The specter of antitrust legal action still looms, though. Windows president Steve Sinofsky says on the Building Windows 8 blog, "With Windows 8 we are extending the protections provided by Defender to address a broader range of potential threats." Remarkably, it appears as if Microsoft is recycling the old "Defender" moniker - probably to avoid confusion with Microsoft Security Essentials - and giving it all sorts of advanced features that don't appear in the old Defender, Forefront, or Security Essentials. Perhaps that's why Microsoft now feels comfortable putting considerably more sophisticated antivirus capabilities into Windows 8. Amazingly, the antivirus industry not only survived, it thrived. The evolution of Defender and its supplanting by the free Security Essentials took place against a backdrop of real and imagined threats of lawsuits by the major antivirus software manufacturers. Installing Security Essentials or Forefront effectively disables Windows Defender although vestiges of the old Defender remain, they're well-hidden. Microsoft Security Essentials is a free download, but Windows Vista and Windows 7 don't mention it anywhere. Microsoft developed a consumer - and later, small business - version of Forefront, calling it Microsoft Security Essentials, which was released in final form in 2009. In a parallel universe, Microsoft bought Sybari in 2005 and turned it into Microsoft Forefront, the enterprise product you undoubtedly know well. Vista shipped with Windows Defender built-in.
The package morphed a little bit and changed its name, finally emerging as Windows Defender for XP in 2006. Windows Defender, you might recall, grew out of Giant AntiSpyware, which Microsoft bought in 2004. Why, you might ask, is Microsoft changing the name of the product? It looks to me like the company is trying to revitalize the old "Windows Defender" name one small step at a time. The PC you scan need not be connected.Īll in all, Windows Defender Offline looks and behaves much like Microsoft's Standalone System Sweeper, which has been around since May.
The PC you use to install Windows Defender Offline must be connected to the Internet.
In my tests, it took about 20 minutes to run a full scan on a Windows 8 Developer Preview machine.
Much like Microsoft Security Essentials, tabs on the interface let you update the signature files, look at the scan history, or exclude specific files or folders. Windows Defender Offline takes over, giving you the opportunity to run a quick, full, or custom scan. If you have a multiboot system, you must choose one of the OSes Windows Defender Offline will scan only one system at a time. If it doesn't already have Windows Defender Offline installed, the USB drive, CD, or DVD is reformatted prior to installing Windows Defender Offline.įinally, you boot to Windows Defender Offline on the afflicted PC. If the USB drive already has Windows Defender Offline installed, running the installer/updater will update its signature files. Next, run the installer/updater to create a bootable USB drive, CD or DVD, or bootable ISO image. You're given a choice between 32- and 64-bit versions choose the bit count matching that of the PC you're trying to fix, not the one that's doing the downloading and installing. First, you download and run an installer/updater. Acquiring Windows Defender Offline is a three-step process.