Microsoft Security Essentials

Sun, 09/05/2010 - 12:22 |

sewen

Microsoft's "Security Essentials" replaces "Live OneCare", and in doing so uses a different method of securing your personal computer. The program is free with main security elements intact, but abandons the additional heft of a firewall, performance tuning, and back-up and restore choices. Within a clean and uncluttered interface, Security Essentials wraps antivirus and antispyware engines, rootkit protection, and real-time detection courtesy of Microsoft SpyNet, the unfortunately named cloud-based program that analyzes file behavior across computers.

The following steps show you how to install and use Microsoft's Security Essentials.

Step1: Go to the following URL: http://www.microsoft.com/security_essentials/default.aspx and click on the Download Now button.

Step2: From the dialog box below choose what version of Windows you are running.

Step3: Save the file to a folder that you can find later... maybe the Desktop.

Step4: Locate the file on your computer and double click on it.

Step5: Follow the instructions in the next several (4) dialog boxes, clicking the appropriate buttons to move on.

Step6: Now that you have MicroSoft's Security Essentials installed let it do its initial "fast" of your hard drive.

Step7: The concise, easy to understand controls.

There're four tabs, each with a concise, understandable label: Home, Update, History, and Settings. From Home it is easy to run a Quick Scan, Full Scan, or Custom Scan, and a hyperlink at the bottom of the pane lets you alter the scheduled scan. Inside the Settings window you can schedule scans, toggle normal actions, adjust real-time protection settings, and create whitelists. An Advanced option here is still fairly basic, permitting you to set Security Essentials to scan archives, removable drives, establish a system restore point, or permit all users to view the History tab. Security Essentials uses labels imported from OneCare: green for all good, yellow for warning, and red for an at-risk situation.

Step8: The scan indicated that I had 1 potential virus. I clicked on the "Show detail" link to see what files I needed cleaning, and then the Clean computer button.

Step9: MS Security Essentials finishes the san and computer cleaning with the following dialog box.

Any time you want to do a quick scan you can find MS Security Essentials sitting in the Task Bar (green flag with a check mark inside).

Impartial test numbers for Security Essentials were not available at the time of writing, even though OneCare scored high detection rates. For a real-world machine, the Quick Scan completed in less than 30 seconds. Benchmarking testing from CNET Labs reveal that Security Essentials actually makes starting up and closing down faster, but the Full Scan is much slower than numerous competitors. RAM usage was not insignificant, with 85 to 90MB used during a full scan, but it felt lighter. Security Essentials is basically a good set-it-and-forget-it security software, but if you want more options, you should look elsewhere.

Tags: Windows7