Hi Y'All. Its been near 6 months since I have logged into the forums. Rebuilding a System with its' sometime problems, one of which not being able to log into Forums has been a bummer. Thanks to Dave for helping me fix the problem of not being able to log in. Anyway it is nice to be back.

I would like to present you with my experience using Microsoft Security Essentials (MSE). It is an experience of The Good, The Bad and the Ugly.

Near 4 months ago it was necessary to install a new anti virus application. My old one, begin to give me a large number of False Positives. While I was trying out various anti virus programs, it was recommended that I try Microsoft Security Essentials.

The Good: Easy install. Small Foot Print. Updates Automatically. Does a Daily Scan. It is so quiet that I found myself checking to see if I still had the Icon in my Task Tray. Yes, it did flag a few anti-virus.

The Bad: After MSE was up and running,I begin to experience instances when my CPU would max out and cause a temporary Freeze up. These freeze ups, with the CPU maxing out can/could occur once per day. Actually, my experience was 3 times per day. Duration being 2 to 5 minutes.

Eventually, I was able to determine that the High CPU use was being caused by "MsMpEng.exe". A search using AnVir Task Manager revealed the following:
1. Processes - MsMpEng.exe
2. Applications - Antimalware Service Executable
3. Startup - Services: Microsoft Antimalware Service
4. C:ProgramFilesMicrosoft Security EssentialsMsMpEng.exe

Well, MSE has Antimalware Service, however, it is a BIG CPU Hog. But there is more on this subject. I managed to Goggle up a MVP Microsoft Forum that was addressing the issues I just provided. However, in that forum I found out that this problem has been around several years. To be exact this problem popped up after Microsoft Purchased the Giant Defender Package and did nothing about it. Thus, Microsoft Defender, Windows Live, Microsoft Security Essentials, the New Windows Live Mail which is in Win 7 all have this problem. That is NOT good.

I sifted through all of the messages in that forum, and a recurrent theme from Microsoft was that they were not aware of the problem but had opened a Ticket. After being Stonwalled for a nearly 3 years, the last message in this Forum, dated around 12-30-2009 said that Microsoft did not believe there was a problem, canceled the trouble ticket and, CLOSED the Forum.

Well, Bad has gone to Worse than bad. Microsoft has washed their hands on this issue and if you are going to use the product, you just will have to put up with the Maxed Out CPU/Freeze situation. I was hoping that the CPU Hog Antimalware service would protect just in case. Well, it gets really ugly now.

The Ugly: If I was going to continue using MSE, it meant living with the CPU & Freeze thingies'. I decided I would take some time to really search for an Anti-virus application that would meet my needs.

Then the real ugly showed up. Three weeks ago, I begin experiencing some even more invasive problems. When I tried to open certain applications, especially those that have to do with my computers well being, everything slowed to a crawl and in some cases the application I was trying to open would not open. As the day went on, more and more of my applications were acting funny. It finally dawned on me that something else was running my computer instead of me.

Strictly by luck, two days before the Real Ugly raised its head, I had read a blurb in "How To Geek" dealing with a new and very dastardly Malware/Trojan/Super worm that takes over your computer and when it has full control, holds your computer hostage. It is called,"Security Tool".

Perplexed, I thought if this is Malware why didn't my MSE Antimalware Service intercept it. I tried to get in MSE to check my logs, but I was blocked. And, Why did my Windows Firewall not block it? The Maleware Blitz-ed right through both of them.

However, I hand an ace in the hole, so to speak. Many months ago I had installed the free version of Malwarebyte's Anti-malware. I had never activated any of the auto capabilities. I manually performed a Complete Scan. Several hours later the scan completed. There were 3 results involving "Security Tool" and two results indicating a Download File called, "File and Folder Backup". As I worked further into this,it was evident that Security Tool had piggy backed into my computer via a download of "File and Folder Backup".

Malwarebyte