windows defender?

[peachybabe]

Can anyone help me?

On my laptop is something called windows defender. I know that it is something to do with being alerted to spywear. Everything has been going okay until last weekend when a little screen started to pop up as I logged on. It says "Application failed to initialise: 0x800106ba. A problem caused this program's service to stop. To start the service, restart your computer or search Help and Support for how to start a service manually." I have tried everything that it suggests I do, but it either doesn't work, or tries to install a new version, then says it can't coz it's already installed. I've tried going onto the windows website but that didn't help either.

1) Is it something that I should have on my laptop for security? 2) What does the message mean? 3) how can I put it right?

Sorry for the lack of teckie language but as you can probably guess I haven't got much of a clue about computers!

[VHG]

Found a good website the other day, run by Microsoft, for asking questions, called Microsoft Answers.

As Windows Defender is a Microsoft product ask on there, in the Security and Privacy section.

http://answers.microsoft.com/

[SpodoCommodo]

I've had advice before on technical websites that basically all you need running is a decent firewall and a decent anti-virus program. Anything else is not necessary and if they give you any problems, then don't bother running them because quite often there are runtime conflicts.

You might want to spend time checking out this set of forums:

http://www.webuser.co.uk/forums/ubbthreads.php

and, if necessary, asking this same question there because for technical questions I would trust that site much more than a general one like this.

And in the months since removing protection programs like Windows Defender from start-up I have not suffered any problems (I suspect that's not just down to luck).

[peachybabe]

Thanks both. I'll be looking at both sites.

[VHG]

>I've had advice before on technical websites that basically >all you need running is a decent firewall and a decent anti->virus program

Well I would say spyware is more of a threat nowadays than viruses.

And most anti virus products dont look for spyware.

So I think running a spyware product (like Defender or malwarebytes) is VERY important.

Certainly all that has hit my computers in the last couple of years has been spyware and not viruses.

[peachybabe]

Thanks VHG. I will admit to being slightly concerned when I found out what it was for.

[SpodoCommodo]

I did not make up what I said earlier and I shall continue to try to find the particular thread where I was given the advice about what was needed to be run.

It covered spyware as well as viruses and gave a cogent explanation as to why such things can be protected against without needing to run more protection programs than is necessary.

And it is a fact that conflicts do occur between such programs - that happened to me last year with ThreatFire having problems with the anti-virus software that I was running, causing my system to completely lock up several minutes after a restart, and was only resolved by removing ThreatFire - it was a known conflict but only if you knew where to look to find that it had been noted.

[peachybabe]

Thank you SpodoCommodo. I await the "thread" ?? with anticipation. To be honest, not sure I will know what to do with it when I get it, but hey ho!