Controversy Dogs Vista As Release Approaches
As the November release date for Windows Vista to partners and large customers approaches, things are heating up around the operating system's security features and licensing and validation plans.
After a few weeks of criticism back and forth between Microsoft and security vendors Symantec and McAfee, and months of negotiations with the European Union and South Korea, Microsoft has agreed to certain changes that will allow Vista to ship without requiring specific versions be tailored specifically for other countries.
While the EU concessions stem from a long-standing battle between Microsoft and the EU over antitrust concerns, the issue of security has been a more recent development, when officials from McAfee publicly criticized Microsoft for not allowing them to properly integrate their security technology in Vista. At the heart of the issue are technological innovations being built into Vista by Microsoft that McAfee and other firms including anti-virus market leader Symantec contend will make their security software products less effective.
But this week Microsoft agreed to hand over new APIs to its partners to quell those concerns, specifically to enable partners to disable its Windows Security Center dashboard, and to offer new methods for companies to interact with its PatchGuard kernel protection technology.
While some observers contend Microsoft caved in to the demands in order to keep Vista on schedule, the problems may linger long into next year, after the consumer release of Vista, due to the long delay in sharing code with partners.
Vista To Come With New Licensing, Validation Schemes
In addition to controversy over what's in Vista, there are mixed reviews about the conditions under which Microsoft wants customers to use the operating system.
One big change is to how Windows Server System products are used in virtual machine environments. New Windows Server 2003 R2 Datacenter Edition licenses now permit users to run an unlimited number of virtualized Windows Server instances. The change will allow users to run several different editions of Windows Server concurrently without having to pay for more licenses. Prior to the change, licenses for Windows Server 2003 Datacenter Edition allowed customers to run up to four virtual instances on one physical server, eWeek's Peter Galli explains.
However, new conditions on validating new installs of Vista, as part of Microsoft's battle against software piracy, have some users riled up.
One such change will shut off certain features if Vista is not validated within 30 days of install, and another limits so-called "transfers" of Vista to another machine only once, whereas with XP users could move Vista to any machine as long as it's uninstalled from the original machine.
These changes are concerning to eWeek Labs Advanced Technologies Analyst Jason Brooks, who writes in Microsoft Watch that "New controls on Windows licensing, while targeted at unauthorized software users, can't help but cause unintentional headaches for some well-behaving customers." Read more of his column here.
Apple Shipped iPods Carrying Windows Virus
Microsoft officials (not to mention users) could not have been too pleased to learn that Apple inadvertently shipped a few video iPods with the RavMonE.exe Windows virus on them.
Apple apologized and cleaned the infected music players, and in the process took a shot at its rival, which is set to ship its own music player, Zune, in November. "As you might imagine, we are upset at Windows for not being more hardy against such viruses, and even more upset with ourselves for not catching it," the company said in its statement.
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