Question

Cannot enable Windows Vista Security Center

Asked by: tetrad

After a virus removal I find that Windows security alerts tells me that the Windows Security Center is turned off.  You open it and click the turn on button and you get a message saying that it can't be started.    I have gone into services and saw that it was disabled.  If you go and try to enable it for manual, auto, or auto delayed and click OK or apply; it will revert to disable right away.  Is there a registry entry that a virus could have modified to do this?  I have looked online and all i can seem to find it is info on how to enable it using windows services, which does nothing for me.

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Asked On
2009-08-24 at 08:53:57ID24676992
Tags

Vista

,

security center

Topics

Windows Network Security

,

Windows Vista

Participating Experts
2
Points
0
Comments
4

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Answers

 

by: VallerianiPosted on 2009-08-24 at 08:59:11ID: 25169633

Maybe theres some exes running silently in the background that are disabling these.

I'd get Hijackthis! (Can at http://majorgeeks.com/download3155.html) and run it, and post the log here, unless you know what you are doing or see some suspicious programs that you KNOW aren't part of your regular startup or windows startup.

This would go however, if you restart it, and it does successfully (No error message) and then just turns off again. If you get a error, let us know too ;)

 

by: tetradPosted on 2009-08-24 at 09:56:11ID: 25170189

Well, it seems that if I try to install Hijackthis it will not install.   It just says that there is some random error and closes.  I also tried to install Vista SP2 and got a random error and it didn't install.  Now I can install some programs like PCtools antivirus, but not SP2 or Hijackthis.  I have tried going into services and going into the properties of the security center I set it to Auto or manual and click apply it switches to disabled as soon as I hit apply.  There are no error messages at all.  

 

by: r-kPosted on 2009-08-24 at 15:50:21ID: 25173275

(1) Download Autoruns from: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb963902.aspx
 (You don't need to install anything, just unzip the contents into any folder)

(2) Run the program. It lists a bunch of things that start when Windows starts.

(3) From the menu bar, select Options, and uncheck "Include Empty Locations" and "check" "Hide Microsoft Entries"
    Important -> Then click the Refresh button in the toolbar.

(4) This will give you a shorter, more meaningful list.

(5) use the File -> Save as.. option in Autoruns to save the list to a text file and then cut and paste it here. Optionally you can examine that list and post anything suspicious here.

 

by: tetradPosted on 2009-08-24 at 17:08:08ID: 25173675

I ended up formatting the hard drive.  The user said they had no data that they wanted to keep on it.  Thank you for your help

20120131-EE-VQP-002

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