MSE real-time plus on demand scanners

My PC (W7) has MSE installed and I am having all sorts of problems with it not auto updating or initiating prescheduled scans.

The MSE forum states that they have identified a problem with the catchup utility for PCs with sleep/hibernate capability (my PC goes to sleep if it has been idle for moe than 1 hour). I can be online all day and a preched scan will not run at the time set or within several hours after that time. I've tried daily and weekly settings and days have passed without any action.

I can update and scan MSE manually (no problem here).

Have I created a conflict by what I have installed and running? ...

I have MBAM installed, with WinPatrol running and I have SAS installed as a demand scanner (real-time is disabled). I run MBAM scans monthly and I run SAS very seldomly (once in tha last 3 months).

 

Your on-demand scanners and WinPatrol in real-time should not affect MSE updating/scheduling scans.

IMHO, it is still buggy and there are many users who are still having problems with these tasks.

Try the following to pick up 2-3 updates/day;


1. Run regedit.exe with an administrative account - not administrator
2. Go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Microsoft Antimalware\Signature Updates
3. Right click and select Permissions
4. Select Advanced
5. Select Owner - this is SYSTEM by default
6. Select Administrators and OK
7. You can now set Administrators to Full Control
8. Set the SignatureUpdate Interval to what you want.
9. When finished, go back to the Advanced box and set the ownership back to SYSTEM


I set my update interval to 1 hour as this laptop is being switched into sleep mode on and off during the day; seems to work fine for me.

Are you running the latest version of MSE?

 

Hello Blackcat,

This is my first post to Wilders and I thank you for your response. Like you, I have my laptop in and out of sleep mode quite often within a given day. My experience with freeware security software is minimal.

I have not downloaded the latest version (On the MSE forum an MVP stated that it has been loaded onto the servers and is ready to go out). Thought I'd wait for WU to send it to me.

Thankyou for your recommendation. I was getting frustrated with MSE becasue of my lack of experience & I am glad to hear that my other installed security products are not the problem.

I have been using a temporary workaround for the def files not updating. I downloaded splinterware scheduler a few days ago (JohnnyDollar, a contributer here pointed me to it). It is very simple and it works.

Prescheduled scans worked once, since then they have never worked. I have been scanning with MBAM as a stopgap. Just so frustrating!

Does the new version address any of this stuff?

 

And a warm welcome to you.

No reason to wait, just download from within the main program; select upgrade.

Just carry out a manual scan; the quick scan is VERY quick after the first initial scan. If you check downloaded files with the context-menu scanner you do not need to use the on-demand scanner much; once/week manually should be more than sufficient.

No.

Apart from the updating/scheduling problems, most users have had problems with slow-downs with the Guard scanning archives in real-time.

As long as you are receiving at least one update/day and not noticing any other problems I would not worry too much; the registry hack I posted above should overcome any update problems.

But there are other free AVs you could try if MSE does not come up to your expectations

 

Thank you for breaking out everything and commenting on each of the items. You went to a lot of trouble...thank you so much.

Regarding using 'upgrade' from the main menu ... it doesn't work. It just returns to the same release that I already have installed. Another bug to add to the list!

 

Not a bug; it means that you have the latest official version.

See here and here .

 

Thx Blackcat for the links you provided ... I read through them. One of the users had the same experience as I, regarding the 'upgrade'. My installed release is 1.0.1611.0 and the latest release is 1.0.1959.0. When I hit upgrade it ran through its checking for upgrades and then stated that I have the latest release (1.0.1611.0). Guess the servers that service my demographic do not have the latest release loaded as yet. So I guess you could say, technically that this is not a bug.

P.S. I downloaded the latest rel (1959) last night from the MS security website .. decided not to wait for MS to get it all together.