17-year-old Windows Flaw Affects All Since NT

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[citation][nom]caffeinecarl[/nom]Windows 7"Hahaha... What's with the inches sign? Who else noticed that?[/citation]


that's the end quotation mark, as that is where the guy stopped talking and when TOM's started to talk...

its not inches up here in canada eh, " stands jusst for the quotation mark.
 
[citation][nom]captaincharisma[/nom]no virtual dos is like included software. windows 7 could have been re-wrote but virtual dos is not really a native part of it. the last OS that was native to dos was windows ME.i could be wrong though[/citation]
actualy windows ME didn`t have any DOS either (at least the option to restart to MS Dos) or F8 at the start to load only Dos ... so this leaves you with only Win 98
 
[citation][nom]rooket[/nom]My pentium 4 is incapable of running 64bit windows 7. so yes.[/citation]
you should have gotten those AMD Athlon64 those days .... :)
 
[citation][nom]Jerky_san[/nom]I thought vista and win 7 were totally re-wrote? Suppose they couldn't rewrite everything.. Luckily it seems to only effect 32bit =)[/citation]

1) It's rewritten, NOT rewrote. You don't even need the hyphen.
2) To answer your question: No.
 
Blaaaaa, haaaaaa. This only tells me that they have continued to build their patch piece OS in a Swiss Cheese style for many years. No wonder Windows is full of so many holes and so bloated.
 
Some people don't seem to know about that, but...

MSDOS 7 was the kernel used from Win95 to WinMe; the windowing system ran on top of it. It was an hybrid 16/32-bit kernel - thus it could run 'native' 16-bit MSDOS software.

Ever since Windows NT4 was created, atop a VMS-like NT kernel, said kernel could support subsystems used for compatibility reasons. Of note, were those subsystems:
- cmd: a DOS-like command line able to emulate 16-bit DOS - after a fashion. This is the subsystem in question. It has, obviously, sat hardly touched for years.
- (Windows 2000 only, but it worked in XP too) OS/2 subsystem: IBM's extensions to Win16/32 APIs, allowinf OS/2 apps to run under Windows NT5+
- (NT4, dunno about later) POSIX subsystem. Able to run 'Hello World!' in a command line, but unable to access the hardware. Present only to say 'NT4 is POSIX-capable', but not to use it (replaced by Services for UNIX).

The difference between those subsystems and emulators like DOSbox, is that they don't recreate a whole machine+OS; they provide several hooks into NT that may allow an app native to these subsystems to run. Yet they are far from complete.

It is, of course, a bit shameful that any of these subsystems weren't audited for unlimited access into kernel space.
 
[citation][nom]itdude[/nom]7" - windows envy?32-bit windows users = only about 99% of all windows users[/citation]
That would be wrong.

Windows XP 32 bit (-3.20%) 44.77%
Windows Vista 32 bit (-0.27%) 20.71%
Windows 7 64 bit (+2.45%) 15.61%
Windows Vista 64 bit (+0.81%) 10.00%
Windows 7 (+0.02%) 7.45%
Windows XP 64 bit (+0.19%) 0.64%
Windows 2003 64 bit (+0.04%) 0.64%
Windows 2000 (-0.01%) 0.10%
Other (-0.03%) 0.08%
 
[citation][nom]rooket[/nom]My pentium 4 is incapable of running 64bit windows 7. so yes.[/citation]People still use Pentium 4s?? I thought those all ended up in the same landfill as all those Atari 2600 ET cartridges!

Just kidding. Kinda.
 
[citation][nom]technomyke[/nom]That would be wrong. Windows XP 32 bit (-3.20%) 44.77% Windows Vista 32 bit (-0.27%) 20.71% Windows 7 64 bit (+2.45%) 15.61% Windows Vista 64 bit (+0.81%) 10.00% Windows 7 (+0.02%) 7.45% Windows XP 64 bit (+0.19%) 0.64% Windows 2003 64 bit (+0.04%) 0.64% Windows 2000 (-0.01%) 0.10% Other (-0.03%) 0.08%[/citation]

Still, he was not very far off in his guess if your table is accurate showing 72% of users are still with 32-bit OS's. It will be a couple more years before the trend shifts in 64-bit's favor in my opinion.
 
The 2 primary systems that are in use in my household (Core 2 Duo E6750s) still run XP Pro 32bit, despite the fact I could upgrade them. (I have retail Win 7 Home Premium copies available.) The reason... why should I?

