Microsoft Security Essentials is a new, free consumer anti-malware solution for your computer. It helps protect against viruses, spyware, and other malicious software. It’s available as a no-cost download for home users and is now available for small business users up to ten clients. Microsoft Security Essentials has been tested to work on Windows XP SP2 and higher, Windows Vista, and Windows 7.
Why should I download Microsoft Security Essentials?
- Comprehensive protection—Microsoft Security Essentials helps defend your computer against spyware, viruses, worms, Trojans, and other malicious software.
- Easy to get, easy to use—Because Microsoft Security Essentials is available at no cost, there’s no registration process that requires billing or personal information collection. It installs after a quick download and Genuine Windows validation and then stays automatically up-to-date with the latest protection technology and signature updates.
- Quiet Protection—Microsoft Security Essentials doesn’t get in your way. It runs quietly in the background and schedules a scan when your computer is most likely idle. You only see alerts when you need to take action.
Microsoft Security Essentials security status
Microsoft Security Essentials has a clean, simple home page that shows the security state of your computer.
A green icon means that the security status of your computer is good. Microsoft Security Essentials is up -to- date and is running in the background to help protect your computer against malware and other malicious threats.
When your computer has an issue that requires your attention, the look of the Microsoft Security Essentials home page changes based on the issue. The status pane turns either yellow or red depending on the situation, and an action button appears in a prominent location on the page with the suggested action.
A yellow icon means that status is fair or potentially unprotected and that you should take some action, such as turning on real-time protection, running a system scan, or addressing a medium-severity or low-severity threat.
A red icon means that your computer is at risk and that you must address a severe threat to protect it. Click the button to take the recommended action and Microsoft Security Essentials will clean the detected file and then do a quick scan for additional malicious software.
For more product information and to download the product, visit Microsoft Security Essentials.
Keep in mind
At this time, Microsoft Security Essentials is not compatible with “Vail” or “Aurora” and we do not recommend that you install Microsoft Security Essentials on these early versions. We will, of course, keep you and our other valued customers up-to-date on this matter. Read more about today’s events from Eric Foster at Microsoft’s Blog.
In conclusion
I would just like to point out that Microsoft Security Essentials did well on the anti-virus standard testing. Though it is not the top rated product it does offer a simple interface and a cheap solution to small business users. That being said there are benefits of centralized anti-virus solutions in the business world. Being able to push out updates and seeing what has affected whom to me seems much more of a solution then getting a shout across the room from an end user or in a worst case scenario none at all, only to have them try to handle the infection themselves. In my testing with MSE I have noticed, on occasion that, when a malicious event is caught that there is a strong potential for it to shut off all internet access to that machine. This in itself might not be the solution you were looking for.
My name is Stephen Koochis and I live in NJ and I am and IT consultant for multiple small businesses dealing with a user base from five to fifty. I will be contributing to HSL’s overall content and providing informative reviews on different technologies. This was merely a news event that I felt needed a little more information added to it for those considering its use. I hope to provide HSL and its community with incredible information in the future from the most credible sources. I hope to become a “look to guy” from the community and look forward to promoting HSL as the single most informative WHS resource on the web.
More: blogs.msdn.com