Development path Linux (or lets make a really great system)

[Troy Martin]

I'm sure windows runs just fine when you delete everything.

No, I was just pointing to the fact that you can break Linux as easy as Windows, if under root/admin access.

Yes, but until Vista most people were running administrator accounts all the time. This is rarely done in Linux.

I run my Vista box under my administrator account whenever I go on. Less security "features" in my way.

[Zenith]

IMHO, the only real difference between administrators and limited users on Vista is that admins don't have to type a password when confronted with a UAC notification.

Correct me if I'm horribly wrong, but otherwise all other programs would run like limited user programs, a la Linux.

[JohnnyTheDon]

What I meant is before UAC there was nothing to stop a program from messing around with what it wanted to for the most part. I also turn UAC off because if a virus does come up and ask me to mess with something, I won't even give it a second thought because so *ing many of those security alerts pop up every time I click a button.

[Love4Boobies]

UAC won't even let the system administrator run netstat...

[Troy Martin]

What's the use for account control when the admin's the only one using the box?

[JohnnyTheDon]

To keep programs from doing nasty things accidentally (ie rm -rf /) or on purpose.

For example, say I have just gotten a virus through some means that has infiltrated GCC. The next time I run GCC it attempts to access my /etc/passwd file, stealing my passwords (they aren't stored there really, but you get the idea).

Not using Admin Login:
However, because I am not running with administrator privileges it fails.

Using Admin Login:
Someone hijacks my computer.

Using UAC:
Some random window comes up, on which I instinctively click OK. Someone hijacks my computer.

[Brynet-Inc]

What's the use for account control when the admin's the only one using the box?

Because a calculator shouldn't be able to take down the entire system.

[Troy Martin]

This is Vista, not 95.

[Brynet-Inc]

This is Vista, not 95.

Your ignorance is shocking.

[Love4Boobies]

Your ignorance is shocking.

Telling from your signature, so is yours

[Brynet-Inc]

Telling from your signature, so is yours

Thanks.

[JohnnyTheDon]

Okay Love4. Explain the technical advantages of Windows over Unix.

[Love4Boobies]

Well, all I was trying to say is that UNIX is no good either; I wasn't trying to start a flame or anything. But one thing that's surely cool about the NT kernel is its capability of loading subsystems. Did you know you can actually load a POSIX subsystem and run UNIX apps on top of Windows?

[JohnnyTheDon]

If you had ever attempted this, you would have found out that it doesn't actually work that way. The POSIX api iimplementation is quite limited, and running normal Unix applications under NT doesn't work.

[AndrewAPrice]

UAC won't even let the system administrator run netstat...

That's simply resolved by running the command prompt with administrator privileges. Processes inherit the privileges of the process that executed it. A stupid idea is running Explorer.exe with admin privileges since you can simply disable UAC (I prefer Comodo instead (though annoying when you first install it and it's not trained to handle anything)).