Tag Archives: antivirus

SOLUTION: Cannot Uninstall Microsoft Security Essentials from Windows 10

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Recently, I encountered two different workstations that had upgraded to Windows 10 from Windows 7 on which Microsoft Security Essentials inexplicably was not uninstalled during the upgrade process by Windows Setup.  This is baffling, because MSSE isn’t designed to work with Windows 10 (it doesn’t work), and plus, it precludes the use of Windows Defender, which is essentially the Windows 10 upgraded equivalent of MSSE.

If you’re in the same situation, you’ll also discover that it is impossible to remove Microsoft Security Essentials from Programs and Features; when attempting to do so, you simply receive a generic message which states “You don’t need to install Microsoft Security Essentials.”  That’s great, Microsoft, because we don’t want to install it, we want to uninstall it.

Anyway, the solution to this problem is actually quite simple:

  1. Press Windows Key + R to open the Run dialog.
  2. In the Open: field, type:
    • explorer “%PROGRAMFILES%\Microsoft Security Client\”
      and press ENTER.
  3. Highlight the file Setup.exe, right-click it, and choose Properties.
  4. Choose Compatibility.
  5. Click Change settings for all users.
  6. Check the box next to Run this program in compatibility mode for: and choose Windows 7 from the drop-down box.
  7. Click OK on all dialogue boxes to exit all windows.
  8. In the search box at the bottom of the screen, type cmd. At the top of the pop-up window, underneath the heading Best match, right-click Command Prompt and choose Run as administrator.
  9. In the Command Prompt window that opens, type the following command:
    • “%PROGRAMFILES%\Microsoft Security Client\setup.exe” /x /disableoslimit
  10. Follow the instructions to uninstall.

That’s it!

Special thanks to corrado_boy_g60 at the Microsoft Community for information leading to this solution.

Solution: Can’t find script engine “VBScript” for script.

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This is a problem I’ve run into probably 3 or 4 times, and each time, the solution is the same.  It’s a frustrating issue that can drive you nuts if you don’t know where to look to correct it.

Most solutions on the internet point to a bit of a dead end comprised of general-purpose advice for any sort of library-related problems in Windows.  They advise that you try the following commands at an elevated Command Prompt:

cd %windir%\system32
regsvr32 vbscript.dll
regsvr32 jscript.dll

Problem is, this never seems to work… at least, not on the machines I’ve worked on.

Fortunately, the real solution is comparably easy.  Open up regedit and check the following registry key:

HKCR\CLSID\{B54F3741-5B07-11cf-A4B0-00AA004A55E8}\InprocServer32

Within it, there is a registry value called (Default) which should carry a Data value of:

C:\Windows\system32\vbscript.dll

If it says something else, you’ll need to change it to match the above.  This should fix your problem!

So what’s the reason for the bad value?  Nearly always, it’s thanks to a broken or partially uninstalled antivirus (the most common culprits are McAfee and avast!, both of which I’ve seen leave behind values in this key after an attempted uninstall).  AV programs use this value to redirect script processing through a driver of their own for filtering purposes so that they can check for suspect behavior.

Solution: “Only part of a ReadProcessMemory or WriteProcessMemory request was completed”

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If you’re encountering this error, you should first know that it refers to a memory access problem of some type.  The vast majority of scenarios where it occurs are during program installs or executions from an optical drive, and that’s what most of the internet offers as a solution.   To fix those problems, the solution is well-known.

When I ran into this problem, I was unfortunately more interested in everything not related to CD/DVD media.  Instead, it was occurring each and every time I attempted to execute an application on my client’s PC.

I checked the usual suspects, including file associations, IFEO (Image File Execution Options), and plenty of other items.  But in the end, it was a likely culprit: the client had previously had Kaspersky Internet Security installed (not a bad program by any means), but in an attempt to remove it, the process apparently failed.  This left some of its drivers behind, including some filesystem filter drivers which were preventing the execution of applications until Kaspersky okayed them.  Of course, since it wasn’t installed, that never occurred, and instead this message appeared.

To fix the problem, I ran a cleanup utility from Kaspersky’s web site and checked for stray drivers using a deep system scanning utility.  Following that, everything was peachy.