Final release of Windows Defender (Build 1592)

It brings me great pleasure to announce the final availability of Windows Defender in English. The team has been working hard for over a year and fixed over 400 bugs in the areas of stability and reliability since Windows Defender (Beta 2). We plan to release localized versions in the next few months including but not limited to German, Japanese, French and Spanish. All in all, we plan to deliver over 20 localized versions of Windows Defender.

We are recommending that current Beta 2 customers upgrade to the final release of Windows Defender since Beta 2 will expire on December 31st, 2006. We will also send a notification to upgrade in the next few weeks to current customers, so be on the lookout. Finally, as a part of Microsoft’s ongoing security commitment, we are offering 2 free support incidents for our customers. If you are having any issues with Windows Defender during scanning, installation, detection or removal, you can call our support services and we will help you resolve the issue.

Lastly, I want to thank the Anti-Malware engineering team for all their hard work. I believe that Windows Defender has done a tremendous amount to help make millions of computers around the world more secure. I also want to thank our great community of testers and MVPs who have made this release possible by testing and reporting bugs throughout our development cycle. We couldn’t have done it without you!

Now, go upgrade and install Windows Defender today!

Adam