While MSE is a hyped and failed antivirus that has been forced down everyones throat by adding to windows a default scanner it deserves a very very tiny bit of credit.
The reason for this is that MSE on a fully updated system with all the proper windows security in-place has proven to be simple yet effective in some cases as it biggest strength comes directly from the Windows security related modules itself.
And while i personally consider MSE as pure loss of PC resources and a totally false sense of security, i would venture to say that to those who find a word document difficult to make, in terms of PC skills it would be better then nothing.
That said MSE has always been crap and probably will be for the foreseeable future. Yet i do not understand why Microsoft is holding on to it like they struck gold.