The subscription for my virus Protection program will expire in a month or two and was wondering if anyone has used the free "Essentials" program from Microsoft and what they think of it.This is a link to it:http://www.microsoft.com/Security_Essentials/Any feedback - good or bad - will be appreciated.

There was a discussion about it on another forum I frequent and the IT crowd said they liked it and were using it. They were choosing it over AVG, Avast, and others. They even said they'd recommend it to people who have no clue about computers and will click on anything. I guess it's been tested and came out well.

I've been using it since i switched to Win7 64-bit. Seems to be non-intrusive, updates quickly, and overall runs pretty darn good. :)And I'm one of the IT's recommending it to everyone that needs a free one. :)

There was a discussion about it on another forum I frequent and the IT crowd said they liked it and were using it. They were choosing it over AVG, Avast, and others. They even said they'd recommend it to people who have no clue about computers and will click on anything. I guess it's been tested and came out well.

Hi David.I was going to test it, on a system that is not connected to Inet, and I found out that you cannot install it unless you are connected. Another one of those MS data collection utility by what it looks. AVG works OK for me and I use Zone Alarm on my systems with the OSs other than Vista64. TV

I think AVG is garbage. I have friends who've been infected hard while using it. Zone Alarm? I didn't think people even used that anymore. :( I wanted to use Kaspersky (pay app) on my new laptop since I use it on my home computer, but the new laptop has W7 and I'm seeing a few complaints about it on the Kaspersky forums. I hope they get the bugs fixed because Kaspersky seems to catch everything. It has been the best AV I've ever had.

I think AVG is garbage. I have friends who've been infected hard while using it. Zone Alarm? I didn't think people even used that anymore. :( I wanted to use Kaspersky (pay app) on my new laptop since I use it on my home computer, but the new laptop has W7 and I'm seeing a few complaints about it on the Kaspersky forums. I hope they get the bugs fixed because Kaspersky seems to catch everything. It has been the best AV I've ever had.

I've been using NOD32 for years until a few months ago when my subscription ran out. I've been using MS Security Essentials since it came out as beta on my laptop and just switched all other machines to it when NOD went away.It's a great program with a low impact and good detection rate. I recommend it as well!

I have been in IT for 19 years and used many types. Avast has been my most recent hero. Latley I have been using MSE with good success. Like others posted, it is less of a rsource hog then most. I say Give it a goV4DIV-CVN-70AKAGary TrammellIT ManagerDavidson & Lindemann P.A. Attorney's & Counselors At LawColumbia SC

Right up the road from me. :) I am in Hilton Head Island, SC. :)

I have been in IT for 19 years and used many types. Avast has been my most recent hero. Latley I have been using MSE with good success. Like others posted, it is less of a rsource hog then most. I say Give it a goV4DIV-CVN-70AKAGary TrammellIT ManagerDavidson & Lindemann P.A. Attorney's & Counselors At LawColumbia SC

On my 7 year old machine it most decidedly slowed things down, considerably.

Right up the road from me. :) I am in Hilton Head Island, SC. :)

I am actually in Moncks Corner, SC. I commute to Cola twice a week.Gary

I've been using Microsoft Essentials on W7 64bit now for a short while and it seems fine to me.I used it on XP 32bit before and it was fine there also.I'd say go for it, I used Avast for quite a while and this seems to be much less intrusive.

Hi David..In the FS9 forum, in the 'FS9 Tweaking Guide' thread, a poster included this link for a FS config file 'optimizer':http://www.wolfgang-picheta.de/I downloaded the file as indicated by the UK flag, and immediately got a warning from MSE of a trojan in this file. I deleted it. :( MSE identified a trojan in this file, 'ff06_v43.zip' on my system immediately after downloading it. One up for MSE.I also find that it has deleted several such files since I installed it about a month ago.It works for me. I'd recommend it !RegardsBill