Microsoft's Co-President, Platforms & Services Division has defended an affirmation made in an interview the past week which suggested that Windows Vista would not need an antivirus. According to Allchin, he was referring to a particular situation and the conclusion that Windows Vista should not run an antivirus is the result of an extrapolation. In fact, Allchin supports just the contrary. "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. I didn't say that users shouldn't run antivirus software with Windows Vista!" said Allchin.

Allchin went on to add that he welcomed the implementation of appropriate security solutions with Windows Vista. In this context, the security solutions could be either integrated in the operating system or third-party security 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," explained Allchin.

Microsoft's Co-President, Platforms & Services Division additionally revealed that the extrapolation was generated by an example of how the system of his seven-year-old son has no antivirus installed due to a locked down configuration. "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," concluded Allchin.