MSFT spyware tool

I downloaded this tool automatically this am, as part of the regular XP update. How do I access the spyware tool, which (I assume) has been installed. No sign of it, even after a restart.

Anything useful ?

I did this and the program appear in the Start/Programs Menu, once running it should have a target icon (red and yellow) in your system tray.

It found two trojans more than Adaware and Spybot did for me.

spyware

Thanks, found it now, wasn't there earlier and I don't know why!! Almost afraid to run it...

M

..

I like the active protection it provides but we noticed some oddities with it

On a fairly clean machine that visited a dodgy website which tried to install a few nasty adware things on it got caught up for a couple of hours trying to clean it all up. After running adaware, adaware spotted loads more stuff that the MS antispyware tool didn't which seemed odd.

I'd recommend running both just in case. Don't put all your faith in it. A multi tool cleanup approach still seems best.

multi tool

here,here on the multi tool approach. The yahoo spyware tool is still the most comprehensive for me, but when doing the weekly cleanout I always run spybot and adaware too, one or other usually throws up something that yahoo missed.

I suppose the moral is to just accept that no one piece of adware removal software is going to do the job for you.

Re: multi tool

On a fairly clean machine that visited a dodgy website which tried to install a few nasty adware things on it got caught up for a couple of hours trying to clean it all up. After running adaware, adaware spotted loads more stuff that the MS antispyware tool didn't which seemed odd.

I ran Ad-aware and Spybot on a newly installed PC with only Windows 2000 Service Pack 4 and all critical and recommended Windows Updates installed and they both caught potential problems (admittedly mostly low risk), many of which related to Internet Explorer. :\