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No information on where to sign up for the beta program?

Would it still work if you managed to obtain it, even though you were in the UK?

The MSE website is now up, www.microsoft.com/security_essentials. But clicking on the download link only takes you to a Microsoft Connect page that is not yet setup for MSE downloads. Still an hour away from the official launch time so I guess I'll be patient.

Possibly, realtestman, if you're running the US-localized Windows (with the funny way words are spelt here, etc) and have a US-based live ID. But more likely, you hit UK-based update servers which say "Huh?".

I want to try this but I guess I won't be able to. I registered with Connect but now I'm getting a message about the invitation belonging to another registered account. I think it might be something to do with the Windows 7 RC registration.

Oh, well... I guess I'll just wait for the RTM. I'm okay with OneCare but since MS said OC won't work in Win7, I have to switch once I get a new PC.

www.microsoft.com/.../default.aspx

I tried it a few times this morning, and it kept telling me that my invitation already was used by someone else.  But I just clicked the "Get it now" button again, and this time, it took me to a survey, then to the download page.

Seems it may have gotten out an hour early ;)

Yep. Seems to be available now.

Not available in Canada? But it's available in

China and Brazil? Give me a break!

It doesn't seem to me like there's a 75,000 limit.

Has anyone else downloaded this who already downloaded the leaked version last week?  It appears that the build number of this public beta version is EARLIER than the leaked build.  

I'm seeing build 1.0.1407.0 for the public beta and build 1.0.2140.0 for the leaked version of last week.  

When I try to install the public beta it tells me that a newer version of Security Essentials is already installed.  Anyone else seeing this?  Why is Microsoft giving the public an outdated build?

The beta is live now from the Connect portal. I am downloading the XP, x86/x64 Vista/Seven builds right now.

The question is, is the beta capped at 75,000 downloads, or 75,000 activations following the download and installation?

Thoughts, Paul?

my *guess* is, it's capped at 75,000 USERS...looks like they activate the MSE "channel" of your Connect profile, but then once you're one of the users with that channel, YOU can download it as much as you want, for as long as they leave it up.

There wasn't an activation (at least, not a visible one) once I installed the software, but then again, neither could it update my definitions the first time.  So maybe I just haven't gotten to that part yet.

Just downloaded it, looking forward to using it.

Does anybody know if this software will eventually move to the server side, or if it can be used on Windows Servers?

While going through the settings, I noticed that you cannot exclude server drives from being scanned.  Could add some time if they are included by default.  

The drives do appear when using a custom scan.

Was also thinking about something....

I had symantec before which disabled windows defender.  This product does antivirus and antispyware, so we shouldn't need defender anymore.  Has anyone noticed if after the install defender was removed or disabled?

De Silentio, my uninformed guess would be that MS would prefer to sell you ForeFront for your servers.

my Windows Defender on Win7 reported it had been turned off about halfway through the install of WSE

(my comment above was directed at CyBrett)

CyBrett, MSE is a superset of and replaces Defender

CyBrett

As I understand it, Security Essentials incorporates Defender and replaces the separate version when it is installed.

I installed MSE today on Vista x86 and Windows 7 RC1 x86 after registering with the Microsoft Connect website. There are three installers; one for 32 bit XP, one for 32 bit Vista & Windows 7, and one for 64 bit Vista & Windows 7. Apparently 64 bit XP is not supported.

The latest build is 1.0.1407.0 which is seemingly older then the leaked build. It immediately updates signatures after installing (and validating), which only took a couple of minutes with a broadband connection. It then wants to do a quck scan, but there is the option to cancel the scan.  With regard to Windows Defender, in both Windows 7 and Vista it is still listed as an installed program (in the Security Center and Action Center respectively), but its' status is OFF.

@CyBrett: "While going through the settings, I noticed that you cannot exclude server drives from being scanned.  Could add some time if they are included by default."  

This can also reduce server performance in a large network.  Imagine 700 desktops reading files from a shared network drive.

