After XP SP3 Upgrade - Device Manager Empty / Network Connection Icons Missing
Now that SP3 is officially released - I can't help but think that my annoying issue has surfaced once again (it has reared its ugly head through the years) - and it may be back with a vengence. I have read artilces through the years having to do with corrupt registry entries in "HKLM\SYSTEM\CURRENTCONTROLSET\ENUM".
I was upgrading a well maintained XP PRO SP2 to SP3 on a Compaq Presario S5400NX. After the upgrade, while trying to open "My Computer" - it now takes much longer. But the real issue is that the Network Connections screen now does not show any of the NIC cards. I have three adapters that used to show up - the Onboard RealTek adapter was disabled prior to starting upgrade as was the Firewire Port. The working and enabled adpater was an INTEL MT1000/PCI. {Note however the network connection is working}. In an attempt to troubleshoot - I tried to bring up the Device Manager - and to my suprise - it is now empty.
Has anyone (beta testers/or current upgraders) had this experience? Is there a definitive fix?
Thanks and Regards,
Doug
Answers
I'll be d a m n e d - it was indeed corruption introduced into the registry by the SP3 upgrade process itself.
In my case it was located in: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Enum\Root\LEGACY_CCPROXY
All the invalid entries ( which for me all began with $%& ) had to be deleted.
Finding your currupted entries is not easy - but expand all sections in all controlsets with \Enum\ to find them. Posts in other forums have never produced corruption in the exact same registry tree/keys - so unfortuneatly you will have to "look hard". Also deleting the bogus entries may not be as easy as just "delete". You may need to modify the permisions on each entry.
For a small amount of entries:
1) Rightclick and go to the permissions of the corrupt registry key
2) add new permission for the administrator
3) give the administrator "full control"4) Reboot into Safe Mode (F8)
5) run regedit and delete the offending keys
For a large amount of entries I chose the following instructions:
1. Download and install SubInACL
2. Create a blank file named reset.cmd in C:\Program Files\Windows Resource
Kits\Tools folder.3. Edit the reset.cmd file with the following content.
subinacl /subkeyreg HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE /grant=administrators=f
subinacl /subkeyreg HKEY_CURRENT_USER /grant=administrators=f
subinacl /subkeyreg HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT /grant=administrators=f
subinacl /subdirectories %SystemDrive% /grant=administrators=fsubinacl /subkeyreg HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE /grant=system=f
subinacl /subkeyreg HKEY_CURRENT_USER /grant=system=f
subinacl /subkeyreg HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT /grant=system=f
subinacl /subdirectories %SystemDrive% /grant=system=f4. Enter into the CMD/Command prompt. CD Change Directory to C:\Program Files\Windows Resource Kits\Tools
5. Run reset.cmd
6. After many minutes of processing by subinacl, the permission will be reset Ignore any errors.
7. Reboot into Safe Mode (F8)
8. Run regedit and delete the offending keys
These instructions were adapted from many other posters across numerous forums and sites - all credit to the original authors.
Good Luck and Regards,
Doug
9/6/08 Update: As this thread is rather long now - I wanted to bring all of your attention to the following - a "fix" which might end up being easier to implement than my early workaround listed above :
Symantec has posted their own Windows Registry cleaning tool. It is available at: ftp://ftp.symantec.com/public/english_us_canada/tutorials/SymRegFix.exe
Microsoft has also posted their own registry clean-up tool, fixccs.exe, which needs to be run in Safe Mode. See:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/953979
Regards - Doug
As an early reporter of the problem - I would like to clarify a few points:
1st - No problem is exactly the same - no fix/workaround will work for everyone - sorry.
2nd - This problem (registry corruption) was directly introduced by the SP3 upgrade procedure. NO QUESTION !
3rd - Going back to SP2 will not work. The corruption remains.
4th - Waiting for Microsoft to acknowledge or fix this serious problem is foolhearty. If you have this specific reported corruption anywhere in "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\*ControlSet*\*" - you will likely have issues with your device manager (and more). It will not be resolved until you remove those entries.
5th - Waiting for a "magic" procedure from Microsoft is not likely. Unfortuneatly, if you have this specific corruption - you will have to do the work - find the entries - and remove them - or live with the fallout - until (and if) - resolved by Microsoft.
Those that have sent me private e-mails on conspiracy theories due to the competitive nature between Symantec and Microsoft - while intersting - I will leave it as: I was not happy having to spend 16 hours researching this issue - to solve an issue introduced by the SP3 upgrade. An issue that I excpect will be widespread - and likely to be talked about on this forum for a long time.
Good luck to those in my boat - Hope my fix works for you.
Regards,
Doug
Solved for me as well, but I used a much simpler method...
(1) Write down Norton Product Key.
(2) Remove Norton products with the Norton Removal Tool found on Symantec's Website...http://service1.symantec.com/Support/tsgeninfo.nsf/docid/2005033108162039 (does a better job of removing registry entries)
(3) (May not be necessary) Search for the string "$%&" in regedit, delete the remaining corrupt keys (I found 2 'legacy' keys with several corrupt sub-keys)
(4) (May not be necessary) Delete the "Symantec Shared" folder from C:/Program Files/Common Files
(5) Reinstall Norton Product.
Good Luck!
-Kevin
I posted a workaround/fix all the way back on Page 1 of this thread. I will repost again. Good Luck !
MRFREEZE61 wrote:
I'll be ******** - it was indeed corruption introduced into the registry by the SP3 upgrade process itself.
In my case it was located in: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Enum\Root\LEGACY_CCPROXY
All the invalid entries ( which for me all began with $%& ) had to be deleted.
Finding your corrupted entries is not easy - but expand all sections in all controlsets with \Enum\ to find them. Posts in other forums have never produced corruption in the exact same registry tree/keys - so unfortuneatly you will have to "look hard". Also deleting the bogus entries may not be as easy as just "delete". You may need to modify the permisions on each entry.
For a small amount of entries:
1) Rightclick and go to the permissions of the corrupt registry key
2) add new permission for the administrator
3) give the administrator "full control"4) Reboot into Safe Mode (F8)
5) run regedit and delete the offending keys
For a large amount of entries I chose the following instructions:
1. Download and install SubInACL
2. Create a blank file named reset.cmd in C:\Program Files\Windows Resource
Kits\Tools folder.3. Edit the reset.cmd file with the following content.
subinacl /subkeyreg HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE /grant=administrators=f
subinacl /subkeyreg HKEY_CURRENT_USER /grant=administrators=f
subinacl /subkeyreg HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT /grant=administrators=f
subinacl /subdirectories %SystemDrive% /grant=administrators=fsubinacl /subkeyreg HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE /grant=system=f
subinacl /subkeyreg HKEY_CURRENT_USER /grant=system=f
subinacl /subkeyreg HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT /grant=system=f
subinacl /subdirectories %SystemDrive% /grant=system=f4. Enter into the CMD/Command prompt. CD Change Directory to C:\Program Files\Windows Resource Kits\Tools
5. Run reset.cmd
6. After many minutes of processing by subinacl, the permission will be reset Ignore any errors.
7. Reboot into Safe Mode (F8)
8. Run regedit and delete the offending keys
These instructions were adapted from many other posters across numerous forums and sites - all credit to the original authors.
Good Luck and Regards,
Doug
Symantec have now posted a tool for cleaning up the Windows Registry after the mess left behind caused by a conflict between SP3 and Norton products. It is available at: ftp://ftp.symantec.com/public/english_us_canada/tutorials/SymRegFix.exe
See rdhw's post for further details:
http://forums.microsoft.com/TechNet/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=3449197&SiteID=17
Symantec have posted a tool for cleaning up the Windows Registry after the mess left behind caused by a conflict between SP3 and Norton products. It is available at: ftp://ftp.symantec.com/public/english_us_canada/tutorials/SymRegFix.exe
See rdhw's post for further details (particularly his second one in the thread):
http://forums.microsoft.com/TechNet/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=3449197&SiteID=17
Microsoft have also posted their own registry clean-up tool, fixccs.exe, which needs to be run in Safe Mode. See
All Replies
My laptop is Compaq Presario B2805 and XP Pro Sp2.
I have the same situation, I also found this also happened on Sp3 rc2
http://forums.microsoft.com/TechNet/ShowForum.aspx?ForumID=2010&SiteID=17
And worse, no "Safely Remove Hardware Icon" when you plug anything to USB and PCMAC.
My Creative Soundblaster Audigy 2 NZ notebook is not working anymore.
And everytime when I start live messenger first time after the windows start, a software installation window pop-up.
System restore can not restore to the status before Sp3
I remove Sp3, and all the problems remain in sp2.
I'm in the same boat. I'm running an old IBM (pre Lenovo) ThinkCenter. Single 2.6 GHz Intel processor with legal versions of everything. SP2 worked well for years.
I also noticed that my Zune doesn't want to be recognized either. I installed the new Zune software before the SP3 update. After SP3, Zune is no longer recognized (it does charge so the cable isn't bad).
I lost the 'safely remove hardware' icon along with my whole empty device manager.
I have the same problem.
After installing XP from Microsoft Update my Device Manager displays nothing also Network Connections Icons disappeared. Wireless connection does not work as ThinkVantage does not see Network Connections.
System is Lenovo T60p.
Removing SP3 does not resolve this issue also system restore does not bring back settings.
Probably there is something wrong with system registry.
Please help!
I don't want to reinstall Windows once again!
It will cost me 1 day of work doing all the backups and restoring data after bringing xp back to its orginal state.
Greets,
Lucas
- I got the same problem, updated two similar computers from SP2 with all updates to SP3.
Pain......
Regards Copying from the thread http://forums.microsoft.com/TechNet/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=2906091&SiteID=17
For clarification, Do you get the issue with the following
1> Enter devmgmt.msc in Start->Run. I would like to see screenshot for the same.
2> Start->Right click My computer->Select Properties->Click hardware tab. Again screenshot will help.
Does systeminfo & msinfo32.exe shows device data? If these are not showing data, check following
1> Do you see the entry for HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\WBEM\WDM in regedit and if yes, do you see a name-value pair like the following
"C:\WINDOWS\system32\DRIVERS\mssmbios.sys[MofResource]::::::::::::::: LowDateTime:-1424417792,HighDateTime:29653576***Binary mof compiled successfully".
Directory and time values may change. If it is not there. please check HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\WBEM\WDM\DREDGE also and let us know what entries you see in these two sections.
If not the above, Do you see the entry for MSSMBIOS.SYS anywhere in registry? Send me the location wherever you see this key and what data is there.
2> If everything was perfect in 1, do the following
-
Enable WMI Verbose logging [http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa392285.aspx] and increse size to 6553600.
-
Run WBEMTEST from Start->Run and connect to root\cimv2.
-
http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa389273(VS.85).aspx has list of "Computer System Hardware Classes" exposed by WMI with prefix WIN32_xxxxx. Can you check if you are getting data for these classes using WBEMTEST started and connected earlier? Let me know which classes you tried from this list and which gave you trouble.
-
If there is problem getting data here, send me WMI logs from the location mentioned in http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa392285.aspx after zipping them in one file.
-
Also send me msinfo32.exe output as per the following steps.
-
Start->Run->msinfo32.exe -> let it run for some time and show you the data -> File -> Save -> Give file name -> It should create a “system information file” or .nfo file in your preferred directory as you selected earlier. Send me that file.
-
Send all requested data to Atul<<dot*> Kumar <<AT^> microsoft<@#dot>> com. Remove spaces and replace tags with actual symbols.
-
- I'm having the same problem exactly. Hopefully, MS will hurry with a fix.
I have the same problem on my computer.
Please advise if anyone has a fix for this problemPlease go through the steps I have outlined in the earlier post and let me know the results. We are trying to figure out what may be broken.
I'll have more info when I get home from work. That should be 6 PM Eastern, 3 PM Pacific.
I have the exact same problem and I am more than willing to help you debug the issue. Please keep us posted and let me know if there is anything that I can do to help.
I'll be d a m n e d - it was indeed corruption introduced into the registry by the SP3 upgrade process itself.
In my case it was located in: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Enum\Root\LEGACY_CCPROXY
All the invalid entries ( which for me all began with $%& ) had to be deleted.
Finding your currupted entries is not easy - but expand all sections in all controlsets with \Enum\ to find them. Posts in other forums have never produced corruption in the exact same registry tree/keys - so unfortuneatly you will have to "look hard". Also deleting the bogus entries may not be as easy as just "delete". You may need to modify the permisions on each entry.
