Do I need to remove other antivirus applications before installing Microsoft Security Essentials?
Hey there,
I have Norton and Spybot installed but I wanted to try out Microsoft's new AV program to see how it runs compared to the others.
Do I need to remove the other programs before I can install Microsoft Security Essentials? I remember with OneCare I had to remove them even before I could install it.
Thanks for your help!!!
Kevin1 person got this answerI do too
Answers
Hello Kevin,
Yes you need to uninstall all other "Memory Resident" antivirus applications before you install Microsoft Security Essentials.
A Memory Resident antivirus application is an application that starts when you turn on the computer, and stays started until you turn off the computer. Applications like Norton, McAffee, AVG Free are all Memory Resident antivirus applications. Other applications like the free version of Spybot and Adaware are not memory resident, as they are manually opened by the user when the user wants to perform a scan, then closed when the scan is complete.
These non memory resident antivirus applications can remain on the system but scans should not be run with Microsoft Security Essentials realtime monitoring turned on.
Thank you for visiting,
Rick- Marked As Answer byRickImAPCModeratorFriday, May 29, 2009 9:19 PM
All Replies
Hello Kevin,
Yes you need to uninstall all other "Memory Resident" antivirus applications before you install Microsoft Security Essentials.
A Memory Resident antivirus application is an application that starts when you turn on the computer, and stays started until you turn off the computer. Applications like Norton, McAffee, AVG Free are all Memory Resident antivirus applications. Other applications like the free version of Spybot and Adaware are not memory resident, as they are manually opened by the user when the user wants to perform a scan, then closed when the scan is complete.
These non memory resident antivirus applications can remain on the system but scans should not be run with Microsoft Security Essentials realtime monitoring turned on.
Thank you for visiting,
Rick- Marked As Answer byRickImAPCModeratorFriday, May 29, 2009 9:19 PM
- Okay, I thought I read the install directions very well (not distracted) and I failed to see where it said to Uninstall any antivirus. I knew to disable it, but not uninstall... It was probably big red letters, huh?
- Edited byWekebu Tuesday, June 23, 2009 6:41 PMadded a line
Okay, I thought I read the install directions very well (not distracted) and I failed to see where it said to Uninstall any antivirus. It was probably big red letters, huh?
I just glanced at Connect and the system requirements pages, and can't see it in big red letters, so I don't think you missed anything there. The installer provides that message as it starts. It does not check for the existence of other a/v software before installing, as far as I know.
-steve
Microsoft MVP Windows Live / Windows Live OneCare, Live Mesh, & MS Security Essentials Forums Moderator- Edited byStephen BootsMVP, ModeratorThursday, June 25, 2009 2:17 PMremoved "I don't recall"
- The installer does tell you to uninstall first. Also I had One Care installed and the installer couldn't get going until One Care was off.
The installer does tell you to uninstall first. Also I had One Care installed and the installer couldn't get going until One Care was off.
Agreed, it was fairly obviously displayed as gnomishtech mentioned near the beginning of setup.
However, it doesn't surprise me that many here seem to have missed it since most will simply look for the prompts required to perform the install and completely miss such 'extra' messages during that process.
Excuse me, but on my first installation I even read the entire EULA and at least skimmed the Privacy Statement. I know this seems strange, but someone has to do it to look for oddities, I know that most of you didn't ;>)
Rob- I said said something about this in My install concern that MSE doesn't check for other security software/firewalls So I installed with avg still running
I'll not do that again because as soon as the MSE services Started win 7 rc came to a crawl untill I removed avg
Now avg uninstalled MSE running fine kind of
Posted By Mikro - hi !
i´m running Avira, do i really have to UNINSTALL it to be able to install MSE ?
would it not be enough just to DISABLE all it´s autostarting exe-files with "Services" ? I said said something about this in My install concern that MSE doesn't check for other security software/firewalls So I installed with avg still running
I'll not do that again because as soon as the MSE services Started win 7 rc came to a crawl untill I removed avg
Now avg uninstalled MSE running fine kind of
Posted By Mikro
Mikro,
Checking for every possible competing security application during installation simply adds to the complexity and size of the installation, and thus the overall support cost of the product. Simlpy telling the user they need to uninstall all potentially conflicting security software on their own may not always work, but OneCare itself proved that even having this ability didn't always work, so leaving it out is the easiest solution.
In security, simpler is generally better, so this direction makes sense. If someone comes here with operational issues, this will likely be one of the first questions they'll be asked, so even if they missed the message they'll get it here. Worst case I'm sure it's one of the very firt questions on the Support script for Installation issues.
Robhi !
i´m running Avira, do i really have to UNINSTALL it to be able to install MSE ?
would it not be enough just to DISABLE all it´s autostarting exe-files with "Services" ?
I wouldn't recommend it, there are other possible types of conflict that you can't predict. The standard rule is only one Antivrus, since they will all generally contend for access to the API calls which intercept file reads and writes through the operating system.
Rob- hi !
i have both Avira & MSE running, NO problem... OK, but what happens when you receive a piece of malware and both programs attempt to deal with it at the same time?
