McAfee Hosed in Windows 7 Beta

For millions who decided to download and try out a free version of Microsoft's Windows 7 Beta, who also have been subscribed to McAfee virus protection, a rude awakening may be in store.

Like with Vista-based PCs that have been running Internet Explorer 8 in beta form, PCs that run Windows 7 Beta can't run McAfee Total Protection or antivirus.

"The version of Windows installed on this machine is not supported," says a warning note from McAfee Installer that pops up when attempting to run Total Virus Protection or Virus Scan Plus on Windows 7. "Please refer to the product documentation for a list of supported operating systems."

After a fit and a start, Microsoft finally released a version of its Windows 7 Beta to the market over the weekend. Testing and an early look shows the operating system to be very similar to Windows Vista, with improvements in its User Account Control management, multimedia management and a cleaner interface. Windows 7 also tightly integrates Internet Explorer 8 beta software into the experience - - and IE 8 has been accused of balky behavior when run on PCs with a number of other applications.

McAfee antivirus software has been included in the list of those that have had compatibility issues with IE 8.

Initital testing, though, shows McAfee's browser-based Site Advisor Plus does, in fact, work on Windows 7 Beta and with IE 8.