Microsoft has released a beta version of a new anti-malware utility that should be in every IT Pro’s toolbox. This new utility is similar to Windows Defender found in Windows 7, with the addition of anti-virus capabilities similar to Microsoft Security Essentials. What makes this tool special is that it is designed to remove malware without Windows running. This addresses a key shortcoming of most other anti-malware solutions, in that many deeply embedded rootkits and other malicious software are sometimes near impossible to remove while the OS is running. The offline tool is designed to be installed to CD, DVD, USB Thumb Drive, or virtually any other media that you can boot from and can hold 214MB.
To use the tool, you will need to download it from Microsoft’s download site, and an optical disk or a flash drive you can erase. The tool will format the media that you selected, make it bootable, and then copy the Windows Defender Offline package to the media. After you have installed Windows Defender Offline to your media of choice, you simply reboot the computer you wish to run it on, and select your media as your boot device. It will then boot into a WinPE-type environment and automatically load Windows Defender, allowing you access to all of the normal scanning capabilities found in the online version. If the software can locate a proper driver for your computer’s network card it will allow you to download the latest malware signature files from Microsoft.
Windows Defender Offline Beta
This tool could prove to be very useful, along the lines of or even better than MalwareBytes because of its offline capabilities. I cannot tell you how many hours I have spent previously trying tool after tool to remove deeply entrenched malware because it was running as a protected background process, this should solve this.
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