Readers Respond: The Blue Hats | eWeek

Readers Respond: The Blue Hats

Written By
eWEEK EDITORS
eWEEK EDITORS
Nov 8, 2005
1 minute read
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Sure, Microsofts products got more secure (“The Blue Hats,” Oct. 31), but at what price?

I run software tests against many Windows versions and install new patches on “patch Tuesdays” on all my test systems. That, though, now takes me at least two days.

The new Windows Update Service is, by far, slower than the previous version, and the split between Express and Custom requires not only one more click (I can live with that) but makes things more complicated overall.

Besides that, new security rules disable pretty much anything that is non-Microsoft. I use Macromedia Flash and HTML-based presentations often, only to find that they get broken by the new security patches and service packs issued by Microsoft. I agree that Flash can do things to ones system that may not be desired, but is there a need to disable an entire presentation technique?

Fixing one problem by breaking something else is not really fixing it. By doing less and less, Windows systems do get more secure, but they also get more useless when one does not want to do it the “Microsoft way.”

David Krings

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