Microsoft Security Essential Question

Was not sure of where to ask this question but move it if need to be. On MSE in the section where it says Limit CPU usage during scan to: here you have a choice 50%, 60 80 10 or where ever it may be. The question is if you limit cpu usage during scan lets say at 90%, does this mean that 90 of the cpu will be used for the scanning process and the other 10% is only for using other programs during the scan or is that the other way around meaning 90% is for running programs and 10% for running the scan. done looked around for a straight foward answer and all I find is differant meanings and a lot of jibber jabber, what is correct, anyone know?? Jimbo1

I am pretty sure it sets how much of the CPU power that mse can use, so if you have a low powered system, or want to be running other programs at the same time as scanning, then it will help keep things running as smoothly as the system can manage, obviously the power of the system denotes if you would even notice a difference, but best advice is usually leave it at the default, this is usually the best option for most people, others may well know more on this, but pretty sure this is correct, hope it helps.

A little but not what I am looking for, trying to find out if and again lets say I limit cpu usage during scan lets say at 50%, does this means 50 is devoted to the scans and the other 50 to what ever you want to do. I see MSE has changed the selection now to choose other options, so lets say I set this to limit cpu usage during scan to 10%, does this means that 90% will be devoted to scanning the system?? or would that be the other way around. I assume the reason they did this was to try and speed up the scan process. Most scans on systems i deal with take anywhere up to 5 hours, most of the reason I not using it atm, I like it but slow scanning times is a killer on a old system. So this is why I looking for the correct answer on cpu usage, to many folks have their own idead of what it does, even MS is kinda wishie washie on this.

so lets say I set this to limit cpu usage during scan to 10%, does this means that 90% will be devoted to scanning the system?? or would that be the other way around.

The other way around. The setting sets the maximum amount of CPU utilization MSE will snag for scanning. So if you set it to 30%, you (Windows and your other apps) will always have 70% to play in. However, I have mine set to 50% and I just fired up a scan. It is scanning while I am typing this, and listening to the Pandora stream. TM is up and MsMpEng.exe (MSE's scanner) has not yet used more than 11% and that was for just a short spike - it typically was around 1 - 2 % or less. All done now. Now granted, I have a nice i7 CPU and 8Gb for MSE to play in, but on lessor machines, I have never seen MSE be such a resource hog it bogs the system down.

I assume the reason they did this was to try and speed up the scan process.

More for keeping the scanning process way in the background, where it is not noticed by the user.

Most scans on systems i deal with take anywhere up to 5 hours

You must have select Full scan. I never use that, except maybe on a machine I have never seen before and I suspected poor user/secuity discipline - but never on any of my systems. The Quick scan is good enough. Same applies to MBAM or SAS. The Full scans just takes too long and are not normally needed - at least for "routine" supplemental scanning.

Way cool Digerati, that sums it up in a nut shell. Yes on newer rigs it's no problem, but on older machines full scans let's say becomes a pain in the backside, this rig I am one took 6 hours 37 minuets at 50%. So re-ran the scan again at 90% now knowing which way to go took a little under 3 hours. Agreed full scans to me may be a waste because I my firewall settings and what not and knowing where I been but an average user may not have his setting set so high and not sure of well deatil a quick scan verses a full scan covers. But now this make a bit of sense now, thanks for the info of the correct information. Cheer's and BTW hi Everyone, yes I am still alive and well. Jimbo

but an average user may not have his setting set so high

I am pretty sure the default is Quick scan and 50%. Most timid users leave settings at the defaults and in this case, I think that is fine. With the wealth of historical and technical data, and computing and gray-matter horsepower at Microsoft's disposal, I am not going to second-guess their algorithms. Microsoft is done being blamed by bashers and biased IT press for the security mess we are in. It was the badguys who put us here - due to the failure of the anti-malware industry to stop malware, as they (Norton/McAfee. et al) promised Congress and the EU way back before XP came out.

Certainly, Microsoft's strong-armed marketing tactics earned much of the scrutiny they got - and I gave them my share too. But Gates and company wanted to put an AV in XP but were blocked by Congress and the EU because Norton and McAfee were crying and whining one word, "monopoly". And that's all it took.

Anyway, now that Microsoft has decided to put security and hardware future-proofing ahead of legacy support (giving the bashers something else to complain about), I am inclined to trust Microsoft to keep me safe if I trust their defaults.

I mean, if you are asking 100s of millions of users to trust you, this after a decade of bashing for poor security, it would behoove you (nice military expression) to be trustworthy - if you want to survive, right? Now of course, blindly trusting anyone would be stupid. Who's the fool? The one who leads or the one who follows? So I have MBAM, SAS and a host of other security tools I use for supplemental scanning, just to make sure nothing slipped by MSE. That said, nothing has and since migrating to Window 7 in Oct - Nov 2009, no compromises here.

I guess I need to make one disclaimer. I use MailWasher Pro - by far, IMO, the best spam blocker out there. It's most significant but often overlooked advantage is that it processes all your mail (from multiple accounts - if you have many) on the mail servers. It sits between the mail servers and your local email client (Outlook, Firebird, Windows Live/Hotmail) and/or webmail accounts. With one UI, you can view all your emails (in safe, plain text) from all your accounts and purge any spam (and thus potential malicious cargo) without downloading the email to your computer. I has a decent Bayesian filter, custom filters, friends/blacklists, and more. By process I mean delete, forward or reply. After you delete all you don't want, you can use Outlook (or other local client) to pull down your keepers. I get about 60 emails a day from about 8 different accounts. Most are forum notifications from the various sites I visit every day. By the time I am done going them, I usually only have 3 or 4 I need to keep. Really nice for keeping my local inbox clean and my important email organized.

Other spam blockers integrate into your local email client requiring you download on to your machine the entire email, including any HTML code or worse, infected attachments, and then analyze it for malware. To me, that's like inviting a stranger into your home and then asking what he wants.