because the button on the update tab is greyed out! i even reinstalled the s/w (free version) and still have the same issue. wasn't like this prior to a couple weeks/month ago and is not an issue on the comp at work (dif o/s tho, xp). what i have here is win7 home premium. i do have spybot on here and i do have teatimer turned on (although, i have that at work, too and can updates with no problems). hmm, just checked processes and teatimer is NOT running as it should be. using windows firewall and i just set it to allow mb - no change, so i think i need to restart to make it flow? i think i may have something on here, too, in fact, i'm pretty sure there is something on here - too many things aren't right. and i really, really, really want to run a scan with malwarebytes when i'm sure it updated. i did the reinstall the other day (25th) and ran a full scan and nothing was found. a scan before that did find something - i think that was just homepage re-director (and i've never been redirected after opening ie). currently running spybot - that updated with no problem. once that's done, i'll restart and see if that makes any difference with whether i can update mb or not. any feedback w/b appreciated!! this is a fairly new comp - don't have it completely set up as i'd like...thought i'd loaded hijackthis and it seems i didn't, so i have to go download that and run that, too...