Windows 7 Memory Usage Critic Outed As Fraud 451
A few days ago, we ran word of a report alleging that Windows 7 consumed more memory than it should, based on a report from Devil Mountain Software; a followup post linked to Ars Technica's robust deconstruction of that claim. Now the story gets weird: Fred Flowers writes The original story quoted the company's CTO, Craig Barth on the issue. Now, InfoWorld editor in chief Eric Knorr has still more to add. From Knorr's blog at InfoWorld.com: 'On Friday, Feb. 19, we discovered that one of our contributors, Randall C. Kennedy, had been misrepresenting himself to other media organizations as Craig Barth, CTO of Devil Mountain Software (aka exo.performance.network), in interviews for a number of stories regarding Windows and other Microsoft software topics. ... There is no Craig Barth.' Knorr's post goes on to say that Kennedy has been fired from his blogging gig at InfoWorld over this 'serious breach of trust,' and that his blog will be removed."
Re:Eh wouldn't surprise me... (Score:1, Informative)
This. Nevermind that Vista's added "security features" were poorly implemented and ultimately useless, there is absolutely no excuse for an OS to be that bloated.
Re:The fraud was not in the claims about Windows (Score:5, Informative)
See http://talkback.zdnet.com/5208-10532-0.html?forumID=1&threadID=75498&messageID=1468379 [zdnet.com] for what he claims he is and does.
Re:Eh wouldn't surprise me... (Score:5, Informative)
I like UAC, and I'm kind of an MS fanboy, but that's just wrong. There are solutions like gksudo that work much like UAC, including a user-friendly GUI and caching of credentials. Not to mention PolicyKit and other capability-based security mechanisms. Every major distro (e.g. Ubuntu, Fedora, etc.) has these features by default.
Funny, I hired him for a job once (Score:3, Informative)
We used to use him to cobble up sales plans. He'd do some performance reports under a pseudonym, quote these fake 3rd parties in a report, then we'd produce a whole range of sales materials quoting all these 'different' sources and the roll up.
Took the analysts about a year to figure out that it was just one guy. Which was fine because the guy was hard to handle. He was like a teenager. When we fired him, he turned into a big problem.
Slashdot get trolled, news at 11 (Score:5, Informative)
Re:More information (Score:4, Informative)
InfoWorld's editor in chief, Eric Knorr, should be commended for dealing this matter quickly and decisively when he discovered Mr. Kennedy's deception. At the same time, he should think very carefully about the series of decisions that led to this outcome.
Wrong, looks like he knew all along.
From http://talkback.zdnet.com/5208-10532-0.html?forumID=1&threadID=75498&messageID=1468379 [zdnet.com] [zdnet.com]
IDG knew. Galen Gruman, Executive Editor of InfoWorld knew. As
did Eric Knorr. And several others. But poor Gregg Keizer - hey,
the man was looking for an anti-Microsoft angle at every turn, and
he let his zeal get the best of him. I honestly never meant any
harm, especially to Gregg.
Slashdot should ban all articles from InfoWorld. After all, most of the anti-Vista fud articles posted here were written by Randall Kennedy.
One example among the many: Windows 7 Benchmarks Show Little Improvement On Vista http://tech.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/11/11/0110251 [slashdot.org]
Re:Eh wouldn't surprise me... (Score:1, Informative)
UAC is vastly different technically, but indeed on a stock windows 7 install it is very similar to what sudo will provide in practise
Re:Eh wouldn't surprise me... (Score:2, Informative)
I looked on Vista badly because it is a steaming pile of shit. It brought a brand new high speced machine to it's knees for no apparent gains (Dell Optiplex Core 2 Duo, 4 GB RAM, dual 250 7200 SATA drives, ATI video with 256MB). I still have issues with my wife's Dell laptop not being able to maintain a wireless connection (yes, all patched have been applied, thank you very much), and a friend that won't talk to me anymore because I helped her buy a Dell with Vista, which turned it into a boat anchor.
Microsoft released Vista before it was baked, and to compound matters they weren't really forthcoming about the real hardware requirements.
