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Anti-malware software: Don't leave home without it.
Don't even stay home without it.

This doesn't pretend to be a comprehensive guide to anti-malware. It is VERY far from that. In fact, this page is more for my use that for you! But if you find it useful, too... so much the better.

I've been a very happy user of eSet's anti-malware products for Windows home users for many years. I buy new licenses from time to time, and often get myself in a tangle. I'm hoping that these notes will spare me some of the pain next time.

The problems are not of eSet's making!!! The problems arise because the horrible people out there who try to compromise our systems are so persistent and creative. ANY (good) anti-malware is not going to be simple.


Before we start: I've tried to make this page is "browser friendly". Make your browser window as wide as you want it. The text will flow nicely for you. It is easier to read in a narrow window. With most browsers, pressing plus, minus or zero while the control key (ctrl) is held down will change the texts size. (Enlarge, reduce, restore to default, respectively.) (This is more fully explained, and there's another tip, at my Power Browsing page.)


Buying licenses to use eSet's anti-malware software

.......If you haven't used any eSet product before...

If you haven't got an existing relationship with eSet, OR if you want to create a "new" relationship, to run alongside an existing one...

Install a "trial" version of the product of your choice on your machine. Don't worry, you won't do anything to "disturb" that installation to "take it to the next level", license it for use beyond the (at 7/17) 30 day trial. (By the way... when you DO "pay up", you are not "robbed" of the remaining days of the trial. Your renewal date will be the anniversary of when your trial would have ended.)

Just before you can start using your trial, you are asked for an email address. Be sure to give them a real eddress that you have access to. If you already have a relationship with eSet, but want to start a new, separate one, don't worry about giving them the same email address as the other relationship's. You can have two (or more) relationships even though they have the same eddress. (When I speak of two relationships, I mean more than having the software on two PCs.)

From here my notes must be taken with a pinch of salt. They are my "best shot" at recording what I went through (with blind alleys edited out of the story!) in July 17, when I was trying to establish a new relationship.

Why multiple "relationships" as I call them? I have multiple computers at multiple sites. And I add computers from time to time.

Yes! You can expand an existing license. But! Let's say you have a license, currently set up to allow it's use on two devices. And let's say it is July, and your license renews every year in September. If you add a "seat" (my term... eSet says "one of the "x" devices you have paid for with your license") now, you will have to pay for a YEAR's worth of that "seat". (All seats "expire" at the same time... anything else would be a nonsense, wouldn't it? But eSet won't pro-rate the price of a seat added part way through the "license year".

Continuing with our analogy... If it were July, and you wanted to add a seat, and the license renewal was in late June, then it would probably be easiest, best, just to add a seat to the existing license.

Enough of that! Moving on...

A little thing to do BEFORE you install your eSet: Use "Control Panel\All Control Panel Items\System" to get into your computer's properties. Check that the "Computer Name" is something sensible. (I recommend a unique name for any computer you have... unique across all your computer owning years. There are various reasons for this, and in this context the reason is that at the eSet headquarters, they will "pick up" the computer name, when you install the software, which can be helpful in resolving muddles. (The renewal date of the instance of eSet on a given machine can also be a valuable clue to what license it is using.)

So. We want a new relationship. As I said, install the product you want in "trial" mode.

When you're happy all is well, open the eSet app, and click "change license". (You're currently using a "Trial" license... which will expire.)

Now... here's one of the places where I went back and forth a bit. I THINK you'll find yourself looking at a page asking you for UserName and Password. UserName already filled in with "EVA-xxxxx", where the x's are digits. The "EVA", or even the whole syntax may be different if you didn't install the home user Internet Security, but I bet you'll have something at least similar. eSet assigned you that "UserName" when you asked to be given the Trial License. It also gave you a password. But you didn't know that. They never told you! So! Just click "forgot username/password". eSet will email you with what you need. That will go to the eddress you gave when you asked for the Trial License. (The "UserName" should still be the "EVA-xxxxx" you knew about because the form had that filled in for you before it asked for the password.)

