M
Mark Stinson
No reply is necessary. These are just observations to pass along to the
development team as I already know how to work around the problem or the
problem is trivial enough that I can live with it.
The first is a pass-along from another user: he wanted to thank Microsoft
for helping him make a few hundred bucks by providing an easy (and thus far
free) tool to help clean up his clients' computers.
I can echo some of those sentiments (except the extra money part). Even on
the most badly infected machine on my campus, it took three or four thorough
sweeps to clean out everything and the machine now runs like new. What I'm
seeing so far is a very easy-to-use product that does what it claims.
First problem: in spite of an earlier claim to the contrary, the program is
still not updating its definitions before it begins the initial scan. I just
finished downloading and installing it on a friend's computer. The install
completed just fine and I started the initial deep scan at 11:45. At 11:47
the firewall reported that MAS was trying to access the internet. At 11:49
MAS reported that it had up-to-date definitions.
Machine configuration: Athlon XP 2500, 1 GB RAM, WinXP w/SP2 and Norton
Internet Security 2004. Nothing odd about the rest of the setup except that
the machine has XP running in its own partition with applications and data
on a separate volume.
Second problem: I'm testing out the product at my campus. We're running on a
Win2K domain with lots of configurations pushed out by GPOs. When I log on
to my machine, MAS reports that something is attempting to change my
intranet security settings (a GPO applied at logon) and asks whether I want
to allow it or not. Even with the "remember this" box checked, MAS does not
remember the change. At worst, it's a one-second annoyance that happens at
logon and I can live with it (it's a beta after all). But it really should
be fixed by the time of the release version.
Machine configuration: Pentium 4 2GHz, 512MB RAM, Win2K Pro w/SP4 in a Win2K
AD domain, Symantec Corporate 8.0, no software firewall
Third issue: even though MAS is still in beta form, I don't think there is
any question but that it will be used in AD environments when released in
final form. I know of several small offices that are using it under SBS and
are pretty happy with how it behaves (whether they will continue to use it
when released is going to depend a whole lot on price). It would be very
nice if there were some native method of pushing it out through a GPO in
..msi form rather than having to go install it on a per-machine basis in its
current .exe form. This would also require templates to control its behavior
at the machine or user level.
development team as I already know how to work around the problem or the
problem is trivial enough that I can live with it.
The first is a pass-along from another user: he wanted to thank Microsoft
for helping him make a few hundred bucks by providing an easy (and thus far
free) tool to help clean up his clients' computers.
I can echo some of those sentiments (except the extra money part). Even on
the most badly infected machine on my campus, it took three or four thorough
sweeps to clean out everything and the machine now runs like new. What I'm
seeing so far is a very easy-to-use product that does what it claims.
First problem: in spite of an earlier claim to the contrary, the program is
still not updating its definitions before it begins the initial scan. I just
finished downloading and installing it on a friend's computer. The install
completed just fine and I started the initial deep scan at 11:45. At 11:47
the firewall reported that MAS was trying to access the internet. At 11:49
MAS reported that it had up-to-date definitions.
Machine configuration: Athlon XP 2500, 1 GB RAM, WinXP w/SP2 and Norton
Internet Security 2004. Nothing odd about the rest of the setup except that
the machine has XP running in its own partition with applications and data
on a separate volume.
Second problem: I'm testing out the product at my campus. We're running on a
Win2K domain with lots of configurations pushed out by GPOs. When I log on
to my machine, MAS reports that something is attempting to change my
intranet security settings (a GPO applied at logon) and asks whether I want
to allow it or not. Even with the "remember this" box checked, MAS does not
remember the change. At worst, it's a one-second annoyance that happens at
logon and I can live with it (it's a beta after all). But it really should
be fixed by the time of the release version.
Machine configuration: Pentium 4 2GHz, 512MB RAM, Win2K Pro w/SP4 in a Win2K
AD domain, Symantec Corporate 8.0, no software firewall
Third issue: even though MAS is still in beta form, I don't think there is
any question but that it will be used in AD environments when released in
final form. I know of several small offices that are using it under SBS and
are pretty happy with how it behaves (whether they will continue to use it
when released is going to depend a whole lot on price). It would be very
nice if there were some native method of pushing it out through a GPO in
..msi form rather than having to go install it on a per-machine basis in its
current .exe form. This would also require templates to control its behavior
at the machine or user level.