I got it! Hmm... I wonder what was going on that I kept getting that message about using someone else's invite??

Going to install now...

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This is what I got from a *not so* legit source install:

Microsoft Security Essentials Version:  1.0.2140.0

Antimalware Client Version: 2.0.5612.0

Engine Version: 1.1.4803.0

Antivirus definitions: 1.61.206.0

Antispyware definitions: 1.61.206.0

Note: there is no sign of beta/rc/test anywhere (besides the EULA). This seems to be a 1.0 product.

Product is stable and light on Win7 x64.

MSE features and bootless and blisteringly fast install process.

The recommended "Quick Scan" after install took 6 mins and 18 secs to scan a 1 TB drive!

Though I will miss WLOC very much - MSE preserves what I loved most about WLOC. It was silent, fast and it worked. Loved the ability to mange two of my adult childrens' laptops remotely in the context of security. Damn shame to see WLOC go!

I managed to get MSE quite easily downloading the x64 bit version in less than a minute. Install was lighting quick and MSE immediately began updating signatures. I'm running the scan right now. It seems to play nicely alongside AVG. 11 minutes into the scan, a little over half of my hard drive has been scanned.

So far its very lighweight and moves rather quickly. If this is what Microsoft has in mind, I'll have to see how better it is versus other products. However, from my first impressions, this seems to be a great, compact, lightweight, and fast antivirus/antispyware solution. If it can perform better than the other freebies, I might have to consider it as a replacement for AVG. However, I reserve final judgement until we get some more verdicts and testing on MSE's effectiveness.

well hello everyone first time post Long time reader..

just do a search for ms security essentials.. works in aus i didnt have any issues in getting it from ms connect

subzero

It is a VERY BAD idea to run two antivirus products at the same time.

I want it, but I'll wait, as I did with Vista, to see what kind of consensus develops around the product.

Can anyone recommend a good home hardware firewall?  I'm using an old router now, and want to upgrade...

@de silento

That's what I meant.  You would want to exclude these locations from scans.

One other thing I noticed is that there's no way via the app to see the scan history.  I ran a full scan on my system and wanted to post the statistics, but when I went to the home screen the stats were gone.  Trying to find the log file now.

I got it just now at 1pm. First try and d/l in about a minute.  Looks good.

Yes, do not run two antivirus products at the sametime.

@CyBrett

Hopefully MS includes Group Policy configurations for it.  Otherwise, that is a hefty configuration policy.  I know that this is probably not meant to be used in a medium sized network environment, but it is hard to pass up a free client that is truly free (no advertisements for pro versions and the like).

@Myself: "Otherwise, that is a hefty configuration policy."

I meant, using this in a network environment will be a hefty configuration.

I just installed MSE (I had to first uninstall OneCare) and it all went w/out a glitch. The first, quickscan took about 7 minutes.

Has anyone run a full scan? I'm guessing scanning times will vary due to the number of files in a user's computer?

BTW is the Windows XP firewall any good? OneCare had it's own firewall (Right?) and I thought it was great. I was alerted when an unknown program, or one that wasn't in the allowed list would try to connect to the Internet.

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techfan,

I wouldn't recommend the XP firewall. If possible you'd definitely would not want to rely on it for any reason. Find a good third party solution if possible.

techfan

There were more than one firewall shipped with Windows XP. The initial one was a one-way firewall. That got replaced by a two-way firewall with SP2.

The SP2 and later firewall is reasonable.

@realtestman, techfan, techman.merb, anyone else:

I downloaded it at ~11:20am EDT today.

If you already have a Connect login, you can download it regardless of where you live AFAIK.  I have a Windows Live ID for Connect that has always had Canada as the country, and I didn't have any problems adding it to my Connect Dashboard from the directory of available beta signups on the site.

It seems only the /security_essentials site has the region check.  Connect doesn't.  So download away!

@johnbaxter:

MSE uses the same update servers as Forefront Client Security (and OneCare), so if FCS is available in your country, MSE will work too.

