Slap me five Bill. Now throw some money at the gaming community and make a real dx 10, don't just clean up dx9 and rename it.

Open Farce. So, the Linux file system doesnt scale worth beans, its less secure, buts its free so it isn't evil. Got it.. Bet the house on that.

way to use an outdated ubuntu version
what a biased chart

I use both OS X 10.4 and Vista. I have used them both since their first days on the market. While this report shows that Vista is more secure, OS X worked a helluva lot better out of the box. To the average computer user, thats what matters.

nuff said.

Adam,

newest release of Ubuntu 7.x has not been out six months yet... duh!

I do not see anything biased about that chart. Goes to show you how secure linux really is....

Well, as the title says, I am one of those people who walks between the two worlds. Based on my exp. with MS and what little I have with Linux (only about 1 and half) I have to say maybe MS just might, might mind you, be learning some lessons and I hope it continues, but they can learn some lessons from Linux. Stability comes right to mind. The idea that once installed it just plain works.

As for Linux it could stand a few lessons to from MS. Like a easier way to configure and install programs (speaking overall here, not pointed to any particular distro). The ability to more easily authenticate in a windows environment like AD (face it they run the overall world, you don't got to like it just have to deal with it), cause my feeling is once Linux does this they have a much better shot at taking on MS.

One more thing. Microsoft you need to stop with patent infringement sabre rattling,intimidation tatics. They will get only so far. For those who walk between the two worlds, why do you think we do this, because the answer is not always M$.

It's still quite impressive. I must say, go Microsoft. They had their hands on the ball pretty well with this one, though I would like to see some performance optimization, so it would actually be viable to switch to vista, with maybe only a 2-3% performance hit. To me, that would be worth it.

enough said

In what way does it work better? Comments without facts or at least something to base it on is useless opinion.

I think Vista works great compared to Mac OSX which locks you down in both hardware and forced version upgrades that I have to pay for.... Over its lifetime, Mac OSX is way more expensive than Vista.

Ask a Windows user if they are or would pay for an incremental upgrade? Did Windows users get charged when they introduced the firewall to Windows XP...

I remember having to pay for an incremental upgrade for Mac OSX since I used Adobe software that require a newer version of Mac OSX.

Microsoft can't gets its own software to work properly with vista, why would the viruses have any more success? That operating system is terrible, if anyone asks how vista works on my new laptop I just tell them I vista could have installed XP.

Does anyone else have a problem with the use of disclosed vulnerabilities? I mean shouldn’t an open system with the same number of actual vulnerabilities have more that have been disclosed.

"way to use an outdated ubuntu version
what a biased chart"
xp is also considered outdated but they used that also. In fact XP is older than any ubuntu system but they still used it. The point of the comparison is to show vulnerabilities in the first 6 months.
"Vista is new, lets see how it compares to OSX 10.5 enough said "
why? stop being a fanboy and look at the facts now

What do you think the linux foundation was formed for? To solve exactly those issues.

http://www.linux-foundation.org/

Vista still sucks. Because its Microsoft. And they can't do anything right.

/end sarcasm

Did better than OSX 10.4 in the first 6 months.

Open source will always have more disclosed vulnerabilities because they've got nothing to hide.

It's like researching sexual behaviors in modern America by publicly polling conservative politicians and porn stars about their sex life.

When my first PC came it had Windoze ME, i had to pay for a working OS Win XP, now vista is hear which could be thought to be a incremental update from XP which you have to pay for. O and what does it cost to get the new OSX version o thats right $129 for the Ultimate edition how does that compare to Windoze Vista?

Now with my PC if i want something to do video and photo work i need to pay extra because the garbage that comes with it either is trial or it un-workable, unlike iLife suite

Dont get me wrong i'm a builder/moder/oc'er at heart and love to mix/mash my PC (currently going to be a HTPC, once i get new case) but the mac just does what needs to get done and does it with ease.

im no fanboy, i like both equally and hate both equally for different reasons.

but your comparing Vista (new) to OSX10.4 (rather older) its a comparison sure but to be fair lets wait till OSX10.5 comes out and see what happens then, if Fista is better then great took them long enough, if it isnt then good job JOBS mobs and keep up the good work.

