Stories
Slash Boxes
Comments

News for nerds, stuff that matters

Slashdot Log In

Log In

Create Account  |  Retrieve Password

Windows Chief Suggests Vista Won't Need Antivirus

Posted by CowboyNeal on Thu Nov 09, 2006 10:52 PM
from the steadfastly-bulletproof dept.
LadyDarth writes "During a telephone conference with reporters yesterday, outgoing Microsoft co-president Jim Allchin, while touting the new security features of Windows Vista, which was released to manufacturing yesterday, told a reporter that the system's new lockdown features are so capable and thorough that he was comfortable with his own seven-year-old son using Vista without antivirus software installed."
+ -
story

Related Stories

[+] Technology: Windows Vista Released To Manufacturing 172 comments
Many readers wrote in to make sure we know that Microsoft execs have signed off on the code and Windows Vista has been and released to manufacturing. As APC put it, "It's good to go — or as good as it is going to be until the first round of patching begins." CNN has a good roundup of Vista's long development history.
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
 Full
 Abbreviated
 Hidden
More
Loading... please wait.
  • If users can... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by LiquidCoooled (634315) on Thursday November 09 2006, @10:55PM (#16790670) Homepage Journal
    Run a program which sends out mass mails, or communicates with a server or does other actions then malicious people will write malicious code.
    Just because a virus cannot harm the operating system does not mean it is harmless.
  • by Spazntwich (208070) on Thursday November 09 2006, @10:55PM (#16790672)
    Average user won't need Vista.
  • by Mad Merlin (837387) on Thursday November 09 2006, @10:56PM (#16790676) Homepage
    Who plans on bookmarking this story so they can laugh heartily at it again in a year?
  • no antivirus? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Quasar1999 (520073) on Thursday November 09 2006, @10:57PM (#16790678) Journal
    Sure... and I'm comfortable driving a car with no airbags! Doesn't mean that everyone doesn't want an airbag!
  • by patio11 (857072) on Thursday November 09 2006, @10:57PM (#16790684)
    Never had a problem. Of course, I use Firefox, a NAT, and don't visit porn sites or use P2P, which pretty much cuts my attack vectors to zero. Haven't had any AdWare in, hmm, 4 years or so either. I have AdAware installed on my computer but haven't bothered running it in about 2 years since it never picks up anything.

    Now I'm using IE7 as my main browser (quiet!) and don't anticipate any problems with it, either. Heck, its *more* paranoid than FF is some of the time (it will quibble about http refresh redirects to executables, for example).
  • i've been trying it out, and vista works for me, naked on the internet, without a single problem. in fact i would go so far as to say that V1AGRA HOOD1A GR0W Y0UR PEN1S L0W M0RTGAGE RATES L0SE WE1GHT MEET BARELY LEGAL TEENS SEE HARDC0RE SHEMALE ACTION
  • by luchaugh (860384) on Thursday November 09 2006, @10:59PM (#16790688)
    That only took... what... 15-odd years. Seeing will be believing.
  • I remember.... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Bing Tsher E (943915) on Thursday November 09 2006, @11:01PM (#16790696)
    ....when they announced that Windows 2000 would never have a Service Pack release. One would never be needed.

    (still have no use for XP, btw.)
  • Jeez.. (Score:5, Insightful)

    After summarizing that past statement, Allchin continued, "Please don't misunderstand me: This is an escalating situation. The hackers are getting smarter, there's more at stake, and so there's just no way for us to say that some perfection has been achieved. But I can say, knowing what I know now, I feel very confident."
    If you RTFA, and then go back and read the title of this post, it's quite apparent that it's sensationalist and stupid. Of course Allchin thinks that this version of Windows will be the "Most Secure Evar". He works at Microsoft. Taking what he said out of context is just childish. But really, I suppose I shouldn't expect any less.
  • as I remember it was something like "you can't possibly write a virus for this operating system". Go get em boys.

  • Titanic (Score:5, Funny)

    by fizzix (893004) on Thursday November 09 2006, @11:02PM (#16790708)
    Sounds a bit like some unsinkable ship.
  • by Brad1138 (590148) <brad1138@yahoo.com> on Thursday November 09 2006, @11:03PM (#16790712)
    To laugh. It always surprises me when someone says "we'll never need this" or "computers will never..." I remember a computer magazine editorial saying we would never store music on Hard Drives, it would take up to much space. These people never seem to think more that a few months or maybe a year into the future.
  • by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 09 2006, @11:03PM (#16790714)
    See, if you don't run av, then when you get infected, you'll have to reload vi$ta (which they only let you do once). Then, you'll have to buy another copy of said OS.

    Brilliant marketing $cheme
  • by Toveling (834894) * on Thursday November 09 2006, @11:03PM (#16790716)
    Windows Vista severly limits access to raw packet sending to non-priviledged apps, meaning that packet forging is much more difficult. Although the zombies that are sending seemingly alright content (at the protocol level) aren't affected, those that are doing the SYN/ACK DDOS floods will be.
  • vuja de (Score:5, Informative)

    by KillerBob (217953) on Thursday November 09 2006, @11:04PM (#16790720)
    wow... haven't heard that one before.... No, really. I haven't.

