Windows 10 upgrade - what do I do about Malwarebytes?

[guitar-picker]

Windows support for Win7 is ending a a few weeks. Where are instructions on how to handle Malwarebytes Premium ver 4.0.3 beta during update to Windows 10?  With millions of Win7 users about to face upgrading very soon, there should be an easily-found set of instructions on your support site, for MWB licensees to follow.

Do I have to open Malwarebytes and deactivate my license key, before I upgrade to Win10?

Does MWB advise doing a simple Win10 in-place upgrade, or a complete reformat/virgin installation of Win10?

If I do an in-place upgrade, will Malwarebytes 4.0.3 beta still run when I boot up Windows 10, so I can simply re-open MWB and choose "Activate"?

Otherwise, If I'm required to uninstall MWB 4.0.3 beta before upgrading to Win10, how do I reinstall MWB after the upgrade? Do I have to download an installer from the MWB website?  Will the new MWB installer accept my valid license key from the prior MWB installation?  Will it automatically upgrade me to MWB 2.0.3.beta?

Upgrading to Win10 will leave my PC exposed to the Internet without malware protection, until I successfully reinstall or reactivate MWB under Win10.  At what earliest point in the Win10 upgrade process, can/should I reinstall/reactivate MWB?  This is important since the upgrade will probably trigger a lot of internet activity to find newer versions of installed programs, drivers, etc.

 

 

[Maurice Naggar]

Hello guitar-picker.

As far as I am aware. Microsoft will not be having upgrades from Windows 7.  That is to say,  Windows 7 systems are not being scoped by Microsoft for any upgrade from their end.    The free upgrade to Windows 10 that they had had in the past, has long ago expired.

That said, Ed Bott at ZDNet has an article that is very much specific to certain conditions.

https://www.zdnet.com/article/this-free-windows-10-upgrade-offer-still-works-heres-why-and-how-to-get-it/

.

Now then, as to Malwarebytes and O S  upgrades.

I've been running various versions / builds of Windows 10  for some 5 + years.

I've not had any reason to do anything special when doing a Windows upgrade.   Except for first closing the programs I had manually opened.  AND just simply do a Restart of Windows so that it has a "clear deck".  Doing that restart will be a big help in insuring that no outstanding operations are around.

 

 

Q:    Do I have to open Malwarebytes and deactivate my license key, before I upgrade to Win10?

Answer:   No you don't need to.    However, if you feel the need to, you may.

Support has an article on deactivation of Premium license

https://support.malwarebytes.com/docs/DOC-1037

 

Q:Does MWB advise doing a simple Win10 in-place upgrade, or a complete reformat/virgin installation of Win10?

I would advise the upgrade in place.

 

Q:  If I do an in-place upgrade, will Malwarebytes 4.0.3 beta still run when I boot up Windows 10, so I can simply re-open MWB and choose "Activate"?

Yes the Malwarebytes for Windows will still be around.   If yours is in Premium mode, it will still work as before.

 

 

 

[guitar-picker]

Maurice, many thanks for the advice. Very reassuring!

[Maurice Naggar]

You are welcome.

[Porthos]

2 hours ago, Maurice Naggar said:

As far as I am aware. Microsoft will not be having upgrades from Windows 7.  That is to say,  Windows 7 systems are not being scoped by Microsoft for any upgrade from their end.    The free upgrade to Windows 10 that they had had in the past, has long ago expired.

You can STILL upgrade with the ISO or media creation tool. Or do a clean install with the Win 7 key/COA.

[nukecad]

11 hours ago, guitar-picker said:

Upgrading to Win10 will leave my PC exposed to the Internet without malware protection, until I successfully reinstall or reactivate MWB under Win10.

Win 10 comes with Windows Defender built in and active as standard, so your Win 10 will be protected from the minute you install it.
Windows Defender has evolved and is an effective AV in it's own right.

You can leave Windows Defender running alongside Malwarebytes to give an extra layer of protection.
That is the default setting and is used by many MB users.

Edited October 27, 2019 by nukecad

[Firefox]

On 10/26/2019 at 1:59 PM, Maurice Naggar said:

As far as I am aware. Microsoft will not be having upgrades from Windows 7.  That is to say,  Windows 7 systems are not being scoped by Microsoft for any upgrade from their end.    The free upgrade to Windows 10 that they had had in the past, has long ago expired.

As recently as 2 weeks ago, I upgraded a Win7 computer from Windows 7 to Windows 10. It was an in place upgrade and everything went fine, Windows 10 was fully activated.  The computer I worked on had Malwarebytes and I did not do anything to Malwarebytes during the upgrade.  It was still installed after the upgrade and fully activated as well.

