BleepingComputer.com: Windows Defender

I have a new HP, with Vista Home Premium. I run two anti virus programs...Defender, and Norton Antivirus 09.
Both of these have been working fine, side by side, untill about 3 days ago.

The default settings for my defender are to run, update and scan on startup, and thats what it did until I noticed a few days ago that I wasnt being notified of any updates or scan results, like I am supposed to get, for my windows defender.

I went to my start menu, ran Windows Defender (both regularly and as adminstrator), and a box popped up telling me that my defender is turned off, and "click here" to turn it on.

I did that. It worked like its supposed to all day, I even ran a couple of scans with it.

I turned the computer off that evening, back on in the morning, and had to start my defender the same way again.

Ive messed with the options, they are all set the right way. Ive checked my administrative tools.....the program is running. (I disabled and restarted it from there, just to be sure).
Same thing.

I have no idea why defender is not automatically starting and running like it is supposed to.

I DO NOT have OneCare. I uninstalled it a few weeks ago, and it did not affect my defenders operations.

It was suggested to me that an Update for Windows Defender, in some way, may have triggered a confict with my Norton Antivirus, but I am more inclined to believe that I just need to find the right place to activate it properely again.

Can anyone help me with this?

Thanks guys/gals

Russell

When you install Microsoft OneCare, it disables the windows defender service, allowing for it to not work properly. Even after uninstalling Microsoft OneCare, it dosen't start the windows defender service, you have to.

You can do this by going into Administrative Tools>Services

Find Windows Defender, right click select Properties.
Change the service to "Automatic", which will allow it to run when computer is started.

After you do all the above, click "start" to start the service, now windows defender should work properly.

I hope this worked, please let me know of your results

Desion, on Mar 6 2009, 05:34 AM, said:

Good morning Desion...

Well, ITS FIXED, and your help idea was a big reason why I was able to get my Windows Defender loading up at startup again.

Let me see if I can tell you what I did.

I went to "services", where you recommended I should go, but I had already checked that before I posted, so I knew that it was enabled, and already set to "automatic",.
But I went anyway to follow your instructions, just in case, and this is what I found out....

I went to services > windows defender, and saw that it was running, and set to automatic. But I did what you suggested, and highlited WD, and clicked on properties.

There, I just wanted to poke around in the properties settings, so I clicked on the DEPENDENCIES tab, and I saw that there were a couple of other programs that were dependent on Windows Defender, and visa versa...WD was also dependant on these other two programs as well.

These were listed in the section called, obviously, "This service depends on the following components".

That is Services > Windows Defender > Properties > Dependencies Tab.

These components are called: Remote Procedure Call (RPC), and if you click on the + sign, the other component is DCOM Server Process Launcher.

Both of these components are also in "services", so I went and checked them out, figuring that all of them should be running, and on automatic, if Defender was going to load at startup, automatically. Right? It made sense to me.

Well, DCOM Server Process Launcher was enabled, running and set to automatic.
Remote Procedure (RPC), call was not.
I checked the properties of Remote Procedure, and read this: "If this service is stopped or disabled, programs using COM or Remote Procedure Call (RPC) services will not function properly."

Well, if they are all components of one another, and if one (RPC) is disabled, and not set to run automatically, then WD would fail, DCOM would fail, RPC would fail.

Anyway, to make a long story short, I Started (enabled) the RPC component, set it to Automatic, applied and ok'ed everything, closed out the windows, and re-started my computer.

Low and behold, I went to my start menu, clicked on Windows Defender, and it was on, and was updating, and I ran a quick scan on it.....and it appeared to be back to its default settings.
I rebooted the computer 3 more times just to make sure, and its working great.

I do not know why it changed, what I did to turn off one of the components. Perhaps it was the install of OneCare, that I uninstalled the same day, but perhaps it was there long enough to change the settings.

I was told by an HP tech yesterday when I was trying to fix this, that a Windows Defender Update had somehow conflicted with my Norton, that it happens all the time, and that if I wanted to run defender, I would have to manually turn it on.

Baloney.
(To be fair, HP has scheduled a callback to the house to try and "fix" it. Im gonna take that call, and let him go thru his processes, and see if he does what I did. lol)

Thanks Desion.
I want to say that I was bummed and tweaking out about this thing for a couple of days, and were it not for your advice to check the properties settings, I probably would not have looked any farther than the WD settings.
So you see, and reply to any post, with any ideas of any kind, are likely to lead to a fix, so I am very glad that you responded with your idea.

I hope this is a help to anyone else that is having this issue, and after doing several googles searches for this, I found many who are.

Thanks Friend, very much.

Russell M

your welcome, glad to help and good to hear that its up running again.

Windows Vista SP1 Services 411 - Windows Defender

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Windows 7 Services 411 - Windows Defender

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quietman7, on Mar 9 2009, 08:02 AM, said:

quietman7.....dude, you know what makes me very happy about what youve posted here? That I figured all of this out on my own.
These links youve posted are absolutely perfect to help someone figure out why their WD isnt working at startup.
But for me, it confirms that all of that tweaking and poking around I've done on my computers over the years, has paid off.
Bahahahahahaha

Of course, I wish your post would have been here before I started messing around in area's of my computer where I can do more harm than good, right?

But, just the same, all is well and your links really make me smile..............HEY BILL GATES... I FIGURED IT OUT, DUUUUDE!

Thanks quietman7. I appreciate the help, and I know many after us will too.

Russell

You're welcome.