For a small amount of entries:
1) Rightclick and go to the permissions of the corrupt registry key
2) add new permission for the administrator
3) give the administrator "full control"4) Reboot into Safe Mode (F8)
5) run regedit and delete the offending keys
For a large amount of entries I chose the following instructions:
1. Download and install SubInACL
2. Create a blank file named reset.cmd in C:\Program Files\Windows Resource
Kits\Tools folder.3. Edit the reset.cmd file with the following content.
subinacl /subkeyreg HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE /grant=administrators=f
subinacl /subkeyreg HKEY_CURRENT_USER /grant=administrators=f
subinacl /subkeyreg HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT /grant=administrators=f
subinacl /subdirectories %SystemDrive% /grant=administrators=fsubinacl /subkeyreg HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE /grant=system=f
subinacl /subkeyreg HKEY_CURRENT_USER /grant=system=f
subinacl /subkeyreg HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT /grant=system=f
subinacl /subdirectories %SystemDrive% /grant=system=f4. Enter into the CMD/Command prompt. CD Change Directory to C:\Program Files\Windows Resource Kits\Tools
5. Run reset.cmd
6. After many minutes of processing by subinacl, the permission will be reset Ignore any errors.
7. Reboot into Safe Mode (F8)
8. Run regedit and delete the offending keys
These instructions were adapted from many other posters across numerous forums and sites - all credit to the original authors.
Good Luck and Regards,
Doug
9/6/08 Update: As this thread is rather long now - I wanted to bring all of your attention to the following - a "fix" which might end up being easier to implement than my early workaround listed above :
Symantec has posted their own Windows Registry cleaning tool. It is available at: ftp://ftp.symantec.com/public/english_us_canada/tutorials/SymRegFix.exe
Microsoft has also posted their own registry clean-up tool, fixccs.exe, which needs to be run in Safe Mode. See:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/953979
Regards - Doug
MRFREEZE61: I have found a similar corruption on my system.
I see parent keys that all seem to be Norton/Symantec product keys. These are throughout my registry and not limited to the location that you pointed out. These keys include:
LEGACY_LIVEUPDATE_NOTICE
Automatic LiveUpdate Scheduler
ccEvtMgr
ccSetMgr
CLTNetCnService
Instances
LiveUpdate
LiveUpdateNotice
NAVENG
NAVEX15
Symantec Core LC
Underneath EACH of these keys are over 180 corrupted keys FOR EACH ONE.
The first subkey is
$%&'(
and then every subkey thereafter adds another character for each key until you are left with the final subkey of
$%&'()*+,-./0123$%&'()*+,-./0123$%&'()*+,-./0123$%&'()*+,-./0123$%&'()*+,-./0123$%&'()*+,-./0123$%&'()*+,-./0123$%&'()*+,-./0123$%&'()*+,-./0123$%&'()*+,-./0123$%&'()*+,-./0123$%&'()*+,-
Unfortunately in my case this means I have almost 2000 corrupted keys which need to be manually removed.
If anyone from Microsoft has any quick way of fixing this I sure would appreciate it since SP3 is what caused this huge mess.
Thanks
MRFREEZE61: Your solution will not work in my case. When I attempt to go to safe mode, my mouse and keyboard do not seem to work so I can't acknowledge the "Windows is running in safe mode" dialog to get in. Is there any way to delete those corrupt keys without being in safe mode? A registry utility/tool perhaps?
Upon further investigation I see that even many if not most of the subkeys have similar corrupt subkeys and so on. So I'm dealing with tens of thousands if not hundreds of thousands of these recursive patters in the registry.
I will definitely require a tool of some sort to clean this up.
Any suggestions or recommendations are welcome.
ThanksHere's a reference to another site where the same issue is detailed:
http://www.annoyances.org/exec/forum/winxp/1203026066
My problem solved by MRFREEZE61's solution.
The problem is still here.
I spent over two hours on the phone with a MS rep who was very kind but we couldn't narrow it down.
After all the install attempts and one working, I uninstalled and the problem was still there. I removed Norton 2008, re-installed SP3, and then Norton 2008 and still empty device manager and all USB devices that aren't plugged in at boot time do not get recognized.
Slow load for "My Computer" as well.
I'll keep you posted.
- Problem description:
1. Affected: Two machines that I upgradeded, well serviced XP SP2 setups, a laptop and a desktop. I upgraded the desktop after my test case, the laptop, rebooted and everything appeared to run. The panel unfortunately was an unexpected surprise. Then the registry issues became apparent.
2. Functionality lost:
- hardware manager panel empty
- network connections panel empty
- USB safely remove missing
- USB device, scanner, non-functional, driver not accessible. That means that while the scanner is available at boot time, it is and remains unusable. The scanner software (Canon) unfortunately uses the registry.
Summary: Reduced functionality, unclear resolution time, unclear if fixable at all with tools or otherwise.
3. Registry corruption types:
MFreeze's and other's description is good:
Automatic LiveUpdate Scheduler
ccEvtMgr
ccSetMgr
etc.
contain lines starting with:
$%&'(
up to 166 lines extending the pattern under the same key.
The registry editor lists 53982 lines total with that pattern. Can't delete them all by hand!
Could someone please clarify if "&" is legal in keys and in what patterns?
4. Registry cleaners don't necessarily work, I used maxcleaner and jv16 to analyze. The issue may not even show up because the keys appear "legal".
5. Summary: This is pretty bad. Is there a good fix yet? Why is such a problem not high priority?
Turns out the suggested fix may work, but it is a broad problem.
I am worried that deleting the $%&'( alone will not fix it, but negate fixing the problem later. Has the cause been determined yet?
This appears to be a Symantec related problem according to the keys showing up: cc.., etc. Is anyone from Symantec on this yet? Since SP3 has been distributed by autoupdate to at least one of my machines: Am I to believe that this problem did not show up in testing? Really? For something as widely tested as SP3? Really? I mean seriously? And it happened to both my machines? And there is little response from MS on this thread? Really? Isn't there any concern for MS given that the suspicion could be created that just another AV vendor than MS was affected or that it could be perceived as tactics trying to migrate people from XP to Vista?
Thanks for any help, specifically from the MS or Symantec teams.
datarimlens - Same here, datarimlens.
I'm away from my computer right now but I had a few thoughts on what might help fix the issue.
A friend here at work suggested that I run the registry through a registry fixer or something like that. Check cnet at download.com.
Also, he suggested that I try to turn on all services. Everything that is not running, start it up and hopefully (maybe) the devices will again be recognized.
I'll post again after I have tried these things. I also have not heard back from the technician who I spoke with on the phone last night. I have an open case number with Microsoft so I'll get on the phone again this evening and keep at it.
If anybody has any luck, post or e mail me at <<jason a schlueter>> <at>> [[hotmail]] (dot) com. You can put it together.
- MRFREEZE61's solution also worked for me...I just kept pressing delete and enter until I got rid of the thousands of registry entries. I just deleted anything beginning with "$%&" which I found using the find command in regedit.
Thank you so much for posting this info here MRFREEZE61. As an early reporter of the problem - I would like to clarify a few points:
1st - No problem is exactly the same - no fix/workaround will work for everyone - sorry.
2nd - This problem (registry corruption) was directly introduced by the SP3 upgrade procedure. NO QUESTION !
3rd - Going back to SP2 will not work. The corruption remains.
4th - Waiting for Microsoft to acknowledge or fix this serious problem is foolhearty. If you have this specific reported corruption anywhere in "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\*ControlSet*\*" - you will likely have issues with your device manager (and more). It will not be resolved until you remove those entries.
5th - Waiting for a "magic" procedure from Microsoft is not likely. Unfortuneatly, if you have this specific corruption - you will have to do the work - find the entries - and remove them - or live with the fallout - until (and if) - resolved by Microsoft.
Those that have sent me private e-mails on conspiracy theories due to the competitive nature between Symantec and Microsoft - while intersting - I will leave it as: I was not happy having to spend 16 hours researching this issue - to solve an issue introduced by the SP3 upgrade. An issue that I excpect will be widespread - and likely to be talked about on this forum for a long time.
Good luck to those in my boat - Hope my fix works for you.
Regards,
Doug
Check out
HKLM\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\Enum\Root\LEGACY_LIVEUPDATE_NOTICE.
I found a bunch of garbage keys in there.
Also try:
HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Installer\UserData\S-1-5-18\Products\596A69ABEC9EA2B41
You may not have that last one but you'll probably have the first one.
I won't have time to do more research until tonight.
I used the suggestion from MRFREEZE61 and it worked for me. Many Thanks!
It was a little easier for me to fix:
1st - I uninstalled Norton Antivirus 2008 (I did this based on a suggestion on another forum).
2nd - Searched the registry for anything starting with $%& (all mine ended up under LEGACY_LIVEUPDATE_NOTICE).
3rd - I just deleted LEGACY_LIVEUPDATE_NOTICE altogether. I didn't bother deleting each entry one by one.
4th - Rebooted - All devices were found - Device Manager was full again.
Thanks again for the forum help.
-Wancio
Have I understood this correctly - everyone suffering from this problem had Norton installed?
Thanks MRFREEZE61
I can confirm that MRFREEZE61 fix worked for me; although it took a very long time to delete hundreds of Keys in RegEdit
I can also confirm that the problem was certainly down to XP SP3; I upgraded two VERY well maintained (WSUS updates always applied) XP SP2 PCs. On one everything was fine on the other I had 3 problems: -
1) Device Manager was empty
2) No Local Area Network Icon in Network Connections
3) Office 2008 reporting to have failed WGA (Windows Genuine Advantage) checks, which prompted me to activate Office 2008. When I tried to activate Office 2008, it stated that it was already activated.
The only major differences between these machines were the following on the failed PC: -
Visual Studio 2003
Visual Studio 2005
SQL 2005
Norton 2008 (the other PC has Norton 2004)
Office 2008 (the other PC has Office 2003)
HTH
Regards,
Jon
I deleted everything in the registry under HKLM\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\Enum\Root\LEGACY_LIVEUPDATE_NOTICE as you guys instructed. There was a bunch of crazy *** in there. Everything (so far) seems to be working.
Thank you very much.
Success!
I'm running Windows XP SP3 and Norton 360 Version 2.1.0.5 if that matters.
Running in Safe Mode and logged in as the Administrator, I deleted all the "dirty" registry keys from:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\Enum\Root\LEGACY_CCPROXY
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\Enum\Root\LEGACY_LIVEUPDATE_NOTICE
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet002\Enum\Root\LEGACY_CCPROXY
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet002\Enum\Root\LEGACY_LIVEUPDATE_NOTICE
I rebooted the computer and my Device Manager and my Network Connections are back, Jack!
God bless,
Loren Wong
lwong [a t] edmunds [d o t] com
Associate Business Analyst
Edmunds.com | InsideLine.com | CarSpace.com | AutoObserver.com
I too had this problem with NIS 2008. Looking at the forums, this problem has been showing up with all the SP3 RC's so it makes me wonder wy they released it instead of fixing it.
- Wow, pardon my colorful metaphors, but MSFT REALLY phuked this up. I hope someone loses their job over this.
I upgraded three well-maintained laptop machines:
- one with NIS2008 installed and running during the upgrade;
- one with NIS2008 installed but shut down during installation; and
- one without NIS2008 installed
As you guessed, the one without NIS2008 upgraded like a charm. No problems. The other two have the same mess as identified by all in this thread [one side note - the WIDCOMM Bluetooth connection in my Dell XPS would not recognize my MSFT keyboard or mouse. It would try to connect but then reset into discovery mode. I reinstalled the MSFT Bluetooth USB key and it worked fine]
What this tells me is that MSFT did not QA this release with anything but their own software/hardware. You would have thought that with the checkered history of Norton tools running on Windows machines, MSFT would have ensured their QA suite would account for it. Obviously not.
I am now going to try Mr. Freeze's fix and report back... stay tuned.
/Howie - Howie, I wonder why you blame Microsoft, rather than Norton/Symantec? If a third-party add-on has critical bugs that damage a system, what can Microsoft do about it, without provoking enormous legal problems?
bighowie wrote: Wow, pardon my colorful metaphors, but MSFT REALLY phuked this up. I hope someone loses their job over this. - Why? You are asking why?
I will tell you why:
- After spending hours with Symantec support trying to convince them that they should care and QA their products together with MS before they release a major rollup like SP3, while they keep pointing out they are innocent, that it is NOT Symantecs fault, that MS will help me, etc.
- I am tired of the managers not taking responsibility to QA their stuff appropriately. It is the fault of BOTH managements MS AND Symantec that this happened. Do I have to be more clear?
- I went through several layers of a) a web site trying to get me not to call b) several techs that are never at fault and want to remote into my system to "fix the problem quickly" while they don't even listen to the issues c) entry level management that does not know or care either.