I was a happy XP user and I'm a happy 7 user, so I'm not bashing on MS.
Oh, and sudo bash always worked for me, and I think you're confusing the issue. The issue is NOT that people who know what they are doing were causing problems. When I need to do a bunch of admin tasks on one of my Linux boxes I see nothing wrong with the appropriate use of the root login, it just shouldn't be used on a daily basis for using the machine. IMO Apple's implementation is better than the windows implementation in that regard; they prompt for the password when needed and don't inundate the user with messages. Overloading the user with messages is bad UI and bad contextual design, and will get the user to simply click OK or do whatever they have to to proceed. Win 7 is not more popular because people got used to the features it is more popular because it is a good OS (Vista isn't) that performs well (Vista doesn't) and the UAC implementation in 7 is not as invasive as it is in Vista.
Re:Eh wouldn't surprise me... (Score:5, Informative)
First, let me say that SELinux is an enormously complex system that has the potential to provide huge security benefits for administrators, and that it is the bar by which other OS security infrastructure should be measured against.
With that out of the way, you're comparing apples to orange-seeds here. UAC is merely a component of the overall security model, and should most directly be compared to gksudo, sudo and su and other methods of user-initiated rights elevation. Additionally, the Windows security model does support some really fine-grained stuff now with mandatory access controls, support for signing trusted executables and all sorts of other complexity that the IT administrator can get into if they want. It's not as easy as SELinux yet, I don't think, but it's not far away either. It's not vetted by the NSA either, so I suppose that'd be a minus.
Yup... (Score:5, Informative)
That guy was behind a lot of anti-Vista FUD, especially stuff that was reported here on Slashdot.
Some samples here:
http://tech.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/11/23/1710245 [slashdot.org]
Researchers Sour on Vista Service Pack 1 Performance
Researchers from the Devil Mountain Software group is claiming that a series of in-house benchmark tests showed that users hoping to receive a speed boost from the update will be disappointed.
"Devil Mountain ran its DMS Clarity Studio framework on a laptop Barth described as a "barn burner" -- dual-core processor, dedicated graphics, and either 1GB or 2GB of memory -- to compare performance of the SP1 release candidate that Microsoft released last week with the RTM version that hit general distribution last January. The Vista RTM was not updated with any of the bug fixes, patches or performance packs that Microsoft has pushed through Windows Update since the operating system's debut. 'One gigabyte, 2GB [of memory], it didn't make a difference,' said [CTO Craig] Barth. 'SP1 was never more than 1% or 2% faster.'"
http://tech.slashdot.org/tech/08/08/18/2016228.shtml [slashdot.org]
One Third of New PCs Downgraded To XP?
"More than one in every three new PCs is downgraded from Windows Vista to Windows XP, either at the factory or by the buyer, said performance and metrics researcher Devil Mountain Software, which operates a community-based testing network. 'The 35% is only an estimate, but it shows a trend within our own user base,' Craig Barth, the company's CTO, said. 'People are taking advantage of Vista's downgrade rights.' Last year, Devil Mountain benchmarked Vista and XP performance using other performance-testing tools and concluded that XP was much faster. Barth said things haven't changed since then. 'Everything I've seen clearly shows me that Vista is an OS that should never have left the barn.'"
http://tech.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/09/02/1418252 [slashdot.org]
IE8 Beta 2 Fatter Than Firefox and XP
"Consuming twice as much RAM as Firefox and saturating the CPU with nearly six times as many execution threads, Microsoft's latest beta release of Internet Explorer 8 is in fact more demanding on your PC than Windows XP itself, research firm Devil Mountain Software found in performance tests. According to the firm, which operates a community-based testing network, IE8 Beta 2 consumed 380MB of RAM and spawned 171 concurrent threads during a multi-tab browsing test of popular Web destinations. InfoWorld's Randall Kennedy speculates that Microsoft may be designing IE8 for the multicore future. But until your machine sports four or eight discrete processing cores, IE8 will remain 'porcine,' Devil Mountain's Craig Barth says."
