Microsoft Security Essentials

Is Microsoft Security Essentials a worthwhile antivirus program to keep those nasty viruses out of your computer. I would have to say it has come along way since it was placed in windows vista. Yes for being a free antivirus software it does a pretty good job. The problem is it will not protect you from every virus that rears its ugly head these days. The unfortunate problem is no antivirus program will keep you safe and free of computer infections.
 If any place of business says their virus protection is 100% or that you will never get a pc virus, they are spreading false information. The only way to say 100% that you will never get a computer virus is to unplug your computer, put it in the attic and never use it again. I always hear customers say oh I don't go on the internet, so I can't get infected. So how did your computer become infected ? Oh wait you bring home data from work on a usb flash drive or external hard drive and copy it to your computer to work on. Well then most likely your work computer is infected and you passed it on to yours when you copied that data to work on at home.
 So the question is should I use free Microsoft Security Essentials or better known in windows 10 as windows defender. I would better advise you to go with a paid antivirus like Kaspersky, Mcafee, Webroot or Norton Antivirus. The free antivirus programs do not have the full protection and technical support that you as a consumer computer user need. Honestly you best course of action is to have a back up plan in action in case disaster strikes.
 Okay so what is the best back up plan ? I usually advise all my customers to take one of a couple paths. I would either use carbonite, their middle package and back up to the cloud. If you prefer to have the control of the back up, I would use an external 2tb hard drive and the back up program in the control panel in windows 10. I would also create some folders on the 2tb external hard drive and copy data, such as pictures, documents, music and whatever else you want to save. Remember the back up programs in windows 7 and 10 are only meant to be used on the computer they are running in. In windows 8 and 8.1, you can only perform a manual back up and use file history. I have seen various technicians try to run the back up and restore it to a different computer only to fail at some point in time.
 Yes some individuals think that windows 10 can just be cloned to a new hard drive or the drive installed into a completely different computer and it will work.  Yes it will most likely see the different hardware and set it up. The problem comes in with the changes in the registry as well as the system. Chances are it will fail at some point and then you have an unhappy customer and that's bad business. So the best course of action is to save all the data and go with a completely fresh install of windows 10 on the new system.
   

Microsoft Says I Am Infected

 I was on the internet and went to a website to read an article. All of the sudden this message comes up supposedly from Microsoft saying I am infected and I should call this number. DO NOT CALL THEM IT IS A SCAM. I have had quite a few customers that called them and wanted them to pay a certain fee for protection and to clean their system. This is simply not true as Microsoft does not call people.
 Okay so what should you do if this happens ? Well first don't call them. Next do not click anything to close out there garbage. If you do it may trigger their infection and it can do all kinds of damage to your software. I had one customer where they changed the user name and put a fake start up password. There is no way to remove this from your system. The only choice is to save your data, reformat your hard drive and reinstall all your software, then move the data back in place. It can be very costly if done by a certified computer service center.
 So basically hold the power button in for 10 to 20 seconds and the computer should shut off. If you are going to check your system I would use some programs like, rogue killer, Free Malwarebytes, Junkware Removal Tool, ADW Cleaner and Combox on windows 7 or 8. The best way is to enter the Safemode With Networking. Run each and reboot when necessary. Once back in the normal mode check programs and features in the control panel to look for anything that was installed at about the date this happened.
 If the virus installed the start password, then your only choice is to save any data, reformat and reinstall windows. Then reinstall all your software programs as well as printers. Just remember to save your data first. You can save your data to an external hard drive using something like hirens repair disk with programs on it like unstoppable copier.