Now I hate M$ as much as the next guy, but this is good news for them. They have been getting better with security and stability starting with xp sp2 (which as mentioned above, is a FREE update). Having used OSX and various Linux distros (Fedora, Ubuntu, Gentoo), I think that M$ is getting to be on par with them for security (other than IE, which I don't use) and is much easier to use. Something tells me that if any of the other OSes had the number of hackers trying to exploit M$, they would have WAY more holes found than they currently have. The only area where M$ is still behind is performance. Their OS is too slow and uses too many resources. At least they moved away from the monolithic architecture.

Porn Stars and Sexual behavior in a Windows Vista
related artical, Sweet. Could someone please
tell me what Icon to click On. ThanXXX........

The Vista to XP statistic is worthless

Compare Vista now to XP at XP’s time of release? Gimme a break. That statistic is meaningless. Vista is comparing itself to something that happened 5 years ago? Is Vista’s current security the best MS can do after 5 years of development and experience? A meaningful statistic would be to compare Vista NOW to XP NOW, not Vista now to XP 5 years ago. After all, isn’t Vista supposed to be a replacement for XP now, and not a replacement for XP from 5 years ago?

Another statistical BS is the install base of Vista. XP still has a much larger install base than Vista. If Vista has the install base of XP, they would have been tons of more attacks and vulnerabilities found in Vista.

MS is so desperate to sell this flop of an OS, that they are now resorting to some form of selective-statistical-analysis to convince us to buy this overprices OS.

Yeah... way to go OpenSource... we've got nothing to hide but being better by the day... and for those questioning on ease of install how bout drag and drop install on MacOS, can windows do that ???

Not mentioning bout hardware drivers require certification for what ?? security from hardware ??? Hardware driver vulnerability ??

Eversince i've started with Win3.1 think Win98SE was the best, small n stable... Now Vista WINDIR is over 6GB, OSX and Linux min install is still bout 2GB...

Talk bout memory hungry, why the hell do you need up to 2GB to be smooth ?? Linux needs 512MB and same as OSX... Not mentioning DX9 Graphic Cards ??

Beryl moves with a GeForce2...

/sarcasm
I just love using trendy sarcasm remarks in reply others' posts. It makes me feel real intelligent and thought provoking.
/end sarcasm
Now that that's out of the way, I can act normal again. Lalalldealladlda I'm so freakin smart.
/sarcasm
OK, I'm back now, I just love to be sarcastic and use these comments because everyone else on the interent seems to be using them. If everyone is doing it, it must be cool.
/end sarcasm
/sarcasm
?
/end sarcasm

For the amount of money M$ had invested in Vista this is the minimum...

I would like to see another chart: money invested X number of vulnerabilities

Considering that I downloaded my Ubuntu iso's for free and as the chart says that I have an acceptable level of security compared to others fashioned-OS's I'm very glad.

Go Linux!

I have Vista Ultimate on my work laptop and Vista Business on my home desktop pc and it I can do everything that I did with XP. I like Vista and will not be going back to XP. Microsoft did something right this time.

it seems the chart is a bit skewed, and even misleading... looking beyond the first 180 days; how many OS' were able to maintain a low amount of vulnerability?, and how many would eventually start falling apart after less than a year, let alone 2 years, or 3 even? (wouldnt that matter more than a seemingly irrelevant vulnerability statistic?)

With any really secure, stable OS, there should be no need for an antivirus/antimalware application either (because, the OS itself is infact secure, and has no real need for either)

Begin Rant: Take this article for what it is, a comparison. Does it really mean anything? Not to me! Lets face it, Windows XP is great for gaming. Ubuntu is great for any and everything else. Now I am in no way putting MAC down, I have never used a MAC. I believe MAC is successful, but would have a much larger following if they would open it up to be installed on a say homebuilt PC. Moving it to Intel was a start. I like having the ability to try out new and different OSes, and I will use the one that suits me and what suits me will most likely not suit the next person. At this time I have no reason to move to Vista as I believe no one else really has a need to move to Vista. Yeah the Eye Candy is cool, but WindowBlinds is also cheaper. When or if I have a need for Vista, then I will buy it. End Rant

Vista: 12 out of 15 bugs fixed i.e. 80% bugs fixed.
XP: 36 out of 39 bugs fixed i.e. 92.3% bugs fixed.
Ubuntu 6.06: 74 out of 85 bugs fixed i.e. 87% bugs fixed.
Mac OS: 60 out of 74 bugs fixed i.e. 81% bugs fixed.

