Thursday, December 02, 2010

uninstalling AVG

Arlene had WinDefragmenter infecting her computer.

Did the usual. Boot to safe mode, install/update MBAM and run. It found a couple of things, but WinDefragmenter was still there.

Decided to do a system restore, which brought the system back before it was infected.

But then I noticed that AVG had errors. Anti-Rootkit driver not found, Identity Protection disabled. The fix button brought up another error message.

Tried uninstalling, but that brought up error code: 0xC0070643. Removal of product failed.

Tried running the install file with the repair option, but the errors will still there on AVG.

Tried cleaning the registry with ccleaner.

Then tried another AVG install (add/remove components: unchecked all)
Still got the error code with error message: general internal error, additional message: MSI engine: fialed to install the product, context: AVG product installation

Looked up the error code on google, and got to this computing.net page which led to AVG's remover tool.

just to see, went to safe mode
ran malwarebytes, found nothing.
tried AVG repair: error

then ran the AVG remover
It took a while but it finally finished

rebooted
AVG seemed gone, but Security Center reported it was still there!

OK, install AVG again
this time all the options were active incluing the Anti-Rootkit and Identity Protection.

The databases got updated and everything seemed OK now.

So finally got AVG running, but I still didn't want it.

reboot
uninstall
uninstall finished. Hey uninstall seemed to work this gime.

reboot and install MSE which is the program I really wanted to put on

got the error message: can't complete the Microsoft Security Essentials Setup Wizard. Another Windows Installer is already running on your computer
pleas close the other program or restart your computer and try running the Microsoft Security Essentials Wizard again. error code: 0x8004FF00

The googled fix was to run the Windows Installer Cleanup Utility, but "
While the Windows Installer Cleanup utility resolved some installation problems, it sometimes damaged other components installed on the computer. Because of this, the tool has been removed from the Microsoft Download Center."

OK, let's try run the AVG remover again.
And since M.S.E. suggest removing other anti-virus programs, I uninstalled SuperAntiSpyware

boot to safe mode, but MSE setup can't run from safe mode.

reboot. hey somehow it installed this time.
update worked too.

I should quit while I'm ahead.