Windows 7 Software Compatibility Testing - Kaspersky Anti-Virus

This Beta version of Kaspersky Anti-Virus brings some improvements to run it under Microsoft's newest operating system - Windows 7. In addition, it also includes a firewall and a spam filter. The interesting thing is that the engine behind this new antivirus is an improved heuristic analyzer capable of detecting unknown viruses (yes, even those which are not included in the database). How? Well, running not listed suspicious programs in an isolated virtual environment and analyzing the program actions to determine if, in fact, it is harmful or not.

Furthermore, the interface has been highly polished, making it very easy for new users and that is something to be grateful. As you can see, the program options are arranged in four tabs (Protection, Scan, Update and License) they enable us to gain access to all the features plus a Setting button which is accessible on top. Regarding memory usage, it continues the brand's tendency to be really efficient at low RAM consumption, besides, it behaves in such a smooth way.

Integration and functioning
Integration with Windows 7 environment is fully achieved, even talking about Action Center, as you can see in the next screenshot, it works perfectly.

After having installed, rebooted and run for the first time, the Action Center showed an advice telling that Kaspersky was out of date. Clicking on this led automatically to antivirus update. Simple and straight forward, couldn't ask for more!

The scanning process was smooth as well, one single click and Kaspersky analyzed all HDDs. No system slowing, no crashes, it run silently in the background without interfering with other programs.

The alerts system worked very efficiently showing which files were changed upon startup. This gives us the option to be aware of which files are being changed in our system. The best, it was performed in real-time. Similarly worked the Internet intrusion or “Anti-Hacker” alerts stopping attacks in a very secure way.

Bugs
Regarding bugs, it seems that Kaspersky Anti-Virus is prone to some malfunctions issues: for example when shutting Windows 7 down it reports that there is no active firewall protection and no AV protection. This also tends to happen when powering up, but once start-up process finishes, the notices disappear automatically. Apparently this is a sign of not so good integration with the Windows 7 Security Center, and I can assume this issue will be solved in the final version. There are also reports about some troubles when trying to update the database, although the program informs that it is updated, it will show an earlier date, and apparently the origin of this kind of issues is that databases aren't updated in a regular base, mostly over weekends.

Another issue is that if tracing service is not disabled (you can do this by accessing Support (left bottom on right side of "Help") - Traces (same position as "Support") - disable) you will constantly run out of free disk space due to the log files allocated in C:\Programdata\Kaspersky Lab\.

One inconvenience I could find myself, was that when installing the software, it showed several alert windows saying "Installation failed" but with no significant effects apart from having to click on the "OK" button every time for the installation to continue running.

Final words
Summing it all, I can say that with only minor retouches, Kaspersky 8 is going to be a superb antivirus solution for Windows 7

Have you tried this software? We are eager to know about your experience.