Microsoft Security Essentials and Windows Defender

[John]

I have installed MSE on a machine running XP Pro SP3. I have read posts
at http://social.answers.microsoft.com/Forums saying that MSE is
supposed to disable Windows Defender, but it did not. I have also read
that it isn't a problem to have both programs running, but that a future
MSE update probably will disable Defender.

While I can appreciate the fact that MSE is replacing the main
functionality of Defender, making it redundant, Defender also has the
Software Explorer tool which I have found to be very useful. I hope it
will still be possible to manually start Defender when I want to use
Software Explorer.

John

 

[Stephen Boots MVP-Windows Live]

You need to disable or remove Defender - it was supposed to do this on
install (remove from XP, disable in Vista/7) of the released version,
but it isn't always happening - that's a bug.
Yes, the Software Explorer functionality is not there, but you can
leave Defender installed and run it only when you want to use that
feature, but keep the protection off and disable Defender again when
done. Leaving it running *is* a problem and can cause performance
issues and other problems.
-steve

 

[John]

I can't find the place to set Defender to NOT start automatically on
boot-up (Windows XP version). I tried disabling it using the Software
Explorer, but all that disables is msascui.exe which is just the GUI for
Defender. After doing that and re-booting, I still have two msmpeng.exe
processes running. One of them is MSE and the other is Defender.

John

 

[Bert Hyman]

In John

I can't find the place to set Defender to NOT start automatically on
boot-up (Windows XP version). I tried disabling it using the Software
Explorer, but all that disables is msascui.exe which is just the GUI
for Defender. After doing that and re-booting, I still have two
msmpeng.exe processes running. One of them is MSE and the other is
Defender.

mspeng is a service, so you have to disable it.

Right-click "My Computer", select "Manage", open up "Services and
Applications", select "Services" and find "Windows Defender".

Right click "Windows Defender" and select "Properties". Here you can
stop the process that's currently running and set the "Startup Type" to
disabled, so it won't start on the next boot.

 

[John]

In John


mspeng is a service, so you have to disable it.

Right-click "My Computer", select "Manage", open up "Services and
Applications", select "Services" and find "Windows Defender".

Right click "Windows Defender" and select "Properties". Here you can
stop the process that's currently running and set the "Startup Type" to
disabled, so it won't start on the next boot.

I did that, but now I get an error message on boot-up because it still
wants to start the GUI, which in turn tries to start the service but
can't. The only way I've found to eliminate this error message is to
remove the Windows Defender key from the registry at
HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run

After doing this, if I want to run Defender to use the Software Explorer
feature, I have to first start the service and then start the GUI. Since
I only use this occasionally, I can live with it, but it would be nice
if there was an easier way.

John

 

[Bert Hyman]

In John

I did that, but now I get an error message on boot-up because it still
wants to start the GUI, which in turn tries to start the service but
can't. The only way I've found to eliminate this error message is to
remove the Windows Defender key from the registry at
HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run

Sorry; I thought you had already done that or I'd have mentioned it.

After doing this, if I want to run Defender to use the Software
Explorer feature, I have to first start the service and then start the
GUI. Since I only use this occasionally, I can live with it, but it
would be nice if there was an easier way.

What happens if you set the service to "manual" instead of "disabled"?
Of course, once it gets started (if it gets started), it will continue
to run until you stop it.

If that doesn't work, what's the problem with having the service
running? If you disable all the functions via "Options", it should just
sit there doing nothing. Does it still interfere with MSE?