Microsoft chairman Bill Gates has warned that improvements to the security of Windows will not happen overnight.

In an interview with vnunet.com's sister title Computing, Gates explained that, while Windows security has improved significantly, users have a responsibility to ensure that their environment is as secure as possible.

"There have always been two key techniques: firewalling and keeping software up to date. No problems will have happened to you if you have done either of these things," he said.

"We can do very dramatic things in the short term, to do with firewalls and updating infrastructure. We've seen, in terms of magnitude, less vulnerability in the code that's been through the new tools.

"We've had about 12 issues in the eight-month period for Windows Server 2003, whereas with the equivalent level of tack in the previous generation we would have had over 100.

"We are talking about a factor 10 difference. We could get another factor 10 drop, which would get us down to 1.2, with improvements in other things. That's what people want, but it doesn't happen overnight."