McAfee has pulled a case of the prodigal son's return. Guess who the father is? You've guessed. It's Microsoft. After jumping at the Redmond Company's jugular over the Kernel Patch Protection introduced in 64-bit editions of Windows Vista, McAfee has now fallen in line. But the Santa Clara-based security company is not a singular case. Symantec has already beaten it too and Symantec was a far louder critic of PatchGuard compared with McAfee.

In the end, McAfee's business is intimately dependent on the Windows operating environment. This is a status quo. Consequently, the Santa Clara security outfit unveiled support for Windows Vista on the same day that Microsoft's CEO Steve Ballmer released the operating system.

McAfee VirusScan Enterprise 8.5 and McAfee AntiSpywareTM Enterprise 8.5 are the two Vista compatible security solutions made available by McAfee. The two products offer both traditional protection via a database of signatures and proactive technology for unknown threats.

"McAfee is committed to supporting its customers with Windows Vista compatibility," said Rees Johnson, vice president of product management, McAfee, Inc. "The ever-changing threat environment is a real issue for our customers. McAfee VirusScan Enterprise and McAfee AntiSpyware Enterprise provide our business users with a more effective way to minimize risks from security threats."

"We are thrilled with the tremendous support and excitement we are seeing from our partners around the world in support of the business availability launch of the 2007 Office system, Exchange Server 2007 and Windows Vista," said Rob Bernard, general manager, Worldwide ISV Group, Microsoft. "Our partners play a vital role in the early adoption, development and delivery of Microsoft technologies. By working closely with partners like McAfee, we are helping to provide our mutual customers with a high quality product, seamless technology integration, and improved user experiences."