It was. Windows has since improved its security by a large amount. Windows XP and Windows 7 are two completely different beasts, and even XP is far more hardene

It was. Windows has since improved its security by a large amount. Windows XP and Windows 7 are two completely different beasts, and even XP is far more hardened than it was at release. (I'm not an expert, but I'd point to the ASLR in Vista as the harbinger of improved Windows security.) Now the malware problems on both platforms rarely rely on privilege escalation. They use trojan horses instead, and wait for you to install them.