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As of roughly 4:10 (eastern time zone), I had encountered this annoying virus in the form of Win 7 Defender. If you encounter it, do not trust it. I used the free version of Malwarebytes to remove it, though there are other ways to remove it such as the two ways stated in: http://www.pcrisk.com/removal-guides/6956-remove-win-7-defender (also tells you information about the virus).

I just installed some updates for my Windows laptop, but haven't seen any pop-ups related to a Defender program. Still, could they be somehow related? Otherwise, could this apparently-turned-off program I just found have something to do with it?:

I do no think it is related. One, its probably a pre-installed program in your computer (even I have that file). Two, if that was related, you'll will most certainly have popup whenever you get onto something like Google Chrome. It will prevent you from getting onto that specific file/program unless you open up the file/program as an admistrator . Heck, when I was turning on my computer while the computer still had the virus, it popped up right before the log-in screen (I had to restart my computer and log in via safe mode in order to stop the popup)

"Windows Defender" and "Win 7 Defender" are two different things. The "Windows Defender" in Control Panel in Windows, is Microsoft's default anti-virus program, which is installed along with Windows, and when you update service packs, and so forth, it usually gets re-installed and reactivated if you have manually turned it off at any stage.

"Win 7 Defender" though, is a fake program by people pretending to be selling an 'upgraded' version of Microsoft's antivirus program, so if it is called "Win 7 Defender", then it is a fake virus program.

Yeah, some people caught it at work - two computers down because somebody opened mail attachment or something stupid like that. It took whole day for our IT guys to get it working...

Also got in on my laptop before, but a format seems to take care of it.

lol i encountered it but did not install it last night while surfing the internet. 

Ooh, that makes sense. I'll watch out and try to remember to warn others.