SP2: Making third-party vendors sweat and end users go crazy

Diego Duval installs Windows XP SP2 and learns three important things: He still hates McAfee VirusScan with the burning passion of 10,000 white-hot suns ("one of the worst pieces of software I have ever seen"); Microsoft continues to tell people to turn off features rather than fix holes in those features; and:

Anyway, it is clear that to appease third-party vendors (such as Symantec and McAfee) Microsoft has included an API of some sort of this Security Center stuff. And obviously the poor third-party companies do not want users to use the Windows defaults.

So they resort to terrible UIs and behavior ... They have to be both devious and in-your-face, so that you are not silently taken away to the MS-bundled elements over time, and you remember that it's McAfee (or whoever) that's protecting you, rather than Microsoft. ...