Windows 7 - 2 anti virus in one pc?

Hi guys, i know this is madness but i m running Kaspersky Anti Virus 2010 and above that i have installed Microsoft Security Essentials. I have heard that 2 AV will conflict with each other thus making the computer slow. Its been 20 minutes now and i have not experienced any crashes or slow performance so far. Should i remove one or its ok to have both running at the same time?

It's your CPU cycles - but it is never good to have separate *active* scanning engines installed and running simultaneously. if you are trying out MSE, then I'd disable any real time scanning engines in Kaspersky.

Now, if you are only running one *actively* at a time, you can have as many others installed as long as they are not actively running....

Not a bad idea to have one installed to an ISO for emergency purposes - it cannot be modified by Malware, for example...but that is a long and tedious process, especially if you want another OS running to load to check your machine from an external source - take a look at BartPE, or else consider making a second Windows 7 install as a VHD for emergency recovery / scanning purposes....

Some installers will automatically insist on removing any other program once detected depending on which one is first. You can end up with a software conflict with both scanning engines going since they would tend to access the same resources as part of the process.

The MS tools on the other hand seem to be non threatening however to some programs unlike two 3rd party softwares. The MSE simply appears to Kaspersky as another function in Windows apparently and not a threat to the system.

Thanks John, i will disable real time protection of kaspersky while i use MSE and vice versa.

now that is a good plan. That way yo can test the effectiveness of MSE while having Kaspersky as your default, thereby not losing any of the benefits of your Kaspersky and at the same time not having two very proprietary programs butting heads and killing your CPU softly...with electricity and heat lol.

I pulled up taskmgr and found that MSE took almost 50 Mb RAM where as Kaspersky is just between 15-20. I removed MSE and will stick with kaspersky. Thanks for the help John.

At least you will be one of the few with a chance to try it out.

Alert!

Thank you for your interest in joining the Microsoft® Security Essentials Beta. We are not accepting additional participants at this time. Please check back at a later date for possible additional availability. http://www.microsoft.com/security_essentials/

You can still get MSE - just not from M$....

I figured as much. But it seems dinesh saved us all the trouble! It's typical of MS to come out with something nobody wants once tried out. Do you get your regular WDefender updates?

That's as sad as their old MS AntiSpyware Remover a few years back. No thanks! AVG is doing just fine here at next to 0% while still maintaining an active guard.

MSE is now available on connect again.