Microsoft Security Essentials – Free Anti-Virus

Microsoft Security Essentials is the FREE antivirus that I recommend and can run on Windows XP , Vista and Windows 7.

On Windows 8 it is already installed and is called Windows Defender. 

So who would switch to this and why.

Well if you run one of the alternative free software antivirus ( AVG , Comodo ) you should look at swapping because this solution should fit well within the Windows environment because let’s be honest here , nobody knows Windows better than Microsoft.

Logic would then dictate that the Microsoft Security Essentials would fit ” hand in glove ” with the operating system.

if you have 10 or less computers in your business you can install this on all your computers. 

So lets look at the installation and setup.

Go to the Microsoft Security Essentials  page and click on the ” Download Now ” tab

Once downloaded press “Run”

Then Click on “Next”

Accept the license terms

Choose whether to join the Customer Experience Improvement Program , then click next

A reminder not to have any other antivirus solutions on your computer ( make sure that if you did, that it is uninstalled before proceeding) 

Then click install 

This will begin the install process

 You will need to restart your computer

Microsoft Security Essentials is now installed and will do an update to bring the virus definitions up to date 

 Then do either a “Quick” or a “Full ” scan , I would recommend the “Full”

The update tab shows when it was last updated and if you want to manually update , press ” Update”

 ” History” will give you information about:

• Detected Items ( Malware , virus etc)

• Items that the software has found and placed in Quarantine

• Items that you allow to run on your computer ( executables)

Settings allows you to alter and configure the various settings that are available.

The most obvious will be scan type and when you want to run the scans.