OneCare is in many senses an admission of guilt. It's the embodiment of Microsoft pulling its head out of the sand, noticing that there's something fundamentally wrong with its flagship OS, and finally doing something about it. It's also a true cynic's playground. Microsoft charging a subscription fee - albeit a rather small one - to keep an eye on the holes that it left in Windows XP seems a bit rich, especially considering the price of XP in the first place.
Cosa Nostra fans might deem this a protection racket, and it's one that is likely to leave anti-virus pioneers fuming. Symantec has already thrown its tattered hat into the ring by taking Microsoft to court, claiming misappropriation of intellectual property.
The fact that you have to pay may have something to do with Microsoft not being able to cram adverts into OneCare's never-ending barrage of warning balloons. To its credit, OneCare does keep itself up to date without the need for any interaction: a positive in the company of more nag-happy competitors.
That said, the initial install is a bit of a hassle; you'll need to be WGA authenticated, run a separate system check application, and then install the application via an ActiveX control on the web. This seems counter-productive, since your target PC has to be connected to the web before it can protect itself from web-borne attacks.
While it's a little clumsy in its execution, the interface is well suited to OneCare's target audience. It's simple, and it tells you everything you need to know in plain language. If you're used to manually configuring your firewall or, well, having any hands-on input into anything, you're out of luck. The closest you'll come is setting the folders that the integral Anti-virus component searches.
One-click
OneCare gets one up on its rivals by covering a few more bases: there's the antivirus, Microsoft's own; antispyware in the form of Windows Defender, a heavily retooled version of the excellent Giant Antispyware; Windows Firewall, basically unchanged but in a sensible place at last; Backup and Restore features, sorely lacking from XP previously; and encapsulated management of everything update-related.
