Windows 7 Microsoft Security Essentials

[john3347]

"Dear Beta User,
Thank you for participating in the Microsoft® Security Essentials Beta. Your participation has been instrumental to ensuring the best possible product release quality.
The final version of Microsoft Security Essentials will be released to the public in the coming weeks. If you are running the older version of the beta (1.0.1407.0), we encourage you to upgrade to a newer version of the beta (1.0.1500.0). To ensure a smoothest possible experience, please follow one of these options:
· Click on the ‘Upgrade Now’ button on the Microsoft Security Essentials Home tab. OR
· Select ‘Upgrade Microsoft Security Essentials’ under the Help drop-down menu
Thank you again for your participation in the Microsoft Security Essentials Beta!
Best regards,
Microsoft Security Essentials Team"



I have seen numerous queries as to when will Security Essentials go GA. This email dated today (SEP 21) is the first "official" notification I have seen on this subject. I will have to leave it to each of you who may read this as to what "in the coming weeks" consists of, but at least something has been published. Maybe "in the coming weeks" Security Essentials will become available to anyone who wants it. I certainly recommend it over any free antivirus currently available.

edit: If any of you are "chomping at the bits" for this new antivirus application, it is still available through Softpedia (You have to do a search after you get to Softpedia Windows section) and is updated just as the versions that were downloaded directly from the Microsoft website.

 

[artinusa]

Hi there I wonder if anyone can help me..I was updating my essentials 2 days ago when I got a message of an upgrade..went for it and now I can not upgrade install remove or reinstall essentials...error code 0x8004ff07. I sent a case issue to MS who went thro the standard routine etc but there is one key in the registry a path key that I can not remove or change permissions on or for etc... All keys for antimalware and essentias were painstakingly removed bar this one... Today I went to install and get a request to insert disk etc..so it will not do anything at all..any idea please

 

[Trouble]

Not sure if this will help, but the last time I saw a problem such as yours it actually had more to do with the previous anti virus product that was installed on the machine, then MSE. Do you recall what antivirus product you were using prior to MSE?
It may help if you download the proprietary removal tool for that specific product and run it to see if it can remove any problem remnants of the former product.
The only other thing that I can think of that may get you over the hump is, if you were running MSE v1, you might try downloading and attempting to install the latest MSE Beta for version 2 here
https://connect.microsoft.com/Downloads/Downloads.aspx?SiteID=861
you'll need a live id, it's relatively painless and straight forward, might be worth a try.

 

[artinusa]

Not sure if this will help, but the last time I saw a problem such as yours it actually had more to do with the previous anti virus product that was installed on the machine, then MSE. Do you recall what antivirus product you were using prior to MSE?
It may help if you download the proprietary removal tool for that specific product and run it to see if it can remove any problem remnants of the former product.
The only other thing that I can think of that may get you over the hump is, if you were running MSE v1, you might try downloading and attempting to install the latest MSE Beta for version 2 here
https://connect.microsoft.com/Downloads/Downloads.aspx?SiteID=861
you'll need a live id, it's relatively painless and straight forward, might be worth a try.

Thanks for the info..I had been using this for several months..and then on an upgrade..I had this problem...it still updates or at least says it does....waiting MS to come back to me..

 

[Heaven or Hell]

I found this thread so decided to ask in it instead of making a new one. Is this program (the free version, by the way) sufficient as an AV program? I'm not asking "is it good enough in most cases" because things like AVG free and Avast free would fall into that category (and both have failed me before), so MSE free would have to be better than them if it's going to be sufficient. Does the paid version of MSE provide more protection? Does anyone know any case of someone getting infected while using the free edition of MSE?

Thanks. I prefer not to pay money if MSE is going to provide me with the kind of protection that didn't have anyone complaining about.

 

[john3347]

I found this thread so decided to ask in it instead of making a new one. Is this program (the free version, by the way) sufficient as an AV program? I'm not asking "is it good enough in most cases" because things like AVG free and Avast free would fall into that category (and both have failed me before), so MSE free would have to be better than them if it's going to be sufficient. Does the paid version of MSE provide more protection? Does anyone know any case of someone getting infected while using the free edition of MSE?

Thanks. I prefer not to pay money if MSE is going to provide me with the kind of protection that didn't have anyone complaining about.

I don't think there is a paid version of MSE. MSE is getting wonderful reviews from editors and testers alike. I personally use MSE and have never gotten any false positives as I have with Avast free edition. I have, however, experienced ransomware that disables MSE and installs itself. (I am not a professional systems administrator or in any professional capacity. I am just relaying to you my personal experience using MSE on 4 to 6 computers since MSE became a free program.)

 

[Trouble]

I can only give my opinion and that is, that MSE is good and getting better. Will it make you bullet proof .... no, but I would place it easily on a par with other free offerings available to you. So saying that it is probably at least equal to most of the other free offerings makes the decision yours, if you like something else better then by all means use it. It is to some extent kind of subjective in that you will get different opinions from different folks.
But I believe to do better you would need to go with a commercial paid for offering from either Kaspersky or ESet (Nod32).
I have used MSE since it first became available and have found it satisfactory for the most part but as anyone will tell you, safe computing starts and ends with the user, you.