Installing PRS-505 Software on Vista64 - Page 3

HarryT · 10-11-2007, 11:40 AM

There's a heck of a lot of legacy software and hardware out there. Making as much as possible of that run unchanged on Vista is clearly a key commercial requirement.

Vista 64 was never meant for the mass market, and hence could afford to be rather more "radical".

NatCh · 10-11-2007, 11:45 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by HarryT

Getting a digital certificate to sign code with needn't be expensive.

No, it doesn't have to be, but once it's required what is to prevent them from making it expensive? What about my own apps that I want to write and run on my own PC? Why should I have to get them signed?

I've run into this in Excel -- I have several spreadsheets I track things in, and I've written button launched macros to automate entering the data (I copy it from my source, then click the button to get the data entered and formatted correctly) — but guess what? That's right: Excel has a cow because the macros are stored in the file. I finally figured out how to make my own certificate and sign them so that I can use them without turning off Excel's macro watch "feature," but it took me several hours to track down and about another hour to actually make work. For extra added fun, I'll probably have to do the same circus act next time I want to do the same thing again, as I'm unlikely to remember what I did before ... assuming that it doesn't change in the meantime.

If they want stuff signed badly enough that they'll hassle their users about it, the least they can do is put a stinkin' entry in the stinkin' help file that covers the topic, and make that entry easy to find, by, like, you know, cross-referencing it, and listing it in the stinkin' index!

Sorry, but I find the matter a bit annoying.

Xenophon · 10-12-2007, 10:31 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by HarryT

There's a heck of a lot of legacy software and hardware out there. Making as much as possible of that run unchanged on Vista is clearly a key commercial requirement.

Vista 64 was never meant for the mass market, and hence could afford to be rather more "radical".

Of course it is perfectly possible to make an operating system that supports simultaneous 32 and 64 bit operation. Even in drivers. This has been true in Mac OS 10.4 for a couple of years now. (The only parts that AREN'T 64-bit ready in 10.4 are the layers above the Unix part of the OS. Those'll be 64-bit in 10.5 later this month.) 32-bit and 64-bit applications and drivers run just fine in both versions (not counting the GUI on 10.4, that is).

Microsoft certainly could have done the same (at some unknown cost), but chose not to. Perhaps it was too expensive to do, or didn't fit their marketing plans, or...

Xenophon

P.S. Note that I am not saying that MickeySoft is stupid. I'm pretty sure that they have a good reason for the various decisions that they make. And I know they have a ton of smart people. Rather, they chose their particular path for reasons that I don't understand.

kovidgoyal · 10-12-2007, 11:23 AM

Umm rogue programs "injecting" bad drivers? There is no reason why they can't prevent programs from "injecting" drivers into the kernel. The simplest way to do that is to have real privilege separation. No what they're doing here is trying to protect users from themselves. The "abhorrent" attitude being that users are too stupid to manage their computers. That they don't deserve the right to do what they want with their computers, because if you give them that right then they will inevitably mess up their computers.

And not that having signed drivers only prevents really affects operating system stability not security. From a user perspective the security they care about is the security of their data and that can still be compromised without installing device drivers.

kovidgoyal · 10-12-2007, 11:32 AM

And I strongly suspect that the reason for requiring signed kernel mode code is not to guarantee security of user content but to try to guarantee security of the inbuilt DRM schemes.

pilotbob · 10-12-2007, 01:11 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by HarryT

There's a heck of a lot of legacy software and hardware out there. Making as much as possible of that run unchanged on Vista is clearly a key commercial requirement.

Vista 64 was never meant for the mass market, and hence could afford to be rather more "radical".

That's the problem. It should have been "meant" for the mass market. Pretty much any 32-bit app that runs on Vista32 will run on Vista64-bit (except drivers). With the new driver model most drivers had to be re-done for Vista anyway.

Getting an app to run under Vista is more about the new security stuff than any thing else. The WOW64 subsystem runs the 32-bit stuff fin just like the WOW32 in Windows 95 - XP runs the 16bit windows apps just fine. So, the only "legacy apps" that would not run on Vista 64 would be Windows 16-bit apps of which there are very few left.

