than 220 flaws in Ubuntu version 6.06 in its first year, and 360 flaws fixed for Red Hat enterprise Linux 4 in its first year.
Jones does acknowledge that some might consider his research suspect, given his employer, but said he welcomes other researchers to look at his methods.
"That is ultimately my goal--to get people to actively question and dig into why the results turn out the way they do," Jones wrote in his report.
Jones is quick to say that his study is not a complete analysis of the operating system's "security," but rather a quantitative look at the number and severity of the vulnerabilities found thus far.
For me, the highest testament to Vista's security comes not from a comparison of patches or vulnerabilities, but from the grumbling praise given to the operating system by the hacker crowd at last year's Blue Hat.
"Vista is the most difficult mainstream OS to break into that I've ever seen," security researcher Halvar Flake told me at the time.
During her years at CNET News, Ina Fried has changed beats several times, changed genders once, and covered both of the Pirates of Silicon Valley. These days, most of her attention is focused on Microsoft. E-mail Ina. 
I prefer Xp Lite. Runs fast and smooth on low memory computers. Vista? Only if you have a REALLY good machine, and don't mind losing performance...
1.) You cannot format your Windows 95 system, and install Windows Vista.
2.) Just because your system meets the minimum requirements for Windows XP, DOES NOT mean that Windows Vista will work properly on your system.
Have you heard of Moore's Law, it basically states that computers will get exponentially faster (2x faster every 2 years) with time.
If systems are doubling their speed and memory every 2 years, then why shouldn't an operating system have more features and require more memory. Have you seen ANY operating systems be released that uses less memory than it's predecessor? Or takes up less hard drive space? Why should we waste all the improvements in technology by locking us into low requirement operating systems? Switch back to DOS if you're that concerned.
has bugs in it as does Norton 360. Hope both come out with an
update soon.
My PowerBook g4 with 876mz with 3/4 a gig of ram and OS
10.4.11 is just as fast as my wife's PC.
Secondly, all the annoying popup questions and security features can easily be turned off just do a google for User Access Controls+Vista and you will see how to do so
- This is based on _reported_ flaws
- by B.E2 January 30, 2008 1:15 PM PST
- This same report was in the news 2 months ago. and it was found that the number of flaws reported to be that were found does not reflect the actual number.
- Like this Reply to this comment
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(11 Comments)Moreover, because this is a close source product we can not be absolutly sure that the number of public vulnerabilities equals the total number of actual vulnerabilities(the product may have vulnerabilities that it have been fixed, but have not been disclosed).
Also in the report it also shows that once Microsoft has found a flaw(and is published), it isn't fixed nearly half of the time. were as with the others the percentage is considerably less.
Also the report is on Linux distributions rather than the Linux kernel it's self. This means that although 3rd applications have a lot of vulnerabilities, the kernel it's self does not. Moreover, the hacker can run with to the users permissions, and therefore a a lot less critical than Vista's vulnerabilities.