Symantec sees an Achilles' heel in Vista

Some of Microsoft's efforts to make Windows Vista its most stable and secure operating system ever could cause instability and new security flaws, according to a Symantec report.

Researchers at Cupertino, Calif.-based Symantec examined the new networking technology in recent test releases of Vista, Microsoft's next major operating system release, according to the report. They found several security bugs and determined that Vista's networking technology will be less stable, at least in the short run, than Windows XP's, the report said.

"Microsoft has removed a large body of tried and tested code and replaced it with freshly written code, complete with new corner cases and defects," the researchers wrote in the report, scheduled for publication Tuesday.