Windows Defender is turned off

[Guest]

I am running Vista RTM (build 6000) and the Windows Security Center keeps
giving me a warning that "Windows Defender is turned off". I have the
Windows Defender Icon in my taskbar, and it appears to be running, however I
cannot get the warning to go away in the Security Center. There is a button
to "Turn on now", however this only searches for a new definition file, and
when it doesn't find one, it just returns with a message telling me no new
definitions exist.

I don't know if it is relevant but I removed Norton Internet Security from
the machine, since I am careful and only run in a restricted account, and I
am tired of anti-virus programs sapping limited CPU resources for essentially
little gain (my AV has not detected a single virus in the last year). So i
currently do not have an anti-virus program and rely completely on the
firewall, LUA and Windows defender to keep me safe.

 

[Guest]

I have the same issue with build 6000. I had been working perfectly but now
Security Center reports that Windows Defender if OFF and it cannot find any
Antivirus Software even though I have one.

I have restarted the Windows Defender Service and also made sure that it is
running. This is very annoying. I have been forced to select "I have
Anti-Spyware software that I will monitor myself" but I don't feel right.
Same for my Anti-Virus. Maybe there is some registry settings that are
corrupted or something. Any help will be appreciated.

 

[Guest]

After more research in this Newsgroup. I found a fix suggested:

Set the WMI service to Disabled
Stop the WMI service
Delete system32\wbem\repository
Set WMI service to Automatic
Restart the WMI service
Restart machine (as a good measure)

This fixed my problem with Defender and Antivirus. I did installed SQL 2005
and that is probably what caused the issue.

 

[Daniel]

I cant find any WMI service in Vista, how come?

After more research in this Newsgroup. I found a fix suggested:

Set the WMI service to Disabled
Stop the WMI service
Delete system32\wbem\repository
Set WMI service to Automatic
Restart the WMI service
Restart machine (as a good measure)

This fixed my problem with Defender and Antivirus. I did installed SQL
2005
and that is probably what caused the issue.

 

[Guest]

I have the same problem. I used to get this with Beta 2 but since installing
the RTM it seemed to have gone away... until about a month ago.
I did the suggested solution but, when it had re-built the repository
folder, Security Centre still says that Defener is turned off - interestingly
it also say that my anit virus isn't running. Both Defender and AVG 7.5 ARE
running.
The only thing I can think of is that I did play around with turuning on the
outbound firewall rules, found that unlike other FW like ZoneAlram it didn't
prompt and allow you to turn on rules as needed. So, I turned the outbound
rules back to default. Might just be a coincidence though.
Tried running the WMI Dialog tool but it failed... looks like the default
ACLs etc. in Vista are set to a higher level that W2003 and XP and so the
tool cannot run successfully.

Any ideas?

 

[Guest]

Update: I spoke too soon - after a hard re-boot it is all now functioning
correctly.