Windows Chief Suggests Vista Won't Need Antivirus

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."

If users can...

[LiquidCoooled]

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.

Re:If users can...

[indifferent children]

Run a program which sends out mass mails...

You've stumbled across their secret plan. Vista won't run programs. 99.9% of Windows problems have been traced to 'users' running 'programs'.

Amen!

[Agram]

Had the AV software makers had user interests in their minds, most of the virii could've been prevented through simple and succinct prompts which would warn idiot users as to what they were about to do. In other words, if the AV makers wanted to make honest living they would've incorporated an "educational" component to their bloatware. However, being for-profit endeavors, they simply turned in reactive repositories of past threats, as that warranted continuous cash-flow. SP2 in that respect was three times

Also reported:

[Spazntwich]

Average user won't need Vista.

Re:Also reported:

[w3weasel]

The average user doesnt need windows. Whichever version you care to discuss. But they have it because its the ubiquitous option. Market saturation of Vista will take about 2 years to hit that magic 20% mark, but once that happens, most businesses, homes and institutions will upgrade too... not because they 'need' it, but because its what everyone uses (and XP wont be sold any longer, and they are too scared to try Linux or OSX).

Re:Also reported

[Agram]

Zealotry aside (FWIW, I am a Linux advocate although I use all three platforms mentioned here), the businesses are not "scared" to use Linux and/or OSX, they don't want to due to a simple reason that APIs in Linux and surprisingly enough OSX are moving targets which constantly break stuff left and right. Granted, this is not accross the board, but it is prominent enough to affect the overall product and warrant a significant rise in TCO. Case in point, I purchased an $800 OSX software 1 month ago. Upon installing it, it turned out to be a PowerPC-only application which surprisingly ran quite well under Rossetta in 10.4.7 (especially considering that it was altivec optimized). Then came the 10.4.8 and suddenly my application icon was crossed out saying this application is not supported. So, now I either have to wait for the original software makers to release an update (which they've been promising for some time but nothing has shipped yet and there is a lingering suspicion that in the end I'll have to pay for it), or use my new software as an $800 paperweight... Either way, I am losing in productivity and/or money.

Now if you consider how many times did the Apple platform switch in the recent years and how much overhead has that generated for the Apple third-party software manufacturers, not to mention how many API changes have taken place since 10.0, you'll quickly realize that Apple platform is almost as "enthusiast" as Linux. OTOH, whether you like it or not, XP in 2006 can run software made in 1995 without any problems whatsoever. All this means that businesses can get more mileage from their custom solutions and hence the market share disparity...

Re:

[laffer1]

Its hard to say who the faulted party is entirely. Apple does change APIs and vendors use APIs they are told not to. Regardless, its a big problem. Most adobe products that are say 2 versions behind do not install properly on OS 10.4.x and require a patch to even install. When they are installed, there are issues with the programs ranging from permissions changes to severe breaking of the apps. When companies have to upgrade constantly or sit on old hardware as long as possible it benefits neither the

Re:

[maztuhblastah]

Point releases should NOT break api compatibility And in the couple years I've been coding almost exclusively for OS X, they haven't.

Oh sure... they've nuked some of the deprecated ones (Apple keeps deprecated APIs for a little over two years, or one major release of the OS, for the most part), and they've changed some of the undocumented ones. But no developers should depend on undocumented APIs, and if you're given a warning two years in advance, you should have time to fix your dependence on depreca

Hindsight being 20/20...

[Mad Merlin]

Who plans on bookmarking this story so they can laugh heartily at it again in a year?

Re:Hindsight being 20/20...

[hansg]

  Who plans on bookmarking this story so they can laugh heartily at it again in a year?

Don't need to. Just wait for it to be duped...

/Hans

no antivirus?

[Quasar1999]

Sure... and I'm comfortable driving a car with no airbags! Doesn't mean that everyone doesn't want an airbag!

