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 name ...

program introduced by

Microsoft Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational corporation and technology company, technology conglomerate headquartered in Redmond, Washington. Founded in 1975, the company became influential in the History of personal computers#The ear ...

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 op ...

operating system An operating system (OS) is system software that manages computer hardware and software resources, and provides common daemon (computing), services for computer programs. Time-sharing operating systems scheduler (computing), schedule tasks for ...

. 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 run as a shell on top of MS-DOS; it was the last Windows 16 ...

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

Microsoft Security Essentials Microsoft Security Essentials (MSE) is a discontinued 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, ...

, 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 PC market, supplying utilities software for the MS-DOS and Microsoft Windows markets. It also produced Apple II copy programs. Through a series ...

Inc. (later acquired by

Symantec Symantec may refer to: * Gen Digital, an American consumer software company formerly known as Symantec * Symantec Security, a brand of enterprise security software purchased by Broadcom Broadcom Inc. is an American multinational corporation, ...

in 1994 and integrated into Symantec's

Norton AntiVirus Norton AntiVirus is a proprietary software anti-virus or anti-malware product founded by Peter Norton, developed and distributed by Symantec (now Gen Digital) since 1990 as part of its Norton family of computer security products. It uses sign ...

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 Carmel may refer to: * Carmel (biblical settlement), an ancient Israelite town in Judea * Mount Carmel, a coastal mountain range in Israel overlooking the Mediterranean Sea * Carmelites, a Roman Catholic mendicant religious order Carmel may also ...

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 A boot sector is the disk sector, sector of a persistent data storage device (e.g., hard disk, floppy disk, optical disc, etc.) which contains machine code to be loaded into random-access memory (RAM) and then executed by a computer system's bui ...

and

Trojan horse In Greek mythology, 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, Homer's ''Iliad'', with the poem ending ...

-type viruses (which were typical virus problems at that time). The program also had an anti-stealth and

check sum A checksum is a small-sized block of data derived from another block of digital data for the purpose of detecting errors that may have been introduced during its transmission or storage. By themselves, checksums are often used to verify data ...

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