"Symantec Auto-Protect is Disabled" -- But It Isn't. So, Huh?

June 18, 2004 10:37 AM

My parents were getting tired of the clutter on their computer, so I reformatted the hard drive for them and installed Windows XP and (among other things) Symantec AntiVirus 9. Seemingly randomly, and fairly often, they now get a yellow pop-up warning that "Symantec auto-protect is disabled" - even though auto-protect is enabled in preferences and shows up in the system tray. I have a laptop with SAV9 on WinXP, and it doesn't do this. What's going on?

A screenshot.

posted by kickingtheground to Computers & Internet (8 answers total)

Have you tried this?
http://service1.symantec.com/SUPPORT/nav.nsf/docid/2002101608291506
posted by quiet at 11:29 AM on June 18, 2004

Response by poster:

Have you tried this?

No, doesn't seem to be any of those (well, except for the uninstall/reinstall suggestion, which I'd rather avoid).

From the linked page: A red X is superimposed over the Norton AntiVirus Auto-Protect icon in the system tray.
This happens if I manually disable autoprotect, but otherwise does not happen, even when I get the warnings.
posted by kickingtheground at 12:17 PM on June 18, 2004

Hate to scare you, but the way that message is written almost looks fake. The generic windows text just looks fishy. Not saying you faked it, but maybe a third party program is creating it? Just a thought, make sure you run Ad-aware if you already don't.
posted by ALongDecember at 8:47 PM on June 18, 2004

hmmm, nah i'm not thinking spyware. he said it was a clean install so i dont see any room for fakery. Actually, I just had a similar problem tonight with norton system works....actually, the exact same problem. Not withstanding the fact that it's a different program, you need to go for the install/reinstall, as it did the trick for me.
posted by bob sarabia at 9:23 PM on June 18, 2004

I'm not trying to troll, but seriously, it's weird to me that your solution to a cluttered hard drive was installing windows XP and symantec. Those two items are the reason for clutter in many cases.
posted by bingo at 11:48 AM on June 19, 2004

I believe he meant "clutter" in the sense of too many apps and files all over the place, not the actual fragmentation of info. I doubt his parents would be getting tired of the data arrangement of their computer.
posted by bob sarabia at 11:56 AM on June 19, 2004

The only time I had an issue like this was a few months after I installed a piece of software of 'good repute but dubious origin' ... ok ... warez. After that the antivirus auto-protect would refuse to work as the pernicious software sought a way to report back to it's evil creator.

If everything you're using is of high integrity, I have no idea.
posted by Blue Stone at 12:06 PM on June 19, 2004

Response by poster:

I'm not trying to troll, but seriously, it's weird to me that your solution to a cluttered hard drive was installing windows XP and symantec.

There were lots of old useless application files scattered all over the place, a hard drive so fragmented that running windows defragmenter had little/no effect, all sorts of nasty spyware my little sister had accidently installed that was difficult to fully clean off, and (worst of all) the dreaded Win2k/services.exe bug was often badly slowing things down.

Not withstanding the fact that it's a different program, you need to go for the install/reinstall, as it did the trick for me.

Tried that yesterday, I've gotten the message at least once since then.
posted by kickingtheground at 2:08 PM on June 19, 2004