For the last couple of months it's been nearly impossible to get this from the Microsoft download page. It either stalls or gets to 99% then craps out. It doesn't seem to have resume support either so you can't just restart it. I'm looking for an alternative download that's independent of MS. I found some but they all redirect back to MS.
Have you considered giving Windows Defender Offline a try instead as the Safety Scanner seems very hard to download. http://www.7tutorials.com/how-use-windows-defender-offline-clean-nasty-malware
stapp, I tried it on Win 7 and it worked great. Do you know if it should work on XP? The page that shows the sytem requirements says Windows XP SP3, but at the bottom of the page there's a popup that say Windows XP support has ended. See attached picture. When I tried it on XP I got an error that said my operating system isn't supported. Is there another download somewhere for XP? Microsoft Security Scanner still works on XP when I can get it downloaded.
I can confirm that Win Defender offline no longer works on XP sp3. (just tried) As Microsoft ended AV support for XP this month it's not really unexpected. I cannot download all of the Safety Scanner from this page even though the download runs it fails just before the last 20MB. http://www.microsoft.com/security/scanner/en-us/ Looks like you are clean out of luck regarding XP and offline scanners.
I downloaded the 32-bit Safety Scanner a couple of days ago and ran it on XP. I can usually get the 32-bit one but have to try 2 or 3 times. The 64-bit one is impossible. I'll just have to see what happens the next time I try the 32-bit. I like Windows Defender Offline. It should be a good replacement on the 64-bit system.