[Maurice Naggar]

That is very excellent news.  One thing to highlight is, that you took action to get the Windows upgrade from Win 7 to Win 10. That it was not initiated by MS Windows Update.

That aside, that is very good news & confirmation.

[nukecad]

6 hours ago, Firefox said:

As recently as 2 weeks ago, I upgraded a Win7 computer from Windows 7 to Windows 10. It was an in place upgrade and everything went fine, Windows 10 was fully activated.  The computer I worked on had Malwarebytes and I did not do anything to Malwarebytes during the upgrade.  It was still installed after the upgrade and fully activated as well.

It's good to hear that they have still not disabled that Win 10 activation yet,  about an hour ago I told a guy I know to try it but he was a bit sceptical.
(Fair enough he is a pub/club DJ and needs that laptop to keep working to make his living - but on Win 7 it is showing it's age especially when he wants to cast Karaoke to another screen).

[Firefox]

In his case, I would create an image of that laptop first before I did anything with it.

[nukecad]

TBH I told him to get a new laptop with Win 10 (business expense so tax deductable) and get that working as he wants before scrapping his old Win 7 laptop, or keeping the Win 7 one as an emergency backup.

But of course he doesn't want to spend any money.

[MBgraham]

On 10/28/2019 at 9:38 AM, Firefox said:

As recently as 2 weeks ago, I upgraded a Win7 computer from Windows 7 to Windows 10. It was an in place upgrade and everything went fine, Windows 10 was fully activated.  The computer I worked on had Malwarebytes and I did not do anything to Malwarebytes during the upgrade.  It was still installed after the upgrade and fully activated as well.

Today, I did an upgrade to Win10 from Win7 (not a clean install)  I have the Premium lifetime version of MWB.  MWB is there, but license is not activated. When I open MWB, the screen that comes up is too large - top and bottom are cut off. What I can see says that nothing is activated. My windows 7 backup is on same computer, but it is not running. I tried going back to it (dual booting) and MWB is functioning there.  

How do I get MWB to be functional on Win10?

[exile360]

Greetings,

You will likely need to deactivate the instance installed/active in Windows 7 as I believe that each license can only be in use in a single OS/machine/instance at a time.  You may need to increase your screen resolution or decrease your scaling/DPI settings in Windows in order to see the full UI, though you can try maximizing the Malwarebytes window and that might enable you to see all of the controls (you should be able to maximize it by holding the SHIFT key and right-clicking on the Malwarebytes window's icon in your taskbar and selecting Maximize).

If you still have trouble then you should sign up for an account at My.Malwarebytes.com using, if possible, the same email address you used when you originally purchased your license key.  Instructions on signing up can be found in this support article.  If you need to use a different email and need to add your license to your account manually, refer to the instructions in this support article, however that might not work and you may need to contact Support to get your license synced up to your account if you aren't able to use your original email address for your account.  Once you have access to your license at My.Malwarebytes.com, use the option to deactivate it described in this support article (the Deactivate all option would be your best bet).

If that doesn't resolve the issue then you will need to contact Malwarebytes Support by filling out the form on the bottom of this page and they will assist you further with getting your license key working again.

I hope this helps and if there is anything else we might assist you with please let us know.

Thanks

[MBgraham]

37 minutes ago, exile360 said:

Greetings,

You will likely need to deactivate the instance installed/active in Windows 7 as I believe that each license can only be in use in a single OS/machine/instance at a time.  You may need to increase your screen resolution or decrease your scaling/DPI settings in Windows in order to see the full UI, though you can try maximizing the Malwarebytes window and that might enable you to see all of the controls (you should be able to maximize it by holding the SHIFT key and right-clicking on the Malwarebytes window's icon in your taskbar and selecting Maximize).

 

Thanks for the speedy reply.  When I did the upgrade, I did it without my backup Win 7 in the computer. So basically, the upgrade did not install a licensed version of MWB. I imagine many users will have this problem when doing a Win 7 upgrade. Right now, the W10 upgrade has also messed up my document files - There seem to be multiple versions of the same files in different places. That is not a MWB issue but I can only spend so much time at this. I am likely to just go back to using Win7. I may eventually have to do a clean Win10 install, but I suppose that will also likely create a MWB license issue.

Regarding the MWB screen size issue. I see that this now also occurs in Windows 7. It never used to. I will try the DPI etc, but that should not be necessary - everything else works normally. The screen doesn't fit and cannot be dragged from edges or corners to make smaller. Maximizing, if possible would only resulyt in more being cut off. This is a 1980x1080 laptop screen. 

