Today both the GOTD & the GOTD game installed fine after letting Kaspersky update -- man that thing is slow updating in my VM. Double checked & the Kaspersky service will not shut off once it's started in Windows proper -- I had till now assumed that was the case, but took the opportunity to check it.
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Kaspersky Internet Security ver 14.0.0.4651 - fully up to date
To clarify all worked well untill about 3 months ago
One thing you might want to do [it's up to you of course] is download the later version of Internet Security, uninstall what you've got, then use their removal tool to get rid of traces. Then install & activate the newer version. From what I can tell reading their docs on-line your subscription covers Internet Security regardless the version, but if you wanted you could double check with Kaspersky support.
If it cures the problem with GOTD offers, cool, but regardless a newer version is a newer version & may do its job better. Link to removal tool http://support.kaspersky.com/common/service.aspx?el=1464
As far as Kaspersky IS v. 14 having any role in problems with GOTD, an update to Kaspersky or some other app or Windows itself 3 months ago might have started the problem. A fresh install of a current download would not go through the same update process, which might have added something that was never removed later. At any rate, if you've got to start somewhere, and there's a newer version available, why not start there?
One of the points Chris makes is that it might be an interaction between Kaspersky & something else installed, and not Kaspersky software itself. They do have a list of incompatible software at their site, but I doubt that could include everything because they could not have tried everything. Another diagnostic test you could perform might be to backup your system, remove Kaspersky using their tool, back it up a 2nd time, & install the newer version of Internet Security & test. If it doesn't work, restore that 2nd backup, add AVG & test. Why AVG? It's free, I run it in a XP VM where I test GOTDs and it's never caused a problem, & you don't want to try running a GOTD without security software also running. http://dailysoftwaredeal.com/seller/avg-internet-security-2015-4-year-licesne/ -- http://dailysoftwaredeal.com/seller/avg-antivirus-pro-2015-1-year/
One of the giveaway sites is offering Paragon Backup today if you don't have a disk/partition image backup program that you use already. It's the same version that was on GOTD last spring.
If you still have problems with GOTD offers with the newer version of Internet Security, & you don't with AVG, that would point to some incompatibility between something installed on your system & Kaspersky software. If you have a problem with AVG installed too, then security software is probably not your problem.
Again, I'm talking about security software simply because it's something you might update anyway. There are other things to try... Since you have a time frame of when problems started, you could look for software &/or updates installed at about that same time.
A variation of what Chris proposed, you might look at your Windows Update history for the date corresponding to when your problems started. You could try uninstalling those updates one by one or all of them. You could also follow the links associated with individual updates & see if the new files & their version numbers matched with what you have installed, though that won't tell you if the update itself caused an incompatibility.
If you were to post about a problem in the Microsoft support forums the 1st thing they'd likely tell you is to run msconfig to turn off any non-critical services &/or processes. If that didn't help someone would probably suggest re-installing Windows.
Something I've done in the past, though it's a bit of a PITA, is to go through & rename folders, mainly those in Program Files [or Program Files (x86)]. I'd do it after booting into another version of Windows, but Safe Mode should work -- if you rename the folder while Windows is running normally sometimes it won't let you, & other times it might adjust the paths automatically in the registry. The idea is to break the paths so whatever software cannot start with Windows, nor have any effect once it's running. You might do a few, or a dozen or more at a time, then narrow it down if you get results.
The last thing I can think of at the moment is to run other brands of Anti-Virus scans. Sometimes one brand will miss something, but more importantly, if mal-ware has altered your Kaspersky install, running a Kaspersky scan might not pick it up. Some companies offer a free ISO download you can burn to disc & boot from -- with some you have to download the software & run it, e.g. Emsisoft Emergency Kit. With the 2nd type you might want to run it in Safe Mode or if you remove Kaspersky to update, before you install the new version.
