Tomorrow I will complete my 'road test' of Microsoft's NEW Security Essentials anti-virus

[DainBramaged]

It is free. I have installed it on four different machines. Two XP Pro, one Vista and one Windows 7.


A hint.


it had installation problems.

[lpbk2713]

1. I was just about to create a post to see if anyone tried it yet.

I D/L'd it a few days ago but haven't tried it out yet. I usually like to get a consensus on anything new before I actually install it. Keep us posted.

Article for info: http://news.softpedia.com/news/1-5-Million-Microsoft-Security-Essentials-Downloads-in-a-Week-124553.shtml

[lpbk2713]

2. What are your observations on MSSE?

Have you had the opportunity to evaluate it yet?

[Statistical]

3. I have been using it for a about a week.

The Pros:
Very low resource usage. Kind just sits in the back and does its thing.
Setup by default to do full scan @ 3AM each morning.

The Cons:
No way to really know the long term protection rate.

I will keep running it for a months or so or until it fails to stop an infection.
Seems similar to Avast in terms of performance.

[madokie]

4. I downloaded and installed this just now

I had Cloud on here previous to this and when this program done a scan it found nothing. The question I have is does this thing update the definitions file automatically if I don't have automatic scan turned on? I usually turn off my computer when I'm not on it and I don't want it scanning while I'm on here as it takes some time to do that scan and if this software is doing its job then I don't need a daily scan.

[Statistical]

5. I am pretty sure it does.

One way to check is turn off real time scan.
Check the virus update date on the tab.

Then in a couple days check it again. If the Update date changes then it is updating even w/ real time scan turned off.
From my experience it looks like it downloads new definition changes once per day.