FEP 2010 – Definition Updates Fail

Hi There,

I’ve come across an issue with a few different customers whereby certain machines stop receiving virus definition updates and when you attempt to do this manually you get the following error;

‘Virus and Spyware definition updates failed…’

In both of these instances it seems the clients have received an update that is either faulty, or has not installed correctly thus all future updates fail to install. Therefore your automated installation method (either via SCCM, WSUS or Microsoft Update) fails, and when you attempt to perform the update manually (via the Update button in the FEP console) also fails.

To fix this you can run the following command;

  • %PROGRAM FILES%Microsoft Security ClientAntimalwareMPCMDRun.exe -RemoveDefinitions -force

This clears the definition cache, and will re-initialse it. This has resolved the issue a number of times for me 🙂

Thanks,
SteveH

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