Vista - Things are not working

I just uninstalled BitDefender Internet Security 2009 in order to upgrade to BDIS 2010. I used their uninstall tool, rebooted, then rebooted again choosing a clean boot so I could install BDIS 2010. When I got to the end it wouldn't let me activate. The message was "activation failed because no internet connectioin was detected. Please connect and try again." Now BD says they are aware of the problem and are working on it.

However, since I installed BDIS 2010 a lot of other things have stopped working. Windows Explorer, my snipping tool, when I try to take a screen shot and paste it into paint it says "information on the clip board can't be inserted into paint."

I'm also continuously getting the message that IE8 is not working and is being shut down by DEP. I don't know what else might not be working.

BitDefender, naturally, has turned off their chat support. Does anyone know what could be causing all this stuff not to work?

Sounds like its just BitDefender . Lucky they are a big company they should fix i really fast.

Yes, people are having problems with 2010. You should roll back and wait for BDIS 2010 to issue an update.

Awhile after posting here the other night, BD's update screen came up and ran. After that I was able to activate/register. I rebooted and started checking out all the things that hadn't been working and they were working again. Relief ... until I did a scan with Malwarebytes.

It reported 11 infected registry keys, all related to BitDefender, all found in
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Image File Execution Options and all labeled "Security.Hijack.

Since they were BitDefender keys I didn't feel I dared remove them. I wrote to BD right away and pasted a log of the scan. I also wrote to Malwarebytes. They answered in less than 24 hours stating that this was being escalated up, but afterall, I'm using the free version so I don't expect to come first on their list.

However, here I sit with a potential security risk and apparently BD doesn't consider this important because I haven't had a response from them.

I'm not sure what to do. If either of you has any recommendation what I could do to check this out to see if this is a legitimate infection please advise.

Hello Nikilet,
What other security programs are you running besides BD 2010 free & Malwarebytes free?
Did your computer come preloaded with an anti virus?[If so what & how did you remove it.]
Did you consider taking Lemur's advice?
As a second opinion I suggest you download the free version of SuperAntiSpyware & run a full scan.
Let us know how you go.
SUPERAntiSpyware.com | Remove Malware | Remove Spyware - AntiMalware, AntiSpyware, AntiAdware!

My BitDefender is not free. I run the paid version of BitDefender Internet Security 2010.

I have the paid version of Spyware Doctor which I ran only as an on demand scanner with all real time protection disabled, but I uninstalled it because after I installed the Vista service packs 1 and 2, something went wrong with SD. I have a support ticket in and they are working on trying to figure out why.

Other than BDIS 2010, I run the free versions of Malwarebytes and SUPERAntispyware as on demand scanners. I scanned with SUPER after I did the Malwarebyes scan and only some tracking cookies were found, but then these two programs scan for different things don't they?

My computer came with McAfee, but I uninstalled that right from the start and I used McAfee's uninstall and clean up tools to get rid of everything, but I just did a search of the registry there are some McAfee items in there.

As far as rolling back, I won't do that now and there is a reason. When I first installed BDIS 2009 it would not leave my Windows Mail rules alone, even though I disabled the antispam feature. It took a long time and a lot of messing around, changing certain file names, etc., to get that antispam truly disabled. I don't recall all that was done and I don't want to have to go through that again in the case that it was never fixed.

Nikilet,
If your problems originated when you did the BDIS Program update, & as you are running the paid version of BitDefender Internet Security 2010, it is their duty of care to provide you with the support you need & deserve. Be persistent. The squeaky wheel gets the grease.
Post back with progress results.