PCA Forums

This is Microsoft's new free anti-virus software which was highly rated when the beta was tested.

I'm going to install this on an old PC I have here with 512Mb of RAM and give it a try. By all reports it's very lean and light on resources. I've heard nothing but good things about the beta.

Now if only they can keep from screwing it up later like they did with Defender...

http://www.microsoft.com/security_essen ... ?mkt=en-us

Well so far I'm impressed. Very fast install, small installer (4Mb). On fresh install of WinXP on a 512 Mb system, Windows went from 180Mb of RAM in use to 205Mb after installing it which is a hell of a lot less footprint than AVG or even AntiVir.

Very clean and simple (ie: not confusing) control panel.

My only complaint is that you have to download the correct version. There are 3 separate versions for XP x86, Vista & Win7 x86, and Vista & Win7 x64 (I guess those of us using XPx64 are screwed - funny Microsoft not supporting one of their own current OSes).

While this keeps the installer small, the problem is that the average non-techie has absolutely no clue what version of Windows they are running, much less what flavor. They really need to have an all-in-one installer.

FP, ~ pls revisit this in a week or 2, and if u are still impressed w/it, pls post, as i would not mind switching from AVG to this, but as noted, ~ i know what OS i am running, but not which "flavor".
{ thank you }

darcy wrote:FP, ~ pls revisit this in a week or 2, and if u are still impressed w/it, pls post, as i would not mind switching from AVG to this, but as noted, ~ i know what OS i am running, but not which "flavor".
{ thank you }

Yes FP, let us know. I might want to try it too! Thanks for your research on this so far.

I read a couple of reviews which were good. At least it doesn't want to install Yahoo toolbar

Wow, took long enough. Yeah, let us know.

wvjohn wrote:I read a couple of reviews which were good. At least it doesn't want to install Yahoo toolbar

I'm surprised it doesn't install a Bing toolbar.

FlyingPenguin wrote: Now if only they can keep from screwing it up later like they did with Defender...

I was thinking the same thing. I will give it a shot on the 4 PCs I'm going to wipe out tonight and we'll see what happens.

eGo

I would love to try this on my besktop but I keep getting an error code during installation. Works good on my lap top. I've tried every thing suggested on MS site...nothing works. Oh well, back to Avats for the time being.

I had a really bad infested computer that wouldn't even install Malwarebytes and installed this just fine. It cleaned several items and then I was allowed to install Malwarebytes to finish the job.

But note, after I installed it, it would not allow me to scan the computer until I updated the app. Luckily I was able to get online and update. If it had been infected and not able to go online, this app would have been 100% useless.

That's not too bad because NO anti-virus is actually degigned to clean an already infected system. That's when you turn to Malwarebytes or Trojan Remover.

When a running trojan won't allow Malwarebytes to run, usually Trojan Remover will fix that.

BTW, if you go to the website using Internet Explorer, the web page detects the version you need. I was using Firefox so I got asked what version I wanted.

I still think they should use an all-in-one installer like everyone else.

thank u for the info, FP : )

Good review here: http://www.thetechherald.com/article.ph ... Essentials

I'm very impressed. I just cleaned out a client's PC that was infected with "TrustSoldier" a fake security program that's actually a trojan. Nasty crap. I saved the app's executable and what appears to be the boot strap installer that was in the temp folder (this is an installer file hidden in the temp folder that re-installs the trojan if you remove it).

I renamed both those malicious EXE files to .EXE.VIRUS and placed them in a zip file. I then copied the zip file to the desktop of a PC that has Microsoft Security Essentials (MSSE) installed. Then I tried to open the zip file and MSSE immediately detected a threat.

Now the REAL curious thing is I have Symantec Corporate 10.5 installed on my workbench PC, and it DID NOT detect any malicious files in this zip file. Moreover when I extracted the files and renamed them back to .EXE and forced Symantec to do a scan of the files, it still found nothing wrong with them.

VERY interesting. I'll need to see if AVG and AntiVir detects this crap.

Another reason I don't use symantec.

When downloading, its a SETUP.EXE file? I not really need it for my rig since I have NOD32, Trojan Hunter, and SuperAntiSpyware running, but I would like the install file for other people's rig that I work on.