Microsoft plans to offer a security and maintenance service designed to tend to the health of PCs -- and improve the user's experience.

Called Windows OneCare, the subscription-based service would provide automated performance tuning, maintenance, anti-spyware and anti-virus protection.

On the maintenance side, OneCare is designed to automatically deal with routine tasks such as disk defragging and cleanup as well as enabling automated backup capabilities for user-defined categories. It will also provide automatic updates for anti-virus, anti-spyware and two-way firewall protection.

Windows OneCare is being developed for PCs running Windows XP SP2. The first testers for the OneCare system will be Microsoft employees in a testing period that begins this week. A broadly available public beta is set to be made available later this year.

The annual-fee service would put Microsoft in competition with PC security and maintenance solutions long offered by security software vendors such as Symantec and its Norton System Works (and earlier versions of Norton Disk Doctor) application.

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