{"id":11999,"date":"2010-07-21T10:57:41","date_gmt":"2010-07-21T09:57:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/onsoftware.en.softonic.com\/first-look-at-microsoft-security-essentials-beta\/"},"modified":"2025-07-02T02:12:14","modified_gmt":"2025-07-02T09:12:14","slug":"first-look-at-microsoft-security-essentials-beta","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/first-look-at-microsoft-security-essentials-beta\/","title":{"rendered":"First look at Microsoft Security Essentials Beta"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Since its official launch in September 2009, <a href=\"http:\/\/microsoft-security-essentials.en.softonic.com\/\"><strong>Microsoft Security Essentials<\/strong><\/a> has become a popular choice among free antivirus tools, thanks to its quick scans, ease of use and lightness on system resources.  Now <strong>Microsoft Security Essentials 2.0 Beta<\/strong> is ready to download and test, so let\u2019s take  a look at all the new features and improvements of this new version.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/articles-images.sftcdn.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2010\/07\/essen04.jpg\" alt=\"First look at Microsoft Security Essentials Beta\" \/><\/p>\n<p>First of all, to grab hold of this beta you\u2019ll need a <a href=\"http:\/\/go.microsoft.com\/fwlink\/?LinkId=197385\"><strong>Microsoft Connect account<\/strong><\/a> (you can use your Windows Live ID to create one). Security Essentials 2.0 Beta is available both for 32- and 64-bit systems, and can be downloaded via the Microsoft File Transfer Manager \u2013 though as the file is only 7.78 MB, you probably won\u2019t need it.<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/articles-images.sftcdn.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2010\/07\/essen01.jpg\" alt=\"First look at Microsoft Security Essentials Beta\" \/><\/p>\n<p>The installation is quick and simple. You\u2019re given the opportunity to join the customer experience improvement program, which is totally optional. Once installed on the computer, Microsoft Security Essentials updates its virus and spyware definitions database and performs a first system scan.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/articles-images.sftcdn.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2010\/07\/essen03.jpg\" alt=\"First look at Microsoft Security Essentials Beta\" \/><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/articles-images.sftcdn.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2010\/07\/separator21.jpg\" alt=\"separator21.jpg\" \/><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center\">\u00a0So what\u2019s new? At first sight, not much. You still get <strong>the same clear, tabbed interface<\/strong> with four main areas: Home, to check system status; Update, to download the latest definitions; History, to take a look at activity logs; and Settings, to configure the program.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/articles-images.sftcdn.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2010\/07\/essen06.jpg\" alt=\"First look at Microsoft Security Essentials Beta\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Apparently the big changes are under the hood. Microsoft Security Essentials 2.0 features a <strong>new engine<\/strong> which provides faster performance and safer protection, an <strong>improved protection against network-based threats<\/strong>, a better integration with <strong>Windows Explorer<\/strong> and the <strong>Windows Firewall<\/strong>, and an <strong>enhanced protection against web-based exploits<\/strong> for anyone still using Internet Explorer.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/articles-images.sftcdn.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2010\/07\/essen05.jpg\" alt=\"First look at Microsoft Security Essentials Beta\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Microsoft Security Essentials Beta is provided on a first-come, first-serve basis, so if you want to take a sneak peek at it head down to Microsoft Connect and <a href=\"http:\/\/go.microsoft.com\/fwlink\/?LinkId=197385\"><strong>download it while it\u2019s hot<\/strong><\/a>. Then, you can share your impressions with us in comments!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Since its official launch in September 2009, Microsoft Security Essentials has become a popular choice among free antivirus tools, thanks to its quick scans, ease of use and lightness on system resources. Now Microsoft Security Essentials 2.0 Beta is ready to download and test, so let\u2019s take a look at all the new features and &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/first-look-at-microsoft-security-essentials-beta\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;First look at Microsoft Security Essentials Beta&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2011,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","wpcf-pageviews":0},"categories":[],"tags":[2899],"usertag":[],"vertical":[],"content-category":[],"class_list":["post-11999","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","tag-app-subdomain-redirectionmicrosoft-security-essentials"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11999","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2011"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11999"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11999\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":334858,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11999\/revisions\/334858"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11999"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11999"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11999"},{"taxonomy":"usertag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/usertag?post=11999"},{"taxonomy":"vertical","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/vertical?post=11999"},{"taxonomy":"content-category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/content-category?post=11999"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}