The free antivirus from Microsoft has gained many positive reviews around the web, and has now taken a position to compete against the fully-fledged, paid security suites like Norton, Kaspersky and McAfee. Microsoft Antivirus 2009 was first released in beta edition in the first half of August (codenamed Morro) and the main edition called Microsoft Security Essentials was released at the end of September for genuine windows customers.
Microsoft Antivirus 2009 installs in a breeze and the setup file weighs only around 5MB for Windows 7 and Windows Vista. Also note that before installing, it does a Windows Genuine advantage check and you will not be able to install if you’re running illegal copy of XP or vista.
Features of Microsoft Antivirus 2009 (Security Essentials 1.0)
Microsoft security essentials contains all the basic features like customizable scan options, scan scheduler, automatic updation, realtime security along with rootkit protection.
Free to use for both personal and commercial use.
Real time protection allows to check for any PC intrusions and illegal file activity.
Light on system resources (a great piece of cake when compared to norton antivirus)
Low size setup file urges you to try the software anyhow.
Automatic file definitions update.
Small memory footprint even for high resource intensive action.
Cons of Microsoft Security essentials.
No option to opt out of Spynet and thereby sends your personal information to Microsoft. If you want to anyhow remove it then checkout this post on how to remove spynet from microsoft essentials.
Microsoft antivirus software doesn’t auto update when Windows Update is disabled.
First time definition updates went more than 50MB, which most dial up users won’t appreciate.
How To Download Microsoft Antivirus 2009
You can download Microsoft antivirus direct from the Official security essentials download page.
Download the installer [8.8MB for XP, 4.3MB for Vista and 7].
After running the setup file, you will be asked to validate your copy of Windows to check whether your Windows is genuine or not. Once installation is complete, you will be redirected to automatic virus & spyware definition updates.
With comparatively low false positive reports and detection rate of 56% according to “AV comparatives”, this free antivirus software from Microsoft is definitely worth a tryout.
Minimum System requirements for Microsoft Security Essentials
Operating System: Genuine Windows XP (Service Pack 2 or Service Pack 3); Windows Vista (Gold, Service Pack 1, or Service Pack 2); Windows 7
140 MB of available hard disk space.
256MB of RAM
Direct Download links for Microsoft Antivirus 2009
Download Microsoft Security Essentials Final [ For Vista / Windows 7 ]
Download Microsoft Security Essentials Final [ For XP ]