@subzero Mike is right its a very bad idea to run multiple AV packages.

MS bought there way into this market.  They bought the company that made Defender and they bought Sabari the makers of Antigen which was considered one of the best Exchange AV software around.

Its all Forefront technology now.  This is just a watered down version of the Forefront client.  Probably same scanning engine.  Defender was even less of the same tech.

Lots of third party AV software would turn off Defender during their install.

Found something interesting.  I was poking around in the registry and found a key that appears to control how much the scanner actually throttles back the processor.  By default it's set to 50 percent and on average when running a scan, the process is using about 50 percent.  I changed the key to be lower and it throttled back the process even more.  This might be useful to admins of lower end machines that need the computer useable during a scan.  The key is located at:

Computer\HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Microsoft Antimalware\Scan\AvgCPULoadFactor

In order to change it, you have to take ownership and give yourself permission.

"Can anyone recommend a good home hardware firewall?  I'm using an old router now, and want to upgrade..."

Any router with a SPI firewall is more than sufficient, if you use it with a software firewall like what Windows already has.  I agree with Mike that the XP SP2 firewall is just fine, as software firewalls go.  You can tell a 1-way firewall from a 2-way firewall, since a 2-way firewall will ask if programs should be allowed to access the internet.

"I was alerted when an unknown program, or one that wasn't in the allowed list would try to connect to the Internet."

That's what XP SP2's firewall does too.  It IS a 2-way firewall.  OneCare just takes away the control from the Windows component and does it itself, so the user can see the status from a central program.  It's just like how the auto-defrag is done by OneCare in Vista, even though Vista already does auto-defrag.  Ditto for backup.

A firewall just needs to block unnecessary network traffic though.  You don't really need anything special as far as that goes.  Anybody trying to hack into your system would more than likely try an operating system hole over a standard open port, rather than hack a closed port, so it's probably more important to make sure your OS is secure first and foremost by installing security updates.

"Hopefully MS includes Group Policy configurations for it.  Otherwise, that is a hefty configuration policy.  I know that this is probably not meant to be used in a medium sized network environment, but it is hard to pass up a free client that is truly free (no advertisements for pro versions and the like)."

You need Forefront Client Security for that.

It's about $12US per computer, per year, and needs to be purchased through a Microsoft volume license agreement with a minimum of 5 licenses.

The management console costs extra (a LOT extra actually), but it's optional.  It also requires a very hefty and expensive SQL Server setup for monitoring and reporting and such.

That is the supported option for businesses.  Business will get direct support from Microsoft as part of their agreement.  MSE is designed for consumers.

The technology is the same though.  MSE is just a repainted, consumer version of the client agent program from Forefront Client Security 2.0 - that's where the agent version comes from.

If you want to use MSE in a business environment, I would only recommend it in completely unmanaged environments (no AD server) of less than 10 computers.  You don't want to deal with support calls because it's not centrally managed and several machines are down.  Be aware that MSE will not likely have mainstream support for any business environment though, so if you have problems, you should remember what I told you before you consider calling Microsoft.

"This is just a watered down version of the Forefront client.  Probably same scanning engine.  Defender was even less of the same tech."

It's the same actually.  I wouldn't call it watered down either.  AV-Comparatives rated Forefront as the best AV in the last comparative test.  OneCare, FCS, and MSE all use the same definitions and scanning engine.  Defender does too, except that it lacks virus-scanning.

It's the Forefront Client Security agent, without the management components for connection to the management server.  And it has a consumer-friendly installer.  It's not that hard of a concept to grasp.

The current FCS agent is just Defender + Antivirus + management components.  The UI is the same.

"This might be useful to admins of lower end machines that need the computer useable during a scan."

Admins should schedule scans during off-hours, and have the program initiate repairs automatically, or else quarantine the system until they can investigate the problem.

@subzerohitman721: MSE allows third-party firewalls? Won't it detect Windows's firewall and stop the installation?

