Vista - Windows Defender config disabled due to group policy on Home Premi

I'm running Vista Home Premium. I also use Sunbelt CounterSpy 2.5 for
anti-spyware and BitDefender 2008 AV for antivirus. Since Windows Defender's
real-time protection would conflict with CounterSpy, there's an option in
CounterSpy to disable Windows Defender. However, at some point when I was
using Windows Defender to check out the Software Explorer, I took a look at
the options and noticed that a) Windows Defender's real-time protection was
still enabled, b) it hadn't been updated in a long time and yet manually
updating it resulted in it saying no updates were available, and c) the only
option I can change is whether or not I run scheduled scans. The "error"
message at the top of the options window says, "Some settings are managed by
your system administrator."

I have checked the "Why can't I change some settings?" help link and the
only answer it offers suggests that someone applied a group policy to my
computer. But Home Premium doesn't have Group Policy Editor, and I don't know
the registry keys that would accomplish the same thing. I want 2 things: 1)
to have Windows Defender's real-time protection off, and 2) to be able to
configure Windows Defender at will and not via registry edit every time. A
3rd thing that would be nice is to understand how this happened in the first
place, but if I can at least get it fixed, that's not so important. (Although
it does keep me awake at night wondering if I need to upgrade to Ultimate to
have full control over my system in the future.)

Thanks for any suggestions,
Kira

"kira13" wrote:
I forgot to mention that I am a home user, on a peer-to-peer network with a
Vista Ultimate desktop computer, my Vista Home Premium desktop computer, and
2 XP Pro SP2 laptop computers. I am the unofficial system administrator for
the entire network, and I did not create a Group Policy on one of the other
computers and apply it to this one and I highly doubt my husband did either
(and we are the only 2 household members).

Kira

"kira13" wrote:
Okay, no one else seems to know the answer to this one. Well, over the
weekend, I used a registry editor and just searched for every instance of
"defender", and I found one that seemed to do the trick. I don't remember for
sure which one I changed, if anyone else is having this problem, but it was a
subkey of HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows Defender, because I had to change
the owner of the key in order to change the permissions so I could edit it. I
*think* I got everything set back the way I had it (permissions-wise).

I still have the notification at the top of the settings screen that I don't
have permission (as a non-admin) to change some settings, but it appears that
the only setting I can't change now is to turn Windows Defender off entirely,
and I'm sure I can find the registry keys for that if I have to. I still
wonder if I should have gone with Vista Ultimate, though (but that family
upgrade offer was too tempting and only applied to Home Premium). Oh, well,
if I decide to do the anytime upgrade, I'll still be getting Ultimate for a
lot less....