So apparently there is an issue with the latest upgrade to 2004...

Defender took itself out of service, instead handing the antivirus jobs off to Malwarebytes and Spybot S&D. The main problem there is, both my paid for installation of MWB and the free version of Spybot S&D do not have any virus checking components as part of their payload, mainly because that was Defender's main job. Everyone got on so well back in ver. 1903. Now they're all isolated and not speaking to one another.

So far this morning, my research is coming up with only ancient reports of Defender shirking its duties after a Windows upgrade. There are some older registry tricks that seem tempting, but I'm not going down that road quite yet. That requires desperation.

If anyone has a hint or tip, I'd appreciate it.

Edith Massey said:

Defender took itself out of service, instead handing the antivirus jobs off to Malwarebytes and Spybot S&D. The main problem there is, both my paid for installation of MWB and the free version of Spybot S&D do not have any virus checking components as part of their payload.....

No, that's not true. The paid for Malwarebytes is a full AV product too. As such Defender is acting correctly to hand over responsibility for AV protection.

For the most part, “antivirus” and “anti-malware” mean the same thing. They both refer to software designed to detect, protect against, and remove malicious software. Contrary to what the name might suggest, antivirus software protects against more than viruses–it just uses a slightly antiquated name to describe what it does. Anti-malware software is designed to protect against viruses too. Anti-malware just uses a more modern name that encompasses all kinds of malicious software, including viruses.

https://www.malwarebytes.com/antivirus/

Edith Massey said:

Defender took itself out of service, instead handing the antivirus jobs off to Malwarebytes and Spybot S&D. The main problem there is, both my paid for installation of MWB and the free version of Spybot S&D do not have any virus checking components as part of their payload, mainly because that was Defender's main job. Everyone got on so well back in ver. 1903. Now they're all isolated and not speaking to one another.

So far this morning, my research is coming up with only ancient reports of Defender shirking its duties after a Windows upgrade. There are some older registry tricks that seem tempting, but I'm not going down that road quite yet. That requires desperation.

If anyone has a hint or tip, I'd appreciate it.

A payload is data that is sent in the form of a packet from one computer to another over a network protocol like TCP/IP. Another definition of a payload is again, data, but this time in the context of malware ie the nasty stuff. Malware that contains a payload will contain specific and usually seperate instructions to cause some sort of damage. In a shipping context a payload is the cargo. It can be confusing to understand terminology but try not to confuse yourself too much with it as it usually detracts from understanding the presenting problem you are faced with.

In this case it's no doubt all down to there being two seperate security programs installed. Windows Security disables most features when these features are available in other software. Without this it can cause conflicts, especially when/if the jobs are very similiar. In your case, Malwarebytes began as anti-malware software and Spybot the same. And so to begin with you've got two programs that have to run, gain access to your system when necessary, perform certain actions on top of one another. They both do relatively similiar things. This is never a great thing. Ideally you want clear definitions set between your software security. What is doing what exactly? Why? For example antivirus software can generally be considered specific to general and comprehensive coverage for a whole variety of threats but mainly it's key role is from general threats. That's one definition set for protection. So you don't need anything else for this. Then you have antimalware software which will run in a different way focused on specific threats that most antivirus isn't designed for. So you don't need anything else for this. Then you have things like firewall. So you don't need another firewall, not software based anyway. All these should have their own boundaries and not pour into the operation of other software.

In most cases a decent antivirus solution should ideally cover you if you want general protection. You can add another layer to this by adding antimalware. You can even add specific software that focuses on smaller areas that won't interfere with the operating of other software like drive encryption, anti-keylogger software, network analysis, sandbox software, virtual machine environments etc. But when you start to use things that do the same things but in seperate programs you face more issues than if you just have one of them installed. It also doesn't guarantee you any higher level of protection. Otherwise we'd all have 20 different antivirus solutions installed. We all know we only need one, and it's the same thing for anything else related to this.

Windows Security will be doing it's job properly in this case I'm pretty sure. It detected other security software and so to prevent conflicts (which were known in the past in regards to Windows Security and third party software) it has disabled it's protection. it still will be running but it will not be actively protecting you.

I would also use Malwarebytes in a seperate capacity to an antivirus. Malwarebytes has always been, like the name suggests, malware based security software. And you will find far better antivirus protection across the board with software designed for this purpose. Software like Avast, ESET, AVG, BitDefender antivirus etc. Then you can add another layer and this could either be Malwarebytes Antimalware or Spybot. I wouldn't have Malwarebytes AND Spybot installed. Spybot also if I'm not mistaken is antivirus in and of itself. Malwarebytes wants to be antivirus as well. They are not the best options if you actually want comprehensive antivirus protection.

So wait... just working this all out... you have two antivirus software installed and you want a third to work as well?
Now hold on a minute!

Dear helpful people:

I haven't been rudely ignoring your kind responses, as shortly after posting this topic, the source of my problems decided to die from at least a totally corrupted C drive. I don't know what did this and at this point I don't care. I decided I'd spent enough time on a dead 7-year-old high mileage machine, so I moved it to the electronic recycle bin and ordered a brand new machine built to my specs. It won't be here until mid-July, so in the meantime I had to get an even older machine running Win 7 fired up. It hadn't been switched on since 2015, and it wasn't a case of plug and play. More like plug and pray, solve a problem, then move on to the next one. And there were many.

I'm saving these responses in case I'm faced with this situation in the future.

Thank you again.

Hi folks
since WD is built into the kernel itself which is part of the Windows proprietary OS it's going to be hard if not impossible for any of these 3rd party A/V suppliers to keep up with specific changes in Windows that might not be part of a future (Window) s release e.g components being tested in the "Fast Ring" or preview releases - so if using these releases you are probably better off in just sticking with WD.

If you are paranoid about security (and these days it's really far too overblown IMO on home computers anyway) as people are much more interested in making money via scamming than infecting old mom and pop type machines which these days is so last centrury and old hat anyway) then don't use these new builds. !!

Cheers
jimbo