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Microsoft Security Essentials Beta Now Live!

If you had the update fail this morning, can I get a windowsupdate.log? Lives in the windows directory?

This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.
 
This is what I've got now:

mse.png


I didn't check the main program version before the update, and even if it was a 24.3MB download the entire process took like 7 seconds from the time I clicked to start the update to the time it told me it was done. MSE never "went offline" or stopped from what I can tell, so I can't say for sure if the app itself was updated or it was just a massive signature update, I have no idea.

All I know is it's still working, it says it's current, and that's that. ;)
 
Hmm...

I've got:

Microsoft Security Essentials Version: 1.0.2140.0
Antimalware Client Version: 2.0.5612.0
Engine Version: 1.1.5005.0
Antivirus definitions: 1.65.28.0
Antispyware definitions: 1.65.28.0

I installed it off a link here around two weeks ago.
 
That's the "unofficial" one that won't update the actual program/engine code as I understand it. Hit www.softpedia.com to get the "official" one - uninstall what you have and install that one, then it'll get the proper updates.
 
I just checked and grabbed the nice 453k definition update. This is more like it :) I did not see any 23 MB update.
 
dont know how i missed this thread...but is this "Microsoft Security Essentials" supposed to be the next big thing in antivirus/spyware protection?
 
dont know how i missed this thread...but is this "Microsoft Security Essentials" supposed to be the next big thing in antivirus/spyware protection?

You could say that its the next "small" thing in AV software. Its so small and light that it has virtually NO impact on system performance.
 
You could say that its the next "small" thing in AV software. Its so small and light that it has virtually NO impact on system performance.

haha yea the next "small" thing. so when hundreds of new threads on which is the best antivirus/spyware app people will say Microsoft security essential? lol
 
haha yea the next "small" thing. so when hundreds of new threads on which is the best antivirus/spyware app people will say Microsoft security essential? lol
Actually, so far we have ... so what's so funny? :confused:

:rolleyes:
 
To less-informed communities, he's right. If it has the Microsoft name on it it MUST be bad.
 
im happy with this software. i didnt get into the beta but i got it off torrent. I really like that it seems like its not even running
 
My update this morning was 655 KB, and that would include any updates over the weekend as well.

Call me a PITA if you must, but I still think 655KB is way too big. I mean, a 1000x1000 pix photo I emailed this morning was only 224KB.

The NOD32 files stamped with today's date are totaling up to 108KB... The actual signature itself was 100KB.


655KB is respectable, for sure. But when Eset is doing this with 100KB files I just don't understand the huge size of the other ones. Perhaps there is just that much new definitions that are going into the Beta product? I dunno.
 
655KB is respectable, for sure. But when Eset is doing this with 100KB files I just don't understand the huge size of the other ones. Perhaps there is just that much new definitions that are going into the Beta product? I dunno.
You're right, but the same argument can also be made about the memory usage. MsMpEng.exe and the MSE front end take almost 70MB. The anti malware product I have here at work takes about 11MB.

I think the argument more importantly is what you're getting for that. If the definition files are bigger because it detects more, then fine. If the memory usage is a lot more because it can detect more, faster, then fine. If you're not getting anything special for those extra's, then there's a reason to debate the quality of the product.

I would like to know why MSE uses a lot more memory than other AV products. Not that your computer suffers performance loss, since my benchmarking shows it has zero impact on perforamance. I just would like to know why it needs (or is using) more.
 
Exactly... It's not that this is great amounts, it's just the principle of the thing... If the competition uses so much less, then why is MSE using so much more?
 
Exactly... It's not that this is great amounts, it's just the principle of the thing... If the competition uses so much less, then why is MSE using so much more?

I can answer some of that. A lot of vendor's do scanning at a kernel level. Kernel usage won't show up in the taskmgr as memory usage, it will show as kernel memory usage. (You can see it with some extra tools, or a kernel debugger.)

I actually consider our memory usage and performance very well compared to the industry.

