Bitdefender Not Responding / Grey Icon - Solutions!

John Kemp

Suggestions for solving the greying out and not responding problem.

INTRODUCTION AND PERSONAL EXPERIENCE. I regard this as very serious. I had a rootkit recently (first virus installed in my 10 years of home computing) and I thought the virus was persistent and interfering with BitDefender, requiring a total wipe of my C drive. I chose reinstall from a somewhat out of date backup, and salvage emails from the server, and other data from various DVDroms – very time-consuming and inconvenient. On further consideration I now believe that I HAD cleaned my system, but was being misled by this greying out not responding problem.

DISCUSSION AND SOLUTIONS. Do all antivirus programs have to switch off when updating? Is it that BD have chosen (honestly) to inform the user, and the competitor products don’t bother? Is the problem that the virus signature files themselves would provoke an unnecessary positive response from the program? If so, cannot the program be (1) tweaked to let through anything from the BitDefender site – at least, when updating? Or is the problem that the program cannot be both working and updating at the same time? (Which seems more likely!)

WHY NOT

(2) MODIFY THE PROGRAM TO INSTAL TWICE IN PARALLEL, AND UPDATE ALTERNATELY, SUCH THAT IT CAN ALWAYS BE ACTIVE? An extra 100MB is nothing on today's computers!

(3) WHY NOT MODIFY THE PROGRAM SO THAT AT BOOTUP IT DOES NOT ALLOW INTERNET CONNECTION TO PROCEED UNTIL IT IS RUNNING, AND CANNOT BE TURNED OF (AT LEAST, WITHOUT A WARNING PROMPT) WHEN THE INTERNET IS CONNECTED? IF BOTH THESE STEPS WERE TAKEN, THE PROGRAM COULD BE MARKETTED AS ‘PERPETUAL PROTECTION – NO DOWN TIME FOR UPDATES!’

'no worries about malware slipping through!'

Alex Stanciu

Hello John K,

Thank for the suggestions. Please rest assure that these advices will be directed to the appropriate team for review, to enable us to improve our product. In case you will encounter the same message we recommend you to follow the next steps :

1. Open My Computer.

2. Browse to

C:\Program Files\BitDefender\BitDefender 2010

- considering that BitDefender was installed on the default C partition

3. Doubleclick on the supporttool.exe file .

4. Click on Next, wait a few minutes for the progress bar to complete and then click on Finish.

5. Go to the desktop and upload the file that was created by the SupportTool on http://www.sendspace.com/, then send me a PM with the download link.

Thank you.

John Kemp

Hello John K,

Thank for the suggestions. Please rest assure that these advices will be directed to the appropriate team for review, to enable us to improve our product. In case you will encounter the same message we recommend you to follow the next steps :

1. Open My Computer.

2. Browse to

C:\Program Files\BitDefender\BitDefender 2010

- considering that BitDefender was installed on the default C partition

3. Doubleclick on the supporttool.exe file .

4. Click on Next, wait a few minutes for the progress bar to complete and then click on Finish.

5. Go to the desktop and upload the file that was created by the SupportTool on http://www.sendspace.com/, then send me a PM with the download link.

Thank you.

Thankyou, Alex. You gave me alternative advice in answer to my "Is BitDefender Fit for Purpose?" which I happened to read before this present reply. You will know from my reply on that thread that I applied it and a clean reinstallation did solve the problem, though it did NOT go smoothly. As far as I am concerned, your present advice is superceded, but I want to reassure you that normally when I am asked for what appears to be a log file, I do normally provide them, 'for the greater good' as well as for my own ultimate benefit! Best wishes, John.