download the new version Microsoft Malicious Software Removal Tool

Multiple layers of security, just like all the security gurus are preaching. Even if you contract the badware, MSRT will eventually nuke it if Norton doesn't do the job right away. Where Symantec still makes you download separate removal tools for the worst worm and Trojan offenders, MSRT is designed to make this process automatic via AutoUpdate. Seems the tool was intended solely as a backup to an active anti-virus solution. Talk to a Redmond rep in the know, and he or she is actually not so happy with how the tool was positioned in Microsoft's press releases and the recently issued trade press. How for the sake of Cuervo is this supposed to supplant an active anti-virus tool, and why in the name of salt and lime did Symantec's stock take such a dive after this was announced?Īnswer: Because stock brokers are intelligence-challenged and because Microsoft never intended this tool to be an active anti-virus tool. Pardon me, good sir: Did you say 'every month?' Mayhap your tequila glass is filled a trifle deeper than mine. Redmond promises to update MSRT with new anti-virus scanners … every month. Roll all those suckers into one giant taco and you're munching on MSRT.

Microsoft has anti-virus technology? Sure, if you count all the previous disparate scanners and removal tools the company has released to combat the nastiest viruses aimed at its platforms. Where Microsoft's anti-spyware tool was based on specific anti-spyware technology acquired from another company, the anti-virus solution is based only on existing Microsoft technology.

Now get set for the temporary disappointment. That leaves Windows 98/ME holdouts in the lurch, which I suppose was to be expected. Try the virus tool, and you'll bump into a scanning wizard that's aimed at Windows 2000, Windows XP, and Windows Server 2003 platforms only. You can get the MSRT (Microsoft Malicious Software Removal Tool) either from the Microsoft download site or via AutoUpdate. That means hell has officially frozen over, and I have to rely entirely on Microsoft's new anti-virus tool. I'm smart enough to engineer a trip to Honolulu a couple of times a year - but somehow, with only a couple of weeks to go till I get to paradise, I wind up in Chelmsford, Mass., where the temperature drops to a posterior-clenching 15 degrees.

Download the new version Microsoft Malicious Software Removal Tool