@mikegalos@msn.com: I'm using Windows XP SP3. I really liked that prompt OC gave when a newly installed program tried to access the Web. I mean, I liked it because I knew what program had access to the Web w/out first asking for permission.

@Waethorn: I think my Connect issue was that I used a WL ID but registered my ISP's email address and had to first verify it. I did verify it but somehow right after I verified the email address, I still kept getting a message about trying to use an invite meant for someone else.

I thought OC had its own firewall. I didn't know it just used the built-in one.

Thanks for the info dudes! Mucho appreciated.

"MSE allows third-party firewalls? Won't it detect Windows's firewall and stop the installation?"

MSE doesn't include a firewall.  Just antivirus and antimalware protection.

"I thought OC had its own firewall. I didn't know it just used the built-in one."

OneCare has it's own firewall.  It doesn't use the Windows Firewall - it turns it off during install.  It's just that the Windows Firewall (since XP SP2) and OneCare's own firewall are nearly identical, except that XP SP2's firewall doesn't have the location setting for Private/Public (did that change in XP SP3, anyone?).  Vista's firewall does.  Mike could probably point out a few other additional differences though.

"I think my Connect issue was that I used a WL ID but registered my ISP's email address and had to first verify it. I did verify it but somehow right after I verified the email address, I still kept getting a message about trying to use an invite meant for someone else."

Try a Hotmail address instead.  That should work.

I have deleted AVG and only have one anti-virus running. Since I've ran Defender and AVG side by side, I was seeing if the two would conflict with each other.

So far, there was no conflicts and the two ran just fine.

However, just as a precaution, I removed AVG while I test MSE.

The XP firewall especially in the upgraded SP2 and SP3 are decent. There are higher rated third party firewalls that definitely are better. Anyone still using XP shouldn't be depend on the XP Firewall. The Vista firewall is very good and the third party option isn't as critical in my opinion.

Between Windows 7 and Windows Vista firewalls, I would recommend that home users have routers with built in hardware firewall. Between the software and the hardware, that should give most folks the kind of defense needed. Also, not browsing stupidly, having up to date browser, and good antivirus/antispyware should also keep most folks safe.

"Anyone still using XP shouldn't be depend on the XP Firewall. The Vista firewall is very good and the third party option isn't as critical in my opinion."

Aside from the difference that Vista has the location setting for firewall, I would like to know what you think is different between the Vista firewall and the XP SP2 firewall.

Yup, I live in Canada and had no problems downloading MSE with my Connect ID.

Third party firewalls are BS.  You can run windows fine these days if you have the following...

1.  Automatic updates on.

2. Like Wae said a hardware firewall in your home router, one the that does SPI - stateful packet inspection.

3. Free AV, probably this new one will be fine.

4. Dont be stupid and turn off the firewall or UAC.

5. Practice safe computing.

1 and 2 alone probably block 98% of crap.

@Waethorn: I don't see a setting to change the location, so I guess that option isn't included in the XP SP3 firewall.

I have a Hotmail account but don't use. For better or worst, I switched to Gmail. Connect accepted my Live ID but in the option to use a different email address than the one associated with the Live ID, I went with the one I used when I bought OC.

This is basically a re-branding of one of the worse rated security packages on the market, OneCare.

@Waethorn: Saying that it did well in the May AV-comparatives test is misleading, since that was part 2 of a two-part report. It was focused on new/emerging threats.

Part 1 (Feb) was focused on known threats that appeared for several months previous to the test. It did horribly on that one, as it has in the past.

So it's good on false positives and emerging threats only.

@robertsjoe:

Wake up and smell the roses.