- This is a fault of the project management on SP3's end unless of course it is an intentional "oops" we did not know we closed out a competitor AV program, "oops" you should really be on Vista. That is a competitive advantage for MS. Symantec should care since they knew SP3 was coming, but did not, so they dropped the ball. That their service management stated that "it is still early in the SP3 rollout" after the thing went on "autoupdate" is just hilarious.
Since unless there is money involved in the feedback, nobody cares: my money after this experience, given as wide a problem this has to be and that neither one of the companies addresses it appropriately, is probably out of MS (and products) for a while.
Is that clear enough why? - Thanks Dataman. My sentiments.
Frankly, the release of SP3 is coming from MSFT, therefore the onus of QA is on them. That's how it works with any s/w company. To blindly give Symantec a pre-release and expect them to report to MSFT that all is OK without rigourous checks is irresponsible. So I agree, blame should fall on both parties, but MSFT for not ensuring all is good prior to release.
Back to my problem...
Uninstalling NIS is not the way to completely remove it. You must use the Symantec Norton Removal Tool (norton_removal_tool.exe) off their support page. I did this and it completely removed NIS (as well as the *** in the registry). Good news is the Device Manager returned, as did the network connections.
My NAS drives are still missing (after this first re-boot). Let me re-boot and see if they come back.
Cheers, - Alright... all is well. SP# upgraded systems are running as before. Culprit is SP3 botching up the Norton registry entries. Norton removal tool fixes it up.
Whew. I would have to conncur with BigHowie here... The responsibility rests with the actor, not the re-actor. MSFT's install created the problem, did not account for it, and has done nothing to address it. Sym worked fine before the SP3 install, and would be held harmless. Aren't we all glad we hit "I accept" on the license agreement? I feel like a lemming.
I would have to conncur with BigHowie here... The responsibility rests with the actor, not the re-actor. MSFT's install created the problem, did not account for it, and has done nothing to address it. Sym worked fine before the SP3 install, and would be held harmless. Aren't we all glad we hit "I accept" on the license agreement? I feel like a lemming.
MRFREEZE:
Please tell us exactly what to do and when to do it:
i.e., do we first delete the reg keys, uninstall norton, uninstall sp3, re-install sp3, re-install norton
or what (please tell the order of fixes).
THANKS!
Harnagel - (All),
In my case - While Norton/Symantec products were present on my computer - the startup of these products were disabled prior to starting the SP3 upgrade - and the corruption occured prior to restarting the any of the products.
Again for everybody - it was definetly the SP3 upgrade procedure which reliably corrupts the registry. Reproducable every time.
As for the order - I did not have to unistall/reinstall SP3 or any of the Symantec products - I merely followed the exact instructions in my post. Another poster to this thread indicated that he completely removed the Norton products with a tool available from Syamantec and then resinstalled those products - and that seemed to work for him - without having to perform my workaround. (Can't personally vouch for that workaround - I didn't try it)
If your not particularly technical - then I would recommend his approach (before attempting my posted workaround)
Highest Regards,
Doug
- I had the missing Device manager problem and had already reemoved SP 3. I removed Norton with the Symantec tool but still had the problem. I searched the registry and removed the remaining items. The Device Manager has returned. Thank you MRFREEZE61.
Hi there
i have the same issue and have tried MRfreezes fix and removed all enterys with $%& with regedit, i dont use norton just avira antivir and cannot say im impressed.
i like most others have
1) Device Manager was empty
2) No Local Area Network Icon in Network Connection3) My Computer takes 30 secods to find any drives etc
any ideas? apart from reinstaling
Thanks
----------------
Update
Just uninstaled sp3 an then re did Mrfreezes fix and now working -- thank you much apriciated for your time and trouble
think ill leave sp3 and vista sp1 updates for a long time - a very long time.
Ta
- Hi MRFREEZE61,
Thank You for investigating on this and helping resolving this problem. It worked for me.
In my case corrupted keys were also in ENUM\ but name was LEGACY_LIVE_UPDATE something...
I hope that Symantec and Microsoft will learn the lesson and bring some registry fixing tool soon for all others that can not handle this by themselves.
Doug, how did You find pattern for corrupted keys? Did You just browse registry and guessed that this is IT!?
Many thanks,
Lucas I had the same problem, the PC had started the day with Symantec AV10.1 on it, although that and Webroot SpySweeper had to be completely removed and the subinacl.exe fix applied before SP3 would even install (to get round the "Access Is Denied" message). Thanks to mrfreeze I searched the registry for the bad pattern, deleted the lot (figured if this completely hoses the PC then it's no worse then what MS had already achieved), and that fixed it for me. Considering this has now been breaking people's PCs for at least a week, and is fully documented here on their own site you might imagine that they would just withdraw the SP until they get round to testing it with obscure software like Norton Antivirus & Webroot's SpySweeper. Anyway, thanks again MrFreeze.
I encountered exactly the same issue as MrFreeze after installing XP SP3 on a well maintained Dell Inspiron 5150 Laptop. The machine has got NIS2008 installed on it as well, and this would appear to be the link with others who have posted threads here.
Indeed, upgrading to XP SP3 had already been a fairly painful experience - I also encountered the 'Access Denied' issue part way through the installation itself (that has also been well documented on the MSoft technical forum and elsewhere) and had to use SubInAcl to grant the appropriate permissions to get the installation to complete.
Hoping that was the end of the matter, I then noticed that my wireless icon had disappeared from the SysTray and access to My Computer was much slower than normal. I googled the problems and came across this thread..
I followed MrFreeze's instructions exactly and can confirm that this overcame all the issues for me and thankfully my machine is now back to normal. So a big thanks to him for his time and effort in tracking this one down. I would concur with others, however, that deleting all these corrupt keys manually is a pretty painful and time consuming exercise and would have expected Microsoft to have delivered a fix for this by now. (I found all my invalid registry entries by searching for leys including '$%&' within Regedit and apart from one valid entry, this was a pretty foolproof way of locating the offending ones, so surely it can't be beyond a technical expert to come up with an automatic clear-up routine?)
I have 2 other machines that I will need to upgrade at some point, but I will hold off doing this until I see that this issue has been resolved.
Anyway, thanks again and let's just hope SP3 is indeed the last Service Pack for XP! Can't really see much difference with Windows anyway as a result so it seems to have caused a lot of issues for lots of people for what would appear very little gain...
Cheers,
Keith
I too have been affected by the same problem. But strangely enough I loaded it to a HP ZV4000 laptop running NIS 2008 and it worked fine then I loaded it to a HP ZV5000 laptop running NIS 2008 and it has so many corrupt registry files that it would that it would take me hours to delete them all. The only good thing at this point I can say it I caught it before I deployed it to the rest of the PC’s on the network. I would thing that Microsoft could easily come up with a hot fix for us that have been affected to delete the corrupt registry keys.
Just my 2 cents
Jim S.- I'm having the same problem with XP SP3; the Device Manager is totally empty and My Computer takes a long time to display information. I upgraded from XP Pro SP2 to SP3. This morning, I uninstalled XP3 through the Control Panel's "Add Remove Programs" feature and it didn't correct the problem. The Device Manager is still totally empty and My Computer takes a long time to display information. Today, I will do a full restore of my XP Pro SP2 from a full backup I did. I'll keep you posted on the progress.Way to go Microsoft! Keep up the good work.Tom
CTBuckweed wrote: I'm having the same problem with XP SP3; the Device Manager is totally empty and My Computer takes a long time to display information. I upgraded from XP Pro SP2 to SP3. This morning, I uninstalled XP3 through the Control Panel's "Add Remove Programs" feature and it didn't correct the problem. The Device Manager is still totally empty and My Computer takes a long time to display information. Today, I will do a full restore of my XP Pro SP2 from a full backup I did. I'll keep you posted on the progress.Way to go Microsoft! Keep up the good work.Tom
An update: The "Safely Remove Hardware icon" in the Notifications area of the task bar no longer shows up nor does the system beep when I plug in / unplug my USB drive. Even after uninstalling SP3, it still doesn't work.
Also my HP 5600 USB printer doesn't work with SP3 or even uninstalling SP3.
Tom- I have the same problem.. so I checked my registry as you suggested.. Had to search for the damn things.. There must be a million scattered in two of the ControlSets and in Services... I lost my Bluetooth is how I discovered that the device driver display was empyt and now no bluetooth until I can access the driver. Thanks for the info...
This same problem has occured with 1 of my 3 computers with SP3. I did not feel like messing with the registry and possibly screwing everything up. I called Microsoft and was on the phone for 3 hs. talking to a tech support agent today and all the solutions she had did not work, so now I am going to be contacted by a research engineer to see if they know how to solve this problem.I have show no items in the device manager and no network adapters present in network connections. What is the problem with microsoft? Can they not fix this? What is the fix?
wbcer, if you've found this thread, then you've found the fix. Read this thread from the beginning. The problem seems to relate to the presence of Norton products on the PC, and registry corruption during the upgrade.
My Computer takes 25 seconds to load. Plus the other problems. I can not believe that MS would release a product with this type of problem. Getting rid of the "$%&" will take for ever. Maybe a clean install will be less painful. Right now I'll limp along and watch for a solution.
CTBuckweed wrote: CTBuckweed wrote: I'm having the same problem with XP SP3; the Device Manager is totally empty and My Computer takes a long time to display information. I upgraded from XP Pro SP2 to SP3. This morning, I uninstalled XP3 through the Control Panel's "Add Remove Programs" feature and it didn't correct the problem. The Device Manager is still totally empty and My Computer takes a long time to display information. Today, I will do a full restore of my XP Pro SP2 from a full backup I did. I'll keep you posted on the progress.Way to go Microsoft! Keep up the good work.Tom
An update: The "Safely Remove Hardware icon" in the Notifications area of the task bar no longer shows up nor does the system beep when I plug in / unplug my USB drive. Even after uninstalling SP3, it still doesn't work.
Also my HP 5600 USB printer doesn't work with SP3 or even uninstalling SP3.
Tom
Last night, I reforrmated the system drive and did a full restore from my backup tape that I made before the SP3 install. Now I am am fully restored without any SP3 hangovers. Thank goodness I did a full backup before the upgrade!- A tool is definately required. I also have thousand of $%&'()... entries and regedit cannot delete the keys.
I had the same problem as you. I restarted in Save Mode and ran regedit, used find with "$%&" to find each key and deleted each key that was found. It took approximately 2.5 hrs to delete all the keys found. Then I shut down the computer and brought it back up and my Device Manager repopulated and my Network Icon returned.
I did this on a HP Compaq Presario R3000 Laptop in Safe Mode and it restored my MMC Device Manager....No thanks to Microsoft!!!! I did back up the root file before deleting just in case I needed to restore them, then just deleted the whole root file and all subfoldersthat were full of junk files starting with ($%&...etc). After reboot the the malicious software update downloaded from Microsoft Update reported it had removed a number of maiicious files...Everything seems to be working fine now...Norton Liveupdate is working as well.
Thanks gmoorefan1 for this post. I tried everything else but this is all that would work for me.
Have a Happy Day!
Not PISSEDoff anymore....
- I can confirm the fix by mrfreeze does work.
I do not have any Norton software installed but still had the same problem. I did not experience the"millions" of entries as some have expressed. It took me about 5 min to delete all the entries if that. Again, other people may have more. I only deleted the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet and not anywhere else even though the find function found it elsewhere like HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet001 and 002. MrFreeze's solution worked for me. Thank you!
I would like to see a reply from a MS rep regarding this. I feel that this is QA issue and that many people have been effected by it.
- BSECOtech
HI guys , I had the same problem..I restarted in safe mode with network support & then restarted back in normal mode
Problem solved.
I have symantec antivirus..
By the way i was running service pack 3 release candidate & uninstalled it before upgrading to service pack 3
I read many forums to solve the problem of Device Manager Empty / Missing Icons. I tried everything that was suggested short of modifying the registry. Nothing worked. I finally modified the registry, deleting all instances of $%&. It took me over 3 hours but it worked. Everything is back to normal. This occurred after installing SP3. Heres the kicker - I installed SP3 on 5 computers and only had the problem on 1. I wish some programmer (Microsoft) would write a program that would allow you to delete ALL entries of your choosing with a click of a button. There are other times a program like that could be useful (and dangerous). Bottom line - no easy fix.
I waited long enough I guess Microsoft is not going to release a Hot Fix so I just spent 2 hrs deleting keys as mr freeze detailed.
Were going to start swaping out the 250 PC on or network to Macs.
Have a great life Microsoft
Just had the same problem and solved it with Mr FREEZE solution.