Re:Eh wouldn't surprise me... (Score:3, Informative)
most userland open-source software is released as alpha-quality.
Possible, but unlikely, considering most userland open source software isn't at 1.0 yet. That's why KDE4 was such an embarrassment -- you don't release that abortion as a dot-oh.
And a lot of kernel-space drivers.
Most likely the ones marked "EXPERIMENTAL", or third-party, proprietary drivers. Or do you have some specific examples?
OpenOffice, GIMP, all media players, X.org, most wireless drivers... you name it, they all have major issues
I'd again have to ask you for specifics, especially comparing these to the released Vista. As bad as OpenOffice may be, I can't remember it crashing at all in recent history. I've never had issues with my wireless drivers, though the GUI sometimes seems off.
Windows 7 does use too much ram. (Score:1, Informative)
Re:Eh wouldn't surprise me... (Score:3, Informative)
Certain odd programs like VMWare Workstation can trigger multiple UAC prompts during installation, first for the actual install, and then for the virtual driver installations. However, it is very much the exception.
Re:Eh wouldn't surprise me... (Score:1, Informative)
Re:Eh wouldn't surprise me... (Score:5, Informative)
Depends what you mean by "vetted"; the NSA created SELinux, so nothing really compares to that, but they've regularly put out security guides in conjunction with Microsoft for every major Windows release (as well as for other operating systems). They're always comprehensive and a very solid resource on hardening Windows systems to varying extents, not to mention good learning material. Just don't get too overboard, a lot of the suggestions take security to extremes, to the extent that you'll definitely break a large number of programs by removing permissions and modifying defaults that they'd never expect to encounter (I say this from experience). They definitely don't get the attention they deserve:
Windows 7 Security Compliance Management Toolkit [microsoft.com]
Windows 7, memory and me (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Eh wouldn't surprise me... (Score:5, Informative)
Back in Win 95 days, Microsoft could have required all 3rd party software to use .ini files located in that software's main directory, or they could have required them to all use the registry, and use it in specified ways. Microsoft could have told every 3rd party company wanting that valuable Windows compatible logo on their box to use some method that would have directly helped MS's security and/or indirectly helped intelligent users who were concerned enough about security to want policy level control even then, and even then MS had enough market share to make it stick. Instead, they definitely let some companies ignore the usual rules and apparently relaxed them further whenever MS's marketing wanted to brag about how much software was windows compatible. (The first is something some of Microsoft's key people have admitted to, the second is an outsider's inference, and I'm sure there are people who would disagree with me on it.)
I'm hoping Microsoft has actually made all 3rd party sources write to some standards this time, and true support for multiple users under Microsoft's long standing model dictates, as you imply, that this should be under the user profile rather than in the install directory. What worries me is that Microsoft may still give some companies, such as Norton, favored status at bending the rules. I'm waiting to adopt 7 in part because I don't know how firm Microsoft has been on security. Microsoft had certainly transitioned from the Win 95-98 first ed. days of having a big market share but with room to grow, to one that had 95% of the market and no place to go but stagnate, well before Vista came out, but they didn't seem to have learned the lesson at all by then, which may be why I doubt they have fully learned it just yet.
Re:NEWS! Slashdot doesn't check facts, gets letter (Score:5, Informative)
If you actually read the story in question on Slashdot, you'll see everyone point out what an idiot whoever put the story up is and explain that the whole point of memory is that you use close to 100% of it since every byte you use makes things go faster. It's been this way for years. kdawson et al's anti-MS biases get on the front page, and everyone kicks them down (unless they're justified).
Re:Eh wouldn't surprise me... (Score:5, Informative)
First of all, that's not Microsoft's fault, that's the fault of that installer. I'm not sure exactly what would cause that, but I'd wager that it could happen if the installer runs a bunch of different programs to take care of sub-tasks-- usually Windows handles this seamlessly, though, which means that it must be doing it in a funky way.
