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Vista 7 Gets Royal (Patch) Treatment, Windows XP in Court for “Spyware” Behaviour

Windows XP wallpaper style



Summary: Many security issues in Vista 7, Windows XP has Microsoft sued for behaving like malicious software

SEVERAL days ago we wrote about Vista 7 being left insecure. Given all that has happened in the past year (c.f. links at the bottom), this should not be surprising and SJVN has just written a short article claiming that Vista 7 suffers from "unimproved security".

When it comes to security and Windows 7, it's just more of the same old, same old.

This point really came home to me when I was looking over all the patches that Microsoft will delivering tomorrow in what may be the largest Patch Tuesday ever. Microsoft "will ship a total of 13 updates next week, eight of them pegged "critical," the highest threat ranking in its four-step scoring system, beating the previous record of 12 updates shipped in February 2007 and again in October 2008."Of these 13, five are for Windows 7.


That's Tuesday, that's today.

Microsoft claims 5 patches for Vista 7, but as experience suggests, Microsoft lies about these numbers. It is not obliged to adhere to the same reporting standards as Free software.

Many people will continue using Windows XP when 7 comes out, but XP is permanently insecure since Microsoft refuses to patch it. And to make matters worse, based on this report, Microsoft is still stuck in court having been sued for XP being spyware, which it is (for more than one reason).

The plaintiffs allege that Microsoft improperly distributed the Windows Genuine Advantage tool, without proper consent from users, in a manner normally reserved for "high priority" security updates. WGA, as it's known, tests to see if a copy of Windows is valid and delivers warnings if it doesn't pass. Microsoft's Automatic Update system lets users opt in to receive fixes and patches for the operating system.


That's a lie or an embellishment at the very least. Microsoft overrides those settings. Even if the user requests that updates shall not be pushed through, Windows settings are totally ignored. Users have shown this for years.

On Vista 7 security problems:

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