After resuming Windows 7 on a laptop today I switched users and logged into an Administrator account. Action Center reports three Important Security issues upon login: "Spyware and unwanted software protection (Important) Windows Defender and Norton Security Suite both report that they are turned off." "Virus protection (Important) Norton Security Suite reports that it is turned off." Network firewall (Important) Windows Firewall and Norton Security Suite both report that they are turned off." When I open Norton Security Suite all components are reported as "Protected" indicating that they are on and functioning properly. Selecting "Turn on now" under the "Virus protection" alert opens the Norton Security Suite window where Norton reports that it is already on. Norton Security Suite suite had been successfully reported as handling these three issues since installation a few months ago. Either Action Center or Norton Security Suite is misreporting the state of the system. I could go through the exercise of turning things on and off and rebooting and such but I would rather identify and resolve the root cause of this issue. Unfortunately I don't know the mechanisms that Action Center uses to detect status or that Norton Security Suite uses to report it. Please let me know if you have any suggestions for debugging this further. It would be useful to at least be able to identify if this is due to a defect in Action Center or a defect in Norton Security Suite. Test System: Windows 7 Professional x64 with all updates as of October 24, 2010. Norton Security Suite version 4.2.0.12 as distributed by Comcast. System is a laptop. Joined to a Homegroup. Not joined to a Domain.

I contacted Symantec Support and a support technician used a screen-sharing tool to confirm that Norton Security Suite was running properly on the test system. The support technician indicated that the issue was due to a defect in Action Center and instructed me to contact Microsoft.

How does it work if you reinstall the antivirus? If the issue persists, please clear the files in the following folder and then restart. C:\Windows\System32\wbem\RepositoryPlease remember to click Mark as Answer on the post that helps you, and to click Unmark as Answer if a marked post does not actually answer your question. This can be beneficial to other community members reading the thread.

Thanks for the reply. After two or three reboots of the test system the issue has disappeared. Action Center is now consistent with Norton Security Suite. I am unable to reproduce the issue. I did not perform a reinstall of Norton Security Suite nor did I clear the files from C:\Windows\System32\wbem\Repository. I suppose a next step for debugging would be to review the logs with Event Viewer. I see that Norton Security Suite reports to the Application log with Event Source = "N360" when the service is started and stopped. Since I can no longer reproduce the error and I don't have much evidence for further analysis I'll have to assume it was an anomaly. Of a few systems that were running the same releases of Windows 7 and Norton Security Suite this behavior was only observed on one of them. Thanks for the reference to C:\Windows\System32\wbem\Repository. I'll have to learn more about the contents of that directory for the future.