Disable Security Center Popup Notifications in Windows Vista
If you decide to turn off automatic updates, you’ll be annoyed to death with popup messages from the Security Center that tell you to “Check your computer security” or “Check your Firewall status” if you disabled the firewall. It’s a good thing you can turn those messages off.
Before we begin: I’d definitely recommend keeping the firewall enabled at all times.
To disable the popup messages shown above, right-click on the little red shield icon and choose Open Security Center from the menu. You could also open Security Center from the start menu.
Click the link for “Change the way Security Center alerts me”
Now you’ll see a dialog with three choices. Choose the bottom one if you don’t want the notifications anymore.
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thanks. i really needed that. it sucks having those everytime i reboot.
thanks.. been looking for remove this pain in the rear for a while now…
I turned off the security center and now when I boot up I get a damn error message about the security center turned off!
Your cooment on how to “Make Security Center go away? did not address a problem I and many other are having in forums. It is this (and I hope you may have an answer), Clicking on the “Don’t notify me and don’t display the icon? option does not take- or work. Program keeps defaulting back to its default setting which is the notify me option. When logged on as full administrator, cannot undo the default. You click on don’t’ notify me, then close window, then go back to it and the defult setting is still activated. Any ideas?
Thank you,
I have basic vista on an HP. On the total care advisor I can’t enable the internet security when i try the norton opens and I’m not sure if that is taking the place of the HP’s or if niether one of them is running. But it is listed as a critical. Keep in mind this is a brand new piece.
This fix did not work for me. Specifically, I use non-Microsoft firewall/antivirus/antimalware programs so I have disabled everything Vista recommends to leave on. When I click on the Security Center balloon in the taskbar, the option to change the Security Center alerts delivery method is not even available. Any way of bypassing this? I just installed Vista and am still trying to get a feel for it. Thanks.
This worked for me as i chose the third option.
Remember this aswell if Securitry center is disabled you will not beable to stop the ballon, turn it on THEN you will see the ooption there after that chose the third option “the not recommended one” and it will no longer appear.
This didn’t work for me either. I just bought a Toshiba P200 and I keep getting these damn pop-ups!!! I selected the thrid option (Don’t notify me… etc) but the stupid thing didn’t take. Dunno what to do now. I’d love to be able to disable the whole thing. I have Norton 360 installed (not that it could prevent a major attack) but prefer that to this stupid Windows security. I will not recommend Vista to anyone!
Using Vista Home and don’t get that option listed at all.
When I go to security system and selec third option it does not respond to the change of my command. It leaves number 1 checked. Any help will be appreciated. hagd
How easy was that. But what a lot of rubbish posted elsewhere about editing registry keys and downloading apps to suppress the annoyance. Many thanks
Since I havve SBC they have their own security built in and it is great but somehow this pestering window and sometimes porn pics pop up as well. What should I do to get rid of it? I do not recoginize it in the Add/Delete programs.
Awesome!!! You the man!!
If you aren’t seeing the option, go to Control Panel, hit the “Classic View” option, and then enter Security Center from there.
“Change the way security center alerts me” is not there in Security Center regardless if i hit ‘classic view’ or not. Is there an alternate way to disable security center alerts? I’m using Vista Home Premium on a laptop.
thanks a lot, that fken thing was getting annoying.
Well I actually like the security center, because it will let me know if something has stopped working unnoticed. But is it possible to turn off a specific warning? For instance I’ve disable UAC, and I get a warning because of that everytime I restart Windows Explorer, and that’s getting pretty annoying…
Joe …your solution is: go to start>run> type services.msc; find in the list Security Center service, double click it and if it is disabled put it on manula and start it. After this follow this tutorial and at the end disable the service (security center)
)
i hope this helps(it worked for me
What they all mean, is:
When you cannot see “Change the way Security Center alerts me”, you probably have shut down Security Center allready. You have to disable the notification service BEFORE you disable SC. So, go back to services and enable SC, then disable the notification through “Change the way Security Center alerts me”, and then re-disable SC.
thanks
You’re good. Thanks. Now it’s possible to stop annoying wscsvc, set it to manual mode and forget about it.
Still no solution to just disabling that particular warning, right?
so simple… i feel ludicrous now…
thanks!
I’ve followed the instructions but I still get the annoying popups every 5 minutes or so and when I click the little popup window it leads me to a website with anti-spyware software. Any other way to disable it?
@Marco
The popup that you are getting is most likely not from Windows, it’s most likely some type of spyware itself. You should run spybot or ad-aware and scan your system.
ok question..i am trying to run avg 8 on my vista system and i have an issue…i get the security notification and when i click it it tells me my avg is not on bt windows defender is…when i try to turn it on it wont allow me and i cant seem to figure ut how to turn off or remove my defender…I love my AVG and I use it withall our home computers…the lap top tho is the only 1 running vista…any ideas????????
I disabled the security alerts via your registry hack. Whereas it did get rid of the annoying message that urges me to turn on my user account settings, it introduced the problem that I was no longer able to copy my outlook.pst file. Since often I back up that file manually, I found it necessary to re=enable the security notification.
