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Well, it does work - I guess. For those unfamiliar with the name Windoze Defender became Microsoft Defender. Why? Maybe because it sounds cooler.
Anyway, it seems to work, but it's clunky like a lot of M$ stuff. It also has a major issue -- for me anyway. I do weekly backups of a fair amount of stuff and keep a number of them on an external drive. (There are files that I only use offline.). Anyway, I found out how to get MD to scan my external drives. But if I use full scan, it's SLOW. Because it will ALWAYS scan my C drive plus whatever I have plugged in/
But wait -- it has a custom scan option -- well not so much. It will allow you to scan ONE file or ONE folder.
I thought you could selectively engage it to scan just one external drive if needed/wanted? IIRC when I engage almost any virus scanner they'll ask which drive to scan?
The name change is just part of the (il)logical progression of the product. It was originally an anti-spyware tool from a small company that Microsoft bought out. Features were added until it obsoleted other Microsoft tools and evolved to what it is today. The tool today is a LOT different than the one that came with Windows 7 and competes directly with Norton, McAfee, Malwarebytes, etc. so the rebranding is a shot over the bow to tell everyone that the big dog has found other competitors to squash.