Mike - a user posted a specific fix for this just yesterday:
I'll post his message below, in full. Note that he had several machines
available and was able to copy the corrupted file from one installation to
another. In your case, I would simply try deleting the file that he
names---first stop Microsoft Antispyware by right-clicking the system tray
icon and selecting shut down Microsoft Antispyware. Then delete the
GCUserData.gcd file, then restart Microsoft Antispyware from the start menu.
You will probably get the wizard again on that startup, but I'm hoping that
the settings will stick from that time forward.
Here it is, from Larry Russell:
------------------------------------------
A variety of symptoms existed:
1. Initial set-up screen opened each time MSAS started, despite fact that
MSAS had been completely set up
2. MSAS daily scan was not remembered and Scan Schedule returned to
"InActive"
3. MSAS update was not remembered and UpdateSchedule returned to "InActive"
We had several machines running MSAS so we picked one that worked, updated
several settings, and then sorted the MSAS program directory by date to find
if any file had recently changed. On the machines where MSAS worked and
settings were changed, gsUserData.GCD would be updated to the current date
and time (thus signifying it had changed to accept the new user settings).
On the machine were MSAS did not work (see above symptoms), the
gcUserData.GCD file had an old date and was not being updated for user
settings.
Solution that worked?
We deleted the gcUserData.GCD file on the machine that did not work and then
ported that same file (copy and paste) from a machine that did work.
Immediately MSAS stopped the symptoms noted above and, further, began
accepting and remembering all new settings.
We had previously uninstalled and reinstalled MSAS and updated to a more
recent version. Neither of these fixed the above symptoms.
See also my post of January 4th with additional symptoms and also the exact
MSAS error log entries