Re:

[pixelite]

I have car insurance because the insurance companies lobbyists convince the lawmakers to make it the law

bahahahahahhahahahahahahahhahahahah

[Bin_jammin]

no, stop, you're killing me, ahhahahahahahhahahhahahhahahhahhahhha

I've used XP SP2 without AV for years

[patio11]

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).

Re:I've used XP SP2 without AV for years

[damsa]

don't visit porn sites or use P2P

Then what do you use the internet for?

Antivirus is a cure worse than the disease

[Anonymous Coward]

I hate Antivirus products. They consume huge amounts of computing power, slow my computer down, and cause no end of frustration when installing legitimate network applications. In other words, the cost and overhead they impose is far greater than anything I've ever had to endure from viruses that I don't get anyway, because I'm not a complete idiot. I only log in as adminstrator when necessary. I keep up with patches and security updates. I keep my data, the only unique and irreplacable thing on my computer, backed up. I don't click on every idiotic funny ha ha attachment going around. I don't install software utilities from The People's Glorious Republic of Aziberjanistan.

I suppose if you're dumb enough to think you need an Antivirus program, you probably do.

Re:

[Stradivarius]

As such an obvious "people person", do you wear a seatbelt?

The seatbelt analogy doesn't fit very well. Even the safest of drivers have a sizable risk of getting into an accident because other less-safe drivers share the road with them. Unless this guy is sharing his PC with someone with less-safe computing practices, he doesn't have a comparable risk of spyware/virus infection.

Which is not to say there's no risk - even the safest of computer users can get hit with some 0-day exploit in Windows or the like

Re:I've used XP SP2 without AV for years

[Anonymous Coward]

Never had a problem.

Or your PC has been sending out millions of spam emails but you've been clueless because nothing unexpected shows up in process list and your PC isn't crashing or behaving badly as far as you can tell.

How many of the litterally millions of infected spam zombies out there do you think are on PCs who's owners "Never had a problem" with viruses? I wonder how many of them tell Mac and Linux users they are crazy for suggesting that Windows security is a bit... lax.

Re:

[955301]

Get a girlfriend and let her use your computer. In less than two days you will have a trojan horse. One bed and breakfast site with a guestbook and it's all over my friend. Here's a piece of software to run before your first date:

http://www.runtime.org/dixml.htm [runtime.org]

i have to concur

[circletimessquare]

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

Re:

[soundonsound]

I don't know how ambiguous that is really. I did an informal survey of about 100 websites, and as far as I can tell, everyone is naked on the internet. Especially if they're 18 year old female coeds.

LIghtening fast

[luchaugh]

That only took... what... 15-odd years. Seeing will be believing.

I remember....

[Bing Tsher E]

....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..

[FunWithKnives]

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.

Re:Jeez..

[QuietLagoon]

Allchin says stupid things. For example, here [microsoft.com] he says that Windows XP would not be vulnerable to buffer overflow attacks.

We used new source automation tools that removes any potential buffer overflow attacks.

News articles detailing Windows XP buffer overflow attacks are abundant [google.com].

Re:

[AnotherDaveB]

this version of Windows will be the "Most Secure Evar".

As I recall they billed XP the same way, and in the middle of their "most secure ever" ad/launch campaign, the FBI (I think on prime time TV) warned USA computer users of the terrible security vulnerability of XP's plug and play facility [marketwatch.com] which should be disabled before it caused the computer to morph into a flesh eating zombie (or words to that effect :-) ).

Reminds me of what they said about Win95.

[QuantumG]

as I remember it was something like "you can't possibly write a virus for this operating system". Go get em boys.

Titanic

[fizzix]

Sounds a bit like some unsinkable ship.

Re:

[indifferent children]

Sounds a bit like some unsinkable ship.

Can't you just see Balmer standing in the bow: "I'm king of the world!" Of course, the iceberg this ship hits will have penguins on it.

My first thought was...

[Brad1138]

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.

all a ploy to make more $

[Anonymous Coward]

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

@LiquidCoooled, about zombies

[Toveling]

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.

I'm Glad It Will

[mpapet]

I'll have plenty of work babysitting those desktops.

vuja de

[KillerBob]

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.... ;)

Hmm, and where have we heard this before

[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?

