Win32 Virus Removal

APP SHOT

Computer security is a difficult and finicky world, but Microsoft has succeeded in providing pretty decent protection for their Windows systems.

The Microsoft Safety Scanner is a simple two-step process to find nasty software, or, as here, give you a reliable allclear.

This is somewhat of a surprise, as Microsoft began (more than a decade ago) as arguably the least attentive and lamest security company around. Now, with the last part of the puzzle completed, Bill Gates' company has made the grade.

This final piece is Microsoft Safety Scanner, or MSS. It is a novel, even better method of scanning your computer than the dozen or more popular security companies provide.

For a start, MSS is a scanner and a fixer only. Another program reviewed here, Microsoft Security Essentials, is the "real time" part of the program, running all the time and looking for bad things as you compute.

MSS only scans, and then tries to fix anything it finds broken. You don't update it like the other programs. You download it, use it and the next time you scan, you download it again. Microsoft updates it, so you don't have to remember anything except that if this is Sunday, it's time to scan for problems. Ten days later, and it won't even run. You must go and download the new version.

In operation, it's hard to think how it could be easier. Download it, click on the button to run it. There is no installation, no set-up. (Geeks can direct it to certain disks or folders. Most of us will just run it on our main hard drives.)

If it finds anything horrible, click on the "fix it up for me" button and MSS will try its best.

Everyone has her own comfort level with security, personal as well as digital. I know people who have more anti-virus, anti-malware, anti-this-and-that software than regular programs, and others who just check every couple of weeks.

I think that Microsoft has us covered with excellent, free software - Security Essentials, the new Security Scanner and the sometimes useful Malicious Software Removal Tool.

You can look at the puffery for MSS at the new Microsoft site http://www.tinyurl.com/3r24p7e.

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