wilby

Puzzling, at least.

My recollection is that WinXP has a control panel section called "Security ..." something or other, where you can tell the system which of Microsoft's several "Security" programs to use, or tell it that you want to use your own.

With early Microsoft stuff, you could just turn them off there, without the need to uninstall them, and they were prevented from interfering with installation and use of "other" security programs.

Perhaps something is still set there that's telling the update site that you're using something you don't have?

Another (remote?) possibility is that a selection to use the Microsoft Security Essentials was left turned on, and an update actually had already re-installed it, or part of it - between the time you deleted and cleaned and the time when you went back to get it. (???) (The reinstall might have omitted putting back new icons etc, which would make it less than obvious that it came back.)

I'm just guessing, of course, since I don't have a WinXP machine still running to look at.

John