Windows Defender now Version 7? Not? Confunded!

Yes...Windows Defender has been updated...but...well...read-on.

It was stunning news today: BetaNews | Windows Defender Jumps to Version 7 (title on page now changed)

A few bloggers picked up the story as it claimed the changes included a redesigned interface and a new malware detection engine.

While Microsoft has been known to make some big jumps, going from version 1 to version 7 seemed heady stuff, even for them.

I bopped over to the Microsoft Windows Defender download page and checked out the goods.

Sure enough, right there the program was clearly listed as being version 7.0 published on 03/13/2007. (Still showing this information as of this post time.)

On that same page, it says in the Overview note that if you have version 1.1.1592.0 you must manually uninstall Windows Defender (via Add/Remove Programs) before installing the newer version.

(Good Thing™ to know, by the way.)

I did (do the manual uninstall).

And when I got done with the upgrade reinstallation...it reported as version 1.1.1593.

What? Where was the version 7 branding I had been promised?

The file size was a tad-bit smaller than my previous Windows Defender msi file. Hmm.

So at the end of the day...I was left feeling skeptical, as were quite a few of the users who left notes in the comments...observing the same thing.

I ended up concluding that it must have been a typo on Microsoft's download site.

Later the BetaNews link page reported the following update on their story page:

UPDATED Microsoft on Thursday released an upgrade to its Windows Defender application, initially raising the version number from 1.1 to 7.0. The company later explained the version jump was a mistake. The release bring user interface improvements and new malware detection engine.

So that explains it...although the Microsoft download page (at this moment) still show it as version 7.

Oops.

Curiously, that very-same page also has the following paradoxical statement:

This is the most current release of Windows Defender. If Windows Defender informed you that an update is available, you are running an older version. We encourage you to upgrade to this version.

So, if you tried to run an Update check in Windows Defender, and if it told you that an update was available...you are running an older version? Upgrade to this one? What?!!!

I'm so confused!

In the end, there really isn't all too much to see here after all; besides Microsoft's Windows Defender versioning/updates team seemingly being hit by a confundus charm.

Still, if you do use Windows Defender...go get the update, uninstall the old version, and install the new...just don't expect anything dramatic in the (very slightly...in an incremental...very minor sort-of-way) upgraded version.

(Maybe I need to call for the Confuse-A-Cat, Ltd. team to break my confusion! Thanks Gillian for this classic Monty Python flashback!)

--Claus