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A jump into the middle of an instruction from nowhere (2023)

devblogs.microsoft.com

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Re: A jump into the middle of an instruction from nowhere (2023)

#51

Post by toast0 »

throwawaaarrgh wrote: post #23
bombcar wrote: post #19

Kind of sad. Even from this blog, he admits that the Microsoft of old would test software and see if it worked; the Microsoft of now obviously knows of the existence of these shell enhancements, but clearly doesn’t test patches against them at all.

That's a lot of money and time to spend on supporting someone else's bug-riddled software. You can't test literally all software that exists before you release a security patch. Just imagine testing every single solitary Windows application that exists, or has every existed, just to see if one of them crashes due to intentionally doing the wrong thing. What are they supposed to do, fix the 3rd party software? Delay f…

> That's a lot of money and time to spend on supporting someone else's bug-riddled software. You can't test literally all software that exists before you release a security patch.

Microsoft has been pushing telemetry for how long? I would think they would have a good idea of what to test so that p99 their software works for their customers.

But it depends on the severity of the security issue fixed. If it's a big deal, you push it and let telemetry dictate your future hotfixes. If it's not a big deal, you do your internal testing, then push it through external testing, and see what telemetry picks up (hey!)

> Just imagine testing every single solitary Windows application that exists, or has every existed, just to see if one of them crashes due to intentionally doing the wrong thing. What are they supposed to do, fix the 3rd party software? Delay fixing the security hole?

Microsoft made its business on "where do you want to go today?" Not "you're holding it wrong"

If windows and the 3rd party software worked before a windows update and doesn't after the windows update, that's Microsoft's problem because it reduces acceptance of updates. One way forward is to fingerprint the broken application and not do the update if it's active, another way is to prevent it from running after the update. Either of those allow unaffected users to get the update and get on with their life. Once the application is identified, Microsoft can work with them to update their software to do things right, and then figure out how to get users updated.

I've been a user of desktops where the OS developer clearly doesn't care about continuity for users, and Windows feels more and more like that. It's not pleasant, and if I can't be assured what works today will work tomorrow, that leads to delaying updates which is bad for business.

Re: A jump into the middle of an instruction from nowhere (2023)

#52

Post by arcfour »

redleader55 wrote: post #50
saurik wrote: post #5

Frankly, it is really annoying when developers working at one of the large closed-source platform oligopolists blame their users for trying to work around the deficiencies (or even outright hostile "business model" optimizations) in their software by whatever scant means are left to them: maybe if Microsoft didn't keep removing good functionality and stopped forcing bad "features" on everyone, fewer people would see…

> This program patches Explorer in order to accomplish its enhancements, and apparently one of its patches went awry The fact this is possible is the clowniest thing! Why would a major system component allow "extensions" to run without a sandbox and modify its code?

If you have Administrator access, you can patch the memory of anything...a normal user wouldn't be permitted to patch Explorer.

Trying to prevent patching in userland code sounds like a nightmare.

Re: A jump into the middle of an instruction from nowhere (2023)

#53

Post by bombcar »

toast0 wrote: post #51
throwawaaarrgh wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a lot of money and time to spend on supporting someone else's bug-riddled software. You can't test literally all software that exists before you release a security patch. Just imagine testing every single solitary Windows application that exists, or has every existed, just to see if one of them crashes due to intentionally doing the wrong thing. What are they supposed to do, fix the 3rd party software? Delay f…

> That's a lot of money and time to spend on supporting someone else's bug-riddled software. You can't test literally all software that exists before you release a security patch. Microsoft has been pushing telemetry for how long? I would think they would have a good idea of what to test so that p99 their software works for their customers. But it depends on the severity of the security issue fixed. If it's a big dea…

> If windows and the 3rd party software worked before a windows update and doesn't after the windows update, that's Microsoft's problem because it reduces acceptance of updates.

This is the critical key to the whole thing. Currently, I basically apply updates as soon as they're available (with a bit of delay for major ones like new macOS version updates) but if I get burned a few times I'll go back to waiting carefully.

Re: A jump into the middle of an instruction from nowhere (2023)

#55

Post by NoMoreNicksLeft »

jdewerd wrote: post #47
xboxnolifes wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is these APIs are only used by viruses, why do they exist?

