Microsoft, innovating again

Topic: Technology Windows Security

Many Windows security holes have been due to the fact that to do any useful work at all, a user needed to be an administrator of the computer. For those of us who administer Windows machines, it's always been a choice between giving users little power — which means that the user can't do everyday things like maintain printers — or god-like powers, which give them the ability to wreck their machine, something many users wind up doing almost by accident.

Finally, it seems, Microsoft is going to mimic Unix security, at least in part. It remains to be seen how well they will implement this. Not to mention when — Longhorn's release date keeps getting pushed further and further back.

But if they do security right, you'll hear loud sustained cheering from your sysadmin.