My offending keys($%&) were located in
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Enum\Root\LEGACY_ LIVEUPDATE NOTICE
In all control sets
I manually deleted them all in safe mode(after changing permissions)
Rebooted and all was well,device manager repopulated and network icons back.
However i dont know why i did this but i checked the registery again and all the($%&)
are back again in the same locations.
But everything works ok now with no problems ?
Weird ???????????????
Thank you all for these posts....especially MRFREEZE61, I ran into this exact problem with three computers on our network....
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Enum\Root\LEGACY_ LIVEUPDATE NOTICE all sub keys had the $%&'( corruption and so on.
I simply just gave the EVERYONE group full control of the parent key..the permissions automatically propogated down...re-booted in safe mode and then deleted the entire key LEGACY_ LIVEUPDATE NOTICE ...re-booted normal and my problems are gone... In my case the registry key was re-created but with no corruption...Device manager and network connections is now available....Thanks!!!
Thank you MRFREEZE61 and the other that went before me. The fix work like a charm. I used EZ Marcos to delete 20 at a time. I estimate there were about 2000 entries. As a side, I had three versions of CurrentControlSet due to two failed attempts of the install and don't know if "$%&" were each version. I just sat there and deleted any that were found. Rebooting out of Save Mode made me a happy camper.
Again thanks to everyone that made it possible to recover from the disaster.
Solved for me as well, but I used a much simpler method...
(1) Write down Norton Product Key.
(2) Remove Norton products with the Norton Removal Tool found on Symantec's Website...http://service1.symantec.com/Support/tsgeninfo.nsf/docid/2005033108162039 (does a better job of removing registry entries)
(3) (May not be necessary) Search for the string "$%&" in regedit, delete the remaining corrupt keys (I found 2 'legacy' keys with several corrupt sub-keys)
(4) (May not be necessary) Delete the "Symantec Shared" folder from C:/Program Files/Common Files
(5) Reinstall Norton Product.
Good Luck!
-Kevin
I see no evidence that Microsoft is working on this issue, or even that they are mildly concerned about it, But, just in case it's helpful at all:
I installed SP3 on two computers. One had this problem, the other didn't. The differences in the systems:
(1) The unaffected computer is an older model (Pentium III vs. Xeon processor, 768 mb RAM vs. 4 GB).
(2) The older computer boots directly into Windows - no separate user accounts.
I am not a Microsoft basher, and I firmly believe there's no such thing as perfection. But, come on Microsoft - this whole situation, and the lack of response, is absolutely reprehensible!
Same here with Toshiba Satellite A60 and Xp Pro in Spanish.
Carlos.
carlos_esquerre@(sacar_esto)hotmail.com
This solution worked for me as well. Thanks to ALL who have posted! I would have never found the fix on my own and MS acts as if they are in no hurry to repair this huge screw up affecting hundreds of thousands of it customers.
Any one care for an Apple?
Wancio wrote: I used the suggestion from MRFREEZE61 and it worked for me. Many Thanks!
It was a little easier for me to fix:
1st - I uninstalled Norton Antivirus 2008 (I did this based on a suggestion on another forum).
2nd - Searched the registry for anything starting with $%& (all mine ended up under LEGACY_LIVEUPDATE_NOTICE).
3rd - I just deleted LEGACY_LIVEUPDATE_NOTICE altogether. I didn't bother deleting each entry one by one.
4th - Rebooted - All devices were found - Device Manager was full again.
Thanks again for the forum help.
-Wancio
Correction to earlier post-
This is the solution that worked for me except I didn't uninstall NAV before deleting LEGACY_LIVEUPDATE_NOTICE altogether.
Thanks again to everyone!
Like a lot of others... I have been dealing with this too... it was on two of my three XP systems (it spared the oldest machine).
I did use Mr Freeze's solution but I stopped after deleteing three branches worth of $%&... (maybe 20 minutes of Delete and Enter...). I decided to stop and see if anyone (that I trust) had written a clean up tool... after the reboot, the device manager and my network Icons were back... I still have a lot of garbage in the registry, but the system is running well again... at this point I'll wait for a hotfix or a cleaning tool (or write something myself).
I deleted three branches worth of garbage on my laptop and it's happy now it's happy as well.
A quick update... the garbage is in my third system as well, it just never showed the device manager and network icon symptom.
I suspect that anyone that checks will find this stuff in their registry.
Kudos and thanks to Mr Freeze.
I haven´t $%& string in all registry and I haven´t any symantec product installed. The problem continue. Any idea to solve?
Thanks
Carlos.
- Well, it does appear, in my case and as well as a friend I was collaborating with on fixing this problem, that locating and removing the offensive keys fixed the issues.
We developed a series of .reg files by dumping affected areas of the registry .. eg., all keys under HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\Services\Automatic LiveUpdate Scheduler .. which is one of the affected stanzas in the registry. etc etc .. Editted the exported file.. Used the technique to delete the keys by pre-pending '-' to the keyname.. eg.,
[-HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\Services\Automatic LiveUpdate Scheduler\$%&'()*+,]
and processed a combined .reg file ..
It took a while to develop the .reg file.. but now .. it only took 5 min to delete the thousands of messed up keys. We've used the same 'composite' .reg file on several machines.
****** Now.. SOMETHING TO NOTE.. *******
You may not think you machine is effected. One of my machines seemed to be working fine.. no signs of missing device manager stuff, etc, etc. But upon investigation of the registry, I found the corruption was there. So.. I suspect it was 'a problem waiting to happen' or manifest itself. If you have Norton products installed, and you install SP3, it looks like you're gonna have this garbage in your registry.. whether it manifests itself thru some problem you can see, or not!
In our case(s), we have numerous Norton products installed.
It will be very interesting to see how MS addresses this problem. This is going to be a HUGE problem which is just getting worse by the minute with each SP3 install. - contact microsoft support - it is worth the wait
they will establish a remote session and fix the problem
below is the summary of my issue and the ultimate resoultion
it took about 30 minutes and my involvement was minimal - no reloading of any programs - no restoring actions requied
good luck! denni
ACTION : You were trying to use the device manager
RESULT : Unable to use the device manager
CAUSE : The device manger went blank after installing service pack 3
RESOLUTION : We deleted the HKLM\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\Enum\Root\LEGACY_LIVEUPDATE_NOTICE and you were able to see the device manager Hey Doug / Mr Freeze, Just wanted to say that your solution saved my butt big time. I've been surfing the Net for days since I installed SP3 trying to find a solution. For anyone else with the same problem, be warned: I probably deleted 10 000 currupt keys, no exaggeration, all manually because you can't highlight and hit delete! Thanks!
I have no doubt MS is aware of this problem but is doing nothing.
My first indication, about a week and a half ago, was when an old program purchased retail almost a year ago indicated my "trial period was over" and I had to activate it. It would not reactivate with my key. I started hunting around and discovered Dev. Mgr was blank, things were slowing down bigtime - - long story short, I had a mess on my hands like everybody else in this forum but hadn't read this forum at the time. I called MS support. After an hour and a half on the phone, the guy said he'd "escalate" my problem. A different guy from MS called back a couple of days later and set up another remote session. The first thing he asked was if I'd tried Sys Restore. I had, but it hadn't worked at all. The next thing he did was check my registry - he went straight to "HKLM\SYSTEM\CURRENTCONTROLSET\ENUM" but did not say why. I believe he saw what he was looking for but did not say so. He said to try uninstalling my old program in Safe Mode and reboot but that he couldn't stay on the phone while I did that. He said he'd call back. I said to call me after the weekend. In the meantime, I found this forum and thank god I did.
Here's what worked for me, restored Device Manager, reactivated my program, etc., etc. It might not work for you, but it might. If you're not sure, back up everything you don't want to lose, messing with your Registry can be spooky. I did not do this in Safe Mode and it worked:
1) Go to Control Panel, Add/Remove Programs, and uninstall anything remotely having to do with NAV or Symantec. Before you do this, you should write down your registration keys if you haven't already so you can reinstall later.
2) Go to Symantec's website and run their Uninstall All Products program.
3) Run Search, search for Norton, then Symantec. Delete anything remotely having to do with either/both.
4) Open Run, Regedit, click Edit tab, click Find, type in $%&, check all three boxes, click Find Next. It will take a few seconds.
5) I was lucky and every instance of $%& was in HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE/SYSTEM/CURRENTCONTROLSET/ENUM/LEGACY_LIVEUPDATE_NOTICE. Legacy Liveupdate is an NAV entry. I deleted the entire value, rebooted, and good things happened. You may have other locations where $%& is found and you may have to delete them one by one. Keep hitting Find Next until you've got 'em all.
So far, so good. I can't wait for the MS guy to call back Monday. How many folks out there are stumbling around trying to figure out what's wrong with their computers? Microsoft cannot NOT know about this, yet they've done nothing.
Thanks a lot, Bill.
I had the issue on two of my machines today after loading SP3. The first one I solved by manually deleting all the offending keys. On the second machine, I completely removed my Norton IS 2008 with Symantec's removal tool. I still had one group of offending keys to delete manually but it went a lot quicker than the first removal exercise. I was able to re-install NIS 2008 and my network and device manager icons are still there. What a horrible waste of time!
My PC (Lenovo T61) lost all of its Network devices, but a few days after the SP3 upgrade. Firstly, I noticed that the Network Connections page was empty, however the network continued to work at that stage, and then after the next reboot, ipconfig /all showed nothing and the network didn't work.
In my case, I uninstalled all the network drivers from the Device Manager page which was OK (also having uninstalled our corporate VPN software, Checkpoint FW1), and let the system re-detect the hardware. For me, this cured the problem.
I can not find any of the corrupted registry entries described, and don't (won't) have any Symantec/Norton software on my PC. I do not have a high regard for their AV software to put it mildly.
Given that it was a few days after SP3 upgrade, I do not know absolutely that it was at fault, however I had not recently installed anything else.
Regards
Peter
- I too have SP3 installed and running fine (no HP AMD or Symantec products). However I also have a registry full of $%& entries. I am disinclined to manually fix this as there looks like thousands of entries. I have turned off automatic updates on several customers machines until I see a fix for this or something that can be easily applied.
Please post here if you find something. - The removal of Norton AV2008 followed by the Norton Removal tool, then finally manual regedit removal of the errant entry's brought everything back. My only remaining problem is in the device mgr. I have 3 entries referring to my Ethernet adapter all with WAN SYMANTEC NETWORK SECURITY MINIPORT ....I cant uninstall...Whats up with these items?
Has any one lost their System Restore?
Mine show the restore dates, but when I reboot my computer it says, restore could not restore
nothing has been changed??
Can any one help me here
thanks Jody G
Yes, I lost Sys Restore, and many others have lost Sys Restore, as well. System Restore will not work, Device Manager is blank, clicking on My Computer will often give you a blank screen with the "flashlight" looking for files - - in short, all manner of havoc, and not all symptoms are exactly the same.
Here's what I did to get back to normal:
1) Go to Control Panel, Add/Remove Programs, and uninstall anything remotely having to do with NAV (Norton AntiVirus) or Symantec. Before you do this, you should write down your registration keys if you haven't already so you can reinstall later.2) Go to Symantec's website and run their Uninstall All Products program.
3) Run Search, search for Norton, then Symantec. Delete anything remotely having to do with either/both.
4) Open Run, Regedit, click Edit tab, click Find, type in $%&, check all three boxes, click Find Next. It will take a few seconds.
5) I was lucky and every instance of $%& was in HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE/SYSTEM/CURRENTCONTROLSET/ENUM/LEGACY_LIVEUPDATE_NOTICE. Legacy Liveupdate is an NAV entry. I deleted the entire value, rebooted, and good things happened. You may have other locations where $%& is found and you may have to delete them one by one. Keep hitting Find Next until you've got 'em all.
Good luck!
- I'm glad I'm not alone on this. Same thing happened on my laptop. I'm running a Macbook pro with boot camp so I encountered the error initially saying that I could not install sp3 b/c of space issues. I used a registry add that was posted on mac forums that allows the install to happen by adding a "bootdir" key to the following location [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Setup]
So sp3 could now be installed so I proceeeded with it. After the install it asked me to reboot. Upon reboot into Windows XP, I was prompted with this "Due to hardware changes on this computer, you will need to reactivate your Windows product." At this point I'm assuming you could feel the frustration I felt. I ended up having to call the 800 number on my cell phone to get a key to input in so I could get back into XP. So once I was in XP, normally my wireless connects and MSN Messenger launches. That was the first sign something happened. After I realized I couldn't see my wireless device icon in the system tray, I went right to the properties of "my network places" only to see nothing there !!! I then went to device manager, and again, nothing !!! I then went into "My Computer" and after a few minutes of an hour glass, it finally came up. This never happens either, the response time is great on the macbook. I tried a system restore for each day back 1 week... of which none of those were able to be applied. I did see a thread on Norton programs, of which I am running Norton Antivirus 2008 (version 15.5.023). I haven't done anything yet as far as trying to fix the device mgr. and network places but somewhere in one of these reboots I was able to at least get on the internet to read some forums. Anyone have this happen to them?
kenzbo I posted a workaround/fix all the way back on Page 1 of this thread. I will repost again. Good Luck !
