Microsoft Security Essentials is a Free Antivirus Utility
Microsoft Security Essentials is a free utility that provides real-time protection to identify and eliminate harmful viruses and other malware from your PC. Today we’ll take a look at how it performs and the protection it has to offer.
Microsoft Security Essentials (MSE) is free Anti-Malware protection that replaces their previous “pay for” utility One Care. It has left beta and version 1.0 was released to the public yesterday. As with the beta we showed you before, this version provides real-time protection and runs quietly in the background. It actually runs a lot like the beta version and the user interface is the basically same.
Before installation make sure there is no other Antivirus or spyware application running on the machine. However, you don’t need to turn off Windows Defender, because MSE takes care of it for you.
You will have to validate your copy of Windows to be able to install and use Security Essentials.
The user interface is basic, simple, and easy to use. After installation it will update the virus definitions right away. After that it will update itself automatically in the background so once installed it truly is a “set it and forget it” process.
After the database is updated the computer status turns green. There are 4 tabs at the top that allow you to control different functions.
Under Settings you can choose what actions it should take with malware based on its threat level.
By default Real-time protection is enabled but if you want to disable it you want. The Real-time protection is light on system resources and doesn’t slow down other processes at all.
It shows a green icon in the notification area letting you know your system is protected.
Progress is displayed while a manual scan takes place and tells you the amount of time it takes. Scan times will vary between systems based on amount of files and hardware performance.
It works like most other Antivirus apps and lets you scan a single file.
![sshot-2009-09-29-[17-33-23]](http://www.howtogeek.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/09/sshot20090929173323.png "sshot-2009-09-29-[17-33-23]")
If a threat is detected a red attention screen pops up in the Notification Area and you can clean the threat right away based on your recommended actions or find out more detail about the threat.
If you want more details, they actually provide a good amount of information on a threat. When in the details screen you can change the recommend action if you want and clean it from there.
During out tests we tried to download an infected file, but MSE stopped it and wouldn’t allow the download to continue unless manually selecting to ignore it. This is very nice so someone doesn’t ignore the warnings, click out of the screens, and try to download and install the app anyway.
For testing we ran this on the 32-bit version of Windows 7 Home Premium but it will also work with XP and Vista. It is light on system resources and runs quietly without constantly popping up messages and annoying you. It does pop up a message when it matters though. If a threat is found it will pop up a red alert to let you know about the malware and decide what actions to take. It’s nice to have a free anti-malware utility that is easy to use and effective. While Microsoft doesn’t always offer the best security solutions, they seem to have gotten this one right.
Daily Email Updates
You can get our how-to articles in your inbox each day for free. Just enter your name and email below:
Scanning Speed Needs Much Improvement
Does MSE offer auto scanning virus when we plug in USB disk?
I tried this software yesterday evening on one of my computers running vista 32bit. My computer immediately ran into problems with freezing and non responsive applications. Windows explorer became non responsive and I had to restart explorer, programs would not open and open programs would freeze.
I have uninstalled MSE and reinstalled AVG free and now my computer is now running normally.
@liewzy:
Yes, but it’s disabled by default. You can find the setting for auto-scanning in the advanced settings.
@liewzy .. yes MSE offers auto scanning when USB is plugged.
A Great product from Mircosoft.
@liewzy
Yes it does scan USB drives automatically when plugged-in an the detection rate of mse is very good though it takes time to scan USB drive when compared to AVG free anti-virus. MSE is to be much more improved to heavily rely on it only for protection.
“make sure there is no other Antivirus or spyware application running on the machine. ”
does that mean no Avira, Spybot, or malwarebytes? then too bad. im tot trusting my safety to just MSE
“Minimum system requirements for Microsoft Security Essentials ”
“Internet Browser:
* Windows Internet Explorer 6.0 or later.
* Mozilla Firefox 2.0 or later.”
Never thought I would see FireFox listed on a Microsoft site.
I installed it yesterday on Vista Business X64..works good. It does take a long time to scan but hopefully they can get that fixed. I like how it checks for updates before a scheduled scan. It was reviewed in the October issue of PC World along with a few other Free Anti Virus apps. It didn’t do so bad and would have done better if it scanned a little faster. Over all i think it’s a pretty good offering in the Free category. Good Review Mysticgeek.
@liewzy – MSE does scan removable drives, but not by default. You have to go into Settings > Advanced and check off “Scan removable drives”. Works great.
Thanks for the post How-To Geek!
A new way to Microsoft is preceding, but a lot to do here also, as the WARS among antivirus providers is not a BABY game, its already a grown market.
Is it any good? Is it worth deleting AVG Free and using MSE instead? How does it compare to other free anti-virus options? This article seems to be nothing more than a simple guide on how to use almost any anti-virus software, unless it is an advert also.
I have both microsoft security essencials & McAfee running on the same machine, at the same time.. It’s an old machine.. 3.0ghz single core, 1 GB of ram, XP pro.. Everything works fine.. The two programs can run in background at the same time.
