MSE footprint?

tgd85 · 15 Feb 2011

I'm sure this has been brought up before, but after a few searches on the forums, I wasn't seeing what I was looking for. I'm currently running Win7 x64 Ultimate with NIS and Anti-malwarebytes MBAM - both with real time protection enabled.

I am looking for another fail-safe backup AV to run on-demand every week or so, just to make sure nothing is slipping past NIS and MBAM. I was thinking about installing MSE, but not enabling real time protection.

Does anyone know if MSE has any type of performance footprint even when real-time protection is disabled?

Would anyone recommend any online cloud scanners that could serve a similar purpose?

Thanks for the help.

Golden · 15 Feb 2011

I have both NIS2011 and MBAM resident using Win7 Ultimate x64. Occasionally I will use ESET's on-line scanner, but this is rare - I find that NIS and MBAM are sufficient for me.

Regards,
Golden

marsmimar · 15 Feb 2011

Welcome to the Forum tgd85. MSE will probably have a minimum footprint of about 20MB (best guess based on my machine) as it will receive automatic updates via Windows Updates as new definitions are released by Microsoft.

Borg 386 · 15 Feb 2011

MSE receives about 3 updates per day. If you have your Windows updater set to auto d/l available updates, MSE updates will be included in those.

Unless you have low RAM in the PC, there shouldn't be a problem running the real time protection constantly. Mine runs quietly in the background and hasn't caused any performance issues.

marsmimar · 15 Feb 2011

I don't think NIS plays nice with MSE so I wouldn't take a chance running real time scans with both. Just one or the other. If you've already paid for NIS I'd keep that as my primary. If you want to use MSE as an on-demand scanner I'd make sure NIS is not running at the same time.

Borg 386 · 15 Feb 2011

You could be right on that marsmimar, MSE plays well with most AV's, but in the past couple months I've seen posts about problems popping up with compatibility as some of the AV companies are changing their programs.

I'm running the Norton 360 package (AV included) and Comodo Firewall/Defense plus, so far (knock on wood), MSE plays well with them.

I think the only way to be sure is to give it a try. Any layer of protection you can add is worth it (provided it doesn't cause problems).

marsmimar · 15 Feb 2011

I agree with giving it a try and see if they work together. I'd just add one cautionary thought ... make a system image just in case. :)

Jacee · 15 Feb 2011

Use Eset Free ESET Online Antivirus Scanner

tgd85 · 15 Feb 2011

Thanks for all of the replies. I vaguely remember NIS having some issues with MSE - most likely the reason why I had uninstalled MSE in the first place. My hope was that MSE 2 would have resolved some of those issues, but based on your comments, it looks like there is still some conflict.

I'm going to image my system drive tonight and will try it out. I'll post my findings.

Another related question - If I were to download and install MSE in an VM (Win XP), would it have access and be able to scan the system partition or would its access be limited to the a separate partition specifically for the VM?