During the past week, we've added the "Works with Windows Vista" to four additional programs: RunAlyzer, FileAlyzer, RegAlyzer and TagsRevisited. All these applications already worked on Vista, but now have received enough testing as well as updates (e.g. to support Vista's UAC) to be ready to be faced with the Works with Windows Vista logo program.

Also, after struggling for months with Microsoft about Spybot - Search &D Destroy 1.5 and the more advanced Certified for Vista logo, we have decided not to get our next release certified. While we found the "Certified for Vista" logo requirements to be very useful to enforce a high software quality in general, it has a huge drawback, which essentially makes every certified security software prone to getting disabled by malware. Under these circumstances, version 1.5 will only receive the "Works with Windows Vista" logo, but at least there's nothing left blocking the release, which will take place as a beta version this week.

For those interested in the technical background of the decision:

Microsoft requires software that applies for this logo program to immediately crash when confronted with a situation described by Microsoft in detail. The background of this still is useful in a standard situation - software that has bugs should actually crash instead of just trying to hide them, so that Windows Error Reporting can log the problem and forward it to the developer. This way Microsoft can assure that applications that are part of the "Certified for Vista" program are of high quality.

However, in the context of a security application, this is hazardous: if malware writers can use a perfectly documented way to crash a security application, the overall security is greatly harmed. To avoid this, we suggested some alternatives to Microsoft that would not compromise the goal of submitting bug reports on errors that are the fault of the developer of the software. In the end though, some people at Microsoft seem to be too certain that Vista is absolutely safe, upon which we do not intend to comment, since key Microsofts employees have already done so, for example Jim Allchin or Mark Russinovich.

What do you think when a Casino software, some toolbars and a girl dancing on your desktop do appear on your computer, without you wanting them to do so? We think that's a typical case of what has different names, from trojan downloader or trojan dropper to hijacker.

Well, those probably not fully naked dancing desktop girls from that malware package are something named DeskMates from a company called Oska Educational Systems Pty Limited. Whether this kind of anatomy is really educational is another question not to be dealt with today, more important is that Oska didn't like their "mates" to be detected as a part of a trojan installation - understandable if they should have nothing to do with the trojan. But then, instead of working with us to stop the trojan horse that is spreading their software (and if it is an affiliate they pay money for each installation, they should have the financial records to track it), they rejected any of our attempts to help them track down the trojan source, instead - even though they clearly showed that they do not want to know anything about those trojans from us - letting their attorney tell us mysterious stories on how this would be impossible, and that they will sue us for the damages to their reputation done by this trojan instead.

They also asked us to no longer detect their software even if installed without user consent by this trojan horse, to post a public apology in this place after removing any other reference to their name, delete any correspondence from and to Spybot-S&D users who had been this trojan, stop helping further Spybot-S&D users that get infected with this trojan... all of which we're not going to fulfill obviously.
Since, while their software in itself is quite harmless actually, the company behind it has shown an attitude that would really let me think twice to install their software (and if these threats are not enough, take a look at their opt-out shopping basket, which seems quite contra bonos mores), so, sorry Oska, but... at least we fullfilled your lawyers wish for a news article in this place within the timeframe you've given.

While still waiting for Microsofts feedback on the Certified for Vista status for Spybot - Search & Destroy 1.5, we were also informed by Microsoft that our old version 1.3 and the current version 1.4 do qualify for the Works with Vista logo status (means that they do work on Vista nearly the same way as on XP without any updates needed), so we verified the requirements, and are now able to tell you that Spybot - Search & Destroy 1.3 and 1.4 officially received the logo you can see on the right side.

Spybot - Search & Destroy 1.5 will be released as soon as Microsoft has certified it, which sadly took more time than expected, since the standard requirements were not really fit for anti-malware software.

Over the next weeks, we will also probe our other tools to get the Works with Vista logo for them as well were possible, with future updates including features gearing towards a Certified logo.