MRFREEZE61 wrote:
I'll be ******** - it was indeed corruption introduced into the registry by the SP3 upgrade process itself.
In my case it was located in: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Enum\Root\LEGACY_CCPROXY
All the invalid entries ( which for me all began with $%& ) had to be deleted.
Finding your corrupted entries is not easy - but expand all sections in all controlsets with \Enum\ to find them. Posts in other forums have never produced corruption in the exact same registry tree/keys - so unfortuneatly you will have to "look hard". Also deleting the bogus entries may not be as easy as just "delete". You may need to modify the permisions on each entry.
For a small amount of entries:
1) Rightclick and go to the permissions of the corrupt registry key
2) add new permission for the administrator
3) give the administrator "full control"4) Reboot into Safe Mode (F8)
5) run regedit and delete the offending keys
For a large amount of entries I chose the following instructions:
1. Download and install SubInACL
2. Create a blank file named reset.cmd in C:\Program Files\Windows Resource
Kits\Tools folder.3. Edit the reset.cmd file with the following content.
subinacl /subkeyreg HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE /grant=administrators=f
subinacl /subkeyreg HKEY_CURRENT_USER /grant=administrators=f
subinacl /subkeyreg HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT /grant=administrators=f
subinacl /subdirectories %SystemDrive% /grant=administrators=fsubinacl /subkeyreg HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE /grant=system=f
subinacl /subkeyreg HKEY_CURRENT_USER /grant=system=f
subinacl /subkeyreg HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT /grant=system=f
subinacl /subdirectories %SystemDrive% /grant=system=f4. Enter into the CMD/Command prompt. CD Change Directory to C:\Program Files\Windows Resource Kits\Tools
5. Run reset.cmd
6. After many minutes of processing by subinacl, the permission will be reset Ignore any errors.
7. Reboot into Safe Mode (F8)
8. Run regedit and delete the offending keys
These instructions were adapted from many other posters across numerous forums and sites - all credit to the original authors.
Good Luck and Regards,
Doug
I have a solution that worked for me over a year now! Do not install Norton products on your computer and it will be faster and give you less problems. Worked for me and I installed SP3 with no problems and no registry coruption. Something to think about!!!
Nissan99 wrote: I too have SP3 installed and running fine (no HP AMD or Symantec products). However I also have a registry full of $%& entries.
Could you tell us in which keys you found the $%& entries?
Which issue did you ran into exactly after installing SP3? Empty Device Manager and/or Network Connections and/or anything else?
Bye,
FreudiHi,
I didn't really have to time to read through all the posts, so I apologize if anyhting I say has already been said.
I've had the exact same problem as everyone else. The slow "My Computer", Empty Device Manager, nothing in Network Connections. I have only just found out today (I upgraded to SP3 just over a week ago) that this was a problem with the registry and with my Symantec software. I have NIS 2008.
Thing is, I only really noticed the problems when I was upgrading the way my PC connect's to my router, so i thought it was something I'd done. Hadn't thought that it may have something to do with SP3. Anyway, after trawling through the internet and unable to find a solution, I came to conclusion that it could be a virus. As Norton wasn't finding anything, I did a repair installation of XP, using an XP disc I'd made, slipstreaming SP3 into it. This solved the problem.
So... if people don't want to mess with their registry, I'd recommend this solution. Create an XP SP3 slipstreamed installation disc, boot to the disc, and do a repair installation. Although, having said that, maybe the registry fix is easier, it's up to you, but this worked for me.
And before I go, I would just like to say how disgusted I am at both Microsoft and Symantec. How can they possibly let this problem occur? And it's not just this. I have had previous experience of Microsoft and Symantec not working together. When I upgraded to Vista SP1 on my other machine, my first 2 attempts failed. It only worked the third time when I disabled everything Symantec. Becuase of that, I did the same on this SP3 upgrade, but this problem still occured?! Unbeleivable! And have they fixed the problem yet where you can't do a System Restore without disabling all Symantec's software. I doubt it. Get it together Microsoft and Symantec!
- I'm just posting some further info for for completness.
I've had two clean sp3 installs on VM systems, and I took the plunge on a desktop system. After the second reboot I was warned about the registry being to large. From this point there was ranom reboots within 5-10 minutes after login.
So far however no issues with Device Manager, other than having to delete my sound device to get ti working again. After hitting delete, and scan for changes, it was picket up again and worked fine at the next reboot.
Solution to this was to run CCleaner , which a reboot later and the random reboots were solved.
What I'm left with now is a large collection of now familiar keys in the format:
$%&'(
etc...
What is interesting is these only exist unther the keys created by Avast Antivirus and its related services.
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet003\Services\Aavmker4
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet003\Services\aswFsBlk
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet003\Services\aswMon2
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet003\Services\aswRdr ( only one corrupt subkey)
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet003\Services\aswSP
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet003\Services\aswTdi
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet003\Services\avast! Antivirus
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet003\Services\avast! Mail Scanner
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet003\Services\avast! Web Scanner
Interestingly:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet003\Services\aswUpdSv has no corruption
All other keys are clear. So it would appear that Avast products are suffering a similar issue to Symantec products.- Proposed As Answer byGreg11 Saturday, June 13, 2009 7:23 PM
I also had this problem and found it was due to a lack of free space on my hard drive. I had installed a second hard drive with mucho space and thought this would suffice but no. You have to tell your computer it is there first. This gives you a place to move items to from the C drive to make room in C. It seems that Microsoft has built in to our computers a mechanism to shut down "Unnecessary" parts of the system if the hard drive is overloaded. Once you make room you have to go back in and enable the parts that were turned off.
- When cleaning up the mess here is a solution that I found was a LOT faster than individually deleting the key
Search for an occurance of the offending subkey in regedit, then export the parent key to a .reg file.
Open .reg file in a decent editor ( like Vim
) and delete the offending crud, save and exit. Then delete the parent key in regedit, and finally re-import the clean version from the .reg file.
The other alternative ( which is probablyt he better 'ms way' is to prepend the offending keys with a - such as:
-[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet004\Services\avast! Web Scanner\$%&'()*+,]
and then the regfile will actually remove the keys when imported.
Both methods end up the same way, Its probably a matter of how well you can make your editor of choice dance through hoops.
Total time to clean out my avast problem (described above) 15 minutes.
Almost as long as it took to reset the acls on all the keys, before the reboot to safe mode. I have never installed Norton products on my Toshiba Satellite A105-S4284. It's possible I ran their online virus scan in the past, but I don't know if that counts.
Symptons: Blank device manager, no wireless icon in taskbar and My Computer hangs when clicked.
A regedit search for "$%&" returns it in the following:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE/SYSTEM/ControlSet001/Enum/ROOT/LEGACY_SSDPSRV
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE/SYSTEM/ControlSet004/Enum/ROOT/LEGACY_SSDPSRV
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE/SYSTEM/CurrentControlSet/Enum/ROOT/LEGACY_SSDPSRV
About 200 keys in each folder.
So I just delete these folders?
I had to jump through hoops just to install SP3 after getting the "Access is denied" error.- Is the syntax not [-HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet004\Services\avast! Web Scanner\$%&'()*+,] or do both work maybe?
- It's a relief to know I'm not the only one, and it's certainly grand I'll have something to occupy my time over the Memorial Day weekend. Otherwise I'd have to mow the lawn and weed and go shopping and take the kids to the neighbor's barbeque and watch TV with my wife and practice scales and chords. Lucky Bill Gates rescued me from that, eh? -)
My Dell (with Norton) has an empty Device Manager and the same USB port problem described elsewhere. My kid's AOL 9.0 won't run, Adobe Photoshop Elements won't run, my modem (which I need to send/receive faxes) has vanished, and System Restore doesn't restore.
Questions:
- I see several references to getting rid of SP3 via Add/Remove. My Add/Remove applet doesn't list SP3 as an option.
- After I uninstall Norton (via their process) and clean my registry I understand I'll have functioning machine with SP3 in place and working right? Can I then safely reinstall Norton? I'd hate to have to do all this twice.
Thanks. - Initially I agreed with BigHowie; however, after reviewing our partner agreement it is clear. There are literally thoursands of partners that develop. If you want to have the stamp of approval, the QA process/burden rest on the partner. That is exactly why it is released as breakware prior to RC and RTM. Frankly, I suspect the lack of QA by the partners is why MS was reluctant to release SP3 earlier.
MS support had this to say:
As I understand, after installing SP3, Internet cannot be accessed via both wired and wireless connections. The connections icon cannot be found in Network Connections as well. Meanwhile, it shows a blank page when opening Device Manager. You have already restored the system to resolve the issue without installing SP3.
If I have misunderstood the situation, please let me know.
Thank you for bringing this issue into our attention. Actually, we have received feedback on the similar symptom. The issue has been reported to the Product group and they are working on this issue to try to narrow down the root cause. Thank you for your understanding on this.
For your information, if you have interest on narrowing down the root cause, we can try the following methods to check if we can make any progress. The information can help our product group identify the root cause more effectively:
Note: If you have more urgent issues on hand and do not have time or interest working on this issue, please feel free to let me know. I will archiving our case temporarily.
Suggestion 1: Disable and re-enable Plug and Play services to resolve the Device Manager blank issue:
===========
1. Click "Start"->"Run", type "services.msc" (without quotation marks) in the open box and click "OK".
2. Double click the service "Plug and Play".
3. Click on the "General" tab; make sure the "Startup Type" is "Automatic".
4.
- If the service is started, please click Stop to disable it and restart the computer. Then, re-start the Plug and Play service using the same method. Restart the computer again.
- If the service is stopped, please click Start and restart the computer to check the result.
Please go to Device Manager to check the result.
Regarding the Internet connection issue, please try the following suggestions:
Suggestion 2: Check network related files and services
=============
1. Click Start and then Run.
2. Type in "regsvr32 netman.dll" without quotations and then click OK.
3. Check if the connection appears or not, if not, let’s continue performing the following steps:
4. Click Start and then Run. Type in "services.msc" without quotations and then click OK.
5. Double click the Network Connections service to open it. Select the Startup Type to Disable.
6. Restart the computer.
7. Change the Startup Type to Manual
8. Repeat the steps above to start Wireless Zero Configuration service and restart the computer.
8. Check if the services have been started correctly. If not, start the service.
A few days later they asked how it went, and I wrote back saying I hadn't tried installing SP3 again and so hadn't tried their suggestions. They then said this:
Based on the current research, the issue can probably be caused by the conflicts between SP3 and Norton. Please let me know if you have any Norton product installed. [emphasis added by me]
As the issue is not related to only Microsoft, it can hardly to develop any hotfix or update currently as we do not know the detailed design of the Norton products. Hence, we need to try some troubleshooting steps to try to resolve the issue by ourselves at present.
Please be assured that the issue has been reported to both Microsoft and Norton and I believe the relevant engineers are working on this issue to try to make improvement. Thank you for your understanding and patience on this.
I understand that you did not try the suggestions I provided yet. If you need SP3, before trying the steps, I suggest we remove Norton completely. For your convenience, I have listed the steps below:
Step 1: Remove Norton using the uninstall tool:
================
1. Please go to the following webpage and choose the proper product to download the Removal tool:
Please Note: The third-party product discussed here is manufactured by a company that is independent of Microsoft. We make no warranty, implied or otherwise, regarding this product's performance or reliability.
2. Please run the removal tool to remove Norton.
Step 2: Install SP3 after Norton is removed:
================
Please download and install SP3 from the link below:
Please check the result.
If however, you would not like to install SP3 currently, we can also hide the update notification directly. This will not affect your system performance:
To hide the update notification for SP3:
===============
1. Please go to the following webpage to download Windows Service Pack Blocker Tool Kit
2. Save the file on your Desktop and double click it to run.
3. Choose a folder to extract the files. When the files are all extracted, you will find three files in the folder.
4. Please double click the extracted .exe file to block the SP3 update.
I sincerely hope the above information can be of help with.
I have the exact same thing happen on a Dell XPS w/ MCE 2005 SP2 installed. Norton 360 v2 was installed also. Installed SP3 and got an error message that the update encountered an error. My network connections were gone and the device manager was empty.
