Ana:
I cannot tell you about Microsoft Defender because I've never played with it. However, Microsoft Security Essentials is running properly on your computer. If I had to make a guess right now, the message you are getting originally came through your email system and could be a form of malware itself (keep in mind that Microsoft Essentials protects against viruses that it knows about). With that in mind, you might try downloading and running the Microsoft Safety Scanner to see if you don't have some form of malware or spyware that Security Essentials and Defender are not detecting. The Microsoft Safety Scanner can be found at

http://www.microsoft.com/security/scanner/en-us/default.aspx

Please note that this program does not update itself and that the execution commands to run it will disappear ten days after you download it. You don't need to turn off Security Essentials or Defender to run the program, and I would recommend a full scan of your system with it. Good luck!
--
Ted Chittenden

Every story has at least two sides if not more.
---- Ana G <[log in to unmask]> wrote: 
Hi all,

I'm running windows 7 on an Acer Aspire One netbook. I use Microsoft 
Security Essentials as my antimalware solution. For the last few days 
(maybe since Friday), I've gotten an alert telling me Microsoft Security 
Essentials and Microsoft Defender are off and instructing me to "click 
here" to turn them on.

One problem is that I'm not able to find the dialog box with this 
information. I've tried pressing alt+tab while the message is being 
spoken, and I've tried checking the notification overflow area by 
pressing enter on the notification chevron, then left-arrowing through 
the boxes.

The other problem is that, when I actually open Microsoft Security 
Essentials, it tells me that my system is protected, that my definitions 
are up to date, and that real time protection/scanning is on. I even ran 
a full-system scan yesterday just to make sure it was on.

I'm still getting the nag, though. It comes up a few minutes after I 
power up my computer. The only thing I can think of is that I also have 
a Windows 8 laptop. It came with McAfee, which I uninstalled. I 
installed Microsoft Defender instead. I'm still figuring out how 
Defender and Windows 8 work, so it's possible I haven't turned it on. 
I've used the Windows 7 computer to log into my Microsoft account. I'm 
wondering if somehow Microsoft is confused about which computer I'm using.

anyway, any ideas about where I might find the dialog or about why I'm 
getting it in the first place. I've already done a virus scan, so the 
obvious solution of it being a virus seems less likely.

Thanks for any help.

Ciao


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