McAfee update causes blue screen crash?

[Peacekeeper]

Ok some info I never knew before.

The beta version I run has a patch for BDODs in win 7 64 bit. It I thought was for Toshiba PCs with amd processors and a certain bios manufacturer. It appears it is not limited to Toshiba but other manufactures and CPUs where Mcafee asks the bioses how many cores in CPU and it misinterprets the answer thus a BSOD.

With the spate of Dell bsods would any1 be interested in uninstalling and trying the beta version. This needed to confirm/deny the fix works on other PCs. Of course you can uninstall the beta when the patch is released in 2 weeks ( anytime after 15th September but more likely end September and it will be throttled so it will come slow).

Any takers? The beta is stable I have been using it on my main PC for 12mths without issue. If interested PM me and I will pass on the info re the beta site.

[BlueSky]

Peacekeeper - Thanks for the info about a patch later this month.  How will we know when the patch is out and how to get it?

[Peacekeeper]

Removed your duplicate post. Re how to know 2 ways

1 I or some mcafee person such as Somer will post here.

2 As you cannot run the program without bsods it I assume will not update itself so once told you can uninstall and reinstall from maybe the aussie server as it will get it at least a week earlier than the US/UK server.

[ghadley]

I hope that patch comes soon...

[Peacekeeper]

I know the date but am not allowed to release it. last time I did they delayed it and that caused some angst. It is soonish.

I cannot confirm the fix is what you want that was why I asked for someone to try the beta version as it has the fix.

Message was edited by: Peacekeeper on 15/09/10 4:39:02 PM

[fishin33]

PM Sent

Thanks Tony!

**UPDATE**

I went to the beta.mcafee.com site and registered.  Went through all the prompts to remove the current security center and then ran the removal tool.  At that point it installed the 4.5 version of mcafee with the latest build (10).  I noticed in the release notes, the 10th build specifically stated fixing BSOD for AMD processors.  The computer I'm working on is a Dell with Windows 7 and an Intel i7 64bit processor.    NO FIX!

After installing and updating the beta version, it went right back to BSOD on restart.  Had to use system restore and have placed AVG on the computer for the time being until they can get this figured out.

Message was edited by: fishin33 on 9/15/10 10:33:45 AM CDT

[Peacekeeper]

That was my feeling but they thought different. Thanks for trying will pass this on.

[Hawley]

Hi Loucetius,

Just a quick question.  I tried to download a another antivirus program with a 30 day trial until Mcafee gets the problem sorted but upon downloading it
an error occured!!!  Did you get any problems downloading??
Thanks, Ruth Hawley

[ghadley]

My internet provider provides free antivirus from CA.  I tried loading it and got the same BSOD.  Amazing.  So I took the advice of someone in this thread and loaded the free AVG anitvirus and have had no problems.

[MoxieMomma]

I learned a couple of things from 3 attempts at upgrading McAfee, including the "in-place" upgrade that precipitated the problem, the "clean" uninstall/cleanup/reinstall that reproduced the problem, and the final uninstall/cleanup from my factory image before installing my new, non-McAfee security suite.

1) Despite getting "cleanup successful" messages from the MCPR tool, it does NOT always cleanup all traces of McAfee (esp from the registry; forget about files/folders under Program Files, AppData, etc!).  I was careful to run it TWICE, rebooting each time, when I made my final McAfee uninstall prior to installing my new security suite.

2) Although it varies from security suite to security suite, it is generally both preferable and recommended to fully disable both Windows Firewall and Windows Defender prior to installing a new suite.  This is a 2-step process, involving both: 1) turning both applications off from the control panel > programs, AND 2) making sure they are both fully disabled from START > services.msc.  Even when they are turned off from the control panel, they are highly integrated into the Windows OS, can be "running" in the background, and can cause conflicts. (Moreover, neither program is needed if you have other suitable FW and AV protection.)

That said, I also learned -- the hard way, thanks McAfee -- that multiple attempted uninstalls/reinstalls of the 2010 McAfee software corrupted files in the OS.

So, even when McAfee was fully uninstalled and the system appeared otherwise "stable", it was unable to properly boot into Windows.

This caused a totally BLACK screen when booting normally, a BSOD with stop-code when booting into safe mode with networking, and (thankfully) the ability to boot ONLY into basic safe mode,

Since extensive hardware testing showed that to be OK, it became necessary to restore the computer to the factory image on what had been an otherwise rock-stable, 6-month-old, high-end system.

Having done that > 1 month ago, removing McAfee once and for all, and installing another product permanently, everything is now fine.

So, you might want to be sure to REALLY clean McAfee off your system, and to be sure you have both Windows Defender and Windows Firewall completely disabled.

If you continue to get BSOD, especially with booting, and your hardware and chkdisk are OK, then you may well end up having to restore your OS to the factory image (or worse), in order to alleviate any OS corruption.

Regards,

MM