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A Handy Guide To Microsoft's Free Security Tools
Microsoft publishes a range of free security-related software. One of the best-known is Security Essentials, the excellent antivirus/antimalware product which was recently updated to version 2.0.
Many of the other products in the collection are aimed primarily at large business customers, and are not of general interest to anyone else. But of the handful of exceptions, MBSA has always stood out for me. MBSA is the Microsoft Baseline Security Analyzer. It's a clever tool which analyzes your computer's contents and configuration, and provides relevant security advice in areas such as missing critical patches, user accounts that don't have passwords, and so on.
If you've never used MBSA before, it's worth a try. Version 2.2 is the latest, which was released back in August. It's available for all recent versions of Windows, both 32- and 64-bit flavours, and the initial download is only 1.6 MB.
You'll find links to MBSA, as well as pointers to all of Microsoft's security tools, on the excellent web page at http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/security/cc297183.
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Comments
Thanks for this great article! I have been using Microsoft Security Essentials for a little while now and it's great. One thing I really like about it is that it's very accessible with all screen readers I have used or am currently using. Will MBSA conflict with MSE? My computer seems to run slow only sometimes. These free utilities are very nice though!
Jake
Hi,
I can't understand.
After I install a new copy of the OS and then install Security Essentials, I can't download the updated virus definition from its interface until I set my firewall completely OFF. Why is that and what should be done?
thanks
Run the firewall n Windows update fix - http://fixitcenter.support.microsoft.com/Portal
On my 64b system it just runs and runs w/o any apparent end in sight! The activity bar stays empty. It cannot be canceled, only killed :-(
It won't run; says my processor is not supported.
RB
Yeah, my processor is not supported either (Atom?)
Thanks r.schifreen and Gizmo for the reminder!
The link takes you to a plethora of free tools and utilities from Microsoft. Those tools plus the built in tools for Windows and the Sysinternal utilities pretty much give you everything you need to configure and manage any PC.
Happy New Year!
James
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