After installing Windows Vista SP1, it appears that avast “cannot report status to Security Center.” Does anyone know if there is a fix for this…besides the “monitor myself” solution… Thanks.
This is commonly the other way round WSC’s WMI is stuffed (sorry about getting technical).
If however, this was an upgrade install to Vista you really need to reinstall avast, uninstall (add remove programs), reboot, install.
If no change, try this I don’t know if this works in Vista.
* Click Start, Run and type CMD.EXE
- Type this command and press Enter:
net stop winmgmt
Using Windows Explorer, rename the folder %windir%\System32\Wbem\Repository. (For example, %windir%\System32\Wbem\Repository_bad.). %windir% represents the path to the Windows directory, which is typically C:\Windows.
Switch to Command Prompt window, and type the following and press ENTER after each line:
net start winmgmt
EXIT
Reboot
- Check your system time and date.
- Check and follow the directions here: http://forum.avast.com/index.php?topic=23457.msg193534#msg193534
The forum solution did not work for me. Guess I’ll have to uninstall/reinstall or go the “monitor myself” route. Oh well. Good old Microsoft…fix one thing, break something else.
What did go wrong?
Same problem. Security Center still does not detect any antivirus. I notice the repository folder was re-created. So that part worked properly. I followed the instructions exactly, except I did not manually stop “Security Center” because it did that automatically when I stopped “Windows Management Instrumentation.”
Have (or did) you another AV installed in this system, if so what was it and how did you get rid of it ?
If not fully removed I don’t know if that might have an effect.
This is a Dell, so a McAfee trial subscription was installed once upon a time. However, it was obviously uninstalled well enough for avast to install…and Security Center detected avast just fine until SP1, so I don’t think that would be the problem.
Yeah, that doesn’t always remove everything.
Try this: http://majorgeeks.com/McAfee_Consumer_Product_Removal_Tool_d5420.html
Also - McAfee has an uninstall tool that you could run to ensure any possible remnants are removed.
http://download.mcafee.com/products/licensed/cust_support_patches/VSCleanupTool.exe
Though the one at MajorGeeks looks more appropriate if it is an older version.
Sorry, I tried to get the link for McAfee’s site, but it gave me an error like the server was down.
Nothing to be sorry about, the link you gave may well be better depending on how old ms529212’s version of McAfee was.
I just checked the link I gave and that one is working, e.g. the file was present.
This article provides the steps to remove SecurityCenter from your computer.
http://ts.mcafeehelp.com/faq3.asp?docid=71525
Sometimes, McAfee won’t be completely removed if, before, you do not uninstall Avast, including the use of its “Uninstall Application” if necessary (www.avast.com/eng/faq-install-uninstall-avast.html).
I used the MCPR file, since that seemed to be all inclusive according to McAfee’s description. I think the VS cleanup tool is only for Virus Scan. In any case, it did not fix the problem.
In another wrinkle, Windows Mail was extremely slow this morning until I turned off the email scanning function. I guess now that Security Center doesn’t recognize avast, that really bogs things down.
Thanks for the suggestions. I’m afraid we’re going to have to wait for Windows 7 to get an OS that works consistently with third party apps.
To me, this sounds like another case where Microsoft gets the blame for corruptions in 3rd party software.
This time, McAfee is the culprit not Windows XP. 
Try the following and see if cleans out the mess:
http://mysharedfiles.no-ip.org/TipsTricksFreeware/How2InstallAvast.html
Well technically it’s MS Windows Security Center that’s blind to avast, and it worked just fine with avast until the MS Windows Vista SP1 update…so how on earth do I trace that smoking gun back to anyone besides Microsoft???
There is no McAfee on my system. That was a “grasping at straws” solution to begin with. Here is the sequence of events so newcomers don’t have to read the whole thread:
- Security Center and avast love each other very much.
- They have a falling out after SP1.
- Security Center now pretends that avast does not exist.
- Avast doesn’t seem to care, the little blue “a” ball spins merrily on the taskbar, as before.
One day when I’m not lazy I may try reinstalling avast. But I have already tried the “remove previous AV” route, and there is nothing there to remove.
Just FYI, I just installed a Vista ultimate on a test machine that I have, and installed Avast. It worked perfectly fine. I installed all updates, then installed SP1, and it’s still working great.
I’m not saying you’re doing anything wrong, I’m just saying that this is tried and tested on my machine, so it should work.
I’m guessing that re-installing should do the trick, but I’m still dumbfounded as to why…