Microsoft Fixes OneCare Problem Harmoniously With Exchange Updates

Microsoft's Windows Live OneCare has been the subject of much discussion in the first part of March, especially about how poorly it performed in some malware tests. The message titled "OneCare's Dedication to Our Customers" that was posted on the Microsoft Windows Live OneCare Team blog on March 15, 2007 has added a postscript. In that Gina Narkunas, the lead product manager has declared that the file deletion incident with Outlook e-mail is "fixed". After this Narkunas tried to explain that the .PST folder that stores users e-mails do not really get deleted, rather users can't locate them.

The message came one day later to an accidental discovery by an OneCare user. In the beginning that user thought his .PST file had been deleted while OneCare was supposed to merely quarantine it. But he found that Windows System Restore had actually shown it as "deleted" when he clicked it to get back the .PST file.

ZDOne posted a message on the it.slashdot website on March 17, 2007. It said that Arno Edelmann, Microsoft's European business security manager lost vigor at the CeBit event of that week. Edelmann said Microsoft's OneCare product was not a bad program but it had some pieces missing. The company should not have released the product in that state. However, the company team was fixing the problems in harmony with its Exchange Updates. The new Exchange 2007 doesn't cause problems. At the same time the older versions will take users' e-mails in the quarantine folder.

Microsoft hasn't been a great performer with security. In this case Arno should have better remained quiet and avoided flaring the issue. That would have been keeping with the company's goodwill.

While conducting OneCare MVPs (Most Valuable Professional) tests at the CeBit event, OneCare's detection rate was challenged. The attempt was to look for variants of previous malware that wouldn't pose severe threat to users. On the other hand, OneCare team had been focusing on identifying the recent and more energetic malicious software for its v1 and 1.5 products. It was indeed an issue that the entire team needed to address.

Related article: Microsoft Patches Live OneCare to Tackle Quarantined E-Mails

» SPAMfighter News - 3/29/2007