although the articles has some good points, it is also load of BS.

1) Start--> Search sending to Internet. Ive got some strange internal Windows programs caught by

my firewall (an old fashion NIS). I neve caught that, but from time to time, some processes try

to connect to internet, blocked by my fw

2) Help System --> BS. It was designed to help the users with fresh info, so connecting to

internet cant be taken as a bugging device.

3) Microsoft Backup --> as most of backup software. Even on mainframe, IBM backup software can

bypass security and backup every file on disk. However, you cant change the security attributes

on restore and "good pratices" show us to protect very well backup tapes. BS

4) Task manager --> BS. It wasnt designed as an anti-spyware tool. MS designed it thinking that

we are good admins and wont allow malware enter at our machines. You cant blame a tool that wasnt

design to do that.

6) Regitry --> a lot of ppl complained about old .ini structure. I hate those .conf files, hard

to find. Registry is a good idea. But it has some performance problem, i admit

7) Temp files --> most of o.s. has the same problem. O.S. cant deal with automatic deletion of

temp files. sometimes files are left of temp folder. Its a crap, i admit, but not ONLY MS fault

11) Swap page file --> BS. guy that wrote that knows nothing about virtual memory and paging

technics. Every modern (since 1970) has it. If the guy read FIPS recomendation (that is generic,

not for MS) he/she will see there "pages that contains key is clear form should be fixed in

storage and process must be nonswapable".

12) firewall --> yeah, MS give a "free firewall" and everybody complains. Its better to give a

complete one and kill all software companies, isnt it? BS

13) memory usage --> BS. Windows needs a lot of ram (but not 1GB) because ITS A GRAPHICAL OS!.
dont come with *nix on console mode and compare.

14) Automatic updates --> so, its the same on linux implementation of it. you hit "update" and

what is executed? who knows? bs

15) raw packets --> bs. No user process need it. period. User process writing raw packets is

stupid. Its like an user process writing direct to disk or controlling direct the keyboard.

16) remote acess bugs --> that is true. MS has a problem on code quality,in special on "buffer

overflow" basics.

20) stability --> man, so no windows on weapon designing? no University using large cluster of windows for research? bah

21) msn search --> yeah, thats annoying. i agree with that

24) cookies --> oh, only windows has that problem? if someone tell me that is an IE problem i admit.

bah, its easy to blame MS and forget that others, including O.S. that has more than 40 years in market (like IBM O.S.) suffer of the same problems.