Kext loading behaviour in Catalina?

I have some questions about the intended behaviour of kext loading in Catalina.


From the release notes, I see that when a kext is installed the OS needs to be restarted before the kext will be loaded. Trying it here I see the following behaviour:


  1. Installer runs and installs kext as usual
  2. User is prompted to allow the kext from System Prefernces
  3. After this, the OS tells the user that the kext will not be available until after restarting the Mac. This is indeed true.
  4. Restart and the kext loads as normal.

This is in line with the documentation so far. But what I am not sure about is what happens on re-install and kext updating?


Experimenting here I see that if I uninstall the kext and re-install, it will load straight away without requiring a restart.


Likewise, if I install a newer version over the top of an existing kext (after previously unloading the old one during the upgrade scripts) then the new one will also run fine without restarting.


What I would like to know is are these behaviours likely to remain until the OS is final? Are my experiencees with reinstall and updating the expected behaviour or are they also intended to not apply until restart?


And as a general question. Why the new requierment for a restart in ithe initial case? Kind of makes it hard for Enterprise Admins to push out such software to all users without also forcing a restart.