[ Каскадный ] · Стандартный · Линейный+ Windows XP is dream come true?

Just receive message from Gibson Research Corporation which is one of most reliable source.
See: http://grc.com/dos/winxp.htm
and for fun: http://grc.com/dos/grcdos.htm

Sorry for the "noise", but it is very late in the game, and Microsoft has
put a completely ill-conceived design in the product, which brings up more
problems the more one thinks about it.

For a quick demonstration of the problem:

1. Copy the attached file to your XP \WINDOWS directory. NOTE THAT EVERY
USER CAN DO THIS, EVEN GUEST!!!

2. Log out.

3. Congrats! Your machine is mostly inoperable now, as EXPLORER can no
longer start. No Admin account, no Safe mode, *nothing* other than deleting
the offending manifest file will make your machine useable again.

4. To get your machine back, log in, hit Ctrl+Alt+Del to get the Task
Manager, then select "New Task" and run "CMD.EXE". In CMD.EXE type "CD
\Windows" and "DEL explorer.exe.manifest", then "exit", and log out with
the help of Task Manager.

5. Note that above requires *exact* knowledge of the "manifest sabotage"
that has been applied. If you're a sysadmin that has never heard of
application manifests (which should make up about 99% of all sysadmins, I'd
say), you will be COMPLETELY CLUELESS why your machine is no longer working
properly and *NONE* of the Microsoft repair methods will help you ANY!

6. Note also that if manifest files for CMD.EXE and Task Manager had been
put in place, you would have had *NO* way at all to get your machine back
to a useable state. Not even a repair install would have helped, I'm
afraid. Wiping out the XP partition and reinstalling might be the *only*
way to get XP working properly again.

So, what is the problem with application manifests? For the non-developer
types: Imagine a school exam where you get *two* identical test forms, and
passing the exam not only requires a sufficient number of correct answers,
but also that both forms are filled out *exactly* the same. To make matters
worse, that second form is passed through the entire class, so *any* of
your fellow students can make you fail the test by putting an extra
checkmark on it. That is pretty much the way application manifests work...
As you can see, the concept is completely ill-conceived.

Note that application manifests are currently *required* to enable XP
visual styles. So take out application manifests and the XP visual styles
are gone, too...

And to Microsoft: This needs to be reconsidered FROM GROUND UP. It is quite
obvious that you have to make whatever thing parses those manifests much
more "forgiving" and IGNORE most of the information you currently call
MANDATORY for application manifests. And then you'll quickly reach a point
where the application manifest contains NO INFORMATION other than which
version of a DLL you'd like to use. That's where you should reach the point
at which you realize that the PE executable format ALREADY OFFERS the
capability to do that.

My suggestion: *REMOVE* application manifests for DLL/EXE files, and use
the internal PE structures to mark applications "XP visual styles enabled".