davidrg wrote on 2025-11-19, 18:13:

Most users are not like You or I. They don't care about computers

You already made this point quite adequately. I agree with it, as it is fundamental to the case I am making, which I shall restate:

1) If you let third parties, namely the businesses selling you the product, dictate which product (software in this case) you use, they will use this delegated power to abuse you for their own gain.

If you let the used car salesman pick out a car for you, they'll pick something with a high profit margin or a clunker that they are anxious to get rid of. If you let Microsoft do whatever they want, they'll put ads in your OS. It's pretty simple.

2) A secondary point here, is that if an overwhelming majority of users fall into this exact trap, then we should not try to absolve the industry of responsibility by painting it as 'user choice'. The users do not actually want high prices, or clunkers, or ads in their OS.

My point was that Windows XP at this point has no security.

That's an opinion, and it seems to include an unstated assumption that modern alternatives DO have security. I disagree with both.

@bakemono
I agree with these sentiments. I would rather have seen things evolve differently, but unfortunately at this point there are no Operating Systems that I would consider a good compromise. Even the most appealing hardware advances can't change that. It did not get there in one go, but for me the line was crossed with the Windows 7 telemetry bomb update of around 2016 IIRC. The UI had degraded before that. Next in line is AI integration, don't get me started. I do have a Linux multiboot, for my use cases; it offers some, but not much.

bakemono wrote on 2025-11-20, 16:01:

That's an opinion, and it seems to include an unstated assumption that modern alternatives DO have security. I disagree with both.

You are free to disagree as much as you like. You would still be 100% wrong.

I think that both views have some good points.

For example, new router modems with new firmware do introduce new security vulnerabilities that older models didn't had.

Then, there's complexity. The more complex a system is, the more vulnerabilities it has.

Using more complexity for security is like thinking that fighting force by answering with even more force is a solution.

The other approach would be to build reasonable complex systems that don't have so many holes in the construction.

Still, Windows XP is old and has enough weak spots that can be attacked.
Same goes for Windows 98SE, which in principle already has enough NT compatibilty to make modern exploits work.

To make Windows XP more secure, enabling DEP/NX bit is a first step, I think.
Because it brings back similiar protection that Windows used to have in 286 Protected-Mode (protection based on segmentation; separate data/code segments).

Then it would be a good idea to block unecessary ports (networking),
so that vulnerable Windows services can't be talked to in first place.

A dedicated, hardware firewall with NAT and port filter would be a good additon, too.

But that's just my opinion, of course. 🙂

appiah4 wrote on 2025-11-21, 07:04:

bakemono wrote on 2025-11-20, 16:01:

That's an opinion, and it seems to include an unstated assumption that modern alternatives DO have security. I disagree with both.

You are free to disagree as much as you like. You would still be 100% wrong.

Yeah but as time goes by there are fewer and fewer nasties out there that can attack it.
Right now its still in peoples minds, but give it time and it will have security through obscurity on its side.

Jo22 wrote on 2025-11-17, 07:43:

Though I wonder if the hobbyists tinkering with old stuff aren’t secretly the real pros (experts) by now.
The usual employees working at MS have no idea about vintage Windows codebase, maybe.

Few years back, I had to teach XP fans on another forum about DLL rebasing. They were completely oblivious to the concept. Their Chromium browsers would waste huge amounts of memory because chrome.dll was duplicated in memory for each chrome.exe instance and their authors never heard of DLL rebasing either. Because XP and older can only rebase unintelligently at runtime by wasting memory. Smarter rebasing only became a thing with Vista's ASLR (which binary have to opt in with a flag in the header).

That coupled with my interesting XP related questions remaining unanswered makes me think that XP bunch isn't particularly smart or clever one.

UCyborg wrote on 2025-11-22, 11:44:

Jo22 wrote on 2025-11-17, 07:43:

Though I wonder if the hobbyists tinkering with old stuff aren’t secretly the real pros (experts) by now.
The usual employees working at MS have no idea about vintage Windows codebase, maybe.

Few years back, I had to teach XP fans on another forum about DLL rebasing. They were completely oblivious to the concept. Their Chromium browsers would waste huge amounts of memory because chrome.dll was duplicated in memory for each chrome.exe instance and their authors never heard of DLL rebasing either. Because XP and older can only rebase unintelligently at runtime by wasting memory. Smarter rebasing only became a thing with Vista's ASLR (which binary have to opt in with a flag in the header).

That coupled with my interesting XP related questions remaining unanswered makes me think that XP bunch isn't particularly smart or clever one.

I see, that must have been disappointing. 🙁
On other hand, maybe there's an explanation that they didn't know.
A Windows 3.1 user/dev might have been unaware of Win95 specific features a decade earlier.
With the difference being that Win95 was more popular than Vista.

On a second thought, it might been also a generational thing.
Windows XP used same traditional developing tools like Windows 98SE did before.
Such as Visual Basic Classic rather than VB .NET..
Beginning with Vista, a lot of programming concepts had changed, I suppose.

It was a different era. Comparable to how early 90s and the late 90s were different.

In early 90s, it was all about DDE/OLE in the Windows world, while years later it was ActiveX and web based technology.
There also was a shift from procedural programming to object-oriented programming in terms of paradigms.

Jo22 wrote on 2025-11-22, 19:44:

With the difference being that Win95 was more popular than Vista.

That's not true. Vista sold faster and in larger quantities.

I sometimes see things that others don't. 😁

Kruton 9000 wrote on 2025-11-22, 22:29:

Jo22 wrote on 2025-11-22, 19:44:

With the difference being that Win95 was more popular than Vista.

That's not true. Vista sold faster and in larger quantities.

Hi! In percent or absolute numbers? 😉
There were more computers on earth by the the time Vista was out, I think. More people, too.

Anyway, what I meant to say was the impact in pop culture (and IT).
Windows 95 was such a big thing to people, it caused a flood of products with "for Windows 95" stickers all over them.
It also notably introduced the normal, non-technical users to computing.

While Windows 3.x also did that before, Windows 3.x was not such a media spectacle.
It was being adopted by users more silently.

To what I remember, Windows 95 also was being programmed for using Windows 3.1x development tools.
There were newer features of the old Win16 API available on Windows 95, too.
That's why there are a few 16-Bit Windows applications that require Windows 95, even.

Unfortunately, not all Windows 3.1x developers knew about these new APIs at the time.
Hence the comparison I made before. 😅

UCyborg wrote on 2025-11-23, 02:19:

I sometimes see things that others don't. 😁

That's a good think.. I guess! 😉

Jo22 wrote on 2025-11-23, 06:28:

Anyway, what I meant to say was the impact in pop culture (and IT). Windows 95 was such a big thing to people, it caused a flood […]
Show full quote

Anyway, what I meant to say was the impact in pop culture (and IT).
Windows 95 was such a big thing to people, it caused a flood of products with "for Windows 95" stickers all over them.
It also notably introduced the normal, non-technical users to computing.

While Windows 3.x also did that before, Windows 3.x was not such a media spectacle.

Yes it was more of an event - and heralded the entry of the PC into mainstream ownership. the 90's, for many in us/europe/west, had a colorful optimism of which this formed a small but notable ingredient. How little we knew about what lay in the future...