Thanks Norton
Check out this message on the Norton Forums which indicates a workaround when one of their security products is involved.
Note that they are working on a tool to automate the cleaning up, but presumably it will only deal with Norton products and not others.
Doug, the same thing happened to me, my Networkconnection is totally empty
and my Compaq Pesario 6000 is now loading so slow when turned on, and I have plenty memory I had this one specialy ordered with lots of memory and gigs
( Sick me.
Jo
- I had the same experience on a Dell E1405. So far I've uninstalled SP3, manually deleted all of the $%& Registry items (took about an hour) and ultimately uninstalled Norton Internet Security before I got back to what appears to be a healthy SP2 configuration. Who knows what else might be lurking there though.
Thanks for the URL Hugh. The workaround sounds so simple though that I am going to "live" without SP3 for awhile.
It is real intresting that Norton has looked at the problem, which is really not theirs, and come up with a workaround at least while old Microsoft hasn't uttered a "peep" hardly!
Selman
Same thing has happened to me on my Dell Dimentions with XP home SP2 and Norton Internet Security.
On downloading SP3 after two and a half hours nothing was happening, I decided to cancel the download. On doing so I found that it had indeed installed on my computer.
Like you I then found that there is no Device Manager or network connections and all of the other problems mentioned here.
I then decided that I would uninstall SP3 which I did, but the problems were still there.
My answer to that situation ...I thought, was to do a system restore to a point before the download. In an ideal world that should have put everything back to normal, the reallity is that my computer will now not do a system restore no matter how many different dates I try.
Live update also tells me that SP3 is downloaded and waiting to install, I can tell that is so with the amount of extra space it's taking up on my hard drive.
All of my Windows and also Dell help files are missing, My DVD tells me that Windows has made changes in the registry, so the won't work either.
I contacted Microsoft about this mess and their reply was to direct me to on-line forums, where I might find discussions on my problem..... It really is not good enough, they didn't even address the issue at all.
It's looking more and more like it's going to be a re-install of Window, you can be sure if I have to do that I won't be putting back the SP3.
It would be nice to think that Microsoft might be working on this problem and for them to make a statement to that effect, if their response to my email request for help is anything to go by....I shall not hold my breath.
- My suggestion so far is to go find a registry editing tool that allows for searching and deleting of keys. I am using the free version of reglite (I had a copy sitting around) to search for the term $%&'( ...as of 10 minutes of searching I have returned over 40k enteries on this machine. Luckly this program allows quick deleting by ctrl+a 'ing the results window and hitting the red X.
http://www.resplendence.com/download/rrtri.exe
(Please note i'm not plugging this software... only for reference purposes)
If you are a MS tech and would like to start a chat on this please contact me using the phone number tied to my technet subscription at my user name at hotmail.com. You may need to leave a message. If so I will call you back. I can assist with providing whatever information you need on this glitch.
I have also noticed the symptoms of no network connections and very slow opening of my computer.
Thank you
P.S. This machine was on Avira AntiVir... So looks like its not just norton computers having this issue... You've got to be kidding. What about those of us who do not have a master's in computer science? Really? My next compter will be an apple.
Paul
- Hi, Just found this place after doing some googling. I installed SP3 yesterday and it screwed up a few things for me, namely emptying my device manager and losing all my LAN icons.
I have just been reading this thread and am about to have a go at some of the suggestions here. I have no Symantec products on my PC and never have.
Is it just a case of going through the registry and deleting things which have $%& at the start like these suckers ?
I removed each item that started with $%& BUT you must do it in the Save Mode. After removing about +2K I restarted in the Normal mode and all was well.
Arkham wrote: I have no Symantec products on my PC and never have. Do you have any other 3rd-party anti-malware products which are intended to prevent changes to the registry? The latest theory is that this corruption is caused by Microsoft's "fixccs.exe" (part of SP3 - Fix Current Control Set) when it is disrupted by such registry protection.
Is it just a case of going through the registry and deleting things which have $%& at the start like these suckers? I'm afraid so - there might be hundreds or thousands of them.
- I re-booted into safe mode and manually deleted all the keys that started with $%& and now everything seems to be back to normal, thanks guys.
The only slight thing wrong now is that when I try to access shared folders on my network via the xbox in another room I keep getting asked for a username and password which it hasn't done before, more of SP3's doing methinks. During the install of SP3, I had McAfee VirusScan Enterprise and AntiSpyware Enterprise 8.5.0i running. After the install
completed successfully, I noticed these $%& keys were created during the install. I do not have Symantec/Norton.
Looking at the McAfee HIPS logs (which monitors and blocks access to parts of the registry), and some online info, these key
names are related to "fixccs.exe", which stands for "Fix CCS MaxSubkeyName mismatch". It is part of both SP2 and SP3. Similar
problems with rubbish registry keys were reported for SP2.
After applying SP3, there were 9500 registry keys which started with "$%&". Unfortunately, I did not do a similar search before
applying SP3, so I cannot be 100% positive that they were all created during the install. I do know for certain that *some* were
newly created; and probably all (I just can't prove it).
The affected keys are as follows; each key in the list below gets about 245 subkeys, all starting with $%&
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\Services\DisknetClient\
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\Services\DNPFW\
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\Services\dvrem\
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\Services\KAEON\
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\Services\McShield\
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\Services\McTaskManager\
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\Services\mfeapfk\
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\Services\mfeavfk\
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\Services\mfebopk\
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\Services\mfehidk\
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\Services\mfetdik\
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\Services\PSG\
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\Services\rmm\[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet003\Services\DisknetClient\
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet003\Services\DNPFW\
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet003\Services\dvrem\
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet003\Services\KAEON\
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet003\Services\McShield\
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet003\Services\McTaskManager\
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet003\Services\mfeapfk\
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet003\Services\mfeavfk\
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet003\Services\mfebopk\
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet003\Services\mfehidk\
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet003\Services\mfetdik\
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet003\Services\PSG\
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet003\Services\rmm\[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\DisknetClient\
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\DNPFW\
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\dvrem\
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\KAEON\
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\McShield\
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\McTaskManager\
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\mfeapfk\
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\mfeavfk\
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\mfebopk\
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\mfehidk\
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\mfetdik\
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\PSG\
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\rmm\
Of the 350 or so keys under \Services\, only the 13 listed above cause a problem. There is a heavy slant towards McAfee (7 ofthe 13), Reflex DiskNet Pro accounts for 5, and KAEON is alone (claims it is a CD/DVD writing filter driver, KAEon Optical Audit
Driver, from MKA Europe).
It was only by having McAfee HIPS running that I noticed a problem. The install of SP3 completed successfully, and there is
nothing visibly wrong. No missing devices or networks. So, it is quite possible that these duff keys are being created on
thousands of computers, just that no one is noticing. Could anyone else confirm or deny this?
Thanks,Andy
Andy Doran wrote: It was only by having McAfee HIPS running that I noticed a problem. It was having McAfee HIPS running that caused the problem. This registry corruption happens when Microsoft's fixccs.exe (part of SP3 - Fix Current Control Set) is prevented from normal access to the registry by 3rd party registry protection utilities such as HIPS.
Best practice is to disable or uninstall all anti-virus or anti-malware products before running a Service Pack.
Has anyone got your computer back working right? I have no HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\CurrentControlSet\Enum\Root\LEGACY_CCPROXY showing in my regestery
Anyone have this problem ?
Jody G
Arkham wrote: The only slight thing wrong now is that when I try to access shared folders on my network via the xbox in another room I keep getting asked for a username and password which it hasn't done before, more of SP3's doing methinks. Try checking whether "Use simple file sharing" (in control panel "Folder Options", tab "Views") has the same setting after SP3 as it did before.
Jody G wrote: Has anyone got your computer back working right? I have no HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\CurrentControlSet\Enum\Root\LEGACY_CCPROXY showing in my regestery. Anyone have this problem ?
Jody, why is this a problem? What post were you replying to?
- I also have Prevx installed and the corruption was also found in the registry in Prevx keys.
Raydeo wrote: I also have Prevx installed and the corruption was also found in the registry in Prevx keys. That is consistent with the others: Prevx is blocking normal access to the registry, and thus preventing parts of the Service Pack from working. In particular, fixccs.exe goes badly wrong when prevented from accessing the registry normally, thus creating the observed registry corruption.
try..entering..diagnostic mode & enable plug n play this should helpThanks a lot Mr. Freeze. I did manage to delete every corrupt key in the registry and there were a ton!! They were spread all over. However after a reboot, device manager is no longer blank & my wireless connection is back in order. Also clicking on "My Computer" no longer takes forever to come up. With my limited technical knowledge, I don't understand how all those corrupt entries caused those features of the system to malfunction. But at least now they are all working again ...many thanks to you. Much appreciated.
Allan
rdhw wrote: It was having McAfee HIPS running that caused the problem. This registry corruption happens when Microsoft's fixccs.exe (part of SP3 - Fix Current Control Set) is prevented from normal access to the registry by 3rd party registry protection utilities such as HIPS.
Best practice is to disable or uninstall all anti-virus or anti-malware products before running a Service Pack.
That sounds like a reasonable explanation. Thanks.The only antivirus and utilities I have installed is Norton NIS 08 and SystemWorks Basic. Norton has come up with a workaround by disabling their registry protection BEFORE installing SP3. I have been "dogging" this thread and the same type thread on Norton's forum on this problem. Symantec says they are writing a fix for deleting the bad registry entries. Probably with Mr Freeze at the controls! He is good.
SelmanD
- Hi there,
for anyone struggling with the registry-entries starting with "$%&":
I had to delete almost 8300 single Entries and would have done it manually since x-mas, i guess. so, below the following list, a little .reg-file can be downloaded, which is containing any registry entry with "$%&" at the beginning, and deletes them (after the system is booted in safe-mode). Any of them only relate to my Norton Internet Security 2008:
01 - HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\Services\Automatic LiveUpdate Scheduler
02 - HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\Services\ccEvtMgr
03 - HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\Services\ccProxy
04 - HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\Services\ccSetMgr
05 - HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\Services\CLTNetCnService
06 - HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\Services\comHost
07 - HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\Services\eeCtrlInstances
08 - HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\Services\EraserUtilRebootDrv
09 - HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\Services\LiveUpdate Notice
10 - HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\Services\LiveUpdate
11 - HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\Services\NAVENG
12 - HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\Services\NAVEX15
13 - HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\Services\SPBBCDrvInstances
14 - HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\Services\SRTSPInstances
15 - HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\Services\Symantec Core LC
16 - HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet003\Services\Automatic LiveUpdate Scheduler
17 - HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet003\Services\ccEvtMgr
18 - HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet003\Services\ccProxy
19 - HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet003\Services\ccSetMgr
20 - HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet003\Services\CLTNetCnService
21 - HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet003\Services\comHost
22 - HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet003\Services\eeCtrlInstances
23 - HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet003\Services\EraserUtilRebootDrv
24 - HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet003\Services\LiveUpdate Notice
25 - HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet003\Services\LiveUpdate
26 - HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet003\Services\NAVENG
27 - HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet003\Services\NAVEX15
28 - HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet003\Services\SPBBCDrvInstances
29 - HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet003\Services\SRTSPInstances
30 - HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet003\Services\Symantec Core LC
31 - HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Automatic LiveUpdate Scheduler
32 - HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\ccEvtMgr
33 - HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\ccProxy
34 - HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\ccSetMgr
35 - HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\CLTNetCnService
36 - HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\comHost
37 - HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\eeCtrlInstances
38 - HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\EraserUtilRebootDrv
39 - HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\LiveUpdate Notice
40 - HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\LiveUpdate
41 - HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\NAVENG
42 - HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\NAVEX15
43 - HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\SPBBCDrvInstances
44 - HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\SRTSPInstances
45 - HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Symantec Core LC
Here's the link to the .reg-file which i created, it has to be executed after booting in safe mode in order to have write access to this part of the registry-db: XPSp3_NIS08_RegistryFix.rar
Hopefully some of you find it useful and get rid of those nasty problems with the device manager or lost network connections, without removing the symantec software itself and re-installing. Nevertheless, it worked out fine for my system.
cheers,
elko Arkham wrote: I re-booted into safe mode and manually deleted all the keys that started with $%& and now everything seems to be back to normal, thanks guys.
The only slight thing wrong now is that when I try to access shared folders on my network via the xbox in another room I keep getting asked for a username and password which it hasn't done before, more of SP3's doing methinks.I think you have a point. I had to re share my folders AND a printer. I didn't relate the problems with SP3 but now it seems that the unshared folders & printer happened after the install.
