Why oh why didn't I do the 30 day trial first? BitDefender had such great reviews, I guess I didn't do enough of my own research. Oh well. I'm having several problems with BD Total Security 2009. The first scan took 4 hours and still left 525 files unscanned, and found 48 infected files which it said it couldn't do anything about.

The 48 infected files turned out to be only 2 unique files that were mentioned 24 times each. After I manually deleted the 2 files which actually were not really infected with viruses, I ran a second scan.

The second scan also took about 4 hours, but scanned only half the files that the first one did. I tried to open BitDefender so I could see what settings were in effect and what I could change, but was totally unable to open it.

I clicked on every BitDefender icon I could find including the desktop, systray, and even separate files in the Bitdefender folder in Windows explorer. Nothing brings up the main screen. I have even tried the repair option, but it freezes less than halfway through.

Also I cannot complete any Windows updates since installing BitDefender. I keep getting errors now when I never used to get errors before. Furthermore, my computer is now as slow as a snail stuck in molasses in the winter.

Any help is appreciated. Thanks in advance.

I feel your pain, but unfortunately I cannot help. I'm also posting to this forum trying to get this software to work. I have never, never, never in all my years(16) of computer maintenance experienced such a buggy program. I too purchased it believing all the reviews. What a major mistake. I wonder how hard it is to get your money back from these people.

I am normally a very calm, polite and considerate person. But after wasting as many hours as I have on this install when the weather outside is perfectly beautiful, I am at my boiling point .

I'm in the same boat.

I tried the 2008 trial version, then the trial version for Total 2009. Last Thursday I purchased Total 2009 and things have headed south ever since. My computer functionality has slowed to a crawl, too.

Today I keep getting windows saying that BitDefender's services are down. When this happens, the tray icon is dark. After a while, I'll see that the icon has gone back to red again. Is that normal? It didn't happen when using the trial versions.

I'm also getting windows that say the Firewall isn't operating and "can't communicate with the BitDefender Virus Shield." It won't let me change any of the settings on the Firewall.

I've sent a couple emails to the support team, but haven't heard a peep.

Maybe I should have uninstalled the trial versions before installing the purchase. At this point, should I go back and uninstall all BitDefender and then reinstall 2009 Total?

Suggestions, anybody?

Yes you should try a complete uninstall then reinstall. Make sure you use their uninstaller tool. I know what you mean about their emails going unanswered. I've tried 3 times. However their phone and chat support were answered promptly. But don't try phone support if you have a problem with the all too typical now a days broken English. In my case thought nothing they've suggested has made their software work. Good luck.

indeed a very sad day...

had so many problems after upgrading to BDIS 2009 (clean install after clean install tried, BD uninstall tool used in all instances, but still no tray icon or scan activity bar or access to privacy settings....) that i have decided to ditch BDIS 2009 and am now trying out kaspersky IS 2009. just not up to reinstalling BD over and over and over and product not functioning correctly... i will miss it...

This thing is scaring me now. I tried BitDefender's own Repair/Remove tool and clicked on remove. It said that it could not be done because the program was still running.

I went to task manager which did not list it as a running application. It kept insisting that it was running and could not be removed.

I tried to terminate bdagent.exe under processes but access was denied. I then went to Add/Remove programs in control panel and tried to remove it from there.

While I thought it was uninstalling itself, it actually reinstalled itself and brought me to the registration screen again. I can't even get rid of this program!

I'm sure getting my money back would be just as impossible since it's software so I guess I'll have to eat the 80 plus dollars (I bought the license for 3 computers plus a backup disc.)

One day I will laugh about it. This is not that day. It was a hard and expensive lesson learned.

I went through Add/Remove programs a couple more times and it looks like I finally uninstalled BitDefender. I'll keep checking on this forum from time to time to see if and when all the bugs get worked out.

I would like to do that too but have paid LOTS of Money for 2 Years subscription and what do you want to do then buy another programme ? then I am double out of money ?

