I've been looking for the newly acquired Microsoft Windows AntiSpyware on internal sites for a couple of weeks and couldn't find it. But then this morning I noticed it on the Microsoft.com Security site. So I grabbed it to give it a try.

After installing it I ran it and it did find a couple of things... nothing big.

It is a very sexy little SpyWare app compared to SpyBot Search & Destroy (my old tried-and-true solution).

It also does some things that SBS&D doesn't do like automated scans, browser settings backup and check and a really good "tracks eraser" (for more that just your browser). Another great feature is a very cool set of system explorers that lets you see what's going on inside your system. For example, this one gives a nice explanation of all running processes...

And this one shows you all the installed ShellExecute hooks...

There are some obvious beta issues however. One is illustrated quite clearly in the image above... it is't very smart about recognizing Microsoft software, which could cause some novice users to kill things that they shouldn't. (My dad loves to do this... "What the hell is that process? I'll kill it.")

All in all, I would say it looks to be a nice product. Congrats to the development team.

DISCLAIMER: This technology was acquired by Microsoft from GIANT Company Software last month.