And the beatings shall continue. ;-)
For whatever it's worth...I was running Norton 360 and had thousands of $%& subkeys. I did a new 360 install which first removed 360 installation and most of the bad subkeys. Then I searched with regedit for the any remaining bad keys and deleted the entire key. I also did a search and delete on LEGACY which was the key name for most of the bad keys. After a reboot I reinstalled 360. Everytime this stuff happens I remember why I was a network engineer and hated software.
Good luck
Richard
MrFreeze - genius! You saved me from a system reinstall!
Much good karma to you for sharing.
If only Microsoft / Symantec could stop blame-storming and release a fix instead... I was going to try to automate this but I only had several hundred entries, not thousands.
The issue for me was solved with this method as well, although I had to remove approx 180 occurences in multiple Microsoft/Norton Internet Security keys manually from regedit. The lines appear to be a repeating form of "$%&'()*+,-./0123". (Minus the quotes). It starts as MrFreeze says, and gets longer by one character each line. Back up your registry before doing this fix, and be prepared to remove what to me seemed like thousands of lines, but was probably more like 2700 lines. It's my belief that part of these were put here by a virus, to ensure Norton ran slow, so you would attempt to sped up your machine by removing Internet Security, making it possible for the virus to attack.
Thanks MrFreeze for the heads up!
Brad
SgtSnake wrote: It's my belief that part of these were put here by a virus, to ensure Norton ran slow No, the bad registry entries were caused by a Microsoft program called fixccs.exe (part of SP3 - Fix Current Control Set), and it caused this mayhem because the Norton product's "SymProtect" feature was blocking normal access to the registry. Had the SymProtect feature been disabled before SP3 installation, then all would have been well.
Nextrhap wrote: The removal of Norton AV2008 followed by the Norton Removal tool, then finally manual regedit removal of the errant entry's brought everything back. My only remaining problem is in the device mgr. I have 3 entries referring to my Ethernet adapter all with WAN SYMANTEC NETWORK SECURITY MINIPORT ....I cant uninstall...Whats up with these items?
Has anyone come up with a solution for removing the SYMANTEC NETWORK SECURITY MINIPORT entries in the Device Manager that are left over from this mess? Using the Norton Removal Tool removed most of the registry entries that had the dreaded "$%&" corruption, I just had to remove two whole LEGACY keys in safe mode. After that, all my corrupted entries were gone and my Device Manager and Network Connections were happy again. I'm now left trying to figure out how to remove the miniport entries...- This solution worked for me. thanks a bunch for the help!
- ''
Kevin1969 wrote: Solved for me as well, but I used a much simpler method...
(1) Write down Norton Product Key.
(2) Remove Norton products with the Norton Removal Tool found on Symantec's Website...http://service1.symantec.com/Support/tsgeninfo.nsf/docid/2005033108162039 (does a better job of removing registry entries)
(3) (May not be necessary) Search for the string "$%&" in regedit, delete the remaining corrupt keys (I found 2 'legacy' keys with several corrupt sub-keys)
(4) (May not be necessary) Delete the "Symantec Shared" folder from C:/Program Files/Common Files
(5) Reinstall Norton Product.
Good Luck!
-Kevin
All fine up to number 5. Symantec anti-virus is a vile piece of software. I have it on the computer at work because AVG free can only be installed for home use. It costs me something like 15 minutes a day in waiting for it to stop thrashing the disk.
This whole mess up is Symantec's. It is their software that prevents SP3 working properly. One my home machine which uses AVG I don't have a single example of the offending registry key. - Check out the tips here if you are still having problems with empty device manager/network connection icons in XP SP3:
http://aumha.net/viewtopic.php?f=62&t=33522&start=0&st=0&sk=t&sd=a MrFreeze,
I think Microsoft owes you 16 hours of pay at a "reasonable market rate." Every single instance of your discovered registry key error on my client's pc was found in the LiveUpdate keys - keys which mind you, are NOT removed when Symantec software (including LiveUpdate!) are uninstalled. Since I had already uninstalled (yes, client had NIS 2008 installed when SP3 was installed, causing the errors) NIS + LU, I just deleted the entire LiveUpdate key; no need to spend countless hours on hundreds of manual deletions. (Find -- delete key... Find Next -- rinse.)
I accept no responsiblity if this destroys your computer....
Its a workdown, but the easiest way I found to clean this mess up is:
1. Download freeware RegScanner (http://www.nirsoft.net/utils/regscanner.html)
2. Start a New Scan. Use these options:
Find String: "$%&'()*+," (without the quotes)
Matching: Registry item contains the specified string
Look At: (check only Keys)
Don't load more than (I choose 10000 here to be thorough) items
Check "Add entry for each found key" and "Add only keys"
Check "Scan the following base keys:" and highlight all to be thorough. (McAfee only affects the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE branch)
Click OK.
Select all the results (CTRL-A)
Click on File->Create Delete .reg file (save it to your desktop)
3. Edit/Open the .reg file you saved with Wordpad (avoid Notepad since its too slow)
Click on Edit->Replace
Find What: "[HKEY" (no quotes)
Replace With: "[-HKEY" (no quotes)
click Replace All.
Save the file.
4. DISABLE Symantec/Avast/McAfee's services. I'm not sure which process protects itself, for McAfee you can just disable Access Protection in the VirusScan console, Symantec I'm assuming is the SymProtect or Tamper Protect feature. Then double-click on your saved .reg file and click Yes. Verify it was all removed by rerunning step 2. If you still see garbage showing up then you might have to double-click the .reg file in safe mode. Reenable the antivirus feature and reboot.
Hopefully you should be good after that. I'm highly suspicious why Microsoft SP3 would want to dump that many garbage keys in the registry and why they are keeping so quiet about this. What exactly would it be testing for in an attempt to add and delete that many keys??
rdhw wrote: ... Best practice is to disable or uninstall all anti-virus or anti-malware products before running a Service Pack.
Microsoft say: "The best way to ensure you get Windows XP Service Pack 3 is by turning on the Automatic Updates feature in Windows XP"
But does that not mean innocent non-technical users who permit automatic update download AND automatic installation of SP3 will likely be in the situation that their anti-malware is running during the installation, and therefore walk right into the problems re fixccs.exe discussed (rdhw) in this thread? So is it not reasonable to expect Microsoft's automatic SP3 update process to pause & flag the apparent necessity to turn off anti-malware products?
I installed SP3 on one XP Pro SP2 machine w. Norton AV 2007. I had temporarily suspended Norton AV before installing - nevertheless there were tens of $%... junk keys under a Norton AV associated key. Installed on another XP Pro SP2 machine w. Kaspersky AV 7. I had temporarily suspended Kaspersky AV before installing - nevertheless there were tens of $%... junk keys under a couple of Kaspersky AV associated keys: ...\avp & ..\klif. Fortunately the junk keys did not seem to interfere with the operation of the updated WXP.
So it seems that even with the AV products suspended, they were still preventing fixccs.exe's access to some registry keys. That is, the kind of temporary suspension I invoked was not sufficiently draconian; perhaps it would have been better to have updated under Safe Mode (w. no networking)?
NickIzaak wrote: I'm highly suspicious why Microsoft SP3 would want to dump that many garbage keys in the registry and why they are keeping so quiet about this. Microsoft have made this announcement about these keys: http://forums.microsoft.com/TechNet/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=3423347&SiteID=17
What exactly would it be testing for in an attempt to add and delete that many keys? The fixccs.exe balloon help says: "Fix CCS MaxSubkeyName mismatch", where CCS stands for "CurrentControlSet", the name of a branch in the Registry where all the problem subkey names are found.
- Thanks for you post. 100% successful using the first method. Device Manager and Networks now working fine. Alan.
lapimate wrote: rdhw wrote: ... Best practice is to disable or uninstall all anti-virus or anti-malware products before running a Service Pack.
Microsoft say: "The best way to ensure you get Windows XP Service Pack 3 is by turning on the Automatic Updates feature in Windows XP"
But does that not mean innocent non-technical users who permit automatic update download AND automatic installation of SP3 will likely be in the situation that their anti-malware is running during the installation, and therefore walk right into the problems re fixccs.exe discussed (rdhw) in this thread? So is it not reasonable to expect Microsoft's automatic SP3 update process to pause & flag the apparent necessity to turn off anti-malware products?
Yes, I had been thinking along the same lines myself. The challenge for Microsoft is to find a way of doing this that does not open up a route for smart malware to do exactly the same thing itself. The reason anti-malware utilities are blocking access to their registry keys is to prevent smart malware from closing down the anti-malware - examples of such smart malwares have already been seen. So how then do we find a way of closing down anti-malware for a system update without providing the means for smart malware to mimic the same thing? One suggestion might be for anti-malware utilities not to block any act of an executable that has been cryptographically signed by Microsoft - but ironically fixccs.exe is itself not internally cryptographically signed by Microsoft! But this just opens up a route for malware to do bad things simply by tricking an MS executable to do those bad things on the malware's behalf.
Another suggestion might be for the Service Pack, once downloaded, to re-boot Windows into some yet-to-be-defined Maintenance Mode (not dissimilar to the Diagnostic Mode of msconfig), in which no third-party services or start-ups are started, to establish a known and stable environment within which the updater can run without fear of interference. (My rusty memory suggests that some OS/2 updates worked like this). There are many difficulties with this scenario. The small version of SP3 downloaded by Automatic Updates requires access to the internet to download more bits and pieces while it is running, and many end-users require some third-party processes to be running for their internet connection to work: how can Windows determine which third-party add-ons are necessary? This scenario is a long way away from the ideal notion that Automatic Updates could run substantially in the background while the end-user worked on blissfully unaware.
I installed SP3 on one XP Pro SP2 machine w. Norton AV 2007. I had temporarily suspended Norton AV before installing - nevertheless there were tens of $%... junk keys under a Norton AV associated key. Installed on another XP Pro SP2 machine w. Kaspersky AV 7. I had temporarily suspended Kaspersky AV before installing - nevertheless there were tens of $%... junk keys under a couple of Kaspersky AV associated keys: ...\avp & ..\klif. Fortunately the junk keys did not seem to interfere with the operation of the updated WXP. So it seems that even with the AV products suspended, they were still preventing fixccs.exe's access to some registry keys. That is, the kind of temporary suspension I invoked was not sufficiently draconian; perhaps it would have been better to have updated under Safe Mode (w. no networking)?
In the case of Norton, it is the "SymProtect" feature that needs to be disabled, not just the anti-virus. That is why you experienced all the extra registry keys even after you had disabled the Norton anti-virus.
I have not yet heard whether the Service Pack 3 updater works within Windows Safe mode. I know for sure that it works well under Windows "Diagnostic Startup" as established by msconfig, as that is how I made sure all my third-party stuff was disabled before running the SP3 updater. However, this is a long long way from what the "average Joe" end-user would have thought of doing when presented with SP3 by Automatic Update!
Symantec/Norton users please see the announcement at:
http://forums.microsoft.com/TechNet/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=3425433&SiteID=17&mode=1
- My procedure is similar to Wancio's. I did this on three computers (which all had the same problem after upgrading to SP3 on XP Pro) and got a fully populated Device Manager and Network Connections.
1. Searched registgry for $%&'(
2. Found numberous (hundreds of lines) in: HKLM|SYSTEM|CONTROL SET 001|ENUM|ROOT|LEGACY_SSDPSRV
3. Deleted LEGACY_SSDPSRV tree
4. Rebooted - all is fine
Thanks for the lead to this solution
Chappcc Thanks for your post, gfrost, it details exactly my problem. I decided to delete them all by hand from the current control set but it took about 30 minutes.
We need a tool to do this tidy-up job in future. Help Microsoft or Norton/Symantec.
Alan.
I just fixed mine and my PC is now back to normal.
If you are interested this is how I fixed mine as it seemed to me to be the quickest route
Boot your PC into safe mode and login as the administratorOpen regedit and do CTL-F for find and type $%& in the search box and hit enter
When it finds a subkey structure with the bogus keys move to the root of that structure
IE if the keys are under HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Enum\Root\LEGACY_ LIVEUPDATE NOTICE then move to that part of the key. So in this instance right click on KEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Enum\Root\LEGACY_ LIVEUPDATE NOTICE and then select Export from the context menu.
Navigate the save box to the desktop and save the exported keys there.
Right click on the file on the desktop and select edit
Highlight and remove all the bogus keys
You should be left with a file with only valid keys for that key and sub keys, close and save the file.
Go back to regedit and delete the whole of the keys and subkeys which you saved in this instance delete the whole of HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Enum\Root\LEGACY_ LIVEUPDATE NOTICE
Go back to the desktop and double click on the .reg file.
This should have now re-created the invalid section of the registry with only the valid entries.
