Digital BW, The Print

>I have no doubt that a newer OS will incorporate improvements in
>security compared to older models, so would not doubt that Vista
>standing alone is "more secure" than XP standing alone.  But I have to
>wonder how many (serious) XP users have not deployed antivirus and
>firewall programs on their machines.  And compared to THAT
>configuration, I have to wonder how Vista makes a system more secure.

There a lots of security improvements in Vista, too many for me to repeat 
here, but if you want to read about them, then here is a reasonable MS 
paper:-
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=6FB28358-68D9-43E9-B574-6A0D377BBA34&displaylang=en

I don't run XP without ZoneAlarm Security Suite; I turned it off once in a 
hotel when I couldn't work out whether it was ZA playing up or the hotel's 
system - I got a virus in the 5 minutes or so that it was off!

I now run Vista64 on two computers, and have not had any 3rdparty 
virus/firewall running for the last 4 months - just the stuff built into 
Vista64. No viruses/trojans etc. Since this is/was an experiment (provoked 
by a Macite who was rubbishing Vista security compared with Macs),  I run a 
scan with SpyBot and Kaspersky viruschecker about once a week, but they have 
never found anything. Then I turn them off again.

The User Account Control is a bit tedious at first, with its frequent 
prompts for permission to run non-signed programs, but if you turn it off 
that is another layer of security gone.

Why don't I still run ZA on Vista? Well, for a start they didn't have a 
version that did run on Vista64, so I tried Kaspersky which did run. But all 
these virus-checkers slow the computer down, so if you don't need them the 
computer will run faster without them, sometimes much faster. They are also 
IME the source of many instability problems, although Vista64 does stop them 
furkling in its innards, which improves stability no end.
V64 is more secure than V32, and more stable. I haven't yet tried running 
V32 without any 3rdparty protection. I'll try it soon perhaps, but it hasn't 
got as much security as V64.

I initially set up a dual boot with XP and V64, but hardly ever boot into XP 
now. It took a while to get all the 64bit drivers for my stuff, and to 
change a printer that was never going to get an upgraded driver, but now I 
can run just 64bit LightRoom and see the computer using 6 of my 8GB. With 
64bit PS just round the corner, which will use the extra ram instead of its 
scratch disk, things are improving.

Bob Frost




----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Kip Babington" <cbabing3@...>