Did Microsoft program XP to downgrade it's performance on it's obsolete date?

[Floppies_only]

Gang,

With all the talk about people buying copies of XP so they could install them in new, clunky, Vista-equipped computers that are they only thing available as of the start of June, I couldn't help but notice that it was just about that time that the computers at the library started freezing randomly.

The computers that I use to access the internet will suddenly freeze when you click on a different tab or click on a link to go to a different page. The freeze lasts something like ten seconds, and then the computer goes back to doing what you asked it to do, as if nothing had happened.

I would have thought that this was a problem with the computer that I was using, but it's been happening on all of the computers that I've used at the library.

It makes me wonder if Microsoft programmed XP to do this on purpose, on the date that they stopped offering XP, in order to force people to upgrade. I never put anything past Micro$oft, no matter how much money they bring into my local area.

Thoughts?

Sean

[evildragon]

I assume you might think Area 51 has more than just hangers too, right?

It's all a conspiracy theory. I have XP, 2003, 2000, all running on computers that are still running strong.

It's more called: Bad administration at the library. Those computers get so much crap on them it aint funny.

[Floppies_only]

I assume you might think Area 51 has more than just hangers too, right?

It's all a conspiracy theory. I have XP, 2003, 2000, all running on computers that are still running strong.

It's more called: Bad administration at the library. Those computers get so much crap on them it aint funny.

I have heard and believe that prototype aircraft that preceeded the recently retired stealth fighter were tested out of the airport located in what is called "Area 51". So what?

I know that keeping a Windows computer is work, but I haven't been in charge of running one of them since version 3.1. Can anybody tell me the titles of any books that could be helpful in keeping all the little things that go wrong with modern Windows from happening?

Thanks,
Sean

[carlsson]

It could be malicious web pages, or at least with Javascripts doing legitimate things the current browser can't handle. If you can, check which version of the web browser the library has installed. Patches and service packs are published regularly, so it might well be in time for the IT personel to do a mass update.

[Trixter]

It makes me wonder if Microsoft programmed XP to do this on purpose, on the date that they stopped offering XP, in order to force people to upgrade. I never put anything past Micro$oft, no matter how much money they bring into my local area.


No, they did not do this on purpose. It is a coincidence, and you are paranoid :-)

But I'm serious -- it is a coincidence, nothing more.

[Druid6900]

I'd tend to agree.

Even if they were stupid enough to try something like that, they'd have to sell a HELL of a lot of copies of Vista to cover the fine when it was discovered.

I get so many current computers in for my flat-rate "clean up all the crap you've manage to contaminate your computer with" work-over that it funds buying old crap to try and sell LOL

Besides, just because you're NOT paranoid doesn't mean they AREN'T out to get you :)

[squirrel-steam]

Well, those computer probalby have a lot of spyware and viruses on them from the hundreds of websites they visit everyday, and the people that probalby go there to look at PrOn don't help it either, i know, it happens at my local library, and some of the computers at our high school.

[Floppies_only]

It could be malicious web pages, or at least with Javascripts doing legitimate things the current browser can't handle. If you can, check which version of the web browser the library has installed. Patches and service packs are published regularly, so it might well be in time for the IT personel to do a mass update.

I'll try to tell the IT guys/gals about the problem. I could just take it to the librarian, but she doesn't have the same anal-retentive nature concerning preventative maintenence that I do.

These computers do have AV software, and I assume that it updates automatically. This last because the University of Washington has a lot of computers to update.

I have found out that the Macintosh that Druid has offered to sell to me can be put on the web and can surf to modern web pages. Wow! A fouteen year old computer, duking it out with the best of them. I imagine that it will be sloww, but usable. So soon I will have the problem of keeping spyware off of my computer.

Sean

[Floppies_only]

No, they did not do this on purpose. It is a coincidence, and you are paranoid :-)

But I'm serious -- it is a coincidence, nothing more.

One thing that I do know about Microsoft is that they spend a lot of their revenue on supporting "causes", like fighting malaria in Africa. Personally, I think the economy would work better if they would spend that money on a combined approach to getting people to register their copies of Windows so that they can receive updates that keep the machines less insecure. Better yet, promote firewalls to people by giving them a discount on the one of their choice.

My main gripe is: Windows is not secure, it's always yielding new security holes that hackers can take advantage of. I actually wonder if the programmers put the security holes in on purpose so that they will have a steady job fixing them as the product ages.

Anyway you slice it, I am unhappy with Microsoft - and that is while the company brings tons of money into my local area, improving government services.

