Microsoft’s Fathi: Vista Security Is Becoming Reality

BOSTON—After taking on the responsibility of leading Microsoft’s efforts to secure its much-awaited Vista operating system, Ben Fathi, corporate vice president of the Redmond, Wash., company’s Security Technology Unit, is in town at the Security Standard Conference to evangelize to the firm’s progress in those efforts.

While critics continue to say that Microsoft’s next-generation operating system will likely carry as many vulnerabilities as its predecessors and some of the software giant’s partners in the security applications markets have called the firm out for some of the new features present in preview versions of Vista, Fathi maintains that the company’s Trustworthy Computing initiative is moving forward, and that the new OS will be the most secure Windows product the company has ever produced.

eWEEK Senior Writer Matt Hines sat down with Fathi at the conference on September 6th to get his perspective on where things stand with Vista at present, and in preparation for its launch in November 2006.

What do you think are the most significant advancements in the first Release Client (RC1) version of Vista, compared to the beta versions of product?

Overall, I would say that the biggest improvements you will see are related to performance and reliability; it’s significantly faster than Beta 2 and much more reliable. I use it on two or three machines constantly and I’ve had no problems with it.

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