McAfee did an update to McAfee Security Center last Tue (05/31/2011) and upon reboot it gave the message "McAfee Service Host has encountered a problem and needs to close" and then I cannot use Firefox or my old IE6. It prevents either browser from getting to their home page. There may be other things going on internal to McAfee, but the big problem to me is Internet access. Prior to the upgrade the computer was working fine (a Dell laptop running XP SP2). If this is simply a file corruption, can a stage the correction in some way that I remove McAfee, regain access to the Internet, then use the McAfee cleanup tool, and then reinstall?
Well first update XP SP2 support ended on July 13, 2010. Ditto IE6 far better to use IE8 or 9.
That said
Download the clean up tool and method here (use another PC to access this)
http://service.mcafee.com/FAQDocument.aspx?lc=1033&id=TS100507
uninstall
reboot test internet access
Run
http://download.mcafee.com/products/licensed/cust_support_patches/Mcpreinstall.exe
Reinstall Mcafee from your account and test net etc.
If still an issue chat with techs and see if they can see the issue via chat available on tech Services page in useful links tab above.
Any reason you do not want to upgrade XP and IE? What ram have you and PC specs?
Message was edited by: Peacekeeper on 3/06/11 7:21:19 PMThe main reason I did not update to XP SP3 was the user comments on the Internet of problems with the update. I essentially replaced IE6 with Firefox which is almost up-to-date. The next update would be Firefox 4. Firefox has worked fine on all my key applications, and it was easy to install.
I will have to get PC access to the Internet (I am using my wife's Mac for all of this, and I have no idea whether I can download a Windows file in the proper format to a Mac dvd so I can read it on my laptop). My son is the Mac expert and he is many miles away.
I would like to ask a related question. Is it possible to cleanly stop all McAfee activity if I have enough functionality in the programs. If so, then if I can get to the Internet, would this then be a quick test that all my problems lie with McAfee? It would still be necessary to reinstall McAfee Security Center.
Yes you can turn off each feature firewall would be the first to try. This in the security centre options.
I still would update to sp3 and especially ie8 if you can as though you use FF mcafee likes IE present and having an old version could cause issues . I will ask the techs re this.
Much of your problems are, I strongly suspect, due to the fact that you are using an obsolete system as it stands now; support for SP2 ran out July 2010, and an almost obsolete version of Internet Explorer, IE8 being the latest available for your operating system (once it is updated to SP3 properly). Whether or not you use Internet Explorer it plays a major part in the functionality of your system and should be kept up to date.
Please see THIS regarding IE6 and THIS regarding SP2 no longer being supported and for help with installing SP3 see THIS.
SP3 will bring your machine up to date as far as approximately April 2008 - you still need to install many updates afterwards to be current.
I cannot stress how important this is not only for proper functionality but for security.
.
Please update to Ie8 and SP3 The techs say this could be your issue.
Just a note... I am running SP3 and IE8 but has just experienced the same problem. Will try and do the clean-up as per the first advice in the thread.
Thanks
Igor
Have you installed HP cloud drive/ Zumo cast/ Zumo drive on your computer?
Same problem here.
XP sp3, Firefox4
No HP cloud drive
Thanks, Mike
Same problem here, too.
xp sp3 IE8
no hp cloud drive
on HP computer
get email sporadically
am running thru wifi, but that shows connectivity
Mcafee shows an icon in lower right, but no functions run inside of it.
all seemed to start after a major set of updates from Windows (perhaps including IE8, I'm not sure, not my computer)
Jay
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