[strombofulous]

Would this still have happened if the EU had not ruled against Microsoft?

[holsta]

It's not about kernel access, it's about equal access to avoid yet another monopoly.

Microsoft could have come up with a kernel API that their own malware (and everyone elses) product could make use of. They did not.

[PlutoIsAPlanet]

Microsoft can kick security vendors out the kernel, but they can't sell a product that uses APIs not accessible to other vendors.

[strombofulous]

Sure, but my question still stands - would this have happened if the EU had not made that ruling?

[Tuna-Fish]

Yes. There were kernel mode drivers before that ruling, it is essentially entirely irrelevant to this outage.

[mort96]

Probably

[extraduder_ire]

Probably not, but in more of a butterfly-effect or this product not existing way.