Bug: Installer Says Avast & F-Secure Installed

[war59312]

Hello,

As you can see in the attachment, the installer believes that Avast and F-Secure are installed.

In fact, neither product is installed and never have been.

Glad you allowed me to continue, as this would have been a show stopper.

I'm running Windows XP Pro. SP3 x86.

Take Care,

Will

[funkydude]

It's beta software, how exactly is it a showstopper? That's like saying "I'm going to test your beta software and if there is anything wrong with it I will never use your software again". Doesn't quite sound sensible to me.

[nonoise]

hes right, the show must go on. always. freddie said so.

[Clweb]

Maybe be it was installed for a short time. I had the problem with Eset saying Avast was installed, and no it was not, but tgere were residues of Avast in the registry.
But when you are really sure you may ignore the message. Most AV do such tests.

[doktornotor]

This is not something that comes out of the blue, there's real stuff detected in your registry etc. that triggers this. You should download something like CCleaner and give your registry a check. Uninstallers' quality generally is suboptimal with AV vendors.

[Marcos]

There must be some leftovers from a previous installation (even unsuccessful) in the registry.

Try running the msi file with the parameter "IGNORE_CONFLICTS=1", e.g.:
ess_nt32_ENU.msi IGNORE_CONFLICTS=1

[war59312]

Originally Posted by funkydude

It's beta software, how exactly is it a showstopper? That's like saying "I'm going to test your beta software and if there is anything wrong with it I will never use your software again". Doesn't quite sound sensible to me.

lol

What I meant is, if that option did not exist (or the cmd line options) I could not have even installed NOD32 which would have been a show stopper for sure. Was not implying it was/is.. Please re-read my original post, and notice I say it could have been..

Originally Posted by Marcos

There must be some leftovers from a previous installation (even unsuccessful) in the registry.

Try running the msi file with the parameter "IGNORE_CONFLICTS=1", e.g.:
ess_nt32_ENU.msi IGNORE_CONFLICTS=1

The installer allowed me to bypass warning so caommand line options not needed, nice to see you can do that though..

Never used nor tried to use either product.

Yet something did add:

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\ALWIL Software]

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\ALWIL Software\Avast]

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\ALWIL Software\Avast\4.0]
"UpdateReady"=dword:00000001

But that's it, strange. Deleted key and installer no longer thinks avast is installed. Again never installed product, looks like something else uses the key for updates. Odd!

Anyhow, perhaps installer could be smarter and look for uninstall entry for avast and all others at HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall and then start-up keys and also check to see if its driver if installed is allowed to run, as it not set to start of 4.

So then only if driver is installed and allowed to run or is running (even better) and uninstall reg entry is there than complain that avast and any other product for that matter is installed. That way you dont get these false positives.

I forgot that I did run ftp://ftp.f-secure.com/anti-virus/tools/fsbl.exe once upon a time.

Seems old versions created the [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet003\Services\Eventlog\System\F-Secure Gatekeeper] registry entry. Installer than thinks f-secure is installed even though the full f-secure product installer or anything else from f-secure was never ran on the system. Again, not a good way to check if F-Secure is in fact installed.

Anyhow, after removing both registry keys, installer no longer complains..

So what I recommend to the developers is to use a smarter method of checking if other security software is installed. Basically by verifying installer information for said programs and verifying that their driver is installed and set to run (as in not disabled by setting its start option to 4, which implies a user or something disabled the product manually and thus should not cause any problems when installing NOD32).

Doing something like that would at least eliminate this false positive and perhaps others? And it is a false positive, because neither product was truly installed (never had been) and posted no threat to the install process of NOD32 nor to its usability.

[THE_BAD_BOY]

same issue here .. bot i never use F-secure before ..

[mniasfreemag]

this issue comes up if you had previously used either Fsecure or avast online scanner.

[PaulB2005]

What I meant is, if that option did not exist (or the cmd line options) I could not have even installed NOD32 which would have been a show stopper for sure.

Semantics, I'm sure, but a "Show Stopper" in the sense of software testing is a bug that is so bad, it should not be released at all. Not a bug that affects a small % of users due to some arbitrary problem.

In this case if, as stated above, the detection is a FP from the installation from online scanners, then the problem is NOT a "Show Stopper" even if the facility to ignore the warning can't be over-ridden, because it only affects a small % of users, doesn't produce a massive reaction (such as a BSOD or some other instability) and can be fixed without changing the software being tested (i.e. by removing the online scanners or their left over registry entries / files)