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Bug? Faulty "check your antivirus software status" warning on Windows 7

Proposed Bug? Faulty "check your antivirus software status" warning on Windows 7

  • Tuesday, November 24, 2009 10:40 PM
     
     
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    My WHS is running PP3, installed today via Windows Update.  Never ran the beta, if that matters.

    Today I performed a clean install of Windows 7 x64 and McAfee VirusScan 8.7i Patch 2.  There were no alerts in Security Center.  As soon as I installed the latest Home Server Connector, I started getting the red alert from the connector saying my antivirus software is reporting out-of-date.  It only happens for a fraction of a second, then immediately goes back to green.  It happens repeatedly, about every sixty seconds, over and over.  And of course the alert now is appearing on all of my home systems running the WHS connector.

    Any one else experiencing this?  It's annoying beyond belief.

     

All Replies

  • Wednesday, November 25, 2009 3:07 AM
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    I'm sorry to say that you will probably have to blame McAfee for that one. I don't use McAfee products, but if your AV reports even briefly that it's out of date, Windows Home Server can see that in the security center and report it.
    I'm not on the WHS team, I just post a lot. :)
     
  • Wednesday, November 25, 2009 10:09 AM
     
     
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    The thread is locked on the Movie Maker 5.1 question, so I thought I would let you know here that Windows XP Service Pack 3 includes Movie Maker version 5.1.
     
  • Wednesday, November 25, 2009 11:18 AM
     
     
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    I have had that exact same problem on PC's with Windows 7 and Microsoft Security Essentials.     My experience has not been that it happens repeatedly, it usually only happens once when you first reboot the PC.  Also annoying to have the message stay on WHS when you have just updated Microsoft Security Essentials.   I have just been setting WHS to ignore those messages.  I installed PP3 yesterday and I am hoping these quirks go away but are you saying that yours have just started appearing? 
     
  • Wednesday, November 25, 2009 12:36 PM
     
     
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    I'm sorry to say that you will probably have to blame McAfee for that one. I don't use McAfee products, but if your AV reports even briefly that it's out of date, Windows Home Server can see that in the security center and report it.
    I'm not on the WHS team, I just post a lot. :)

    That was my first thought as well, except Security Center does not report AV is out of date, only the WHS Connector reports it.  The alerts are not coming from Security Center, which seems really odd, and that's why I reported it here.
     
  • Friday, November 27, 2009 7:29 AM
     
     
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    I also have this issue.  It started when I installed Win7 on three of my computers before WHS PP3 was installed.  It continues after WHS PP3.  I am running Microsoft Security Essentials.  I have seen the WHS alert on all three Win7 machines.  I am running Win7 Professional 64 and Windows 7 Home Premium 32.   It does seem to be most prevalent after booting but I have also seen it on occasions when a start up applications like Windows Media Center.

     
  • Sunday, November 29, 2009 10:30 PM
     
     
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    I also have the same issue. I am running Windows Vista 32, with Microsoft Security Essentials. WHS reports "check your antivirus software status."  Disabling the warning works  for a day or so then it comes back ... Very annoying ...

    I previously had the problem with aVast Home edition ... so I thought I would fix it by moving to MSE. But that was not to be.
     
  • Tuesday, December 08, 2009 11:23 PM
     
     
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    I also have the same problem.  It only happens on Windows 7 machines.  Security center doesn't report the AV software out of date, only WHS does.  Happens with Avast, AVG and Norton.  So really blaming one antivirus company isn't the solution.  This is stupidly annoying and really needs to be fixed.  We should have options that allow us to change the alerts that WHS gives us instead of having WHS stuck in idiot mode.
     
  • Wednesday, December 09, 2009 12:38 AM
     
     
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    I am having the same problem with win7, pp3 and NAV 2010. No issues with security center just the WHS console icon.
     
  • Wednesday, December 09, 2009 3:47 PM
     
     
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    I am having the same problem as well. I don't think we can blame the Virus software. I am running AVG 9 and the latest version. I have Windows 7 installed on my PC. I think we have a bug here. I am also running PP3.
     
  • Wednesday, December 09, 2009 3:56 PM
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    As always, if you believe that you have found a bug in Windows Home Server you should report it on Connect. However, I still believe that this is external to Windows Home Server; it's being reported to Windows Home Server, and the error gets raised there even if it's suppressed somewhere else.

    I'm not on the WHS team, I just post a lot. :)
     
  • Wednesday, December 09, 2009 5:17 PM
     
     
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    Ken,

    I see your point but it is odd that there are so many variations of security software and operating systems on which the issue arises. If it was just Norton or just Vista then I could agree that the issue might be casued by that specific piece of software but it seems that this cannot be tied down to any one piece of security or OS software.