When you give people a cruch they tend to use it. If all hardware makers had to do 64-bit drivers to sell new hardware they would have done it.

Sorry for the off off topic post!

BOb

Brainiac 5 · 10-15-2007, 02:54 PM

Back to the original post:

Quote:

Originally Posted by MikeF74

I copied the C:\Program Files\Sony\Reader directory to C:\Program Files (x86)\Sony\Reader. Created a shortcut, and ran it. It worked just fine.

I was able to authorize my computer and my device. Download free books and download a purchased book.

Just to be sure I understand, you mean just download the books from the store, or were you also able to transfer them to the reader using the eBook library software?

MikeF74 · 10-15-2007, 03:05 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Brainiac 5

Back to the original post:Just to be sure I understand, you mean just download the books from the store, or were you also able to transfer them to the reader using the eBook library software?

I was able to do both. I was able to purchase and download books. And I am able to send those books to the PRS-505 reader using the software.

Brainiac 5 · 10-15-2007, 03:41 PM

Fantastic!!

You're right, they really do need to update the installer. It could just pop up a message box to warn you that it will only work with a 505. If they're worried about having to handle support calls for 64-bit, have the message box say that 64-bit is not officially supported, but let you install anyway.

Of course, there's one other function that we can't test yet: updating the firmware.

MikeF74 · 10-15-2007, 03:49 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Brainiac 5

Of course, there's one other function that we can't test yet: updating the firmware.

Hopefully that has been written in such a way that all it does it drop off a package via the Mass Storage interface. But I guess we won't know for sure until we see an update.

Similar Threads
Thread	Thread Starter	Forum	Replies	Last Post
Replacement Software for PRS-505?	fglaysher	Sony Reader	14	12-28-2009 10:56 AM
PRS-505 driver not installing on Vista 32	kcchesnut	Sony Reader	3	02-21-2009 12:03 AM
Installing software	zeuskeu	iRex	2	03-10-2008 09:01 AM
Installing software	zeuskeu	iRex	1	03-10-2008 07:28 AM
Newbie PRS-505 User: Critical Software?	Hamza	Sony Reader	2	01-12-2008 07:42 AM

10-11-2007, 11:40 AM	#31
HarryT eBook Enthusiast Posts: 85,557 Karma: 93980341 Join Date: Nov 2006 Location: UK Device: Kindle Oasis 2, iPad Pro 10.5", iPhone 6	There's a heck of a lot of legacy software and hardware out there. Making as much as possible of that run unchanged on Vista is clearly a key commercial requirement. Vista 64 was never meant for the mass market, and hence could afford to be rather more "radical".

10-12-2007, 11:23 AM	#34
kovidgoyal creator of calibre Posts: 45,411 Karma: 27757236 Join Date: Oct 2006 Location: Mumbai, India Device: Various	Umm rogue programs "injecting" bad drivers? There is no reason why they can't prevent programs from "injecting" drivers into the kernel. The simplest way to do that is to have real privilege separation. No what they're doing here is trying to protect users from themselves. The "abhorrent" attitude being that users are too stupid to manage their computers. That they don't deserve the right to do what they want with their computers, because if you give them that right then they will inevitably mess up their computers. And not that having signed drivers only prevents really affects operating system stability not security. From a user perspective the security they care about is the security of their data and that can still be compromised without installing device drivers.

10-12-2007, 11:32 AM	#35
kovidgoyal creator of calibre Posts: 45,411 Karma: 27757236 Join Date: Oct 2006 Location: Mumbai, India Device: Various	And I strongly suspect that the reason for requiring signed kernel mode code is not to guarantee security of user content but to try to guarantee security of the inbuilt DRM schemes.

10-15-2007, 03:41 PM	#39
Brainiac 5 Member Posts: 21 Karma: 20 Join Date: May 2007 Device: Sony Portable Reader	Fantastic!! You're right, they really do need to update the installer. It could just pop up a message box to warn you that it will only work with a 505. If they're worried about having to handle support calls for 64-bit, have the message box say that 64-bit is not officially supported, but let you install anyway. Of course, there's one other function that we can't test yet: updating the firmware.

Advert

Advert