If the software follows Microsoft's best practices for security by installing itself in the proper directories, there is no UAC interaction at all. None. I've installed a number of programs like this. If a piece of software insists on installing itself in protected directories, or insists on running with administrative privileges, you may want to think twice about running it. Those are the kinds of software that open gaping holes in your PC's security.
I'd wager the GP's software was attempting to do something it really had no business doing, and every time the installer did something unsafe, UAC double checked with the user first. It's annoying, yes, but only when you install shitty software, and it's really exactly the type of behavior you should want out of your security system.
If the software really did need all that access to do something legitimate, and if they publisher had bothered to test it with Windows 7 and discovered the problem, Microsoft would have added an exception specifically for their software to group all the UAC requests into a single request to streamline the process. They do that kind of backwards compatability stuff all the time.*
*They actually tried not to do this with Vista even though they did it for every previous version of Windows. That was part of the reason there were so many incompatibilities between XP and Vista, and it bit them in the ass. They reverted back to their old policy for Windows 7, and even put a seemless XP VM in the business and ultimate editions.
Re:Eh wouldn't surprise me... (Score:3, Informative)
I used to get a UAC on opening documents from a Samba share on my LAN. I could see it happening if a Word document was opened from a share.
Re:Window 7/Vista Memory Managment Rots! (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Eh wouldn't surprise me... (Score:1, Informative)
The UAC, in Vista, nagged constantly early on because of poorly written software.
I'd say that the UAC in Vista nagged constantly early on because it was written to complain about software that was written to standard procedures at the time. There is nothing inherently "poorly written" about writing to the current working directory, especially seeing as how A: XP was only vaguely a multi-user OS and B: Windows 98 was really never a multi-user OS. Also, C: Windows has added dozens of new layers of "default" directories over the years (One with every frick'ing OS revision), such that the only real safe directory is the one that the program is in. Also, seeing as how applications were allowed to do more or less anything in XP / NT, the most efficient and fast route was frequently the one that took the most initiative and privileges.
Software writers were writing to the system at the time. When Apple has changed their system radically in the past, they've firewalled off older code into emulation boxes that could run with their full expected privileges, but within the safer system of the redesigned OS. Microsoft just hoped it would all work, and assumed that people would put up with the annoyances until such a time as all of the software was re-written to their liking. Of course, it's not like they spent years trying to convince developers to behave in a certain way, or released the OS model information in 2003 so that by launch 2006 people could have their applications ready. They dumped it out there and assumed it would all go to plan eventually.
For the record, I switched from Vista to Windows 7. I get at least one UAC prompt on startup (stupid Java), and prompts whenever installing anything (4 new fonts today). It's much better than it had been, but it is still a bit annoying.
Re:Eh wouldn't surprise me... (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Eh wouldn't surprise me... (Score:4, Informative)
I don't think you've got this UAC thing straight yet.
I've never seen an app manifested as require-admin that didn't really need admin. If an app is not manifested then it runs virtualized and accesses to restricted areas get redirected to the virtual store. I think that most slashdotters see more UAC than more typical users because they are called in to do system maintenance.
My wife got a Vista laptop around 9 months ago. A few months after she first got it I asked her what she thought about UAC. She replied, "What's UAC?" When I showed her she said that she'd seen that watching me using my machine, but never on her own machine.
Windows 7 does not use too much RAM. (Score:2, Informative)
"Available memory" can be utilized by the OS if the need arises, so the most accurate measure of "free" RAM is to add together "free memory" and "available memory".
Re:Eh wouldn't surprise me... (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Eh wouldn't surprise me... (Score:4, Informative)
There's a heck load of software which doesn't follow even the basic instructions found in MSDN. Also there is many programmers who doesn't even know that MSDN has these instructions. There is even programmers who don't know what MSDN is!
You do know that you shouldn't trust current working directory, don't you? There's this thing that even if application is installed in the folder X it can be started from folder Y and now your current workind directory points to Y. What's the problem in asking the Operating System where %APPDATA% is?
And they all can be found via environment settings.
No they weren't. User let them by running them with administrator privileges.
Kennedy's side (Score:3, Informative)