Guide to Microsoft Security Essentials
Written by Alan Monday, 14 December 2009 08:00
Recently Microsoft release their own anti-virus program called Microsoft Security Essentials, which you can download HERE. It’s free and works with Windows 7, Vista and XP. While there are other free anti-virus programs out there I have found this one very good and have used it to replace the free AVG that I was using on all of my PC’s. So, once you’ve downloaded and installed Security Essentials, what then? Let’s take a look at it.
1. First let’s look at the home screen. It’s very simple. Four tabs across the top: “Home”, “Update”, “History”, and “Settings”. We are starting on Home. The main part of the screen shows your status. Below you can see that we up-to-date and protection is turned on. Finally, in the right column you have to ability to start as scan – either Quick, Full, or Custom. Quick and Full are self-explanatory. Custom gives you the ability to choose what you want scanned. Maybe you just downloaded a program that makes you a little nervous, then you use Custom to scan that folder before you run the installer.
2. Now let’s click Update and see what’s there. Again, this a is a nice simple screen. It tells us we are up-to-date and gives the dates of our current definition files.
3. Next we’ll click the History tab. This simply shows you viruses and spyware, if any, has been found on your PC. And, also, let’s you allow certain programs/files to work if they have been flagged as virus or spyware in error.
4. And finally, let’s move to the Settings tab. This one has more going on than the previous 3, but it’s still fairly simple. You’ll notice a column on the left from which you can choose items. The first is Schedule scan of your PC. This should be set by default, but you may want to change the time. I have mine set to run at 2am when it won’t interfere with any other PC use.
5. Next is Default actions. Unless you’re an advanced user leave this one alone.
6. Then comes Real-time protection. All boxes are checked by default and I recommend leaving them that way.
7. Below that are Excluded files & locations, Excluded file types, and Excluded processes. It’s unlikely you’ll have a need to run a file that has been flagged as malware so you probably have no need for these. If you do then please consult more advanced sources before continuing.
8. Next to last is Advanced, which is a surprisingly unadvanced screen. There are 4 checkboxes and 3 are checked by default. The one that isn’t is Scan removable drives. I would advise checking this one also and that will allow scanning of external drives.
9. Finally we come to Microsoft SpyNet. Here there are 2 choices. By default you are set to Basic membership and there’s no reason to change that. However if you don’t have a problem with sending more personal information to Microsoft then you can switch at Advanced membership. I will leave that choice up to you.
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