Microsoft clarifies Monad would not ship with Vista

Microsoft clarifies Monad would not ship with Vista

Last week, an online publication showcased five examples of malicious code that targeted the under development Monad Scripting Host which the company is developing to give system administrators something similar to Unix/Linux scripting technologies on windows platform. Online media claimed that these could form the basis for the first generation viruses targeting the next generation Operating System from the world’s largest software developing company Microsoft.

However, Microsoft has now clarified that this new scripting tool targeted by a virus writer will not be part of Windows Vista, the next Windows client release. Instead, they are aiming to include this in the next generation Operating System for the servers earlier codenamed Longhorn Server due to be released in 2007. Windows Vista itself is scheduled for launch sometime next year and would be the ideal replacement for the current Windows XP Operating System for workstations.

Stephen Toulouse, a program manager in Microsoft’s security group wrote on his Blog: “Monad will not be included in the final version of Windows Vista. So these potential viruses do not affect Windows Vista.” Earlier, the company has speculated that they might consider shipping the Vista Operating System with Monad but nothing was clear until this latest statement was made public.

Monad was beta launched sometime back and is available to the testers. There is no official reason for not including it in the initial launch of the Windows Vista. However, Microsoft representatives have said that they are considering including this new shell for the Windows operating system platform for the next three to five years.