Windows Defender Is Becoming the Powerful Antivirus That Windows 10 Needs

Update for Windows Defender antimalware platform KB4052623
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/4052623/update-for-windows-defender-antimalware-platform

Installed on my system (W10 Pro x64 1809) today. No problems.

 

Windows Defender is a very good AV, and fits well with complementary software if you choose to add it. Future updates will benefit average users who don't mess with security software, and who are not likely to visit Security forums.

 

Microsoft's Windows Defender Advanced Threat Protection service now available for Windows 7, 8.1 clients

https://www.zdnet.com/article/micro...vice-now-available-for-windows-7-8-1-clients/

 

I'm surprised they bothered. 7 is almost EOL and nobody uses 8. Except for the 2 people that are about to reply...

 

Windows Defender APT is for Enterprise versions, i bet there is more than 2 users

 

The zdnet article indicates it will be available for the Pro vers.:

Makes Microsoft sense since they can't gain extra revenue since the Enterprise vers. on those OSes are non-subscription based. This way they can gain ATP subscription revenue from the Pro vers..

-EDIT- The real question is what will the WD ATP subscription cost on the Pro vers.? From this Win 10 est. cost: https://www.wilderssecurity.com/thr...-windows-10-needs.383448/page-87#post-2807988 is a $72 annual cost. If the final released price is much higher, MS$ is definitely price gouging.

 

Windows 7, very likely. Windows 8.1? I haven't used it since 10 came out, and I haven't seen anyone (we have quite a few enterprise customers) run 8.1 in a very long time. Most never went to it. I hated it. I only ever ran it to be able to support customers with it.

 

I agree its getting more and more impressive (anti-exploit, folder protection) no need other AV but I am missing some site and connections scanning

 

Here's what you have to do to install WD ATP on Win 7/8.1 Pro: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/wi...l-windows-defender-advanced-threat-protection . Of note:

 

Is this like a cloud AV feature/reputation based thing?

 

A new transparency report are now available.
The report - Examining the AV-TEST November-December 2018 results - can be downloaded here (PDF) :

Code:

https://query.prod.cms.rt.microsoft.com/cms/api/am/binary/RWusR9

 

According to what I read today on Kim Komando, she quotes the following "Although Windows 7 is scheduled to be retired less than a year away on Jan. 14, 2020 (Microsoft will end Windows 7 support on that day), around 43% of Windows computers are still running it.". I myself, had no idea the number was that big.

Quote as per the following:
https://www.komando.com/happening-n...m=nl&utm_source=alerts&utm_content=2019-03-08

 

XP was a similar situation. Supporting these outdated systems holds back progress for everyone. Extra work for the developers, more bugs since you have to write code for specific versions, extra support time to identify issues specific to a version, etc. When Windows 10 was released it was a free upgrade from Windows 7. Ongoing updates continue to be free. Windows 10 is not without its issues, but no version was. Ever.

 

I agree with you overall. One issue may be about the W7 demographic. Possibly a good number of these users in different countries have cracked/unlicensed Windows running on their machines... and this presents a problem getting them to upgrade. I am only speculating based on conversations I've had with different members.

 

Not a possibility nor a speculation, it is obvious fact. Most of the actual Win7 users are from "less rich" countries (S-E Asia, India, Africa, South America, etc...), they can't afford a recent computer shipped with Win10 but only refurbished ones where the IT guy put a cracked Win7 Ultimate...i see it everyday.

 

If the pirates use KMS activators they can upgrade to win10 without a problem. I mean, without a technical problem. They still have the legal problem, of course...

 

Thanks for this tip. It works exactly as it should. I see in Security History many updates each day now.

 

They won't bother, they just sell the machine with an OS. Not their problem if the user needs win10 or not.

 

I can confirm that, here in Brazil even organs of government uses cracked Windows 7.

 

does windows defender perform as well on win 8.1 as it does on win 10? thanks for your help.

 

True, that's very likely. I'm not sure if Microsoft lumps pirate copies in with the user statistics but it is likely for the purpose of raw numbers that they are just considered to be outdated users.

 

I just can't imagine that happening here in South Africa.

 

I dumped AVG yesterday and decided to try Defender to see how it is. Immediately I'm noticing a huge negative impact on my system. I have several folders with a few hundred thumbnail icons in them for my docks to use. If I open up those folders in Explorer with Defender's real-time protection temporarily disabled, it takes like a second to generate all the thumbnail icons. Same with AVG. With Defender real-time enabled, it takes well over 10 seconds to generate them, as it is so much slower. Same when I open my docks showing the icons. It's dreadfully slow now.

I'm shocked by how much of an impact defender has on such a small thing. Is this normal behavior? If so, I'm going right back to disabling Defender and finding another option. I wanted to like it, but I can't with this much of an impact.

 

Yes it is an issue since win8.0, it is by design because WD is always on-access and doesn't cache scanned files, it will do this over and over for the whole system for the same files.