From what the email has told you, put the UserName/ password in, and you will go to a page where you can select how many devices you want the license to cover, and when the license should be renewed. If you will pay now for the next three years, you will save money! And you can MOVE any of the "seats" from computer to computer. (It is a simple affair, and if a computer totally crashes, you are not "stuck".) If you bought, say, 2 seats (a licence covering two devices), then Just Be Honest. You'll have (more on this in a moment) ONE "key" (a string of characters, aka a registration code) that you will use on ALL of the licensed devices. So. Set FirstPC up with the software. Then set SecondPC up with the software. And then, let's say, FirstPC dies, you buy ThirdPC. Yes! You can just install the software, and give ThirdPC the same key that you've already used twice. All will be well. Just don't try to put FirstPC back on the 'net once you've used the key again, in ThirdPC. That would not end well. (If FirstPC didn't actually die, but you are replacing it with ThirdPC, it would be wise to uninstall the eSet software from FirstPC, just to preclude an accident. But eSet doesn't require that you "talk to them" about moving the licence to a new device.)

Right! We're getting ahead of ourselves.

Recap: You installed the software in FirstPC, as if merely wanting a trial. You then took it further, paid money, and have a licence for x devices, a license that will expire in y years. (They require, I think, that you put it on "auto renew", but you can subsequently turn that off, and in any case, they give you good warning (via the eddress you gave) of impending automatic renewals.)

Diversion: Price matrix, at 7/17, for "Internet Security". (There's been some re-naming of products in the past few years, by the way.)

               (All prices: British pounds)
             Seats (devices allowed by license)
               1       2      3
Renewal
frequency
 v  v  v
Every year    £40    £45    £50
Every 2 yrs- (on offer... but I didn't note prices.)
Every 3 yrs   £85    £95   £105

So! You make your choices, and "do the thing" with your credit card in the usual way. (By the way the name you fill in for eSet's wants needn't be exactly the same as the name on the credit card. For instance, I have several eSet "relationships", and for the 4th one my first name is "Tk-4", to help me keep the different relationships (licenses) separate in my mind.

Once the payment goes through, a "license key" will appear on the screen. (It is also sent to you in an email.) 7/17, Internet security, it was something like "BX8Z-3H6Q-BZK4-RZSD-U3ZP"

Back in the eSet app on your PC, go to the "Help and Support" page, and there's "Change License" button. You're going to "change" from the free-for-30-days trail license to the "proper" license you've bought. Click the button, fill in the license key. It will go off, verify, and you should immediately see different text in the "Product and License" part of the "Help & Support" page. Check in particular the "Valid until" information.

A little mystery: I did the above, was 100% happy that All Was Well... but the eSet app didn't immediately admit that I'd put in the license key. Twenty four hours later, that was still the case. I tried again, and this time it went without hassle... and I don't think I "used up" more than one seat. Hope not! If it happens to you, I'd wait 5 minutes before trying again. Maybe the "collect your money" computer hadn't quite got the word across to the "let them activate" computer?

Using further "seats" purchased along with the first one.

If you've done what I describe above, to "establish a relationship", and get eSet up and running on one PC, then, if you bought the right to use the license on more than one device at the outset, then nothing could be simpler, to add eSet protection to a second device.

Just install the software "as a trial", as before. When you get to the "activate" page, you can go "straight" to entering your license key. Probably I would, most times. But if there's any doubt about the machine in question, then go down the "activate trial" path... you can always do the "change license" "thing" later. (Your seat on this machine won't by the way, run for a year (or two, or three, depending on the license you bought) from the time you put the key in. All the "seats" began "aging" when you bought the license, whether you used them from then or not. (This really does make sense, when you think about it. Sadly!) And once it "settles", go to the Help and Support page (as before), click the "Change License" button, put in the SAME license key as you used to change the first PC to "paid up" protection.

.......If you HAVE used eSet products before...

It may pay you to do what it takes... I haven't done it recently, won't write up today, but it CAN be done, even if you have to call their help-line.

((DO MORE ON THIS))


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