Result? The 3 most important OSs did better than Fista. XP rulz.

What you have to realize is the different nature of these vulnerabilities.

Windows Vulnerability: "An unpatched hole allows someone over the internet to gain complete control over your computer"

Linux Vulnerability: "Someone who already has a user account on a machine is able to gain elevated rights to a specific file"

This article is all smoke and mirrors, windows still can't touch the security of either Linux or OS X.

I have been working in the IT industry for over 20 years and have had MANY vista machines come back from customers LOADED with spyware/malware/viruses

Not only does vista get as many but simple malware can disable vista ie. the dreaded explorer has caused an error and must close infinite loop.

When this happens you can't run any antivirus or spyware cleaning utilities, you can't even surf or use your computer either.

No other OS has this problem maybe microsoft will fix this sometime in the future but as it stands malware can disable vista.

Byfar the best windows ever. I bought a brand new high end system and made the switch to vista. I was skeptical at first, and was sursprised as there was a bit of a learning curve. After a few weeks and I got everythin running smoothly I havent had one internet issue nor one hardware or OS issue.

zero spyware, zero virus, zero popups.

Back with XP and versions before it, there seemed to be and endless amount of maintenance and problems. Vista is very clean, polished, self-maintaining and takes care of itself. The way it has been running I doubt I would ever have any need to do a reformat, or spend hours of diagnostic tests to fix a few devious errors.


If vista isnt all its cracked up to be, than xp and evertythnig before it were absolute garbage.


I will admit though, vista would be a bit tricky for a novice windows user to switch over too.

The percentages that Baka_toroi has posted are simply an elegant way of twisting this data into a completely false conclusion. Yes the percentages do mean something, but they are not incredibly important. You must look at sheer numbers. I think anyone would agree that 50 bugs occurring and 50 bugs fixed is good (that is 100% fix). BUT, these percentages aren't always the way to define the security of an OS. We should take a look at the amount of UNFIXED bugs. The above data is actually excellent for this. Yes, Vista has the lowest fix percentage rate (80%), but Mac OS has an 81% fix rate, only one percent higher. However, for Vista you have 3 unfixed bugs compared to 14 in OSX. And Baka simply wants you to believe the Vista data is cause to deem it inferior, when in fact I believe that an 80% fix rate with 3 unfixed bugs is far superior to an 81% fix rate with 14 unfixed bugs. Only one percent difference, but 11 more bugs in Mac.

Also, I would believe that in a comparison of an OS with 14 out of 14 bugs fixed and another with 80 out of 80 fixed, the 14 out of 14 would be better. I mean, is a lower rate of bug apperance not desirable? Ergo, the three unfixed in both Vista and XP would lead me to accept Vista as a more secure OS, simply because of the lower rate of appearance of these bugs.

because thats why i bought vista...
Well congratulation's! Microsoft, you spent billions of dollars and kept those nasty viruses from getting into my computer in the first 6 months..... yet billions of dollars later you couldn't get rid of all the little obnoxious pop-ups and paranoid security warnings, lack of control, resource hogging and wallet draining hardware upgrades that for some reason when i scanned my computer with vista scanner said that i didn't need to buy..... well I'm glad that vista was able to achieve something good... oh and thanks for making sure are ram still leaks! Great Job Guys!

Being that you still must install 3rd party anit-virus and firewall programs on a Vista machine, what difference does it make if Vista has less vulnerabilities? You still have to rely on another company to protect you.

I don't see my current XP pro machine with Norton's internet security as being vulnerable to anything. So, why would I care about the "security" of Vista? The promise of more security has fallen on its face, since you still need other programs for protection.

I saw M$ just get bashed in a few of the above comments about issues with Vista, and a new OS needs time to develop, even post release - same as all software. Considering that it's a PLATFORM, and not just additional software, I'd say M$ does an incredible job really at keeping it up. Consider too that M$ has much more hardware that it runs on, many many more developers to cater to, etc then you will KNOW why they sell more OS's than all the others combined. If you set Redhat or Mac to making such a variable use OS they wouldn't look so shiny. M$ is doing a great job at refining the OS and while it may copy ideas from other OS's it's a leader in how it makes programs work together, while being stable on a huge variety of hardware, and working with developers. Now in the past I've had many many many gripes with M$, but the more I think about it, the more I realize just how tough of a job they really have. All that coding is pretty darn complicated, and they hire some of the smartest and best people to code for them. People criticize and yet lack the aptitude to do the job themselves.

where is my fix? there is about 20 applications not compatable with vista that i want to use!