Sean

P.S.: I'm not paranoid. That's a medical term, and I'm not it. But what I am is determined that "it isn't going to happen to me". So I spend more time than the average person thinking of various ways that my security can be breeched. I think it makes me safer.

[nymetropolitans]

Windows is great if you strip it down, especially on brand name machines that come bundled with so much useless junk.

The computer I'm typing this from right now is a Dell Dimension 2400 that shipped with Windows XP and 128MB of RAM....I "upgraded" to 2000SP4 and with a few tweaks and some luck got it to run on 13 processes and less than 50MB of RAM (the other 3 are AV software). I have two other P4s running fully functional copies of XP on 256MB flawlessly, just needed some work to get there. Haven't gotten infected with a virus yet in this decade, not even any spyware or pop up ads in a few years now!!

http://i51.photobucket.com/albums/f389/seancornelis/taskmgrdell1-1.jpg

[Druid6900]

I hear that "full of bugs" argument a lot, not only for Windows, but for every OpSys in existance and my advice to those people is "Ok, sit down here, write an operating system from scratch and see if it's bullet proof"

It can't be done. No person, group of people or group of companies can foresee every possible interaction in that much code. They MIGHT, eventually, but, the OS would be 40 years out of date by the time it was released.

Add to that the whackos that pore through the code LOOKING for something to exploit and the problem is just that much more impossible.

I have never seen an operating system, no matter how big or how small that wasn't as buggy as hell.

You have to give Microsoft credit for plugging the holes as soon as they are discovered and, unlike some other OSes, not charge you for them.

Just my personal opinion.

[Mike Chambers]

no, it's not programmed to do that. if it was, somebody decompiling XP code and looking at it would have noticed by now. also, how did microsoft know when the obsolete date was going to be when they were writing XP?

the only downgrade would be a vista upgrade. windows 3.0 on an 8088 rival's vista's performance.

[Vlad]

Vista hasn't ever been slow for me but to be fair I've only used it on one machine. When I bought my last laptop, it was preloaded with Vista on a Core Duo. (Not Core 2) It ran just fine with out issue. Sure its not the speediest thing out there but neither is the Novell stuff I use. I've got nothing against Vista really, it ran everything I wanted to including stuff that predated XP a bit. Areo was pretty cool, a bit much at times but cool.

[Floppies_only]

I hear that "full of bugs" argument a lot, not only for Windows, but for every OpSys in existance and my advice to those people is "Ok, sit down here, write an operating system from scratch and see if it's bullet proof"

It can't be done. No person, group of people or group of companies can foresee every possible interaction in that much code. They MIGHT, eventually, but, the OS would be 40 years out of date by the time it was released.

Add to that the whackos that pore through the code LOOKING for something to exploit and the problem is just that much more impossible.

I have never seen an operating system, no matter how big or how small that wasn't as buggy as hell.

You have to give Microsoft credit for plugging the holes as soon as they are discovered and, unlike some other OSes, not charge you for them.

Just my personal opinion.

But Windows as it currently is released isn't written from scratch. XP says right on the start up screen "Copywrite 1985-2001". And they couldn't even get the basics right from the start. I've actually read a Microsoft publication boasting about the fact that the first version required more work because it tiled windows instead of having them overlap. Boasting. By the time version three came out, you saw ad after ad showing a screen with several windows overlapping, each one slightly above and to the side of the last so that you could conveniently click on the corner of the window you wanted and rock and roll. This is in my mind evidence of a signifigant lack of judgement on Microsoft's part.

I feel that this lack of judgement has carried on to the present day, when people without spam filters are getting hundreds of spams a day, many of them originating from Chinese computers running pirated, unregisterable copies of Windows. Microsoft could be spending part of it's considerable revenues by running a campaign to teach the Chinese that they would get less spam themselves if they'd just buy a legitimate copy of Windows.

The next thing they could do is build a firewall into Windows, so that less spam would get sent in the first place. I suppose that they could make it so that the firewall of your choice is included in the purchase price, and allow the user to download it off of the internet. No non-competitive practices that way.

Personally, I don't remember Macintosh's System Six to have been very buggy. But it didn't have to do as many things, granted.

You're never going to get me to say that Microsoft is doing as well as they should be. The complaints have been loud and unceasing, and at least some of the time, well founded. How many people can you find who bitch about Apple? Some, but not nearly as many.

Microsoft could be doing it that way, if they wanted.

By the way, I have no idea how often Microsoft releases patches. This here copy of XP is the first copy of Windows that I've paid full price for, but even then I don't expect to install it on anything for a while. But I suspose that they are at least doing a good job of releasing the patches.

