If ever an operating system needed the software equivalent of garlic and wolfbane to keep away evil spirits, Microsoft Windows would be it. It's a magnet for hackers, and hardly a week goes by without Microsoft issuing a software security patch, or a patch for the security patch, or a patch to patch the patch. The result is a Frankensoftware monster.

But now comes word that the next version of Windows, called Vista and expected to roll out in early 2007, won't initially allow third-party security software vendors like McAfee and Symantec access to the Vista kernel, or core code. (Those companies will get access only after Microsoft issues the first Service Pack, according to the rumor mill.) Hackers have already demonstrated that Vista's supposedly impregnable defenses can be broken, which is hardly reassuring for a product whose main raison d'etre is security. And now Vista users will have to depend entirely on Microsoft to keep their computers protected from evil. Wait… what's that sinister laugh I hear, coming from Redmond?