I have been running Microsoft Security Essentials for a few weeks nowMicrosoft appears happy to categorise MSE as antimalware rather than antivirus. This would explain why the antivirus component of Administrative Tools in XP systems is primarily an avast responsibility. Accordingly, where avast is resident antivirus, Windows concerns itself primarily with system. And where MSE is also resident, alongside avast, no changes occur in the allocation of antivirus duties, despite that MSE is also in on the hunt for virus - alongside avast. And granted that these are very early days for MSE.
The relevant registry entries for MSE are recorded as antimalware --
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Microsoft Antimalware\
Likewise the path on C:\ drive --
C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\Microsoft\Microsoft Antimalware\
Event log for MSE is found in --
C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\Microsoft\Microsoft Antimalware\Support
I have only briefly looked through the log. It is long, and as yet I do not know what is represented.
There are some issues with auto updates.http://social.answers.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/mseupdate/thread/da5f6761-28c2-4541-aefa-1801470b3150I have found this to be the case with the running of MSE on my XP system. I encountered update irregularities. Firstly, however, I had needed to tidy up my computer before I could accurately assess the running of MSE (as I posted above). I thought initially that auto updates would fall back into an orderly pattern once the computer had been returned to good running. But there has continued to be a few hiccups. Though fair to say, MSE continues to be an integral part of my desktop defence.
I have MSE set to run a scan 9am every day. By default XP will bypass the scan if the computer has been turned off, is not connected, or I think also at times if the operating system is in use. Bypass, however, does not rule as a failure to scan. I did notice one scan commencing at 9.40am and another at 9.20am. Turning on the computer also appears to sometimes start a scan, though I have not looked closely at this as yet (I have only noticed in retrospect - from the log). The scans are all quick scans. Yet I do feel reassured by this roving kind of activity.
I initially set MSE to look for updates prior to the daily scan. I noticed that I missed a few updates, and not only when I missed a scan. So I changed the setting to what I thought would be auto updates, whenever available, the same way that avast does it's updates. But MSE updates differently. Default setting is to search for updates at 8 hour intervals. By searching for updates just prior to scan time, I may have been restricting myself from auto updates that fell outside that setting. And this perhaps until I managed to synchronise a correct scan session. I also became worried that my setting might overrule all other options altogether. So I took off the updates setting, just leaving the daily scan.
Auto updates still do not appear to be stable - the way that avast are - so I update manually each time that I boot into Windows.
Another issue with updates is that it does make a difference if your computer is turned on and connected 24/7. This is the best condition under which to run MSE on your XP system. You can set the system to look for updates at hourly intervals, so as not to have to wait too long when updates are available. You do this in the registry (find directions in the link above). But this is not absolutely necessary as updates rarely occur as anything more frequent than daily affairs.
But I update manually instead and that seems to do the trick. Because I am unable to leave the computer on and connected 24/7, I have opted for the I hour intervals Just for those times when I forget to update manually.
Despite the above, I dont find the updating to be a worry and I am reasonably happy with the performance of MSE to date. I do feel that I have a resident second opinion. On top of that I find the regularity of the avast updates to be very comnforting, and avast does come across as a bit of a heavyweight for once, when positioned alongside MSE.
Apparently the bugs are going be fixed for the next release of MSE.
Other than that, so far, so good.
