Windows Defender (Vista) disabled Superantispyware and NOD32?

[Guest]

Greetings;

I got a call from a friend, who said that at some point today, Windows
Defender (under Vista Ultimate) had decided to add NOD32 (ESET's Anti-Virus
program) and SuperAntiSpyware (a spyware scanner).

Both programs are Vista compatible, and had been installed for awhile. Only
today did WD apparently take issue with them.

Does anyone have any ideas why this occured?

 

[Bill Sanderson MVP]

Thanks for posting this--you can post to the .signatures group for best
effect, and you can also post to the following web form:


http://www.microsoft.com/athome/security/spyware/software/isv/fpform.aspx

(It states that it is for vendors--ignore that--they want as much info as
quickly as possible on this kind of issue as they can get)


Typically, this kind of issue results from a flaw in a new set of
definitions that are issued. It would be very helpful, in reporting to have
the System Event log entries showing the detections, from your friend's
machine--If you can open the System Event log in Event Viewer (right click
My Computer, and choose Manage)--and filter the log on source "Windows
Defender"--there will be individual entries for the detections. There's a
copy to clipboard function in Event Viewer, and the precise file details, as
well as the software versions of what is being falsly detected, would help a
great deal.

 

[Bill Sanderson MVP]

Silgard--I see in the .announcements group that there's been a new
definition set distributed--not sure what the precise timing is, but that's
two in as many days.

I would recommend that your friend update to the new definitions--see
..announcements for the detailed numbers--and repair the apps and re-test.

I suspect that this update may be related to the false positive, and the new
definitions should eliminate the finding.

I won't minimize the issue--one anti-malware product disabling others is a
Bad Thing--but this is a problem for all signature-based anti-malware
services--most vendors have this issue at one time or another, and one
measure of responsiveness to the problem is how quickly it gets fixed.