Why it takes a whole day to install & update Windows

[ardvark71]

Re: Why it takes a whole day to install & update Windows

Microsoft Security Essentials. It's the lightest-weight anti-malware product I've ever seen, it integrates right into Windows Update, and it works exceptionally well.

Even more than Avast, in your opinion?

Regards...

[SteveRiley]

Re: Why it takes a whole day to install & update Windows

That would be neat! I don't drink beer, but if you don't mind a nice glass of chilled white wine.... and maybe a nice steak dinner to wash it down!

How about a crisp New Zealand sauvignon blanc? I still have a bottle or two from when I used to visit there regularly. And let's be sure to hoist a carrot for DYK.

W2K crashed a LOT on me... <snip stuff>

The scavenger in 2000 was no good. It got progressively better in XP through SP3. Vista's was a regression. 7's is all new and very robust.

"detected" the installation was "illegal"

This kind of vigorous license enforcement ought to be an embarrassment. Reaching into someone's computer and purposefully disabling software because some robot scanner thinks you're a pirate is a massive injustice.

My friend with the Win7 laptop uses it about 4 or 5 hours per night, but he says he has had several crashes on his old HP dv7... He replaced it with a Lenovo E520 running Win7 Premium about two months ago. So far, no crashes.

Given my recent bad experiences with HP, my first reaction would be to blame the hardware. I've had the dubious opportunity to tear down a third HP laptop. These things are truly shoddy. To call it "construction" would be a stretch. A single flipped bit in RAM that's too hot has the potential of bringing any operating system to a sudden halt.

The two things Microsoft has done that help them the most is their security updates and the AV program, MSE, but I still won't do online banking with a Windows box. The 4,500,000 Windows zombie bot farm didn't get created because Windows is secure or the users are stupid. It still is just too promiscuous.

I've seen the stats that go into Microsoft's security intelligence report. North of 90% of those zombies run unpatched Windows 9x or XP. An up-to-date, firewalled, protected Windows 7 box is perfectly safe for online financial transactions. And I think you're underestimating the human element: there is no patch for stupidity.

They would do well to dump Ballmer.

...

[SteveRiley]

Re: Why it takes a whole day to install &amp; update Windows

No problem, I admit I jumped the gun a bit.

I certainly don't want to make enemies of anyone here.

Even more than Avast, in your opinion?

I spent most of my career at Microsoft working in Trustworthy Computing, the group that produces the research that goes into MSE and its regular updates. Microsoft's anti-malware resources go far beyond signature updates -- indeed, look at how much money the Malware Protection Center invests in taking down botnets. Examine the MMPC's website some time. I think you'll be impressed.

[ardvark71]

Re: Why it takes a whole day to install &amp; update Windows

I certainly don't want to make enemies of anyone here.

No, of course not. Nor do I.

Microsoft's anti-malware resources go far beyond signature updates -- indeed, look at how much money the Malware Protection Center invests in taking down botnets. Examine the MMPC's website some time. I think you'll be impressed.

Indeed. I didn't realize Microsoft put this kind of resources into a free program. However, in all honesty, with the exception of FP's, I think detection rates could be better, though.

Actually, in my last post, I wasn't to clear in asking my question. I meant do you think MSE runs lighter than Avast?

Regards...

[SteveRiley]

Re: Why it takes a whole day to install &amp; update Windows

Indeed. I didn't realize Microsoft put this kind of resources into a free program. However, in all honesty, with the exception of FP's, I think detection rates could be better, though.

Microsoft learned a very difficult lesson when it introduced UAC in Vista. Users hate to make security decisions, period. When the computer interrupts your workflow and pesters you with this:



Most users actually perceive this instead:



The security question is posed in the negative, the unsafe choice is the default, and the help is both disabled and in a foreign language!

MSE, attempting to appeal to the largest possible audience, strives principally to stay out of your way. If the choice is between no security at all or quiet-but-almost-perfect security, I'm happy to make the tradeoff a slightly lower detection rate.

Actually, in my last post, I wasn't to clear in asking my question. I meant do you think MSE runs lighter than Avast?

TBH, I haven't personally measured the footprints in a long time, so my data on this point is admittedly stale. Given that I've not heard reports from any of the folks I advise that MSE is a pig, I'm not concerned enough to suggest changes.

[de_koraco]

Re: Why it takes a whole day to install &amp; update Windows

Actually, in my last post, I wasn't to clear in asking my question. I meant do you think MSE runs lighter than Avast?

Yes, it runs much lighter than the trojans ala Avast, Avira, AVG, Norton...

[HalationEffect]

Re: Why it takes a whole day to install &amp; update Windows

Actually, in my last post, I wasn't to clear in asking my question. I meant do you think MSE runs lighter than Avast?

Yes, it runs much lighter than the trojans ala Avast, Avira, AVG, Norton...

Out of curiosity, is there any specific reason that you include Avast in with the 'trojan' anti-virus programs?

I know that the last time a Norton product (with the exception of Ghost) was any good was back in the days of DOS (and even then, it wasn't as good as Central Point's PC Tools)... AVG used to be good but in recent times has evolved into bloat/nag-ware... I've never used Avira, nor have I heard much about it good or bad. I've used Avast before, it always seemed pretty good, and was under the impression that it was still one of the few remaining good ones. In fact, only a few weeks ago I used Avast's rootkit removal tool to get rid of Cryptic.CTC on a friend's machine and it did a great job of that.

These days I've been recommending either MSE or Avast to my Windows using friends & family; if there is a reason I should stop recommending Avast, I'd love to know it.

