Me And MSE

[Bigaldoc]

I am a friend of Microsoft Security Essentials (MSE) and have it installed on both my desktop where XP is my usual OS and my (now) seven month old laptop in Windows 7. It has protected me well and I like that it's free.

But I have one suggestion and have been reading in the Microsoft Answers forum to get my "mindset" correct. It's hard to get un-used to all the AV programs I've used in the past that have had daily definition updates and in many cases even more frequently. But several MS MVPs have commented that this "routine" isn't necessary with MSE since it will proactively (my words) watch over us.

However, I still wish MS would add a Setting allowing users to specify the interval or time of day for definition updates as they do for scheduled scans. Two examples for my reasoning follow.

My desktop stays on 24/7 and automatic updates is engaged in XP. A short time ago I checked MSE and the definitions had not been updated since sometime on July 28. Today being July 30 and my understanding that MSE updates at least daily ("more than 24 hours") I would have thought that it would have updated by now. Upon manual update, the definition file "number" changed significantly.

The laptop on the other hand is only used periodically, sometimes sitting idle and turned off for several days. I'd like to be able to tell MSE to check for updates at "power on," but since I cannot, as an alternative, I manually run MSE's update as soon as I power on the laptop.

[HansV]

I checked my Windows 7 PC. It shows 2 definition updates to MSE on the 27th, 2 on the 28th, 2 on the 29th, and so far 1 on the 30th.
You can change the update interval as follows:
Press WinKey+R to display the Run window.
Type regedit and click OK or press Enter.
Navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Microsoft Antimalware\Signature Updates.
In the right-hand pane, double-click the SignatureUpdateInterval entry.
Its default value is 18 (hexadecimal) = 24 (decimal); this stands for 24 hours. You could change it to a lower number, e.g. 6 (hexadecimal or decimal, it doesn't matter) to update every 6 hours.

[Bigaldoc]

Thanks, Hans. I will particularly do that on the laptop but in the interest of the following, I'll go into the registry and see what else is there.

After reading your "recent history" I went to Windows Update on my desktop and found an interesting "fact." It looks like on my desktop, MSE doesn't update on SUNDAY for some reason. Mebbe it's church day ( ) Thanks for the lead !!!

[John Gray]

I went to Windows Update on my desktop and found an interesting "fact." It looks like on my desktop, MSE doesn't update on SUNDAY for some reason. Mebbe it's church day!!!

Perhaps viruses (and Microsoft) take the day off? We certainly get considerably less spam at work at the weekend.

[Teunis]

Navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Microsoft Antimalware\Signature Updates.
In the right-hand pane, double-click the SignatureUpdateInterval entry.
Its default value is 18 (hexadecimal) = 24 (decimal); this stands for 24 hours. You could change it to a lower number, e.g. 6 (hexadecimal or decimal, it doesn't matter) to update every 6 hours.[/quote]


Hans, I tried to change the entry from 18 to 6 but did not succeed, message:

"Cannot edit SignatureUpdateInterval: Error writing the value's new contents."

I am logged in as administrator, so do you have a suggestion?
Regards, Teunis

[HansV]

You have to make Administrators (or yourself) owner of the Signature Updates registry key.
Select this key, then click Edit | Permissions...
Click Advanced.
Activate the Owner tab.
Select Administrators (or your username) in the Change owner to box.
Click OK.
You should now be able to tick the "Full Control" check box for Administrators (or your own username).

See Take Ownership of a Registry Key in Windows 7 for an illustrated guide.

[Teunis]

Hans,

That did the trick perfectly. Thanks a lot.

Regards, Teunis