This has never shown up until today

[midnight]

I done a repair and now action center is showing......see attachment.

anything about my anti-virus program on Windows 8.1.  I can't find any information about anywhere.  It shows the firewall and Windows updates but nothing about any anti-virus program.

[Arnold72]

Hi midnight.

If you enter the services console have you disabled the windows defender service.?

According to your screenshot you still have 2 antiviruses running.

Disabling the defender service altogether might help you.

[abruptum]

Windows Defender in Windows 7 is antispyware and it is working fine with Avast although it is useless.

[midnight]

See Attachment

[SpeedyPC]

Spot on -mightnight  you're latest attachment is correct now that you have Avast working correctly just do another repair to make sure everything is okay and that it

[Arnold72]

do you have Mcafee installed also.?

I noticed the tray icon.

That attachement is not entirely correct.It shows and states clearly that you have 2 real time anti-spyware programs running.One of these needs either removing or disabling.

It shows windows defender as turned off.
MSE turned off.

[SpeedyPC]

She only has McAfee SiteAdvisor

[Arnold72]

Excuse my ignorance here please but does windows 8 come pre-installed with MSE.?
I was under the impression that windows 8 came with a re-branded MSE called windows defender.

Midnights screenshot clearly shows MSE and windows defender as being installed and turned off.

Like i said before i believe the remnants of an earlier MSE installation could be still lingering on the system.

[midnight]

Excuse my ignorance here please but does windows 8 come pre-installed with MSE.?
I was under the impression that windows 8 came with a re-branded MSE called windows defender.

Midnights screenshot clearly shows MSE and windows defender as being installed and turned off.

Like i said before i believe the remnants of an earlier MSE installation could be still lingering on the system.

The Windows 8 computer I'm getting will have McAfee pre-installed.

I've never had MSE installed on this Windows 7 computer.

[Arnold72]

http://www.bleepingcomputer.com/download/mcafee-consumer-products-removal-tool/

This a link for the removal tool for Mcafee products.

I find it strange that the action center is reporting that MSE is installed but currently turned off.
Only thing i can think that has happened is that at some point you have maybe had no av protection on your computer and windows has issued a windows update with MSE and you may have inadvertently installed it at some point.

Thats just a wild guess though.

[midnight]

I bought this computer sometime in mid 2012 and I didn't install MSE but I had my neighbor come here and transfer all of my files and programs from another Windows 7 computer to this one so maybe that's why it's showing MSE.

[Pondus]

maybe that's why it's showing MSE.   

If you want to find out, give Essexboy a OTL log to look at

[essexboy]

If this is windows 8 then it automatically disables defender when it detects another AV.  You cannot uninstall it

[Hard_ROCKER]

Microsoft Security Essentials Removal Tool Download

Operating System:Windows XP/Vista/7
32-bit program. Can run on both a 32-bit and 64-bit OS.

http://www.bleepingcomputer.com/download/microsoft-security-essentials-removal-tool/

[Para-Noid]

As far as MSE and WD goes all they need to do is disable them and they won't interfere with avast.

But that is not the OP's issue. It's getting her the action center to show avast is running.
My suggestion is one or more reboots might be needed.