Latest McAfee prevents NTD software from working on Vista

[maxchristian]

A new version of the McAfee suite released in the last week or two is preventing software delivered using "No Touch Deployment" from working on Windows Vista SP1.

No Touch Deployment is also known as "IE Hosted .NET Controls" and is referred to as ".NET Framework-reliant components" in the Security Settings of Internet Explorer.

This problem does not affect Windows XP. We tested on Vista SP1 but it is likely that the problem affects McAfee on all releases of Vista.

Examples of web pages that will not run under Vista SP1 with McAfee installed are:

http://cheeso.members.winisp.net/controltest.aspx
http://www.metropix.co.uk/mtpix/bulgogi20.aspx?anon

In both cases, a small picture icon will appear in place of the .NET control that is supposed to appear. To resolve the problem, it's necessary to completely uninstall McAfee. Disabling all of its functions does not resolve the problem.

The versions of McAfee software that are causing this problem are the ones currently available for download on the McAfee site:
SecurityCenter 9.0.286
VirusScan 13.0.218 with DAT 5382
Personal Firewall 10.0.209
SiteAdvisor 2.8.255
Anti-Spam 10.0.185
Parental Controls 11.0.378

I would appreciate some advice on how to report this fault to McAfee for resolution in a future update. We're happy to pay for support if that can speed things up.

Technical information about No Touch Deployment software:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa289511.aspx

Many thanks for any help with this,

Max

[maxchristian]

Further to my previous message, this problem does also affect Windows XP if the latest security updates are installed. It may therefore be an incompatibility between a recent Microsoft update and McAfee, causing all No Touch Deployment applications to fail.

[exbrit]

This is a subject for a much higher plane than this forum so I'll flag it. In the meanwhile you might want to open a ticket with Technical Support and have them escalate it.

Link at top left of page or in my signature.

[maxchristian]

Thanks Ex_Brit (from a fellow ex Brit!).

I have just tried to report it via the support online chat, but the McAfee chap (named Sudheer) decided to end the connection on me halfway through! I'll try again on Monday but if you are able to do anything to get this noticed by the powers that be I'd be very appreciative.

Max

[exbrit]

Well to be strictly correct it should be Ex_Geordie, but that's a bit much....! Besides, I'll always be a Geordie.

I've flagged it for the Forum Admin but not sure where he is right now. He can ask various people.

[exbrit]

No joy here I'm afraid...did you speak to Tech Support?

Can you try uninstalling SiteAdvisor only and see if it helps.

[maxchristian]

Yes! Uninstalling SiteAdvisor and rebooting does fix it on both XP and Vista machines. (Disabling it doesn't help.) Thank you for that.

We're going to start advising all our customers to uninstall it, though we aren't yet getting as many complaints as would be expected given the size of McAfee's installed base. Do you know, is the SiteAdvisor component not installed on office PCs as frequently as on home PCs?

Does that help find someone to look at this problem at all?

[vinod_r2]

Thanks..

One quick question ..
could you try instaling the Siteadvisor on one machine and see if it recurrs?

if it does could you provide the version number of the SA?

also check if killing the McSAcore.exe process in task manager helps in any way...
Please do run the
MVT and post the session id here.

[maxchristian]

OK, have just checked it recurs on a re-install. It does and the SA version number is still 2.8.255 as I originally reported (see first message in this thread).

Killing McSAcore.exe doesn't help, but it restarts every time I refresh the page so I wouldn't expect it to really.

MVT seems to be tool for gathering info about our computers, but this problem affects all computers we've tested, and probably yours too (try the links in the first message). So information on our computers doesn't seem relevant and anyway MVT is not working right now ("Technical Error. Please try again later.").

[maxchristian]

Our telephone support logs for this fault show at least sixteen UK companies have uninstalled McAfee software following our advice between September 10th and October 7th.

Since then we have had a system in place to detect where McAfee software is preventing our website from working, which automatically advises customers to uninstall SiteAdvisor. The number of companies ceasing their use of McAfee software due to this bug is therefore likely to be considerable.