But again, some might call me biased. ;)

This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.
 
I can answer some of that. A lot of vendor's do scanning at a kernel level. Kernel usage won't show up in the taskmgr as memory usage, it will show as kernel memory usage. (You can see it with some extra tools, or a kernel debugger.)
Good information. Thanks!
 
It's also debatable whether or not WU actually reports the actual downloaded sizes... I'm sure it might be close but who knows...

I run an update mirror for NOD32, so the actual files that come from Eset are how I determine the NOD32 signatures that I post up.
 
I'm pleased with the detection rate but not very happy that MSE deleted some of my files that it flagged as having malicious content even though I explicitly selected "Allow" so that they would be left alone. Luckily they weren't important files, but I'd like to know why this occurred and I'm going to be extremely wary of selecting any actions at the end of a scan in the future if the program is just going to do what it wants to do anyway...

Don't flame just yet, I know everyone loves this software but I'd like to know why this happened to me (and if it's happened to anyone else).
 
I don't love it :D

My prior mentioned slowdowns and lockups due to MSE... Went back to NOD32 and it's been fine. I even watched a 8 minute YouTube video yesterday (Stuff that MSE LOVED to lock up on) and it went fine.
 
I'm pleased with the detection rate but not very happy that MSE deleted some of my files that it flagged as having malicious content even though I explicitly selected "Allow" so that they would be left alone. Luckily they weren't important files, but I'd like to know why this occurred and I'm going to be extremely wary of selecting any actions at the end of a scan in the future if the program is just going to do what it wants to do anyway...

Don't flame just yet, I know everyone loves this software but I'd like to know why this happened to me (and if it's happened to anyone else).

I do love it. Only had one problem with it while on Windows 7 RC, it became disabled. Other than that not another problem, and I never now that its running and I've tried it aginst a lot of test sites and it detected EVERYTHING. And I've tested preventing deletion a few times and that worked.

Compared to other AV products on the market I've not seen to many people have issues, save you and Techie. Since its caused me zero poblems I'm sticking with it.
 
I do love it. Only had one problem with it while on Windows 7 RC, it became disabled. Other than that not another problem, and I never now that its running and I've tried it aginst a lot of test sites and it detected EVERYTHING. And I've tested preventing deletion a few times and that worked.

Compared to other AV products on the market I've not seen to many people have issues, save you and Techie. Since its caused me zero poblems I'm sticking with it.

Glad it's working out for you. I'm not ditching it yet but when a program takes actions against my wishes it makes me want to investigate further. Hopefully it was just an isolated incident.
 
Glad it's working out for you. I'm not ditching it yet but when a program takes actions against my wishes it makes me want to investigate further. Hopefully it was just an isolated incident.

Agreed. Have you been able to replicate the issue?
 
Just have to give "mad reps" to MSE. Yesterday a colleague brought in a hard drive from a PC that would not complete booting up. Upon login, the XP Pro machine would sit at a solid blue desktop...no desktop icons would finish loading. System didn't lock up, as the mouse cursor was responsive. Safe mode..same symptoms.

Slaved the drive to a rig on our bench which has a ton of AV and scanner programs on it, we use for cleaning drives. Including MSE. I started browsing the users profile directory to clean temp files..and right away MSE started jumping up with alerts. After scanning with MSE and MalwareBytes..MSE found/deleted around 24 or so trojans, and MWB did 32.

The culprit was a new rogue variant/fake alert scareware called XP Deluxe Protector.
http://www.bleepingcomputer.com/virus-removal/remove-xp-deluxe-protector

The user was a heavy Facebook and Limewire user.

The funny part....his computer was protected by AVG..which let all of this stuff through! :D
 
AVG has been the sux for awhile now... But did you upload the virus itself to virustotal.com? I always like doing that to see exactly what AV products detect it and which ones do not.
 
AVG has been the sux for awhile now... But did you upload the virus itself to virustotal.com? I always like doing that to see exactly what AV products detect it and which ones do not.

