First Look: Microsoft Security Essentials

Microsoft's new anti-malware solution, Microsoft Security Essentials, is now available for free download to Windows XP, Windows Vista, and Windows 7 users.

Check out the Microsoft Security Essentials gallery here!

After a three-month beta program, the release version of Microsoft Security Essentials is, essentially, the same application that we saw released for beta. I'm assuming that there are under-the-hood changes, but the UI looks and feels like the beta.

Note: For the record, the final build of Microsoft Security Essentials is 1.0.1611.0.

I've been using the beta of Microsoft Security Essentials on a number of systems and overall I've been very pleased with it. Sure, its simplistic interface doesn't satisfy my inner-geek, but Microsoft Security Essentials is aimed at the average user who isn't interested in all things geek.

Let's take a look at Microsoft Security Essentials in a little more detail.

Installation

Installation is a snap. The only real hurdle to jump over is Windows validation.

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First run

On first run Microsoft Security Essentials carries out a scan of your system.

UI tour

Here is a tour of the UI, along with a quick demo of what happens when a virus is detected.

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