Windows Defender on Windows 7

Windows Defender is disabled on both XP and Win. 7.

 

It's not a good practice to run 2 AV's or FW's apps real time at once.

 

I even forgot about it. Now I just for fun switched it on. Most probably I'll switch it off soon.

 

Here's the way I see it...

Those who would prefer first-party (Microsoft) tool:
Might as well use MSE over Windows Defender ( for systems prior to Windows 8 )

Those who don't mind/prefer 3rd-party tool:
Might as well use an established AV and disable Windows Defender OR
Use an established AV and leave Windows Defender as a companion

Those not interested in any real-time blacklist tool:
Disable Windows Defender

In any case, I feel tempted to just say disable it.

 

In Windows 8, Windows Defender replaces Microsoft Security Essentials. Basically MSE has been incorporated with WD.

 

Another no from me.

 

I once tried to run WD with avast! on Win 7, but it bluescreened within a minute, so I turned off WD thereafter. Now I'd be happy if I could get WD to stop trying to update itself every 3 days.

 

Did you disable the windows defender service.?
That might help.

 

Disabled on my comps.

 

I've got WD on Win 7 disabled as well.

Here's a link on how to disable the updates. http://www.ehow.com/how_6808923_disable-automatic-updates-windows-defender.html

 

The classic Windows Defender for WinXP/Vista/7 (antispyware only) had very poor detection rates in my testing. At one point I busted out my entire 10GB malware collection and compared Defender's detection rates to Kaspersky Antivirus. By that time, the samples were 18 months old, but Defender was still detecting only a pathetic percentage, while Kaspersky was detecting the large majority. I forget the exact stats now, but it was like 40 versus 2000.

Bottom line, I don't see a lot of value in the XP/Vista/7 type of Defender. At a minimum, go to Microsoft Security Essentials.

 

Turned off on Windows 8 machines, using avast! Free Antivirus

 

Same, except in my case im using only file system protection module with everything else disabled.

 

I agree. I tried to say the same thing here.

 

A short story.
My friend brought me his slow Vista laptop with Microsoft Security Essentials installed.
I cleaned the laptop with
CCleaner + CCenhancer,
Privazer, WiseDisk Cleaner, Auslogics Registry Cleaner, and System Cleaner 7.
No changes. The laptop was still very slow.

I updated MSE and did a full scan. MSE found nothing.



I updated SUPERAntiSpyware and ran it. SuperAntiSpyware found malware - System Cleaner 7 help.exe file.

The laptop remained sluggish.

I updated Malwarebytes Anti-Malware and ran it.
It found one malware in the registry and deleted it.
The laptop started working faster.

I ran Sophos on demand scan. It found nothing.

I downloaded the Eset online scanner.
It found 26 infected files.

 

Crikey.
It just shows that relying on just 1 or 2 scanners is not a good idea.

 

I'm sure that one is a false positive.

 

No – have never used it. (when I bought my laptop several years ago – most reviewers recommended disabling it due to its limited capabilities – OR - using it in conjunction with another real time AV)

An excerpt from Wikipedia on Defender (in Win 7) :

Windows Defender features antispyware capabilities. It includes a number of real-time security agents that monitors several common areas of Windows for changes which may be caused by spyware.
Windows Defender was released with Windows Vista and Windows 7, serving as their built-in antispyware component. Windows Defender is superseded by Microsoft Security Essentials, an antimalware product from Microsoft which provides protection against a wider range of malware. Upon installation, Microsoft Security Essentials disables Windows Defender and takes over its duty.

 

I reguarly fix Vista laptops which are performing slowly. Typically they don't have SP2 installed and often have don't even have SP1. After installing both service packs, Vista usually runs a lot better. Which is something to bear in mind - although it seems you may have already fixed the problems.

Personally I bought an old Sony Vaio recently which has been restored to the factory image, running Vista - and it was barely usable. However everything was fixed by installing both service packs.

 

Thanks Amiga and Niki for the tips. I was surprised to find that the WD service was showing up as automatically started (despite WD supposedly being "off"), so I stopped and disabled it. I hope this solves the unwanted updates

 

You're very welcome SouthPark. I had WD disabled for some time but the updates were still coming. That's when I stopped them on April 16 via the info in the link I posted. No more WD updates since that date. Heck, quite a while back I made a shortcut to WD and now I can't even get into WD anymore when clicking on that shortcut, it tells me *This Program is turned off* ... blah blah and *If you would like to use this program, click here to turn it on*. I'm using Avast! free and seems that browsing is a tiny bit faster without WD or am I dreaming?

 

Yes it it, seems to be part of Pointstone System Cleaner 7 that he used to "clean the laptop with"

 

When I temporarily switched to MSE from the slightly outdated avast! 6, I also felt that browsing was a little slower. I ran several speed tests both before and after switching to avast! 7 and found that downloads averaged about 50 kbps faster (3-4% of my 1.2 Mb connection) with avast!. I also found that with MSE (or WD), opening any folder with .exe's was slow, and absolutely glacial when opening the folder where I keep my 40 or so Portable Apps installers

 

I would be concerned that many (or all) of those 'malware' files weren't false-positives.

 

The System Cleaner one is definitely a false positive.