So...am I infected or not?

Thu, 10 Aug 2006 20:45:03 GMT

We’ve received several posts lately from concerned users who don’t know if their computers are infected or not by malware or spyware. The confusion seems to come from the scanner informing the user during the process of the scan that something has been detected. However, once the scan completes, the user is shown that nothing has been found on their system. So you’re asking, what’s the deal with that?

Well, this is brought about by some complexities in how we identify detections. Before we dive into the real issue, how about a few definitions…

latent detection – a potential detection on the machine that, by itself, is not enough to identify the machine as ‘infected’; eg. a file commonly associated with spyware is found on the system: think of something like spy.log being located

concrete detection – a positive detection on the machine; which by itself provides ‘concrete’ evidence to know the machine is ‘infected’

So, what is currently happening within the scanner is that we are seeing ‘latent’ detections on the system and immediately alerting you that they are there. However, when we get to the end of the scan, not enough items have been identified to come up with a ‘concrete’ detection. Because of this, we then state that nothing has been found.

We are currently working on getting this resolved for you in an upcoming release - but until then, there is no need to worry. Latent threats are not viewed as harmful to your machine - but rather could be remnants of something that was previously on your machine (but is no longer present). That means that the 'concrete' (or dangerous) part has already been removed - so sleep easy tonight :)

Look for an update to this in the near future!

-Bo Rohlfsen
Program Manager - Windows Live Safety Center

Running low on hard disk space?

Wed, 14 Dec 2005 23:04:47 GMT

Have you experienced issues when trying to install the scanner? If you’ve exhausted all the troubleshooting steps we have on the website and come up empty, it may be because you are running low on free hard disk space. So just what can you do about that?

There are two main solutions that could help you free up some disk space so that you can run the scanner.

The first option is to run the Disk Cleanup utility that comes with Windows and see if you can free up any space. To start Disk Cleanup, click Start and then click Run…. In the text box, type cleanmgr.exe which will launch the utility. If you’re asked to select a drive, choose the drive that Windows is installed on, which is usually the C:\ drive). After the utility has checked your computer, you’ll see a list of files that you can delete on your system. You can either go with the default selections or customize it to only delete what you want to delete. When you’re finished, click OK and the files will be deleted.

The second option is to remove programs from your computer that you no longer use. To do this, click Start, click Control Panel, and then double click Add or Remove Programs. Scroll through the list of programs and locate the ones that you’ve previously installed but no longer use or need. Click on each item that you wish to remove and then click Remove to uninstall it.

These two solutions should help you free up some space and get you running the scanner!

Windows Live OneCare Safety Scanner: User Issues

So...am I infected or not?

Running low on hard disk space?