Uninstall/Disable Software Without Reaching Desktop

[seekermeister]

I need to get rid of the beta of Outpost Security Suite that I installed a couple of days ago, because it went haywire on my secondary computer. There was a BSOD naming ASWFilt64.dll, and since then I can't boot into either into regular desktop or Safe Mode. After running the Startup Repair Utility, the next attempt to boot failed as before, but the third attempt partially worked, after saying that the problem was due to a recently installed software package. This and the BSOD has convinced me that the Outpost beta is the cause. The reason that I said that it "partially" succeeded in booting, is because after a slow and long boot, it only finished loading part of the programs in the Notification Tray, and after maybe 30 minutes, it BSODed as before.

As in the post title, how can one either uninstall or disable a program without reaching desktop?

 

[Tews]

Have you tried running a repair install from the Windows 7 DVD?

 

[seekermeister]

Not yet, because I felt that the problem was the software, instead of the OS. I'm going to try a System Restore first...hoping that there is a good restore point.

I don't know that I could uinstall OSS, even if I could boot normally, because I just tried to uninstall the beta on the primary, before it could do any damage there, but all that I got was an access denied error dialog.

EDIT: System Restore may not work either, because I just tried that on my primary, and found that System Protection was turned off. Very odd, because I never turned it off myself, and it has worked in the past. If I recall, System Restore is an option booting from the DVD, so I will cross my fingers and hope that I don't find the same thing on the secondary.

 

[Bill2]

seekermeister,

Maybe you can get into command prompt either within windows or through the win7 install dvd. Once you are in command prompt, you can try uninstalling by typing in the correct uninstall command for outpost at the dos prompt. Otherwise, you can also try deleting all the exe and dll files associated with outpost.

 

[seekermeister]

I have no idea of what the syntax would be to uninstall it that way. Can you spell it out for me?

 

[Bill2]

Neither do I, but see this thread.

How do I uninstall Outpost manually?

 

[seekermeister]

Thanks, I appreciate that you found that for me, but it won't work on the secondary because it still requires being able to boot. I might be able to use it on the primary, but since the instructions are for an older version of the program, I don't want to chance it until I have the other computer repaired.

 

[Bill2]

seekermeister,

I appreciate your concerns. Another thing you can do is to locate the file called clean.exe (which should be present in your outpost install folder), then run it from the command prompt.

 

[seekermeister]

I did find the clean.exe in the primary's OSS directory, and I was thinking about it, but not being sure when it was to be used, I haven't tried it yet. I doubt that it is designed to do a full uninstall, probably just to remove files from the system, but not to clean the registry also.

Like I said, once I get the secondary repaired, I will try this among other things on the primary, but I still haven't found a way to access anything on the secondary yet. I'm not real familiar with running from the DVD, and when I chose to repair the installation, it just started running the Startup Repair Utility, just as it did from the boot options. I know that I should be able to access other tools, but I didn't see them, and the Startup Repair won't let me cancel it out until it is finished, and that takes a while.

 

[seekermeister]

I finally got the betas uninstalled from both computers, but it is starting to appear that the beta may not have been the cause of my secondary rig's problems. On the boot attempt after the last run of the Startup Repair Utility, the BIOS gave an error, saying that the Smart Data was bad on the harddrive on IDE3. I'm not sure what IDE3 means, because that rig has nothing on the IDE controller, only on the SATA controller, and none of the harddrives would correspond to a numerical value of that sort.

I opened SpeedFan, and it displayed Smart Data for the drive, but was marked in red, saying that the relocated sector count was 21. I decided to run the error scan on HD Tach, but it BSODed again, with an untitled error of 0x124. Yet, in the first two squares of the scan, one was red and one green.

The problem may have been due to the harddrive going bad, but it seems strange that the BIOS error didn't appear earlier. I have really had it with Seagate, because 3 of the 4 500GB drives that I bought from SG have failed. That leaves me concerned about the last one, because that is where W7 is installed on my primary rig.

 

[Bill2]

IDE3 is a raid port on some mobos. It needs to be enabled in the bios and the raid drivers should be installed for the port to be recognized.

124 error is usually a hardware error and that may have to do with your suspected bad drive. But that reallocated sector count, wonder how close it is to the threshold value for your hdd.

 

[seekermeister]

IDE3 is a raid port on some mobos. It needs to be enabled in the bios and the raid drivers should be installed for the port to be recognized.

There is no raid on my secondary rig, and the controller is set to SATA, rather than RAID, so I'm at a loss on that count.

124 error is usually a hardware error and that may have to do with your suspected bad drive. But that reallocated sector count, wonder how close it is to the threshold value for your hdd.

The only "threshold" that I'm aware of is specified within SpeedFan as the "warning" level, and that is 36. However, it really doesn't matter what the level is officially, because it has exceeded mine, because I can't seem to do anything on that drive. Even though it is at desktop now, it is basically dead in the water. That water must be that of "Sea"gate, which makes a sound like flushing a toilet.

My decision is whether it is worth RMAing the drive, only to get another like it, but probably recertified. I happen to have another drive like this in my components collection, that the data cable's guide vane is broken on, and which they wouldn't RMA, because it appeared to be my fault. However, the event in which it was broken, shouldn't have broken it. I will probably just RMA the drive as is, because the broken one that I just mentioned is among those listed with the firmware problem and would have to be RMAed anyway.

 

[seekermeister]

I just took a look at both of the drives in my primary that are like the bad one in the secondary, and the values are just reverse of what I thought. The best and worst on both drives is 100, with the warning level of 36, so even though it sounds backward, it has exceeded the level.

 

[seekermeister]

Even though I don't need it any longer, I got curious about uninstalling via DOS Prompt, and found this in case someone else needs it:

How to: Uninstalling Application via DOS Command Line