Microsoft wasted little time after buying antispyware vendor Giant Software Company last month to release on Thursday a free trial copy of its Windows AntiSpyware product.The rapid turnaround is indicative of the company’s growing concern over security flaws threatening consumer and enterprise systems. The company offered copies of the AntiSpyware beta on Microsoft’s Web site. The antispyware product is available to Windows 2000 and later additions, and requires a connection to the Internet to participate in SpyNet, the world-wide network of AntiSpyware users created by Giant to help spot and block new spyware programs, the company said.Microsoft also promised to offer a new tool to remove malicious programs.In January 2004, Microsoft released a series of removal tools, each of which targeted a single virus or worm and some of its variants. The new Microsoft Windows malicious software removal tool consolidates these existing removal tools into a single solution. The tool will be updated on the second Tuesday of each month as part of Microsoft’s monthly software security update, the company said. The initiative builds on the security technologies and protection features of Windows XP Service Pack 2 (SP2), designed in response to growing threats to help safeguard computers from hackers, viruses and other security risks.“We’ve made great progress there with Windows XP SP2,” said Mike Nash, Microsoft’s Corporate Vice President for Security Business & Technology Unit. “If you consider the advanced security technologies that we made available in SP2, that work was about helping people identify ActiveX controls installing on their machines, helping customers control what’s happening on their browsers, locking down the points at which where malicious software can be installed on their machines, and so forth.”“In many ways, the Windows AntiSpyware solution is an extension of that work we’ve already started,” Nash said. “Today, the security enhancements in Windows XP SP2, coupled with the capabilities of the antispyware technology ac-quired from Giant, provide our customers with sound protection.” Still, Microsoft has had serious difficulties enforcing security, Jonathan Eunice, principal analyst with Illuminata, said recently.“Their problems have to do with fundamental architecture points about the way Windows is designed,” he said. Some security experts object to Microsoft limiting security-focused updates for its products to licensed users, arguing that security threats that take advantage of shortcomings in the ubiquitous Windows operating system affect everyone, IDG News Service said. “If you have a compromised copy of Windows, it’s not just your problem, it’s everybody else on the Internet’s problem, too,” said John Levine, a member of the Internet Research Task Force’s Anti-Spam Research Group. Technology Industry