Problems -- Where Should I Begin?

[kiwikay]

I'm having a number of problems which I thought were connected with not having enough memory (2G), but after just upgrading to 8G, I'm still having problems, and would like some advice on where to start.

I wanted to run complete virus checks before posting on the "General Malware" forum, however, I'm having problems getting SpyBot to run properly and somehow my Windows Defender was turned off and I'm unable to turn it on again (I get a message that the timeout period expired).

I re-downloaded Defender to reinstall it, but it won't install, giving me a message that I do not need to install it because it already comes included with Windows Vista (I have Windows 7). I went to my control panel to uninstall it, but it doesn't appear in the program list.

My Malwarebytes is running and hasn't found anything yet (but only the quick scan since I had such problems with my computer's slow performance -- I'm attempting to run a full scan now, but my computer's still slow even with the added memory). I did pay for Malwarebytes, so the real-time protection has been running continuously.

As for SpyBot problem, the short story is that I've been unable to disable it from starting up and running a very long scan on computer restarts (which are frequent), and I've been unable to uninstall it. Sandra's started a ticket #2012122013000054 about it.

In the meantime, how can I get Windows Defender, or some other program running? Should I post this somewhere else?

Thanks,
Kiwikay

[spybotsandra]

Hello,

Please do not ask for help in several places, as this doubles our support time.
Thanks.

Best regards
Sandra
Team Spybot

[kiwikay]

Sorry, I wasn't aware I'd posted in multiple locations to the forums. The email I'd received earlier was initiated through a webform asking why I'd uninstalled SpyBot. I guess I should continue to receive my support through the email exchanges rather than this forum post (but now I'm wondering if those emails are somehow automatically posted as a forum thread).

Thank You, Kiwikay