review: Microsoft Windows OneCare

A few months ago, I purchased Microsoft Windows OneCare, a ‘PC health service with antivirus, firewall, PC maintenance, and file backup and restore functionality’, but I never installed it, even though it would have saved me money because it licensed three computers.

However, when Microsoft released a new version this week, 1.5.1785.18 Beta which promised improvements on its all-in-one Windows self-healing software, I installed it on my laptop.

My trial version of OutPost Pro expires in only 3 days, so I must either pony up for a new OutPost Pro license or yield to OneCare’s already purchased license. I reluctantly attempted to uninstall OutPost Pro 4. For whatever reason, OutPost Pro 4 would NOT uninstall; it merely connected me to Agnitum’s website for a short user satisfaction survey. I completed the survey and the uninstall routine failed. So I tried again, and this time, I told Agnitum that my firewall wouldn’t uninstall. I had to manually remove OutPost Pro from it registry startups and I disabled the OutPost Pro services as well. I effectively uninstalled OutPost Pro.

I downloaded OneCare, but was forced to do most of the installation online. Once installed, OneCare intercepted each outgoing connection for approval or denial. OneCare does this only once, so it doesn’t nag you to death. You can go back and change your mind, if you decide to permit a program to connect to the web.
When you first install OneCare, it offers to ‘clean up your computer’s old files for you. I didn’t bother with that option, because I’d rather do that myself. It also offers to back up your computer to DVD, CD or other media. I tried without success to back up my computer with Windows One Care. It never successfully identified my CD writer; it must have thought it was a DVD writer. The backup routine froze and I got an error message that it was not responding.

I checked my services and found that OneCare had installed half a dozen services, all busily working on my computer’s behalf. OneCare has pretty menus and it really tries to be everything, but fails, at least for me. Even the OneCare Icon would randomly pop up and disappear from my toolbar, as if to tease me out of any security I may have mistakenly had.

I missed OutPost Pro’s content safeguards; I missed everything I had abandoned in OutPost Pro. When I use OutPost Pro, I can instantly look at the Firewall log to see what connections are made and by what programs. Each program is verified and catalogued. I can modify the rules for each program and even for the operating system. OneCare, on the other hand, is much more simplistic. Worse, occasionally, One Care would simply freeze and error messages would pop up that it wasn’t responding. My perky computer slowed down to a halt.

OneCare, I abandon you. You are not ready to be my mommy. You are too sluggish, long on pretty and short on service.

In the meantime, I have an unopened Windows OneCare box which I will never open. After I uninstalled OneCare, I found that some directories, mostly the logs of my failed OneCare relationship, could not be expunged. I even downloaded ‘deletelator‘ and tried using it. OneCare won’t forget me and won’t let me forget it. oh well.

In fairness, OneCare is beta, which means anything can happen, including a total failure of the service. I understand and do not hold Microsoft responsible for OneCare’s failure to protect my computer or to back it up as promised.

How do you rate Windows OneCare? Share your opinion and stories here, please. Thank you.

Technorati Tags: OneCare, firewall, Outpost Pro, powered by performancing firefox