I am sure you all must have heard about the upcoming Windows 7 release. Many journalists, analysts and reporters are raving about this new OS. As compared to its predecessor, Windows 7 is supposed to be lighter, faster and loaded with new features. For those who are interested, Microsoft is sharing a lot of information at the following site: http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windows-7/.

Leading the consumer security product line on Windows, I am committed to ensuring that when users either upgrade to Windows 7 or the new install Windows 7, they and their family are protected. To that effect, we launched our beta for Windows 7 beta early February this year. If you have Windows 7 installed, I would urge you to go download and play with our product. There is nothing more valuable than getting feedback directly from our customers. You can download our beta at:

http://beta.mcafee.com/.

You will be required to create an account if you haven’t already done so. The login will give you limitless access to our beta product, documentation and FAQ. You can also post your feedback and we do take your feedback seriously, so let us know about your experience.

For all you users who already have a McAfee security product installed on your PC and your family’s, when we launch our Windows 7 compatible release, your product will automatically get updated to the latest and greatest. For this to happen smoothly, ensure your subscription is active and up to date and automatic update is enabled.

If you have any further questions or concerns, please let me know.

Madhurima

Recently I came across a CNET article on how Microsoft is tweaking UAC settings in Windows 7 for it to be less intrusive. As I read it, being a Windows Vista user, I was greatly relieved. No more of those annoying prompts and confirmation whenever I tried to change any settings. Phew!

That steers me to talk about other product behaviors – particularly security products. Naturally, being responsible for delivering security products to consumers, I am more concerned with consumers response to a/v product alerts/notifications. Majority of my family and friends complain whenever they receive any kind of alert or notification from a security application. Their problem is not just that it is intrusive, but also that as it relating to security, they are scared that if they do not take the ‘right’ action, they may risk their computer or their home network security. To top it, the irony of the situation is that most are not savvy enough to make the right security decision.

Most of the usability studies that my team conducted worldwide, also confirms the same behavior. That got to me to wonder, why can’t we build security products that are less intrusive? Why cannot we expect our users to forget about security after they install the product? Why can’t we expect the product to deal with all threats automatically and not require user intervention, especially when they are playing an online game in full screen mode? Why can’t we expect security products to, when prompted, inform users on not just what the issue is but also educate what the right step to take?

To me, intrusiveness also means that my system not crawl when I install a security product. It means that when I am on my computer playing movie online from Netflix in full screen mode, scheduled background scan does not impact my viewing quality. It also means when there are updates, I am not required to run updates manually instead updates get downloaded and installed automatically, thus keeping my security product up to date.

These were important to me and I realized they are important to consumers as well. As a result I worked with my team to ensure we deliver the right experience in our 2009 security product lines. It is gratifying to receive some early feedbacks. If you haven’t yet tried, please do so and let me know what you think ….