There are many issues with attempting this, so it simply shouldn't be done. That a few will still try it and 'claim' there is no conflict is normal, but it's still not a recommended configuration, by Microsoft or any antivirus vendor for that matter.
Robhi !
you are playing russian roultte. the rule is you cannot have two antivirus programs running at the same time. they both start in boot up and they will fight each other and one day you WILL have a huge problem
i have both Avira & MSE running, NO problem...
robinhi everyone !
i've been tested this AV 4 last severe month to run with some free AV there the result :
MSE + AVIRA = seems everything stable, but i'd noticed fail in auto-update(both of them) sometimes.
MSE + MCAfee(Trials) = my PC runs very-very slowly
MSE + Panda Cloud(Beta) = it crashed each other and this annoying me very much!
MSE + BITDefender(some freeAV) = same result w/ AVIRA
At last, i use it standalone in my PC.
But i'm too scared with thousand viruses, spywares, trojans, etc's that spreads all over the cyberworld.
Hope, MSE will protect me from those threads.
p.s. Sory 4 my english.Whilst I agree that only one antivirus/antimalware application should be running in realtime monitoring mode at any time, I think that the advice that it is essential to completely uninstall rival products is unwarranted, especially as MSE is still in beta, and I think it highly unwise to rely solely on a beta product for protection. When I want to test MSE in realtime mode, I disable NAV. Otherwise I have NAV in realtime mode (enabled) and MSE with realtime off and test it as an on demand scanner only.
- Unproposed As Answer byStephen BootsMVP, ModeratorFriday, September 11, 2009 3:40 PM
- Proposed As Answer byBrian Borg Thursday, September 10, 2009 10:31 PM
- The advice to uninstall other antimalware products is warranted. MSE is in beta and this is a beta test. Having other antimalware products installed with MSE can have unintended consequences. Any bugs encountered may or may not be valid in this situation. Beta testing is usually done on a non production machine so it wouldn't be necessary to have another antimalware product installed. If you are not testing MSE real time protection what features of MSE are you testing? How can you test the capabilities of MSE when you are using another product to protect your computer?
Jim - MVP Windows Live - Forum Moderator - Live One Care - Live Mesh - Microsoft Security Essentials Whilst I agree that only one antivirus/antimalware application should be running in realtime monitoring mode at any time, I think that the advice that it is essential to completely uninstall rival products is unwarranted, especially as MSE is still in beta, and I think it highly unwise to rely solely on a beta product for protection. When I want to test MSE in realtime mode, I disable NAV. Otherwise I have NAV in realtime mode (enabled) and MSE with realtime off and test it as an on demand scanner only.
If both products you are testing state that this is an acceptable configuration I would agree, but Microsoft doesn't support this, so it's simply an unsupported situation. The Microsoft real-time components are known to interact with not only the active protection components from other products, but even in some cases the drivers or management components, so this is playing with fire.
If another organization decides they wish to make their product able to co-exist with MSE, it will be up to them to deal with interoperability issues, so I don't expect to see this attempted except by a few such as Spybot Search & Destroy for example. Such products avoid some of the potential compatibility issues both through modular construction and also deeper design criteria which reduce the chances for conflict. However, virtually none of the major antivirus vendors design this way, since they expect their products to perform as the primary protection for the PC.
Like OneCare before it, Microsoft Security Essentials is expected to be popular with the relatively non-technical user population, so this group needs some hard and fast rules to live by. The rule with MSE is that multiple AV programs aren't supported, precisely to avoid the support issues this could create for a free product. It is highly unlikely this will change, though again the burden will be with the third-party product vendor if they wish to attempt to co-exist with MSE.
Those who wish to 'mix-and match' would probably be better off starting with another product as their base. We both know that a few of these exist so there's really no reason for MSE to spend time attempting to 'compete' with these, since it's already been declared to be 'complete' protection in a simple to manage package.
Rob
(Bitman from the Safer-Networking Forums)- Probably warranting it's own "thread" but I'll say it anyway.
Why don't any that "doubt" MSE's abilities take an image backup of their system, then UNINSTALL MSE and load the system up with whatever packages you have always trusted and see if THEY find anything lurking ? You can then just go back to the image.
Before switching to this beta I always used ONE product alone, but did at the insistance of others (saying stuff always gets through) do what I suggested... the results were 100% clean, even after 2 years plus use on the OS at the time. I have MSE on a clean Vista install and so far have no worries that it's letting anything through it shouldn't, and it runs so smoothly (with as near zero impact on resources, that's hard to believe). It's as fast as Vista with no AV installed :) - Good advice, Mooly. ;-)
-steve
Microsoft MVP Windows Live / Windows Live OneCare, Live Mesh, & MS Security Essentials Forums Moderator - Just to report I had Avast Home installed and it worked with MSE.
________________
mr stavo Just to report I had Avast Home installed and it worked with MSE.
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mr stavo
Although it may "work" -You should *never* have more than one security product installed on the PC providing active protection/scanning. This can cause performance issues, system instability, and can hinder the effectiveness of both products at providing protection.
