Wow, you describe a specific situation and suddenly people extrapolate something completely different! During a recent discussion with journalists about the release to manufacturing for Windows Vista, I made a comment about how attacks on the Internet are getting more and more sophisticated, and some of the security features in Windows Vista really help our customers. This somehow morphed into people thinking I said customers shouldn’t use antivirus software with Windows Vista. When the articles and blogs started appearing, I asked the PR folks to send me a copy of the transcript of the call so I could read it over and see if I said something I didn’t mean. After reading the transcript, I could certainly see that what I said wasn’t as clear as it could have been, and I’m sorry for that. However, it is also clear from the transcript that I didn’t say that users shouldn’t run antivirus software with Windows Vista! In fact, later in the call, I explicitly made this point again, because I had realized I wasn’t as clear as I should have been. It’s important for me that our customers are using the appropriate security solutions for the right situations, whether that’s security functionality integrated in the operating systems, or add-on products.
The point I had been trying to make (albeit unclearly) is that Windows Vista includes new security features that can dramatically help improve our customers’ security for certain situations. I was asked a question about how I rated the protection provided by Windows XP with Service Pack 2 and whether or not it was still effective. I ended up telling a story about how the machine my seven-year-old son uses has no antivirus software installed because it runs in a very locked down configuration, which includes only being able to visit websites on an approved list (approved through the parental controls feature in Windows Vista). He also has no access to email or instant messaging and he doesn’t run as an administrator of the machine. In fact, parental controls in Windows Vista requires that the user you apply controls to is not running as an administrator. Email, phishing, and other social engineering attacks are definitely among the most prevalent attacks that home users experience today, and his machine has been locked down in these regards.
My point in bringing up this extreme example was really meant to emphasize that importance of defense-in-depth measures we put in Windows Vista—both the number of defenses and their combined effectiveness.
Now, the comments have unfortunately been cited out of context implying that I said Windows Vista users shouldn’t use antivirus. 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.
We’re continuing to make the best operating system we can, and I’m very proud of it. I think we’ve made some great changes in Windows Vista on the security front, and I know our customers will benefit.
jim