Microsoft Security Essentials Review
Part 2

Return to Part 1 of Microsoft Security Essentials Review.

Using MSE

For those who are curious, there are a few things to look at in the MSE application interface. It, too, is incredible simple. The application itself consists of a Windows Defender-like UI, with multiple tabs and big, obvious buttons. (MSE replaces Windows Defender, by the way, since it provides a superset of Defender's capabilities.) There's also a tray icon (hidden by default in Windows 7) and you can quickly scan any folder or file by right-clicking it in Explorer and choosing the new "Scan with Microsoft Security Essentials" option that appears in the pop-up menu.

But back to that application window. MSE follows the familiar protection metaphor that proved so popular with OneCare: When you're protected, you're green, and all is well. MSE is up to date and running properly in the background.

As with OneCare, there are two other possible colors that denote different levels of distress. You'll see a yellow warning when the computer is "potentially unprotected," such as when your malware signatures are out of date or you need to address a low or medium severity threat. If it's red, well, something went horribly wrong and you may actually have to deal with the MSE UI because there is a high or severe threat.

Jumping around the various tabs in the application UI, you'll see the following basic options.

Home. Here, you can trigger quick, full, and custom scans, and ensure that real-time protection is on and everything is up to date.

Update. This tab lets you manually trigger a signature update.

History. Here, you can view any items that have been detected and quarantined since you first installed MSE.

Settings. From this multifaceted UI, you can configure various MSE features, including whether to run a scheduled scan and, if so, when. There's a lot to potentially configure, but MSE pretty much ships in an ideally configured state and most people can safely ignore this.

And ... that's pretty much it.

I've been using various pre-release versions of Microsoft Security Essentials on all of my Windows 7-based PCs since mid-May, and I switched to the final code almost two weeks ago, and I've never had any issues. What I have noticed is that the product lives up to Microsoft's claims about being small and light--there's been no performance impact at all, including on a low-ball Celeron-based UMPC with just 1 GB of RAM--and being far less "chatty" than OneCare. I really liked Windows Live OneCare, but its constant need to alert me about things I really didn't need to know about was an irritation. Meanwhile, MSE has never popped up a single message in my real world use on several different machines. Yay!

Availability

The final version of Microsoft Security Essentials is now available. I did ask whether MSE would ever be made part of Windows. It will not. Instead MSE will be distributed solely via the Microsoft web site. Also, top-tier PC makers like HP and Dell will almost certainly not be bundling MSE with their computers. The reason is that these companies are paid by AV vendors to include trial or limited-time versions of their products and Microsoft will not be paying to promote a free product.

Final thoughts

There's been a lot of interest in Microsoft Security Essentials and I think it will prove quite a hit with users. It's free, effective, lightweight, and quiet and is, in other words, exactly what I'm looking for in a security solution. And it comes with no strings at all. As long as you're running a genuine Windows version, you can install this product without worrying about up-sell advertisements, yearly renewals, or other silliness. And you can do so on as many Windows-based PCs as you own. I'd like to see it just included with Windows, but what the heck: Free and easy is the next best thing. Microsoft Security Essentials is highly recommended, to all Windows users.

--Paul Thurrott
September 29, 2009

My rating

Download Microsoft Security Essentials

Microsoft Security Essentials will ship publicly on Tuesday, September 29, 2009. Find out more on the Microsoft web site.

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