The systems aren't used to play the newest games (I don't need DX higher than 9.0c), they only have 4 GB of ram installed (yes, limited to ~3 GB in Win XP 32 bit, oh well), the OS is still supported by MS, and the installed applications on them run just fine without the upgrade.

At my workplace, we skipped Windows Vista and are, just now, being to test Win 7 for all laptops and desktops. (The upgrade won't happen until at least next year's lease renewal.) New servers, if their installed apps allow, are being installed with Win Server 2008 64 bit. (However, many enterprise level software vendors are still not supporting Win Server 2008, with some not even supporting 64 bit native OSs.

With the above said, I agree with skit75... it will take a couple more years before native 64 bit OSs become the majority. (Especially with many MS OS installed netbooks running Win XP Home and Pro 32 bit.)
 
This isn't a security flaw, its a backwards compatibility issue. Older 16-bit applications expect to have kernel access, they expect to have access directly to hardware. If any application has direct access to kernel / hardware then it can insert any form of code it wants and do whatever it wants to do.

64 bit windows is not effected because MS removed the entire 16-bit subsystem from it. Literally the OS can not execute 16-bit code in any way shape or form, thus preventing all the security / compatibility issues involved. This is also the reason MS wants everyone to move to x64, they no longer want to have to support / deal with the problems derived from 16-bit support on a 32-bit OS. In order to maintain compatibility with 98 / 2000 applications XP kept the 16-bit subsystem, in order to maintain compatibility Vista kept it also. Windows 7 had to keep it to maintain compatibility with all those pre-existing systems. I can just hear people at MS cursing the decision to maintain a 16-bit subsystem for this long.

And FYI, the 16-bit subsystem isn't just for DOS. Its also used for various legacy DLL's and common controls. Think Windows 3.11.
 
Another FYI post because I realize many posters do not understand the level MS is willing to go to get the 32 bit OS's removed (without loosing market share).

I originally ran XP Pro x64 awhile back, for the reasons that the NT x64 kernel was modularized and able to completely remove applications access to kernel space. Something the current NT x86 kernel can not do (due to application compatibility). In NT x64 older x86 applications access a virtual kernel (WOW) that has its own registry and memory space. This prevents a misbehaving application from taking down the system kernel. This is something that has been done in the UNIX world for a very long time. MS implemented it with their NT x64 kernel but can't implement it with the NT x86 one without breaking compatibility.

Anyways back to my original story. With XP 64-bit it was a complete PITA to find drivers for everything, hardware manufactured didn't want to spend the time developing x64 kernel drivers for a user base that didn't exist. Users didn't want to switch to a NT x64 OS without driver / application support already in place. It was a chicken / egg situation, so with Vista Microsoft made it a requirement to produce NT x64 drivers in order for a manufacturer to get the "Vista Ready" logo. An application was required to be tested and to function in NT x64 in order to get the "Vista Ready" logo.

After they did that, drivers were MUCH easier for me to find for my equipment and many applications were either available in x64 versions, or they fixed any compatibility issues / bugs with working on x64. So yes MS really really wants users to get away from the NT x86 architecture. Its no where as efficient as the NT x64 one is, and contains many security flaws that are required to be there (for backwards compatibility). Its very hard to crash a NT x64 kernel. There basically needs to be an unstable kernel mode driver present. No applications are allowed to interface directly with the kernel, so its impossible for a misbehaving app to take it down.

So yes, everyone please move over to the NT x64 world. If you don't like Vista / Windows 7, then go out and "acquire" Windows XP 64-bit. Don't worry its not "real" XP, rather its Windows Server 2003 x64 with a different label. Works like a champ and is rock solid. Also It'll be supported by MS for a VERY long time, as data centers and business partners don't just switch their enterprise systems to a new OS because its new.
 
the 64 bit is incapable of windows at 64 bit. where is retro active? baffled with bullshit..by the time 16 bit is maximized they find another bug.
 
[citation][nom]hurfburf[/nom]Learn how to spell check you goddamn idiots. Kernal? Really?[/citation]
Gramar Trolls - Bee GHONE.

Mhan theis grahamar trullz r reelly unnoying.
 
Btw...Get a clue guys, if u didn't notice, the news cums to u by Marcus Yammy. Palladin9479 stated it best and Marcus is just trying to put pheermongering into u. And its just Marcus Yammy finding dirt on Windows - sumthing that he does on a regular basis but never says anything bad about Apple/OSX.
 
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