Active X Bug???

[Guest]

What, exactly is Defender supposed to do? In order to test it I uninstalled
and active X control that I knew to be safe. I then went to the site that
installed the control and allowed it to reinstall. Defender then put a little
icon in my system tray with a question mark on it. I assume this was to
inform me of the installation of the control. But guess what? I opened
defender and sure enough there was an entry requesting my input, in the mean
time the active X control installed and began to run it's program without my
input. So what the hell does defender do? Great, a new tool to tell me that
an active X control is being installed but that does zip all about blocking
it until I decide whether it's safe or not. Real good. I'm going to find an
old install of MSAS and see if I can remove defender and go back to the
better product.

 

[Bill Sanderson]

That doesn't sound good, but I'm not sure exactly what happened? You want
to lay out the precise details, so someone can replicate it?

I've seen some similar prompts, the most recent of which was on a laptop
where a major update to Windows Onecare came through--I was asked to approve
a driver install, and I'm reasonably sure that the OneCare install process
was blocked until I approved that.

(You can go back, if you wish--current defs are 5815, 168/168--bits
available at filehippo.com.)

 

[Kes]

Dear Unknown P

I'm going to find an
old install of MSAS and see if I can remove defender and go back to
the
better product.

It can be done. It has been done.

Get your MSAS copy from:
http://www.filehippo.com/download_microsoft_antispyware/

(be sure to go for the latest of 'old versions')

Good luck.

 

[Joe Faulhaber[MSFT]]

Neither WD nor MSAS actually blocks unknown software, they both allow you
only to remove after it gets onto a machine. WD will block known spyware
much, much more effectively than MSAS, however, especially when it's coming
through IE.

MSAS is more proactive about getting your attention for unknowns, though,
it's true.

Thanks for trying Windows Defender,
Joe

Dear Unknown P

I'm going to find an
old install of MSAS and see if I can remove defender and go back to the
better product.

It can be done. It has been done.

Get your MSAS copy from:
http://www.filehippo.com/download_microsoft_antispyware/

(be sure to go for the latest of 'old versions')

Good luck.

 

[Guest]

I"m afraid I must disagree with your statement that MSAS does not block
unknown software from being added. It always paused the installation until
such time as I actively chose to allow or block the install. The pop up
actually had a "Block" choice. So if that isn't stopping the software from
being installed I'm not sure what is. The test I used was for the PCPitstop
utility. I uninstalled it, and then went to www.pcpitstop.com and clicked the
button for their tests. In order for them to run an active X control must be
installed. In the past MSAS paused the install until such time as I had
chosen to allow or block the install. Defender simply allows the install and
program to run in the background. If defender does not stop such activity
then how can it even remotely be considered as assisting a user to prevent
spyware\malware\adware, some of which takes a great deal of eXPertise to
remove.