[Detonate]

Re: Why it takes a whole day to install &amp; update Windows

I began installing MSE on all of the computers I work on about two years ago. I have long considered the major anti virus suites to be malware. They are resource hogs and most of the computers I service are older machines so MSE works a lot better on these machines. The only Windows computers I service that don't have MSE are the ones supplied to me by the Internal Revenue Service for use in our tax preparation program. They come to me with Norton installed and we are not allowed to remove it. My volunteers do not like to use the computers supplied by the IRS, and prefer to use the computers owned by the non profit that runs the program, or their own personal computers. The main complaint is the much longer boot up time on the Norton computers. They are set to scan the system on every boot, and I can't change it.

[de_koraco]

Re: Why it takes a whole day to install &amp; update Windows

Out of curiosity, is there any specific reason that you include Avast in with the 'trojan' anti-virus programs?

Not really, I just consider the whole AV industry to be very fishy.

[GreyGeek]

Re: Why it takes a whole day to install &amp; update Windows

That would be neat! I don't drink beer, but if you don't mind a nice glass of chilled white wine.... and maybe a nice steak dinner to wash it down!

How about a crisp New Zealand sauvignon blanc? I still have a bottle or two from when I used to visit there regularly. And let's be sure to hoist a carrot for DYK.

That would be perfect!

...
Given my recent bad experiences with HP, my first reaction would be to blame the hardware. I've had the dubious opportunity to tear down a third HP laptop. These things are truly shoddy. To call it "construction" would be a stretch. A single flipped bit in RAM that's too hot has the potential of bringing any operating system to a sudden halt.

That's what I told him about HP, but he wasn't happy to hear it. Then, his box broke. The upside down webcam should have been his first clue.

..... there is no patch for stupidity.

At least one that would work for me!

[eggbert]

Re: Why it takes a whole day to install &amp; update Windows

Not really, I just consider the whole AV industry to be very fishy.

Indeed. Most of it is over-hyped BS. I never even ran a resident anti-virus on my home windows machines. All I ever used was stuff like clam AV, where I would scan stuff manually.

Best AV in the world is common sense.

[ardvark71]

Re: Why it takes a whole day to install &amp; update Windows

Microsoft learned a very difficult lesson when it introduced UAC in Vista. Users hate to make security decisions, period. When the computer interrupts your workflow and pesters you with this:



Most users actually perceive this instead:

Hilarious but true.

MSE, attempting to appeal to the largest possible audience, strives principally to stay out of your way. If the choice is between no security at all or quiet-but-almost-perfect security, I'm happy to make the tradeoff a slightly lower detection rate.

Which I would agree is a good approach for most users.

TBH, I haven't personally measured the footprints in a long time, so my data on this point is admittedly stale. Given that I've not heard reports from any of the folks I advise that MSE is a pig, I'm not concerned enough to suggest changes.

I've actually found Avast to be lighter overall than MSE but for any system that has at least 1 GB of RAM, MSE is certainly a good option for those unable or unwilling to pay for AV protection.

Regards...

[SteveRiley]

Re: Why it takes a whole day to install &amp; update Windows

Hilarious but true.

Thanks. See my Security Myth #9 for the dancing pigs reference...

Not really, I just consider the whole AV industry to be very fishy.

Agreed. Late in the Vista development cycle, the Windows engineers strengthened the code enforcing kernel patch protection. An entire class of attacks was wiped out with this one change. It also emasculated most anti-malware products, because they were relying on a KPP weakness to scan traffic. Symantec and McAfee griped loudly and publicly about this -- obviously from fears of losing revenue. Mike Nash, VP of Trustworthy Computing at the time, even went so far as to ridicule these firms, claiming "to force us [Microsoft] to keep Windows sick just so they have a business model is absolutely ludicrous."

[GreyGeek]

Re: Why it takes a whole day to install &amp; update Windows

I wish the square bracket codes worked in the "Subject" line so I could have modified it to:

"Why it takes a whole day 30 minutes to install & update Windows"

I year ago, with I completed the installation of Win7 on my wife's Acer Aspire One AD0521 netbook it took about four hours to do.

My Acer Aspire 7739-3860 computer came this afternoon.

I started the installation process at 3:35PM, figuring it would take till 7:30 or 8PM to complete, with several reboots. My jaw hit the floor when, after entering my account name, password, timezone and the password for my wireless connection, I was presented with a WORKING desktop.

NO REBOOT was required!

It took less than FIVE minutes! I took another 20 minutes downloading and installing Microsoft Security Essentials, CCleaner, FireFox and LibreOffice. When I tried running LibreOffice it complained that the JRE was missing. After 20 minutes of searching I still couldn't find an OpenJDK JRE for WINDOWS which I would trust, so I reverted to Sun's latest JRE. That's the first time I had trouble finding a Windows version of some software.

[de_koraco]

Re: Why it takes a whole day to install &amp; update Windows

Agreed. Late in the Vista development cycle, the Windows engineers strengthened the code enforcing kernel patch protection. An entire class of attacks was wiped out with this one change. It also emasculated most anti-malware products, because they were relying on a KPP weakness to scan traffic. Symantec and McAfee griped loudly and publicly about this -- obviously from fears of losing revenue. Mike Nash, VP of Trustworthy Computing at the time, even went so far as to ridicule these firms, claiming "to force us [Microsoft] to keep Windows sick just so they have a business model is absolutely ludicrous."

This one is not mine, it's a paraphrase - you have a whole industry designed around the notion that the "solution" that detects the most threats is deemed the most trustworthy. And there are several ways in which you can make your solution detect the most threats...

@GG - a retail Windows install is one thing, a preloaded Windows quite another.