Should I install antivirus into windows server 2008?

Question

Ya, should I?

If answer is yes:

What are the recommended antivirus software to go for? Kaspersky antivirus? Nod32? or any other?

Given the passage of time and entry of R2/64, this thread screams for an update. — justSteve, Jul 28 '11 at 02:56
Actually what it screams for is closing; its a shopping question and we don't do those here. — Rob Moir, Jul 28 '11 at 06:44

score 2 · Answer 1 · answered Sep 28 '09 at 09:09

I wouldn't recommended Kaspersky Antivirus running on a Windows 2008 box at the moment because you'll need to run the Enterprise Edition which is a REAL memory hog compared to the standard Kaspersky Antivirus for Windows Servers (version 6) which doesn't support Windows 2008. We're seeing 250-300MB of ram for Enterprise Edition vs 25MB for the standard version. However, Kaspersky are releasing Maintenance Pack 4 for the standard edition in the first week of October (it's been a long time coming) which should give the standard edition Windows 2008 (& R2) compatibility, therefore that'd be the one to go for.

However, we've had very few problems with Kaspersky Antivirus on our servers over the last 4 years (a mix of 2003 & 2008 machines running Kaspersky Antivirus for Windows Servers and Enterprise Edition) and as an antivirus and malware solution it's pretty good.

Update: Kaspersky released Kaspersky Anti-Virus for Windows Servers v6.0.4.1212 and yes, it supports Windows 2008 & Windows 2008 R2. The good thing is the memory resource footprint is quite a lot lower then the Enterprise Edition (25MB versus 250MB), and I'd only recommend using the Enterprise Edition if you're running Terminal Servers/Citrix. Even then I probably wouldn't, as 250MB of RAM for AV is quite a fair chunk to give up. They are looking to release a fixpack in January for Enterprise Edition, this may help, and the next major version is due in Q2 2010. — SteveBurkett, Dec 16 '09 at 17:57

score 1 · Answer 2 · answered Jul 28 '11 at 10:21

I use Forefront from MS, just install it with the /nomom tag, then its basic an security essential. I deploy it with a GPO

/NOMOM in which the /NOMOM flag installs everything except the MOM agent. If you use the /NOMOM flag, do not use the /CG and /MS flags

score 0 · Answer 3 · answered Sep 28 '09 at 07:24

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From my experience, every Windows station/server should have antivirus because of it's often security holes. Use whatever you trust, but I'll recommend you Kapspersky for Windows-Server.

answered Sep 28 '09 at 07:24

Andrejs Cainikovs

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score 0 · Answer 4 · answered Sep 28 '09 at 20:58

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Every server should have an AV on it. I've had pretty good luck with Trend Micro on our servers.

answered Sep 28 '09 at 20:58

mrdenny

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Should I install antivirus into windows server 2008?

4 Answers4