Warp wrote:
> the sake of change, just for the sake of making it look&feel *different*,
> in many cases at the cost of reduced usability.

Well, they *are* trying to make a profit. It's understandable, even if 
suboptimal. :-)

>   Well, MS had this "great" idea to change this behavior from clicking to
> hovering instead: 

Yah, I hate that too. Actually, I think there's a switch you can set to 
say don't do that, but I don't know if it disappears the menu if you 
move away after you click. I'll have to try that.

>   Speaking of context menus, that's another step backwards MS took:

Smalltalk did one better years earlier. Context menus not only open 
under the mouse, but position themself so that the previously chosen 
menu selection is under the cursor. If you're pasting the same thing 
into a dozen windows (because, say, you haven't yet automated 
broadcasting restarts to your server farm), you don't wind up with the 
mouse down in your lap before you're done.

>   Fortunately other systems have yet to copy the most braindead GUI ideas
> from MS. For example menus which change contents every time you use them.
> (I can't even begin to imagine how anyone could think that's a good idea.
> When MS wants to make changes just for the sake of changes, just to make
> a new Windows look different than the previous one, they will stop at
> nothing.)

Yah, well, that's for-fee software for ya. Gotta get people to buy the 
newer version, ya know.

-- 
   Darren New / San Diego, CA, USA (PST)
     It's not feature creep if you put it
     at the end and adjust the release date.

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scott wrote:
>> Or perhaps... you know... providing a way to uninstall IE? ;-)
> 
> As Warp said, you'll have to uninstall Windows to do that.  If somehow 
> you actually managed to remove IE completely, then a whole load of other 
> stuff would break.  WinPOV Help would be one thing, explorer would 
> probably break too.

What, you mean like if you turned RPC off? :-}

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> scott wrote:
>>> Or perhaps... you know... providing a way to uninstall IE? ;-)
>>
>> As Warp said, you'll have to uninstall Windows to do that.  If somehow 
>> you actually managed to remove IE completely, then a whole load of 
>> other stuff would break.  WinPOV Help would be one thing, explorer 
>> would probably break too.
> 
> What, you mean like if you turned RPC off? :-}

Huh?

WinPOV Help is a .chm file. HTML Help. The viewer uses the IE rendering 
engine to show pages. Uninstall IE completely, including its rendering 
engine, and no more HTML help for you.

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>> What, you mean like if you turned RPC off? :-}
> 
> Huh?

Turning RPC off reputedly causes Windoze-based PCs to malfunction to the 
point of being unuseable. Great if you want to close this large security 
hole...

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/

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"Orchid XP v7" <voi### [at] devnull> wrote in message
news:47617baa$1@news.povray.org...
> >> What, you mean like if you turned RPC off? :-}
> >
> > Huh?
>
> Turning RPC off reputedly causes Windoze-based PCs to malfunction to the
> point of being unuseable. Great if you want to close this large security
> hole...
>

It's not that large a security hole. Unless you fiddle with the default
security, it's remote process communication on your own machine.

RPC is used by various processes of windows to communicate with each other

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Gail Shaw wrote:
> "Orchid XP v7" <voi### [at] devnull> wrote in message
> news:47617baa$1@news.povray.org...
>>>> What, you mean like if you turned RPC off? :-}
>>> Huh?
>> Turning RPC off reputedly causes Windoze-based PCs to malfunction to the
>> point of being unuseable. Great if you want to close this large security
>> hole...
>>
> 
> It's not that large a security hole. Unless you fiddle with the default
> security, it's remote process communication on your own machine.
> 
> RPC is used by various processes of windows to communicate with each other

Depends on your definition of "large".

As I understand it, anybody who can guess what your admin password is 
can have unlimited access to your PC via RPC. Nice...

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/

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"Orchid XP v7" <voi### [at] devnull> wrote in message
news:47617e7a$1@news.povray.org...
>
> As I understand it, anybody who can guess what your admin password is
> can have unlimited access to your PC via RPC. Nice...>

Anyone who's guessed your admin password owns your machine regardless.

del \\machine\c$\*.* /S

And that's not even considering them walking up to the machine (if its not a
server) and loging in. Or if it is a server, usign remote desktop/terminal
services

Strong admin password, perhaps?

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Gail Shaw wrote:
> "Orchid XP v7" <voi### [at] devnull> wrote in message
> news:47617e7a$1@news.povray.org...
>> As I understand it, anybody who can guess what your admin password is
>> can have unlimited access to your PC via RPC. Nice...>
> 
> Anyone who's guessed your admin password owns your machine regardless.
> 
> del \\machine\c$\*.* /S

Which, as I understand it, only works because RPC is enabled.

If you can't remotely talk to the machine, you can't do anything to it.

> And that's not even considering them walking up to the machine (if its not a
> server) and loging in. Or if it is a server, usign remote desktop/terminal
> services
> 
> Strong admin password, perhaps?

I was thinking more of the millions of people who have PCs in their 
homes, probably with a blank or default admin password, who have no idea 
that random people on the Internet can use that password to remotely do 
stuff to it.

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

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Orchid XP v7 wrote:
> If you can't remotely talk to the machine, you can't do anything to it.

RPC includes things like programs talking to the graphics subsystem, 
login process talking to the protected storage process, and console 
programs talking to CRSS (console simulation subsystem).

Kind of like eliminating pipes and sockets on Unix.

-- 
   Darren New / San Diego, CA, USA (PST)
     It's not feature creep if you put it
     at the end and adjust the release date.

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Orchid XP v7 nous apporta ses lumieres en ce 2007/12/13 15:47:
> Gail Shaw wrote:
>> "Orchid XP v7" <voi### [at] devnull> wrote in message
>> news:47617e7a$1@news.povray.org...
>>> As I understand it, anybody who can guess what your admin password is
>>> can have unlimited access to your PC via RPC. Nice...>
>>
>> Anyone who's guessed your admin password owns your machine regardless.
>>
>> del \\machine\c$\*.* /S
> 
> Which, as I understand it, only works because RPC is enabled.
> 
> If you can't remotely talk to the machine, you can't do anything to it.
> 
>> And that's not even considering them walking up to the machine (if its 
>> not a
>> server) and loging in. Or if it is a server, usign remote 
>> desktop/terminal
>> services
>>
>> Strong admin password, perhaps?
> 
> I was thinking more of the millions of people who have PCs in their 
> homes, probably with a blank or default admin password, who have no idea 
> that random people on the Internet can use that password to remotely do 
> stuff to it.
> 
Turning RPC off mean that your programms can't accept any input from your 
keyboard and mouse. It mean that your programms can't even create ther main 
window, let alone display anything in them. It mean that you can't access the disks.
It mean that Windows itself can't accept keyboard and mouse inputs and can't 
access the display. It mean that the various parts of Windows can't communicate 
with each other. Most calls for DLL functions use RPC. Any call to code at an 
address that is more than 64K away may be a "remote" call.

A system that ask for a password, with a blank password, is more secure than the 
same system with a weak password. The reason is that when a password is asked, 
you don't just hit "enter", you try to find a password... and that cracker 
applications are not made to try the blank password.

-- 
Alain
-------------------------------------------------
Wiccan: An it harm none, let shit happen.

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