Microsoft Agrees to Changes in Vista Security

An anonymous reader writes "Bowing to pressure from European antitrust regulators and rival security vendors, Microsoft has agreed to modify Windows Vista to better accommodate third-party security software makers. In a press conference Friday, Microsoft said it would configure Vista to let third-party anti-virus and other security software makers bypass 'PatchGuard,' a feature in 64-bit versions of Windows Vista designed to bar access to the Windows kernel. Microsoft said it would create an API to let third-party vendors access the kernel and to disable the Windows Security Center so that users would not be prompted by multiple alerts about operating system security. In addition, Redmond said it would modify the welcome screen presented to Vista users to include links to other security software other than Microsoft's own OneCare suite. From the article: 'It looks like Microsoft was really testing the waters here, sort of pushing the limits of antitrust and decided they probably couldn't cross that line just yet.'"

Comments

Re:Are the alerts perhaps the problem?

[Anonymous Coward]

You must restart your computer. Would you like to do it now, or would you like me to display this same dialog 30 seconds from now, while you're doing something else like typing a slashdot comm

I find it kind of interesting...

[dghcasp]

Companies like Symantec (aka Norton) have profited immensely from an industry created because Windows wasn't secure.

Now they're upset because Microsoft wants that piece of that market; in other words, Microsoft wants to profit from the fact that Windows isn't secure.

Yet in pretty much every other operating system, the solution is simply to make the darned thing secure.

Now, I realize that the issues are a bit larger than this, but I do wonder: IF Microsoft ever released a truly secure operating system, thus making Symantec and other such companies as relevant as the buggy whip, would they then sue to prevent the release of the O/S?

Re:I don't get it.

[jb.hl.com]

MS had decided to close off that access to all software except their commercial security apps (which they will charge extra to the customer)

Lies. Trend and Avast have apparently been able to run on Vista without any problems. They knuckled down and wrote code so they worked on Vista, and indeed Vista has an API called Windows Filtering Platform, which allows anti-virus makers to monitor file activity. Symantec and McAfee, on the other hand, threw a hissy fit.

Microsoft is, for once, clearly in the right.