It's been awhile since I've seen that question pops up but it goes along the lines of "Is my PC protected during boot?"
The newer to this system folk worry that the firewall and antivirus isn't running until they see the icons in the tray area.
In short those tray icons are not where the protection began. The actually antivirus and firewalls launched very early in the Windows start up process and those tray icons are simply the user interface to the antivirus/firewall system.
Hope this helps,
Bob
My ISP advises that I keep my broadband server switched on all the time. However, I usually turn it off when my PC is not in use, and only turn it on once my firewall and anti-virus software have loaded. If I my internet connection is on all the time, when I start up my PC, aren't I going to be at risk for a short time until these programs are protecting me?

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