Microsoft Security Essentials for Windows 8...?


Recommended Posts

Hey all,

Just wanted to double check something here... I am correct in understanding that MSE is not available for Windows 8... and that the Windows Defender is basically the same application (i.e. it will provide virus protection, not just malware/spyware like defender on Windows 7)?

I currently have Kaspersky 2013, but my license expires soon, as I've heard good stuff about MSE, I've thought of just running that (well, Defender if it's the same in W8) and Windows Firewall, and that should be enough for good virus protection right?

:D

Poorly built-in btw

no network protection and other modules are missing.

Have to agree here! Can't believe they never even added a right click "Scan with Windows Defender" option! Terribly built in. I hope they update it soon!

For a built-in AV I think it's fine. I have had it detect malware and antivirus'. I'm OK with it's transparency.

Have to agree here! Can't believe they never even added a right click "Scan with Windows Defender" option! Terribly built in. I hope they update it soon!

http://www.guidingtech.com/14276/add-scan-with-windows-defender-8-context-menu/

;)

Scans via command line popup which isn't ideal because you don't get to see the feedback. Is there any way to get it to behave like MSE did and display the GUI?

Scans via command line popup which isn't ideal because you don't get to see the feedback. Is there any way to get it to behave like MSE did and display the GUI?

Does have feedback, but only when something is discovered. Better than nothing :)

According to a lot of people their systems have sped up once installing another Antivirus onto Windows 8. I'm not a big fan of MSE full stop though.

Ah yes, *THOSE* people, the same people who can take a rock solid stable computer and make it BSOD in under 5 seconds. Please, 9/10 when I hear whining about MSE it is from someone who has screwed up their computer beyond belief.

  • Like 3

Ah yes, *THOSE* people, the same people who can take a rock solid stable computer and make it BSOD in under 5 seconds. Please, 9/10 when I hear whining about MSE it is from someone who has screwed up their computer beyond belief.

That Is So True!! *THOSE* people couldn't get themselves out of a wet paper bag.

I have to think that they left out some bits from MSE in defender for windows 8 so the rest of the antivirus companies didn't cry antitrust.

x2. Could potentially be viewed as a monopolistic move and regulators would heavily fine Microsoft.

Still, would be nice if they made them available as na optional download or something.

Not that I need it. I'm using the HOSTS file to block all unwanted traffic (pretty cool, check it out: http://winhelp2002.mvps.org/hosts.htm) and I'm very careful with the stuff I download and execute, so built-in MSE seems to be enough for me.

Lolz. My system sped up AFTER installing MSE.

Scans via command line popup which isn't ideal because you don't get to see the feedback. Is there any way to get it to behave like MSE did and display the GUI?

Go to the Start Screen, and type "Defender".

Lolz. My system sped up AFTER installing MSE.

Go to the Start Screen, and type "Defender".

I know you can do that to see the GUI, but my post was about scanning a selected file via the right click context menu like MSE offers.

I've disabled Windows Defender on my Windows 8 systems and installed Forefront Endpoint Protection instead.

Essentially it's the "corporate" version of MSE and Windows Defender, but put an icon in the system tray, and

the "Scan with..." option on the context menu. No need to go to the Start Screen, and type "Defender". here!

I know you can do that to see the GUI, but my post was about scanning a selected file via the right click context menu like MSE offers.

I get what you're asking for and I agree that the option would be nice but from the time running windows 8 I've noticed that defender auto scans every file on your drives on write. I've had to go in and specifically tell it not to scan a folder where I put some, less than legal downloads because it kept going off and giving me warnings.

Have to agree here! Can't believe they never even added a right click "Scan with Windows Defender" option! Terribly built in. I hope they update it soon!

this works better http://www.itknowledge24.com/downloads/windows-defender-status-manager.php

I tried this and it kept saying defender wasn't running. Nice idea though, I really wanted it to work.

if you get that error just disable windows defender then re-enable it again. that'll create the registry key that the program is looking for (for some reason it's not always automatically created by windows defender)

There were 2 annoying things that I found with Win8 / and windows defender.

1. No scan option.

2.The flag / action center thing kept appearing in the taskbar, saying, I needed to scan again. This was nearly every 1/2 hour / nearly every day.. Since, I've gone back to Win7, I've never seen that message

I may go back to Win8 once the bugs have been fixed

Funny all the people who want a their AV to have a module for everything they do, network, disk, memory, execute, email, messenger and so on.

It's like they don't understand that it all has to go through the memory anyway, as long as it gets scanned there it's scanned. scanning it in a separate mail or whatever module is just doing the same job twice and slowing everything down. Just like doing full disk scans are useless since everything on your disk would already have been scanned.

