Keith Nuttle wrote:

While I have not had this problem in a month or so, I started the
computer this afternoon and find it is back.

I have a Toshiba Satelite with Windows 8.1 4gb ram i-3CPU. 500gb disk

This afternoon when I cam home and turned the computer on both
Thunderbird 31.5.0 and Firefox 36.0.1 would not come up with out the
warning they had to be reset. Without doing any thing to any thing, I
closed the warning windows.

How is the Automatic Updates (Windows Updates) service configured? Do
you allow it to automatically download and automatically install
updates? If so, a reboot may be required (even if not stated) to
complete installation of all updates.

Does "turned the computer on" mean you did a cold boot or you resumed
from standby or hibernate power modes? A cold boot is required to allow
updates to install during Windows startup.

Did you try starting Thunderbird and Firefox in their safe modes to
eliminate them also loading any add-ons that you installed for them?

Based on previous experience, I checked to see if there was a Windows
8.1 update. The Windows Malicioius Software remove tool wanted to be
updated.

That is what got proffered to you *after* the above mentioned failure to
load Mozilla programs. You will need to look at the history of updates
to see what got installed *before* the problem arose.

In Windows 7 (might be the same in Windows 8), run:

C:\Windows\System32\control.exe /name Microsoft.WindowsUpdate

to get into the Windows Updates wizard. In the left pane, click on
"View update history". If not sorted (descending) by date, click on the
Date column header. That might clue you in as to what updates got
applied just before the Mozilla load problem started.

Have you looked in Event Viewer to check for errors at the time you trid
to load the Mozilla programs?

WITHOUT DOING ANYTHING TO THE MOZILLA PRODUCTS, I down loaded the
Malicious Software Update, and allowed it to install.

That does not "install". You download, it runs just once, and only
shows you a dialog after its scan if it finds nothing untoward. The
mrt.exe file remains on your computer but it is not used again. Next
month you get a new version with an updated malware catalog.

I rebooted the computer. I then went on to do what I had turned the
computer to do with Mozilla Firefox and Thunderbird.

Okay, whatever that 2nd sentence was supposed to mean. My guess is that
the Mozilla products load okay after a cold reboot.

Both open normally with out changing any thing in the program.

Does that eliminate the problem completely or only for that Windows
session?

This has been a common occurance for the past year. I don't know if the
Malicious Software Removal Tool was involved with every update but this
morning it was the only program updated.

As I said this has been going on for many months through several
revision of the Mozilla products.

Why does Windows think it necessary to interfer with other product, just
because they have an update to install?

MSRT doesn't install. It runs. It runs just once to do a scan for
malware. Each month a new version of MSRT is available via the WU site
(because obviously the catalog of malware will change during that time).
So the problem may have been going on for months because each month
there is a new version of MSRT to run. There is nothing shown to you
after MSRT completes its scan?

More info at:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malicio...e_Removal_Tool
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/890830/

The wikipedia article mentions some software that MSRT may delete or
interfere. It may also make unannounced changes to settings it
considers malicious. Do you have pristine installs of Thunderbird and
Firefox or have you added a bunch of add-ons to them?

What anti-malware do you have running resident?

Other than the MSRT that runs (not installs), do you usually reboot
after applying updates from the WU site? Although you may not be
informed to reboot after some updates, I've found some will interfere
with the OS or apps until a reboot is done. Some updates also require a
reboot because they have to change files that are inuse or locked, so
those have to get replaced early in the Windows startup. So perhaps you
had updates applied but had not done a reboot so they were still pending
a reboot to complete them. You might've only seen the MSRT update for
today but past updates were still waiting for a reboot to complete their
installation. I leave my computer running 24x7 but always reboot after
a Windows update whether they mention it or not.