The Linux foundation seems ready to finally axe a Microsoft-made remote network protocol for USB that is still a part of modern Windows operating systems.
This kind of thing can never be removed from Windows because somewhere there is a Fortune 500 company whose entire IT infrastructure is precariously balanced such that it relies on this obscure feature – or some other equally rickety legacy Win32/16 API crap – and if it ever goes away their business will collapse and they’ll sue Microsoft for a billion dollars.
Those systems are running frozen versions of Windows, they’re not being updated. Microsoft could introduce a patch for Windows 10 and 11 that removes the vulnerability and people running old software on XP would still be able to run it. Or, at the very least, make it disabled by default but let advanced users and sysadmins re-enable the vulnerable code.
That’s what they did with SMB 1.0, for instance. It’s disabled on any modern Windows install, even though a lot of universities and companies still have infrastructure based on it. If you browse the “advanced system features” options you can re-enable it manually, with the knowledge that you’re voluntarily opening up your system to well known dangerous exploits in exchange for backwards compatibility.
Good on them, I guess.
This kind of thing can never be removed from Windows because somewhere there is a Fortune 500 company whose entire IT infrastructure is precariously balanced such that it relies on this obscure feature – or some other equally rickety legacy Win32/16 API crap – and if it ever goes away their business will collapse and they’ll sue Microsoft for a billion dollars.
Those systems are running frozen versions of Windows, they’re not being updated. Microsoft could introduce a patch for Windows 10 and 11 that removes the vulnerability and people running old software on XP would still be able to run it. Or, at the very least, make it disabled by default but let advanced users and sysadmins re-enable the vulnerable code.
That’s what they did with SMB 1.0, for instance. It’s disabled on any modern Windows install, even though a lot of universities and companies still have infrastructure based on it. If you browse the “advanced system features” options you can re-enable it manually, with the knowledge that you’re voluntarily opening up your system to well known dangerous exploits in exchange for backwards compatibility.