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Any sufficiently advanced uninstaller is indistinguishable from malware

devblogs.microsoft.com

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Re: Any sufficiently advanced uninstaller is indistinguishable from malware

#301

Post by the8472 »

daemin wrote: post #193
parchley wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those files are user data, not part of the software package.

I would disagree, files that the user cannot edit or should not edit should not be going into their home directory. Things like cache files should go into a system wide cache directory instead.

If I uninstall ssh I still want to have have my authorized hosts. If I uninstall some firefox version firefox I want to keep my profiles. XDG defines a thumbnailing hierarchy followed by multiple libraries, uninstalling any of those shouldn't clear thumbnail caches.

Re: Any sufficiently advanced uninstaller is indistinguishable from malware

#302

Post by ben0x539 »

jcarrano wrote: post #299

The guys at MS are smart enough to decompile assembly but still not enough to have a proper inode-based filesystem where you can delete files that are in use.

Of course they're smart enough to have a proper inode-based filesystem. They're probably just not smart enough to swap out the file system their customers are using without their customers getting mad at them.

Re: Any sufficiently advanced uninstaller is indistinguishable from malware

#303

Post by simiones »

bee_rider wrote: post #291
ateng wrote: post #267

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>if you don't trust a provider, not only it's not safe to run the program, but it's also unsafe to install it Isn't it same for windows right now? `.msi` and `.exe` can execute arbitrary code right?

The only difference is that you usually trust the repo in Linux, but that’s a pretty significant “only thing,” in the sense that the repo is already the source of your whole system, so it better be trustworthy!

The "elegant" way of distributing 3rd party software for Linux is to ask the user to add your APT/RPM/[...] repo to their system. And most Linux distro maintainers anyway don't vouch for software in the main repos, beyond basic install-ability. The Debian project for example definitely doesn't do in-depth security analysis of every package in the repos: they just check the license, re-package it, and keep an eye on security updates in upstream.

Re: Any sufficiently advanced uninstaller is indistinguishable from malware

#304

Post by pie_flavor »

jcarrano wrote: post #299

The guys at MS are smart enough to decompile assembly but still not enough to have a proper inode-based filesystem where you can delete files that are in use.

Allowing you to have inconsistently valid data, where a file can both exist and not exist depending on who's asking, is the opposite of smart.

Re: Any sufficiently advanced uninstaller is indistinguishable from malware

#305

Post by mariusmg »

EvanAnderson wrote: post #292
blackpill0w wrote: post #149

Why do Windows programs need special installers/uninstallers? Why isn't this handled by Windows itself?

Windows has had an installer as an OS component since the late 90s (called Windows Installer). As a sysadmin I'd prefer apps use it. Many application developers do not. It's maddening. (Doubly so when Microsoft themselves don't use it-- newer versions of Office, Teams, etc. Microsoft suffers from too much NIH.) I get unattended installs and uninstalls "for free" when well-behaved applications use Windows Installer. P…

> with a fairly steep learning curve and a ton of "tribal knowledge"

Yes, people preffer to debug their own code rather than spend shitload of time to understand Wix/MSI.

Microsoft deciding early on to not produce low cost tools for Windows Installer also didn't helped with the adoption.

Re: Any sufficiently advanced uninstaller is indistinguishable from malware

#306

Post by Narishma »

NoZebra120vClip wrote: post #288
eru wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. But if you stick everything into a single .exe, the user can't interfere.

> Yes. But if you stick everything into a single .exe, the user can't interfere. Alright cowboy, so where are you storing preferences and settings?

In the .exe, obviously.

Re: Any sufficiently advanced uninstaller is indistinguishable from malware

#307

Post by simiones »

mjan22640 wrote: post #262
BoppreH wrote: post #245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How could Windows handle it by itself? If it provides a framework for installers/uninstallers, it'll be fighting the inertia of decades of legacy software, programmer habits, and old tutorials. If it tracks file ownership by program, it might accidentally delete user files. How would it differentiate between a VSCode extension that should be uninstalled, and a binary compiled with VSCode for a user project? A false p…

A VSCode extension would be installed and managed by the OS package manager. User created content would be not.

Really? Do you install Firefox extensions from apt-get?

Re: Any sufficiently advanced uninstaller is indistinguishable from malware

#308

Post by xprn »

pie_flavor wrote: post #304
jcarrano wrote: post #299

The guys at MS are smart enough to decompile assembly but still not enough to have a proper inode-based filesystem where you can delete files that are in use.

Allowing you to have inconsistently valid data, where a file can both exist and not exist depending on who's asking, is the opposite of smart.

I just imagined the file being part of the mob, and somebody coming to ask if it was there. The body guard just responding with a “who’s asking?”

Re: Any sufficiently advanced uninstaller is indistinguishable from malware

#309

Post by crabbone »

ChrisSD wrote: post #300
jcarrano wrote: post #299

The guys at MS are smart enough to decompile assembly but still not enough to have a proper inode-based filesystem where you can delete files that are in use.

It has little to do with the filesystem. Windows has OS level locks. In the case of a running executable, the mapped memory holds a lock on the exe file to prevent deleting it. This is intentional. If it didn't hold the lock then it would be possible to delete the exe file on modern versions of Windows. Edit: since there still seems to be confusion I'll try to be clearer. On NTFS you can delete an open file. This is…

[flagged]

Re: Any sufficiently advanced uninstaller is indistinguishable from malware

#310

Post by pie_flavor »

dolmen wrote: post #204
bdamm wrote: post #3

And today I learned that Windows supports running Javascript as shell script. huh

This feature has existed for more than 25 years. My concern is more than Raymond Chen suggest that using it is still the recommended way. So much malware came through WScript.

Scripting is normal functionality for an OS to support. I don't know why people pretend JScript/WScript are evil but Bash is fine.
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