Can't activate Antivirus

Every once in a while, you are faced with a vexing problem where you try all sorts of solutions only to find that the most effective was so fiendishly simple, you wonder why you didn't even try it first.

I have a client who bought a McAfee Antivirus Plus product and we were tasked with installing and updating it into his laptop. Installing is a snap and the laptop more than meets the system requirements of the Antivirus. As with many retail software these days, you have to register and activate the Antivirus in order for it to work beyond the grace period given to you. This is where the problem came in.

For some reason, when it comes time to activate the Antivirus, it is just stuck there continually attempting to connect to McAfee's servers. There is no problem with the internet connection as we could browse other websites and even download updates from Microsoft. The next thing our engineer did was to check if the Windows Firewall is blocking the Antivirus. Well, Windows Firewall is deactivated and replaced by McAfee's firewall service which now doesn't make sense why it would block its own feature.

At the suggestion of another engineer, we checked the date, time and regional settings of the laptop's clock, all of which are correct set. We even uninstalled the Antivirus and re-installed it. No such luck. Even temporarily turning off McAfee's firewall didn't do the trick. Now, it's possible to think that another software in the system is conflicting with the Antivirus but, really now, who wants to mess around uninstalling programs you might not be able to install back?

The laptop is connected to the internet via a wireless router. A thought came to mind that we could just directly connect the unit via an Ethernet cable. That means having to physically prepare and go through that hassle and still might not mean it will work. Out of the blue, I decided to check the Network and Sharing Center of the laptop's Windows 7 operating system. Then we clicked on Change Adapter Settings which leads us to Network Connections. Right click on the Wireless Network Adapter and choose properties. Then, in the selections, choose Internet Protocol Version 4 (TCP/IP v4) to check its properties.

As expected, the IP address and DNS settings are all set to automatic. We then temporarily assign the laptop with an IP address then configure the gateway and set the DNS with the router's IP. After setting the changes, we try to activate the Antivirus once more.

Lo and behold! The Antivirus finally connected to McAfee's servers, then we entered the product key and the client's e-mail address. The activation went without any more hitch.

This recalls our attempts at other times of joining workstations to domains where it is sometimes hard to join them together unless we assign IP addresses to the workstations first. It shouldn't have to be that way but sometimes it just is.