My version of Geovision is 6.x. I tried the modifying the .ini file.To prevent it from changing I disabled permissions for writing to the file for all users on the computer. After starting Geovision it could not change the value and the watchdog did not start. All other features work just fine.
I hope this will help you.
I also find the watchdog very frustrating and useless. Restarting the program usually does not help getting image from the camera. The camera is the thing that have to be restarted by switching off and back on instead.
To see the advanced security tab on file properties panel, turn off "simple sharing" in explorer, Tools/Folder options, View.