(See also my other Vista Annoyance posts - turning off User Account Control, turning on Flip and Flip / Window Switcher, sharing files on a network between two Vista computers, getting an older program to work with Vista, and turning on Windows Aero.)
You may have seen this if you’ve uninstalled an anti-virus program and installed a new one — perhaps following my blog post about AVG, or if you’ve followed the instructions in my Vista Annoyance #1 blog post about User Account Control. An icon shows up in the lower right area of your task bar at the bottom of the screen, looking like a 
red shield with a white X on it. Every once in a while, a balloon pops up warning you that a certain security feature has been disabled. If you had disabled this security feature on purpose (i.e., turning User Account Control off), this balloon quickly becomes annoying.
Turning off this balloon notification, and even making this icon disappear from the taskbar, is embarrassingly simple.
1) Right-click on the Window Security Alert icon (which looks like a red shield) in the taskbar and click on “Open Security Center.”
2) In the resulting “Window Security Center” window, click on “Change the way Security Center alerts me” in the left column.
3) A new window appears with three choices: a) “Yes, notify me and display the icon (recommended),” b) “Don’t notify me, but display the icon,” and “Don’t notify me and don’t display the icon (not recommended).”
4) Depending on your preference, you may want to pick the second or third choice. For someone who has the User Agent Control turned off permanently, that means I have a permanent red-X’ed icon in the lower right corner anyway. I may as well turn it off — and so I’ve selected the third option.
Whoops, now my laptop monitor is swiveling 360 degrees and projectile-hurling green bile. Hmm. Not sure if it needs an exorcism or if it has to do with pent-up security warnings …
May 22, 2007 at 8:31 am
Um, you ROCK! Between this and the stupid UAC warnings I was ready to pitch the new ‘puter out the window! Thank you for the quick and concise instructions on eliminating these annoyances. I have an anti-virus/firewall program I am quite happy with and which does its job better than Norton ever did, so I don’t need all these warnings. I KNOW WHAT I’M DOING MICROSOFT! Anyway, thank you thank you!
May 22, 2007 at 2:27 pm
Glad to be of help! :-) Any other Vista annoyances, just let me know and I’ll see if I can post a fix.
May 28, 2007 at 7:08 pm
My Windows Security Alert window has the ‘malware’ area in red, but my PC has Norton Internet Security installed. Is this just another Vista glitch or should I do something about it? Thanks.
May 29, 2007 at 8:28 pm
Hi Alex — I wonder if your PC’s Norton Internet Security overrode Windows Defender, turning it off because Norton has similar better features. And because the Security Center sees Defender as being turned off, it marks this area in red. Go to the Windows logo in the lower left corner, then Control Panel, then Security Center. In the same line as “Malware Protection,” click on the little downward arrow icon to expand the options under it (if the options haven’t already been expanded). What does it say in the expanded area? It might say something about Norton reporting that it is up to date and virus scanning is on, but that Windows Defender is off — is that the case?
May 30, 2007 at 10:29 am
Hi…This what is in the Malware Protection area:
…under Virus Protection it says that ‘Windows did not find antivirus software on this computer’
…under Spyware and other Malware Protection it says that ‘Windows Defender and Norton Internet Security both report that they are on.’
Now that I’ve had some time to think about what I could have done myself to mess things up, I recall that I did install/uninstall an online antivirus scanner. It seems to me that this problem started after the unsinstall. Could it be that the uninstall removed some files that where necessary?
August 12, 2007 at 8:24 pm
Hey there!
Thank you, thank you, thank you… I thought I was going to have to get busy with the registry or something like that… Great advice! Cheers!
November 8, 2007 at 11:05 am
i don’t have “Change the way Security Center alerts me” i only have “get the latest …”
January 26, 2008 at 7:18 am
same bs as above
January 26, 2008 at 7:22 am
Okay, problem solved. Re-enabling the security centre service, now the option “change the way security centre alerts me” has appeared. Now the notifications can be disabled and the service.
February 16, 2008 at 2:58 am
I do believe turning off windows defender will also delete all recovery dates. I have had this problem so is it a problem to leave it on? And is this correct?
February 16, 2008 at 9:08 pm
Paul - shouldn’t be a problem leaving it on. It’s just an annoyance to some people.
February 18, 2008 at 10:56 pm
hi proud geek
i dont find “change the way security…..” in my place.
i’m using windows vista home premium.
my case is i’ve already disabled the security center(completely) without disabling the components of the security service 1 by 1.
i do this by accessing services.msc
any clue how to remove this annoying red X shield alert showed every windows start-up ??
thanks.