Yes it has...we have to clean quite a few computers which users had AVG on.

Nah was very rushed yesterday, didn't upload the new variant....would have been neat to see who could detect it, but sometimes just ain't got the time. (MSE was deleting things as it found them)
 
Agreed. Have you been able to replicate the issue?

No, haven't had time to try yet (working 60-70 hrs this week on a network upgrade and just have time to briefly skim the forums on breaks at work).

It would be hard to replicate it since any files that it deemed to be infected were deleted, so right now my machine looks clean to MSE. Well, I take that back; I think I selected "Allow" for some VNC installers that it flagged as a potentially malicious remote access tool (as a lot of scanners do) and it might have actually left those intact. But after reviewing the logs, and my directory structures, I am positive that it removed some files that I wanted to keep. I just selected "Allow" for some files that I wanted to keep and "Remove" for ones I genuinely thought might contain some nasties. Yet some of the files I selected to Allow were hosed by MSE.

Maybe after this week I will be able to test further by putting some questionable files in a single directory and having MSE scan it. I'll select "Allow" for everything and see if any files get deleted. Or I could try selecting "Remove" and see if it leaves them, but I'm not really worried about that as if MSE won't delete a file I have multiple other ways of doing it myself. However, if it deletes a file that I want to keep and I don't have a backup, getting that file back might prove difficult to impossible.

Oh, and I agree that AVG sucks. I don't trust it anymore. I think it has sucked beginning with version 8 and I now consider Avira Anti-Vir, Avast, and maybe even Comodo Antivirus superior products. I think Comodo's firewall is terrific, albeit very verbose, and would be interested in seeing how the AV component rates in terms of detection and removal ability.
 
I was remotely fixing a relative's machine last week. they were running Norton 360 with up to date files. They had run a full scan and found nothing. Looked through task manager and identified an unkown exe, gra.exe. Killed the loading registry entries. Zipped the files up to full them to my workstaion to ake a deeper look at it, MSE flagged teh zipped files immediately.

Really gave me a warm fuzzy about Norton. Like my experiences with Symantec Enpoint Protection 11 and its huge kernel paged pool footprint hadn't put me off Symantec already on x32 systems....
 
Really gave me a warm fuzzy about Norton. Like my experiences with Symantec Enpoint Protection 11 and its huge kernel paged pool footprint hadn't put me off Symantec already on x32 systems....
I agree, Norton sucks. I'm working on a system now and still cleaning out registry entries from their damn network driver. The program isn't even installed anymore. The removal tool's keep giving me out of date errors so it's manual from here out.

Norton is some of the most bloated, system crippling software I've ever seen.
AVG has been the sux for awhile now... But did you upload the virus itself to virustotal.com? I always like doing that to see exactly what AV products detect it and which ones do not.
AVG detection is OK but their software is pretty shitty performance wise. To much overhead.
 
I agree, Norton sucks. I'm working on a system now and still cleaning out registry entries from their damn network driver. The program isn't even installed anymore. The removal tool's keep giving me out of date errors so it's manual from here out.

Norton is some of the most bloated, system crippling software I've ever seen.
AVG detection is OK but their software is pretty shitty performance wise. To much overhead.

Agreed Norton was that way in those OLD versions. However, if you read the recent reviews for Norton Security Suite 2009 and soon 2010 you will see they have MUCH improved. In fact, Maximum PC magazine said it was one of the best in their findings and was surprised by the results. It now is much smaller footprint, has new detection methods in 2010 suite and works better overall. After trying the beta on Win 7 RC I found it to be quite nice and may end up using it once it is final or maybe Avira.

MSE may be good when final too, but others have reported issues, especially the deleting files when told not to. I think it will be fixed though when released and then can compare the three at that time.
 
If you've been sucking for years, causing as much headache as you've caused... It's going to take a few very excellent rounds of products to make up for it.
 
Is there any word on when this product is expected to be released as final? I also can't find a definitive answer as to whether or not it scans POP3/IMAP e-mail.
 
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