Windows Defender Offline definitions out of date

Anonymous
2016-04-24T04:02:30+00:00

Windows 7 64 Bit.  I have been using Windows Defender Offline on a USB thumb drive (4 GB, uses less than 1 GB) for years without problem.  Last week updating Windows Defender Offline definitions to an already working USB thumb drive seemed to install correctly.  When I boot to the USB thumb drive the program boots and runs but I get the message the "definitions out of date", and it will not scan the computer.  I tried formatting USB thumb drive and then installing the whole Windows Defender Offline with definitions instead of just updating the definitions to the already working USB thumb drive.  Everything went correctly, the size of the download appeared to be correct.  I booted to the USB thumb drive and still got the message "definitions out of date".  Since the Windows Defender Offline program started offline, and was installed onto a completely formatted USB thumb drive, it must have downloaded and installed correctly but the definitions are still "out of date".  Are the definitions being updated by Microsoft or has the program been discontinued?

Windows for home | Previous Windows versions | Security and privacy

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Anonymous
2016-06-08T20:47:31+00:00

Not sure that matters at this point, the messages appear to be pointing to 2 unrelated failure points.

I have an update.

We have identified the problem and are working on a new Windows Defender Offline release.

Paul...

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  1. Anonymous
    2016-05-03T19:22:10+00:00

    me too.. so what should I do?

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  2. Anonymous
    2016-05-03T19:08:06+00:00

    Same error screen for me with Windows 10 Home x64. All Defender screens are grayed out in settings and programs. Furthermore Windows Update for the last month reports Defender Update download failed.

    Can't enable, can't update.

    BTW, my primary anti-malware application is Norton Internet Security & Backup 2016 which is enabled and up-to-date.

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  3. Anonymous
    2016-05-01T03:47:51+00:00

    I downloaded the executable (mssstool64.exe) which creates the WDO bootable USB thumbdrive on Windows 10, and then ran it to create a bootable USB thumbdrive on Windows 10, but I did not boot into WDO on the Windows 10 machine; it wouldn't even allow me boot to a USB thumbdrive because Secure Boot is enabled in my UEFI BIOS.

    I agree with you that there is probably something wrong with the way Microsoft is producing definitions files (as this problem has been occurring for several days). I don't think it's intentional though because they would have announced it if they were no longer supporting Windows Defender Offline.

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  4. Anonymous
    2016-05-01T02:48:36+00:00

    I have scanned my computer with Norton AntiVirus and the Windows Malicious Software Removal Tool so I am pretty sure my system is clean.  The first time this problem happened I was just updating the definition file to a working WDO scanner program on an existing USB thumbdrive so WDO should not have been the problem.

    I would suspect the issue is Microsoft trying to force people off Windows 7 into Windows 10, but you say you have tried it on Windows 10 and it did not work, so that should not be it.

    I am still of the opinion it is something wrong with the definition file created by Microsoft, either some incompatibility or just Microsoft has stopped updating the definition file.

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