Typical fundie...

[RetlawST]

This man would risk his child's life on a mere belief rather than give him some decent protection!!

Duh

[ewl1217]

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.

Wait until he gets older...

[Arakageeta]

You'll need to start worrying when he turns 12 or 13. ;)

Take the Apple Challenge

[Fujisawa Sensei]

Take the Apple Challenge: Put a Vista machine one the Net, and IIRC, make sure a telent daemon and web server are also running and give out the admin password. If nobody can crack it, we'll believe you, otherwise STFU.

Why do execs say things like this?

[jsheedy]

I have always wondered why execs make claims like this?? Hey this is so great nothing will ever break it, I dare you to try. Really, do they think it will be virus proof, or is it just better? Just makes me wonder?

re: Hmm, and where have we heard this before

[LiquidCoooled]

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.............

Anti-virus software

[Mostly a lurker]

A case can be made for running all Windows versions without anti-virus, especially if browsing the Internet routinely as a limited user. Unfortunately, the popular anti-virus products (McAfee, Symantec, Trend Micro) almost never prevent targeted attacks by cyber criminals, so one is tempted to avoid the performance hit and potential system destabilisation that comes from using these products and just rely on common sense, good backups, encryption of sensitive data, and acting all the time as if a keylogger might be installed on your system. I still use an anti-virus product personally, but I do not regard it as a reliable means of preventing infection.

Well gosh...

[IANAAC]

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?

sounds familiar

[DarthTator]

He probably would have thought the lifeboats on the Titanic only got in the way too.

And I though Allchin had at least half a brain...

[Anonymous Freak]

I do understand the sentiment. His son is young enough, that as long as he has a decent firewall, and decent parental control software, (i.e. disallowing email and IM,) he should be fine.

But it's still an irresponsible thing to make as a blanket statement.

Okay... so perhaps it isn't that crazy...

[RootWind]

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.

Any OS can be virus-ridden...

[mark-t]

... when a statistically significant percentage of administrators (this includes people who administrate their own home computer) are too ignorant to take precautions against executing unknown code as a superuser.

And XP has no buffer overflows...

[bill_mcgonigle]

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...

yeah, big whoop

[Maserati]

Coupla key points:

1. He didn't say he let his kid on the Internet without an AV package running.

2. He didn't say "firewall". Speaking of which, ZoneAlarm just grabbed focus and I think I let something connect out to the Internet. I'm running an installer so I'm not gonna freak out, but I certainly hope Vista won't let apps steal focus while you're fracking typing.

3. He also didn't say the kid would be online unsupervised or without parental controls running.

4. It's a safe bet to assume he meant the kid would use IE if he went online, but he didn't actually say it either.

Nothing to see here, move along.

No One Would Ever...

[Scarletdown]

I remember a computer magazine editorial saying we would never store music on Hard Drives, it would take up to much space.

Likewise, I also seem to recall that when hard drives were finally becoming affordable, people were claiming that the chances of actually filling up a 20 or 40MB drive were almost nil.

What else is new?

[istartedi]

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.

What he meant:

[Enoxice]

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!

It's not the viruses you need to worry about...

[NeumannCons]

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.

And my dog...

[frank_adrian314159]

... doesn't need to be walked if you don't mind it using your house as a toilet.

Coming soon to a virus near you?

[QuantaStarFire]

"I'll give you an example: It's my favorite feature within Windows Vista, it's called ASLR (Address Space [Layout] Randomization). What it does is, each Windows Vista machine is slightly different than every other Windows Vista machine. So even if there is a remote exploit on one machine, and a worm tries to jump from one machine to another, the probability of that actually succeeding is very small."

Anybody else thinking that we'll have Vista viruses that mutate and adapt to the ASLR of a particular sys

And he likely is right...

[Nightspirit]

...in certain circumstances. Hell, I haven't had a positive virus under XP for years. I'm running avast right now, but I'm contemplating just removing it completely. The only reason I haven't is because I occasionally get emails from relatives such as "click on this funny card!" containing links to god knows where.

