Trend Internet Security blocks PCTV Deluxe remoterm.exe remote control

[SteveW]

I noticed today that the remote control for my Pinnacle PCTV Deluxe TV tuner wasn't working, and then saw that its icon was no longer in the Windows XP system tray.

After spending 4 hours attempting to troubleshoot and uninstalling and reinstalling all the PCTV Vision software and its drivers, I discovered that the problem wasn't with PCTV at all.

Evidently, one of the recent updates of Trend Micro Internet Security has caused the non-malicious PCTV remoterm.exe program to be prevented from loading at startup as it is supposed to do.

When Trend thinks that a program you've launched manually (while you're logged into your computer) is malicious or suspicious, it can be set to ask you whether to block it or allow it, and the program is added to Trend's suspicious software exception list along with your desired Allow or Block setting.

But if Trend blocks a startup program, it has no way to ask you what to do. Even if it blocks the program, it is not added to either category of the exception list, and Trend doesn't record its action in any log file, so there's no way to find out what it did.

The solution was to go to Trend's Virus & Spyware Controls > Prevent Unauthorized Changes > Exception List > Add Program. Then browse to the remoterm.exe program and add it to the exception list as "Trust".

There was no way to find out that Trend was the cause of this program being blocked. It was just a hunch.