Intel Corp. (INTC) Chief Executive Officer Paul Otellini told employees in Taiwan that Microsoft Corp. (MSFT)’s Windows 8 operating system is being released before it’s fully ready, a person who attended the company event said.
Bloomberg: Windows 8 Bugs Hurt Microsoft, Intel Chief Said to Say
(3 posts) (2 voices)-
Anonymous
UnregisteredThe new Vista
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/09/19/win8_rootkit/
New vicious UEFI bootkit vuln found for Windows 8
Arr, 'tis typical: Redmond swabs lag behind OS X, again
TSEC analysed the UEFI platform now that Microsoft has ported old BIOS and MBR's boot loader to the new UEFI technology in Windows 8. Andrea Allievi, a senior security researcher at ITSEC, was able to use the research to cook up what's billed as the first ever UEFI bootkit designed to hit Windows 8. The proof-of-concept malware is able to defeat Windows 8's Kernel Patch Protection and Driver Signature Enforcement policy.
The UEFI boot loader developed by Allievi overwrites the legitimate Windows 8 UEFI bootloader, bypassing security defences in the process.
"Our bootloader hooked the UEFI disk I/O routines and it intercepted the loading of the Windows 8 kernel, thus our bootkit tampered the kernel by disabling the security features used by Windows to prevent the loading of unsigned drivers," explains Marco Giuliani, a director of ITSEC.
The bootkit developed by ITSEC is comparable to forms of older MBR (Master Boot Record) rootkits that overwrite system files of older version of Windows. Bootkits capable of taking over Windows 8 machines have been around since last November but these earlier proof-of-concept nasties didn't circumvent UEFI, unlike the latest research.
Previously boot loaders and rootkits had to be developed in assembly language. But UEFI creates a means to develop system loaders much more straightforwardly using the easier C programming language, making thing easier for both legitimate developers and VXers.http://www.itsec.it/2012/09/18/uefi-technology-say-hello-to-the-windows-8-bootkit/
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/09/19/somasegar_interview_on_windows_8/
Programming on Windows 8 just like playing bingo' - Microsoft VP
Avast, ye Redmond buckos, where's me variadic template?
“Now we felt it was time to evolve our core platform and ask, what does the modern Windows environment look like? We had a choice: should we continue with Win32, or should we go with WinRT, or should we do both? The reason we decided to do both was because we want to bring our developers and existing customers along for the journey.“So Win32 is a great platform and you can continue using it. WPF is a great platform on the desktop and if you want, you can continue using it. At the same time, the reason we said when it comes to WinRT that we want to support HTML5 and JavaScript, C++, C#, Visual Basic
That may sound all well and good, but in practice developers are finding a lot of differences between XAML in WPF and XAML in Windows Runtime. Further, frameworks such as XNA, for fast graphics using .NET, are supported in Windows Phone, but not on Windows Runtime, even though Windows Phone is not an old platform. Why such inconsistency?
“Er, I don’t know what Internet Explorer is called,” said Somasegar. “But if you want to talk about an app for this new environment, we call it a Windows Store app.”
C++ is important to Microsoft, but why is the company behind in supporting all the features of C++ 11, including critical ones such as variadic templates? Concerning variadics, Somasegar said: “It’s definitely on our backlog of things to do. The team is already working on this, but we couldn’t get it done in time.”
note we couldn’t get it done in time. so send it out you try it sp1 come very soon.
Posted 12 years ago # -
mikiem2
ModeratorRE: "Programming on Windows 8 just like playing bingo' - Microsoft VP"
To sell Windows Microsoft has to make Windows work with whatever types of code are used by the apps Windows users like/need to run. They tried to kill VB [Visual Basic] years ago, & now they're pointing out RT will run it. They tried to make C# popular, failed, & that's there too. MS tried to do away with Javascript, came out with their own variant, & now Javascript's featured.
FWIW I think Microsoft simply tried to do everything in their power to get developers to fill their app store for them, e.g. why use HTML 5 & put that game or applet on a web page when you can package & sell it? There are practical applications -- a company might spend less writing HTML 5 than having a C++ app custom coded -- but they can do that now with their internal network, so it's likely most useful where they actually need touchscreens, e.g. on a factory floor where the environment might be very unfriendly to keyboards & such.
I doubt you'll be seeing all these games with "fast graphics using .NET" real soon -- If they could write something comparible to today's games using the latest .NET, it's too much hassle adding .NET 4.0 & later to XP, & that's still too big a portion of the market. Likewise I doubt you'll soon be seeing higher performance apps/games that work equally well on hardware using x86 & ARM CPUs unless separate versions are written/ported to each -- the processor & graphics hardware are just too different, so it would take some sort of emulator, which slows things down if/when/where it works. I don't know how many people will be satisfied running the same lighter weight apps/games you find for Android cells/tabs on their PCs/laptops.
To me the big news about win8 is no news really -- it should run the apps/games you use today just fine, which won't generate any headlines. The new interface when you start it may be a PITA, but one click & it's gone, you're back to the regular desktop. Performance *might* be a bit better for some apps/games because of better memory management -- notebook battery life may be better for the same reason. If you use the Start Menu now, there are already several 3rd party replacements -- if you'll miss Aero, there are add-ons for that too. What may be the most noticable difference is what I'd call a move sort of backwards to the days of win95 -- XP, then Vista, then win7 each added a bit of eye-candy & smaller, value added features that win8 tends to do away with. And most of the good folks writing code will be able to still use their favorite tools -- Microsoft just hopes they'll [also] focus on writing "Windows Store apps", in no small part because unlike all the other apps you've bought, Microsoft gets to keep part of the money you pay for them. Considering Google's store, Google Play is celebrating 25 bill. downloads, that's not just chump change.
Posted 12 years ago #
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