warning about "Bitdefender" upon reboot, but it's not even installed!!

Every time I reboot my machine, I get some message about a Bitdefender log file in C:windows emp. First of all, I don't recall ever installing Bitdefender, and two, I can't find any mention of it in any file, app, or setting.

Should I be worried about this? Thanks!

It could be something that tried to install without your knowledge & didn't succeed.

Wouldn't hurt to run a scan with Malwarebytes (The free version will work fine) & AdwCleaner.

After installing malwarebytes, uncheck the box marked "Start free 14 day premium trial" & then do a full system scan & see what it finds.

Okay thanks! I did catch a nasty virus just after installing Windows 10 (I used system restore and it fixed it). Could there still be some remnants left over? Anyway, I'll check out those two programs! I also have ESET Smart Security, Spybot Home AS/AV, and SuperAntiSpyware Pro (I'm not paranoid lol).

Paranoia is just another level of security . And not one AV catches everything 100%. Malwarebytes plays well with other AV's & a regular scan is another way to ensure all stays well on the OS.

I ran both as you suggested. Malwarebytes found about 200 items, but the other found nothing. When I rebooted after the Malwarebyte scan, I still saw the message, but the system rebooted anyway. Very strange!!

Did you choose to remove items. You select all click remove it then asks you for a reboot

Yes, that's what I did. Bitdefender isn't malware apparently, but a legit AV which may be why it's not detecting it. But I simply can't find it anywhere, and I've run extensive file/setting searches....

The process may be running or Win search isn't seeing it. You can d/l & run RKill, then run any malware scanners.

RKill Download

As RKill only terminates a program's running process, and does not delete any files,after running it you should not reboot your computer as any malware processes that are configured to start automatically will just be started again. Instead, after running RKill you should immediately scan your computer using some sort of anti-malware or anti-virus program so that the infections can be properly removed.

Doing a search with Windows search will not always show everything. A good (and Free) utility is Agent Ransack, an advanced search program. This will dig into the system & show you things a Windows search cannot normally find.

But won't it NOT be detected if it's just a normal program? I Googled Bitdefender and it's just an AV. The question is, why is it on my PC. It doesn't seem to be doing any harm and I've now run at least 5 different malware/spyware/AV scanners and a rootkit scanner and nothing is showing up except the usual cookies and a few registry entries. So I may just leave it alone....

Well, it is true, Bitdefender is a legit program. How it got into your OS is the mystery part if you never installed it. It could have been bundled with a program you d/l ed depending on if it came from the source or a host d/l site.