Windows Live Safety Center: Free online scanner for PC health and safety

Live seems to be all the buzz from Microsoft. Not sure where all this is going. What is the strategy for making money on this? Or is this an attempt by Microsoft to garner some Google-like buzz?

The software is in beta, which Microsoft makes sure to explain and works with Internet Explorer only. The user can choose from Protected, Clean Up, Tune Up or a full service scan.

The protection scan checks your system for a virus or other potentially unwanted programs. Note the "Share information with Microsoft" checkbox. Unless you uncheck this, your scan results will be uploaded to Microsoft. For what purposes? Your guess is as good as mine.

Clean-Up works similarly to the Windows XP clean up system tool removing unnecessary files. These tools require the user to download an Active X control and report information to Microsoft.

Each scan type presents the user with the scan results and a recommended course of action if any.

The user can exit the app when the scan and changes have been made. There is a disclaimer on this page.

Windows Live Safety Center: Free online scanner for PC health and safety: "Windows Live Safety Center is a new, free service designed to help ensure the health of your PC. * Check for and remove viruses * Learn about threats * Improve your PC's performance * Get rid of junk on your hard disk Use the full-service scan to check everything, or turn to the scanners and information in the service centres to meet your specific needs. "

Programming Perl on Windows

I have decided to try my hand at Perl programming on the Windows platform. I downloaded and installed ActiveState Perl on my Windows XP workstation. Installation was smooth, but….how did I use CPAN to download the modules I needed. I know Active Perl has the PPM (Perl package manager), but…not all the modules I need are available. Perhaps there is a way to install them manually.

I wrote a small win Perl application using the Win32 module. It does not do much. It spawns a dialogue that asks the user a yes or no question and then presents a different dialogue based on the response. Then it exits.