Yes it’s that time of the year, where promises are made, solutions are offered and the marketing people work at full steam.

We have seen it before. Remember Windows XP SP2? How it promised to solve all our security issues? Well, a lot of people have installed it, yet, vulnerabilities in XP still exist.

Now comes Windows Vista’s turn to be the one to solve all our problems, make the world a better place, and bring a bit more cash (a lot more cash) to Microsoft’s pockets.

Here are some of the “important” security features lacking in today’s operating systems that Windows Vista will give:
* You will be able to perform administrator privileges, such as installing an application, on a case-by-case basis rather than having to switch accounts – Sounds like sudo to me
* When users need to work in administrator mode, a Protected Administrator feature will let you set limitations to prevent an application from going outside its privileges – Did someone say Privileges Escalation?
* A new version of Windows Firewall, which will offer outbound and inbound protection, an upgrade from the previous inbound-only version – Oh god of the firewalls, save us from our own deeds, block our Torrent and Kazaa traffic, hrm, I mean block our worms and viruses from propagating
* A client-based scan agent will ensure that users who haven’t kept up with operating-system and application patches won’t be allowed to connect to the network – Will this end Cisco’s Self-Defending Network ideas?
* The entire system partition can be encrypted in both the hibernation file and the user data – I was missing just this in Windows, once I encrypt everything no worm or virus can infect the system…