Create Custom Login Experiences With Credential Providers for Windows Vista

Overview

Windows Vista offers developers many new opportunities for integrating with the platform. The new Credential Provider model represents one of the most dramatic changes, making it much easier to implement new user authentication scenarios that are supported by the OS. This has replaced the GINA (Graphical Identification and Authentication) model-a model that, put bluntly, is known for being difficult for developers to understand and implement as well as being expensive for Microsoft to support. So why is a change to the Windows logon plug-in interface so exciting? This paper discusses the new Credential Provider architecture, why GINA-based authentication was dropped, multi-factor authentication, and developing and debugging a credential provider.