Windows Defender keeps turning itself off

[Guest]

Yesterday I get a message saying windows defender was turned off. So I
clicked turn on and open. Once it opened and turned on, it was fine, for a
while. Then it turned off again. It happend at least 3 more times. Today when
I turned on my computer, Windows Defender was turned off.

Windows Defender Version: 1.1.1592.0
Engine Version: 1.1.2101.0
Definition Version: 1.15.2233.6

 

[Dave M]

Do you have Windows Live OneCare installed? If you do, installing OneCare
1..5.x disables the standalone Windows
Defender:

http://forums.microsoft.com/WindowsOneCare/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=1105575&SiteID=2

 

[Guest]

I have the same problem on 5 different computers. None of them has Windows
Live OneCare installed and never did. Any other suggestions? The program
disables itself every day on every WinXP computer I've tried it on
(independent, domain-attached, etc.). I can say this only happens in
Windows XP (SP2). It works fine on Vista.

 

[Guest]

Why would Live OneCare 1.5 turn off Windows Defender?!?!?! I have the same
problem as the 1st guy, but it just doesnt make sense that 1 Microsoft
program would turn off another one. If anything, when you install Live
OneCare 1.5, it would tell you to remove Windows Defender. And Windows
Defender does not seem to be integrated into Live OneCare, so why would Live
OneCare conflict with Windows Defender?

 

[Guest]

Just to further my question below, I found this on the OneCare website:

Enhanced protection from spyware – Windows Live OneCare works with Windows
Defender, a security technology that helps detect and remove spyware and
other potentially unwanted software from your computer.

If it works WITH Defender, why would it turn it off?

 

[Dave M]

Ezra;
Did you look at my link to the WLOC support newsgroup? Originally Defender
was a separate standalone product... but currently all working versions of
OneCare include defender so you'd wind up with two running and potentially
conflicting Microsoft Anti-Spyware protections on your system. I'll quote
the relevant paragraph from that link:

"Let me try and clarify - if Windows Defender is installed on a machine and
then OneCare v1.5 is installed afterward, by default the installation will
disable Windows Defender. Windows Defender will then display a dialog
indicating that it has been disabled, and asking if the user wants to turn
it on again. When you are installing OneCare v1.5 you should close this
dialog without re-enabling Defender. OneCare intentionally disables
Defender because it can cause system instability to have both running at
the same time, and since OneCare is a superset of Defender, there is no
reason you would need both of them running."

 

[Bill Sanderson MVP]

When you say you have the same problem, and that the program "disables
itself"--what does that mean, exactly? Not showing an icon is not the same
thing as being disabled.

If Windows Defender is being disabled --i.e. when you start it manually, it
tells you that it has been disabled--then it is being disabled by something
else on your systems, or by a user or group policy setting.

Give me a step by step--probably you don't need to start with the
install--but have the thing installed, and get definitions up to date, and
do a scan. OK--so you did all that. Then what? Turn the machine off, turn
it on again--and what?



--

 

[Guest]

I turn on the computer. WLOC loads up and I see it in the taskbar. WD does
not appears in the taskbar. I go to my WD and I open it and it says WD has
been disabled, would you like to reenable WD? When I say yes it shows up in
the taskbar and both WLOC and WD work fine together.

Dave-If what your saying is correct, how come I don't have the functions in
WLOC that I do in WD?

 

[Guest]

i have the same problem but i am running vista 6000 ultimate and wloc 1.5 and
not only does windows defender turn off my computer security settings state
that i do not have an antivirus program running, a can't find anything
written about this anywhere....
any suggestions

 

[Dave M]

Sorry, you'd have to ask the Microsoft OneCare team why they decided to do
that, rather than just incorporate the full product, although I suspect the
answer would be something on the order of... That function is too advanced
for our target audience of people who want to "set it and forget it".

Since I'm not one of those people, my personal choice was to remove WLOC
before they disabled my standalone Defender. Here's where to resolve such
Windows Live OC questions, since it's now pretty much off topic for this
standalone Defender newsgroup:

http://forums.microsoft.com/windowsonecare/default.aspx?siteid=2

 

[Dave M]

Check out these peer support newsgroups:

http://forums.microsoft.com/windowsonecare/default.aspx?siteid=2

 

[Bill Sanderson MVP]

Ezra--I was replying to "chicago Kamin."

