A week ago I tried to install MSE (I wanted to have a look at it) and at the time of installation MSE turned Windows Defender off. Then I uninstalled MSE and it turned WD on. Since then I see the WD icon with an orange shield in my system tray.
When I right-click it, it says that I should update its database. I click the button and two pop-ups appear one by one: the first says “The new updates will be found and installed automatically”, the second - “New updates aren’t found” (sorry for possible incorrect wording - I translate from Russian). As for scanning WD do scans as usual.
My system is Vista Home Basic SP2 and Windows Update is set on automatic search and installation, and it finds no new updates either. I don’t know what to think. Is my Windows Defender broken? Or is my Windows Update broken?
I think WD should remain deactivated when MSE is running.
MSE should look for updates once per day (default settings).
It also follow Windows Updates query.
check the options in Defender, to make sure that it’s active. If something went wrong when you uninstalled MSE, may be Defender hasn’t beeen re-activated properly. Also check Vista security center to see if there’s a message about anti-spyware protection…
@Tech
The update schedule is much like Malwarebytes Anti-Malware (MBAM) that can be set to update at a specific time but the default is once per week that is Sunday I believe.
Check in the Settings tab.
Remove the selection for Start the scheduled scan only when my computer is on but not in use
I found more strange things and it seems that MSE has nothing in common with my problem.
I opened Windows Update log and saw that at October 5 a new version of Windows Update Agent (7.4.7600.226) was installed. SINCE THAT TIME NO MORE UPDATES WERE INSTALLED.
I manually download and install the latest updates for Windows Defender but didn’t find this fact in Windows Update log. I’m not sure if my Windows Update work at all now.
I didn’t try but of course not, if you disabled the service, it won’t be restarted. I suppose the Defender service is just stopped and set to manual when MSE is there, I didn’t look.
Do not worry about this situation, what happens is this. MSE uses the same definition as Windows Defender, it is for this reason that the MSE off Windows Defender. Windows Defender definitions are somewhat complicated, because since forever, never automatically updated daily in spite of that every day Microsoft releases new definitions. This is a problem that Windows Defender has always been, what I do is that when they spend two or three days and has not been updated, i do the process under the definitions manually. (excuses if there is some bad writing, it was translated)
I have good news: half an hour ago I got the latest definitions update for Windows Defender through Windows Update. It works!
I was afraid that something happened to my Vista. For a week there were no updates for my computer and I was already thinking about reinstalling the whole system and all my programs.
I think defender updates have been down for a little while. Didn’t realize it as I turned off Defender already before MSE came out, and turned it back on just to see the behavior with MSE, that disabled it again (hopefully) and turned it back on when I uninstalled it. But I didn’t leave it on. So I couldn’t be aware of the updates ;D
