Eset Personal Firewall Miniport Device Found

[adza]

Hi,

We have a computer that has Eset Smart Security installed on it. While trying to install VPN software, we kept getting a "New Hardware Found" box, for the "Eset Personal Firewall Miniport #x"

We've uninstalled ESS and just installed NOD32, but we're still having this message pop up.

We go through to the end, where it doesn't find a driver (and thus sits in the device driver section), but every time we reboot our computer, it finds a 'NEW' device of the same thing.

How do we get rid of this?

Thanks & Regards

Adam.

[GaryRW]

Select "Show hidden devices" in Device Manager:
-you will see Eset Miniport under Network Adapters
-also epfw, epfwtdi, EAMON, and easdrv are also Eset N-PNP drivers

[JasSolo]

{QUOTE-> Select "Show hidden devices" in Device Manager:
-you will see Eset Miniport under Network Adapters
-also epfw, epfwtdi, EAMON, and easdrv are also Eset N-PNP drivers <-QUOTE}

How do I uninstall "Eset personal firewall miniport #4" & "Eset personal firewall miniport #8" when I don't have ESS installed anymore? I have already tried to uninstall from "Device Manager" but it says "Failed to unistall the device. The device may be required to boot up the computer". I have off course also tried to install ESS again and then uninstall. No luck. Also been running CCleaner, jv16 powertools 2008, RegCure, still no luck. Any ideas anyone?


Cheers

[proactivelover]

what version of ESS you install?

[JasSolo]

{QUOTE-> what version of ESS you install? <-QUOTE}

Latest version. I've been having the problem since the beta versions of ESS. Doesen't do anything bad, but I would prefer to get it "clean"


Cheers

[proactivelover]

letest is v650 did you try it?
pls tell about yours OS and hardware

[JasSolo]

{QUOTE-> letest is v650 did you try it?
pls tell about yours OS and hardware <-QUOTE}

Yes i did run version 650.

MoBo: Asus P4C800-E Deluxe
CPU: P4 3,2
Audio: Onboard
Graphics: Gainward 7800GS 512Mb GS+
RAM: 4 X 512 Mb PC4400 GEIL
HDD: Maxtor 250 Gig (ATA 133) + Maxtor 80 Gig (SATA)
Optical: LiteOn SHW-16H5S (LightScribe)
OS: Windows XP - SP 2

Yes I know it's an "Old Lady" but it runs well :)


Cheers

[larryb52]

I run the registry cleaner fron Tuneup, that finds things the power tools misses & the 1st 30days are free, worth a try...

[JasSolo]

{QUOTE-> I run the registry cleaner fron Tuneup, that finds things the power tools misses & the 1st 30days are free, worth a try... <-QUOTE}

Sorry Larry, it didn't work. Guess I'm stuck with the 2 non excisting ESET miniport adapters....irritating :dry:


Cheers

[GaryRW]

Uninstall/delete thru Explorer. They're in C:\WINDOWS\system32\drivers. If CCleaner doesn't cleanup, try Registry First Aid, a very powerfull registry cleaner. If the OS still doesn't allow it, use safe mode and try again.

Of course make sure you are in Admin level user.

[JasSolo]

{QUOTE-> Uninstall/delete thru Explorer. They're in C:\WINDOWS\system32\drivers. If CCleaner doesn't cleanup, try Registry First Aid, a very powerfull registry cleaner. If the OS still doesn't allow it, use safe mode and try again.

Of course make sure you are in Admin level user. <-QUOTE}
Hi Gary,
Tried what you suggest, but no luck. Funny thing is, that I can't find the files in C:\WINDOWS\System32\Drivers. Are you sure they're in that folder? Do you know by any chance what the file names are?


Cheers

[dbrisendine]

File name is epfwndis.sys . Also look in c:\windows\inf directory for any oem#.inf files that list ESET as a source. Delete that oem#.inf file and the oem#.pnf file (ex. - if oem14.inf is opened [should open in Notepad] and you find a reference to ESET in it, then delete oem14.inf and oem.pnf files). Reboot your machine and the registry will no longer have a reference to the Miniport driver or devices.

[Marcos]

If ESET Personal firewall is listed in the connection properties, delete it and restart the computer.

[JasSolo]

I have tried all what you guys suggested, but nothing helps. I also ran SysInspector to see if I could find something. But nothing. It's VERY strange indeed, but as I stated earlier, the miniport devices isn't doing anything bad or slowing down my system in any way. The files you are referring to, is simply non exicsting in my system, when ESS is not installed. By the way I have just switched back to ESS. Missed it too much :)
The picture is to show you guys, that I'm not crazy. It's "taken" just now, that's why you see 3 miniport devices. In my other posts, it was "only" miniport #4 & miniport #8, who showed.

199502


Cheers

[kenw]

I had miniport driver in device manager also after I uninstalled ESS. Finally was able to remove it.

Did a search for Network Adapters in the registry.
Looked through all the results for "Provider Name" these were in the entries xxxx
0001 0002 etc. in each key. Look from the highest number down. Everything from the top is Microsoft drivers.
Deleted entries for ESET.

S***T should have written my steps down !!!!!

The entry now showed Unknown Device.
Compacted the registry.

Device manager is now cleaned of the miniport driver

[JasSolo]

{QUOTE-> I had miniport driver in device manager also after I uninstalled ESS. Finally was able to remove it.

Did a search for Network Adapters in the registry.
Looked through all the results for "Provider Name" these were in the entries xxxx
0001 0002 etc. in each key. Look from the highest number down. Everything from the top is Microsoft drivers.
Deleted entries for ESET.

