Windows Defender Won't Open

This happened last week and I was able to figure out how to get it re-started, but this week I'm not finding it.

I have Vista 32-bit on my laptop. When I click on Windows Defender a get a pop up which says "Windows Defender is turned off. Windows Defender won't provide protection against potentially harmful unwanted or potentially software and it won't send you alerts because it is turned off. To help protect your computer against harmful or potentially unwanted software, Turn on Windows Defender." And the last part is clickable. But when I click on it I get an error message: "Windows Defender encountered an error: 0x800705b4. This operation returned because the timeout period expired."

Now what?

Rebecca

 

Hello, what antivirus are you using, and any other antimalware programs running real time?

Start>> All Programs>> Windows Defender>> Tools>> Options >> Admin options>> place a check on "Use Windows defender" and "Allow every one"

Cheers..

 

Nope. I get the same run around - "Windows Defender is turned off..."

Rebecca

 

I'm not using anything else.

Rebecca

 

I have Windows Security Essentials.

Rebecca

 

The reason that I was trying to start Defender is that I was having trouble with something on the start menu and when I tried to reset it, the Defender message came up. I will figure out what I was trying to do and ask another question. Thank you for letting me know that Defender and Security Essentials are not both supposed to run.

 

you might be able to access defenders "system explorer start-up MGR" through the control panel,but I'm not sure if that may be disabled too,you can try just in case it is still accessible that way.