Thoughts and concerns regarding MSE

J

Jim Favre

Not a question really just a few thoughts and concerns I have regarding MSE. Essentially the rather unique way MSE presents itself has me a bit uncomfortable. After years of being the one sitting at the desk where a networks problems ended up, security was perhaps my biggest nightmare. Of the 100+ clients on the network I was responsible for, 99% of them were very rudimentary "Point & Clickers". The facility was a large school for students with "issues" and by nature the professional staff consisted of folks who were highly educated in areas that computers were either non existent or simply replacements for typewriters and filing cabinets. Any loss of data no matter how small was unacceptable. E-mail traffic both internal and Internet was extremely heavy and the biggest threat to the network. Anti-virus / malware protection was kept at the highest level of protection available. It is the way that MSE handles e-mail or more accurately doesn't handle e-mail that makes me nervous. I am fully aware that the same level of e-mail security provided by traditional anti-virus software is covered by MSE. Outgoing e-mail from a clean machine has no need to be scanned but, frankly hitting "send" and not seeing an outgoing mail scanner do its thing makes me very uneasy. Also, unlike other Anti-virus software, MSE only receives new definitions when a scan runs. Windows Update also does it if you have it set up to run updates for all resident Microsoft software but the lack of automatic definition upgrades that arrive as soon as they are posted is unsettling. I originally had MSE set up to do a full scan once a week but, have since changed to daily after finding that updates were available long before the next scheduled scan. E-mail could come and go for for up to six days and issues would go undetected until the next full scan. Not on my network. Lastly the lack of additional conveniences found in other Anti-virus offerings like SPAM filtering is annoying. As time goes on I find myself closer and closer to uninstalling MSE and returning to a single anti-virus package that does it all. I formerly ran full scans once a month and nothing was ever found since the software did its job. Set for weekly scans MSE was finding a bug almost every time that had found its way in since the last scan and upgrade. "Real Time Protection" needs real time upgrades. I am a dedicated Microsoft user, the only way a non-Microsoft product gets used on my machines is when Microsoft doesn't offer an equivalent. When MSE arrived I switched instantly but, for the first time I am not sure it was the right move. I know, my post is long and wordy, I'm old and sent business snail mail for nearly 25 years. Words were never limited at the cost of clarity. Professional feedback please. . Happy Glitsch Free New Year! JFF

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