Your situation is that Windows Live OneCare explicitly disables Windows
Defender because it not only duplicates, but provides significantly expanded
capabilities. I believe this is clearly explained in the links that Dave M
has posted--and in any case, the explanation should come from the OneCare
support forum, where they can explain what is happening better than we can
here.

--

 

[Guest]

With all due respect, I can't quite see how putting in a dialogue box that
would let us know that Defender and OneCare are not needed together; would
you like to uninstall Defender? would be that difficult. Here I've been in a
panic for days, thinking I had something malicious on my machine that was
trying to hack into my Security programs. I mean, to the point of pushing my
blood pressure up, and the dr was actually concerned about it, today. I very
nearly reformatted my hard drive! thinking that that might be the only way to
rectify the problem. IMHO, this issue should have been made VERY clear to
every user in a OneCare update or something like that. Now, I don't write
code, so I have no idea how difficult this would actually be.

Also, I get a little frustrated that every time I put a topic in the Search
for these forums, or even come here from having entered the issue into
Google, and the result comes up, and I post or reply, that it's always not in
the correct area and should have been posted elsewhere. I had no clue there
was a separate place for each of these programs. This is a wonderful font of
communication and support, but it is nearly unnavigable to the casual,
at-home PC user.

Please don't misunderstand, I am VERY appreciative of all of this being
available to us, but not all of us are that computer-software-tech-site savvy.

** cheryl **

 

[Bill Sanderson MVP]

That's a fair complaint--all of it. I really wish that the OneCare
management had done some communication around this issue to their
users--both within the program and in their forums.

Everybody here is a volunteer--probably including the Microsoft staff who
occasionally post here--I suspect that now that the product is released,
they have very little time allocated in the budget to reading here.

I do wish we had the time to follow OneCare's forum as well. Stephen Boots
spends some time here and has been very helpful, but I've spent very little
time over there, and mostly visited when I had a clear-cut complaint--such
as OneCare eating a mail store.

One reason we tend to harp on the "Please tell it to the OneCare forums" is
that is the way to get the message directly to the folks in charge of that
program.

Anyway---I'm sorry we weren't clearer about this.

--

With all due respect, I can't quite see how putting in a dialogue box that
would let us know that Defender and OneCare are not needed together; would
you like to uninstall Defender? would be that difficult. Here I've been in
a
panic for days, thinking I had something malicious on my machine that was
trying to hack into my Security programs. I mean, to the point of pushing
my
blood pressure up, and the dr was actually concerned about it, today. I
very
nearly reformatted my hard drive! thinking that that might be the only way
to
rectify the problem. IMHO, this issue should have been made VERY clear to
every user in a OneCare update or something like that. Now, I don't write
code, so I have no idea how difficult this would actually be.

Also, I get a little frustrated that every time I put a topic in the
Search
for these forums, or even come here from having entered the issue into
Google, and the result comes up, and I post or reply, that it's always not
in
the correct area and should have been posted elsewhere. I had no clue
there
was a separate place for each of these programs. This is a wonderful font
of
communication and support, but it is nearly unnavigable to the casual,
at-home PC user.

Please don't misunderstand, I am VERY appreciative of all of this being
available to us, but not all of us are that computer-software-tech-site
savvy.

** cheryl **

 

[Guest]

Thank you, Dave. The forums were actually extremely helpful.

 

[Guest]

Hi Bill:
Some time ago I wrote to Steve and you have his answer. Never mentioned to
you before, but this is the occasion. Get Angel, Oldbear2 (Paul), and the
gang of Usual Suspects. Just try, you will like it.
Efrain

That's a fair complaint--all of it. I really wish that the OneCare
management had done some communication around this issue to their
users--both within the program and in their forums.

Everybody here is a volunteer--probably including the Microsoft staff who
occasionally post here--I suspect that now that the product is released,
they have very little time allocated in the budget to reading here.

