"The case of my mom's broken Microsoft Security Essentials installation"

[SteveRiley]

You guys will enjoy this. Mark Russinovich, no less, chronicles the hours he spent cleaning up a PC loaded with crapware and hindered by information-free error codes.

http://blogs.technet.com/b/markrussi...5/3473797.aspx

Also, note the link in his article to crapware-free Signature PCs. I had not known of this program. For someone of Mark's stature to begin publicly trashing Microsoft OEMs -- well, I interpret that as a sign of progress

[GreyGeek]

Re: "The case of my mom's broken Microsoft Security Essentials installation"

Very interesting read! 8)
Very talented fellow. Well beyond the average MSCE.

[woodsmoke]

Re: "The case of my mom's broken Microsoft Security Essentials installation"

LOL

Hilarious and pitiful at the same time.

The very first time I got onto the high speed internet through a cable hookup a grey box popped immediately offering to sell me a "male enhancement" product.

I immediatly shut down and called the cable company and blew up about it because I had gone NOwhere I had merely opened IE.

The guy laughed and said...."Oh that is Microsoft's app, they are trying to see how many people will click it, I guess in terms of their spyware app they are working on. It does nothing. BTW, we, here use MYIE2 which is the old Internet Explorer and we don't get that stuff."

And then told me where to download it.

That was the first PROOF that I had that MS is a predatory company and that it's products, while revolutionary at the time, are now just cr@#.

But, it did a good thing actually. I ended up here!

[SteveRiley]

Re: "The case of my mom's broken Microsoft Security Essentials installation"

Very interesting read! 8)
Very talented fellow. Well beyond the average MSCE.

Oh yeah...he's a legend. Russinovich is the brains behind Winternals, which Microsoft acquired several years ago. He's their top distinguished engineer. No one knows the guts of Windows like he does. Mark's Sysinternals utility suite far exceeds anything the OS itself provides, and he's a prodigious author. He's the one who discovered the Sony rootkit, remember that?

a grey box popped immediately offering to sell me a "male enhancement" product... "Oh that is Microsoft's app, they are trying to see how many people will click it, I guess in terms of their spyware app they are working on."

Uh, what?

And then told me where to download it.

Would love to see that link if you still have it.

[GreyGeek]

Re: "The case of my mom's broken Microsoft Security Essentials installation"

....
offering to sell me a "male enhancement" product.
....

Did ya need it? g,r,d.......

[de_koraco]

Re: "The case of my mom's broken Microsoft Security Essentials installation"

Nice trace work, but I'm not sure he wouldn't have had sucess if he had just rebooted and started the installer a few times over. Windows has those Matrix moments from time to time.

[SteveRiley]

Re: "The case of my mom's broken Microsoft Security Essentials installation"

A flurry of reboots wouldn't have fixed the error Mark uncovered. The kind of registry entry that borked the MSE installer is rather like a disease that affects your social life -- it won't go away on its own

Also...when something stumps Russinovich, that's a sign there's some truly horrible brokenness going on.

[woodsmoke]

Re: "The case of my mom's broken Microsoft Security Essentials installation"

GG......ummmmm no!

SR your wish is my command!

http://www.myie2.com/

woodsmoke

[ardvark71]

Re: "The case of my mom's broken Microsoft Security Essentials installation"

Hi all...

Excellent article. Thank you, Steve, for posting it!

No doubt registry work can be real tricky. A few years ago, I had to uninstall Norton AV from a system that had Windows ME and for some reason it didn't uninstall cleanly. The SymNRT tool was able to take out the running processes, like the real time shield but was unable to delete most of the folders, files and registry entries, leaving the bulk of the program in place. Of course, No other AV would install with all of that in place so I had to manually go through and delete the scores of Norton registry entries left behind until I was confident that, at least, the vast majority had been rooted out. That was a fun job that, if I remember correctly, took me about an hour or two by itself!

I finally was able to get another AV installed, though.

Regards...

[SteveRiley]

Re: "The case of my mom's broken Microsoft Security Essentials installation"

SR your wish is my command!

Thanks! Actually, though, I was asking about something different. When you wrote "where to download it," I thought you were referring to a "Microsoft app" that is "spyware" attempting to sell a "male enhancement product." That's what I was curious about...because, TBH, that's really surprising! I'm quite certain that, at least during my time there, no such product was in our catalog

[bsniadajewski]

Re: "The case of my mom's broken Microsoft Security Essentials installation"

That's where something like CCleaner definitely would have come in handy, Ardvark. It would have removed all those registry entries (dunno about the files and folders) and saved you a couple hours.

[ardvark71]

Re: "The case of my mom's broken Microsoft Security Essentials installation"

That's where something like CCleaner definitely would have come in handy, Ardvark. It would have removed all those registry entries (dunno about the files and folders) and saved you a couple hours.

Hi....

This was back in 2006 or 2007 and I don't recall CCleaner being available at that time.

Regards...

[GreyGeek]

Re: "The case of my mom's broken Microsoft Security Essentials installation"

Version 1.0.23 was availble before Nov, 2001: http://nanodownloads.com/CCleaner/1/1-7.html

I always thought it was a Cookie Cleaner. I never read or heard that CCleaner was an abbreviation for "CrapCleaner" until this thread.

[ardvark71]

Re: "The case of my mom's broken Microsoft Security Essentials installation"

Version 1.0.23 was availble before Nov, 2001: http://nanodownloads.com/CCleaner/1/1-7.html

Thanks GG, I had just never heard of it until around two or three years later.

EDIT: "Easytech Software Solutions" the publisher? It looks like Piriform (possibly) either merged or bought them out around 2002 or 2003.

Regards...