Allchin allows son to surf without AV on Vista

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The outgoing head of Microsoft's Platforms and Services Division, Jim Allchin, said that he is happy enough to let his seven-year-old son use Microsoft Vista without any anti-virus protection installed on the desktop.

Speaking on a conference call about the gold release of Vista, Allchin said enough security measures and parental controls had been put in the new operating system to take Microsoft "way ahead" of hackers seeking to exploit vulnerabilities.

"My seven-year-old son runs Windows Vista and honestly he doesn't have an anti-virus system on his machine. His machine's 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 feel totally confident about that," said Allchin. "That's quite a statement. I couldn't say that with Windows XP SP2."

But Allchin added that security in Vista wasn't perfect and security would eventually be broken by increasingly sophisticated hackers.

"Don't misunderstand me, this is an escalating situation. Hackers are getting smarter and there's more at stake," said Allchin. "So there is 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."

Allchin outlined two important security features to protect users from malware, Address Space Layout Randomization (ASLR) and enhanced parental controls which allow administrators to control the accounts of others - what pages they can go to, zones of access and limits on types of downloads.

"We've just put one barrier up after another," said Allchin. "The end result is, in the percentages, when I look at the number of bulletins produced over a period of time for Windows XP SP2, and looking at what I would expect to take place in terms of, not just the number, but more importantly, the severity for Windows Vista, we have been doing measurements of that all along, and it's my opinion that the severity of the bulletins will be less, as well as the number will be less."

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