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Microsoft Anti-Spyware to Be Free of Charge

Posted by Zonk on from the just-the-right-price dept.

fubar1971 writes "During his keynote speech at the at the RSA Security Conference Bill Gates announced that the MS antispyware will be offered for free. From his speech: 'We've looked hard at the nature of this problem, and made a decision that this anti-spyware capability will become something that's available at no additional charge for Windows users -- both the blocking capability, and the scanning and removal capabilities.' Additional information at Government Computer News." Update: 02/16 16:57 GMT by Z : Microsoft was previously considering charging extra for this service.

3 of 470 comments (clear)

  1. Watch for the Error.log file by Cy+Guy · · Score: 5, Informative
    I've been running this on one of my XP boxes since it came out. Here are a couple of caveats:
    • It creates (what I consider to be) an absurdly large error.log file, on mine it had reached nearly 1Gb in about a month. I have since created a read-only dummy version of the file so it can't write to it anymore and it hasn't seemed to affect the program.
    • When installed while Admin it's installed for every user, which I guess you would want the blocking for every user, but not necessarily the scanning and program update features, - which leads to ...
    • Running as Admin it doesn't find suspicious Registry Entries in other users' User Registries, which means you could be the admin on an infested machine and not know it - this is on an XP Home box, so perhaps it's different on XP Pro?
    • Though called a beta, I haven't been able to find a way to report these bugs/flaws/'features' to MS.
    --
    Work for Change & GET PAID!
    1. Re:Watch for the Error.log file by mzwaterski · · Score: 5, Informative
      To report bugs/request features you could try the newsgroup that they have setup:

      http://communities.microsoft.com/newsgroups/defaul t.asp?ICP=spywareus

  2. Enterprise WILL be Charged by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    The Consumer version will be FREE. Enterprise/Corporate version is NOT. They only let out one side of the story, for PR effect, it worked. You missed the flipside, for Enterprises they will charge.