Microsoft: Come and play in our Windows SandBox

Ever felt a bit sick when Windows whinges about a suspicious application, but you really need to run it? Worry no more, because Windows Sandbox is inbound. Hari Pulapaka of the Windows Kernel team shared the good news last night, trumpeting the arrival of the lightweight desktop environment that would allow whiffy applications …

[Anonymous Coward]

Windows ensures your privacy

I have heard a rumor that upcoming builds will re-enable the "remove user files" option, thereby ensuring no private data can leak by preemptively deleting it.

This feature was present shortly in a previous build, but it didn't work consistent enough yet and was therefore removed. Don't worry, though, Redmond is on the job!

[ivan5]

Re: Windows ensures your privacy

Oh, so they have removed all the slurping code - thought not

[ivan5]

Re: Microsoft is a dog

I thought it was cats that did that sort of thing in sandboxes.

[Alan Mackenzie]

Erkk!!!

"Nothing is persisted".

PLEASE!!!

Persist is an INTRANSITIVE verb. How about "Nothing persists"? Shorter and much, much better!

[Random Handle]

Re: Erkk!!!

> "Nothing is persisted".

> Persist is an INTRANSITIVE verb. How about "Nothing persists"?

How would we know if nothing persists simply because there wasn't anything persistable?

[Steve Knox]

Re: Erkk!!!

https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/persist

See definition 4 (computing, transitive).

As this is an IT rag, and the technical usage is more precise in describing the actual process, I think the transitive use is justified.

[diodesign]

Re: Erkk!!!

It's a technical term (see Steve Knox's comment)

C.

[karlkarl]

So Microsoft has basically come up with Chroot, Jails, LPAR, Zones many many years late...

Nice job. I am sure that they will be worshipped by consumers everywhere!

[Anonymous Coward]

I rather suspect it's based on containers. Not the first time I've said this about the upcoming sandbox mode for Windows 10. The reason I like Server instead is that all of this is built in and tested (for whatever you expect for any value of tested you'll believe).

[Anonymous Coward]

Serious mea culpa. It's Hyper-V, and particularly brain-dead implementations along the way. I'll just stick to having a Golden Master copied in as a throwaway here.

[TReko]

Sandboxie

Sandboxie has been around for around a decade, giving you a decent, but non-VM sandbox in Windows.

https://www.sandboxie.com/

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Sandboxie

I know, I used it regularly right after it appeared on the scene. I use different approaches these days.

[John 110]

sure, it might be late...

...but would you rather they didn't do anything?

[K]

"which will spin up a fresh desktop"

So basically, its Hyper-V...

[phuzz]

Re: "which will spin up a fresh desktop"

It's closer to a container. All the OS files are just read-only symlinks to the ones in the main OS (on disk and/or in memory).

[Anonymous Coward]

Much prefer the Android Sandbox. More secure, and less faff.

[Anonymous Coward]

4 thumbs down because???

Android was designed for sandboxes from the outset, every installed user application has its own user account that is isolated from everything else.

Perhaps the 4 people should read this:

https://source.android.com/security/app-sandbox

However I suspect they are simply too thick to understand it.

[Teiwaz]

Android was designed for sandboxes from the outset, every installed user application has its own user account that is isolated from everything else.

Perhaps the 4 people should read this:

https://source.android.com/security/app-sandbox

However I suspect they are simply too thick to understand it.

Maybe, but how come Android apps demanding too many permissions is still a thing.

[bombastic bob]

in the POSIX world...

I just create a new user with a separate home directory, and 'guest' level group permissions.

if X11 desktop access is needed, for a different user alongside the logged-in user, you can use DISPLAY and xhost and whatnot to configure it. Yeah I do that _ALL_ of the time. Literally.

[phuzz]

Re: in the POSIX world...

Sandboxes are there for when a program requires root access (or at least more than a standard guest user), and one can't be bothered to spin up an entire VM.

After all, Windows does have multiple users as well.

[Boris the Cockroach]

And how

long before the news headline "You know that m$ sandbox you thought was safe... well guess who has all the data from it... thats right... everyone!"

[Phil O'Sophical]

Excellent news

I'm sure this will keep our PCs 100% safe, because we all know how well Microsoft tests the security of its products before release.

[Anonymous Coward]

Swedish?

All you MS haters, you should welcome their ongoing improvements. Yeah, I'm suffering from Stockholm Syndrome.

[OrneryRedGuy]

Re: Swedish?

Some days the list of reasons why I dislike Microsoft shrinks. Some days it grows. It's always been a very long list.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Windows ensures your privacy

Oh please don't make me throw up, windows is malware, the free software foundation preaches as much every-time you listen to one of it's hackers. It comes pre-loaded with out of date security certificates for god sake, further-more that Microsoft doesn't appear to want to do anything about. "Click" Start - Run - Certmgr & Hit return. Why does it happily present a security certificate that expired in 1997 with the wording "NO LIABILITY ACCEPTED!" all in CAPS!?! If you think Edge was some huge attempt by Microsoft to swap out Internet Explorer, think again, it's still Internet Explorer under the hood with all it's API's and Hooks taking you to "BING" and I wont even go into what LIVE does and how that's all hooked into Microsoft servers that are nothing more than spy servers with backdoored encryption snaffu using SSLv3 congratulation's should go out to the guys and girls who have pushed these features as SECURE upgrade's, it makes you even less secure and Microsoft bloody well know's it!