[Chintan Gohel]

I can guess the reason but I wanted to confirm this. We know windows phones/mobiles cannot get viruses or malware but since the 2 systems started sharing the same core, why hasn't this happened to pc?

Any thoughts?

[ven07]

As MS let's go of the reigns more and more to allow devs more access to the core systems, I think that at some point, even mobiles will be able to get infected..

Some time back, playing with reg keys was simply a dream.. Now we can view and alter them to a certain extent

[PepperdotNet]

Simple, on a PC you can download something from somewhere other than the store, and run it. You can insert a program CD or usb drive containing executable files and run them. You can even receive an executable file in an email.

On the mobile device, the store is the only way except for developer mode and sideloading which are relatively new and most people don't know how to use yet.

[ven07]

yet....

[Chintan Gohel]

Simple, on a PC you can download something from somewhere other than the store, and run it. You can insert a program CD or usb drive containing executable files and run them. You can even receive an executable file in an email.

On the mobile device, the store is the only way except for developer mode and sideloading which are relatively new and most people don't know how to use yet.

but developer mode and sideloading are actions taken by the user themselves, right? Someone can't do it remotely, isn't it?

[Pete]

That's correct. Enabling developer mode and sideloading apps takes a few steps and a bit of knowhow. It's almost as if someone would have to intentionally infect their own device. This would typically be people who are wanting paid apps for free or "ported" (i.e. pirated) Android apps.

Apps you get from the Windows Store won't contain malware or viruses, as Pepper says above, PC uses are still able to download and install any old application from the internet and run it. How well Windows 10 copes with those, I don't know.

In typing this, I mourn the demise of Windows RT, which promised a completely safe way of using Windows 8 (and Windows 10, had it survived that long).