Hello,

I have a Win 8.1 desktop, and almost every single day, I get two notifications from Action Center. One is to update spyware protection, and the other is to update virus protection. 

I click the notifications which always opens up Windows Defender.  Defender does its little updating, and everything is great.  Of course, then within a day or two, the notification comes back.

I never had this happen on my Win 7 machine; so does anyone have experience with this issue or a good solution?

Thanks!

Run Windows Update and install all updates.

Check your system date and time and time zone and make sure they are correct.

Run Windows Update and install all updates.

Check your system date and time and time zone and make sure they are correct.

Windows Update is set to automatically install updates.  This message I see frequently:  "We found new updates today, and we'll install them for you soon...." 

My time/date settings are all good.

Any other thoughts?

Try open Windows Defender and run a full system scan.

Hello brezette93,

What you are experiencing is normal for Windows 8.1 when you have Windows Defender activated.  I get a Defender update every day and have for years.  See the screenshot of my update history.  This is nothing to worry about. 

• Proposed as answer by Davidoo1 15 hours 19 minutes ago

Hello brezette93,

What you are experiencing is normal for Windows 8.1 when you have Windows Defender activated.  I get a Defender update every day and have for years.  See the screenshot of my update history.  This is nothing to worry about. 

• Proposed as answer by Davidoo1 Saturday, April 04, 2015 4:01 PM

Hello brezette93,

What you are experiencing is normal for Windows 8.1 when you have Windows Defender activated.  I get a Defender update every day and have for years.  See the screenshot of my update history.  This is nothing to worry about. 

• Proposed as answer by Davidoo1 Saturday, April 04, 2015 4:01 PM
• Marked as answer by Bruce WoodingModerator 12 hours 10 minutes ago

Hello brezette93,

What you are experiencing is normal for Windows 8.1 when you have Windows Defender activated.  I get a Defender update every day and have for years.  See the screenshot of my update history.  This is nothing to worry about. 

• Proposed as answer by Davidoo1 Saturday, April 04, 2015 4:01 PM
• Marked as answer by Bruce WoodingModerator Thursday, April 09, 2015 7:12 PM

Hello brezette93,

What you are experiencing is normal for Windows 8.1 when you have Windows Defender activated.  I get a Defender update every day and have for years.  See the screenshot of my update history.  This is nothing to worry about. 

• Proposed as answer by Davidoo1 Saturday, April 04, 2015 4:01 PM
• Marked as answer by Bruce WoodingModerator Thursday, April 09, 2015 7:12 PM

Well I am glad it's nothing serious.  Is there maybe anyway to automate the process? That way I don't have to be constantly notified?

I was just looking into this as well and wanted to give this thread a bit of a bump.  I've been unable to find any place to set the spyware/virus definitions to auto update without prompting.  It seems odd that you can do this for OS patches but not something as core to system security as spyware/virus definitions.

Thanks for looking into it.  Hopefully it is addressed in Windows 10.