Bitdefender should extend the license for the days the produkt isnot working Correctly !

It seems to me the makers of this product are in way over their heads and must be scrambling to rebuild their reputation. My computer now (still has a limping IS2008 running) has been experiencing many failed restarts. It just stops responding and will not restart. Sometimes it takes 3 or 4 tries to get it started. Don't know if I can directly blame Bitdefender but it was not doing this before the install. I too am looking at other software and will give up on this eventually.

TS2008 is beter and more stable,

TS2009 still at beta level (should not be a released version)

I agree with most of the posts. There are almost no support for this product. All my questions went unanswered. I really regret ordering 10 copies for my company. Worst of all . this license is for 2 years. Great mistake I made. Notorious Vsserv.exe crash and not only that.. program randomly shuts itself down. When this happens I have to reboot my computer. I rebooted like 10 times yesterday.

I also had major problems with bitdefender internetsecurity 2009 and am getting no responses to my request for a refund.
I paid for and downloaded bitdefender internetsecurity 2009 on 8/26/2008 after making sure I had unintalled or turned off any other internet security or firewalls. After I rebooted I soon got a message saying Windows had shut down. I am using Windows Vista and specifically the problem event name was BlueScreen. I rebooted and continually had the same problem so I sent an email to tech support with the problem signature and waited. After I received no reply (not even an auto generated response to let me know they got the message) I uninstalled bitdefender internetsecurity 2009 and installed a different companys internetsecurity 2009 and everything works great and my system worked much faster also. I have since emailed bitdefender with reguests for a refund and have so far received no response.
I did finally receive a message from tech support in which they completely ignored the info I send them and gave me some links to information and a request for files. It was to little to late.I had already got things going on my own. I can't be without my computer that long as I have work to do. I don't have the time to help bitdefender debug their latest internet security suite. If I wanted to do that I would have downloaded their competitors 2009 beta version for free.
I will keep emailing and calling to try to get my money back and in the meantime will try to warn others about this product. If anyone has success at getting a refund please let us know how you did it

I dont know what the problem is all of a sudden!! BD2008 Total Security was awesome and now it crashes so much since I upgraded to 2009!!! PLEASE UPDATE THE PROGRAM SO WE CAN CONTINUE USING BD WITHOUT HASSLE!!!

This is a follow up to my message of Sept. 5.

I did today end up getting a reply to my email to BD sales and was told that I would be getting a refund and

that my feedback was being sent to product development to help improve their product.

I have been trialling BitDefender 2008 for a month now, prior to that I tested ZoneAlarm. On deciding to go with BitDefender 2008 I try to pay and register it. The web page won't permit me to do this without downloading BitDefender 2009. Knowing there are often issues with new versions I try to find a way round this but to no avail.

I ununinstall 2008 and then and then reluctantly install BitDefender 2009. It takes ages to install, when it does finally install there is no end of disk thrashing and hogging of system resources - in fact the install is so bad it seems that it is still installing all the time or scanning or doing something. After finally getting control of the machine after 2 hours, I use the bitdefender uninstaller and get 2009 off the system.

A check clean of the registry (Registry Mechanic) to check for olf 2008 files and correupted 2009 entries I do another install only to have the same issues all over again.

1. Why can't I continue using a product I know worked for me?

2. Why can't BitDefender fully test a product before launching it. This has probably wasted about 4 or 5 hours of my time.

I consider myself an expert user. If the general public get these issues they probably won't know where to start.

Plan of action: Uninstall 2009 and get 2008 running again.

BitDefender 2009 basiclly made my very well resourced PC unusable. Best avoid this product until they sort it out.

BD TS 2008 is so much stable
as now i upgraded to BDTS2009 it sometimes shutdown and the icon tray turns dark and restart again later
it also shut down when i play online games that include game security, saying that the VSSERV.exe is shut down
therefore to restart the ts2009 i must restart the computer
its so annoying....

if anyone can help me with this problem...much appreciated