IIRC the only times I ever did get viruses were downloading porn or cracks. Sandbox what you can download (which at least they said they did in vista, who knows if it will be effective) and that eliminates most vectors, other than relative spam mail.

ObSimpsons

[Amazing Quantum Man]

<VOICE type="Nelson">
Ha ha!
</VOICE>

*Outgoing* Microsoft co-president?

[JoeWalsh]

Sounds like somebody's trying to set his previous employer up the bomb.

It's not the OS that needs antivirus...

[h4rdc0d3]

If you think about it, it's not the OS that needs an anti-virus program; it's the user(s). I have been working in Windows since the 3.1 days, and I have never gotten a virus. And I have never once installed anti-virus software. The average user is just ignorant and sometimes a bit lacking in common sense. These users need virus protection, but technically the OS itself doesn't. They only need to educate themselves and be a bit more careful.

RMS Vista

[kitzilla]

RMS Vista: "Even God himself could not sink her!"

Re:Hindsight being 20/20...

[SYFer]

Heh. The name "Jim Allchin" will probably live on for years as a bullet point in Powerpoint slides, lists pinned to the sides of office cublicles, coffee mugs at security companies and in unwanted e-mail forwards with subject headers like "Yep, they really DID say it!" Ah, the hubris!

Big Boldfaced Lie

[HermMunster]

We already know that systems can become infected under Vista. There was a big long write-up of someone installing all sort of malware under Vista via iexplore. There's no question that what Allchin is saying is in direct response to the outcry that there's no compelling reason upgrade and that the security in Vista is really a minor feature. Maybe he's doing it to up his stock value so he can get out from under Microsoft with a big windfall in stock.

He's out-going employee so he may feel he can lie all th

7?

[tezbobobo]

Try 13 - 7yos don't search porn

DEP

[Wilson_6500]

Yeah, well, if their "lockdowns" operate anything like DEP, which seems to do little good aside from crashing random programs now and then...

Can be done with w2k already

[daniel23]

Sure thing, where is the news?

I'm running w2k here with 6 years history of not a single trojan, worm, virus etc. infection. (Before that it was NT4, w95, w31, DOS, cpm+, together 21 years of computing w/o malware infections).
I scan my system for malware about once/quarter, with a number of different scanners. But no "protective shield" scanner running all the time.
Oh, and I don't do windows update, I ran w2kSP2 until iTunes forced me to update to SP4. SP3 had an evil EULA, that's why.

I let my kids run their

This is exactly why....

[Sergeant Beavis]

Microsoft needs to have drug testing.

Re:I've used XP SP2 without AV for years

[the_unknown_soldier]

I have that experience as well... Any mildly technical user of windows can avoid viruses. I haven't run virus checking ever since SP2 came out. The truth is that most viruses are executed because of user stupidity.

firefox + nat=no anti virus not needed

You're crazy for using ie7 though.. you can still run activex, its not safe.

Non-Believer?

[Scarletdown]

Wait... what are you trying to say here? Of course we all believe in Santa Claus.

Wasn't he picked up by the cops last year on a 1492, for not believing in Columbus?

He's right you know

[syousef]

With Vista being so DRM ridden and such a hog you'll never want to use it. Therefore you'll never do anything with it, and never have data to protect on it. Hell if you try to type in anything more than a couple of characters, the UI will prevent you from doing so with "security popups". The new secret weapon is MS Clippy Nazi (tm) which will come up with phrases like "I'm sorry but you appear to be entering a credit card number. Zis vil not be tolerated." and "I refuse to accept responsibility for your dat

Thought Experiment

[rlp]

Step 1 - PC running newly installed vanilla Vista is connected directly to the Internet via cable modem. No third party firewalls / AV software, no hardware router / firewall.

Step 2 - seven year old kid uses it for Web surfing for two hours.

