Yet More Resources for Credential Provider Writers
1. The RTM version of Microsoft’s five sample credprovs is available here, as of 12/26/06 - http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=b1b3cbd1-2d3a-4fac-982f-289f4f4b9300&DisplayLang=en. Changes from the RC1 version include "minor bug fixes and additional guidance". If you are tasked with writing a credprov, you should start by modifying one of these. I promise your life will be enhanced by it.
Anyway, the document itself provides a lot of details about the credprov interface. Noteably, it includes a section at the end about "Pre-Logon Access Providers," or PLAPs, which is the Vista mechanism for exposing 3rd party, custom network-level authentication prior to (or combined with) the interactive user authentication. This is the first external documentation I’ve seen about PLAPs. For example, ever wondered how to implement multi-factor authentication at the network level, while disabling cached credentials? This is it.


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