Although it’s still in beta testing, Microsoft has released details about the forthcoming Service Pack 1 for its Vista OS. There are anumber of big changes it will bring about, notably in the time spent copying files on a machine, which should be reduced by around 25%, and there should be a 50% reduction in the time it takes toread big images. More than a year ago a couple of security vendors voiced worries that access to the Vista kernel was restricted, which could cause problems for those developing anti-malware,but under SP1, APIs will be provided for the 64-bit version of the OS. According to the company, “Service Pack 1 includes supported APIs by which third-party security and malicioussoftware detection applications can work alongside Kernel Patch Protection on 64-bit versions of Windows Vista. These APIs have been designed to help security and non-security ISVs develop softwarethat extends the functionality of the Windows kernel on 64-bit systems, in a documented and supported manner, and without disabling or weakening the protection offered by Kernel PatchProtection.” Those who upgraded from XP and had problems are going to be helped, too. The document states, “For customers upgrading from Windows XP to Windows Vista SP1, theMSRT (Malicious Software Removal Tool) will not run as part of the upgrade. Rather the up-to-date MSRT offered monthly by Windows Update will help protect PCs. · The cryptographic randomnumber generation is improved to gather seed entropy from more sources, including a Trusted Platform Module (TPM) when available, and replaces the general purpose pseudo-random number generator(PRNG) with an AES-256 counter mode PRNG for both user and kernel mode.”
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