Sean, who has had a security breach - on a laptop owned/maintained by a Microsoft employee - he was so blasé about it :)

[Floppies_only]

It could be malicious web pages, or at least with Javascripts doing legitimate things the current browser can't handle. If you can, check which version of the web browser the library has installed. Patches and service packs are published regularly, so it might well be in time for the IT personel to do a mass update.

A service pack did just come out for XP. I got an answer from the IT person at the University about this intermittant problem. And she said - wait for it - get the librarian to see it happen and tell her about it.

Intermittant. problem.

I am going to write back and 1) Tell her that the librarian has more important things to do than to watch me surf the internet for an hour to see this happen, and 2) ask her if the system administrator has a program that can keep statistics on the affected computers, specifically when they are downloading data, how much, and how long it takes them to do it.

Hmmm...maybe I'll be a real smart ass and ask her if they've installed service pack three yet.

If they don't have a program to monitor downloads, I will suggest that the computer science professors gather a team of graduate students who need extra credit and get them to write one.

Sean

[carlsson]

XP says right on the start up screen "Copywrite 1985-2001".
Perhaps some code may still remain from 1985, but mostly I think it refers to the Windows trademark which has been registered since then. Surely you can't copyright a trademark, but perhaps strengthen it by indicating that you've had a copyright since many years ago.

Microsoft could be spending part of it's considerable revenues by running a campaign to teach the Chinese that they would get less spam themselves if they'd just buy a legitimate copy of Windows.
Eh, the ability to send out spam does not matter if your Windows installation is legitimate or a copy. It depends on which email servers there are on the Internet and how they are configured.

The problem is that email is obsoleted, built on some 20+ year old protocols and standards which allow for a lot of forging in message headers, thus making a lot of spam and frauds difficult or impossible to track. If all email systems would be redone from scratch, things could get so much better but it is unlikely to happen.. perhaps the same year the whole world has moved to IPv6. ;-)

When it comes to Windows, actually most pirate copies floating around uses an existing or generated key so even Microsoft has difficulties to automatically detect which is which. They're setting up new methods of validation, banning certain keys known to be used illegally and eventually when moving over to new versions of Windows probably change into a completely different type of verification system that will prevent pirate copying to make sense at all. Or who knows? Many people, companies and politicians would be very uncomfortable if they are required to send in their personal details to Microsoft in order to get complete the installation.

The next thing they could do is build a firewall into Windows, so that less spam would get sent in the first place.
There already is a firewall in Windows XP and I suppose Vista. It only blocks incoming threats though. Your suggestion to let the customer choose which other vendor's software should be included with Microsoft Windows is interesting. Many resellers of new computers will bundle Windows and a few other programs with the computer. They could just as well make up a list and let the customer choose a few titles from it. The question is just how a customer who has no experience of e.g. firewalls knows which one to choose? Perhaps it depends on your needs, so there is no firewall that is "the best", but serveral good ones for different tasks.

Blocking spam is best done with a spam filter, preferrably on your email provider's server. Certainly you could have an outgoing filter on your email program too, but do you really think the people who make money on sending spam would opt to use the filter? If it was mandatory, there would emerge piracy versions that bypass the filter. Companies who send spam would pay money for programmers to fix this problem.

So again, as I see it the main problem and solution for the amounts of spam and other nastiness we get in our email is the email system itself. Rewrite it completely, issue licenses to trustworthy email providers and make it as fool-proof as possible. The hackers will have to break into a safe server in order to misuse it, which certainly can and may happen, but that is taking computer crime to a higher level than abusing the systems.

[Floppies_only]

Anders,

The email provider I use, Hotmail (paid for by Microsoft - oops, hoisted by my own petard) has a great system for preventing spam. Any subscriber can choose to move any message that they think is spam into a junk folder. Once they do this, identical copies of the message, or perhaps ones with the same headers, that were delivered to other subscribers are automatically moved to this junk folder. Spammers hardly try to send mail to hotmail addresses because the cost to benefit ratio is lower than with other addresses.

I suspose that if more ISP's offer this service, spammers will start sending messages with different text and/or headers to fool the program that moves the messages to the junk folder.

Now, if we could get legislation that would allow the authorities to go after the merchants who are sending out the spam by finding out their physical location from the address of their online stores we might have less spam, too.

Are you sure that the machines that are sending it are purely email servers? Aside from the ones in Russia that's not what I've heard.

Oh, and on the Chinese, I meant that getting them to respect intellectual property rights could get more of them to purchase Windows from Microsoft. I think that competitive pricing would help, too. The Chinese average wage is much lower than that in our respective countries.

Hollywood should be writing this respect intellectual property message into their scripts. They stand to gain because movies are another item that is frequently pirated by the Chinese. If they could make the message interesting and subtle enough, the piraters...pirates wouldn't edit it out.