I do wish we had the time to follow OneCare's forum as well. Stephen Boots
spends some time here and has been very helpful, but I've spent very little
time over there, and mostly visited when I had a clear-cut complaint--such
as OneCare eating a mail store.

One reason we tend to harp on the "Please tell it to the OneCare forums" is
that is the way to get the message directly to the folks in charge of that
program.

Anyway---I'm sorry we weren't clearer about this.

--

 

[Guest]

http://www.microsoft.com/athome/sec...&cr=US&r=33d293cc-19b6-404b-865b-565a73822c7f

That's a fair complaint--all of it. I really wish that the OneCare
management had done some communication around this issue to their
users--both within the program and in their forums.

Everybody here is a volunteer--probably including the Microsoft staff who
occasionally post here--I suspect that now that the product is released,
they have very little time allocated in the budget to reading here.

I do wish we had the time to follow OneCare's forum as well. Stephen Boots
spends some time here and has been very helpful, but I've spent very little
time over there, and mostly visited when I had a clear-cut complaint--such
as OneCare eating a mail store.

One reason we tend to harp on the "Please tell it to the OneCare forums" is
that is the way to get the message directly to the folks in charge of that
program.

Anyway---I'm sorry we weren't clearer about this.

--

 

[Guest]

http://forums.microsoft.com/WindowsOneCare/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=1075758&SiteID=2

I think I got it right this time
Efrain

That's a fair complaint--all of it. I really wish that the OneCare
management had done some communication around this issue to their
users--both within the program and in their forums.

Everybody here is a volunteer--probably including the Microsoft staff who
occasionally post here--I suspect that now that the product is released,
they have very little time allocated in the budget to reading here.

I do wish we had the time to follow OneCare's forum as well. Stephen Boots
spends some time here and has been very helpful, but I've spent very little
time over there, and mostly visited when I had a clear-cut complaint--such
as OneCare eating a mail store.

One reason we tend to harp on the "Please tell it to the OneCare forums" is
that is the way to get the message directly to the folks in charge of that
program.

Anyway---I'm sorry we weren't clearer about this.

--

 

[Guest]

Wish I had more time to spend over here too Bill, since few really understand
what happened even though the original cause was all over the technology news
for several weeks.

I agree that in the case of OneCare the communication of the Defender
situation wasn't done properly, probably because both everyone at Microsoft
and even we in the forums had been running this way with the OneCare Beta 1.5
version for weeks before it was released. You tend to forget that there are
others that are either running the 'old' version or none at all, so I suspect
that's what really happened. I also suspect that internally the Vista release
was a factor too, since that occured at about the same time.

However, the interesting part is that the real change occured within Windows
Defender itself, primarily due to requirements, nay 'suggestions' by the
European Commision (EU) and also precipitated by the Symantec/McAfee attacks
here in the US. This change was the added ability to disable Windows
Defender, which hadn't existed before this decision and I believe occured in
the 1593 revision.

This disable function is probably the reason that the 1592 revision is
acting strangely lately and why that same revision creates problems when left
installed with OneCare. As usual, neither you nor we were informed of these
potential issues, so we're having to figure them out for ourselves.

Realize that shortly the other third-party products designed for both Vista
and XP will begin to use this disable ability too, so you're likely to be
hearing a lot about this issue in the future. At least the Vista version
should be stable as long as the user has at least the RC1 version installed.

Bitman

That's a fair complaint--all of it. I really wish that the OneCare
management had done some communication around this issue to their
users--both within the program and in their forums.

Everybody here is a volunteer--probably including the Microsoft staff who
occasionally post here--I suspect that now that the product is released,
they have very little time allocated in the budget to reading here.

I do wish we had the time to follow OneCare's forum as well. Stephen Boots
spends some time here and has been very helpful, but I've spent very little
time over there, and mostly visited when I had a clear-cut complaint--such
as OneCare eating a mail store.

One reason we tend to harp on the "Please tell it to the OneCare forums" is
that is the way to get the message directly to the folks in charge of that
program.

Anyway---I'm sorry we weren't clearer about this.

--