    No system is immune to viruses. All it takes is a stupid user to allow it, and we all know there's no shortage of that. That's why antivirus products exist for every major OS out there. Even Linux has antivirus apps (though granted, most of them are geared towards Linux boxen running as servers for Windows-based networks).

    Oh wait. Technically, if it requires a stupid user's interaction to get in, it's not a virus. It's a trojan. I guess Vista really could be immune to viruses.... ;)
  • Duh (Score:5, Insightful)

    by ewl1217 (922107) on Thursday November 09 2006, @11:07PM (#16790730)
    Of course a seven-year-old on a locked down computer wont be able to do any harm. Kids that age aren't into the sites (porn, illegal downloads, etc.) that are notorious for viruses and spyware. Not to mention that the kid's using a machine secured by parental controls and is most likely on a limited account. Wake me up when the average teenager can safely use Windows with an administrator account and no extra security software installed.
  • by Arakageeta (671142) on Thursday November 09 2006, @11:08PM (#16790738)
    You'll need to start worrying when he turns 12 or 13. ;)
  • rimcrazy
    Yea..........and 640K will be plenty of memory..........
    And the world will only need 4 computers...................
    And no one would ever need a computer at home..............

    Sheesh......where do they come up with this stuff?


    A new one:

    We will never have more than 16777215 comments.............
  • Well gosh... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by IANAAC (692242) on Thursday November 09 2006, @11:11PM (#16790756)
    Let's just call the new "lockdown features" what they really are:

    NATIVE ANTIVIRUS

    Seriously, isn't this what third party antivirus vendors have been whining about?

  • by RootWind (993172) on Thursday November 09 2006, @11:14PM (#16790772)
    From TFA, it sounds like you really might not need an antivirus... if you lock it down with the parental tools so you can't download anything at all except from your own approved sites, that covers up a large malware attack vector that an antivirus is suppose to protect. After all, the role of the antivirus now and in the future will be that of a blacklist of known bad software. Everything else an AV does can be obsoleted.
  • by bill_mcgonigle (4333) * on Thursday November 09 2006, @11:18PM (#16790792) Homepage Journal
    Here's the same guy's promise about their last operating system:

    Microsoft has said it has stamped out buffer overflows with the upcoming release of Windows XP. Jim Allchin, vice president, claimed the company has done a complete code review of its operating system and removed all buffers which could overflow. [vnunet.com]

    I'll let somebody else post a list of all the critical updates caused by buffer overflows...
  • What else is new? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by istartedi (132515) on Thursday November 09 2006, @11:21PM (#16790814) Journal

    I've had two infections on my Windows over the years--Nimda and a video codec trojan. I'm not counting the second boxes that I used to use for experiments--I never put anything important on them, so I tended to just not care, and blow away Windows when they got nasty--that was back in the bad old dialup days when potential damage to others was minimal, and Windows was a lot less secure. I don't know if AV would have stopped Nimda, because I didn't use AV back then. AV didn't stop the trojan. I used to disable AV routinely because it *is* a virus. It used to slow boxes down way too much, and cause all kinds of problems with installers. I always un-do the stupid defaults in Windows and IE, and I try not to be too careless. Nimda is really the only one I can blame on MS, and it was patched ages ago. I would probably disable AV on my current box, but they seem to have gotten better about not hogging resources and/or crashing the box so I just leave it alone.

    I wonder if Vista is finally going to display extensions by default. That was always irritating. It would be *nice* if you had to enable active content on a per-site basis by default. It would be better if they just didn't have so much active content out there. Would I "just trust" a Vista box? No way. But would I run it without AV if there was none pre-installed? Yes, in a heartbeat--but I would still be very careful about how I conducted myself on the web, and I would still want to go through all the settings to make sure there was nothing stupid in there. And I would *still* be checking up on processes and registry keys from time-to-time.

    But anyway, XP without AV is not a big deal--if you know what you're doing. Unfortunately, that's a big if. Nevermind 7 year olds. It's the 57 year olds that you have to worry about.

  • by Enoxice (993945) on Thursday November 09 2006, @11:25PM (#16790832) Journal
    What he actually meant to say was that it won't need any antivirus...for the first 10 minutes. That's almost a two-fold increase from XP!
  • by NeumannCons (798322) on Thursday November 09 2006, @11:28PM (#16790848) Homepage
    Viruses, these days, are not what you need to worry about.

    The main attack vectors these days seem to center on "drive by downloads" or pop ups that trick you into downloading executables ("WARNING! Your PC is infested with SPYWARE - CLICK HERE to remove"). Most Antivirus software is unbelievably pathetic when it comes to identifying/dealing with spyware. I've seen dozens of clients who have so much spyware, it can take 30 minutes or more to boot up and then spend more time closing all the popped-up windows. FF and it appears IE7 as well will hopefully go a long way to closing this attack. Now we just need to wait for everyone with win95,98,ME, NT, etc. to upgrade.

  • by Sergeant Beavis (558225) on Thursday November 09 2006, @11:45PM (#16790944) Homepage
    Microsoft needs to have drug testing.