Avecto Ltd, the most trusted name in least privilege management for corporate desktops, today announced the release of Privilege Guard 2.2, with support for Windows 7 and comprehensive Group Policy management capabilities.

"Although Windows 7 User Account Control provides a more secure environment for system administrators and home users, the inability to control privileged access to applications through centralized policy makes it an inappropriate solution for most corporate environments," said Mark Austin, CTO at Avecto. "With the release of Privilege Guard 2.2, policy based privilege management is now extended to the Windows 7 platform."

"As many organisations have discovered, trying to lock down desktops across the board can hinder as much as it helps, making life frustrating for users (as they can do less of what they want) and making IT support harder rather than easier. From our research we know that users cannot be treated equally - while there may be some for whom a locked-down environment is suitable, others will need maximum flexibility. The key is balancing the need to ensure business effectiveness, making IT service delivery as efficient as possible, all the while mitigating the risks," said Jon Collins, CEO at analyst firm Freeform Dynamics.

In addition to Windows 7 support, Privilege Guard 2.2 introduces many new features around Group Policy management, including integration with the Group Policy Management Console (GPMC). The Privilege Guard management console is now an MMC extension to the Group Policy Editor and provides full support for Resultant Set of Policy, including HTML reporting for both planning and logging modes. Support for Advanced Group Policy Management enables Privilege Guard policies to be version controlled and edited offline, in an identical manner to other Group Policy based settings.

Privilege Guard is available on Windows XP, Windows Vista and Windows 7. It is also supported on Windows server operating systems, including Windows Server 2008 R2.