Criticism of Windows Vista Wikipedia. This article is about the criticism that applies specifically to Vista. For criticism applying to several or all versions of Microsoft Windows, see Criticism of Microsoft Windows. Windows Vista, an operating system released by Microsoft for consumers on January 3. Due to issues with privacy, security, performance, driver support and product activation, Windows Vista has been the subject of a number of negative assessments by various groups. Dell Windows Vista Upgrade To Windows 7' title='Dell Windows Vista Upgrade To Windows 7' />SecurityeditDriver signing requirementeditFor security reasons, 6. Windows Vista and of Windows 7 as well allow only signeddrivers to be installed in kernel mode. Because code executing in kernel mode enjoys wide privileges on the system, the signing requirement aims to ensure that only code with known origin execute at this level. In order for a driver to be signed, a developersoftware vendor will have to obtain an Authenticode certificate3 with which to sign the driver. Authenticode certificates can be obtained from certificate authorities trusted by Microsoft. Microsoft trusts the certificate authority to verify the applicants identity before issuing a certificate. If a driver is not signed using a valid certificate, or if the driver was signed using a certificate which has been revoked by Microsoft or the certificate authority, Windows will refuse to load the driver. The following criticismsclaims have been made regarding this requirement It disallows experimentation from the hobbyist community. The required Authenticode certificates for signing Vista drivers are expensive and out of reach5 for small developers, usually about 4. Verisign. citation neededMicrosoft allows developers to temporarily or locally disable the signing requirement on systems they control by hitting F8 during boot or by signing the drivers with self issued certificates or by running a kernel debugger. Silver Surfer Pictures. At one time, a third party tool called Atsiv7 existed that would allow any driver, unsigned or signed to be loaded. Atsiv worked by installing a signed surrogate driver which could be directed to load any other driver, thus circumventing the driver signing requirement. Since this was in violation of the driver signing requirement, Microsoft closed this workaround with hotfix KB9. Flaws in memory protection featureseditSecurity researchers Alexander Sotirov and Mark Dowd have developed a technique that bypasses many of the new memory protection safeguards in Windows Vista, such as address space layout randomization ASLR. The result of this is that any already existing buffer overflow bugs that, in Vista, were previously not exploitable due to such features, may now be exploitable. This is not in itself a vulnerability as Sotirov notes, What we presented is weaknesses in the protection mechanism. Dell Windows Vista Upgrade To Windows 7' title='Dell Windows Vista Upgrade To Windows 7' />It still requires the system under attack to have a vulnerability. Without the presence of a vulnerability these techniques dont really accomplish anything. The vulnerability Sotirov and Dowd used in their paper as an example was the 2. CVE 2. 00. 7 0. One security researcher Dino Dai Zovi claimed that this means that it is completely game over for Vista security1. Sotirov refuted this, saying that The articles that describe Vista security as broken or done for, with unfixable vulnerabilities are completely inaccurate. One of the suggestions I saw in many of the discussions was that people should just use Windows XP. In fact, in XP a lot of those protections were bypassing such as ASLR dont even exist. Digital rights managementeditAnother common criticism concerns the integration of a new form of digital rights management DRM into the operating system, specifically the Protected Video Path PVP, which involves technologies such as High bandwidth Digital Content Protection HDCP and the Image Constraint Token ICT. These features were added to Vista due to licensing restrictions from the HD DVD consortium and Blu ray association. This will concern only the resolution of playback of protected content on HD DVD and Blu ray discs, but it has not been enabled as of 2. A lack of a protected channel does not stop playback. Audio plays back as normal but high definition video downsamples on Blu ray and HD DVD to slightly better than DVD quality video. A detailed guide that shows you how to easily upgrade Vista to Windows 7. Windows 7 Forums is the largest help and support community, providing friendly help and advice for Microsoft Windows 7 Computers such as Dell, HP, Acer, Asus or a. Vista ha richiesto una gestazione di oltre cinque anni, dal debutto del suo predecessore Windows XP, rendendo questultimo il prodotto pi longevo della storia dei. How to Do a Dual Boot Installation with Windows 8 and Windows 7 or Vista Information This will show you how to set up a dual boot install. Upgrade to Windows 10 from Windows XP, Windows Vista, Windows 7, Windows 8 and keep your programs, settings and files intact. Windows 10 is coming and Microsoft wants everyone to upgrade. The Windows 7 8 popup reminder ensures that even the last person will be aware of this option. Heres. The Protected Video Path mandates that encryption must be used whenever content marked as protected will travel over a link where it might be intercepted. This is called a User Accessible Bus UAB. Additionally, all devices that come into contact with premium content such as graphics cards have to be certified by Microsoft. Before playback starts, all the devices involved are checked using a hardware functionality scan HFS to verify if they are genuine and have not been tampered with. Devices are required to lower the resolution from 1. HDCP. Additionally, Microsoft maintains a global revocation list for devices that have been compromised. This list is distributed to PCs over the Internet using normal update mechanisms. The only effect on a revoked drivers functionality is that high level protected content will not play all other functionality, including low definition playback, is retained. Notable criticseditPeter Gutmann, a computer security expert from the University of Auckland, New Zealand, has released a whitepaper1. Adding encryption facilities to devices makes them more expensive, a cost that is passed on to the user. If outputs are not deemed sufficiently protected by the media industry, then even very expensive equipment can be required to be switched off for example, SPDIF based, high end audio cards. Some newer high definition monitors are not HDCP enabled, even though the manufacturer may claim otherwise. The added complexity makes systems less reliable. Since non protected media are not subject to the new restrictions, users may be encouraged to remove the protection in order to view them without restrictions, thus defeating the content protection schemes initial purpose. Protection mechanisms, such as disabling or degrading outputs, may be triggered erroneously or maliciously, motivating denial of service attacks. Revoking the driver of a device that is in wide use is such a drastic measure that Gutmann doubts Microsoft will ever actually do so. On the other hand, they may be forced to because of their legal obligations to the movie studios. The Free Software Foundation conducted a campaign called Bad. Vista against Vista on these grounds. Reaction to criticismeditEd Bott, author of Windows Vista Inside Out, has published a three part blog which rebuts many of Gutmanns claims. Botts criticisms can be summarized as follows Gutmann based his paper on outdated documentation from Microsoft and second hand web sources. Gutmann quotes selectively from the Microsoft specifications. Gutmann did no experimental work with Vista to prove his theories. Rather, he makes mistaken assumptions and then speculates wildly on their implications. Gutmanns paper, while presented as serious research, is really just an opinion piece. Technology writer George Ou states that Gutmanns paper relies on unreliable sources and that Gutmann has never used Windows Vista to test his theories. Gutmann has responded to both Bott and Ou in a further article,1. Gutmanns article has not been refuted and the response of Bott is disinformation.