Thus, I would love to disable the “turn on user control setting” reminder but not affect anything else.
Hi
I appear to be having the same trouble as you guys in that I have changed the way it notifies me to not at all and still keep getting the popup asking me to purchase The SpyBot (which caused no end of problems in the first place and I had to uninstall it) I am using a vista home platform for the very first time and when I click on start I do not see an option to run, though I can see it on this machine (xp) can someone give a tip on whether it has to be activated please. I am working on a very new machine.
THANK YOU.
Mark
Run can be accessed with the hotkey “WINKEY + R” (WINKEY being windows symbol on your keyboard), so I personally always have that option disabled, because the hotkey is faster.
However, if you want to enable it again, you can customize the startmenu by rightclicking the start button and clicking properties. From there you just need to click “Customize” (make sure “Start Menu” is enabled though), and enable the check for “Run command”.
That should do the trick..
That’s handy to know.
Thanks very much Johny. I’ve moved on now and become quite the expert at trojan removal today. It turns out it was not windows at all but a rogue affiliate of a respectable company dumping malware on my computer and hten masquerading as windows to ask me to purchase scan and destroy programs to remove it.
Who ever he/she is they have seriously hurt me – never mind.
Thanks again for the tip, you’ve set me on the hotkey path now and I am thinking up loads of new uses for them
Cheers,
Mark
@Mark,
If you want to use the “run” dialog there is a shortcut you can use to actually make the dialog box pop up, that shortcut is “windowskey + r” that will bring up the box. However the vista start menu actually has an inbuilt run function and all you have to do is open the start menu and just start typing. It will automatically search for stuff although it won’t autocomplete command prompt functions so you’ll have to type those in full. I’m not sure about this last bit but i think if no results come up from typing you can also just hit enter and have vista do a complete search for it.
Thank you James
Have to say, it’s a very helpful forum you have here.
Best regards to you,
Mark
Thank you so much for this tip. Been trying to do this for ages with no success. And thanks to Piet for his advice.
@Piet,
your right. Cheers man.
Thanks! It helped me out.
I have read all the info on how to get rid of
security pop-ups and still don’t know what to do!
Hopefully, there will be a simple Step by Step message on
exactly what to do soon. Why did Microsoft Vista make things so complicated?
Remember what Piet wrote above…
You must remove the tray icon by following the tip at the top of this page BEFORE you disable the Security Center service.
If you disable the service before following the tip, you will get a tray warning that the security center is disabled.
Enable the service, follow the tip at the top of this page, and then disable the service again.
Change the way security center alerts me is GREYED OUT. I can’t download anything. Someone please help.
Thank God for this tip.
Vista treats you like an idiot!
Forget God…..thank you man….you saved my ass
Article did not have answer but comments did. I had to re-enable Security Center service, open Security Center, turn off alerts, then disable and turn off Security Center service. I feel bad for the guy who has the “change alerts” thing greyed out. Switch to Ubuntu 8.10 when you can, I plan on it.
I am grabbing some google image pictures from google saving them to the server to upload them to my site. Everytime I get back on my site the picture doesn’t pop up it asks me “This may have secure or non-secure items? Do you want to open anyway. Why does this happen does anyone know?
Jimmy Chainsaw: Thanks for your summary
(The “I had to re-enable Security Center service, open Security Center, turn off alerts, then disable and turn off Security Center service” part)
Finally I got rid of the “the security center service is turned off” messages
Everything was running fine then I go into my mail and it’s asking for name and passwrd, I already had it in my mail system to remember my log on info some how it changed by itself and I can’t get it to remember my info now….darn VISTA . anyone having the same problems? Help
I had to type services.msc in the search bar after hitting the start menu button. I had to find security center and found it was disabed. I then right clicked on it and chose properties and changed it to manual. It then let me start the security center when I right clicked on the balloon on the task bar. Then I had the choice for the Change the way I am notified and was able to pick the third one.
if this option doesn’t show on your pc, turn on the security center and then the “change the way SC alerts ” will show.
Thank you for this post, it was very helpful…
Thanks, that annoyed the hell out of me. It worked
RIPENSIS
you’re a genius! thanks! that did exactly what I wanted
Isn’t VISTA great?
THANK YOU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
ahh man u made ma life easy…thanks a very lotttttttttttttttttttttt
Yes: Microsoft is dedicated to making sure that our PCs are labor-expanding devices rather than labor-saving devices. With all of the useless, unrequested, undesirable, effeminate crap they load unto each new version of their crap Windows. The world finally collaborates to find hacks and fixes for all of Microsoft’s defects–Workarounds–and then to justify their continued existence, they go and release a new version to defeat everyone’s ingenious patches and fixes. So that you can have another animation.
Thank God Linux front-ends are fast matching & exceeding them. With Netbook sales, everyone will finally ditch Windows for good and move to a Labor-Saving machine (Linux)