Because they are also used by debuggers, security tools, and other flavors of "keep the world humming along despite its best efforts to kill itself."

We might add to the list "tools and utilities desired by power users".

Re: A jump into the middle of an instruction from nowhere (2023)

#56

Post by NoMoreNicksLeft »

bluecalm wrote: post #49
jackewiehose wrote: post #11

There is an interview with Raymond Chen where he is trying to defend the reason why they crippled the taskbar with Windows 11 [1]. Watching that I was just thinking NO NO NO - it worked fine for the last 25 years and there can be absolutely no reason why they had to destroy the taskbar now. He deserves every headache he gets with these support requests. Or to quote this comment of the linked article: > There wouldn’t…

I wouldn't say it worked "fine" for 25 years. It's still there all the time taking screen space. You can hide it but it will re-appear if you move your mouse to the now cleared screen real estate. The reason I need taskbar hacks is that I want one feature they never added: hide the taskbar permanently until I explicitly ask to see it (for example by pressing a Windows Key). For me it doesn't matter much if the taskba…

> I see not adding this obvious feature as manifestation of "you will have it our way and you will like it" a

Their corporate customers demand that your multi-use computer be turned into a nearly-dumb appliance with no configurability. It sucks for you, but you'll just have to suffer for the "greater good". Power users are not just an endangered species, but rather a dangerous enemy to be wiped out through any means necessary. They hate you, and you either need to be subjugated or forced to use an abacus.

Re: A jump into the middle of an instruction from nowhere (2023)

#57

Post by kmeisthax »

redleader55 wrote: post #50
saurik wrote: post #5

Frankly, it is really annoying when developers working at one of the large closed-source platform oligopolists blame their users for trying to work around the deficiencies (or even outright hostile "business model" optimizations) in their software by whatever scant means are left to them: maybe if Microsoft didn't keep removing good functionality and stopped forcing bad "features" on everyone, fewer people would see…

> This program patches Explorer in order to accomplish its enhancements, and apparently one of its patches went awry The fact this is possible is the clowniest thing! Why would a major system component allow "extensions" to run without a sandbox and modify its code?

Caught the Apple employee.

When most of this code was written, sandboxes didn't exist. Existing security concepts were built around protecting users from hacking each other on a shared multi-user system. Of course a user is allowed to patch their own processes, how else are they going to debug them and why should we stop them from doing so?

Re: A jump into the middle of an instruction from nowhere (2023)

#58

Post by Spivak »

redleader55 wrote: post #50
saurik wrote: post #5

Frankly, it is really annoying when developers working at one of the large closed-source platform oligopolists blame their users for trying to work around the deficiencies (or even outright hostile "business model" optimizations) in their software by whatever scant means are left to them: maybe if Microsoft didn't keep removing good functionality and stopped forcing bad "features" on everyone, fewer people would see…

> This program patches Explorer in order to accomplish its enhancements, and apparently one of its patches went awry The fact this is possible is the clowniest thing! Why would a major system component allow "extensions" to run without a sandbox and modify its code?

Because you're admin and you can do anything you want with that power good or bad.

Re: A jump into the middle of an instruction from nowhere (2023)

#59

Post by kmeisthax »

surajrmal wrote: post #43
jackewiehose wrote: post #11

There is an interview with Raymond Chen where he is trying to defend the reason why they crippled the taskbar with Windows 11 [1]. Watching that I was just thinking NO NO NO - it worked fine for the last 25 years and there can be absolutely no reason why they had to destroy the taskbar now. He deserves every headache he gets with these support requests. Or to quote this comment of the linked article: > There wouldn’t…

Watching the clip, the improvements he's talking about are great and very welcomed. Is this a case of any change being considered bad because you're used to how things are?

https://xkcd.com/1172/

Re: A jump into the middle of an instruction from nowhere (2023)

#60

Post by [deleted] »

jackewiehose wrote: post #11

There is an interview with Raymond Chen where he is trying to defend the reason why they crippled the taskbar with Windows 11 [1]. Watching that I was just thinking NO NO NO - it worked fine for the last 25 years and there can be absolutely no reason why they had to destroy the taskbar now. He deserves every headache he gets with these support requests. Or to quote this comment of the linked article: > There wouldn’t…

[deleted]
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