Microsoft’s Security Essentials is the only free anti-virus software that failed to receive certification after a new round of anti-virus tests conducted by AV-Test on Windows 7 during September and October.

According to results provided by AV-Test on its official website, all the other anti-virus programs on the market have received the certification, including free solutions such as Avast! and AVG.

Microsoft’s anti-virus application has achieved a detection rate of 69 percent in September and 64 percent in October for protection against 0-day malware attacks, including web and email threats. The industry average is 89 percent, so Security Essentials wasn’t even close to the other products on the market.

The results are a bit encouraging when it comes to the detection of a representative set of malware discovered in the last 2 or 3 months, with the Microsoft product scoring 90 percent in both months. This time, the industry average is 97 percent, AV-Test shows in its results.

As for the detection of widespread and prevalent malware, however, Microsoft Security Essentials has managed to achieve the maximum detection rate, with 100 percent in both months.

Microsoft’s security tool has managed to outscore the industry average in the detection of actively running widespread malware test, with a detection rate of 98 percent versus 95 percent for the rest of the products.

The 63 percent detection rate placed it above the industry’s average of 60 percent in the removal of further malicious components and remediation of critical system modification test.

“During September and October 2012 we continuously evaluated 24 home user security products using their default settings. We always used the most current publicly-available version of all products for the testing. They were allowed to update themselves at any time and query their in-the-cloud services,” AV-Test explained in the official results of the testing.