Hello,
I started having a problem yesterday when I turned on my pc which I thought had to do with the installation of Windows Defender (which was installed the day before) but now I'm not sure.

I noticed the post Topic has "Missing .exe and .lnk file associations" and thought that maybe it is related to the same thing.

I am running Windows XP Pro and yesterday when I turned on my pc the icon for my antivirus software (avast), my firewall (comodo) and the comodo anti malware program were all missing from the area right next to the clock. When I would click on the icon for Windows Security Alerts it would state that the antivirus program is up and running (although the icon was no longer in the tray and it was no longer showing up in the msconfig startup tab) but that my firewall was not up and running.

If I went to start / all programs and then clicked on each of the above items they would then appear in the area next to the clock and the firewall protection would then be up and running.

I tried doing a system restore using the restore point that AdAware made after doing my scan the day before but that did not fix the problem. I then uninstalled the Windows Defender hoping that would fix the problem -- but it didn't.

The AdWatch program has been popping up constantly (which was very annoying since I was trying to figure out this problem) so I disabled that. I then went to the control panel - add/remove programs and was able to select an option to change for the AntiVirus program and from there select an option to fix the software program. After doing that the icon for the antivirus program is now back in the toolbar next to the clock. And it is also listed in the startup tab of msconfig.

However, there is no option for fixing the firewall or malware software in the add/remove programs and I still have not been able to figure out how to go about fixing the problem.

I have put a shortcut to the firewall program on my desktop and click on that when I start up my pc so that the firewall protection is up and running but I still have not figured out how to fix that problem. I have posted to their site and am hoping that I will be able to get an answer there. But since reading the post on the missing file extensions I'm thinking that the problem may have something to do with that. Especially since I have had no recurring problems with the antivirus software since disabling the AdWatch part of the AdAware 2007 software program.

I am fairly new to computers and really don't understand a whole lot of what was being explained to do or if it is in any way related to my problems. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

TIA

lmhjcr