The change will see the introduction of flags at the beginning of XML Office files that point antivirus software to macro's positioned within the file. Without the new flags, the scanner would have to examine the entire file, and subsequently caused major problems for antivirus companies.
Last month, antivirus companies expressed frustration at Microsoft's failure to include the flags in file formats after it was revealed the beta release of Office 2003 excluded them.
Computer Associates manager of virus research, Jakub Kaminski, expressed satisfaction the change had finally gone through.
-It's a good sign," he said. -It's proof that working together and involving people with expertise and experience in a very narrow field makes it possible [to keep the] integrity and functionality of the initial design while putting users in a safer position".
Users will be oblivious to the change but it will make life a lot easier for antivirus companies.
-Users won't be aware of it when they try the product but it will certainly benefit them in the long term... we can only praise Microsoft for this," Kaminski said.
He told ZDNet Australia that antivirus firms have historically had to deal with working around everyone else's designs, and it was good to see the process working the other way.
-No application works in a vacuum... the antivirus companies learned about it a long time ago when they had problems with different drivers and products," he said.
I really can't see that this will solve anything - unless the release version of Office will disregard any macro that is not pointed to by the flags.
This, in turn, means that any document created by the Beta version that includes macros will either not work, or will need to be specially handled - perhaps with some warning. "You appear to be opening a document created with the Beta release... As your anti-virus software will not have scanned any macros contained in this document..."
It seems that this opens a loophole through which virus writers will be able to circumvent the protection.