Often people ask on various security and malware removal forums about how they can increase their overall system security in order to prevent any possible malware infection. The usual response to this sort of question is a big list of do’s and don’ts and various software applications to be installed so that your system stays safe. Now Microsoft has stepped up and created a program called Microsoft Malware Prevention Troubleshooter which checks your system settings and adjusts them to boost your system security.
Microsoft has designed this tool so that it can scan your computer and make recommended changes based on your current settings to provide you with the most up-to-date security for your Windows system. These changes are supposed to increase the level of your system security. It covers most of those areas that are often targeted by malware programs to break into your Windows system.
Microsoft Malware Prevention Troubleshooter performs the following actions to enhance your system security against malicious programs :
- Turns on your Windows firewall.
- Checks if you have an antivirus product installed.
- Turns on Windows Automatic Update so that you keep receiving latest Windows updates.
- Disables Remote Registry service so that only local users can modify the registry.
- Turns on popup blocker in Internet Explorer.
- Checks for latest version of Internet Explorer and adjusts its privacy settings.
- Enables User Account Control (UAC).
- Resets the proxy server settings for Windows.
You can download this troubleshooter tool from Microsoft’s website and run it. It further downloads more packages from the internet before starting to scan your system. After a few seconds when it finally comes into action, it asks you if you want to scan and apply fixes or scan and select which fixes should be applied. It is suggested that you click on the first button and choose to apply all the fixes.
This would make the troubleshooter program run a quick series of some diagnosis tests and examine your system for some known security issues. After the diagnosis is finished, you would be shown a list of security issues. If you had selected the second option in the beginning, you can choose which fixes you want to apply. If you had chosen the first option, then all the fixes would be applied automatically and you would be shown a summary of security issues found and fixes applied.
Microsoft Malware Prevention Troubleshooter is going to help all Windows users (only Windows XP, Vista and 7 are supported) to build up basic defenses against malware programs. While it includes some basic security measures, I felt it was not so smart. For example, even if you have installed a third party firewall, it still tries to enable Windows firewall. I hope it adds more features in the future like detecting malicious DNS servers etc. But in any case, this is a highly welcome step from Microsoft and is going to be a useful tool in fighting against malware. You can download the Microsoft Malware Prevention Troubleshooter from http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2534555.