    In my case, the warning pops up on a reboot of my Vista 32 machine but never occurs on my two XP Pro machines. I run Norton Internet Security (latest version) on all three.

    I have been seeing this issue for awhile -- before PP3 -- and it doesn't really bother me too much as it goes away within a few seconds of boot up and does not come back. I could see how it would get very annoying under some of the other scenarios described above.

    It might behoove the WHS team to look into this to see if they can figure out what is going on...
     
  • Wednesday, December 09, 2009 6:25 PM
     
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    Hi Folks,

    Here is a work around for the problem.

    Windows 7 Security Center service (Acrtion Center) is on a automatic delayed startup up. If you change the Security Center service to "Automatic" start up  then the problem seems to disappear.

    Services > Security Center > Change start up to 'Automatic' from 'Automatic (delayed)'

    Hope this helps.
    William Crawford MS-MVP Windows Shell/User
     
  • Wednesday, December 09, 2009 7:02 PM
     
     
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    William,

    I know that your response was directed to Win 7 users but I wanted to confirm that it seems to have worked on my Vista 32 computer, as well.

    Thanks very much.
     
  • Wednesday, December 09, 2009 11:22 PM
     
     
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    I tried that, but it did not help. Mine tells me that my antispyware software is turned off or out of date. I am running NIS 2010 and it is turned on.
     
  • Sunday, December 27, 2009 2:13 AM
     
     
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    I have a laptop that I backed up a month ago.  It is not connected to my network and backups are turned off.  Every fews days I get the message to check the anti-virus.  I tell it to ignore - but it always comes back.  Especially if I re-boot WHS. 
     
  • Monday, December 28, 2009 10:51 PM
     
     
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    I get this error with my laptop or any other PC that is disconnected from the network.  The remaining PCs report that the disconnected PC has antivirus that is out of date.
     
  • Tuesday, December 29, 2009 4:08 AM
     
     
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    This happened to me after upgrading from vista home premium 32-bit to windows 7 32-bit running AVG Free.  I went into the customize icons that appear in taskbar, and set AVG tray monitor, and Windows Home Tray Application to "show icon and notifications".  They now appear in the taskbar. Now the WHS icon only turns red reporting a problem with antivirus software when I reboot the machine. 

    It does appear to be a bug with Windows 7 and how it reports back to WHS.

    As soon as I reboot the windows 7 machine the icon will go red on my Vista machine. Once the windows 7 machine has fully started, the icon will go Green on the vista machine, and will be green on the Windows 7 machine when I log in.

    Hope this helps until Microsoft corrects.

     
  • Sunday, January 10, 2010 5:55 AM
     
     
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    I tried that, but it did not help. Mine tells me that my antispyware software is turned off or out of date. I am running NIS 2010 and it is turned on.

    My problem occurs when I "shutdown" my Windows 7 machine.  Home server reports no AV as the PC is shutting down and stays that way until I power it back up.  My guess is, my AV (AVG) unloads too early in the shutdown process.  The connector then has enough time to report no AV.

    ARGGGGGGGGG
     
  • Wednesday, February 10, 2010 2:19 PM
     
     
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    I realize this post is a bit older, but I have the exact same situation, WHS PP3, Windows 7 x64 Ultimate and McAfee VS 8.7i Patch 2.  No alerts in Security center and actually if I check the status on the local machine it reports McAfee as healthy and up to date.  It is amazing to me that this issue has been around this long and the stock answer is it's the AntiVirus software, yet the AntiVirus software was working fine before installing Home Server and still is.  It is very annoying getting the message every 30 seconds (from WHS connector not the local security center) that AntiVirus is not installed or out of date.  I have been looking for a solution for about a week now and find it interesting at how many different antivirus products also have this or very similar issues.  I looked at the lower post about reporting this using the WHS connector.  How do we do this?  I really would like the WHS team to look at the issue.
    Just wanted to add I did try the work around of changing the security center service startup to automatic.  Rebooted WHS and the Client.  No difference.
    • Edited by SteveS128 Wednesday, February 10, 2010 2:21 PM Update
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  • Wednesday, February 17, 2010 8:31 AM
     
     
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    Yeah, me too. This issue never seems to go away.

    I am running WHS PP3 and Windows 7 Professional 32 on all my client PC's. The antivirus software on the clients is Symantec Endpoint Protection 11 (RU5), which is the latest version. From time to time a message pops up on the WHS health indicator about the antivirus software being out of date, or the firewall being shut down or whatever. The red warning goes away after a short time, and the icon turns green again. Nevertheless, very annoying. The only solution I found, was to completely disable the displaying of health notification for the WHS connector icon.