Step 3 - Mr. Allchin uses the PC to access his brokerage / bank accounts.

monological discussions

[daniel23]

did I mention how /.'s new discussion system now reminds me of my wife, like, we're having a discussion and there is no way for me to successfully launch a reply.

oh wait, this is /. after all. A wife is, ehmm, ... well, - just forget it.

If his son is not an Admin on the box, why not?

[dioscaido]

Without Administrator access, a virus can at best mess around with his son's account. Easy enough to fix by killing and recreating the account. This is actually true of XP as well (and OSX/Linux, obviously), but Vista is the first MS OS to handle Standard User in a straightforward way.

And with UAC, since Administrators don't even run with full token by default, 3rd party applications will quickly move away from assuming Admin access (a huge problem with running XP as limited -- apps blow up).

yay for him....

[zcat_NZ]

My kids have been using Linux "with no antivirus" since before they could type (they started with things like tuxpaint and gcompris)

Windows is finally catching up?!!

Off the grid - it's mostly safe.

[binaryspiral]

Sure, go right ahead and don't install AntiVirus or any protection what so ever. As long as the machine stays off the 'net, you should be mostly safe.

what if you get a lemon?

[binarybum]

"Address Space [Layout] Randomization). What it does is, each Windows Vista machine is slightly different than every other Windows Vista machine"

  Sweet. now my computer can crash in ways yours can't even dream of.

Re:windows? no antivirus?

[Ruff_ilb]

I doubt that's true.

After all, who needs Santa when you have PONIES?!!!!!1111

Re:I've used XP SP2 without AV for years

[clymere]

Just because you haven't had a problem doesn't mean you're not one for someone else. If you havent run scans, how do you know you're not infected?

I don't see what the problem is.

[loftwyr]

His son's computer isn't hooked to the Internet, and only plays store bought games aimed at 7 year olds.

Viruses shouldn't be a problem for him. Now, mind you if it gets hooked to the internet for 30 seconds, all bets are off... :)

Context

[lilfields]

I don't believe he was saying "Vista can't get viruses", but rather UAC (user account control) stops code from executing, thus making him feel safe that even his son could surf the web (with UAC on) without obtaining a virus blindly. I think the biggest weakness with past Windows have been uninformed users thinking that clicking "yes" in dialog boxes to execute an unknown program or script is a witty thing to do. I believe UAC tries to solve this, and most "average" users will be too lazy to turn it off (or won't know how), while advanced users can simply surf responsibly with it off.

This reminds me of Ed Bradley's interview of MJ

[228e2]

Ed: . . . . So would u let your child sleep in the bed with a 46 year old man that has been accused of child molestation?
M. Jackson: Yes, I would

The parallels are scary . . . .

Famous Last Words

[the eric conspiracy]

I have a some thoughts on this one:

1. Care to put your money where your mouth is? Like refund the price of Vista if my copy gets infected? That should be fair.
2. Care to share what you are smoking? Sounds really kickin'
3. LOL
4. Famous last words - like we aren't ever going to need more than 640K of RAM or the Internet is a passing fad like CB radio.
5. ROTFL

secure! fast! perfect!

[wall0159]

And here I've been criticising Windows all this time.

Well... time to sell my iBook, remove Linux from my PC, and buy a copy of Vista. I'll be set for life!

Oh yeah?

[proxy318]

Windows Chief Suggests Vista Won't Need Antivirus

That's funny, the virus writers said the same thing. Hmmm.

in related news...

[3seas]

they are using a genitically modified version of aids to fight aids......

I hope Novell keeps a condom on its Linux development with MS.

No, seriously,

[Go4Linux]

... and when his son becomes thirteen he will actually connect the computer to the network. ;)

IMHO

[nickheart]

I contend that no OS ever needs AV software. They need backup, and smart operators. AV has never pro-actively detected something, only slowed normal usage of my PC.

Uh oh...

[shut_up_man]

This reminds me of a Douglas Adams quote:

"The major difference between a thing that might go wrong and a thing that cannot possibly go wrong is that when a thing that cannot possibly go wrong goes wrong it usually turns out to be impossible to get at or repair."

can you see it now?

