Windows Vista won’t need anti-virus says co-President

Can Microsoft Windows Vista run virus-free? The answer is “Yes”, according to Jim Allchin, co-President of the Redmond firm. Zdnet, citing betanews, reports Allchin’s claim that his 11 year old son has been using a Vista machine sans anti-virus without trouble.

Meanwhile, some 3rd party security software vendors such as McAfee and Symantec have voiced concern over the Patchguard kernel protection technology introduced by Microsoft in the new operation system, claiming that the new system effectively locks them out of providing anti-virus solutions for Vista. However, as TheRegister reports, other vendors such as Kaspersky Labs have no issue with the new technology.

Will Windows Vista eliminate computer viruses? Care to place any money on that?

UPDATE: 13/11/06

Jim Allchin has posted an entry at WindowsVistaBlog.com where he explains that some quotes were taken out of context. One wonders what the online stories got right – his son is 7 years old, not 11, and he was only using the example of his son to demonstrate that in certain restricted conditions (i.e. a locked down PC), Vista can operate happily without ant-virus software. As for the idea that Vista won’t need anti-virus software, says Mr Allchin:

“I want to be clear, most users will use some form of antivirus software, and that will be appropriate for their scenarios. In fact, Windows Security Center, a great feature in Windows Vista, specifically encourages the use of antivirus software.”

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