Tuesday, February 14, 2006
Another Windows Gripe
Microsoft just keeps shooting blanks, if you ask me. The computing industry is all head-over-heels about security lately and Microsoft is listening with at least one ear. So, what have they done? Well, let't take a look at Vista, the upcoming flagship product from Microsoft.
Vista is the first operating system produced by Microsoft that encourages the user to not run the system as Administrator, but to create a separate, less potent user account for themselves. Seems reasonable enough considering that is EXACTLY what Linux and MacOSX do and they don't have nearly the security issues that Windows has. When you log on, you have a reduced permission set that is supposed to prevent you from damaging the system and to prevent malware from installing itself to your computer. When you do happen to need to make a change, you can always select the Run As... or the Run Elevated... option from the context menu of a file. For instance, if you need to install something, you right click on the installer icon and select Run As... and then you enter the administrator password. That seems pretty intuitive to me. However, my gripe is this: where is the freakin' su command??
In Linux and MacOSX, when you want to make system changes, you can drop to a command line and use the su command to temporarily switch to the root or superuser permission subset. This allows you to not only run commands, but edit files and move them or copy them wherever you may need them. In Windows, this "su" option is limited to running an executable. What if I don't want to run the executable? What if I want to copy it from on location to another? I have to log out then log back in as Administrator to complete the task. Then I have to log back out and log back in as me to keep going. All this logging makes me want to don a hard hat and a flannel shirt and drive a big truck.
Come on, Microsoft. Get with the program. Please, please, please do the world a favor and implement a real su command so that users can manipulate files without having to log in and out a gazillion times. Oh wait, that would be too much like Linux and of course we all know what an evil thing Linux is.
Vista is the first operating system produced by Microsoft that encourages the user to not run the system as Administrator, but to create a separate, less potent user account for themselves. Seems reasonable enough considering that is EXACTLY what Linux and MacOSX do and they don't have nearly the security issues that Windows has. When you log on, you have a reduced permission set that is supposed to prevent you from damaging the system and to prevent malware from installing itself to your computer. When you do happen to need to make a change, you can always select the Run As... or the Run Elevated... option from the context menu of a file. For instance, if you need to install something, you right click on the installer icon and select Run As... and then you enter the administrator password. That seems pretty intuitive to me. However, my gripe is this: where is the freakin' su command??
In Linux and MacOSX, when you want to make system changes, you can drop to a command line and use the su command to temporarily switch to the root or superuser permission subset. This allows you to not only run commands, but edit files and move them or copy them wherever you may need them. In Windows, this "su" option is limited to running an executable. What if I don't want to run the executable? What if I want to copy it from on location to another? I have to log out then log back in as Administrator to complete the task. Then I have to log back out and log back in as me to keep going. All this logging makes me want to don a hard hat and a flannel shirt and drive a big truck.
Come on, Microsoft. Get with the program. Please, please, please do the world a favor and implement a real su command so that users can manipulate files without having to log in and out a gazillion times. Oh wait, that would be too much like Linux and of course we all know what an evil thing Linux is.
Comments:
Post a Comment
