A problem with MSE

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My wife’s HP Mini, XP SP3, has MSE for AV protection, starts on boot, scans once a week, updates set to Automatic. However, every few days when she boots there’s a warning, Firewall ON, Automatic Updates ON, Antivirus OFF (or words to that effect). This always causes some dismay. If I use the MSE icon in the tray to open MSE it says:-

“Security Essentials is monitoring your PC
“Real-time protection ON
“Antvirus and spyware definitions Up to Date.”

And all is well until the next time the warning appears. I could tell her to simply close the window and ignore the warning, but one day there really might be a problem. I’m not sure, but am beginning to think this warning appears after the definitions have been updated.

Any suggestions???

David

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If it happens during the boot, that’s the normal behavior of MSE. You just need to wait for boot to be complete to get accurate status info.

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Thanks for the response, problem is this “warning” does not go away when it has finished booting up, hours later it is still there. My wife, who’s heard about all the scary hackers that are out there waiting to empty our bank account, is looking at it like the proverbial deer in the headlights. She’s not about to click on anything lest it turns out to be a link to a Nigerian billionaire with a cash-flow problem.

David

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She’s not about to click on anything lest it turns out to be a link to a Nigerian billionaire with a cash-flow problem.

That’s the sort of caution she ought to have under normal circumstances, so maybe this is a silver lining in the cloud.

Group "L" (Linux Mint)
with Windows 10 running in a remote session on my file server

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Thanks for the response, problem is this “warning” does not go away when it has finished booting up, hours later it is still there. My wife, who’s heard about all the scary hackers that are out there waiting to empty our bank account, is looking at it like the proverbial deer in the headlights. She’s not about to click on anything lest it turns out to be a link to a Nigerian billionaire with a cash-flow problem.

David

The warning is one of those that pop up from the notification area at the bottom right?

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Have seen exact same problem. Have never been able to fix it. Nothing’s wrong to be fixed.

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Hi ,

Do ensure that real-time protection is ticked ( IIRC .. it’s not on a fresh install … very oddly ) . To find it , open it’s GUI , select the ‘Settings’ tab , scroll to ‘Real-time protection’ ( 3rd line down on LHS ) , and , if needed , tick the box on the RHS ..

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That sounds like the standard XP Security Center Alerts and not a problem with MSE. That can easily be configured to not notify you of the Anti-Virus. See this link for info. http://www.bleepingcomputer.com/forums/topic42121.html

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Small consolation, but your wife is not alone. I’ve had the same problem, and have done quite a bit of searching for a solution. Besides just disabling the notification, I have seen a few other suggested fixes, but none have worked for me. Like you, I am lerry of just turning off the notification. (i.e. Telling Security Center that you have an AV that Security Center doesn’t recognize. The only possible causes of this issue are (1) MICROSOFT Security Center is not familiar with MICROSOFT Security Essentials, or (2) there is a (dare I say it?) BUG in the Security Center software! Either way, it doesn’t appear Microsoft is planning to do anything about it, so your only options are ignore the warning, or disable the check. (Or run Ubuntu!)

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If you use CCleaner, un-click MS Malware and MS Mgmt Console under Cleaner>Applications>Windows…that might work.

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There are four different potential fixes in this thread: Conflicting info between Microsoft Essentials and Windows Security Center

Bruce

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