cquirke - What about "Quick Poll: What do you use Safe Mode for?" ?

[Marianne B.]

hey cquirke - I don't remember ever seeing your explanation
as to why you posted:

Quick Poll: What do you use Safe Mode for?

back in December of last year.

Last thing I can find from you about this on Google is:

" Oh boy, are we gonna have fun!
For now, I'm just asking. I'll be telling later ;-) "

So what's the story? Did I miss your follow-ups?
I'm really curious about what you were getting at.

M.B.

 

[Wesley Vogel]

Chris never did clarify when later was.

12. cquirke (MVP Win9x)
[[I'm engaged in some lively debate in an elist on this matter, details
to be clarified later ;-) ]]

http://groups.google.com/group/micr...+you+use+Safe+Mode+for&hl=en#53cad7af9e033e87

--
Hope this helps. Let us know.

Wes
MS-MVP Windows Shell/User

In

 

[cquirke (MVP Windows shell/user)]

On Wed, 4 Jan 2006 20:33:14 -0500, "Marianne B."

hey cquirke - I don't remember ever seeing your explanation
as to why you posted:

Quick Poll: What do you use Safe Mode for?

back in December of last year.

Last thing I can find from you about this on Google is:

" Oh boy, are we gonna have fun!
For now, I'm just asking. I'll be telling later ;-) "

So what's the story? Did I miss your follow-ups?
I'm really curious about what you were getting at.

heh heh... sorry to tease for so long!

What happened was, debate was raging on whether Safe Mode was safe
enough for malware intervention. The bottom line; for malware, Safe
Mode isn't (always safe enough).

What happened next was that Safe Mode's unsafety was defended on the
basis that Safe Mode was never intended to be malware-safe.

That prompted a number of questions, such as "if Safe Mode is not the
recommended platform for malware detection and cleanup, then what is?"

Because the need to scan for malware is huge, not only to manage
malware where it is known to be present, but to exclude it as a factor
in every single case where a poorly-delineated problem has to be
troubleshot. IMO it should be SOP before doing anything else on an
unknown PC, such as adding new hardware or software to it.

Only the most abysmal huge OEM would routinely wipe and re-install
everything as a standard first response to any sort of ill-defined
problem, as a way to "exclude malware". Then again, this is the main
sort of OEM MS has to interact with, so they may be taking this nadir
as the "darkness standard" on such matters?


Anyway, at one time I had various folks from a large software vendor
maintaining with blue-eyed innocence that really, no-one ever
suggested Safe Mode had any role in malware management, so why
complain that it is insufficiently suited for such purpose?

That was a bit of a jaw-dropper, given that the advice to scan and
manage malware from Safe Mode is ubiquitous across all forums where
such topics arise. Right now, there will be a number of such threads,
including in this newsgroup.

So, how did everyone get this so wrong for so many years, and how did
this large software vendor not notice for all this time?

Hence the poll: I wanted to see whether folks out there were
considering malware management as a major purpose of Safe Mode.

---------- ----- ---- --- -- - - - -

Don't pay malware vendors - boycott Sony

 

[Shane]

Anyway, at one time I had various folks from a large software vendor

maintaining with blue-eyed innocence that really, no-one ever
suggested Safe Mode had any role in malware management, so why
complain that it is insufficiently suited for such purpose?

I guess that narrows it down to one of half a dozen houses, max...tell me
I'm wrong (please!).

That was a bit of a jaw-dropper, given that the advice to scan and
manage malware from Safe Mode is ubiquitous across all forums where
such topics arise. Right now, there will be a number of such threads,
including in this newsgroup.

Not quite sure what to call that, but imo it's related to the phenomenon of
Fixation, to which we're probably all prone (just think NTFS advocates!),
whereby we become so habitualised as to suffer a failure of imagination and
thus to fail to see 'the obvious'.

I made something of a study into the related phenomenon of Self-Deception.
Although the two serve different purposes, they're related in that the
common end is - broadly-speaking - to further the automation of behaviour,
to habitualise, to minimize or negate the disturbing influence that is
Consciousness.

So, how did everyone get this so wrong for so many years, and how did
this large software vendor not notice for all this time?

The basis of the Self-Deception hypothesis is that people believe what they
want to believe. Funny, just about no-one accepts that they themselves
indulge in self-deception, but the clincher argument for the majority of
people *should* be that they understand from personal experience what is
meant by 'love is blind'.

People, for the most part, believe that which requires the least mental
effort to accept, and that which favours the status quo (because the status
quo is almost always a relative comfort zone, in which Survival is virtually
assured, therefore once the reproducing has been done, the safest thing to
do is STAY WHERE YOU ARE!). Reproduction aside, you see a lot of conformity
and wishful-thinking in the World of Windows, don't you think?

Hence the poll: I wanted to see whether folks out there were
considering malware management as a major purpose of Safe Mode.

What were the results?



Shane

--


The Sugitive

Chapter One: http://tinyurl.com/bcevp

Chapter Two: http://tinyurl.com/ag92o

Chapter Three: Coming to an URL near you soon!

------------------------------------

 

[Marianne B.]

Thanks for the explanation.

On Wed, 4 Jan 2006 20:33:14 -0500, "Marianne B."







heh heh... sorry to tease for so long!

What happened was, debate was raging on whether Safe Mode was safe
enough for malware intervention. The bottom line; for malware, Safe
Mode isn't (always safe enough).

What happened next was that Safe Mode's unsafety was defended on the
basis that Safe Mode was never intended to be malware-safe.

That prompted a number of questions, such as "if Safe Mode is not the
recommended platform for malware detection and cleanup, then what is?"

Because the need to scan for malware is huge, not only to manage
malware where it is known to be present, but to exclude it as a factor
in every single case where a poorly-delineated problem has to be
troubleshot. IMO it should be SOP before doing anything else on an
unknown PC, such as adding new hardware or software to it.

Only the most abysmal huge OEM would routinely wipe and re-install
everything as a standard first response to any sort of ill-defined
problem, as a way to "exclude malware". Then again, this is the main
sort of OEM MS has to interact with, so they may be taking this nadir
as the "darkness standard" on such matters?


Anyway, at one time I had various folks from a large software vendor
maintaining with blue-eyed innocence that really, no-one ever
suggested Safe Mode had any role in malware management, so why
complain that it is insufficiently suited for such purpose?

That was a bit of a jaw-dropper, given that the advice to scan and
manage malware from Safe Mode is ubiquitous across all forums where
such topics arise. Right now, there will be a number of such threads,
including in this newsgroup.

So, how did everyone get this so wrong for so many years, and how did
this large software vendor not notice for all this time?

Hence the poll: I wanted to see whether folks out there were
considering malware management as a major purpose of Safe Mode.



Don't pay malware vendors - boycott Sony