It is the sort of no-brainer question that ordinarily you wouldn’t waste any time on: does a Windows OS need additional antivirus protection to be considered a safe platform? Obviously, the answer is yes, unless you are the Co-President, Platform and Services Division of Microsoft Corp, it would appear.
Jim Allchin was answering questions during a telephone conference with journalists this last week and seemed to imply that antivirus was not necessary. In response to questioning about just how confident he was that Vista would be a more secure platform than Windows XP SP2, Allchin surprised the press pack by stating "I'll give you an example: My son, seven years old, runs Windows Vista, and, honestly, he doesn't have an antivirus system on his machine. His machine is locked down with parental controls, he cannot download things unless it's to the places that I've said that he could do, and I'm feeling totally confident about that. That is quite a statement. I couldn't say that in Windows XP SP2."