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Microsoft no longer signs Windows drivers for Process Hacker

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Re: Microsoft no longer signs Windows drivers for Process Hacker

#381

Post by garaetjjte »

kevingadd wrote: post #218
Shorel wrote: post #212

I've had to authorize lots of Steam games this month in 'Windows Security' protected folders just so be able to save replays, or basic controls configuration. I think MS is going for the kill against Steam this time. And this is with Windows 10. Windows 11 will require MS permission, and some Steam games will simply never work there. But you will be able to purchase them again in the MS Store.

Arguably this is Valve's fault because they insist on putting a ton of stuff in secure folders (under Program Files) instead of where they belong (in the user's home/data directories) They've had a LONG time to fix this.

That's just game fault that it saves data in game files instead of user directory.

Re: Microsoft no longer signs Windows drivers for Process Hacker

#382

Post by dTal »

ddingus wrote: post #369
matheusmoreira wrote: post #245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, Stallman was right about pretty much everything. It's impressive how far into the future he saw, much earlier than many of us, including myself. There is no computing freedom without software freedom, and there is no software freedom without hardware freedom. Control of data is a related problem. It's absolutely relevant but it's not in any way opposed to computing freedom. In fact, they are aligned. Computing fr…

Exactly right. The move to ARM will highlight the hardware freedom in a big way. People are used to ARM being different and are that much more likely to forget open, general purpose computing right along with that "old" x86... Heh, I always disliked x86. But now? I look at it fondly. Strange times. Edit: It is the IBM PC lineage I speak of here, not just the ISA.

It's not the instruction set - it's the IBM PC-compatible standard that gave us our golden era of desktop computing. Standard bootloaders, standard ports, standard keyboard layouts. We owe it so much.

Re: Microsoft no longer signs Windows drivers for Process Hacker

#383

Post by passivate »

MrStonedOne wrote: post #138

From: https://github.com/processhacker/processhacker/discussions/7... >The existing drivers are compatible with Win11 and haven't been blocked by Microsoft yet... The large majority of changes by Microsoft are limited to restricting the Windows API with signature checks that block competitors software (e.g. CreateWindowInBand, NtQuerySystemInformation, NtQueryInformationProcess to name a few) rather than directly tar…

>So, basically, for some reason, Microsoft wants to make it very hard for you to see whats running on your computer...

That sounds a little conspiracy theory-ish. It seems like there are other tools to access this info, is that not the case?

Re: Microsoft no longer signs Windows drivers for Process Hacker

#384

Post by dTal »

ddalex wrote: post #108
dTal wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Dan would eventually find out about the free kernels, even entire free operating systems, that had existed around the turn of the century. But not only were they illegal, like debuggers—you could not install one if you had one, without knowing your computer's root password. And neither the FBI nor Microsoft Support would tell you that." --Richard Stallman, "The Right To Read"

Stallman was ALMOST right. The fight is not about which programs the user can run, but who controls the user data

Weird take, given this is a thread about Microsoft effectively banning a program.

Re: Microsoft no longer signs Windows drivers for Process Hacker

#385

Post by peakaboo »

passivate wrote: post #383
MrStonedOne wrote: post #138

From: https://github.com/processhacker/processhacker/discussions/7... >The existing drivers are compatible with Win11 and haven't been blocked by Microsoft yet... The large majority of changes by Microsoft are limited to restricting the Windows API with signature checks that block competitors software (e.g. CreateWindowInBand, NtQuerySystemInformation, NtQueryInformationProcess to name a few) rather than directly tar…

>So, basically, for some reason, Microsoft wants to make it very hard for you to see whats running on your computer... That sounds a little conspiracy theory-ish. It seems like there are other tools to access this info, is that not the case?

Not at all. The American tech mafia is mapping all user data they can get a hold of. This is very far from a conspiracy theory in 2021.