You ain't no IT, if you were you wouldn't
talk such silliness..........

Jeff Jones, author of this blog and chart is a Stratey Director in the Microsoft Security Technology Unit. Does that not leave at least a bit of room for bias towards MS? Possibly, and probably.

There's a bit of fanboyism in everyone, and probably Mr. Jones, too.

I don't really care which system is more secure. I'm not gonna run a mac, linux, or vista for gaming. XP all the way. That said, all my web dev stuff is on ubuntu. I'd buy a mac, but my Sony Discman does everything I'd probably use the mac for.

That's because if microsoft put spam guard, anti virus, and other stuff as part of the os it would be considered anti trust. But hey, Sony can give you 5 free Sony studio movies for free when you buy a blu-ray player but that's ok.

I know that's probably a bad example because movie studios don't put out identical acting products but I still don't think giving you something as part of the os and giving you the option to turn it off or install another version is anti trust since many products get away with this very thing all the time.

No i'm not an M$ fan. I don't have product loyalty to anyone. I only hate Mac because they won't open there OS up to all hardware. I don't want to be tied down to there old, slow a$$ hardware.

I admit it, I like Vista. I wanted to love it, but instead I can only admit to liking it. There are features and small changes to the OS that are "to die for", but the limits placed on the OS to meet this type of security talked about in this story are horrendous. Basically making the OS almost impossible to use fully yet. That is until the Software developers catch up to this level of security and write programs to properly interact with Vista. Or, in other words, to not take advantage of the holes in past Windows products to make their software work. Vista's a whole different world. Good, and will get better with time. I've never ever recommended waiting for a service pack, but I'm recommending that for Vista. By then, most of the worth buying software from developers will have gotten their act together.

Just because MS is doing BETTER doesn't mean you should break out the party gear. This is a company that has far more failures that it needs outweighed by positive changes before you any MS fans should gloating. especially for the price.

It's quite bad to make this kind of comparisons, as for microsoft bugs/fixes you count only what is part of the OS, no 3rd party programs, while for Linux you have all the 2000 3rd party programs included like GIMP, OpenOffice and so on. Bugs for Photoshop, Microsoft Office isn't counted for the VISTA.
Keep in mind too that it takes quite a lot longer to get a update with fixes from Microsoft than it takes to get updates from Linus Torvalds.

"There are lies, damned lies and statistics."
"Facts are stubborn, but statistics are more pliable."
Mark Twain

Right on, JohnDoe. Come on, people: THINK for a bit before getting on the fanboy (MS, Apple, Linus or whatever) wagon. This article is what it is - a comparison of a few chosen facts. It WON'T tell you the whole story about any OS. It WON'T give you the ultimate answer as to which OS is better. It may even have WRONG DATA.

I for one am happy to use MS software. I think that for an average to well-informed computer user it's quite easy to keep malware/spyware/viruses out of the system and to keep it stable too. Not compatible with some windows software? Tough! It's a new OS and nobody forces you to use it. I actually think there's TOO MUCH compatibility (which they probably put in exactly for this kind of rants): there's billions of combinations of hardware and software that work in Vista (and other Windows), many of which are just plain outdated.

Bottom line: if you don't like it, don't use it. But spare me "[insert OS name] is the bestest greatest OS in the world and that's the absolute truth" speech.

Hi First post ever
Anyway i am a uni student and have done part time IT work for the last 2 years. From what i can see so far from vista is that it is shithouse. Most of the laptops/pc's i have set up have come back with spyware problems that compltetly disable the operating system. AT least XP lets u get into safemode and clean the shit out. Vista on the otherhand has a bullshit safemode that is really more like running the full windows 98 operating system which means it won't boot if there is a problem. Now at work we recomend to customers to buy XP as we don't want to have to charge the customers one month later to reinstall their crappy vista.

