Combofix Detects McAfee After Uninstallation

I was also looking at System Restore. The laptop I'm working with doesn't even save restore points when accessing System Restore via Start>All Programs>Accessories>System Tools

Sounds like something on this HP laptop is suppressing certain Windows features from being enabled, for instance, System Restore and Security Center. But, how do I fix this? It seems that this HP laptop only wants McAfee installed and I want to change over to something else.

ICit2lol said:

Hmm what you are referring to is what we call bloatware and it is extremely annoying that machines are loaded with this crap.
Three ways I would approach it Josh
1. You can remove the HP stuff piece by piece

2. You can this Clean Reinstall - Factory OEM Windows 7 but you will need to backup ALL of the data you want first or get a new hard drive and clone the original. Then do the tutorial on the original drive.
Sounds complicated but is not really.

3. Get a new hard drive - say a SSD if you can afford one and an OEM version of Windows 7 and install that. This would be my own personal choice only because I can afford it though.

Would a repair install work as well? If I understand the concept of Clean Install, that would mean wiping the drive and reinstalling EVERYTHING on the computer.

Jacee said:

Download DDS from one of these links:
DDS.com

DDS.pif

• Disable any script blocking protection
• Double click the dds icon to run the tool.
• When done, DDS will open two (2) logs:
  1. DDS.txt
  2. Attach.txt <--- will be minimized in the task tray
• Save both reports to your desktop.

Include the contents of both logs in your next post.
The scan will instruct you to post Attach.txt as an attachment.

What is DDS and what does it do? Never heard of it.

See attached. The popup afterwards said attached.txt must be zipped but I did not think that was necessary.

I still haven't had this problem resolved. I'm still unable to load Security Center and successfully be able to run another Anti-virus application. Again, MSE installs just fine, but when trying to open it, will flash to the screen and then close. Also, I've tried changing the Security Center service to Automatic and it somehow changes itself back to Disabled. Any help?

ICit2lol said:

My 2 cents again Jacee would it be possible for the McAfee to still be in the registry as I have had to in the past go into regedit and the two HKEYs LOCAL_ MACHINE and USER > Software and check for left overs of the really stubborn stuff even after running the removal tools - Norton (Symnatec) & AVG being a prime examples in my experience as still have entries left over??

If Josh could just have a look and get rid of them would it make any difference??

I've already done that. I did actually rerun combofix and McAfee was no longer detected...but something is still up, considering I can't get MSE to function at all.

I also ran a full scan on Malwarebytes...that has nothing to do with registry, though.

ICit2lol said:

Ok Josh it was stab in the dark really but an option I thought.

Have you tried these

https://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/1538-sfc-scannow-command-system-file-checker.html

https://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/433-disk-check.html<= DO NOT run on a SSD

http://www.superantispyware.com/



http://www.bleepingcomputer.com/download/adwcleaner/

(ADW download from bleepingcomputer)

I don't think any of that will do anything. What if I just uninstalled a program called HP Setup? Could that be preventing Security Center from loading?