Secure By Design

I am sick of people bashing Windows Vista. Now, I will be the first to admit that it unresponsive and sluggish at times, but un-secure, NO WAY! For starters, Vista has a completely revamped Firewall. The new Firewall is more careful with wireless packets, and more rigorously examines the IP and DNS before conecting, and even compares it to a 'not-safe list' through Kerberos authentication. Not only is it secure, but I feel the new firewall is easier to use too! It has taken several steps that make finding, and connecting to a network easier. Vista also keeps it's users secure with Bitlocker Drive Encryption. This makes sure your computer always starts up in a known 'safe' state, and is not being hacked or broken into. This is key for valuable computers holding precious information. Finally, what I think makes Vista the ultimate in OS Security, is it's Secure Desktop feature. This gives you the final say in any application being run by your machine. If any program is executed, immideatly it is interrupted and the user is prompted by the system if they are sure they want this to run. This alone could stop mal-ware from ever installing itself on your computer. Now if its a trusted program, and all it is doing is running, all it will do is prompt the user; But if it is attempting to install or un-install anything the user's administrater privileges are checked, and if they fail it prompts them with a password. This puts all the control in the hands of the computers owner (YOU), and takes it out of the hands of your friends, siblings, children, or even hackers. This feature alone wins my trust in Vista. Not to mention Vista also offers Data Execution Prevention, Application Isolation, Windows Service Hardening, Cryptography, and even Network Access Protection. So stop bashing Vista, because honestly it puts the control in your hands, so your really just bashing yourself.