I recently wrote about an infected machine ( Removing malware from an infected PC - battling antivirus programs) where the fourth antivirus program still found malware that the first three had missed. If you already have anti-malware software and thus feel protected, everyone needs a second opinion. The once a month scanning is also limiting, but you can run it manually at any time. By default, it only runs a quick scan, below we'll see how to run a full scan. Like much anti-malware software, MSRT offers both a quick scan and a full scan.

That is, it only looks in the usual places for malware. Perhaps the biggest drawback to the default stealth approach is that MSRT only rounds up the usual suspects. This mode of operation is fine for many users, but you can get much more out of the program. It runs in what the company refers to as 'quiet mode', which means it doesn't tell you anything - at least as long as it doesn't find any malware to remove. It is updated silently as part of Windows Update or Microsoft Update. It's a stealth program, when things are functioning normally you don't see it. Many Windows users have it installed and run it monthly, yet are not aware of its existence. Microsoft's Windows Malicious Software Removal Tool (MSRT) is a free program that removes a whole host of the most popular malicious software (malware).

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