Microsoft will take years to open Vista kernel: analyst

By Stan Beer
Friday, 20 October 2006 14:35

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The two leading security vendors are up in arms, with market number two McAfee saying Microsoft has no intention of keeping publicly made promises to make two key changes to the Vista operating system so third party security vendors can compete. Meanwhile a Gartner analyst says that it will take Microsoft years to implement the changes requested anyway.

McAfee and Symantec, using European regulators as their sounding board, have both demanded that Microsoft enable third party security providers to disable its security center dashboard so that they can replace it with their own interfaces. They have also demanded that Microsoft provide them with access to the Vista 64-bit operating system kernel, so that they can build their own systems to protect it.

Microsoft has implemented a utility called Patchguard which locks up the operating system kernel and prevents access to it, without exception. The two leading security vendors insist that they need access to the kernel in order to build hooks into the system which will protect it from the inside out.

Microsoft has said publicly that it will accede to the requests. However, McAfee says that, to date, Microsoft has only provided data pertaining to the security center and that it will only prevent Microsoft security alerts from appearing but not disable the dashboard. No information regarding Patchguard nor access to the kernel has been provided to date, according to the security vendors.

McAfee, through it lawyer, issued a statement yesterday saying that the Microsoft has given little indication that it intends to live up to its promises.

In any case, Gartner analyst Neil McDonald has published a research note saying that the changes needed to be made to meet the security vendors' demands will take years and not be available until 2008.