Website readers might be interested to know of a handy little tool that few have heard of but that has been around for over year now. The Microsoft Safety Scanner is a natty little utility designed to run a one-off scan for viruses. It can’t be installed permanently and offers no ‘ongoing’ protection, so it’s not a substitute for Antivirus software. However, it’s free for all and easy to use- all you do is download and run it, and it can do a ‘Quick Scan’ in a few minutes.
The software really came into its own at ESP Projects recently having managed to find and ultimately get rid of a Trojan that was causing problems. Indeed, we have much to be grateful for, as other AV software had not spotted this particularly powerful threat. One caveat is that removal of the virus wasn’t totally straightforward. After the Quick Scan, it reported that the problem had been tackled. We ran it again following a reboot, just to be sure.. Lo and behold the stubborn little blighter was still there! Instead, then, a boot into Safe Mode with Networking (hold down F8 when restarting) followed by a Full Scan was required. About an hour and a half later the virus was gone for good.
If you find yourself needing a second opinion on whether your machine is infected with malicious software, the Microsoft Safety Scanner could be just the ticket!
