Having this weird issue: Earlier when I booted up my computer, my XPSP2 SC stopped detecting that I had antivirus and a firewall installed and keeps giving me the "red shield" and that annoying popup balloon. Question is: why? I've tried a Google search but found nothing really relevant except for a page telling me how to simply turn off the monitoring (but I don't really want to do that). Both products were being detected fine, yesterday. They are: Zonealarm 5.1 & Grisoft AVG Freeware 7.1. I've already checked the system for viruses (via AVG & online @ antivirus.com) and ran AdAwareSE & Spyboy S&D. All negative. Any ideas? (BTW: I wasn't sure whether this was to go in here or the Security forum, please forgive me if it's in the wrong place.)

Betamaxster, SWAG, sounds like you've covered MOST of the bases. Is it possibly a Trojan? Be aware that a virus and a trojan are similar, but not the same. Many times, a virus scanner can detect one it can't clean , other times, it gets missed entirely. There’s an online trojan scanner @: http://www.trojanscan.com/trojanscan If it turns out that you have one and need to clean, A² can do the job and you can get it free @: http://www.majorgeeks.com/download4281.html among other places. If it turns out that you need to use it, be sure to update prior to running. HTH. Ed in Texas.

Try what I posted here in post 3 - vacuumdog-: http://forum.grisoft.cz/freeforum/read.php?2,49088,backpage=,sv= and let me know how you go. D4Dog "beauty is in the eye of the beer-holder"