Solved MSE system requirements

Hi All, I am exploring the possibility of trying Microsoft Security Essentials, and notice in the system requirements that the prefered browsers are either IE V6 or later, and Firefox V2 or later. Does this mean that other browsers aren't compatible? I find it hard to believe that Microsoft would confine communication to two browsers, but I thought I'd ask here. At the moment, Chrome is my default browser and Cyberfox is my standby. If you are or have been a user, what is your opinion of it? Thanks for any input in advance.

Right, but having Windows 7 you will have some form of Internet Explorer lying around in the shell.
It will work and run fine. You've looked in to the system requirements a bit too much.

I have MSE or "Windows Defender" stock standard with Windows 8 and I have only manually used it once, but my understanding is that it is the most efficient and reliable anti-malware available.

LuzTeTT said:

Right, but having Windows 7 you will have some form of Internet Explorer lying around in the shell.
It will work and run fine. You've looked in to the system requirements a bit too much.

I have MSE or "Windows Defender" stock standard with Windows 8 and I have only manually used it once, but my understanding is that it is the most efficient and reliable anti-malware available.

Click to expand...

Yes, I do have IE10 installed but don't use it. Just having it is what's required? What browser do you use?
I had Windows defender included and activated by default on my new computer. I never saw it do anything the whole time I had it activated, so I rendered it disabled. MSE isn't the same thing as Defender is it?

Honestly? i've never seen MSE do anything that required a browser. I think it's just requiring something with a half-decent rendering engine, so Chrome or whatever should be fine (it's not an exhaustive list)

Heyyou said:

LuzTeTT said:

Right, but having Windows 7 you will have some form of Internet Explorer lying around in the shell.
It will work and run fine. You've looked in to the system requirements a bit too much.

I have MSE or "Windows Defender" stock standard with Windows 8 and I have only manually used it once, but my understanding is that it is the most efficient and reliable anti-malware available.

Click to expand...

Yes, I do have IE10 installed but don't use it. Just having it is what's required? What browser do you use?
I had Windows defender included and activated by default on my new computer. I never saw it do anything the whole time I had it activated, so I rendered it disabled. MSE isn't the same thing as Defender is it?

Click to expand...

System requirements will state if something more than having it is required. I use Mozilla Firefox Nightly.
On top of the above post, I will add that it doesn't really matter. If you run in to problems with MSE then what you have done to disable IE10 might have damaged your OS, but I don't think you will in to any problems with MSE.

As it says on the website if you have Windows Defender on Windows 8 then you pretty much have MSE, but if you don't have Windows 8 then installing MSE will give you the missing functionality that Windows 8's Windows Defender performs.

They're different things on different systems. I assume you have Windows 7 so you should install MSE unless you're confident in your ability to not execute malware on your computer.

LuzTeTT said:

Heyyou said:

LuzTeTT said:

Right, but having Windows 7 you will have some form of Internet Explorer lying around in the shell.
It will work and run fine. You've looked in to the system requirements a bit too much.

I have MSE or "Windows Defender" stock standard with Windows 8 and I have only manually used it once, but my understanding is that it is the most efficient and reliable anti-malware available.

Click to expand...

Yes, I do have IE10 installed but don't use it. Just having it is what's required? What browser do you use?
I had Windows defender included and activated by default on my new computer. I never saw it do anything the whole time I had it activated, so I rendered it disabled. MSE isn't the same thing as Defender is it?

Click to expand...

System requirements will state if something more than having it is required. I use Mozilla Firefox Nightly.
On top of the above post, I will add that it doesn't really matter. If you run in to problems with MSE then what you have done to disable IE10 might have damaged your OS, but I don't think you will in to any problems with MSE.

As it says on the website if you have Windows Defender on Windows 8 then you pretty much have MSE, but if you don't have Windows 8 then installing MSE will give you the missing functionality that Windows 8's Windows Defender performs.

They're different things on different systems. I assume you have Windows 7 so you should install MSE unless you're confident in your ability to not execute malware on your computer.

Click to expand...

Thanks for your response. I didn't disable IE10, I just don't use it, preferring FF or Chrome. At the present time I'm using Avast Pro, and just looking for alternatives so I'm not without protection.
If you are using MSE, how do you like its performance? Is it doing the job and do they update definitions as they promise?

I have used mse for a few years. I use it with chrome. I have never had any issues. As far as updating it does it on it's own and windows update also throws in the updates.

You can install MSE using any browser I have tried. I do recommend using I.E.
I have no charts, graphs, or websites to prove this is best.
MSE is Microsoft and I.E. is Microsoft and they do play will together for such things.
I always keep I.E. as my default browser but I use it seldom. Doing this hurts nothing and behind the scene it just might help with anything concerning Windows 7.

OK thanks to all for the info. I'll put MSE on my short list.

If it matters MSE is one of the security programs I use and it works well.

Seems like those requirements are misleading (for not saying "fake"), as MSE or any antivirus don't even require any kind of browser to work. I tried MSE myself and use Opera as browser (keeping IE only because it's bundled within Windows itself) and as far as I remember it worked well as promised. It doesn't requires or uses the browser at all, other than for downloading it initially.

The only thing that might make an antivirus require a browser is if it includes a browser plugin for some additional security. That's not the case of MSE, which only includes very basic protection options.

You're wrong: MSE does require a browser to work. How else are you going to get a virus?