I've disabled Windows Defender on my Windows 8 systems and installed Forefront Endpoint Protection instead.

Essentially it's the "corporate" version of MSE and Windows Defender, but put an icon in the system tray, and

the "Scan with..." option on the context menu. No need to go to the Start Screen, and type "Defender". here!

I guess you paid for that ? of course ?

This topic is now closed to further replies.
  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
  • Posts

    • Apple is expanding Private Cloud Compute beyond its own data centers by Pradeep Viswanathan At WWDC 2026, as part of the improved Apple Intelligence capabilities, Apple today announced that it is expanding Private Cloud Compute (PCC), its privacy-focused cloud infrastructure for Apple Intelligence, beyond its own data centers for the first time. Private Cloud Compute was designed to handle Apple Intelligence requests that are too complex to run fully on-device. The PCC system does not store user data and does not allow Apple or anyone else to access user requests. Last year, Apple also expanded its Security Bounty program with rewards of up to $1 million for researchers who could find serious vulnerabilities in PCC. Until now, Apple's PCC data centers were using Apple's own silicon. As part of the expansion, Apple is working with Google and NVIDIA to run new Apple Intelligence workloads on Google Cloud systems powered by NVIDIA GPUs. Apple will be using this new infrastructure to execute more demanding AI tasks while maintaining the same privacy and security guarantees of PCC. The new implementation uses NVIDIA Confidential Computing with NVIDIA GPUs, Intel CPUs with TDX, and Google’s Titan chip. Apple says it has worked with Google to build additional protections beyond a traditional confidential computing deployment. Despite the expansion to third-party data centers, Apple claims that its core PCC requirements remain unchanged, including stateless computation, no privileged runtime access, non-targetability, and verifiable transparency. The company highlighted that it will continue to control the PCC software stack, and Apple devices will only trust PCC software that has been cryptographically approved by Apple. To take security to the next level, Apple mentioned that it is maintaining an append-only ledger of Google Cloud hardware that is part of the PCC fleet. The company claims this will help reduce the risk of supply chain attacks. In addition to AI infrastructure, Apple also worked with Google to use technologies behind the Gemini family of models to build the next generation of Apple Foundation Models to power Apple Intelligence features across on-device and cloud workloads. As expected, for more demanding AI tasks like agentic tool use and complex reasoning, Apple will rely on the expanded PCC infrastructure running on Google Cloud. The expansion of PCC on Google Cloud will gradually ramp toward the full set of protections during the summer preview period. As before, Apple will also publish binaries for public inspection, provide research tooling, and give researchers access to live PCC nodes in research mode through the Apple Security Bounty Program.
    • my problem with outlook (new) is that it connects only to outlook.com. all connections to external providers goes through there. Got your mail server and want to use imap directly? no way... it adds a connector on outlook.com. last bug; if your email on an external provider if the same as principal email of your microsoft account, it doesn't work...
    • It's the only reason I finally have an iPhone (for work) and enjoy using it so much that I'm tempted to move from android next time I need to replace my own device
    • So is Russia, China, Iran, North Korea, just to mention a few. What's your point? Everyone is a threat from their enemies' perspective. I'd say that Israel is only a threat to their immediate enemies like Hamas, Hezbollah and the Iranian regime, not to anyone else.
    • The government is not the good guy either. You propose 99% of people require that the government overreach and govern their freedom of information and privacy, while ignoring the government is made up 100% of people, of which 99% are (as you described) brain dead. You can't have both. The reality is Signal is absolutely right and the government is doing what it has always done. Ignoring that we are their boss and grabbing all the power they possibly can to make sure we aren't. Your (societies) ###### parenting is not reason enough as to why I can't have a safe platform for my data/information. Thinking the government is helping is precisely what they are targeting psychologically to take suckers like you for a ride. "Think of the children" was, has, is, and will always be a mechanism of control. In the rare occasion it's actually essential the mass consensus has always been there and it doesn't become a debate.
  • Recent Achievements

    • Very Popular
      Captain_Eric earned a badge
      Very Popular
    • One Month Later
      amusc earned a badge
      One Month Later
    • One Month Later
      DJC50PLUS earned a badge
      One Month Later
    • Week One Done
      DJC50PLUS earned a badge
      Week One Done
    • Proficient
      Eric Biran went up a rank
      Proficient
  • Popular Contributors

    1. 1
      +primortal
      509
    2. 2
      PsYcHoKiLLa
      222
    3. 3
      ATLien_0
      92
    4. 4
      +Edouard
      86
    5. 5
      Steven P.
      81
  • Tell a friend

    Love Neowin? Tell a friend!