Windows Security Center.AntiVirusOverride.
It reported that it found the following registry key associated with
Windows Security Center.AntiVirusOverride:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Security Center\AntiVirusOverride!=dword:0
Spybot will detect Windows Security Center.AntiVirusOverride, if
the Windows Security Center Virus Protection is set to "not monitored", which
means that you've told Windows "you're using antivirus software that you will
monitor yourself." Some antivirus software doesn't integrate with the Windows
Security Center in Windows XP, so a system administrator may want to set the
value to "not monitored" so windows won't report to users every time they log on
to the system that their system may not be protected from viruses. Sometimes the
antivirus vendor will also suggest that you not have Windows monitor the
status of the antivirus software, but rely on the antivirus software to monitor
itself, which the vendor may state provides additional security.
You can check the status of virus protection monitoring under the Windows Security Center on a Windows XP system by clicking on Start, Control Panel, and then Security Center.
When I checked the registry key's value with regedit, I found that
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Security Center\AntiVirusOverride
was set to "1", i.e. it was "!0", that is "not zero" as Spybot reported.
If you wanted to change the monitoring status so that the Windows Security
Center does monitor the virus protection status, you can click on the
Recommendations button under Virus Protection in the Windows
Security Center. You will see a checkbox labelled "I have an antivirus
program that I'll monitor myself. Note: Windows won't monitor your virus
protection status and won't send you alerts if it is off or out of date."
If you uncheck this box, then Windows will start monitoring the status of
the antivirus protection again. That change will set the registry value
of
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Security Center\AntiVirusOverride
to zero and Spybot will no longer report the setting as an issue, if you rerun
it.
However, if the antivirus software on the system doesn't integrate with the Windows Security Center, e.g. Symantec AntiVirus Corporate Edition 8.0, you may see a balloon appear above the Security Center icon in the system tray warning you that the status of your virus protection is unknown.
Spybot's message about this issue can be regarded as an informational message. It is up to you to determine whether this represents a problem to be addressed or just a notice of the current value of the registry key, since in some cases you may want the registry key to be set to "1" and not "0", i.e. you don't want Windows monitoring the status of the antivirus software on the system. In that case, when Spybot reports the setting during its scan of the system, uncheck the box next to it, before clicking on "Fix selected problems" in Spybot.
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