For instance, it’s interesting what nonsensical things you’ll see and learn when you install a single piece of software day after day on so many different machines. Take BitDefender Antivirus for example. Setting up four brand new computers yesterday, all of which received a trial version of BitDefender, there was a little oddity. On two of the four, upon installing and configuring the antivirus and a quick reboot later; hark! What do mine eyes see but Windows Security Center has a little beef with me!

“Your antispyware is turned off” said the little balloon upon my system tray. BitDefender itself said no such thing, but Windows Security Center obviously didn’t give a hoot. To tell Security Center to attempt to enable my antispyware was an exercise in futility, as it said “ne’er shall I do such a thing, my good man, for I do not trust this software!”

That is, of course, a paraphrase, but the notion is the same. In the past, CA Antivirus has given me somewhat similar problems (that is, occasionally refusing to run properly when first installed) which a simple reinstall corrected, so a possible solution quickly presented itself in this case. A reinstall of BitDefender rectified the situation easily.

So what caused this mishap in only two of the four computers? Practically impossible to say. The two on which the problem occurred were a different brand from the two that it did not, meaning hardware differences as well as preinstallation packages. Two of them were running Windows Vista; the other two, XP. The two with the problem were preinstalled with an older version of a McAfee trial package, and McAfee has been well known to leave a little keepsake behind when uninstalled, so perhaps a conflict remained that simply uninstalling the malfunctioning instance of BitDefender rectified, allowing a new installation to integrate cleanly.

Regardless, I believe that we as mortals may never understand these things called computers, as hard as we try.

UPDATE: As it turns out, I was premature in posting about this. The next day after writing this entry, I rebooted the computers and discovered that my problem was not solved. Windows Security Center apparently just decided to stop bugging me about it.

In the end, it seems that Vista just doesn’t recognize BitDefender 2009′s antispyware module as “safe”. Disabling monitoring of your antispyware software, though not the optimal solution, seems to work. If at some point I find a solution to this or it just starts liking BitDefender 2009, I’ll be sure to post about it!