I ran into this situation the other day where I installed ESET Smart Security, but Windows 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 leftover 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.

Action Center, previously known as Windows Security Center, monitors the security status of the computer.

Windows does not detect installed Firewall or Antivirus

Before you begin, create a system restore point first.

1] 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 File 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 found Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI) is what is responsible for 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 were responsible. So I ran the following script file in the form of the 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.

2] Re-register WMIUTILS.DLL

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

To re-register dll file:

Press Win + X

Click on “Command Prompt (Admin)

regsvr32 /u WMIUTILS.DLL

Reboot the System and run now

regsvr32 WMIUTILS.DLL

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

It reported my security software correctly.

You can get more tips here – Windows Defender will not turn off even when 3rd party AntiVirus is installed.

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