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McAfee says that Redmond has failed to keep agreements made with the European Union last week. The deal was struck as Microsoft tried to head off the possibility that it would not be able to launch Vista in Europe at the same time as the rest of the world.

Under the agreement, Microsoft undertook to provide API's to the PatchGuard kernel protection system that would allow third parties to modify the kernel and install their own security software. This would allow third party software not only the ability to modify the kernel which many products depend on, but would also prevent PatchGuard

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declaring their software to be an 'attack'.

The issue appears to centre on what Microsoft has actually so far provided. McAfee is saying that it has not yet received any information regarding PatchGuard and that clarification requests about the documentation that Microsoft has sent to McAfee for Windows Security Centre have not been answered. Meanwhile Microsoft is saying that it has provided the information agreed with the EU.

Having negotiated the deal with Microsoft, the EU is now stepping back from the process and leaving it to the industry to decide whether enough information has been provided to security companies to allow their software to co-exist with PatchGuard.

As part of the pressure on Microsoft to change its mind over PatchGuard McAfee took out an advertisement in the Financial Times accusing Microsoft of compromising the security of Vista by barring legitimate access to the kernel while hackers had already found a way round PatchGuard.

However, other security companies, notably Sophos and Kaspersky say that they are quite happy with PatchGuard and do not need the APIs in order to develop competitive products for Vista.