Hit F3 to find the next invalid keys.
Repeat the process
Once I got into the swing of it this method took me less than 15min to delete thousands of invalid keys and still retain all my valid settings.
PC is back to normal and working fine, I hope this helps anyone who doesn't fancy sitting deleting all those keys by hand, I was just abut to sit and write a program to do it but his method seemed easiest considering I only needed to do all this once.Hope this was useful.
Marc
Mr Freeze61
How exactly do you clear the entries and removing them. I am not that computer savy I can get on and surf and trying to fix my ipod to sync but it is no longer recognized. If I can get you to tell me in layman terms how to do the fix I would greatly appreciate it
tebone30
Tebone30, I assume that you have verified that your problem actually is the unwanted registry entries: otherwise you are worrying unnecessarily, and the fixes for your issue might lie elsewhere.
If you are not confident using regedit or other registry utillities such as RegSeeker or RegLite, then I suggest you do not attempt a fix yourself, but wait for fix utilities to be posted by either Symantec or Microsoft.
See the Symantec responses within NIS 2008 May Break Device Manager Under Windows XP Pro SP3
and see the Microsoft announcement at Blank Device Manager and Network Connections post XP SP3 installa...
Yes!! Thank you. Deleting the %$& registry keys worked for me. The keys are easy to find if you use the "Find Key" utility and search for "%$". THANKS AGAIN!Symantec have now posted a tool for cleaning up the Windows Registry after the mess left behind caused by a conflict between SP3 and Norton products. It is available at: ftp://ftp.symantec.com/public/english_us_canada/tutorials/SymRegFix.exe
See rdhw's post for further details:
http://forums.microsoft.com/TechNet/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=3449197&SiteID=17
I did download this software but whilst it found the files and bad keys it would not let me delete them unless I upgraded to the pro version. Reluctantly and cynically I did. Ran the program and searched for the $%& lines, highlighted them, then deleted. One little reboot, and hey bloody presto.... device manager works and shows items, and my wireless printer works again now.I reckon microsoft owes me a good forty quid...so I wont give a *** pirating £40 worth of their software!
Thanks for the tip buddy! eternally grateful. AND MY NEXT COMPUTER IS DEFINATELY AN APPLE!...sned Gates to the poorhouse!
MikeDUK wrote: I did download this software but whilst it found the files and bad keys it would not let me delete them unless I upgraded to the pro version. I don't know what software you are referring to, but the Symantec SymRegFix tool would have cleaned up your registry free of charge.
Just a quick question here. I had exactly this after installing Norton Antivirus 2008, Sp3, and having our friends at the phone company mess up our lines all at about the same time. After determining finally what caused this, and I use image backups of my systems by the way, since the registry is so broken, has anyone tried to restore the system to pre Sp3 and run the install in safe mode? Saves a lot of work if you can. The ones such as myself that have the full backup that is. It worked for me, and it's possible that files that were in use at the time of install could have caused this whether it be MS or Symantec..
Any thoughts or answers?
I've tried an SP3 installation in Safe Mode, and it got as far as the first splash screen and said something along the lines of "You are trying to install this update in Safe Mode. This is not recommended". So I backed off and did not proceed. I don't know whether, had I persevered, it would have worked.
What I do recommend (and have done so successfully) is doing the SP3 update in Diagnostic Startup, as follows:
- download the stand-alone installer;
- use "msconfig" to select "Diagnostic Startup", and re-boot Windows;
- apply SP3 updater after the Diagnostic Startup;
- use "msconfig" to restore Normal Startup, and re-boot Windows.
Diagnostic Startup disables all third-party services and startups, and reduces Windows to its bare essentials. It is an ideal environment for applying Service Packs.
I should have mentioned the process I used: I downloaded the ISO version of SP3 and burned it to cd. Wiped the PC of the broken install and imaged over the saved SP2 install, programs and all, then rebooted into safe mode no networking as Administrator, not my normal user id, basically nothing running but bare essentials as far as services or anything. Then ran the SP3 install from the cd, rebooted into normal mode again as Administrator, it did hiccup a little, but I then rebooted again as Administrator, and the second reboot came up fine. Rebooted again as my user. No problems so far. Nowhere did I get a message saying that it wasn't recommended to install the service pack under safe mode.- I have the bug (empty network connection folder and empty device manager after installing sp3) and yet I have no bogus registry entry.
- I searched using regedit and found no "$%&" entry.
- I ran the Symantec registry clean-up tool and it found no invalid registry key.
- I had Symantec LiveUpdate installed from an old Norton, so I removed it using Symantec's removal tool. But this didn't help.
So, anyone else had this sp3 bug and yet no invalid registry key? FYI, I too am seeing an inoperable keyboard and mouse when booting into safe mode or regular XP. However, the mouse and keyboard do work in safe mode command prompt. I'm able to start regedit as well. Now I've got to ferret out the bogus keys. I've asked the Symantec folks if they have a workaround. I'll keep you posted.
- I am having similar problems after Svcpk3. I can no longer see any network devices, if I ran a systeminfo, NIC displays n/a
I can no longer ping my machine or RDP for the obvious reasons. I have applied all updates and the fixccs.exe and checked for all $%???? type regedit entries but still no luck. The machine is an HP DX225 with AMD. I really don't want to uninstall svcpk3 as other things are much better but I can't live without the ability to configure my network connections.
Please help!
Lanceyonis,
For HP machines with AMD processors/mobos and XP SP3, you might do worse than look at
Also, Microsoft have updated their own Help and Support article on this issue:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/953356
"Error message after you upgrade a computer that uses a processor other than an Intel processor to Windows XP Service Pack 2 or to Windows XP Service Pack 3: "STOP: 0x0000007E" "
Hope that this might be of some help. Best of luck.
Bootup and re-booting is not my problem. Network devices not displaying is my problem. This prevents the ability to see my machine from anywhere in the network or making changes to my networking.
Thanks
Lanceyonis,
OK As yours is a HP machine with an AMD processor I suggested what I did as a process of elimination. Have you actually tried running WindowsXP-KB953356-x86-ENU.exe from http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=230796A7-54D6-4C31-BDA3-EFD2F7E87A8C&displaylang=en
I am not saying that it will solve your problem only that it would eliminate one possibility.
tried it, still no good.Lanceyonis, please try http://support.microsoft.com/kb/825826/
How to troubleshoot missing network connections icons in Windows Server 2003 and in Windows XP (825826) - This article describes troubleshooting methods that you can use to resolve a case of missing network and dial-up connections icons. excelent refrence. Thank you.
I have several issues. Network services is stuck in "starting " mode.
I can't add Simple Network "This account does not have permission to install or remove the Simple TCP/IP Services component." I am the "Administrator, Domain Admin, and Enterprise Admin, as well as the local Administrator"
I tried other items for testing and I can add and remove other items just not Simple Network TCP/IP
Ipconfig. command will not work, it just hangs I believe because Network services is stuck in the starting mode.
What should I try next? any idea?
Thank you.
Well that was enough for me. I gave up and restored my system to pre-Svc pack 3 and all is working perfect. I can add and remove programs from windows no problems. I think I will wait till there are some patches or a new service pack before trying again. As usual with a new service pack it did not work. Glad I always back up my system.
Thank all of you for your support.
Lance
I hit the same problem you and many others have described. I had updated 3 of my HP Intel PCs running XP SP2 with no problems, but my 4th PC ended up with the problem, although everything in the SP3 installation looked perfect. First noticed that a modem didn't work - then checked Device Manager and was "shocked" to see it empty. I checked Google and found your solution. I followed it (got sore fingers from the everlasting "Del/Return" routine, but when done, I rebooted and it worked. Unfortunately, I had already started the uninstall of SP3 to go back to SP2 before I started browsing for a solution on another PC. So if I were to install SP3 now, would I have to re-do the "solution"? If so, I guess I can sit on SP2 for awhile and "hope" our friends at Microsoft come up with a proper solution. Thanks for your wisdom and your willingness to share with the rest of us innocent victims.
Hi,
Did you ever get a response to your request for help. I updated to SP3 a few days ago and my sytem slowed down on boot. I checked various forums and read your post and I have found that exactly the same problem has happened to both of my PCs.
I have corruption in the following keys:-
Automatic LiveUpdate Scheduler
ccEvtMgr
ccSetMgr
CLTNetCnService
Instances
ISPwdsvc
LiveUpdate
SPBBCDrv - Instances
SRTSP - Instances
Symantec Core LC
SymAppCore
There are possibly other keys as well, as I got tierd of searching for the string!
As with you problem, the first subkey is$%&'(
and then every subkey thereafter adds another character for each key until you are left with possibly the final subkey of
$%&'()*+,-./0123$%&'()*+,-./0123$%&'()*+,-./0123$%&'()*+,-./0123$%&'()*+,-./0123$%&'()*+,-./0123$%&'()*+,-./0123$%&'()*+,-./0123$%&'()*+,-./0123$%&'()*+,-./0123$%&'()*+,-./0123$%&'()*+,-
However, they may be increasing on a daily basis. As you have suggested there are 1000's of them and we need an effective method of removing them without crashing the intergrity of the registry.
Any help would be welcomed!
Regards
Symantec have posted a tool for cleaning up the Windows Registry after the mess left behind caused by a conflict between SP3 and Norton products. It is available at: ftp://ftp.symantec.com/public/english_us_canada/tutorials/SymRegFix.exe
See rdhw's post for further details (particularly his second one in the thread):
http://forums.microsoft.com/TechNet/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=3449197&SiteID=17
Microsoft have also posted their own registry clean-up tool, fixccs.exe, which needs to be run in Safe Mode. See
I never did get it resolved. I gave up and did a complete system restore from backup. This left system problems that I did not have before(Microsoft!). I then restored from a tape backup including a seperate import of the registry I copied before the backup and everything is running perfect. I have now installed all MS updates to current excluding SVC-Pack 3. don't think I going to touch that again for a while.
I did follow all the links above but all refer to Symantec issues and the registry was clean of all the Q#$#@% junk they said to look for. If someone really does find a solution or registry entry that fixes an HP PLEASE let me know. I run a network with 75 workstations and 65 of them are HP. We use Terminal Services heavly and would like the upgrade to svcpk 3. when I was using it, it was much faster and the user/name display's correctly. Explaining that to non-IT users its a real pain in the A@#, if you know what I mean.
Thanks to all of you for the help.
- Thanks to you guys, I fixed my problem as well. I upgraded 3 systems from sp2 to sp3 in a span of about 2 weeks, starting just after the update was available on the MS Update site. All three systems were running NIS 2008, but I ran LiveUpdate first to make sure everything was current, then disabled everything (NAV, Firewall, SpyWare, & Intrusion Detection) on all three during the upgrade. I also made sure that all MS updates were installed on all three systems before I installed sp3.
The first system I upgraded was a Intel P4 laptop running XP Home. It upgraded with no problem at all, but I waited about 10 days before performing the upgrade again, just to be sure. This system never had the device manager problem.
The second system I upgraded was a Intel P4 dual core desktop running XP Pro MCE. This is the system that wound up with the device manager, etc., problems. I didn't notice anything was wrong right away so I went ahead and upgraded the third system immediately afterward.
The third system I upgraded was a Intel P4 dual core desktop running XP Home. It upgraded with no trouble and never exhibited the device manager problems.
So, for me, the problem only appeared on a system running XP Pro MCE. Initially, I ran SymRegFix.exe (available from Symantec) which is supposed to remove all of the bogus keys, but I guess it missed a few! I chatted online with a Symantec CS dude who told me that they could not help me, but that I should be able to revert to sp2 and the problem would be fixed. I did that, and, of course, it was not fixed! So I found this thread and reinstalled sp3 before I tried your fix.
I looked in the HKLM\SYSTEM\ControlSetXXX registry branches and found hundreds of bogus keys in two branches:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\Enum\Root\LEGACY_LIVEUPDATE_NOTICE, and
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet002\Enum\Root\LEGACY_LIVEUPDATE_NOTICE
I deleted them all by hand and the problem is now fixed. I also searched for any other occurrences of keys starting with "$%&" and found none.
There are three reasons I posted here:
1) The only real difference between the three systems is that one of them is running XP Pro MCE, and that is the one I had this problem with.
2) I ran SymRegFix.exe, available from Symantec, and that DID NOT fix my problem, though it said it removed something like 4500 registry keys!
3) After I read your post I went back and looked in the registry of the systems that did not show any symptoms of the problem and I found, you guessed it, plenty of bogus keys! There were none in the HKLM\SYSTEM\ControlSetXXX branches, though. Maybe this is a clue?
Thanks again for the help... maybe MS will get off their butts and supply a fix for this problem!
