Migration from McAfee 8.7 to Forefront Client Security
Microsoft recently released Microsoft Security Essentials, which is a free AV solution for anyone running genuine Windows. This is great news, because most other free AV packages exclude commercial use – like Avira or AVG. Especially in the SMB space, were you to argue for every license, this is a good way to ensure that _every_ machine is running an AV package, even without central reporting.
Update: The license is not entirely clear – it does not exclude commercial use, only SaaS use. But in the beginning of the license it says that only home-based small businesses are allowed to use it. So take this with a grain of salt – the license is certainly more permissive than Avira, but it’s not as easy as i thought.
I’ve been participating in the MSE beta test with my Windows 7 machines at home, and my impression has been very good. Performance is excellent, and the GUI is simple and straightforward.
After a few negative experiences with McAfee 8.7 at work, and my very good experiences with MSE at home, i tried to have another look at FCS.
Well, FCS is rather old right now, with the new release just on the horizon. Still, the current release is supported on Windows 7 x64 with the latest patches, and so far my impressions have been very good. The management server only runs on 32bit Windows, which also means it won’t run on WS08R2.
But my impression has been good so far – the package installed on the client is far more lightweight than McAfee, and even the managment software leaves a much better impression.
We’ve also been using Symantec Endpoint Protection at a few customers, but my impression of that product was even worse than McAfee.
We’ll see how FCS will fare, and the test deployment is currently running. If you have any good tips or websites for me, i’d be delighted to read them.
AngryTechnician:
I’m curious as to where you’ve seen information that general commercial use is permitted for MSE? The licence terms only say that it’s for household or “home-based small business” use.
That said, I’ve also been considering a move to Forefront at work, so I’ll be reading any updates on your experience with interest. My impressions of McAfee’s and Symantec’s offerings are definitely along the same lines as yours…
1. October, 2009, 19:49Lukas Beeler:
Well, according to the restrictions in the swiss-german license:
So i can’t use it for commercial hosting – it doesn’t say that you can’t use it for other commercial reasons.
I also see the first part you mentioned – the German wording is a bit different. I’ll try to run this by our companies legal advisor, because i don’t really have that much clue about how licensing law works.
1. October, 2009, 19:59AngryTechnician:
Interesting. When I’ve dealt with this in the past, if the licence doesn’t expressly provide for a particular use, it is forbidden by default. It may differ by legal jurisdiction, so it would certainly be useful to hear from an expert in the area.
1. October, 2009, 20:07Lukas Beeler:
Thanks for the heads up anyway. I’ve updated the post, and will get a new posting up as soon as i know more (which may take some time).
1. October, 2009, 20:12Speck:
Hi Lukas,
we are thinking to move to FCS from SAV 10.0
How is your experience with FCS until now?
Thanks,
3. November, 2009, 14:51Speck
Lukas Beeler:
Hi Speck,
Well, we migrated a month ago. So far, experiences have been very good. Updates work flawlessly, detection rate is good, email notifications work as expected.
I’d still say that the management server is pretty cumbersome to setup (SQL Server required, no automatic SQL Express Installation, SQL Express not supported, only 32bit Windows Server 2003/2008 supported). This makes this a no-go in SBS shops.
We have a few SBS customers that are on SEP 11, and i think FCS is a much smoother product, but Microsoft really needs to make management server easier to deploy and use.
Regards,
Lukas
3. November, 2009, 14:59