@Corey
I am running Threat Fire along with MSSE, if u count it as antivirus.
But in my opinion its sufficient for home and basic usage. It has a very good detection rate and has been given a thumbs up from one of the AV testing companies.
I installed Microsoft Security Essentials (MSE) yesterday on a Vista 32 notebook PC, and the PC kept completely freezing up a minute of so after starting up. Happened every time I started the PC. Not even the mouse pointer was moving, and Control Alt Del did nothing: totally unresponsive until a hard power-down. Had to use a restore point to get rid of MSE (cannot be uninstalled from safe mode!) and the whole problem was gone. There was no other antivirus or other security software installed except for the free Zonealarm firewall.
I also installed MSE on two 32 bit XP systems that used the free Zonealarm firewall, and there I had no problems and MSE seemed to work just fine. So it looks like there is some sort of nasty bug that only shows on (some) Vista systems with MSE.
im running win7 and MSE runs great on it. less of a load on the system than AVG free, which is saying something. there were a couple other reasons i switched over. one is that MSE has no popups or prompts to buy the “premium” version all the time…what you see is what you get, and the thing doesnt bother you. no subscriptions or renewals or blah blah etc. that is just refreshing. also, it handles rootkits, which AVG free does not. it also uses the Dynamic Signature Service, which can protect you from things that your definition list hasnt even added yet. from what i am seeing and reading so far, this is a top notch free antivirus option.
i am not sure of the web site. Will this protection run on windows vista 8? thank you.
so, has anyone tested Avira, Spybot, and malwarebytes with MSE?
I’ve made the switch over on all my computers, which had Avast and AVG Free installed. No annoying ads, no nagging to upgrade to a paid version, no pointless yearly registration plus a clean and simple user interface all combine to make this the best AV program I’ve tried.
For those that are having the freezing problem mentioned by Peter (I had it too), check out: http://decoupledmusings.blogsp.....ezing.html for the steps I took to remove the software.
As Peter mentioned, it sounds like it’s the firewall that may be causing the issue (this is the reported common culprit in many threads I’ve been seeing).
This review seems weak as it does not deal with features added by the product. Unfortunately I’ll have to install it to know what it is. The review leaves me unsure whether the product has a firewall or relies on the Windows firewall (which I won’t use). Those who use a separate ZoneAlarm firewall seem to collide with something in MSE but I need a software firewall. Also the review doesn’t mention if MSE will block changes to browser settings (such as Hosts file). Does the product rely on the OS for Parent Controls, if any? Does it block URLS which may be harmful, as an internet security suite would? Am I able to turn OFF the Automatic Update once the software turns it on (I always approve the OS patches myself instead of automatic)? On the basis of this weak review it seems a bit premature for the Geek to endorse this product when we don’t even know what features it’s attempting to provide. If it’s strictly AV and download protection, well, I don’t need just a weak solution like that, and I hope folk won’t uninstall more capable products to begin using a weak one.
Question about the complaints about the scanning speed: why is scanning speed a matter of concern? If the objective was to create a lightweight application do we care if it takes forever to scan in the background? It does scan in the brackground, doesn’t it?
It’s freezes my xp pc. So, i had to uninstall .. uninstalling took ages too
To Shelded:
I installed MSE and I am still able to decide what updates are installed. I agree with you as far as I like to know what’s installed by MS because some of their updates screwed my old XP computer up. With reguard to running other security software, I’m running SpyBot, Malwarebytes, and AVAST Home with no problems. I removed ALL ZoneAlarm software from my XP computer over a year ago when THEIR updates screwed up my system. I just could not figure out why Windows Defender kept being disabled with MSE. This site answered that question. Thanks GEEK!
I installed it. It caused my XP 32-bit to freeze. Completely unresponsive.
Started XP in Safe Mode just to get the program to open so I could examine the settings.
Beware…..it forces you to choose between two settings….Basic Membership or Advanced Membership in their “Microsoft Spynet” club. The program by default phones home, sending information to MS about any files you download or scan.
It is possible to opt out of this only by changing a registry setting, but by doing so MS claims it disables an important part of the program.
BIG BROTHER WILL WATCH YOU IF YOU INSTALL THIS.
I uninstalled it….am forced to go back to Norton, which (despite it being a resource hog) performed flawlessly on my machine.
MSE tells you that it will disable windows defender upson starting..Its suppose to. Because it works better than Defender..and does same thing.Should have two programs doing same work on your pc,its a no brainer that will cause problems. I love MSE on my XP pro.works great and leaves small footprint on running back ground programs. I went from 36 to 26 background programs just from ANG alone.MSE rated second best antivirus malware program last time I checked. Some want to blame unkept pcs on programs they install..sometimes its not the program..its messed up registries. No company designs programs to run on faulty pcs.
I run MSE and Malwarebytes together and have never had a problem with either of them.