So much for that M$ ppl BS
(Wanna know the REAL solution for this issue? Read on...)
The problem isn't that some MS programmer has done bad, actually they did that in accordance with MS policy
. This company and its employees are so full of BS that they did it on purpose, in order to force W2K users to upgrade to XP or Vista (even if that wasn't your intention in the first place); so they coded a "time-delay bomb" into WinDefend b2, set to go off dec 31th - after that date, it'll stop working, and even have you figure out why (not even a friendly message to let us know what happened and why - it took me a handful of good minutes to figure out why my WinDefend service wouldn't start; and that's because I know my way around computers, imagine this happening for a person who's computer illiterate, trying to figure out why "WinDefend Service Failed To Start"!!).
And upgrading to the Final version will give you a nice "This Program Cannot Be Installed" message if you try to install it into W2K (we'll adress that issue again in a minute... as I said, read on
).
And it gets even worse: did you know that uninstalling WinDefend b2 will leave a lot of junk in you computer? The WinDefend service will still be listed in your computer's services list, and you will have to disable it manually (imagine how's that for someone who's computer illiterate??), and the only way to completely remove it is by searching your machine's registry, finding every single "Windows Defender" and "WinDefend" entry and deleting them manually (and even that is a pain in the @ss, because these entries won't go away, unless you use Regedt32 to edit them, and set Full Control in "Security > Permissions", in order to be able to DELETE THE ENTRIES, for CRISSAKE!!)
Well, after you successfully go past that pile of junk left over by WinDefend, you may wanna install WinDefend Final in your W2K machine ("But how?? WinDefend said it won't install on W2K!!" - oh yes, it will... just do some googling and you'll find that there are plenty of sources for a workaround solution, that will even show you a bit more how MS ppl and 'ol BG are nothing but a bunch of SOBs - WinDefend Final WILL install and run on every computer, regardless of OS, AFTER you fix it yourself - all you need is the right tool at hand. Happy googling...
)
"And what about the solution for the 'WinDefend Failed To Start' error?"
Well, I got that error on my machine, while trying to install WinDefend Final on it. After looking into this forum and watching so many so-called "MS Specialists" (MVP, MCSE, MSD, and whatnot) stalling us with stupid nonsense, I decided to go after a real solution - and found it: If you are running W2K and goin' thru this issue, check whether you have Update Rollup 1 for SP4 on your machine - set Windows Update to find for it, or go to
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/...FamilyID=B54730CF-8850-4531-B52B-BF28B324C662 to download the install package.
After installing this update and rebooting, that worked for me, and it should work for everyone else too. None of that "During installation, try setting the logon properties for the WinDefend service to start with an admin account" sh*t... go for a real fix.
The day M$ will tell us what to do with OUR machines is gone bye-bye. Good luck everyone. Peace out!
