I own a new Dell inspiron 560. I've had the blue screen of death problem a couple of times now with McAfee and Windows 7. First, back in July, it crashed after an update. Diagnostics indicated damaged/lost code. I was able to go into safe mode, uninstall and reinstall the latest version of McAffee successfully. Everything was fine until the Sep 15 update.. After being prompted to reboot after installing the update, the computer restarted with the blue screen of death, immediately shut down, and kept trying to reboot, each time coming up to the blue screen and going into a continuous loop of shutting down, starting, blue screen crash, shutdown, restart, etc. I tried to restart in safe mode and restore to a previous restore point, but this time that would no work. It kept going through the continuus loop of restart, crash, restart, etc. It was very difficult trying to get the number to call McAfee. I tried using the online request form, on another computer, for a phone call ($9.95), but each time I tried to enter my credit card information, it kept giving an error message. I finally tracked the number down though toll free information.
McAfee charged me $9.95 for their error and was no help at all. The tech never seemed to understand what I was trying to explain was happening. I told him I knew they were aware of this problem because I know some other people experiencing it and I have this page as well as others that have had thousands of hits. He continue to play dumb and told me it was probably a Dell problem. He said I had to call Dell and if was not their problem, call McAffe again, and they would try to fix it. No help, blame someone else.
I called Dell. The customer service tech was helpful and knowledeable, but did have a little trouble understanding what was happening. The blue screen would not stay up long enough for me to be able to read the error message number for her. After a couple of obligatory restore attempts, the tech had me insert the Dell utilities disk into the CD/DVD drive and restart from there. We were able to run diagnostic tests on the computer. The result was that diagnostics indicated the OS, Windows 7 had been corrupted and would have to be re-installed. Fortunately all Dell computers come with a restore function that will restore the computer to a saved image of the original factory settings. I have done this with another computer and although it works, you will lose all data unless it is backed up elsewhere and you have to reinstall all of your programs. It is just like the day it arrived and came out of the box. Fortunately, this is my wife's new computer, 4 months, and she mostly uses it for internet surfing, facebook, online gaming, and there was not much data stored on it. She only had a few photos and I had them backed up on my computer and an online site.
The restore operation was successful, but I spent the next 4 hours setting up the computer again, installing programs, uninstalling the McAfee that was factory installed, setting up my network again, etc. I immediately bought a different security program and installed it. I have never liked McAfee. The Dell tech asked me why I installed it. I told her, "because it was installed at the factory by Dell." She was unaware of that fact. I have had problems with McAfee on previous computers, but was hoping it would be better after all this time. You know what they say about the definition of insanity, "repeating the same behavior and hoping for different results." I will never be insane enough to use another McAffe program. Good luck everybody with fixing your computers.
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