Microsoft Security Essentials

Microsoft Security Essentials is Microsoft's own free antispyware and antivirus product for personal PC's or small businesses with up to 10 PCs. If you have Windows Vista or Windows 7 you can download and install it for either the 32-bit or 64-bit versions. You must allow the Microsoft website to check that you have a legal copy of Windows. MSE isn't standardly pre-installed on OEM versions of Windows (ie when you buy a new machine).

Once installed, Microsoft Security Essentials will replace and disable Windows Defender, so you may get a momentary warning from the Security Center (Windows Vista/XP) or Action Center (Windows 7) that Windows Defender is disabled. Ignore this.

It will then run a quick scan of your computer, which may take a little while.

MSE has two standard scanning modes, a Quick Scan and a Full Scan, and a third you can configure (Custom Scan).
MSE is pre-configured to do a once-a-week scan in Quick Scan. We recommend that you change the Quick Scan setting to Full Scan and also tick "Check for the latest spyware & antivirus definitions before running a scheduled scan"

You can also of course vary the time and day to suit yourself.

When MSE has installed, you will find that your Security Center (Windows XP and Vista) or Action Center (Windows 7) will have a slightly different appearance. It no longer monitors your previous antivirus software.

Instead it monitors MSE, which attempts to deal with both malware and virus activity. Whilst MSE is free we recommend you stick to McAfee VirusScan as your primary antivirus porduct. MSE will not co-exist with McAfee VirusScan, which a nuisance. (You should not in general load more than one antivirus product, so in the long-term it is probably better to choose one or the other). MSE is particularily good on older machines or those which do not have much memory like Netbooks. However the older subset of MSE, Windows Defender, will work alongside McAfee VirusScan and by default can be found on many OEM versions of Windows.

Note: If Microsoft Security Essentials detects something it doesn't like whilst Windows is running ("real-time protection" as distinct from when you manually initiate a scan) MSE will attempt to notify you but if you don't respond within 10 minutes it will apply the default action which is normally to remove or quanrantine at a high or severe alert level.

Microsoft Security Essentials like anti-virus software needs to be kept updated (which it will normally manage itself) to be effective. You should be warned if it fails to update successfully.

MSE Issues

There are a few issues which should be considered before using MSE.

• MSE will send information about anything it detects to Spynet (Microsoft's setup for storing and processing information about malware). Joining Spynet was optional in Windows Defender. It is compulsory in MSE.
• MSE does not standardly scan removable drives (USB pens etc). It will only do so on a scheduled/full scan and when the necessary box is ticked. This could be a problem with Conflickr and the Autoruns problem (infected USB sticks).
• MSE will not happly co-exist with our current anti-virus software (McAfee VirusScan) unless Realtime Protection is disabled. There are other scenarios where installing it can potentially cause trouble, as should be expected. For example the McAfee Security Suite and MSE fight each other for control when installed on the same machine. MSE will also clash with other anti-virus software.

Screen shots are printed with the permission of the Microsoft Corporation.