USB flash drive, CD/DVD...

FuturDreamz said:

You're wrong: MSE does require a browser to work. How else are you going to get a virus?

Click to expand...

To name a few: Pendrive, shared files over a network, trojans over local network, CDs, moving hard disks across machines, FTP, torrents, faulty program updates/compromised servers, running a server on your machine exposed to internet, SSH, any other internet facing program
and the list goes on, none of those require a browser.

Regardless, no antivirus requires a browser, be it MSE or another. They just limit to monitor filesystem in their most basic form. The browser is a common way of unsuspecting users getting a virus, but that has nothing to do with antiviruses, which really don't care at all how the virus reached there.

Alejandro85 said:

FuturDreamz said:

You're wrong: MSE does require a browser to work. How else are you going to get a virus?

Click to expand...

To name a few: Pendrive, shared files over a network, trojans over local network, CDs, moving hard disks across machines, FTP, torrents, faulty program updates/compromised servers, running a server on your machine exposed to internet, SSH, any other internet facing program
and the list goes on, none of those require a browser.

Regardless, no antivirus requires a browser, be it MSE or another. They just limit to monitor filesystem in their most basic form. The browser is a common way of unsuspecting users getting a virus, but that has nothing to do with antiviruses, which really don't care at all how the virus reached there.

Click to expand...

How do updates and definitions arrive in your AV, which is what keeps the AV current?

For MSE, updates for definitions (and program updates) can be updated from Windows Update.
You can also Right click on the MSE tray icon and get new definition updates.
No browser needed for these.

Basically the same for Avast, as far as Right click the Tray Icon to get updates...
No browser needed for this.
Avast will NOT get updates via Windows update!
I would guess other Anti Virus products work similar to Avast, but I can't guarantee that...

Other Anti-Virus/Anti-Malware products may work differently and not allow updating from the tray icon

DavidW7ncus said:

For MSE, updates for definitions (and program updates) can be updated from Windows Update.
You can also Right click on the MSE tray icon and get new definition updates.
No browser needed for these.

Basically the same for Avast, as far as Right click the Tray Icon to get updates...
No browser needed for this.
Avast will NOT get updates via Windows update!
I would guess other Anti Virus products work similar to Avast, but I can't guarantee that...

Other Anti-Virus/Anti-Malware products may work differently and not allow updating from the tray icon

Click to expand...

Thanks for the MSE info. However, Avast sends definition updates automatically every 4 hours. No intervention on my part. To get updates you right click the taskbar icon and click program, which takes you to the Maintenance Window and the update progress bar. I would assume the updates and definitions come via the internet. I think the word browser was used, meaning to say internet where you don't have to access a particular browser.

Heyyou said:

..........I think the word browser was used, meaning to say internet where you don't have to access a particular browser.

Click to expand...

It would have been nice if you had posted a link to the website where you saw these system requirements, then we could have a better discussion about why IE6 or higher was mentioned.

In order for this website...
Microsoft Security Essentials - Microsoft Windows
...to offer you one button to click on to get MSE, you need the one of the browsers mentioned here*. The website will determine if you are visiting from a computer using a 64bit operating system or from a computer that is using a 32bit operating system - then that website should automatically deliver the correct file. If you visit that website using IE5.5, I do not think that the website can reliably tell the "bitness" of the visiting operating system. I don't have access to a version of IE lower than 6 right now, so I cannot test that theory - maybe someone else can test that for us.

*you can also get to that website's listing of the system requirements by clicking on the first link in this post, then "product info" in the lower left, the "system requirement" in the top center. So, those system requirements are related to the first link in this post.



If you visit this website...
Download Microsoft Security Essentials from Official Microsoft Download Center
...you will be presented with a different set of system requirements to download/install MSE. Notice that there are no minimum browser versions listed. Also notice that the website was updated recently.




MSE uses svchost.exe to get the initial set of things to watch out for.


MSE uses svchost.exe to get to get subsequent lists too.


Notice what process Windows Update uses to get its updates:


Do you have any more questions about MSE that we can answer for you?

UsernameIssues said:

Heyyou said:

..........I think the word browser was used, meaning to say internet where you don't have to access a particular browser.

Click to expand...

It would have been nice if you had posted a link to the website where you saw these system requirements, then we could have a better discussion about why IE6 or higher was mentioned.

In order for this website...
Microsoft Security Essentials - Microsoft Windows
...to offer you one button to click on to get MSE, you need the one of the browsers mentioned here*. The website will determine if you are visiting from a computer using a 64bit operating system or from a computer that is using a 32bit operating system - then that website should automatically deliver the correct file. If you visit that website using IE5.5, I do not think that the website can reliably tell the "bitness" of the visiting operating system. I don't have access to a version of IE lower than 6 right now, so I cannot test that theory - maybe someone else can test that for us.

*you can also get to that website's listing of the system requirements by clicking on the first link in this post, then "product info" in the lower left, the "system requirement" in the top center. So, those system requirements are related to the first link in this post.



If you visit this website...
Download Microsoft Security Essentials from Official Microsoft Download Center
...you will be presented with a different set of system requirements to download/install MSE. Notice that there are no minimum browser versions listed. Also notice that the website was updated recently.

Click to expand...

I had accessed the url you mention above which is the url I was referring to that mentions IE6 and Firefox in the system requirements. Thanks to all for the info on MSE. I'm good.