[v1]

Program launch detected! minesweeper.exe is an application. Please enter your administrator password to launch."

Windows is already bad that way. I've lost count of the number of programs that cannot be run by anyone except an admin. And it's all but impossible to find an app you can install without logging out and logging back in as an admin. Windows badly needs to find a happy medium between security and usability.

disturbing...

[yagu]

BTW, Vista Is Still The Anti-OS.

That said, a disturbing quote to me from the article was, "His [Allchin's son] machine is locked down with parental controls, he can't download things unless it's to the places that I've said that he could do, and I'm feeling totally confident about that," he [Allchin] added. "That is quite a statement. I couldn't say that in Windows XP SP2.""

It's not disturbing they/he claim the security in Vista, it's disturbing I've been around long enough it's an old tape. Every single new Windows, every single new version, every single new service pack brings the old saw "this time ${WindowsVersin} is really secure and stable". I guess I'm tired of saying "told you so", when it's not. (Oooops, I did it again.)

Prediction (not too hard...): Vista will be riddled with stability and security issues.

Re: I've used XP SP2 without AV for years

[rHBa]

I haven't had a virus/adware for >3 years and I do use P2P. I think using XP SP2 (if you have to use windoze)/Firefox/Thunderbird and not clicking on every attachment/download I get without checking:

1. file extension,
2. trusted source

is the key.

P.S I just noticed that 'Firefox' and 'Thunderbird' aren't in the FF2 English dictionary!

Never mind, the solution is quite intuitive really, just highlight the 'misspelled' word, right click and select 'add to dictionary'. Sweet...

No AV software

[rs79]

Vista doesn't need anti-virus software? Gee, just like 98.

Great plan. Release a malware magnet like XP then release 98 again saying it's an upgrade.

Clever.

Where have I heard this before

[SnapperHead]

OH YA! Now, I remeber. NTFS partitions won't need to be defragged, thats why we don't include a defrag tool. This is gonna slap them in the face very quickly, and I can't wait.

Re:What else is new?

[almostmanda]

I know this could still change, but the Vista RC2 handles extensions the same way XP does--hidden until you tell it to show them.

Lirty Dies

[grolaw]

To quote the Capitol Steps.

Or, perhaps Vista comes complete with a built-in Root Kit making any other malware unnecessary. It's a feature!
Brought to you by Sony-Bertelsman and Microsoft . . .

On the internet? Raw?

[dilvish_the_damned]

It hasent even been playtested to a reasonable degree. He is either foolish or lieing. On the other hand maybe he was making a slighted comment towards the effectiveness of the current anti-virus solutions...
Or maybe he has been relegated to "Used Car" salesmen status. Either way I would not want to make a big deal about this, or in response he might actually do it, it would not be fair to the kid.

Absolute truth

[Propaganda13]

He never said that the computer would be connected to the internet. You don't have to lie, you just have to know what to say.

But the computer isn't hooked up!

[mveloso]

Yep, his 7 year old will use it...as an Encarta station. Without an Internet hookup, the PC is perfectly safe...with any Microsoft OS.

With Microsoft's lousy security record ...

[mr_death]

... you'd think they might have learned to underpromise and overdeliver, for once. Unfortunately, the MS propaganda machine is going at it as usual.

Let's see, 50 million lines of code, a new IP stack, horrid complexity -- I'm taking bets on when the first service pack is needed, and when the first worm hits.

A side bet -- how many vulnerabilities did the black hats find in Vista, and then didn't report them to MS.

After the hype dies down, it might be time to short Microsoft again.

Re:Reminds me of what they said about Win95.

[silverkniveshotmail.]

Reminds me of what they said about Win95.

Actually, the _only_ people whom will notice the change are the low-level programmers, no one else. And today only viruses are done in low-level, nothing else. Sure I know what you are saying, we'll infect the new Window .EXE files! :-)

Microsoft already thought about that, and took steps to stop us, all Window .EXEs have a CRC checksum, any modification will be easily noticed! Also secondly, how are we going to infect this new radical .EXE format? We cannot app

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