Microsoft Security Essentials (MSE) question

[230RN]

Win7 64-bit Version 6.1.7101
HP G72 laptop.
External USB Keyboard and Mouse.
New behavior (a week or so that I've noticed it):

Update downloaded

I immediately start either Quick or Full scan.

Scan stops when I press the either the external Keyboard space bar or the one on the laptop, returns to opening MSE screen.  (Stops the scan.)  Does not seem to stop the scan when other keys hit.

Essentially, this means I cannot have MSE run in the background, since as soon as I enter any text and hit the spacebar, I kill the scan.

I do not want to go to Win10 yet.

Hints as to what's goofy, please?

Terry, 230RN

[Hawkmoon]

Hints as to what's goofy, please?

Microsoft?

[230RN]

^ LOLz.

[HeroHog]

MSE is now not even recommended by MS. Get Avast or something along those lines. I use Avast on my laptops and AVG on my Media Center laptop (free editions on all the antivirus). I use two different ones because AVG Free lets me scan my SAN volumes and AVAST has features I like if you only want it to schedule local scans and protect against mail and web intrusion. Yeah, it's a little "naggy" wanting ya to upgrade to the paid version with "features" I don't want but not enough so to irritate me into paying to make it go away and trust me, my tolerance level for that carp is low.
 

[Calumus]

Try Bitdefender. Register once, and you're done.

[cordex]

Try Bitdefender. Register once, and you're done.

This is what I recommend now.

[Perd Hapley]

Having used MSE on all my Windows boxen for some years now, it felt very odd to get rid of it. Having looked into the rankings given by various tech websites, I went with Avira's free version. (Free AV has always worked for me.)

[Ben]

Having used MSE on all my Windows boxen for some years now, it felt very odd to get rid of it. Having looked into the rankings given by various tech websites, I went with Avira's free version. (Free AV has always worked for me.)

 I really liked it when it first came out. I thought it was one of Microsoft's best products. Did a great job with absolutely minimal resource drain. I wish they would have continued it.

[Perd Hapley]

I really liked it when it first came out. I thought it was one of Microsoft's best products. Did a great job with absolutely minimal resource drain. I wish they would have continued it.

I guess they want us to move on to a newer OS, that comes with Windows Defender.

MSE is now not even recommended by MS.

Really?

http://www.howtogeek.com/173291/goodbye-microsoft-security-essentials-microsoft-now-recommends-you-use-a-third-party-antivirus/

It's still advertised on their web site as "The best brains and brawn in the background."

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/security-essentials-product-information#tabs1=overview

[Ben]

I guess they want us to move on to a newer OS, that comes with Windows Defender.


Really?

http://www.howtogeek.com/173291/goodbye-microsoft-security-essentials-microsoft-now-recommends-you-use-a-third-party-antivirus/

It's still advertised on their web site as "The best brains and brawn in the background."

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/security-essentials-product-information#tabs1=overview

http://lifehacker.com/microsoft-admits-that-third-party-antivirus-is-more-eff-1441135677

Microsoft appears to have a split personality.

[Perd Hapley]

From the article I posted:

Update: Microsoft has now released a statement, saying “We believe in Microsoft antimalware products and strongly recommend them to our customers, to our friends, and to our families.” Their statement unfortunately doesn’t directly address Holly Stewart’s comments...

Sort of a back-pedal, I guess.

FWIW, at the websites I looked at, MSE is still not getting very good marks. I looked at AV-Test, Toms Hardware, and one other one (maybe LifeHacker?). I think AVG, BitDefender, Kaspersky, Avira, and Panda were some of the top recommendations.

It would be nice if more of them would make a comparison of only the free apps. I've been using free antivirus for years, and haven't had any problems, or at least nothing bad enough I can even remember it. Not that I'd mind paying for it, but it doesn't seem worth it right now. How to Geek fisked various free utilities, and Avira they can only ding with the fact that it offered some free, optional web filter. That "feature" seems to have been removed (or they made it an opt-in), and I've had no problems with Avira since I installed it a few days ago. (I also used it for a year or so, before MSE.)

[HeroHog]

http://lifehacker.com/microsoft-admits-that-third-party-antivirus-is-more-eff-1441135677

http://www.howtogeek.com/173291/goodbye-microsoft-security-essentials-microsoft-now-recommends-you-use-a-third-party-antivirus/

[Ben]

http://lifehacker.com/microsoft-admits-that-third-party-antivirus-is-more-eff-1441135677

http://www.howtogeek.com/173291/goodbye-microsoft-security-essentials-microsoft-now-recommends-you-use-a-third-party-antivirus/

Whoa, deja vu man. Trippy.  

[Ben]

I've been using free antivirus for years, and haven't had any problems, or at least nothing bad enough I can even remember it. Not that I'd mind paying for it, but it doesn't seem worth it right now.

Yeah, AV software has always seemed kinda high priced to me with the annual subscription thing and all. On the other hand, I suppose there is some resource intensive R&D to keep it all up to date on the practically daily new threats.

[Perd Hapley]

Of course, having said that, now I'll probably get some mega-viruswormtrojan-of-death that will destroy all of my files, reformat everything, drain my back account, and frame me for inventing Jar-Jar Binks.