Re: Microsoft no longer signs Windows drivers for Process Hacker

#386

Post by Arainach »

blibble wrote: post #325
MrStonedOne wrote: post #138

From: https://github.com/processhacker/processhacker/discussions/7... >The existing drivers are compatible with Win11 and haven't been blocked by Microsoft yet... The large majority of changes by Microsoft are limited to restricting the Windows API with signature checks that block competitors software (e.g. CreateWindowInBand, NtQuerySystemInformation, NtQueryInformationProcess to name a few) rather than directly tar…

weren't MS slapped around during the DOJ case for undocumented APIs? and there's a mile of difference between undocumented and "can't be called by non-MS products at all"

It was disallowed for other Microsoft products to call undocumented APIs. Anything called by Office/Azure/whatever needs to be a publicly documented API, and there are automatic checks in all Microsoft codebases to confirm that no undocumented APIs are called.

Windows components, of course, aren't subject to any such rules. There have always been and always will be interfaces necessary for Windows to call itself that the company has no interest in supporting in a backwards-compatible way and publicly documenting. An example is pinning applications to the taskbar: Windows needs to be able to do it, but if it was a public API every app would do it and the experience would be ruined.

Of course, Chrome eventually figured out a way to bypass and do it (I believe using accessibility hooks to simulate user input? I forget the details), at which point the arms race escalated from there - the Windows team added new protections in that area - but I haven't worked in that area in a long time and don't follow it in detail.

Re: Microsoft no longer signs Windows drivers for Process Hacker

#387

Post by craftinator »

Oddskar wrote: post #276
kuschkufan wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What did you expect? Microsoft labeling their data collection actions as "spyware" themselves? "Spyware" is a term used by people who oppose data collection, they didn't ask for. "Telemetry" is an euphemism by the ones that build this data collection into their apps.

I expect professionals to be able to distinguish between the two instead of being suckered into some sort of hive-mind thinking of "all data gathering bad hurr durr". I'm absolutely all for privacy and limiting unnecessary gathering of data. But there's nuances to this discussion and labeling everything that has any amount of telemetry as "Spyware" does not do anyone any good.

https://github.com/dotnet/sdk/issues/6145

My favorite part is when someone figures out "telemetry" includes the MAC address, and the dev team just goes completely silent.

Re: Microsoft no longer signs Windows drivers for Process Hacker

#388

Post by no_time »

rkagerer wrote: post #180

Microsoft is locking certain API's: Always-on-top, Auto-elevation, DPS statistics, Default taskmgr application preferences (Microsoft hardcoded taskmgr.exe blocking competitors), GPU statistics (deliberately broken on Win10 and Win11 recently) and the DirectUI framework are some examples of features that I want to implement and are currently implemented by Task Manager but are Microsoft-only signature restricted whil…

I'm not familiar with the rest but how is Always-on-top locked away? Its such a basic thing and a lot of programs are using it.

Re: Microsoft no longer signs Windows drivers for Process Hacker

#389

Post by passivate »

eps wrote: post #25

In related news - ever wondered why Windows 11 can't be installed on "older computers"? You know, the ones that don't have a TPM chip? Now you know. Windows 11 completes the lock-up of the OS. That's why Windows 11 exists in the first place. All other changes are secondary. Microsoft knows they would've not been able to pull shit like this as a Windows 10 update, so they were effectively forced to do a version increa…

>Mark my words - Windows 12 will severely impede direct installation even of an user-space software, funnelling everyone to go through the store. That's the end goal and we will all be there in a couple of years, whether we want it or not.

People have been saying that forever. At our company we rely on windows backwards compat to run older commercial software which has saved tens of thousands of dollars for us. It seems to me like people are not exposed to a large swath of the computing landscape that uses industry specific commercial software that isn't going anywhere.

Also who are the "lemmings" in your analogy? Hopefully you're not referring to normal people who make rational decisions based on their needs.

Re: Microsoft no longer signs Windows drivers for Process Hacker

#390

Post by passivate »

peakaboo wrote: post #385
passivate wrote: post #383

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>So, basically, for some reason, Microsoft wants to make it very hard for you to see whats running on your computer... That sounds a little conspiracy theory-ish. It seems like there are other tools to access this info, is that not the case?

Not at all. The American tech mafia is mapping all user data they can get a hold of. This is very far from a conspiracy theory in 2021.

I don't think "Process Hacker" is a tool that has zero other alternatives. As a former systems dev, I find that very hard to believe. Sorry, I didn't understand what point you were making though.
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