Windows Defender Offline — old name, new use

**JimA-wo** · 2012-01-05 07:59

Hi,

I'm still a bit confused. I've been using the MSFT Standalone System Sweeper software on USB for a few months. Is this the same program, only with a different name? When I go to the linked site, the download is the same file (mssstools64.exe or mssstools32.exe) that I get when updating the Sweeper USB device. So is this the same thing?

On a separate note: if you download the MSSSTools file and use it to create a USB drive - you can just rerun the program with the USB drive in place and it will upgrade the USB to the current version. This is much faster than doing a new download each time and creating a new USB drive each time you want to use it.. I keep 2 flash drives, one with 64bit and one with 32bit, updated and in my toolkit. Takes just a few seconds each day to stay up to date..

JimA

**jsauter** · 2012-01-05 08:01

The file downloaded is called mssstool32.exe. It does sound like this is a new version of the old Microsoft Standalone System Sweeper. I agree, Microsoft has a major problem with branding.

**leroym** · 2012-01-05 08:03

Great, thanks for the quick reply.
LeRoy

**Deadeye81** · 2012-01-05 08:16

Originally Posted by JimA-wo

Hi,

I'm still a bit confused. I've been using the MSFT Standalone System Sweeper software on USB for a few months. Is this the same program, only with a different name? When I go to the linked site, the download is the same file (mssstools64.exe or mssstools32.exe) that I get when updating the Sweeper USB device. So is this the same thing?

JimA

Welcome to the Lounge, Jim!

WDO Beta was released in early December 2011. It is an improvement over System Sweeper, but the download file has the same name as the earlier Standalone System Sweeper.

**JimA-wo** · 2012-01-05 08:35

I guess the next question, since I'm able to update MSSSweeper and WDO seems to be a new separate item; what are the differences? Which is preferable? Should I use both in tandem? If WDO is an improvement, how is it an improvement? Neither the MSSSweeper site or the WDO site seem to acknowledge the existence of the other; are these two separate MSFT teams working independently? An inquiring mind needs to know. (make than an obsessive compulsive mind..)

JimA

**Deadeye81** · 2012-01-05 09:29

Jim, the details in the differences of the two packages are not very evident or available at this time. WDO is a replacement and an improvement, but we will have to wait for more details on all the specifics on WDO. Keep in mind it is a beta, and is not yet in its final form.

Check out this Microsoft Answers Forum thread for a little more light on the topic. Also, check out this How To Geek tutorial on how to set up WDO.

**andyprice** · 2012-01-05 10:02

I am hoping this product will work well as the similar Kaspersky cleaning CD boots Linux and unfortunately doesn't boot on every PC. In fact, it doesn't seem to boot on many I've tried...

So I made a WDO bootable CD in VirtualBox and then booted it on an infected test machine and it didn't find the two viruses I had infected the machine with. Next I tried Kaspersky's virus cleaner and it found them both - Win32. Virut.q and Win32. Autorun.avj

So what's happening here I don't know. I really want this thing to work! has anyone else tested the CD version?

Andy

**midnight** · 2012-01-05 10:33

Do you need to put this on a dedicated USB stick drive or can it go on your usual portable tool drive?

**breichard** · 2012-01-05 10:54

This is an interesting spin on things. I have been cleaning malware for years (a dreaded task), and typically, I yank the drive out of the infected PC, use a USB adapter to hook it up to another (clean) PC (with Autorun very definitely turned off), and then use Malwarebytes Anti-malware (MBAM) to scan its partitions (all of them). After that finishes, then I sometimes also do a full scan with AVG. The only down side to this approach that I've found is that MBAM and AVG won't scan registry entries for hives that aren't loaded...and since the infected drive isn't running its copy of Windows, the hives aren't loaded. So, after that's all done and the drive is loaded back in its own machine, I then load and run MBAM natively again to finish the job. Yes, that's two or three full scans, but normally it's effective. Sometimes you have to also run an EXE association fix, but that's easy enough.

So, that was a long-winded way of saying that it would be interesting to see if this is effective. I also would wonder if it scans the not-loaded registry files. And, if it actually fixes any Windows files that were broken by the infection or simply removes the infections (like somehow runs SFC against the Windows installation at the same time). If it did some or all of these things, it would be a great tool which would make my life a lot simpler by not having to remove hard drives from systems to scan them elsewhere.

By the way, Woody, I think what k-farlow was referring to with the NIC drivers is how would the utility know how to utilize the NIC in the machine to go out and check for updates if it didn't have drivers to do so? I had the same thought when I read your article. I used to use a Norton AntiVirus 2009 CD to boot from for rescue, and it also did an update as part of the process. It always was able to find the NIC and use it for the update. I don't know if it had generic drivers for the basic NIC chipsets or what.

**Deadeye81** · 2012-01-05 11:04

Originally Posted by midnight

Do you need to put this on a dedicated USB stick drive or can it go on your usual portable tool drive?

Your USB stick will be formatted, so everything currently on the drive will be lost. You will need to use a dedicated USB thumb drive. Check out the How To Geek tutorial linked in Post# 21 above for step by step instructions on putting things together.

**midnight** · 2012-01-05 11:09

Need to pick up a few more USB stick/thumb drives anyway. Had a feeling it needed to be dedicated.

**kashken** · 2012-01-05 13:51

I built the 32 bit version from a Win7 PC running 32 bit. That CD boots on a 10 year old Dell laptop with XP SP3. However, the default quick scan does not reference any disk drives, so I had to configure a scan to actually select my disk partitions (C & D) for the scan to work.

Can't get 32 bit or 64 bit CDs to boot from a Win7 64 bit laptop (built a 64 bit CD from a 32 bit system, and again from a 64 bit system). The laptop won't boot from CD at all, though it has done it in the past (Win7 install CD). For some reason, F10 (HP Pavilion) doesn't bring up the boot options (BIOS) screen and it just locks up, with or without a CD in the drive.

**tpaparsons** · 2012-01-05 14:21

My hard disk is encrypted. Will Windows Defender Beta 64 bit do its work on an encrypted disk ?

**Deadeye81** · 2012-01-05 14:43

Originally Posted by tpaparsons

My hard disk is encrypted. Will Windows Defender Beta 64 bit do its work on an encrypted disk ?

Is the hard drive encrypted with Bitlocker? If so, Bitlocker must first be disabled. Check out this MS Answers thread for information.

**kashken** · 2012-01-05 15:32

I have an old Micron Millennia upgraded with a Celeron 1.4 ghz CPU (384 meg memory). WDO will not run on this configuration. WDO on CD boots into Win7 and likely does not support this CPU configuration or some part of the motherboard or disk configuration.

The error dialog that comes up is BLANK (no title, no text, blank button name). Click on close (X) and another dialog flashes a message for perhaps 1/2 second and WDO quits. Click on the blank button and it quits immediately (both situations go back to re-boot).

The OS to be scanned is XP SP3 fully up to date.

Thread: Windows Defender Offline — old name, new use

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Same as MSSSweeper?

Has anyone used CD yet?

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