Re^2: Perl and Windows 7

I dont think the installer issue is relevant. The issue is can you run unsigned native code at all? WOA no http://www.osnews.com/story/25935/Mozilla_Google_voice_concern_over_Windows_8_browser_restrictions. OSX, 1 version from being totally banned, http://www.osnews.com/story/25619/Mac_OS_X_10_8_restricted_to_App_Store_signed_apps_by_default. Some predict Windows 9 Desktop will not allow unsigned code, http://arizday.blogspot.com/2012/04/facts-of-windows-9-so-far.html. I'm predicting all Windows native code will be dropped this decade, Microsoft has had a pure CIL, no machine code OS for years, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Singularity_%28operating_system%29. I remember 10 years ago, Apple did something identical with Darwin. Darwin from day 1 ran on Intel 32 bit and PowerPC, and I was thinking to myself in 2001/2002, Apple must be planning to go to Intel since day one and drop their proprietary processors/platform. Fast forward 4 years, and Apple declares PowerPC dead and switches to Intel x64. Look, these corporations wouldn't be investing in the research for philanthropy. These are their current plans. Your only hope is someone writing a x86 virtual machine in pure Java/"bytecode language of the day" emulating address space in a large string. I better get started on rewriting the Perl 5 interp in C#, or javascript. Who wants to help?

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Re^3: Perl and Windows 7 by locked_user sundialsvc4 (Abbot) on Aug 01, 2012 at 20:53 UTC
`:-)` I think you have no fear about that, at least insofar as installed applications are concerned. Every corporation in the world has “its own” applications, and therefore has the need to be able to install them on “its own” computers. But we do (finally!) live in a less-trusting world, in which “any ol’ application installer” that happens to show up on your doorstep will no longer be given the Administrator/Root password as a matter of course, and succeed quite unhindered in its possibly nefarious business. Even though a few of the articles that you mentioned do seek to raise an alarm, the simple truth in the corporate environment is that corporations are full of home-grown applications that need to be installed upon other machines within their workplace. What the companies in question need, even though they may not have formally recognized this need before now, is the ability to ensure that the “home-grown application” really did come from them! Both Windows and OS/X, entirely of necessity, do provide the means for corporations to issue their own digital signing certificates that will be accepted within the corporation’s own designated trust chains (and of course, nowhere else). (Let us meanwhile sincerely hope that the days are long-gone when any ol’ web site can download an “extension” and have it be installed automagically ...) Your company IT department now has the ability to ensure that the only apps that can be installed upon “their” computers, are “theirs.” (They can even exclude public applications, if they so choose.) Therefore, if your application needs to be widely distributed within the company, you might have to construct a custom installer for it. If, on the other hand, the application needs only to continue to run on the one machine where it is now situated, that is a much simpler requirement.

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Re^3: Perl and Windows 7
by locked_user sundialsvc4 (Abbot) on Aug 01, 2012 at 20:53 UTC

:-) I think you have no fear about that, at least insofar as installed applications are concerned. Every corporation in the world has “its own” applications, and therefore has the need to be able to install them on “its own” computers. But we do (finally!) live in a less-trusting world, in which “any ol’ application installer” that happens to show up on your doorstep will no longer be given the Administrator/Root password as a matter of course, and succeed quite unhindered in its possibly nefarious business.

Even though a few of the articles that you mentioned do seek to raise an alarm, the simple truth in the corporate environment is that corporations are full of home-grown applications that need to be installed upon other machines within their workplace. What the companies in question need, even though they may not have formally recognized this need before now, is the ability to ensure that the “home-grown application” really did come from them! Both Windows and OS/X, entirely of necessity, do provide the means for corporations to issue their own digital signing certificates that will be accepted within the corporation’s own designated trust chains (and of course, nowhere else).

(Let us meanwhile sincerely hope that the days are long-gone when any ol’ web site can download an “extension” and have it be installed automagically ...)

Your company IT department now has the ability to ensure that the only apps that can be installed upon “their” computers, are “theirs.” (They can even exclude public applications, if they so choose.) Therefore, if your application needs to be widely distributed within the company, you might have to construct a custom installer for it. If, on the other hand, the application needs only to continue to run on the one machine where it is now situated, that is a much simpler requirement.