OneCare v 2.5 Final released to production: Available now

By Kip Kniskern on July 2, 2008 4:16 AM

9 comments

OneCare version 2.5, which went into public beta in early April, has just been released into production, and is available now by download at www.onecare.live.com. While the newest build (2.5.2900.3) won’t show much if anything in the way of new features or UI, version 2.5 is expected to be included in Microsoft Equipt, as well as OneCare for Server (for SBS), which is expected to be released later in the year. If previous upgrades are any indication, the new version should be rolling out to existing users in the coming days and weeks, but you can download the final bits now, either as a trial, or to upgrade your current subscription.

Posted in Featured, News | Tags: Equipt, OneCare

Comments

Khristopher

Why is Onecare a Windows Live product? It makes zero sense. It should be just Windows product. It doesn’t fit in with the whole Live branding at all.
dersonc

It’s now avaliable in Brazil and it costs USD69,95 for antivirus and USD70 for online backup.
damaster

OneCare for Server has already been released. It’s available at:
http://onecare.live.com/standard/en-us/server/default.htm

Only Windows Server 2008 is supported.
damaster

Just adding on to my previous post, only the free trial is available for download at the moment. OneCare for Server subscriptions will not be available until September 2008.
mdsharpe

The one thing preventing me from liking and using OneCare is the inability to disable certain parts of it. I want to use Windows Defender and Windows Firewall, but I’d like to use OneCare for antivirus.
Until OneCare stops stomping all over Vista’s built-in firewall i’m not interested.
foaf

@Khristopher – totally agree, it doesn’t feel like it sits with the rest of the “family” at all. The only advantage I see is that it gets the Windows Live brand into a tangible object.
JohnCz

Kristopher & Foaf, I respectfully disagree that OneCare doesn’t fit into the Windows Live brand. It requires Live ID for one and is solely available for the Windows platform. Today the main web based feature for OneCare is Family Safety. I believe Microsoft might have some plans to expand on OneCare services. Perhaps thats why they placed OneCare prominently in the Wave 2 Menu. Just a thought.

For me, my wishlist item is compatibility with Windows Home Server. Overall, OneCare 2.5 is a solid product.
Chris

I can see the logic branding OneCare under Windows Live, for a start making it a core part of Windows would see the same anti-trust issues Microsoft had with Internet Explorer.

Now that OneCare has the Photo Backup and Circles features, its definitely moving into the software+services realm, which imo means it fits with Windows Live. Happy to hear anymore reasons why it shouldn’t be WL though…
hugoleijtens

Hi Chris,

There are a few reasons why OneCare shouldn’t be a part of the core OS. One of them might be (probably will) antitrust issues. One of the other reaons is that the security market is growing from 10,5 billion dollars to more than 13 billion dollars in 2012. It makes a good business sense to catch a piece of that action (http://www.gartner.com/DisplayDocument?id=621710&ref=g_sitelink)

I agree with you that OneCare is a great Software+Services product and that the branding can be perfectly under Windows Live. However on a sales level OneCare is no longer a part of the Live divisions but has been brought under de Client division. I’m not talking about product development but product management.

I also agree that I would love to get the choice to keep using the Windows Defender and the Windows Firewall. Those are both great products and I see no extra use in replacing those products.

Do you perhaps have an overview of the things that have changed from 2.0 to 2.5? Maybe a product powerpoint?

By the way, I’m daily reader of your blog, great job!

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