In response to direct customer need for a streamlined method of identifying common security misconfigurations, Microsoft has developed the Microsoft Baseline Security Analyzer (MBSA). It includes a graphical and command line interface that can perform local or remote scans of Windows systems.

MBSA extends previous versions by adding support for Windows Vista. MBSA can be installed on computers running Windows Vista and it can scan Windows Vista computers. More information on the capabilities of MBSA is available on the MBSA Web site.

Note: This software is a pre-release version. It may not work the way a final version of the software will. We may change it for the final, commercial version. We also may not release a commercial version.

MBSA runs on Windows Vista, Windows Server 2003, Windows 2000, and Windows XP systems and will scan for common security misconfigurations in the following products: Windows Vista, Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows Server 2003, Internet Information Server (IIS) 5.0, and 6.0, SQL Server 7.0 and 2000, Internet Explorer (IE) 5.01 and later, and Office 2000, 2002 and 2003. MBSA also scans for missing security updates, update rollups and service packs published to Microsoft Update.

System Requirements

* Supported Operating Systems: Windows 2000 Service Pack 4; Windows Server 2003; Windows Vista; Windows XP

System requirements are outlined in the main help and readme.html file that is included in the tool.