- #USING THE MICROSOFT MALICIOUS SOFTWARE REMOVAL TOOL INSTALL#
- #USING THE MICROSOFT MALICIOUS SOFTWARE REMOVAL TOOL 64 BIT#
- #USING THE MICROSOFT MALICIOUS SOFTWARE REMOVAL TOOL UPDATE#
#USING THE MICROSOFT MALICIOUS SOFTWARE REMOVAL TOOL UPDATE#
The next run of Windows Update (also on July 11th) installed another copy of MSRT also dated July 2013.
The first run of Windows Update (on July 11th) installed a July 2013 edition of MSRT. The last modification date was Jat 12:37AM, also the same as Windows 7.Ī Windows XP system started with file mrt.exe at version.
#USING THE MICROSOFT MALICIOUS SOFTWARE REMOVAL TOOL INSTALL#
As on Windows 7, it again wanted to install the July 2013 edition of MSRT.Īfter the second go-round, file mrt.exe was at version. Then I re-booted and ran Windows Update again. On July 10th I ran Windows Update and installed the "Windows Malicious Software Removal Tool for Windows 8 - July 2013 (KB890830)". The last time MSRT had been installed was March 2013. The Windows 8 system that I used was a few months behind on bug fixes.
#USING THE MICROSOFT MALICIOUS SOFTWARE REMOVAL TOOL 64 BIT#
MSRT, on 64 bit Windows 7 systems, is shown as "Windows Malicious Software Removal Tool 圆4 - July 2013 (KB890830)". You can see the double installation below. So while the version increased, the date went backwards. 0 and the last modification date was Jat 12:57AM. 0 of mrt.exe.Īfter the second installation of the July 2013 edition of MSRT, the file version was. Other Windows 7 machines showed different last modified timestamps, but all were version. As you might expect both the modification date and file version advanced. 0.Īfter the first installation of the July 2013 edition of MSRT, the mrt.exe file was version. The properties of mrt.exe showed it was last modified Jat 5:11pm. One Windows 7 machine started out with the June 2013 edition of MSRT. The properties of this file tell the tale. The Malicious Software Removal Tool is file mrt.exe in C:\Windows\System32. Sometimes Windows Update ends up in a loop, unaware that the patch is already installed.That doesn't seem to be the case here,however, as the July 2013 edition of MSRT is always installed twice, never three times. I have seen patches that install and install and install yet again. To notice the double-install, you need to run Windows Update manually, reboot, then run it again. If you run Windows Update manually, you also won't see anything out of the ordinary. If you let Windows Update do its thing in fully automated mode you won't notice the double installation of MSRT this month. Normally there is one edition of MSRT a month. In addition, it is targeted at a select few pieces of malware, rather than the broad range that regular anti-virus software deals with. The big differences are that it does nothing to protect from infection and it only runs on demand. Microsoft is very clear that it is not anti-virus software.
MSRT can be thought of as anti-virus lite. On the next few PCs I started paying closer attention and sure enough, the July 2013 edition of the Windows Malicious Software Removal Tool (MSRT) installed itself twice on every computer. Of course, any computer that I work on is periodically backed up with a full disk image because bug fixes can cause more problems than they fix.