Microsoft Anti-Spyware Update Available

Small Business Tech Notes

A new version of Microsoft Anti-Spyware is available for download. If you are already running Microsoft Anti-Spyware you will be prompted to install the latest version. Go ahead and do so. During the installation simply accept the defaults and click Next until the installation is finished. You will be prompted to reboot your computer, now or later. This beta version is good until the end of the year. I suspect that sometime between now and then that we will see the official release of the final product. At that time we'll be ready to install it on all computers. It is doing a great job at preventing adware and spyware from infecting computers.

This version is the latest in a string of updates to the former Giant software product. Microsoft purchased Giant Anti-spyware and has been working on improvements to it ever since. It is simply the best anti-spyware that I've seen yet. None is perfect at this time but this software besides being free is very effective.

In addition to improving the anti-spyware client, Microsoft is also developing a server side to the product which will allow for centralized reporting, scanning and updated of your computers from the server console. This makes management much simpler as all of the scan logs reside on the server, workstations report if they have current anti-spyware definitions and whether any spyware was found on the computer. Centralizing this information makes sense for network management. Rather than going from computer to computer everything can be done by the administrator from the server. Microsoft is expected to release this part of the software sometime soon. There will be a charge for this component but it's expected to be minimal.