Am running Win7 Ultimate x32 (default) in dual boot with Win 7 HP x32 with Security Essential as AV progm in both. Problem occured with Internet Explorer 9 behaving erratically, pages of different sites opening up when IE was idle. My Security Essentials shut down with an error message 'the windows security center service can't be started' Taken the following steps without any success : 1: Downloaded and scanned with Kaspersky Virus Removal tool and Super Antispyware. Malicious Files were detected and deleted, cleaned the registry with Live One Care Scanner. 2: Reset my IE9 Beta. 3: Uninstalled Security Essentials and reinstalled it. 4: Tried 'services.msc'with admin power -double click 'Security Center'-chose start automatically-ok.Restart. 5: Ran, with admin rights, Run- sfc.exe /scannow. 6: Tried installing McAfee Security Center Beta, wasn't permitted install by system. At present the system is working perfectly except that I am unable to start the Secutity Center and can't install any av program. Some wizard out there please help,don't want a reinstall of Windows or do a recovery from a System BackUp. Replies to identical topics at TechNet don't seem to help. Irfan Irfan

Hi, Please try system restore to get back to a previous time point which everything worked fine: System Restore - Windows 7 features - Microsoft Windows Also, check the status of the dependence services: · Remote Procedure Call · Windows Management Instrumentation Due to you have installed Microsoft Security Essentials, it is not recommended to install more than one anti-virus programs. Hope it helps. Alex Zhao Please 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 reply Alex, System Restore has been disabled after the Security System breakdown. Enabled it manually but there are no restore pts left and saw no point in creating one with the present disability. RPC is set to automatic while WMI is enabled to start manually. The other OS (win7 hp) is working fine along with its security center and is set to run automatically with a delayed start. Have tried both Automatic and Automatic delayed start-nothing works. Even if I recover the system with a image backup I may have to restore both the OSs. The system image backup included both the drives without giving me a choice , atleast as far as I remember.It will complicate things so I prefer that you help me with the Security Center problem without the option of Windows reinstall or recovery.Irfan

Hi There, Follow these isntructions to fix the issue: Windows Security Centre Service Cannot Be Started