 

[MBgraham]

I checked the dpi settings. I had a while back increased the setting from 150% to 157%. Had a reason at the time, but can't recall why.  At 150%, the MWB screen is less than 1/2 the width of my screen. At 157% it is almost the full width and the top and bottom are cut off. Other program windows seem to scale proportionally.  Something about MWB window sizing?

[exile360]

Yes, it must be an issue with Malwarebytes' scaling when you use a custom DPI setting like that.  I'll be sure to make a note of it for the Developers.

With regards to your license, you should be able to retrieve your license key by creating an account as suggested above if you need it/don't have it written down somewhere (regardless of whether you wish to activate it on 10 or reactivate it on 7) and once you have your account set up at My.Malwarebytes.com you'll be able to manage/migrate your license much more easily.

Anyway, if you run into any trouble getting the software activated let us know, and of course reference the info provided above.

[MBgraham]

Ok thanks. Will likely continue using Win7 as main OS for now along with MWB.  I have other issues with Win10 that I will work on when I can. Not sure how Defender compares with MWB, but at least there will be some protection. 

[Porthos]

1 minute ago, MBgraham said:

Not sure how Defender compares with MWB, but at least there will be some protection. 

Malwarebytes AND Defender make a very robust combo.

[Maurice Naggar]

ditto to remarks by Porthos.   The Windows 7 "Windows Defender" was a mini anti-malware.  The Windows 10 Windows Defender is a strong full blown antivirus built-in with Windows.

It can detect some types that Malwarebytes does not.   Just keep in mind that Malwarebytes and Windows Defender have different designs  & different scan engines.

Cheers.

[Porthos]

28 minutes ago, Maurice Naggar said:

It can detect some types that Malwarebytes does not. 

For example,

Malwarebytes does not target script files during a scan.. That means MB will not target; JS, HTML, VBS, .CLASS, SWF, BAT, CMD, PDF, PHP, etc.

It also does not target documents such as; PDF, DOC, DOCx, XLS, XLSx, PPT, PPS, ODF, etc.

It also does not target media files;  MP3, WMV, JPG, GIF, etc.

Malwarebytes will detect files like these on execution only.

Which also makes any scan other than a threat scan a waste of time and processor power.

Defender like other AV programs will detect on download or folder access.

Since Windows 10 was released 4 1/2 years now, I have seen only 7 infected computers. NONE of those were on 10 using Defender and Malwarebytes.

I also teach my clients to use only Firefox or Chrome with the Ublock Origin extension and now I also add the Malwarebytes Browser Guard as well.

The biggest thing if you do the above, is NOT to open any attachment in an email you are not expecting and are 150% sure of its origin do not care how tempting it is.

 

Edited December 27, 2019 by Porthos

[Maurice Naggar]

Yup.    😁

The not opening attachments  ( the ones devilishly designed lures)  and control of the "click finger" are very key safety practices.

First rule of internet safety: slow down & think before you "click".

Never click links without first hovering your mouse over the link and seeing if it is going to an odd address ( one that does not fit or is odd looking or has typos).

Free games & free programs are like "candy". We do not accept them from "strangers".

Software "cracks" / game "cracks"  are very frequent source of ransomware.

Never open attachments that come with unexpected ( out of the blue ) email no matter how enticing.
Never open attachments from the email itself. Do not double click in the email. Always Save first and then scan with antivirus program.

 

[Porthos]

2 minutes ago, Maurice Naggar said:

Always Save first and then scan with antivirus program.

Better yet upload them to virus total.

[MBgraham]

This thread seems to be developing a life of it's own  

Good advice. I have been around this stuff from Day 1.  Never have had a virus on any of our computers. On Win7, I originally had WSE plus MWB but since MS dropped WSE support and MWB was upgraded, I have just used MWB Premium. (never did use Defender on Win7).  On browser, I do use Ublock Origin instead of Adblock+.

When dodgy emails appear, I always look at the source using CTRL U on Thunderbird.  Usually easy enought to see from headers when it should be deleted. 

Anyway, we are off subject. My main concern was that Windows 10 upgrade from Windows does not transfer MWB licence seamlessly. And that it seems tied to one OS rather than the computer.  Will have to get to that eventually if I start using win10 as main OS. 

[Maurice Naggar]

To be safe, de-activate the MB  before starting the Windows upgrade.  That is safest to do sibce the machine is switching from 7 to 10.

After the Windows 10 completes, Re-activate MB

The OS version of the installed machine is one of the key components in history of license in use.

[exile360]

With Windows 7 you can use Microsoft Security Essentials instead of Windows Defender.  It uses the same threat detection engine/signatures as Windows Defender in Windows 8 and Windows 10, though it lacks some of the additional features Microsoft has added recently to Defender in 10.