Microsoft no longer signs Windows drivers for Process Hacker • Hacker News Board

Re: Microsoft no longer signs Windows drivers for Process Hacker

#191

Post by Jensson » Sun, Oct 24, 2021, 12:59 PM UTC

neilalexander wrote: post #163

Jensson wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not without massive loss of users. Both Microsoft and Apple would love to lock down their platforms, but they have to do it in tandem or users will flock to the other. So we will see a slow lock-in creep until they look like current day smartphones. Only way to stop this is to react strongly, so if most users are apathetic like you then it is inevitable. Of course I believe that you are right and most are this apathe…

Apathetic — no. I’m aware of the control creep in the industry, but I do think that it seems unnecessarily alarmist to think that Apple just can’t wait to lock down macOS. There is nothing to gain by them doing so and I would be incredibly surprised if they didn’t already know that. iOS is and has always been a closed platform. We knew that the day they announced the first iPhone and they have been consistent in thei…

> They would walk away from Macs in an instant if the platform stops being useful to them.

Only if there was a better alternative. That is the point, both Microsoft and Apple works towards there not being any better alternatives out there. It wont happen in 5 years, but almost surely in 20, as they have to do it slowly enough for all major programs to get into the appstores.

Just have to slowly make it more and more difficult shipping software that isn't in their appstores. Then you start paying for exclusives, imagine if Apple paid photoshop to only ship in their appstore and not distribute indipendent binaries for macOs for example, people would quickly learn to use the store. Ship cheaper variants of the OS with only access to the appstore etc. There are so many ways for them to reach that destination, and 20 years is an eternity in this space.

Re: Microsoft no longer signs Windows drivers for Process Hacker

#192

Post by addicted » Sun, Oct 24, 2021, 12:59 PM UTC

neilalexander wrote: post #163

Jensson wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not without massive loss of users. Both Microsoft and Apple would love to lock down their platforms, but they have to do it in tandem or users will flock to the other. So we will see a slow lock-in creep until they look like current day smartphones. Only way to stop this is to react strongly, so if most users are apathetic like you then it is inevitable. Of course I believe that you are right and most are this apathe…

Apathetic — no. I’m aware of the control creep in the industry, but I do think that it seems unnecessarily alarmist to think that Apple just can’t wait to lock down macOS. There is nothing to gain by them doing so and I would be incredibly surprised if they didn’t already know that. iOS is and has always been a closed platform. We knew that the day they announced the first iPhone and they have been consistent in thei…

Is it really alarmist to believe that Apple would like to make their less popular OS more like their significantly more popular OS?

Re: Microsoft no longer signs Windows drivers for Process Hacker

#193

Post by zepolen » Sun, Oct 24, 2021, 1:00 PM UTC

ryanlol wrote: post #153

zigzag312 wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find it interesting that, one one hand they are implementing features "in the name of security" that limit the owner of a computer what he/she can do with it and on the other hand they are adding backdoors so that government agencies (or anyone with right information) can spy on citizen that use this "secure" OS.

I will personally pay you twenty thousand US dollars (in the cryptocurrency of your choice, bank transfer, western union, whatever) if you can prove beyond reasonable doubt that Microsoft has ever secretly shipped a backdoor in their OS so government agencies could spy on their users. Perhaps you will be the first person to actually prove the existence of the NSAKEY backdoor? (I doubt it.)

Is that $20,000 just for proof or also showing the method?

Re: Microsoft no longer signs Windows drivers for Process Hacker

#194

Post by nix23 » Sun, Oct 24, 2021, 1:00 PM UTC

formerly_proven wrote: post #130

nix23 wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>But on the other hand people also use Windows because its the default that comes with their new computer. True, but if Windows cannot run the application regular Joe wants, people will just switch to Chrome OS or Apple or Linux (wine?). Sometimes regular Joe's uses more exotic Software we can imagine, and they choose windows because it runs on it since 25 years. Just some examples i have seen: -VisualBasic 6 (for mo…

I've ran a lot of these weird 90s-looking "The OEM did a thing" applications on wine, most work pretty flawlessly. Even a few that talked to hardware (over serial, though). However I don't think you can expect to run e.g. a machine controller on another OS.

Well it's not a controller, it's a post-processor that converts and sends the specific N-Code to the CNC (heidenhein "OS") (serial or ir)...CNC then executes the stored code.

