Microsoft released its new free antivirus utility, Microsoft Security Essentials, today, September 29th, and it does the job adequately, but it snoops into your business and it’s s_l_o_w.
Microsoft Security Essentials is the replacement for Microsoft’s OneCare suite. It’s meant to be an improvement on that older free program, but I don’t any significant difference between the two. Since OneCare is history now, though, that doesn’t matter.
Security Essentials runs on Windows XP, Vista, or Windows 7 (beta or release candidate) on both the 32 and 64-bit versions. The install program doesn’t automatically pick out the right version of Windows; you’ll have to do that. It’s a small point, but I found it a little annoying, especially since Microsoft makes a big deal of telling you, in the license, that they’ll be checking up on your PC and its programs from time to time without telling you.