Using the default settings, the client-side interface does not provide much in the way of alerts. I have been dealing with this product for several years, and it has plenty of ways to silently break all sorts of functionality. For security reasons, HIPS is a necessary evil in many environments. Most recently we found HIPS on our VDI master image and had to remove it, which was not as simple as uninstalling a regular application.
Here is a useful KB for uninstalling HIPS in a McAfee-supported way:
https://kc.mcafee.com/corporate/index?page=content&id=KB58629
