Anti-Virus on the Home Server

I had previously written in my review about my Windows Home Server how I disliked the McAfee anti-virus solution that was included. Sure, it was a year of service, but the product wasn't the best and trying to update and extend that subscription actually seemed to be impossible. I tried. For a while.

So I looked for alternatives and the options are limited. I finally located Avast Windows Home Server edition, downloaded and installed the demo. It seemed to work fine and I decided to purchase it once the demo warned me that it was about to expire. As it turns out, that's probably a little too late.

Once the system went into that, "Hey you are about to expire" mode, the console on the Home Server simply hung and was unresponsive. License file in hand or not, you couldn't update it. Luckily, I found a bit of a workaround in the forums. I set the clock back a few weeks on the server. This seemed to allow the server to get back to the point where it could launch the Avast console. Then, I set the date back to the current date. Only then was I able to update the license file and update the Anti-virus to the current definitions.

After getting through this process, I have to say that either Microsoft needs to improve the way software is installed on this thing or anti-virus vendors really don't know what they're doing in as far as WHS. Perhaps it's a little bit of both, but I can say that it's unlikely that an average user would want to grind their way through these kinds of issues.

It's at this point that I'm questioning whether I've just made things better or worse. I suppose only time will tell, but I have a year to find out.