Microsoft Malicious Software Removal Tool ?

Discussion in 'other anti-malware software' started by daman1, Feb 12, 2015.

  1. daman1

    daman1 Registered Member

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    Is this tool really needed to be DL and used with the monthly updates? I mean with a good security set up why is this needed? does anyone un tick it?
     
  2. zakazak

    zakazak Registered Member

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    Personally I never download and install it. I think it is part of windows defender which is deactivated on my machine anyway.
     
  3. ronjor

    ronjor Global Moderator

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    It's another set of eyes and it's free.

    You don't have to download it with monthly updates, just uncheck it.
     
  4. daman1

    daman1 Registered Member

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    So is it a different tool seperat from windows defender?
     
  5. Thankful

    Thankful Savings Monitor

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    It also provides Microsoft telemetry data on how well its security products
    are protecting its users.
     
  6. ronjor

    ronjor Global Moderator

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    As stated:
    http://www.microsoft.com/security/pc-security/malware-removal.aspx
     
  7. daman1

    daman1 Registered Member

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    Ill be un checking it from now on..
     
  8. Robin A.

    Robin A. Registered Member

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    Malicious Software Removel Tool has been around for years. I ran it every month even when it wasn´t distributed via Microsoft Update. In my case, it has never caused any problem, and never reported the presence of malware.
     
  9. daman1

    daman1 Registered Member

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    I've always DL it too but never seen it catch/do anything.
     
  10. Minimalist

    Minimalist Registered Member

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    Me too. I think of it like 5th opinion scanner :)
     
  11. trott3r

    trott3r Registered Member

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    It removed something that was a false positive and with no quarantine there was nothing i could do about it.

    Avoided it since then.
     
  12. Compu KTed

    Compu KTed Registered Member

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    AFAIK when it downloads it only runs a quick scan. You would have to click on the MRT.exe and run that to do
    a full system scan which can take a while.
    It also I believe shows a list of what malware it checks , but as trott3r mentioned I don't see a way if it does
    find anything to be able to quarantine . Not good if it removes something that is a false positive without recovery capability.
     
  13. daman1

    daman1 Registered Member

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    Very not good.
     
  14. guest

    guest Guest

    I've never been using it since... since... well, I can't remember the last time I've ever used it. =V

    In all seriousness though, it created an executable in a non-system partition. That's why I stopped updating and running it.
     
  15. erim

    erim Registered Member

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    Does it still do this, automatically remove stuff that it considers "malware" without asking?

    I'm mainly asking because I might start using Windows 10 soon and not installing specific updates like MSRT is a bit harder there (although still possible for now with wushowhide).
     
  16. emmjay

    emmjay Registered Member

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    Yes it does. There is an infection report that you can look at to see what it removed. It comes with a set of return codes that indicates if it was successful or not. The MSRT infection report contains scan and/or removal information as well as device info and IP address. The Tool writes details about the result of its execution in the %windir%\debug\mrt.log log file.

    If Windows Update is turned off, MSRT will not be offered so nothing gets sent to Microsoft.

    You can turn off the MSRT infection report.

    If this registry key value is set, the tool will not report infection information back to Microsoft.

    Subkey:
    HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\MRT
    Entry name: \DontReportInfectionInformation
    Type: REG_DWORD
    Value data: 1
     
  17. ky331

    ky331 Registered Member

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    If you manually download the MSRT (rather than having it run through Windows Update), you can run it from a command prompt with a /N parameter, which is supposed to find/list problems, without removing anything.
     
  18. FanJ

    FanJ Updates Team

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    TairikuOkami Registered Member

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    JRViejo Super Moderator

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