Sean

[Druid6900]

Sean, no insult intended, but, you're living in a dream world.

Some people pirate (fill in the blank) because they are cheap, some, because of the "challenge" some, some for other reasons that escape me at the moment.

Want to know why why XP, for example, costs a few hundred bucks instead of 49.95? Simple, because, in some countries, only 1 in 5 copies are going to be bought and paid for.

As for educating people about piracy, well, I don't think "piracy is stealing" is going to work. They KNOW it's stealing, they just don't CARE.

From the demographics I've seen, it's the 25 and below age group that does the bulk of pirating, the same segment that think that the world OWES them free software, music, movies etc.

Want to reduce piracy to next to nothing and have the price of pirated items drop dramatically? Wipe out the WWW, go back to telnetting and quads. Without the WWW overlaid on the Internet, most people couldn't find their buttholes. LOL

[TroyW]

As I think has already been established after reading this thread, no, Micro$oft have not programmed XP to downgrade itself. We've got 3 machines here all running XP nicely - an AMD Athlon64 3500+ with 1Gb RAM, an AMD Athlon64 3000+ with 1.5Gb, and a AMD Athlon 2000+ with 512Mb RAM. All completely up to date with the latest patches. The only time any of the machines displays any hint of slowdown is when too much is asked of it - some web sites are just too slow on the 2000 machine and make it slow to a crawl, but that's because of the content of the web pages - close them and it's back to being nice and responsive again.

I also wouldn't trust Micro$oft as far as I could throw Bill Gates, while I know they do do a lot of good for various communities, personally I see that as their attempt to balance out karma from their un-ethical business practices they have used, such as forcing people to buy Micro$oft DOS if they wanted to run Windows by intentionally making it not compatible with a competing DOS product at the time, to name just one example.

Sure, we could all switch to Linux, but we do play some games, and there is some software that we use that only works on Windows (and no, it apparently doesn't work in WINE), and I'd happily consider switching to an Apple system personally but right now can't afford to consider the purchase price required.

I really wish Commodore hadn't gone under, I'd still be happily using Workbench on an Amiga if they hadn't gone under, Workbench 2 onwards was easily better then any of the tripe Micro$oft has ever made, but it's now considered a "dead" platform and I wouldn't want to use it as it is now for what I use a computer for - although I do have Amiga Forever and maintain an emulated Amiga machine, which sadly is much faster then my real Amiga 4000/040.

Sorry about the rant, although I REALLY don't like micro$oft, XP is a useable product for many people, and while far from perfect, is good enough for a lot of us.

Oh, and no, I wouldn't be surprised if microsoft programmers did create bugs for themselves to fix with a later patch, but in reality I think it's pretty unlikely that they would do that.

[Floppies_only]

Sean, no insult intended, but, you're living in a dream world.

Oh, no insult taken. You know, back during the war I had a friend who was a mortar infantryman. I was a truck driver. His expirience during most of the war was being around the same sixty uninteresting people and never having a break from them. My expirience during the war was driving and waiting to upload supplies for twelve hours a day, and never having enough time to talk to the eighty interesting people in my platoon. I couldn't wait to get back to the bivouac to see them again.

So for me, this exchange is me ranting and carrying on, and others trying to disabuse me of my wrong-headed ideas. I know that I've had my share of them in my lifetime. Scientists are specifically trained to recognize their own biases. I haven't had that training but I am willing to learn. So the way I see it is that we are all throwing out ideas and forming arguments to support them - which doesn't imply that we are arguing with each other. We're just talking, doing what people do, and it's all good.

As for educating people about piracy, well, I don't think "piracy is stealing" is going to work. They KNOW it's stealing, they just don't CARE.

Well, I have heard that the Chinese, young adults and other age groups, live in a culture that doesn't respect intellectual property rights. I was thinking that if they could be made to understand that the more people pirate software, the less new programs will be made. I figured that Hollywood could make it dramatic, a matter of life and death, say people in intensive care dying because the medical machines didn't work well enough. This is after they have introduced the character and made the audience really care about the fact that they died. No one movie could do the whole job, it's just part of the effort that will take a long time.

Want to reduce piracy to next to nothing and have the price of pirated items drop dramatically? Wipe out the WWW, go back to telnetting and quads. Without the WWW overlaid on the Internet, most people couldn't find their buttholes. LOL

Well, that would do more harm than good. The modern internet is great for the economy. I guess it will be interesting to see what happens as these youngsters who pirate replace the people who don't.

I see from my email account that there have been a lot of posts in threads I am subscribed to, but I have to wait until Monday to read them.

