It's the Most Secure OS Ever ... This Time for Sure!

That's what Microsoft said its operating system. But it wasn't it's upcoming OS, Vista, but XP ... and we know how well that worked out.

Sidebar: for those who criticize Microsoft OSes for their lack of stability and security ... one thing it has going against it that the MacOS does not is support for an incredible amount of hardware. I don't mean add-on devices like Firewire or USB devices ... I mean add-in cards, motherboards, etc. etc. All this support ... there's plenty of chance for instability.

Security-wise, it's not that OS X does not have its own set of vulnerabilities ... it does ... but if you were targeting a group for malware, would you choose the teeny-tiny market share of OS X or Windows? 'Nuff said.

We now return to the original article ...

Microsoft has said Vista will be its most secure OS ever ... today Symantec expressed some, shall we say, doubt about that statement?

"Microsoft has removed a large body of tried and tested code and replaced it with freshly written code, complete with new corner cases and defects," the researchers wrote in the report, scheduled for publication Tuesday. "This may provide for a more stable networking stack in the long term, but stability will suffer in the short term."

Microsoft commented that Vista is still beta, so the report is at best, premature. Which I would tend to agree with. New code is apt to have new errors, so this isn't really news. It is, however, kinda funny based on Microsoft's multiple assertions about its OSes over the years!