I have posted this on the hifi forum, but thought it might get more exposure here. If I picked the wrong AVSIM forum I apologize, but subject wise I could not find anywhere it specifically fit. Being that the problem appeared first for me in FSX, I have included it here.

For the past 24 hours when I try to startup Active Sky Evolution, I get the following error when I click on either FSX or FS9 in the "Please select initial FS Version" window of ASE.

"ASE has stopped working correctly. Windows will close the program and notify you if a solution is available."

"Debug" and "Close Program" options are displayed. Nothing happens with "Debug" and "close program" closes the ASE window.

I was all set to delete and reinstall ASE, but for good measure, I tried FSX and FS9 "Real World Weather". I get the following message in either:

"An error occurred while downloading real world weather. Please check your internet connection." Internet is working fine, and my connection is what I am using to contact you.

In a search I found numerous posts relative to this issue in past years which seemed to clear up shortly and were attributed to servers being down. I see no current posts, but it made me wonder if common servers or the like for weather data are down now before I start changing things.

I have tried restarting the computer, FSX, FS9, and ASE. I have also tried disabling my firewall and antivirus protection.

Up until about 24 hours ago, ASE worked flawlessly for years and I love it. The FSX and FS9 weather did too, although I rarely peeked at them as obviously being far inferior to Active Sky. I have made no additions, deletions, or changes. I am using Windows 7.

So far I have seen no other complaints on HIFI's or any other forums.

Any information or comments on this issue?

Thank you for your attention.

RTH

Found the problem and solution.

On a wild idea, I looked into restoring previous dates. I found that on 7/18 3:41:20, a restore point had occurred a few hours before I experience the problem in question.

I restored to an earlier time choosing that update.

weather loading was restored and the problem is no more.

I then looked at my update history in all programs/windows update, and found an update dated 7/18/2021 3:41 AM. which I assume confirms the source of the problem. the update was "Security Intellegence update for windows Defender Antivirus K9155977 Version 1.343,1200.0. (I don't even use this, but ESET Internet Security for my firewall and antivirus protection, which I highly recommend).

I hope this helps someone else.

Now a bit of trivia which may or not be credible, but I think is well worth consideration by Windows 7 users.

A friend recently told me that the windows updates we still get for Windows 7 without Microsoft support do not necessarily come from Microsoft, but from third party contributors or elsewhere and could be suspect.

As a result of this experience, I have changed my options from receiving and updating updates automatically or being downloaded and letting me choose when to update to letting me choose when to download and update. Possibly a better choice may be to deny totally. I have discovered that even when I choose to let me download, but choose when to install the updates, that it still installs the updates if the computer is shut down and restarted.

Respectfully:

RTH