Anti-virus firms at Infosec say they expect Vista and IE7 to change nothing for the industry. Microsoft used its presence at the show to laud the security features they’ve been busy building in the the upcoming software.In particular, Microsoft was eager to talk about how Vista will finally jettison the need to run Windows as an administrator most of the time.

Eugene Kaspersky, founder of the eponymous Russian AV outfit said he expects the new privilege regime to have little effect. He said: “Of course they [virus writers] will find a way round it. Within a year there will be something like a rootkit for Vista.”

John Kay, Chief Technical Officer at Blackspider reckons on a “bug per line of code”. With the traditionally Heath-Robinsonian construction of MS browsers he’s not hopeful for IE7. He said: “I dread to think how many lines of code there are in there.”

Of the overall security outlook, Kay added: “My wife and kids are going to continue to be subjected to all the threats out there [with the switch to Vista]. If you think about it, that’s just crap.”

Nobody suggested it’s all Microsoft’s fault though. Its status as target number one and AV firms keeness to trumpet their wares over others’, releasing details of the heuristics, puts the power in the hands of spammers and their virus-writing chums.

In a way, it’s all mutually beneficial for security firms and Microsoft of course. Nobody, not even the acolytes at Redmond, can be expecting Infosec 2007 to be a ghost town.