McAfee bug

Dear Denise,

Jane has tracked down this on the Web: you might like to show it to your computer shop if they are still having problems with restoring your system.  Obviously you, or they, would need to leave McAfee installed on your laptop while going through the procedures suggested below, but it should be possible to uninstall McAfee completely once everything else is up and running.  Once McAfee is completely eliminated from your laptop it’s very straightforward to download AVG Free from the Web and install it.

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2363018,00.asp is worth reading, including the comments.  Also:

Reader Max Buser‘s company was hit by the bad McAfee update earlier today (http://lifehacker.com/5521195/mcafee-update-shuts-down-xp-machines). Here’s how they got everything working again:

UPDATE: McAfee has also released their official fixes here :
http://vil.nai.com/vil/5958_false.htm (nb This redirects home users to
http://service.mcafee.com/faqdocument.aspx?id=TS100969 .)

This is the fix we have been using on machines that were hit to get them back online; your mileage may vary, but it’s worked for us:

1. If your computer is forcing you to shutdown (you are getting an error with a countdown), go to Start – Run and type cmd. At the command prompt type ‘shutdown -a’ without the quotes. [This will abort the Windows shutdown
http://lifehacker.com/5234722/how-to-stop-windows-from-shutting-down.]

2. Open up the McAfee console (Start -> Programs -> McAfee)

3. Disable Access Protection and On-Access Scanner

4. Double click your Quarantine Manager in that window, and restore the files there (right click on it and select restore).

5. Go to your services console (right click on My Computer, select ‘Manage’, and click on the services in the left pane). Make sure both RPC (Remote Procedure Call) services are running.

6. Start (or restart if already running) the McAfee Framework service.

7. Back in the McAfee console, select Tools -> Rollback DATs (If this doesn’t work, chances are you need to mess with your network services to get a connection to your corporate repository. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, you probably shouldn’t try).

8. Reboot and you should be all set.
(The author of this post can be contacted at tips@lifehacker.com) _____________________________________

I’m putting a copy of this on the Web at https://barder.com/mcafee-bug so that if they wish the shop could look at it online and click the links.

Hope this might help!

Love — B.