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Final release of Windows Defender (Build 1592)

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It brings me great pleasure to announce the final availability of Windows Defender in English. The team has been working hard for over a year and fixed over 400 bugs in the areas of stability and reliability since Windows Defender (Beta 2). We plan to release localized versions in the next few months including but not limited to German, Japanese, French and Spanish. All in all, we plan to deliver over 20 localized versions of Windows Defender.

We are recommending that current Beta 2 customers upgrade to the final release of Windows Defender since Beta 2 will expire on December 31st, 2006. We will also send a notification to upgrade in the next few weeks to current customers, so be on the lookout. Finally, as a part of Microsoft’s ongoing security commitment, we are offering 2 free support incidents for our customers. If you are having any issues with Windows Defender during scanning, installation, detection or removal, you can call our support services and we will help you resolve the issue.

Lastly, I want to thank the Anti-Malware engineering team for all their hard work. I believe that Windows Defender has done a tremendous amount to help make millions of computers around the world more secure. I also want to thank our great community of testers and MVPs who have made this release possible by testing and reporting bugs throughout our development cycle. We couldn’t have done it without you!

Now, go upgrade and install Windows Defender today!

Adam

Comments

  • Anonymous
    January 01, 2003
    Derzeit überschlagen sich bei Microsoft die Ereignisse. Nach dem IE7 Launch letzte Woche, wo immerhin schon über 3 Millionen Downloads erfolgt sind (http://blogs.msdn.com/ie/archive/2006/10/24/ie7-hits-the-street.aspx), ist jetzt auch der Windows Defender

  • Anonymous
    January 01, 2003
    If I might add my own congratulations as well for a fine product by this team. Just one question arises for this member.Have followed the link and downloaded what is supposed to be the final full version of WD.Ran a quick scan once it finished installing and all seems well. However,instead of showing a Build of 1592 as is shown in blog,this present new copy states: Build 1.14.1734.6 created 23/10/2006/4:22pm Supposedly has updated itself.Trust have version supposed to.My thanks again for a job well done.

  • Anonymous
    January 01, 2003
    Steve, You can find the windowsdefender.adm file in the %windir%inf directory.

  • Anonymous
    October 24, 2006
    will Beta2 users get the update vial Windows Update or do they have to re-download the final version and install them?

  • Anonymous
    October 24, 2006
    The comment has been removed

  • Anonymous
    October 24, 2006
    In the release notes for Windows Defender beta 2 (http://www.microsoft.com/athome/security/spyware/software/about/releasenotes.mspx) you said that an .amd file would be included with the final release so that Defender could be configured with group policy, could you tell me where to find this .adm file. Thanks

  • Anonymous
    October 24, 2006
    I currently am unable to download this. I am using Firefox 2.0 and when I go to download the WGA plugin I get a 404 and if I select the alternate method I also get a 404.

  • Anonymous
    October 25, 2006
    Wow, great news. I've been using WD since it was called MS AntiSpyware, and am thrilled by the extent of change and development applied. Downloading the final release as I type this!

  • Anonymous
    October 25, 2006
    I'd love to download this so I can distribute it via Group Policy to all my users, but I can't seem to get by WGA on my Mac. Is there a way to download it?

  • Anonymous
    October 25, 2006
    I notice I don't have to pass WGA to download IE7. Why the difference?

  • Anonymous
    October 26, 2006
    Windows Defender is great, but the only thing I absolutely HATE about it is that it uses Microsoft Update to update its dat file. (Why?) Windows Update is horrible, horrible, and uses WAY too much CPU power and memory when running. (CPU goes up to 100%.) Can't Windows Defender do this itself? How difficult would it really be just to schedule a daily or whatever download of a dat file and install it?

  • Anonymous
    October 26, 2006
    I installed the new, final version on October 24.  "About Windows Defender" shows the following: Windows Defender Version:  1.1.1592.0 Engine Version: 1.1.1609.0 Definition Version:  1.14.1734.6 Product ID: 81664-406-7041054-04598 Some of my friends are reporting a different Product ID although they also say they installed the final version.  Do I have the latest version?  Or should I redownload? I run WinXP SP2.

  • Anonymous
    October 27, 2006
    To answer some of the questions that have been posted. All users go through WGA validation, but if you have already validated recently (due to downloading other things from the Microsoft Download Center) the ActiveX control is already the latest, so the check will occur very quickly. Regarding the question around definition updates, we received significant customer feedback during our initial Beta that customers wanted less software updating mechanisms, so we designed Windows Defender to use the software updating infrastructure that already exists in Windows. If you are experiencing issues with Windows Update, Automatic Updates, or Microsoft Update, you should contact Microsoft Product Support Services for help. Lastly, when checking the version of the Windows Defender installed on your machine, please be sure to compare the right version numbers. There are actually three version numbers that you can see. The software version number (1592), the engine version number, and the definition update version number. The latter two versions will update much more frequently than the software version. Lastly, I want to add that German and Japanese versions are coming along nicely and we should have those versions ready very soon. Thanks.

  • Anonymous
    October 29, 2006
    Mike Chan: "Regarding the question around definition updates, we received significant customer feedback during our initial Beta that customers wanted less software updating mechanisms, so we designed Windows Defender to use the software updating infrastructure that already exists in Windows." One of the problems there is that I have Windows Update set to notify me about updates rather than automatically download and install them. (I like to be in control of my machine on that level.) But, I would rather have Windows Defender automatically update itself, like my antivirus software does, instead of pestering me each time a definition update becomes available. (Which is quite frequent.) You can't pick-and-choose what you want done automatically with Windows Update. It's all or nothing.

  • Anonymous
    November 02, 2006
    Can Window XP Automatic Update install critical XP update and definition update when Log in with Limited Account? Are there any plan of allowing Limited account user to access Microsoft Update to get Definition update or to allow user to check for update on Window Defender.

  • Anonymous
    November 02, 2006
    Jacob: The updating system will actually work even if you have "notify" for download or "notify" for install. Windows Defender will periodically check for new updates (as will Automatic Updates itself). If Automatic Updates downloads the update, then it will abide by your security update policy. However, when Windows Defender looks for new updates, it should automatically "clean out" any definition updates that are queued up. So, although the UI is not optimal, Windows Defender will always grab the latest definitions and install them. However, it will be random whether or not you see the yellow shield or not. It will depend on if Automatic Updates or Windows Defender initiates the new definitions download. We are looking at how to improve this process in the future with improvements to the Automatic Updates infrastructure. Thanks for your feedback!