Microsoft on Monday will detail a future version of Windows that will make it easier to detect and isolate viruses.
Additionally, the Redmond, Wash.-based developer will show off new features in Microsoft Word 2003 and Exchange 2003 for fingering viruses and spam at the RSA Security Conference taking place in San Francisco this week.
The Windows Filter Manager Architecture is a set of application protocol interfaces (APIs) and code that will be added to Windows to handle some of the basic operational tasks of antivirus applications, such as how the application sets up an ordinary hard drive scan, according to Jonathan Perera, senior director of Microsoft's security business unit. In a sense, Filter Manager is analogous to printer drivers, he said. In the past, printer makers did their own drivers. Now, they write to a common set of APIs.
"It handles a lot of the hardware touching," he said. "This will make it easier for (antivirus) developers to get their products to market faster."
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News source: c|net