S***T should have written my steps down !!!!!

The entry now showed Unknown Device.
Compacted the registry.

Device manager is now cleaned of the miniport driver <-QUOTE}
Searched the registry and found 2 strings, showing Eset as network adapters. I can't delete or modify them though, so I'm still stuck with the two ****'ers.


Cheers

[skibum1981]

I too have the same problem, and it's incredibly annoying. I have sent emails to ESET and while they replied, no one had any clue how to fix the problem. It's a bit infuriating.

There is not a single trace of ESET anything on my system except for what remains in Device Manager (see photo attached) and the following registry key:

HKLM\CurrentControlSet\Enum\Root\ESET_EPFWNDISMP

Whenever I try to delete this key, I get an error message saying "Error while deleting key."

I am the admin on my system, and I have even tried manually editing permissions on this entry (and subentries) in the registry to give full permissions to "Everyone." Whenever I do this, it gives me the error message "Unable to save permission changes ... access denied." Even if I do this by clicking on "advanced" and going about it the more difficult way, same error message.

I have had about 4 months of emails going back and forth with ESET on this. They eventually just stopped emailing me back. It seems to me they don't know how to fix it, and no one else does either. Glad to see I'm not the only one, though.

I will send them the link to this thread in the hope of them getting on top of the ball here....

[bodgy]

Have you tried booting into safe mode and deleting the drivers from there?

As for assigning temporary permissions in registry, they should be added to your current log on, not all users.

Colin

[skibum1981]

Tried both, neither works.

Save mode w/ no networking, etc., btw.

[shansmi]

have you actually tried the proper removal instuctions for ESS? I have never had these fail.....there is a post in thse forums somewhere on this (where I got it) and I think it was a sticky at one time....

*** this is a combo XP and Vista so you may not have everything....

after uninstall delete these folders
C OR D:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\ESET
C OR D:\Documents and Settings\USERNAME\Application Data\ESET
C OR D:\Program Files\ESET
AND some registry keys
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Eset
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Eset
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run\egui
THIS WILL REMOVE EAV AND ESS COMPLETLY

reboot at this point

Open Control Panel -> 'Network Connections', right-click ‘Local Area Connection’
and click ‘Properties’. Under ‘This connection uses the following items’ make
sure you don’t see ‘Eset Personal firewall’ listed. If so, select it and click
the ‘Uninstall’ button.


Also are you not planning on using a firewall? or just the default Windows Firewall? I would restore ESS and try to get the VPN working. If you install the ESS package and set the firewall to Interactive mode and let it learn everything and say allow/save...I would not be suprised if it worked with no further problems....What VPN client are you trying to use? Cisco or Nortel?

[skibum1981]

Thanks for the suggestion, but like I said, there's no trace of ESET anything on my system (at least in the usual places) except for the key that I cannot delete that I mentioned.

And of course, I checked all network connections/devices and ensured they didn't have ESET Firewall checked. In fact, it's not listed as an option on any of them.

The problem is somehow that ESET prevented its Firewall miniport from being removed in device manager (most likely for malicious software reasons). As such, I cannot remove it. There must be some added protection/key that ESET doesn't tell us about that prevents it from being removed.

I emailed them and said, "could you please just explain what prevents this device from being removed when the software is acting nominally?" They did not answer this question.

As for the firewall stuff, I do not need a software firewall; I have a hardware firewall that is more than sufficient. I just want that leftover ESET crap removed from my system. It's rather infuriating.

Oh and to Colin -- fyi, individual users are a subset of all users; thus, enabling access to everyone is sufficient.

[skibum1981]

One last thing: I of course tried the reinstall and then uninstall trick. Didn't work.

[bodgy]

{QUOTE-> Oh and to Colin -- fyi, individual users are a subset of all users; thus, enabling access to everyone is sufficient. <-QUOTE}

Oh OK, I've just had different things happen occasionally depending on which one I've chosen, but it might well have been a fluke.

There is a last resort, which has a few hoops to go through, and is time consuming - that is give yourself NTUSER authority, nothing is sacred or safe from inquisitive typing then - so dangerously you should then have access to everything.

I've got the notes somewhere on how to do this, but I think it can be giggled on the interent :)

Colin

[skibum1981]

tried using subinacl.exe to set permissions. i'm the owner of the keys, yet still can't delete them. does anyone know why this would happen!?!?

[skibum1981]

Finally fixed it. I made a script to run subinacl.exe and give full rights to administrators on my system. Unfortunately, subinacl.exe was getting hung up on the wow6432 node, and was non-responsive after getting stuck an infinite loop.

I am running Vista x64. wow6432 is a node is used for 32-bit registry entries. Unfortunately, a lot of registry editing programs (including Microsoft's own subinacl.exe) enter this node, which seems to reference itself, and thus those programs run into an infinite loop. Thus, batch file I made to reset permissions on all registry keys hung/closed before it got to the correct key.

Since you needn't actually reset all the permissions (but I wanted to since the concept of an administrator not being able to change/delete keys is just retarded), here are the instructions on how to fix the problem:

1) Go to the following site, download subinacl.msi, and run the msi installer:
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=E8BA3E56-D8FE-4A91-93CF-ED6985E3927B&displaylang=en
2) Open a command prompt.
3) Enter the following commands (delete the " (x86)" if you have Vista 32-bit):
cd "C:\Program Files (x86)\Windows Resource Kits\Tools"
subinacl /subkeyreg \HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Enum\Root\ESET_EPFWNDISMP /grant=administrators=f
4) Run regedit, find the key listed in (3), and delete it
5) Open device manager, and you will now be able to uninstall the ESET firewall entries...