Microsoft Safety Scanner

I am going to disagree, about this Microsoft safety scanner stuff, that MSERT, does not remove malware as Microsoft have malware removal tool (MSRT)

The Microsoft Safety scanner (MSERT), and Malicious Software Removal tool (MSRT) use the same scanning engines but are designed to be used for different purposes.

Safety scanner is basically the same as the built-in Windows Defender engine and definition database, but instead packaged into a separate download that can be used without the need to truly install, since it's a portable executable application. This is useful when the operation of Windows Defender is in question or it's disabled due to the installation of a 3rd-party security app.

The Malicious Software Removal Tool is designed to only scan for the most prevalent malware, so the included definitions database is much smaller, though the scans themselves take a similar amount of time since the engines and scanning process are nearly the same as well.

People get very confused about these two standalone manual scanners, since they've never taken the time to learn their true purpose or how they actually work. When used for the correct reasons, they're just as effective as Windows Defender and in the case of the Microsoft Safety scanner, potentially even more so, since that tool can often find and repair damage to the operating system done by malware that would typically have crippled Defender.

Most people who aren't successful using these tools are using them the wrong way, but instead blame the tool because of their own lack of knowledge and ability to use them appropriately.

Rob

I am going to disagree, about this Microsoft safety scanner stuff, that MSERT, does not remove malware as Microsoft have malware removal tool (MSRT)

Hi, I am Dave, I will help you with this.

The Safety Scanner works differently to other anti-virus software, when it scans your drive, it marks files that may contain malware, then at the end of the scan, it compares the files it marked to the malware database and if it reports no malware was found, then the files it marked did not contain any malware, and that indicates your PC is malware free.

You don't specify what you mean by "doesn't work", but this is what I meant be the misapplication of these various tools, since any such tool only works when it's applied and used properly.

I've never had an issue using Safety Scanner myself, though I've also never had a malware infection that was bad enough to truly need such a tool to try and recover. The last time this happened to me was on a Windows 95 PC that the malware deleted the main Windows operating system folders and restarted the machine before I became aware of its existence.

Safety Scanner will aid in the recovery of certain known security app corruption situations that can't be easily recovered using the built-in Windows Defender, though by no means all such situations. The system must be stable enough to operate the portable executable app and the malware involved not designed to specifically attack and cripple the scanner before it can function.

Rob

But, MSERT usually doesn't work, no matter what the version were/is.