Can you recommend Win7-compatible generic smart card or USB token?
GemmaP
for Windows 7 which does not require the installation of any additional
software (or at the most just a driver, preferably from Windows Update) ? I
especially want a card/token whose PIN can be reset within Windows but
without having to install any third-party utility for this.
I want a card or token for use with a Windows Server-based PKI, BitLocker
and EFS, using the USB or smart card interfaces built into my company's Dell
and Lenovo laptops. It doesn't need to do anything else. I don't want to
have to buy an entire suite of management tools, apps or other junk, I just
want generic Windows7-compatible cards or tokens by themselves.
I've seen the Gemalto and Athena web sites, for example, but it's unclear
which device models fit my needs (for no extra software necessary) and they
seem a bit expensive. Are they still the best? Any other suggestions?
I've also heard you can get USB smart tokens which are also flash drives,
but I've only been able to find Gemalto's and they're not even available for
sale yet.
Many thanks in advance.
moshe
There are several smart card and vendor who have their cards certified
by WHQL for Windows 7.
Gemalto & Athena are good vendors, but I am not sure they were ever
the best (?).
You can see find a list of all Windows 7 Certified smart cards at the
Windows HCL:
http://winqual.microsoft.com/HCL/ProductList.aspx?m=7&g=d&cid=407&aqid=&f=86win7
The first on the list "Apollo OS" where the first ones to pass WHQL
certification world-wide.
You can find more about them here:
http://www.scsquare.com/products/windows-7-and-windows-server-2008-r2-smart-card-minidriver/
Hope this helps.
Moshe
GemmaP
Except for the Athena and Gemalto sites, all these HQL vendors make it as
difficult as possible to just quickly buy a few test cards, and even the
Gemalto site is not very clear about which operating systems are supported,
which of their products can be used for which purposes, what software is
required, etc. (then they charge you $13 to ship ONE smart card). And on
the Athena web site, are they so lazy that they can't spend five minutes
updating their site about whether Windows 7 is supported? In general, smart
card vendors have ZERO idea how to sell their products, so it's no wonder
that smart cards are not very widely used in the USA.
So that's why I was hoping someone could say "I got X model of this smart
token and it works without any extra software beyond an Update Catalog
driver on Windows 7 32-bit and 64-bit", and then I would just buy that model
for testing.
Again, none of these vendors have people monitoring these newsgroups with
Google Alerts??? Hello! Athena, Gemalto, whoever, are you out there???
Joe Kaplan
just as they did in Vista, so as long as your smart card reader itself has a
driver, you are fine. I don't have any of their new biometric integrated
cards yet, so I don't know what to expect there, but if you don't need
support for biometric auth to the card and a normal PIN prompt will do,
those work fine.
One way you might be able to get some free cards is to get them to give you
their IDM starter kit. They have two versions. The big one comes with 25
cards and all their OTP devices. The little one comes with 5 cards.
I agree that they could use some help in terms of marketing. They make so
much of their money printing credit cards for Visa and stuff that the smart
card applications ends up being round off error from what I can tell.
--
Joe Kaplan-MS MVP Directory Services Programming
Co-author of "The .NET Developer's Guide to Directory Services Programming"
http://www.directoryprogramming.net
"GemmaP" <ge...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:uH6tiykV...@TK2MSFTNGP05.phx.gbl...
GemmaP
Thank you Joe!
moshe
The company I mentioned earlier (www.scsquare.com) offered free cards
to all MS forum members around two years ago.
You can try contacting them again... I guess you have nothing to
lose...
Moshe