I did find another thread on this topic, but it didn't fully fit my issue. I would appreciate any help in resolving this issue, which is as follows:
I have McAfee Virus Plus and I suddenly began to get notifications from the program that there was no virus protection. When I clicked "Fix Now" it took me to the McAfee page for an upgrade. I paid for the highest protection they had, downloaded it, and it still is notifying me that there's no virus protection. Windows Defender also gave me a warning that there was no virus protection. I ran the Windows Defender again and the red flag finally went away--but McAfee still insists there's no virus protection.
I've downloaded and have run all of the programs suggested in "Read Me Before Posting a Request for Assistance," but in doing so, "Hijack this" told me that "For some reason your system denied access to the host file." It then said I would need to edit the file myself. :( Not sure how to do that, but I followed the next instructions which said to click Start, run and type: notepad C:\windows\System32\drivers\etc\hosts.
I did this, and here's what came up:
# Copyright (c) 1993-2009 Microsoft Corp.
#
# This is a sample HOSTS file used by Microsoft TCP/IP for Windows.
#
# This file contains the mappings of IP addresses to host names. Each
# entry should be kept on an individual line. The IP address should
# be placed in the first column followed by the corresponding host name.
# The IP address and the host name should be separated by at least one
# space.
#
# Additionally, comments (such as these) may be inserted on individual
# lines or following the machine name denoted by a '#' symbol.
#
# For example:
#
# 102.54.94.97 rhino.acme.com # source server
# 38.25.63.10 x.acme.com # x client host
# localhost name resolution is handled within DNS itself.
# 127.0.0.1 localhost
# ::1 localhost
____________
I have not done anything with this file yet because I'm not sure what to do from here.
In a few minutes I will post all the results I had from following the initial "Read Me Before Posting" instructions--I just need to get them in order first.