I am a security professional and to me this article means nothing, well almost nothing. It bases its information on vulnerabilities that have been DISCLOSED. What about all the ones that haven't been disclosed and are kept secret from the public? I happen to be under an NDA at the moment but I can tell you there are numerous very serious vulnerabilities that Microsoft is currently trying to fix before the public finds out about them. We found one at my company and in return for premium support they asked us not to talk to anyone else about what we found. Just another reminder that you really have no clue what is going on behind the scenes with a closed piece of software because you never get to see the code. Unlike MS we all know what problems Linux has because we can all take a look at the code anytime we want. Linux vulnerabilities are often found quicker and repaired quicker and that is a trend that it has always followed. Not only that but we must also take into account the vulnerabilities that are actively exploited. When a new MS vulnerability is found you can often find exploits for it very soon afterwards if they are not already available. But with Linux and most other OS's there are many security holes that are never even exploited. So to put things in perspective...

You have no idea what is or is not vulnerable in an MS product because you can't see the code and just going off what has been DISCLOSED is stupid because there are too many variables that come into play with that. Perhaps people just weren't looking for them as hard with this OS or perhaps they didn't DISCLOSE all of them. I have been using many open distros for a very, very long time now and guess what? In all this time I have never once came across a virus or spyware or anything that would be considered malware. However I came across and was infected with malware within the first day of using Vista and it got me so bad that I couldn't even control what pages my browser displayed and it was popping up porn ads like it was an intended function of the OS. Do you really think Microsoft would put your security above their profits? They constantly try to deny and hide vulnerabilities that people find because it's bad PR. There are tons of little fixes and problems that they find every day and quietly fix behind the scenes with the hope that nobody will find out about it. So if you are going to compare numbers you may want to get the whole truth from Microsoft first. If you can…

Does anyone care to notice that this statistic was released by a reputable security blogger, not microsoft? Does anyone care to notice that this is comparing time after release, not now? And for the moron who says that it should be perfect because they should have built off xp, do you care to realize that vista is not xp? It was a completely new build.

I've used vista on three of my own machines, and I've not had a single problem with any of them. Security wise, all is rosey. Incompatabilities are very seldom at this point, and there has not been a point where I've not been able to do a work-around.

As for the preachers yelling about stability, have you actually used this OS for more than 5 mins at fryz or best-buy? I've not had a single stability issue with vista since Beta-2.

This clearly shows that 6 months after the release of the most often used OS's, Vista has the best security. This is not about OSx 10.5 or the latest version of ubuntu, as neither have either been released or have been released for 6 months.

I've just bothered to read your messege. As I'm also in IT, I've decided that I should comment on your post. 1. The amount of time you've been in IT means nothing in terms of vista, since we've both been working on the OS for the same amount of time. 2. Since vista's release, I think our build mark is right around 80-ish PC's. (Not much, I know. But small PC shop jobs are easy) And with every single one of those builds, we've not had a single one turned in for warranty for that problem, or any other security problem.

And on monday wednesday's and friday's, I spend 11 hours in the Tech Support room at Marion General Hospital, helping people through problems all day. And I can honestly say, from all of our vista machines (Which all tend to be tablet-PC's) I've never once seen that problem. Nor any others involving mal-ware.

Vista is so secure I haven't even been able to share folders on our LAN to other PCs...

I run a forum where many people talk about things from gaming, computers, consoles, and many other things of this nature, and the vast majority of the people who are crying about how Vista sucks, are the ones who don't have it. Some people seem to be afraid of change, and because they don't want to change they hate the new system, reguardless of what it is. People need to remember that the OS comes first, then software. Yes right now vista only has a few big improvements to XP, but once software starts taking advantage of Vista's new system, that'll all change. Vista will steal market share from OSX, and Linux. Its one of the most secure OS's ever build, and known vulnerabilities are being fixed faster they any other OS. I'm just looking at RAW facts from independant sources, not microsoft. I've also has ZERO compatability problems with my laptop, my best friend just got a new laptop with vista, he doesn't like Vista, but he also has had zero problems with it.

I read the article that this data came out of and the reason Jeff Jones says he chose Ubuntu 6.06 LTS

"Ubuntu is considered by many to be the most popular up and coming Linux distribution and they committed to long-term support (LTS) for the Ubuntu 6.06 version released on June 1, 2006. Long-term support is a key requirement for a distribution to be considered for use within most businesses, so this makes the support commitment a strategic one for Ubuntu.

Note that this also explains why I am not analyzing Ubuntu 6.10, 7.04 or later. So far, Ubuntu has only committed to long term support