Windows 8 does not Detect Installed Firewall or Antivirus

Note: If this tutorial worked for you (and it should work), please leave a comment below. Thanks.

I ran into this situation the other day where I installed ESET Smart Security, but Windows 8 was unable to detect that I have installed any antivirus software or firewall. My first instinct was to reinstall my security software. So I went and remove ESET completely using its removal tool, because most of the security software I used, never really removed everything when I uninstalled it. So I had to run the Eset Removal Tool to clean all the left over files. Then I rebooted the system and reinstall ESET completely and updated it. Everything is working fine except the fact that my Windows is still not recognizing that ESET is installed.

Run System File Checker

Since we reinstalled ESET that ruled out program related issues. So it’s definitely Windows. So the next thing I tried was to run the System Integrity Checker i.e. SFC /SCANNOW.

To run SFC /SCANNOW:

• Press Win + X
• Click on “Command Prompt (Admin)
• Type in SFC /SCANNOW

I rebooted the system and checked again, but still it did not help. After some research I foundWindows Management Instrumentation  (WMI) is what is responsible in reporting if and Security software is installed on the machine or not.  So I thought of repairing WMI completely, because I wasn’t sure which particular service or files was responsible. So I ran the following script file in the form of batch file:

cd /d %windir%\System32\Wbem 

net stop winmgmt

sc sdset winmgmt D:(A;;CCDCLCSWRPWPDTLOCRRC;;;BA)(A;;CCLCSWLOCRRC;;;AU)(A;;CCDCLCSWRPWPDTLOCRSDRCWDWO;;;DA)(A;;CCDCLCSWRPWPDTLOCRRC;;;PU)(A;;CCDCLCSWRPWPDTLOCRSDRCWDWO;;;SY)

REM REG IMPORT %windir%\WBEM.reg

winmgmt /clearadap
winmgmt /kill
winmgmt /unregserver
winmgmt /regserver
winmgmt /resyncperf


del %windir%\System32\Wbem\Repository /Q
del %windir%\System32\Wbem\AutoRecover /Q
for %%i in (*.dll) do Regsvr32 -s %%i
for %%i in (*.mof,*.mfl) do Mofcomp %%i
wmiadap.exe /Regsvr32
wmiapsrv.exe /Regsvr32
wmiprvse.exe /Regsvr32

net start winmgmt

But that didn’t help. I was back to square one.

Re-register WMIUTILS.DLL

Then I stumbled upon a specific dll which is responsible for reporting if security software is present or not posted by Niki Han. We need to re-register WMIUTILS.DLL. It seems like the script didn’t uninstall and re-register.

To re-register dlll file:

• Press Win + X
• Click on “Command Prompt (Admin)
• regsvr32 /u WMIUTILS.DLL
• Reboot the System
• regsvr32 WMIUTILS.DLL

Then I again rebooted the system and went to the Action Center.

It reported my security software correctly.

Mission Accomplished!

Hope this tip helps you.

Windows 7 users can also try this – but they can also see if this hotfix helps out.

If you have liked this post, you might want to check out some more, on topics like Action Center,Tips.

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