Re: Microsoft no longer signs Windows drivers for Process Hacker

#195

Post by JeremyNT » Sun, Oct 24, 2021, 1:02 PM UTC

beermonster wrote: post #7

throwuxiytayq wrote: post #2

An immensly powerful and useful tool. Can't live without it. Hopefully the situation resolves soon. What is it with MS these past few months? It's like they're trying to throw away the little community goodwill they managed to build up over the years.

> What is it with MS these past few months? I was thinking the same. It's not been a good few weeks for them. They're quickly losing trust which was hard to acquire in the first place given their history. Maybe a timely reminder to mention Halloween [1] ? [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halloween_documents

Are they losing trust though? Many young developers don't remember the height of the EEE days in the 90s and 00s when MS was trying very hard to extinguish free software. These are just stories to them.

Now, MS runs the world's largest source code sharing service and many of these young developers launch proprietary MS code editing tools daily.

We old timers always knew what the end game was, but young people lack the context and so many are already hooked on MS now. It's not obvious to me that they will ever care enough to switch no matter how hostile MS behaves.

Re: Microsoft no longer signs Windows drivers for Process Hacker

#196

Post by e12e » Sun, Oct 24, 2021, 1:02 PM UTC

schmorptron wrote: post #150

e2le wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Measured boot and secure storage of keys. It's not all bad.

That's good to hear then! So will most computers having a TPM chip lead to easier integration of secure boot with i.e. linux distros as well?

As long as most computers ship in a manner where the owner can adjust the keys in TPM/SecureBoot - you could argue its a good thing.

Eg,like: https://ubuntu.com/blog/how-to-sign-things-for-secure-boot

Re: Microsoft no longer signs Windows drivers for Process Hacker

#197

Post by addicted » Sun, Oct 24, 2021, 1:03 PM UTC

wongarsu wrote: post #157

antman wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ofcourse they don’t force anything because of the competing windows platform which is more open up to now. Apple assumed market dominance and locked everything down on mobile. What I infer from your observation is that closing down Windows could also adversely affect Mac users, since Apple would not miss this opportunity.

> Apple assumed market dominance and locked everything down on mobile. Apple has about 26% market share on mobile globally, that's not exactly market dominance. Them locking down the platform limits piracy, which is one reason why developing for iOS is much more profitable for many kinds of apps, which causes better apps that drive consumers to the iPhone. That's the reason they put so much energy into locking down t…

The gulf between OSX apps and Windows/Linux apps in quality was far greater than any sort of edge iOS apps have over competing platform apps. So it’s hard to see how the argument that locking down the platform leads to better apps works.

Re: Microsoft no longer signs Windows drivers for Process Hacker

#198

Post by e12e » Sun, Oct 24, 2021, 1:05 PM UTC

watermelon0 wrote: post #78

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…

Or maybe this is related to the security, and Windows is the only widely used platform that didn't enforce TPM until recently? macOS is even more locked down, but they don't impede or force users to use Mac App Store.

> they don't impede or force users to use Mac App Store.

They do for iOS, though? I'm not convinced we won't see something similar for desktop (possibly with an "opt-out" for power users, where you can manually sign and accept binaries - much like you can build a dev build of an ios app, but not distribute it).

Re: Microsoft no longer signs Windows drivers for Process Hacker

#199

Post by [deleted] » Sun, Oct 24, 2021, 1:06 PM UTC

intricatedetail wrote: post #35

pjmlp wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But it will be built on top of WSL3 and all hackers will jump of joy with Windows/Linux.

Many people only use Windows because the software they have don't have a Linux build. Maybe people should start pressuring vendors to make Linux builds and that could end Windows.

[deleted]

Re: Microsoft no longer signs Windows drivers for Process Hacker

#200

Post by DeathArrow » Sun, Oct 24, 2021, 1:07 PM UTC

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.

This would be stupid. People use Windows because it's usable and because they can use software they want. But forcing the users and developers going through an app store won't be taken lightly neither by users, nor by developers.

If Adobe and Autodesk would sense something like this is planned, they would start porting their software to Linux. Microsoft doesn't have a chance to lock their system down. What would be the next step? Use Windows only on MS hardware? They can't pull an Apple and I think they've realized it.