Vista Security Center says "vista antivirus is turned off"

[jmsdallas]

Vista Security Center says "vista antivirus is turned off".  Is this to be expected?  Have I missed a setup parameter somewhere?

[Boater]

I've got this, see Avast turned off.

[Lisandro]

Check system time and date.
Did you have any other antivirus in the past?
Which avast version was installed?

[jmsdallas]

Using Avast 4.8 Home Edition - Build 4.8.1290

On Microsoft Vista Home Premium w sp1 installed

[Lisandro]

Did you have any other antivirus in the past?

[jmsdallas]

The system came with Norton anti-virus installed.  I uninstalled it using norton's uninstall procedures from their web site.  Avast actually seems to be running ok, just not monitored by Security Center.

[DavidR]

Norton can be a real pig to get rid of.

A link worth looking at, which is a program removal tool that can remove the remnants of a number of different Norton Programs:
Removing your Norton program using SymNRT

[jmsdallas]

I really do not want to open that "can of worms" (purge all Norton stuff).  Anyway who knows what product was installed, probably not a retail version!

There should be a clean way to fix the "security center" configuration.  It seems to me that this is a microsoft bug.

[DavidR]

You already have a potentially open can of worms and the tool is the easiest way, if there are remnants of Norton, they might be responsible for the issue with VSC.

Whilst this is specifically based on XP one of the options could work with Vista.
Windows Security Center not recognising avast!
Frequently asked questions about Windows Security Center
Check this - Solution when Windows Security Center does not recognize antivirus or firewall

- OR

* Click Start, Run and type CMD.EXE

* Type this command and press Enter:

net stop winmgmt

* Using Windows Explorer, rename the folder %windir%\System32\Wbem\Repository. (For example, %windir%\System32\Wbem\Repository_bad.). %windir% represents the path to the Windows directory, which is typically C:\Windows.

* Switch to Command Prompt window, and type the following and press ENTER after each line:

net start winmgmt

EXIT
Reboot

[Lisandro]

There should be a clean way to fix the "security center" configuration.

Follow David's advices or my previous steps...

[stinman]

This only happened after the newest update for me,so it is not a microsoft bug because it was not doing this before the program update to 4.8.1290.How can we fix this?anyone know

You already have a potentially open can of worms and the tool is the easiest way, if there are remnants of Norton, they might be responsible for the issue with VSC.

Whilst this is specifically based on XP one of the options could work with Vista.
Windows Security Center not recognising avast!
Frequently asked questions about Windows Security Center
Check this - Solution when Windows Security Center does not recognize antivirus or firewall

- OR

* Click Start, Run and type CMD.EXE

* Type this command and press Enter:

net stop winmgmt

* Using Windows Explorer, rename the folder %windir%\System32\Wbem\Repository. (For example, %windir%\System32\Wbem\Repository_bad.). %windir% represents the path to the Windows directory, which is typically C:\Windows.

* Switch to Command Prompt window, and type the following and press ENTER after each line:

net start winmgmt

EXIT
Reboot

[Lisandro]

How can we fix this?

David posted the link before...
http://forum.avast.com/index.php?topic=23457.msg193534#msg193534

[jmsdallas]

None of the above fixed the problem.  I am going to live with it.  Already spent too much time on this issue.  Security Center obviously not working correctly.

[Lisandro]

None of the above fixed the problem.  I am going to live with it.  Already spent too much time on this issue.  Security Center obviously not working correctly.

The only thing I can think now is that other antivirus is not completely removed of your computer and, second possibility, avast is not correctly installed.