# Is Windows Malicious Sofware Removal Tool kosher?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-windows-malicious-sofware-removal-tool-kosher/550678>\
**Category:** In My Humble Opinion\
**Created:** [August 18, 2010, 11:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-windows-malicious-sofware-removal-tool-kosher/550678 "2010-08-18T23:18:15Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Superhal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b4bc9f/32.png) [@Superhal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Superhal)\
**Post date:** [August 18, 2010, 11:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-windows-malicious-sofware-removal-tool-kosher/550678/1 "2010-08-18T23:18:15Z")

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It’s running now, but I wonder if it’s as good as a commercial product.

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**Author:** ![gotpasswords](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/c57346/32.png) [@gotpasswords](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gotpasswords)\
**Post date:** [August 19, 2010, 3:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-windows-malicious-sofware-removal-tool-kosher/550678/2 "2010-08-19T03:16:16Z")

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Where did you get it?

If it came from Microsoft as part of a monthly update, or directly from [Microsoft](http://www.microsoft.com/security/malwareremove/default.aspx) it’s legit.

If you got it somewhere else, it may well be bogus. If you get it as part of an update, it generally runs pretty much invisibly and only alerts you to its presence if it finds anything.

If you obtain and run it manually, it will obviously be visible. There’s a recent [screen shot](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Malicious_Software_Removal_Tool) of what it looks like at wikipedia.