    Also, when one of the PC's in the network is shut down, it makes the health warning on the WHS console turn red, with the message about the antivirus program not being present on the client that is being shut down. It stays that way until the client gets back online again. Obviously it is a matter of the operative systems being unloading while still communicating to the WHS. This is not a bug in the antivirus software, but in either the security center or the WHS (or both). Unfortunately it obviously won't ever be solved, as WHS is too small a platform for Microsoft to really be able to care.

    Thomas
     
  • Saturday, February 20, 2010 12:19 PM
     
     
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    I have the same problem on a couple of my computers.  If I hibernate instead of shutdown I don't get the warning. 
     
  • Monday, February 22, 2010 10:25 AM
     
     
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    I have the same problem, every time i shut a computer down WHS alerts that there is no anti virus/spy ware etc etc.... Surely there must be some fix for this its driving me insane...
     
  • Sunday, March 07, 2010 3:10 AM
     
     
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    I'm running into the same issue, but only with the console on 1 machine.  My wife's XP machine reports that the anti-virus software on my Vista laptop is out of date.  The Vista machine has McAfee on it, and the console there never reports any errors.  For now, I've disabled the option to "Display Network Health Notifications" on her machine only since she really doesn't care.  We'll see how that works.
     
  • Thursday, May 27, 2010 8:32 AM
     
     
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    well I have had a new (December 2009) HP WHS and last month on one attached pc running vista and with the panda antivirus i get exactly this issue. I cant clear it.

    As it seems many virus programs including Microsofts own ar involved I would support the notion that its a microsoft bug in the way the OS and the WHS report to each other...didi anyone put a report into 'connect'?

     
  • Thursday, May 27, 2010 7:04 PM
     
     
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    well I have had a new (December 2009) HP WHS and last month on one attached pc running vista and with the panda antivirus i get exactly this issue. I cant clear it.

    As it seems many virus programs including Microsofts own ar involved I would support the notion that its a microsoft bug in the way the OS and the WHS report to each other...didi anyone put a report into 'connect'?


    affirmative, see the connect bug url's posted in my post about the same  issue that MS will NOT acknowledge and the mods in this forum will not now respond on despite a lot of baiting from me http://social.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/whssoftware/thread/63262e3a-b9a8-497c-a385-86990123800c
     
  • Friday, May 28, 2010 8:04 PM
     
     
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    thats mostly when it tries searching to do an upgrade/update to the virus def files.... maybe that is the issue with mcAFEE also if it checks for new updates every min ...maybe tone it down to "on startup" some virus protection comes with pluse updates so this may be happeing also. i also hate mcafee so don't use it
    my answers or disscusion points might not always right but they may have points not yet looked at. If you feel insulted by any points this is not my intention, i'm trying to help
     
  • Saturday, October 09, 2010 1:38 PM
     
     
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    I have not tried the workaround, however I am dubious about the results since the problem only occurs when a Windows 7 client computer loges off.  I have a Windows 7 Home Premium laptop and a Windows 7 Pro gamer that report antivirus problems as soon as they logoff. That is to say, WHS reports problems about their antivirus when they logoff. 

     
  • Tuesday, April 24, 2012 5:51 PM
     
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    Rather than the work around, can I just dump McAfee and tell Win7 to go with Norton? It's expired and I use Norton. It's like Win7 won't read that I have Norton, which I've used since I got this HP laptop in 2010.
    • Proposed As Answer by XPUser111975 Monday, August 13, 2012 7:09 AM
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  • Monday, August 13, 2012 8:43 AM
     
     
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    With more searching, it appears that something (presumably a virus) had change a MS service known as the "Background Intelligent Transfer Service (BITS)*."

    I applied the fix from: http://www.philmorgan.net/techie-tools/windows-update-bits-background-intelligent-transfer-service-fix-batch-file-for-windows-xp

    At least for the moment, the red shield has gone away and MS Security Essentials will now connect and download updates.

    *

    From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
    Background Intelligent Transfer Service (BITS) is a component of Microsoft Windows XP and later operating systems that facilitates prioritized, throttled, and asynchronous transfer of files between machines using idle network bandwidth. It is most commonly used by recent versions of Windows Update, Microsoft Update, Windows Server Update Services, and Systems Management Server to deliver software updates to clients, Microsoft's anti-virus scanner Microsoft Security Essentials to fetch signature updates, and is also used by Microsoft's instant messaging products to transfer files.