Help! Tried to upgrade MBAM and computer is messed up now

winchester73 · April 17, 2014, 07:36:21 PM

If you can right-click on the red MSE icon at the lower right of your screen, and then "open", go to the update date and click on the update button. The computer I was working on wouldn't respond to commands, so we had to do it via the method I posted above ...

Your issue may be unrelated but it is certainly worth making sure MSE is updated to the latest 1.171.148.0 definition file.

pastywhitegurl · April 17, 2014, 07:54:13 PM

Winchester, I love you! (And I love you Corinne for consulting with him about it! haha)

When I rebooted after trying to update MSE and having it freeze everything, I find that the update did indeed process.

MSE is showing my defnitions version as 1.71.148.0

Do I understand this to mean that includes the fix?

I'm typing from my real machine now, btw....yay!

Corrine · April 17, 2014, 07:57:01 PM

Yes, that includes the fix. (We all love Winchester73! He was my first mentor and is always there when needed. :wub: )

winchester73 · April 17, 2014, 07:59:26 PM

The fix was actually put in a couple updates earlier, but "yes" you should now be fixed and OK.

I'd recommend a complete shut down of your computer, then power it back up (not a re-start, you want the POST provided by a cold boot). Don't touch any keys (even to close the MSE nag screen about XP) until after the hard drive stops doing its thing and the light goes out. Then click away, open things, close things, see if everything works "normally" again ...

winchester73 · April 17, 2014, 08:03:01 PM

Quote from: Corrine on April 17, 2014, 07:57:01 PM

(We all love Winchester73! He was my first mentor and is always there when needed. :wub: )

:hallo:

The pupil has become the master :rose:

pastywhitegurl · April 17, 2014, 08:29:20 PM

You guys are brilliant.

I've just done the cold restart of the computer, and everything seems fine so far. I'm going to surf around a while and use stuff before trying to reinstall MBAM again.

This is one of those "things are not as they seem" situations. So it turns out the problem wasn't the MBAM uninstall at all...it was the MSE messed up update that installed on the reboot AFTER the MBAM uninstall that showed up the problem.

Great detective work, guys!

I guess I am not going to try to upgrade MBAM now. This was SO stressful! I will just reinstall version 1.75 and be happy.

I was all gearing up to start figuring out how to move to Linux immediately. Now I can take my time.

My last questions related to this thread; Is my problem with system restore something to check out? Is it normal that dskcheck said volume is clean (after several years of not being run), and system file checker produced no report?

I do use CC cleaner nearly everyday to clean up temporary files and such.

Corrine · April 17, 2014, 09:38:00 PM

I went looking for logs from your computer to find out when the system was installed and see it was almost 6 years ago:

Microsoft Windows XP Professional
Boot Device: \Device\HarddiskVolume1
Install Date: 8/31/2008 6:38:09 PM

I see it was in that thread in December that you had a problem with System Restore. I'm afraid it is a symptom of the age of the computer. A Repair Install may fix it but no guarantee. It may help to reinstall SR. Instructions are available at How to reinstall System Restore in Windows XP?. Do note the caution at the top that indicates that the procedure will remove all the existing System Restore points, and resets the System Restore drive monitoring options to defaults.

Please don't use the registry cleaner portion of CCleaner --just temp files and unwanted cookies.

winchester73 · April 17, 2014, 09:44:46 PM

Quote from: pastywhitegurl on April 17, 2014, 08:29:20 PM

Is it normal that dskcheck said volume is clean (after several years of not being run), and system file checker produced no report?

I do use CC cleaner nearly everyday to clean up temporary files and such.

If you have the Windows Log Files button ticked in Windows/System, CCleaner is removing the SFC log when it cleans.

pastywhitegurl · April 17, 2014, 10:18:21 PM

The only thing I have CC cleaner remove from windows system are:
Temporary Files
Memory dumps
Old Prefetch data

Should any of those be left unremoved?

Nothing is checked on the Registry cleaner options.

QuoteA Repair Install may fix it but no guarantee. It may help to reinstall SR.

Is that two different things? (repair install < > reinstall SR )

Corrine · April 17, 2014, 10:51:56 PM

Yes, two different things. I posted the link with the instructions for a Repair Install prior to learning about the MSE issue from Winchester73. The reinstall of System Restore from my last reply is just that alone.

At this point, it is up to you if you want to try the reinstall of SR. It "might" solve the problem but it might not. The instructions are "legitimate", posted by Ramesh Srinivasan, a former Microsoft MVP.

Until you are in a position to replace it, keep in mind that you are nursing this old computer. Keep the browser and Flash Player updated. Avoid installing any new programs -- if really needed, see if your husband will install on his computer. :)

pastywhitegurl · April 18, 2014, 12:50:39 AM

I might try The system Restore reinstall. It seems pretty major not to have restore capability. There is a version that is one line you paste into the Run console, so that seems pretty stupid proof to me, and something I can't mess up easily.

The only program I wish to add is to re-install MBAM Pro. I won't try the new version.

As I recall, I didn't turn MSE off to install MBAM before, but I will turn MSE off this time just to be safe. Or are you recommending against even adding that back?

Corrine · April 18, 2014, 01:03:17 AM

No, reinstall MBAM Pro 1.75. Why would you need to turn off MSE when you reinstall it? The problem wasn't that MSE was running, rather that the reboot took place after the bad MSE update. If the MSE definitions had updated to the new/good update before you restarted, you wouldn't have run into the problems you had.

pastywhitegurl · April 18, 2014, 02:58:58 AM

Ok. Will do. :)

Thanks.

I find it interesting that MS bothered to fix this problem actually. Maybe the fact that they are selling support to the IRS and to the UK means us peon users will get some peripheral fixes here and there as well.

pastywhitegurl · April 18, 2014, 03:38:36 AM

MBAM PRO 1.75 installation successful and updated. First scan run successfully.

Strangely, even though I used the removal tool after uninstalling it the first time, it has remembered my license credentials and settings. The quarantine list was still there too. I just had to turn the real protection back on. So that seemed rather weird. I was expecting to have to re-enter everything.

I may wait until next week to try the system restore re-install when I will have more time to deal with it if something goes wrong.

pastywhitegurl · April 18, 2014, 05:46:19 AM

o, on the last reboot, WinPatrol said this program wants to run at startup now:

dumpprep 0 -u

DH looked it up on bleeping computer and found something that said it was a windows function so I allowed it.

I checked the extra plus info, but there was no information on it from WinPatrol.

Could someone please confirm its innocuousness to me? If it is an ok file, can you tell me if it needs to be in the start up or not?

I don't want to do any restarts on my computer until I find out for sure.

Screenshot attached: