Installation problem/broken registry because of Eset Smart Security running with TPM

Hey there,
I'd really like to use Eset Smart Security, but when I first tried installing it I had a similar problem as described in this thread: https://www.wilderssecurity.com/showthread.php?t=190881

Not only am I simply shocked that Eset did not adress this issue so far and provided absolutely *no* warning on install (I mean hey, the installation of the software basically breaks your computer!), for some reason now my registry got broken and it is now impossible to reinstall Eset Smart Security.

Here's what I did: my computer wouldn't start up anymore after installing Eset Smart Security and rebooting, it always hung at the part where it was accessing the TPM chip. So I did the logical thing and used system restore to get the system state from before the installation back. Windows started up normally then.

However, for some reason Eset Smart Security was still showing up as installed (although it didn't work anymore), so I uninstalled it and restarted my computer to make a new attempt on installing it. However from this point on it has been completely impossible to reinstall the program. The installation goes all smooth till the very end where it says something about installing drivers, where it suddenly rolls back everything and cancels the installation.

Here's what I tried. First I removed any remaining Eset directories/files from my hard disk. Afterwards I went into the device manager to remove any remaining eset drivers there, however I did not find any here (devmgr_show_nonpresent_devices was set to 1, so yes I saw absolutely *any* devices you can ever see in the device manager). Then I went through the whole registry and deleted any reference of "eset". I noticed here that two registry keys can not under any circumstances be deleted, not even from Safe Mode: HKLM\System\ControlSet001\Enum\Root\ESET_EPFWNDISMP and HKLM\System\ControlSet001\Enum\Root\LEGACY_EKRN.

Any help on deleting those keys, please? Windows just shows an error message saying the keys could not be deleted, every single time that I try deleting them. From the keys that are inside, they contain a Miniport driver for the Eset firewall, so I'm pretty sure that my problem with reinstalling the software originates from here.

I find it very sad that the Eset software is unable to even properly remove itself from my system. I'd still find it more sad to not being able to use it at all, so any advnice would be greatly appreciated.

 

To delete those keys:

right click on the key and select permissions
select group 'Everyone' and put a check mark in Allow > Full Control
click apply then OK​

You should now be able to delete them.

 

Never delete references to NDIS drivers or you will lose network connectivity! References to NDIS drivers are very sensitive to changes and they are tighly binded to each other. It's something like LSP layers in Winsock. If you remove an LSP provider, you need to rebuild the LSP chain in order to gain connectivity. Try using MS CleanUp or remove the NDIS driver in your network setup.

 

Re: Installation problem/broken registry because of Eset Smart Security running with

MS CleanUp can only do something about software that is currently installed on the computer and shows up under "Software". Which is not the case for me, as I uninstalled the program already.

I will create a syste restore point, delete those registry entries and then see what happens. Reporting back here (hopefully) in a few minutes.

EDIT: OK, that worked without a problem as you can see. Now I'm wondering if I should attempt to install this software again or not... I guess not. Would be too weird to use a software of which I know that the developers are too stupid to adress an issue that is over one year old. Bye bye, security suite...



EDIT: The problem is not fixed. I also can't install any other software that needs to add networking driver capabilities. I just tried with hamachi and the installation failed in the very same way.

What else can I do? Has this broken Eset software killed my Windows installation beyond repair?

 

Hello,

I am unable to the problem you reported on systems with the following configurations:

ThinkPad T43p (Type: unknown) running Microsoft Windows XP Professional Edition SP3 running ThinkVantage Client Security Solution 8.10.0006.

ThinkPad T60 (Type: 2007-68U) running Microsoft Windows XP Professional Edition SP2 running ThinkVantage Client Security Solution 8.10.0006.

ThinkPad T61p (Type 6459-CTO) running Microsoft Windows Vista Ultimate Edition x64 SP1 running ThinkVantage Client Security Solution 8.10.0006.

Any suggestions you have on how to reproduce the problem (different model of ThinkPad, version of Client Security Solution software and so forth) would be most welcome.

Regards,

Aryeh Goretsky

 

Re: Installation problem/broken registry because of Eset Smart Security running with

I have a X60 Tablet (Model 6363-WDK), running Windows XP SP2 with the same version of CSS that you have there (just updated it a few days ago with the Lenovo update software).

EDIT: Maybe also consider installing the software with "Interactive mode" enabled. I changed that during the installation, maybe that helps reproduce the problem. My guess is that the firewall is blocking the computer's communication with the TPM chip during startup, with no windows showing up because no user is logged in at that point.

 

Re: Installation problem/broken registry because of Eset Smart Security running with

Hello, anyone?

 

Re: Installation problem/broken registry because of Eset Smart Security running with

Well thanks for no support at all.

 

Re: Installation problem/broken registry because of Eset Smart Security running with

You can verify this by switching the firewall to the policy-based mode and enabling the rules allowing all incoming and outgoing traffic.

 

Re: Installation problem/broken registry because of Eset Smart Security running with

I have done Hundreds of installs of Nod32 2.7 and 3.0 and ESET SS all have went off without a hitch.. only thing I can think of is you hit a rare problem maybe or maybe it could of been something in your windows installation to begin with. please don't blame a software when you really have no idea if it is what caused the problem in the first place.

also System restore used by MICROCRAP. (if that's what you used) does not always restore correctly.. Google it you will see what I mean. for all we know what could of caused this is a simple screw up in the system restore. what we are all trying to do now is help you recover please be patient as eset and some of us on the forums try to help you solve this problem.

Just a side note... the installer used in 3.0 + I believe is Microsoft's =P so if its the installer thats broke BLAME THEM!

 

Hello,

Perhaps there is another program on the ThinkPad X60 Tablet (Model 6363-WDK) with Microsoft Windows XP SP2 involved in the issue.

Can you please download a copy of ESET SysInspector, create a log file and email it to support@eset.sk along with a link to this message thread?

After reading through this message thread examining the log file they may be able to determine if there is a conflict with another application on the system.

Regards,

Aryeh Goretsky