[Am-info] roving profiles and anti-files

[Roy Bixler]

Here's an interesting story of a hapless Linux user who had his home
directory "cleaned out" by a Windows system configured (or, evidently,
misconfigured) with a "roving profile":

http://catless.ncl.ac.uk/go/risks/22/40/5

What valid reason would Windows have to do this?  Even if there were
such, why would it not ask for confirmation before doing it?

This reminds me of the "system restore" CDs provided by OEMs to allow
customers to re-install Windows in case of mishap.  Only the mishap
may be compounded when the customer discovers that the CD restores the
system *exactly* back to factory settings, including reverting any
partitioning or other data installed on the system.  It seems
Microsoft sees both cases as "fixing possibly corrupted data" and
"it's for the customers' own good, even though they may not know it."
If it convinces customers not to use Windows, then the latter may
actually be true.

R.