Windows Defender trying my patience

Hello,

Some time ago i bought a new laptop (sadly only coming with win8) and since i still play Counter Strike 1.6, i installed it. However, the servers i play in require the Flex Anticheat program. After months with no troubles, i bought an SSD drive to use as a boot drive and installed win8 there, but kept the original hard drive installation too just in case. I installed CS and the flex anticheat again on the SSD, and continued playing as usual. Until one day out of the blue, the anticheat ceased to be - when i double click to start it, nothing happens, although the Task Manager shows its actually running (no good though). After much investigation i am 99.9% sure that it was the stupid defender that took it as a threat and corrupted it, even though no indication was shown. So i disabled defender, and installed avast instead. Waited for several days, reinstalled CS and Flex Anticheat and all was good again, i could play. However, a couple of days ago, something strange happened - i started my laptop (all usual, no signs of anything going wrong) and was surprised to see that according to the action centre i do not have antivirus on - both avast and defender are off. Tried to switch on avast - no good. Restarted the computer again and this time all seemed fine. However, when i tried to turn The Flex anticheat again - surprise surprise, nothing. Tried reinstalling it - no luck. I am 99.9% sure that again the stupid defender came into action and f***ed up everything. Would you please tell me how to switch this thing once and for all, and how to discover what it has done to block the flex even after reinstalling and undo it?
I download the anticheat from here: Flex Anticheat Latest Installer / ИнÑталации и пачове / Файлове - MANIA Game Servers

Hey mate,

First, check to see if Defender is indeed the culprit. See this post to find out where to look in event viewer: http://www.eightforums.com/system-security/16710-windows-defender-where-scan-results.html#post166543

If you see a warning mentioning the removal of anything, check if you can find out anymore about what it removed. Not sure if it gives that much detail. You can also look inside Defender itself to see if it removed anything according to its history tab.

Malware can cause problems like this. Malwarebytes.org has an awesome free scanner that is great at detecting things avast and defender routinely miss. I recommend it for every PC user dealing with malware. Give it a try, see if it comes up with anything.

Have you ever had any other antivirus program on the computer, including when you first bought it (junkware)? If so, look into any antivirus tool or remover (antivirus companies sometimes offer free tools to remove their products with), and use it to clean the system of all antivirus products that you've had, including your current avast. Then, assuming you still want Avast!, download and install it again after a computer restart. Defender should be disabled after that. Restart again if not, and post if you see anything odd. You can also disable it yourself by turning real-time protection OFF, it Avast doesn't.

Defender only comes on when there are problems with your current antivirus solution. Blame Avast for that one!

I seriously doubt avast is to be blamed. I installed both CS and Flex before it, and after that set it to exclude the entire D:\ drive (where both CS and Flex are installed) from scanning or protecting completely. And it was running fine for weeks! Not to mention that i got the same problem previously, when avast or any other antivirus software has never been installed to this laptop. I am an Electronic engineer, i know a thing or two about PC windows (other than that i am forced to use it against my will )
Flex Anticheat does not contain malware, of that i am 10000% sure, although it does look like such to the antivirus programs due to the way it operates.
According to the logs, defender has not done anything since month or so, when i disabled it. Unfortunately, either this is not true, or windows itself decided i got enough of CS and broke the anticheat perhaps?

Darkkiller4o said:

I seriously doubt avast is to be blamed. I installed both CS and Flex before it, and after that set it to exclude the entire D:\ drive (where both CS and Flex are installed) from scanning or protecting completely. And it was running fine for weeks! Not to mention that i got the same problem previously, when avast or any other antivirus software has never been installed to this laptop. I am an Electronic engineer, i know a thing or two about PC windows (other than that i am forced to use it against my will )
Flex Anticheat does not contain malware, of that i am 10000% sure, although it does look like such to the antivirus programs due to the way it operates.
According to the logs, defender has not done anything since month or so, when i disabled it. Unfortunately, either this is not true, or windows itself decided i got enough of CS and broke the anticheat perhaps?

Click to expand...

no I meant Avast is to be blamed if Defender was turned back on, not that it was responsible for the damages.

If there is nothing mentioning Defender removing malware, than it likely didn't do it. But yes, windows might have done something, and I would have no clue what. Try running the program in compatability mode: Make older programs compatible with this version of Windows - Windows Help

Compatibility mode does not help...

If you use registry cleaners or anything of the sort, look to them. Keep an eye on the event viewer when the problem occurs. Sorry I couldn't be more help

I see. I would like to hear your opinion on one more thing - i am thinking of installing a virtual machine software like OracleVM, setting up a Windows 8.1 or 7 there and trying to install CS 1.6 with Flex Anticheat there. However, i currently really need my computer not to break (not in the next one and a half months or so). Is there even a remote possibility that while setting up OracleVM and subsequently the virtual machine i break the actual Windows in any way? I mean are any additional drivers/programs etc. required, which will be modified in the actual windows in order to make the virtual machine work. Also, is this in general a good idea, i mean if i get 300 ping while playing then its no good

Darkkiller4o said:

Flex Anticheat does not contain malware, of that i am 10000% sure

Click to expand...

I downloaded the installer from your link and tested it in VirusTotal - it got 19/56 and was detected as malware by AGV, Avast, McAfee, Symantic etc. See https://www.virustotal.com/en/file/...1fc4403626c5af09673a4dcd430903e9e84/analysis/

It is pretty common for malware to disable your AV. My guess is it was the malware not defender that disabled Avast.

I couldn't see FlexAntiCheat anywhere except on torrents and foreign language sites so I don't know if it is a legitimate program but it looks dodgy to me - I wouldn't use it that's for sure. At this point I would suggest you run a full scan with Avast to check all is OK.

You could try running in VirtualBox but it would probably be too slow.