Microsoft Anti-Virus (MSAV) is an

antivirus Antivirus software (abbreviated to AV software), also known as anti-malware, is a computer program used to prevent, detect, and remove malware. Antivirus software was originally developed to detect and remove computer viruses, hence the nam ...

program introduced by

Microsoft Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational technology corporation producing computer software, consumer electronics, personal computers, and related services headquartered at the Microsoft Redmond campus located in Redmond, Washin ...

for its

MS-DOS MS-DOS ( ; acronym for Microsoft Disk Operating System, also known as Microsoft DOS) is an operating system for x86-based personal computers mostly developed by Microsoft. Collectively, MS-DOS, its rebranding as IBM PC DOS, and a few ope ...

operating system An operating system (OS) is system software that manages computer hardware, software resources, and provides common services for computer programs. Time-sharing operating systems schedule tasks for efficient use of the system and may also i ...

. The program first appeared in MS-DOS version 6.0 (1993) and last appeared in MS-DOS 6.22. The first version of the antivirus program was basic, had no inbuilt update facility (updates had to be obtained from a BBS and manually installed by the user) and could scan for 1,234 different viruses. Microsoft Anti-Virus for Windows (MWAV), included as part of the package, was a front end that allowed MSAV to run properly on

Windows 3.1x Windows 3.1 is a major release of Microsoft Windows. It was released to manufacturing on April 6, 1992, as a successor to Windows 3.0. Like its predecessors, the Windows 3.1 series ran as a shell on top of MS-DOS. Codenamed Janus, Windows 3 ...

. In 2009, Microsoft launched an in-house antivirus solution named

Microsoft Security Essentials Microsoft Security Essentials (MSE) is an antivirus software (AV) product that provides protection against different types of malicious software, such as computer viruses, spyware, rootkits, and Trojan horses. Prior to version 4.5, MSE ran on , ...

, which later was phased out in favor of Microsoft Defender.

History

Microsoft Anti-Virus was supplied by

Central Point Software Central Point Software, Inc. (CP, CPS, Central Point) was a leading software utilities maker for the personal computer, PC market, supplying utilities software for the DOS and Microsoft Windows markets. It also made Apple II copy programs. Throu ...

Inc. (later acquired by Symantec in 1994 and integrated into Symantec's

Norton AntiVirus Norton AntiVirus is an anti-virus or anti-malware software product founded by Peter Norton, developed and distributed by Gen Digital since 1990 as part of its Norton family of computer security products. It uses signatures and heuristics to i ...

product) and was a stripped-down version of the Central Point Anti-Virus (CPAV) product which Central Point Software Inc., had licensed from Carmel Software Engineering in Haifa, Israel. Carmel Software sold the product as Turbo Anti-Virus both domestically and abroad. Microsoft Anti-Virus for Windows was also provided by Central Point Software.

Features

MSAV featured the "Detect and Clean" strategy and the detection of boot sector and

Trojan horse The Trojan Horse was a wooden horse said to have been used by the Greeks during the Trojan War to enter the city of Troy and win the war. The Trojan Horse is not mentioned in Homer's ''Iliad'', with the poem ending before the war is concluded, ...

-type viruses (which were typical virus problems at that time). The program also had an anti-stealth and check sum feature that could be used to detect any changes in normal files. This technology was intended to make up for the unavailability of regular update packages. The final update of MSAV was released in June 1996 by Symantec. The update added the ability to detect polymorphic viruses and the virus definitions were updated to scan for a total of 2,371 viruses.

VSafe TSR

VSafe is a

terminate and stay resident A terminate-and-stay-resident program (commonly TSR) is a computer program running under DOS that uses a system call to return control to DOS as though it has finished, but remains in computer memory so it can be reactivated later. This technique ...

component of MSAV that provided real-time virus protection. By default, VSafe does the following: * Checks executable files for viruses (on execution). * Checks all disks (hard drive and floppy) for boot sector viruses. * Warns of attempts to write to the boot sector or partition table of the hard disk * Warns of formatting that could erase the hard disk. There are more features that can be enabled, VSafe can: * Warn of attempts of executable files to terminate and stay resident (by normal methods). * Prevent programs from writing to disk. * Warn of attempts to write to the boot sector of a floppy disk. * Warn of attempts to modify executable files. VSafe had a number of virus definitions embedded within its executable and was capable of loading additional signatures (updates) from an external definition file.

References

{{Microsoft Security Products

Anti-Virus Antivirus software (abbreviated to AV software), also known as anti-malware, is a computer program used to prevent, detect, and remove malware. Antivirus software was originally developed to detect and remove computer viruses, hence the name. ...

Antivirus software 1993 software DOS software de:Central Point Anti-Virus#Microsoft Anti-Virus

History

Features

VSafe TSR

See also

References