My testing with MSE has been real promising so I now load it on all new builds. I don't run it myself as it's lack of basic features is a problem for me. I have a few apps that all virus programs mis-identify and a Trojan and immediately delete the exe so have to be able to easily disable auto-protect prior to running them.
Otherwise it works very well,
That's why I like the Server version Forefront Client security - MSE based but has more features - you can get a Free 180 day trial -- also works well on "Stand alone" computers and you don't have to run a Server OS either.
I really like the "Software explorer" tool -- pic enc
shows you at a glance all sorts of decent info over "start up programs" running programs. services etc etc.
Incidentally whether a program uses 50 MB / 100MB RAM in W7 is actually TOTALLY IRRELEVANT to how the OS performs / works.
"Real RAM" allocation as opposed to Virtual storage and paging is quite a complex matter -- just looking at the "Base use" numbers won't tell you anything anyway.
On most home computers -- even with a smallish amount of RAM (but not too small) the major bottleneck is in 99.99999% of the cases the appallingly slow I/O subsystems that are usually used on "non self build" machines - so don't get confused by misleading posts like "RAM Usage".
Poor graphic cards are another problem but usually unless you are a gamer this won't have major performance slowdowns except when using graphic processing programs like Photoshop. Even here the poor I/O will mask bad performance by the graphics card.
Your computer can be using 95% of available RAM and still run like greased lightning -- depends on what the computer is actually doing.
To slightly diagress - W7 uses a "Pre-fetch" algorithm -- knows after a while what type of apps you are using and often has the necessary pieces pre-loaded so that when you need them they are already in RAM and don't need to be loaded again.
This is often why when you first install and boot an OS you see Disk activity without knowing what it's doing -- the algorithm is trying to "learn" what you typically use.
Be VERY CAREFUL of statements like Huge RAM useage - not always a bad thing actually.
Of course poor applications will cause a "drain" on your system but that's another issue
Cheers
jimbo
.
