A brief history of personal experience with Microsoft
AND
The Secret of Why Microsoft Windows gets Viruses

10 years truly wasted on ever-slowing, broken Windows.

Microsoft started out writing BASIC for home computers so children of single digit age could make their own games, at least the interesting variety of home computers that I encountered, such as Altair, Apple II, TRS-80, Atari, probably Commodore.

IBM conspired to destroy the home computer market since they, especially APPLE II's, were good for business, and so they created junk computers called IBM personal computer and PC Jr. and Peanut. The first PC's couldn't even do what the APPLE II could do. It needed a video card to connect to a monitor and the games were lame because that video card had no graphics. It looked like a dumb terminal which is what IBM time-sharing mainframes used as a user interface. Basically a dumb terminal is the same as a PC but with no memory at all. If it wasn't plugged into a modem or mainframe computer, then all a dumb terminal did was let you type on the screen. So the PC was a dumb terminal with the dumbest home computer inside it, a home computer with no graphics so it was no good for games. IBM's conspiracy slowly worked. People bought PCs and liked them. Microsoft sold DOS and BASIC to IBM. Color graphics (CGA) cards came out. Then VGA. Microsoft released QBASIC. Intel made faster chips. 86,186,286,386,486...Pentium!
Microsoft saw the Mac. I saw the Mac. It came with MacPaint and MacWrite and ... no way to program it. No hard drive, because hard drives are expensive and unreliable and must be backed up to huge tapes every day, because if you need and can afford one, you can't afford to crash it. Floppy drive. Everything had either floppies or cassette tape for saving BASIC programs as modem noise ("digital sound,truly!")!
Microsoft was jealous of Mac and made Windows. Windows didn't DO anything except let you make windows and move them on the screen, and probably play Solitaire. Oh, MS Paint! That's the only thing useful Windows did. I don't remember what Windows for Workgroups was like, but I think it was for using Microsoft Word and playing Solitaire. Then came Windows 95... on 25 floppies that somehow had more than 1.44 megabytes on them, almost 2 whole megabytes, (and I tried to copy and then erase the files on the copy so I could format 2 megabyte floppies but that didn't work.) Windows 95 needed a hard drive. For 25 floppies, Windows 95 didn't do much. QNX came out on one floppy and looked the same as Windows 95. Borland C for DOS came with a 360K floppy with a GUI library on it. Windows wasn't programmable. Using DOS utilities I looked at DLL files and wondered what the heck was all this megabytes of junk. Someone got AOL (not me, never!). It took forever for AOL to connect itself to the internet, but I had a dumb terminal for DOS to dialup an internet shell account. There was not much web and no graphics, just IRC,USENET,EMAIL and something that could be searched... hmmm... lynx... altavista... delphi... Maybe it was http://www. Also there were BBSs. Local PCs running Wildcat! BBS that you could dial up (ATDT)and chat, email, and leave public messages maybe like Twitter. Happy Days!

But as soon as Windows got on the internet it got Viruses!
It's the bug they'll never fix.
The whole internet got Melissa virus in 1988, and they fixed UNIX.
Mac got a virus, and they fixed it.
How can NORTON do anything if Microsoft can't even fix it?

Here is why Windows gets viruses: DOS had program disks and data disks. The disks have a switch on them. If it's a program disk, the switch is either missing or set to read only or write protect. The data disks need to be writable because you are always updating them. If you don't want to update your software, then you don't need to either. In other words don't fix what isn't broken, or let someone else "fix" it either.

It was always common sense to make program disks read-only.
It makes them virus-proof.
It prevents accidentally deleting data.
It prevents accidentally reformatting the software instead of an old (or cheap new) data disk.

Guess what.
Windows will NOT allow you to write-protect it
nor any other program disk, it just won't work.
You HAVE TO INSTALL a perfectly virusproof CD-ROM software disc
on a writable drive before Windows will execute it.

Windows does not reject anything from the internet.
All ports are open. Windows will process any packet that comes in. If someone emails you a virus, Windows knows you got mail and reads it. Windows reads everything. Windows hard drives churn endlessly looking for stuff. When I first saw a firewall for Windows 95, it was BlackIce. It announced what programs were coming and going through the internet, and asked for permission to allow. Guess what programs were trying to send stuff to the internet. Printer drivers. Digital Camera drivers. Scanner drivers. Nothing that had any business using the internet. Somebody somewhere wants to look at all your files and they do. Can they see my files? NO! Even if someone hacked into my computer through the internet, this computer has no hard drive and is write protected except for the RAM that goes blank when I turn it off. My files are on a computer with no internet access at all.

Also I program my own computer. No way a virus could get in. What do you think would happen if the internet started sending me data I didn't request, and was not running the program that uses that data? Ignore it!

Summary:Windows gets viruses because:

    It will not work on a read-only disk.
    It will not execute read-only software disks.
    It eats all the crap the internet feeds it.(why it needs a firewall)
    It does do whatever Microsoft tells it to do.

To protect against viruses you must run Windows in a Virtual Machine, which the EULA doesn't permit.
As a smart computer user, you must make backup copies of all your software and data, even if you don't use Windows. You know that that is not a copyright violation. You know that backups are routine and essential maintenance operations, like putting oil and gas in your car and replacing flat tires.

Read the EULA for Windows. Look for where it says Windows is defective and not safe for critical systems (BSoDs at airports, yup!)and Microsoft is not liable for the defects, and that you agree to not even try to fix it and you want to become a mouse-clicking zombie slave to Windows which (unlike BASIC) doesn't do anything but supervise your eternal mouse-petting, now click "I Agree" and "abandon all hope, all ye who Enter here".

Simplified: Windows would be virusproof if it was implemented as a Harvard Architecture system, that is, with Program and Data stored in separate, specialized memories.

Questions RE your Questions:Why does it take all day to install Windows, many times longer than to make a backup copy with temporary intermediate storage between discs on a hard drive? Why can't you install Windows on a CD like other OS? Why does it need updates several days a week? Why does DOS 2.0 and DOS 6.22 still work and Windows 95 doesn't? Why does Microsoft want to force VISTA on XP just when people started getting happy with it? Why don't old drivers work on new Windows? Where are all the USEFUL tools going away to and why? Why can't I use my good old reliable LPT1 and SERIAL equipment? After installing Windows, how do you type in a simple PROGRAM that makes the screen change colors and say HELLO WORLD? Why don't one page Word document fit on Floppies anymore? How can anything do nothing so slowly several billion times a second with the latest fastest chips?

I disagree with the EULA. I won't even use Windows if you pay me to because the other people who are always trying to fix it are catching the flu.

Dislaimer:this is not a flame. These are serious questions in response to questionable questions.

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