-steve
Microsoft MVP Windows Live / Windows Live OneCare, Live Mesh, & MS Security Essentials Forums ModeratorI am just stopping by to report pending deliver of the final release Windows 7 distributions in Nov. 09. that the following MSE release is performing fabulously on Windows 7 (RC) Build 7100 64x OS desktop deployments as of 10/09.
Microsoft Security Essentials Version: 1.0.1611.0
Antimalware Client Version: 2.0.6212.0
Engine Version: 1.1.5101.0
Antivirus definitions: 1.67.543.0
Antispyware definitions: 1.67.543.0
In reference to various challenges, Systems are not more secure, when running multiple conflicting AV applications as has been vigorously stated. It may bear some thought to include a mechanism for building a recovery/boot scan implementation of MSE (ISO), to remove viruses and malware already on the system, prior to resident services taking over monitoring tasks. This might in future versions be part of the system image options for backup services in Windows 7.
MSE (Microsoft Security Essentials) is a dream come true. Thanks for a great job. I deleted all other paid for and free AV vendor products gleefully.ASUS/AMD 64x Phenom Multicore Systems
ATI Graphics 3400-4800 Series
2-8 GB System Memory configurations.
500 GB through Terrabyte RAID 0/1 configurations.
Various multiple and single widescreen display configurations.I was wondering if other programs should be uninstall like Windows Live Suite :
Essentials
ID Signin assistant
Live Sync
Upload ToolI was wondering if other programs should be uninstall like Windows Live Suite :
Essentials
ID Signin assistant
Live Sync
Upload Tool
No, none of these are security programs. They will work fine after MSE is installed.
-steve
~ Microsoft MVP Windows Live ~ Windows Live OneCare| Live Mesh|MS Security Essentials Forums Moderator ~- I viewed the installation video and it indicates that other anti-virus should be removed. But it does not indicate a reboot. I would like to uninstall the other anti-virus, reboot then install the security essentials. In order to minimize the amount of time that I am unprotected, can I start the download, get to the point where I am going to do the install, then cancel it. Then uninstall the other anti-virus, reboot and then pick up where I left off on the install. If so, can you describe how I would do this (does it actually put the installation executable somewhere?) thanks
cdor,
You can download the installation file, save it, and then run it after a reboot, though that isn't needed. On the download page, click on Locales and Languages to select the version you need and save it locally. The Windows Firewall will protect the PC from inbound access and as long as you don't browse the web, open and read emails, etc., you will be fine during the installation of MSE.
-steve
~ Microsoft MVP Windows Live ~ Windows Live OneCare| Live Mesh|MS Security Essentials Forums Moderator ~- Thanks Stephen,
I think that would be the best way, to insure my old virus software (McAfee) is completely uninstalled (and removed from memory) prior to installing a new anti-virus software.
Hello,Just to report I had Avast Home installed and it worked with MSE.
________________
mr stavo
Although it may "work" -You should *never* have more than one security product installed on the PC providing active protection/scanning. This can cause performance issues, system instability, and can hinder the effectiveness of both products at providing protection.
-steve
Microsoft MVP Windows Live / Windows Live OneCare, Live Mesh, & MS Security Essentials Forums Moderator
This is SkyNET,
I have MSE, Avast, AVG, Avira, Panda, Kasperksy, SpywareDoctor, Norton, and BitDefender running, all with no problems. Hrmm, I wonder why that is - oh wait, that's because
I AM A VIRUS!! MUAHAHAHHAA ;)
Ok seriously,
I tell everyone who asks for my 'advice' to NEVER run more than one AV tool together. Separate anti-malware programs are ok, but NEVER more than one AV tool, or firewall. Just a quick story, I am an admin at a public library and this one person came in with a laptop and wondered why they couldn't access our wireless, which is free and unfiltered. They had I swear, like 5-8 AV suites (free and paid) running Vista, which took a year and a day to load. Took a Core2Duo with 4gb of ram and turned it into a PII with 256mb of ram. said "Um, I'm getting rid of all your bloatware, you don't need it". Stick with Windows firewall and ONE antivirus, ONE!! (stupid humans) :D
Jealousy is not proof of love, nor proof of emotional immaturity- I can't recall how many people I have helped with infected PCs that were running terribly where I found multiple real time products installed and active. The worst case that I encountered was 4 real time a/v products causing the PC to take 30 minutes or more to load Windows to the desktop. :-)
-steve
~ Microsoft MVP Windows Live ~ Windows Live OneCare| Live Mesh|MS Security Essentials Forums Moderator ~ I can't recall how many people I have helped with infected PCs that were running terribly where I found multiple real time products installed and active. The worst case that I encountered was 4 real time a/v products causing the PC to take 30 minutes or more to load Windows to the desktop. :-)
LOL! omg, that's crazy....
-steve
~ Microsoft MVP Windows Live ~ Windows Live OneCare| Live Mesh|MS Security Essentials Forums Moderator ~
Jealousy is not proof of love, nor proof of emotional immaturity- Oh great, now what-I know for a fact when I remove McAfee and windows Essentials, I'll have to pay for them-each time I open a window for either one, they INSIST(sorry) I purchase. what what-no money?
- I have answered you other thread. Security Essentials is free. Remove all other anti-malware using the tools in the thread I responded with.
Doc
