Update: Microsoft has confirmed that this patch is flawed, and has issued another fix to automatically uninstall KB3004394. Even more fascinating, our experience that this “Windows Defender” update somehow impacted display adapters and video drivers has been confirmed. Continue to read our original post below.
Just the other day, I had the chance to experience this one hands on. We had a computer that would report that Windows Defender could not start automatically, shortly after the computer had rebooted from recent Windows Updates. Windows Defender in Windows 7 is important because it acts as an anti-malware solution, not just an antivirus. So even if you have something like AVG, Symantec, or even Microsoft Security Essentials, Windows Defender should be allowed to run in the background.
If you’re tech savvy, you may have even tried to go in to the Windows Services menu and attempted to start Windows Defender manually. If you try this, you will receive an error stating that “The Stub received bad data.” It turns out, there was a flaw in KB3004394, so simply uninstalling that for now will resolve the issue. I will provide the steps for uninstalling that patch.
Continue reading “SOLVED: Windows Defender not starting after December ’14 Update”