Hey it's Monday morning, this is when we get those things out of the way so we look really smart for the rest of the week.   

no no no.... I meant "in general" as in all the programs.....  

      

A word of caution here. I installed the Vista SP1 RC and it was not recognized by my Anti-Virus software (Trend Micro Internet Security 2008).
As with an RC version, it is possible that a similar instance would be encountered with the XP RC.

Fortunately for me, I use Live OneCare (no snickers, please...since I've installed it, I've had no problems outta viruses or spy/malware). No problems with it running. In fact, I have yet to come across a single app that has issues with the beta......

No snickers out of me. Along with all the free stuff that I run, once a month I run the free safety scanner that is available on the Live One Care home page.

I keep Avast on my U3 and run it every 2 weeks, just to make sure......but Live OneCare seems to be doing it's job.

Josh, as a matter of interest, how often do Microsoft update the definitions in One Care? The reason I ask is that I have concerns about Windows Defender. Everyone of the main Anti-Virus and Spyware applications that I know of update their definitions etc. every week.....at least once, but Windows Defender seems very infrequent, unless I am missing something. This concerns me as for these applications to be effective the company must be continually on the ball and watch what is going on out there. Some of the worst Viri out there on the Internet, over the past few years, have hit peoples machines pretty badly and some of the top companies have reacted pretty quickly with a new release and patches etc which is what you'd expect but when Windows Defender releases definitions so infrequently I wonder about their ability to react. So hence my question about One Care. I have never used it and I wonder what your experience is like?

For the on-line scanners I found that the Kaspersky offering is a good choice to run once a month to check that your installed choice is doing it's work.

Leo not sure what's going on at your end but I sometimes I see two updates and yes once in awhile, not that often, three updates aweek for anti-virus/malware. I check for updates every morning for the security software that I run. Maybe why I see them more often. By the way that includes Windows Defender.

Don't use Live One Care, but I thought the selling point was that it would update in the background, so it maybe hard to determine how often it does update.

As far as the online scanners like Windows Safety Scanner, you would hope definations are current.

if anyone installs this I'd like to hear about system performance & stability after installing and rebooting from sp3 install.

- does anyone know if sp3 contains any system fixes to improve overall system performance/reliability or is it just a rollup pkg of all current critical/security updates since sp2 was released

unclerob when it first got in the hands of early testers some where saying the performance did pick up some. Search the web, most IT publications ran stories on XP SP3 and Vista SP1 and what differences that they were supposed to make to your system.

Leo, the program itself checks for updates daily (in the background). As for MS, I've noticed the definitions are actually updated 1-2 times a week. Meaning, OneCare my check for updates daily, but only finds them once or twice a week.

They've been pretty good about keeping up-to-date on the definitions end so far.....

unclerob, performance does seem to be better with this SP. It also includes all the former updates (naturally). As far as installing and rebooting, it did take a little long to boot after the initial install of the SP. That was a one time thing, and boot time seems a little faster now. Stability hasn't been an issue, but as with all betas....back up your system before installing! MS even tells you before the install to make sure and back up, just in case......

Hey unclerob and anyone else, did a quick search and came up with article on SP3. I'm sure there are more out there. I can remember reading several with alot more information.

WWW Link

BTW, Leo, it looks like OneCare adds between 10 and 20 new definitons each week. At the end of each month, it gives you a handy little report letting you know exactly what's been going on with OneCare. As a plus note, OneCare also backs up your system and does a tune-up once a month(defrags hdds etc...)