MS Security Essentials Sticks in Search

[Doc Watson]

I've been running MS Security Essentials as my primary/only AV program for about 6 weeks. I'm pleased with the program and have had no incidents or problems since installation with malware or viruses.

My only complaint/problem is that occasionally, it will go into an automatic search for updates as it is set to do, but will search for days if not interrupted, without finding any updates or, if it finds any, it will go into it's download and installation process for another protracted period that I have seldom allowed to complete since it slows my system to a crawl. But, as Security Essentials offers no way to shut the program down manually and hangs any attempt to restart the system normally, I have been forced to do a hard shutdown to stop the process. On reboot the program returns to it's monitoring state and indicates that the connection failed on the update. Duh !!!

Is anyone else experiencing this sort of issue with the update process ?? Any workaround or fix known ?? I like the program, but won't put up with this very much longer.

[HansV]

Which firewall are you using?
Which version of Windows are you using?

(I haven't experienced any problems using Windows 7 with the Windows Firewall)

[viking33]

Doc,
My workaround was to get rid of MSE, since there was an unknown incompatibility with my system that MS senior techs could not get an answer for and neither could I. So, out it went. ( I know...a lot of people love it but I guess I'm "lucky Pierre," in this case )

[westerneagle]

That has happened to me a few times. Like you, the only way to stop it was to shut down.

It was awhile back that it occurred, I would say at least 3 months or so.

And I would say maybe 3 times or so since I started using the program.

But so far.....knock on wood.....everything is ok....

[Doc Watson]

Which firewall are you using?
Which version of Windows are you using?

(I haven't experienced any problems using Windows 7 with the Windows Firewall)

I was using Zone Alarm, but opted to remove it. I shut it down first, but the client protection module was still running and causing "problems", so out it went. I'm behind a router, so I figured the firewall was redundant and unnecessary after checking the log for a few days.

I'm still running XP SP3, fully patched (within reason) and thought that might be an issue, but after reading the other posts in this thread, it seems it might be an incompatibility with my particular setup. It did a search and download yesterday "normally", but I still don't trust it.

Thanks for the feedback. I'll do a Google and if I turn up anything, I'll post back.