Windows defender beta 2 dumbed down version of antispyware

[Guest]

I installed WD beta 2 after uninstall of antispyware (including registry
cleanup).

It works fine for me, including getting the updates, but I find it very
disappointing.

No systray icon, so disabling agents (which I do occasionally, e.g. when
installing new software) now takes multiple clicks to get to the relevant
part, instead of a single right click on the systray icon and one on disable.
This also means that there is no handy quick way of checking the status of
the agents.

BTW I tried removing -hide from the MSASCui.exe Run key, but then WD window
opens on startup, still no systray. The only time an icon appears is when I
check for updates, and then all it does is tell me that is what I'm
doing..pretty useless.

Manual check for updates (I don't use windows auto update) also takes a few
more clicks to get to it.

Far fewer agents so much less fine control over actions being watched or not.

Most of the tools have disappeared. File analyzer gone, system explorers
much reduced, inability for example to view or amend IE configurations,
activeX and BHOs.

In a full system scan it flagged two innocent .ico files on my data
partition (created by extracting icons from Shell32.dll) as highly malevolent
(I've emailed a report).

It no longer gives detailed individual scan histories or facility to remove
specific scans (it's clear all history or nothing).

That's as far as I've got after a couple of hours. Maybe more
disappointments I haven't found yet.

The interface is cleaner, but what are looks if functionality has gone?

I am tempted to go back to Antispyware, but will there continue to be
updates for that, or is it dead from now on?

 

[JoeM]

I agree with you on most of it.

 

[Bill Sanderson]

Thanks for providing the detailed feedback. I don't doubt that every
feature change was fought over.

I've no clear notion of the kinds of changes that user opinion might be able
to make in this beta--but one of the purposes of these groups is to get that
opinion expressed. Let's hear it!

 

[Guest]

I agree with you, but if I may point out, Defender seems to have a new
feature which automatically checks for updates before every scheduled scan.
You can view/change this setting by going to "Tools" - "General Settings"

This looks like a ground-up re-do of Giant's Antispyware, the home screen is
practically empty, and most of the features in AntiSpyware are not included
in Defender... Hopefully that is because there are many more
features/improvements that MS has not yet added.
Andrew

 

[Guest]

I have BETA testing Vista and Defender is doing fine, now I will uninstall MS
AntiSpyware and try installing Defender.

Robert...

 

[Guest]

Yes, I saw that a scheduled scan has the option to check for updates before
scan, but

a) I don't use scheduled scans; I don't want to be interrupted when I'm
using the PC and switch the PC off when I'm not using it. I do a manual scan
when it suits me, as part of regular maintenance routine. If I let all the
apps I have do their scheduled scans, there would be no time left for me to
use the PC!

b) I'm not automatically connected to the internet on startup (I use a USB
DSL modem and connect manually when I want to access the internet), so even
if I did set a scheduled scan, it might not be able to check for updates at
that time.

Call me eccentric or old fashioned if you will, but I prefer to be in
control and decide when things happen on my PC, so I don't use 'auto this'
and 'schedule that' and disable such 'features' wherever possible. At least
WD still gives me that option...

 

[Guest]

I have to agree.

The lack of the systray icon is disappointing. It gives users the "warm and
fuzzy" feeling that the software is working and is installed. I would guess
that if the feature is not added back in, when Defender goes into production,
users familiar with MS Antispyware will bombard support with the "is my
Defender working, because I cant find the little icon for it"

The lack of "real" tools is also quite disappointing. I would like to see
the "missing" tools added back, even if it is under an "Advanced" tab or
something similar. I used quite a few of the tools, IE config, system
explorers, tracks eraser, etc and found them all useful. Could you get these
tools elsewhere? of course, but having them inside the spyware program was
convienent.

I personally do not like the "dumbed down" version. After using it for only
a few minutes, I was ready to go back to AntiSpyware. For more advanced
users the continued "dumbing down" of all of the MS interfaces is
disheartining. What was only a few clicks away before is now buried deep
inside "dumbed down" interfaces.

Just my 2 cents.

Ray

 

[Guest]

Like several others here, I am disappointed by the absence of the systray
icon -- it provided useful confirmation that Antispyware was alive and well.

I am also not impressed by the 'simplified' scheduling options which now
only provide daily or weekly options where previoulsy it was easy to schedule
it to run more than once a week (e.g. Mon, Thurs) but not daily, and also
less frequently than weekly if you wished. I definitely prefer the old
scheduling scheme.

I was also disapoointed to note that the settings from AntiSpyware were not
migrated to Defender -- I had to reconfigure one itme I had previously set to
'Always Ignore'.

I have yet to see how it deals with perceived 'real-time' threats -- I will
be interested how it handles them.

However, overall I have been reasonably impressed with AntiSpyware and now
Defender -- they both seem to do the job of front-line defence reasonably
well and the price is certainly right.

 

[Bill Sanderson]

Check the very nearby thread "Scheduled scans" respons from Joe Faulhaber.
This has info about command line options--you can use the Scheduled Tasks or
AT schedulers to schedule to your hearts content.

--

 

[Guest]

Yes -- and if I had the time, skills and knowledge I could write a
Defender-clone that worked exactly how I wanted it to, but surely that misses
the point.

I (and several others here) were lamenting the loss of functionality and
flexibility in Defender (vs MSAS) -- how does offering Command-line tools
help that?

I am a consultant and want a tool that I can install for my clients/users
that they will find friendly and that I can talk them through over the phone
or by email if need be.

Sorry, command line tools and the AT scheduler may do the job, but they
just don't do it for me.

The problem with many personal firewall / anti-xxxxxx products is that they
insist on popping-up questions that most users simply do not understand and
therefore guess at the answer (with a 50-50 chance of getting it right -- or
wrong).

On the other hand, a product that makes too many decisions and asks too few
questions creates other issues if some of its choices do not fit your needs.

MSAS seemed to me to strike a nice balance -- self-cancelling
infomation-only popups for simple things, colour-coding for other popups
providing some indication of the likely importance of getting the answer
right, etc.

It is early days yet, but Defender seems to be moving down the scale toward
'too simple to be really useful' -- let's hope MS can bring it back before it
is too late.

 

[Guest]

Well, i just installed Defender and I did not have to uninstall MS
AntiSpyware. All went fine and the lack of a Sys Tray Icon does not really
bother me. You can find it @Start Menu, All Programs anyhow. This is still
in Beta and I think that MS will possibly give an option to show the Sys Tray
Icon but for me it realy does not matter, I know it is working in the
background and this is what I want, a non-intrusive software.

Robert...

 

[Bill Sanderson]

Simple is definitely the aim and emphasis--and one of the four themes Bill
Gates talked about in his RSA keynote speech this year.

As far as scheduling, I like the balance in this product. What is included
in the UI should be adequate for the average home user. In a managed
corporate network, I believe that group policy will be able to control this
to the same degree that the scheduler is able.

The availability of the extra flexibility via the command-line executable is
an opportunity for you to provide functionality that some others may not
know or want to take the trouble to provide. It does entail extra
complexity and support burden, though.

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