Hey peeps, just thought i'd give you all a heads up, got a notification from windows update telling me that there are new updates available, these updates are windows live essentials and microsoft security essentials.
These consist of several programs:
Microsoft security essentials is a new program developed by microsoft which takes a new look at windows defender, there's a new, cleaner interface, new icon, and seems pretty fast after the first quick scan... screenshot below:
live essentials is the same live essentials pack you get from the microsoft live site, not much new here, bing bar is included instead of the live search bar, that is all.
MSE gave me a pop-up advising me there was an upgrade and inviting me to download and install it which I did. To be honest, I really didn't pay enough attention to the program (except when I got it a while back and set it up) so I don't really see much of any difference in the looks. I have noticed it does scan a bit quicker though - so an MS update/upgrade that actually improved things for a change.
I downloaded the whole Essentials 2011 Suite about a week ago or so. I like some of the changes and not some of the others. I preferred the Live Toolbar to the Bing toolbar - you could customize it more and could give more space to the search box (which I can't seem to be able to widen and think it can't be done). I also wish there were a way to turn off the alert just because I have pop-ups enabled - it should allow you to disable alerts for the items you choose to enable so if a real alert occurs you can notice it. While I like WLM better than Windows Mail, I'm still having trouble connecting to one of my newsgroups (but otherwise it works fine) - though I rarely use it except for newsgroups as I use Outlook 2007 instead. I'm on the fence about Messenger. It seems to take up too much of the screen now with details I'm not really interested in (but end up reviewing because they're there). I don't really use the other applications but downloaded them anyway so I'd be able to fire them up to help answer questions about them in the forum.
Appreciate the heads up on this - as will many others who may not be aware.