Ed Bott on OneCare:

"... Microsoft scored dismal test results in the early days of OneCare, hitting a nadir in 2007, but its record has improved dramatically since. A new study (May 2009) by the independent AV-Comparatives group gave Microsoft OneCare (which shares the same engine and signatures as MSE) its highest (Advanced+) rating. Only 3 of the 16 products in the test earned that rating. Microsoft’s technology scored second in the accuracy ratings, behind AVIRA but ahead of AVG, Symantec, McAfee, and a dozen other products. And on the crucial measure of delivering the fewest false positives, Microsoft stood far ahead of the pack, delivering the fewest false positives of any program tested."

www.av-comparatives.org

"In the most recent round of tests from the independent ICSA Labs, Microsoft’s technology passed, while McAfee’s VirusScan family joined several smaller competitors on the FAIL list."

www.icsalabs.com/.../topic.php$95695e0b-40700fe6$8dd1-8fc093ea"

Why are you still on this site today? Don't you have some fruithead conclave to attend to hail the second [well, third] coming of your lord and savior?

I just installed it and its seems pretty svelte, 4080K running a quick scan seems about 25% better than Antivir, hopefully it works as well. I got sick of the nag screens with Avira anyway, especially while playing a game.

Little off topic but staying with Morro or now MSE.  I just read the article that Paul wrote "Why Does Microsoft Charge for Security?".  Does it seem that as a whole the computer industry has shunned the idea of making money off hard work developing a product?  A quote from the article; "Maybe it's me, but it seems like there's a big gulf between free and unmanaged on the one hand (MSE) and expensive but managed on the other (FCS). In keeping with the theme of last week's commentary, Google Rains on Microsoft's Exchange Parade, I think Microsoft is going to have to adapt its pricing strategy to meet the pricing of competitors like Google.".  It seems like everything in the computer industry is trying to adapt the "Free" aspect associated with Open Source to everything in the computer industry.  We can now buy loaded computers for 650.00 dollars and we are complaining about 12/yr anti-virus software.  While I love the fact that i can now buy super cheap computers and that everyone is trying to make software cheaper and cheaper.  But in reality we as consumers lose out and eventually the industry as a whole will fail, due to the fact that everyone wants "Free" or cheap as possible. Dell is one of the largest computer resellers and they are struggling because there is no profits to be made. I have a Packard Bell 486 computer that still runs as good as the day i bought it.  Can you say that you have a computer that was bought in the last 4 years that was 400-700 dollars that actually still runs?  The quality of the parts have significantly been reduced to meet the demand of "Super Cheap".  And as far as software, I actually prefer to pay for Windows and Office software than to use say Linux and Open Office.  I may be the minority, but this is a case where i say you get what you pay for.  Are we really complaining about Anti-Virus software for 12 dollars a year for business and "Free" for personal use.  Really?

@whiplash55: That's not the main process. Look for msmpeng.exe once you tell TaskMan to show all processes. It's typically in the 30MB-50MB range, which is well above the standard set by some other AV. It also takes a disturbing amount of CPU time (20 mins for me so far today on maybe 8 hours of running the program--and not doing any scanning, either). That's not even comparable to my last AV.

Finally dumped the McAfee Beta program and installed the MSE.. have tried Kaspersky (beta) when 7 launched and it took many resources and bothered me many times .. when I found McAfee has its beta as well ... dumped Kaspersky and McAfee is a fine software in my opinion.. it ran fine without any issues so far.. ..  I hope MSE meets my expectations and doesn't bother me much!

BTW, I am able to download and install here in India!

@Waethorn "you should remember what I told you before you consider calling Microsoft."

I would never call Microsoft for support.  Doesn't seem like the right thing to do for some reason.  If I can't figure something out, Google can.

Regarding MSE in a medium sized network:

I understand that MSE isn't a business option, but it could still be useful in a medium sized network if a only a small anti-malware client is needed.

I work in possibly one of the worst markets for security at the desktop, k-12 education.  However, I have taken measures to prevent viruses and maleware at the Internet gateway and from USB flash drives, the two biggest malware problem areas.

So, this leaves me with the need for only a small client that will most likely never even see a virus.  Yeah, it would be better to have a centerally managed client.  But when you weigh the financial cost with the benifit from a centerally manage client thats not really needed, it ends up looking like money is being thrown away.

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