Often featuring the most recent, stable version of the antimalware platform the tool doesn’t include ALL of the most recent antivirus and antispyware signature definitions – because it is not a replacement for a full antivirus product.

MSRT (Microsoft Malicious Software Removal Tool) is a standalone tool that is usually, but not always, released every month – on Patch Tuesdays, along with the “stable” Windows updates.

However, these tools have different purposes and their release schedule varies, too: Systems) are all Microsoft security products that share a common antimalware platform. You see, Microsoft Safety Scanner (MSERT), the Microsoft Malicious Software Removal Tool (MRT) and Microsoft Defender (formerly known as Windows Defender, also in its Microsoft Security Essentials (MSSECES) “flavour” back in legacy Windows 7/8.1 So, let me try to explain ( in my non-native English, be patient) what the heck has been going on here for the past week with MSERT… Yesterday night I finally got the time to take a deeper look and was able to figure out what has been going on for the past week but before I posted all about that here, Microsoft got ahead of me earlier today and I’m happy to say it seems they’ve already FIXED things up ( which is GOOD to know: kudos to Redmond for that, it “only” took them a whole week to realize something was wrong and fix it! :P).

Now for the ugly details ( in case you’re wondering)… That’s just it – “obvious” and simple as that, period.

If you’re in a hurry and don’t want to know more or read all the gore under-the-hood details, skip my long explanation below and just stick to this first &TLDR paragraph with the quick fix:Īs of today ( March 16, 2023), head up to the Microsoft Safety Scanner (MSERT) webpageĪnd use, or bookmark, those UPDATED (fixed!) links that you should use to make sure you always get a WORKING copy of MSERT: It turns out there’s no mistery at all: Microsoft goofed up and silently “fixed” things up TODAY ( March 16th, 2023). Last thursday ( a week ago) I stumbled upon the issue : all of a sudden, MSERT ( the Microsoft Safety Scanner tool) stopped working, throwing an error message:

Msert tool