Gentlemen, I hope I'm in the right Forum for this question. I have a Dell PC with Windows XP Home SP2, Norton Antivirus 2003, Norton Ghost 9.0, with all the latest updates. 80GB hard drive, CD-RW & DVD-R, and Floppy Disc.

Has anyone downloaded the new "Beta" version of MS Antispyware Program? Do you think there would be any conflict downloading it to my PC. Like the MS Firewall that came with SP2? Or Norton products for that matter?

I'm tempted to try for this freebie but I'd like some wise counsel from your Forum before dipping my toes in the water. I read somewhere that you shouldn't try the "Beta" version of any new program, although this one is a proven product that MS took over. Right?

Thanks for your comments.

Hopeful

It has been said it can conflict with the windows firewall. Now isnt that something one MS product ruining its own neighbor MS product?

Thats why its a BETA still going under tests to make it work right.

I dowloaded it on my PC yesterday and it has worked fine. It found things that Ad-aware and Spybot would not find.

I have read there is some suspicion that it finds false posotives. But not totally false items just whats left over like history files. I didnt see any of that on my pc and im not or havent looked into all of that yet. Just som rumors from other boards.

Most people use a non MS firewall anyways like the free Sygate firewall.

Hope this has helped some!

This topic has been discussed in detail in this linked thread below. Maybe it will give some insight.

http://www.bleepingcomputer.com/forums/ind...wtopic=8271&hl=


Mod Edit:I have moved this to a more appropriate forum. Where it can receive the attention it deserves.

Thank you cowsgonemadd3 & scarlett for your responses. I reviewed the link that scarlett offered and have a better feeling about trying out the spyware from MS.

My problem will be keeping the website open long enough to download over 6MB of the program. I still have a 56K dialup system.

I will try the download tonight for sure.

I'll keep you posted on how I make out with it.

Hopeful

I downloaded MS AntiSpyware Beta1 as I said and it was successful. Then I ran AdAware, Spybot S&D, and MS programs sequentially with nothing dangerous reported from Spybot, only one cookie in Ad Aware, and one Browser Hijacker and one SearchSquire in MS AntiSpyware. Everything went well.

One thing I noticed in the MS description of the program was that it would end in July 2005 and the program would no longer run. I guess we're supposed to buy the new product at that point. Oh well.

Thanks again for your help. I'll watch for your updates in this Forum.

Hopeful

i'm not a lightweight on computers, but not an expert

i d/l and installed microsoft's attempt at anti-spyware
the results


it found a False Positive in a program called ACE HTML editor

i did all by the book
was offline, a/v and firewall and all running programs closed
ran ms A-spyware and
1. did the backup in restore
2. quarantine

now when ever i go to the quarantine area it will totally lock up my system! so i let it send a "bug report" to Mr Bill, then did a total uninstall and then found the rest of the folders and the 25 reg entries that it would not remove from install

so for right now i am not totally happy with the program, as i thought it was slow i have a 1.7gig amd with 1 gig of memory and running just "vanilla programs"
nothing unusual about my system at all and ms XP sp-2 with all updates