Office 2003 macros hard on virus scanners

ZDNet reported on March 21 that the next version of Microsoft Office will embed macros interspersed in XML files rather than just at the top like traditional DOC files. This is very bad for virus scanners because they scan just the part with the macro code and move onto the next file. If Microsoft keeps this current system in place, virus scanning of Office documents will take much longer because virus programs will have to scan through the entire document rather than just through the macro section.

Then again, people have to be actively virus scanning in the first place for this to be a problem and many computer users don’t bother installing anti-virus defense. Chances are Microsoft is going to fix this problem but it’s nice to know that the industry is quick to point out problems like these before Office comes out of beta.