Realtime protection not enabled after restart

[Global Donkey]

I have installed MS AS on 3 different machines now, and all works well
except that after system restart, I noticed that the gcasserv and gcasdtserv
processes are not running, real time protection does not appear to be
active, the scheduled scans do not run, and the icon does not appear in the
system tray. If I launch MS AS manually and then close it, the gcas
processes are started (and stay started), the icon appears in the system
tray, scheduled scans run, and real time protection is active.

....and yes, the "enable MS AS security agents on startup" option is
selected.

Any clues?

 

[Bill Sanderson]

And you see this same behavior on all three machines?
Something isn't getting set up right on the install, or there are
permissions issues with the services getting started. Are you running as
Administrator on the machines? Is there other security software running?
What's in common among these machines?

 

[Global Donkey]

Problem solved.....I was also running Ad-Watch on all 3 machines (mainly for
the cookie protection capability) and had enabled automatic blocking. I
didn't quite understand what "automatic blocking" meant in Ad-Aware, and
Ad-Aware is a bit silly in how it reports blocked events. It just says
"Registry modification detected", which I took to mean it had detected it
and allowed it as ok. It says exactly the same thing if you turn automatic
blocking off and manually allow the change, so it appeared to be a
reasonable assumption on my part. It was preventing MS AS from creating the
startup registry entry. In fact....this explains a lot of bizarre
installation behaviour now

Might be good to add "temporarily disable all other anti-spyware programs
when installing MS-AS" to either the install instructions or FAQ, just in
case other anti-spyware is protecting the registry. I did find that tip
somewhere here on the forum, and that was what gave me the clue.

Good job on the product - add the cookie protection capability and you've
got my vote. The realtime protection looks pretty comprehensive, and the
system explorers are extreamly useful. In fact this was how I confirmed the
problem - no startup entry for MS AS. Much easier (and safer) than getting
into the registry. It would also be nice if you could report unknown
Active-X and processes to spynet directly from the explorer.....but I guess
that would keep you guys really busy then.

 

[Bill Sanderson]

Problem solved.....I was also running Ad-Watch on all 3 machines (mainly
for
the cookie protection capability) and had enabled automatic blocking. I
didn't quite understand what "automatic blocking" meant in Ad-Aware, and
Ad-Aware is a bit silly in how it reports blocked events. It just says
"Registry modification detected", which I took to mean it had detected it
and allowed it as ok. It says exactly the same thing if you turn automatic
blocking off and manually allow the change, so it appeared to be a
reasonable assumption on my part. It was preventing MS AS from creating
the
startup registry entry. In fact....this explains a lot of bizarre
installation behaviour now

Might be good to add "temporarily disable all other anti-spyware programs
when installing MS-AS" to either the install instructions or FAQ, just in
case other anti-spyware is protecting the registry. I did find that tip
somewhere here on the forum, and that was what gave me the clue.

Good job on the product - add the cookie protection capability and you've
got my vote. The realtime protection looks pretty comprehensive, and the
system explorers are extreamly useful. In fact this was how I confirmed
the
problem - no startup entry for MS AS. Much easier (and safer) than getting
into the registry. It would also be nice if you could report unknown
Active-X and processes to spynet directly from the explorer.....but I
guess
that would keep you guys really busy then.

The help for the product includes this:
-----------------------------------
Preparing for Installation of Microsoft AntiSpyware


The new version of Microsoft AntiSpyware automatically removes the older
version. If you have an older version, you can transfer your existing option
settings to the new version of the program automatically when the new
version installs.

Before you install AntiSpyware, use these suggestions to prepare your
computer:

If you have any other anti-spyware programs on your computer, you should
uninstall them and restart your computer before installing Microsoft
AntiSpyware. Although removing other anti-spyware programs is not necessary
it is recommend because it is possible that Microsoft AntiSpyware could
detect spyware that has already been quarantined by another anti-spyware
program if the other program has not secured its quarantined files.


To uninstall other anti-spyware programs, see the user documentation that
came with the program.


Close all other Windows programs before installing Microsoft AntiSpyware,
including those programs displayed in the Windows tray.

 

[Global Donkey]

Doh! Too busy trying to be an "expert" to read help files!

 

[Bill Sanderson]

I haven't read all of it either--and, of course, it really isn't very useful
having it in there to the person trying to set up for an initial install.

 

[Global Donkey]

Yes, maybe a a warning on the initial install might be better.