Until then,
I remain,
Sean

[squirrel-steam]

One thing that I do know about Microsoft is that they spend a lot of their revenue on supporting "causes", like fighting malaria in Africa. Personally, I think the economy would work better if they would spend that money on a combined approach to getting people to register their copies of Windows so that they can receive updates that keep the machines less insecure. Better yet, promote firewalls to people by giving them a discount on the one of their choice.

My main gripe is: Windows is not secure, it's always yielding new security holes that hackers can take advantage of. I actually wonder if the programmers put the security holes in on purpose so that they will have a steady job fixing them as the product ages.
Anyway you slice it, I am unhappy with Microsoft - and that is while the company brings tons of money into my local area, improving government services.

Sean

P.S.: I'm not paranoid. That's a medical term, and I'm not it. But what I am is determined that "it isn't going to happen to me". So I spend more time than the average person thinking of various ways that my security can be breeched. I think it makes me safer.


Well, windows dosen't have security holes, just hackers keep making new ones like flies on a screen door. The reason why mac is more "secure" is that they are not as popular, so hackers don't really bother writing viruses and spyware for them. Thats also why linux is very secure, because about 1% of computer uses run it, so it also just has very little viruses made for it.

Think of it like this, if you could rob any bank you wanted and not get in trouble, would you rob your local ATM (linux,) Bank of New York City (mac,) or Fort Knox (windows,)???

[Mike Chambers]

even if you do download something that has a linux virus, as long as you don't do everything as root it is not really able to cause any damage.

[TroyW]

even if you do download something that has a linux virus, as long as you don't do everything as root it is not really able to cause any damage.

Yup, so to my understanding that makes Linux more secure by design. Will have to get a Linux distro and give it a go again soon, LOL!

[carlsson]

even if you do download something that has a linux virus, as long as you don't do everything as root it is not really able to cause any damage.
Have you ever heard of buffer exploits and the setuid bit? While not technically a virus or a worm, a lot of hacker attacks on Unix and probably Linux systems through the years have been made by exploiting some service like e.g. telnet by causing a buffer overflow, make the process crash and you end up in a root shell because the program is written in a such way. I suppose if there are applications willing to launch other applications (e.g. mailers and browsers), a Linux system may be just as vulnerable. But as Squirrel wrote, very few users run it on their desktop so the viral way of infecting computers won't be as effective as in e.g. Windows.

[squirrel-steam]

I run linux on my server, and it runs just fine, its had a couple of viruses but they did no damage (just as my xp machine has had 62 viruses, and no troubles yet!).

It is very secure, just harder to use when you are use to xp, problem is any hardware you buy probalby won't have drivers for linux, i bought a 7300GT for my server, and I can't actually run any graphic intense programs becasue it dosen't have the software to take advantage of that. It dosen't even know what speed and type my processor is, (no drivers installed, and its just a 1.7ghz pentium 4) Then Mastercam for linux can't run toolpaths very well above lowest quality, and for some reason it dosen't like to write the toolpaths to floppy disks, but when i boot into windows, it works just fine. Its just a ASUS P4T800 HP motherboard too.

[IBMMuseum]

Well, windows dosen't have security holes, just hackers keep making new ones like flies on a screen door. The reason why mac is more "secure" is that they are not as popular, so hackers don't really bother writing viruses and spyware for them. Thats also why linux is very secure, because about 1% of computer uses run it, so it also just has very little viruses made for it.

Think of it like this, if you could rob any bank you wanted and not get in trouble, would you rob your local ATM (linux,) Bank of New York City (mac,) or Fort Knox (windows,)???

That 1% that run Linux are also more technical in nature (they have to be) than an average Windows user. Is grandma going to know how to keep up with all of the updates so that her system is secure? Under the analogy, it would be something like the bank guard.

[squirrel-steam]

Ya, thats true, a lot of non-tech savvy people probalby have never even heard of linux. But to update xp or vista, there is a automatic updates.

[Floppies_only]

Well, windows dosen't have security holes, just hackers keep making new ones like flies on a screen door. The reason why mac is more "secure" is that they are not as popular, so hackers don't really bother writing viruses and spyware for them. Thats also why linux is very secure, because about 1% of computer uses run it, so it also just has very little viruses made for it.

Think of it like this, if you could rob any bank you wanted and not get in trouble, would you rob your local ATM (linux,) Bank of New York City (mac,) or Fort Knox (windows,)???

Yeah, I knew that about Linux. I bought "Linux for Dummies" that came with a distrobution CD, just in case I do buy a modern computer to put it on. I'd like it to be triple boot: XP, Vista, Linux.

Sean