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Vista - Microsoft Security Essentials stuck in a loop


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#1
jayjay23

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Hello good people of the geeks forum. I have a little problem with my brother's laptop and wondered if you could enlighten me. I will describe the issue below...

(WIN VISTA HOME BASIC 32bit)

1. On login we see a red shield in the bottom right. "security centre is not turned on" (or similar).
2. Trying to turn on the security centre results in an error.
3. I try to enable the microsoft security essentials service in services.msc but was not able to do so.
4. Tried to reinstall MSE by downloading from microsoft (thinking it would uninstall and reinstall the new version) but it said "MSE is already installed, you can only have one MSE installed at one time"
5. Tried to remove existing MSE by add/remove - didn't work.
6. Downloaded FIX IT to uninstall MSE but it gets stuck saying "cannot stop msmpeng service check to make sure you have sufficient privelidges".
7. Tried to stop MSMPENG in a variety of ways, including in services and tried to prevent it at startup, tried to uninstall windows defender to see if that would do it, but it's still going strong. Tried to take ownership of it and take full control but the option to do so is greyed out.

So, I am stuck in a kind of loop where each step forward takes me back a step. Can anyone help with this?
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#2
phillpower2

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Hello jayjay23

Is Windows fully up to date and in particular is service pack 2 installed, also in case you are not aware MS released an update last month titled System Update Readiness Tool for Windows Vista, it was released to resolve update issues that people were having, see if it helps http://www.microsoft...ils.aspx?id=504
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#3
jayjay23

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Hi, my brother said he had trouble doing updates - so I have checked myself.

His machine is still on SP1 and won't auto update.
So I manually downloaded SP2 32bit and tried to install and got this error...

Installation was not successful:
The account specified for this service is different from the account specified for other services running in the same process

more details> Error:ERROR_DIFFERENT_SERVICE_ACCOUN(0x80070437)


Should I try the system update readiness tool?

So I downloaded and tried to install the System update readiness tool...

and...

Installer encountered an error 0x80070422

This service cannot be started, either because it is diabled or because it has no enabled devices associated with it.

Edited by jayjay23, 27 December 2012 - 10:12 AM.

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#4
phillpower2

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Yes use the System Update Readiness Tool please.
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#5
jayjay23

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Yes, I tried, see above...

Didn't work. Thanks.
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#6
phillpower2

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Go to the Control Panel then Performance and Maintenance then Administrative Tools open up Services and check if the Automatic Updates are set to Automatic and Started, once done restart the computer and see if it will update.
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#7
jayjay23

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Hi there. I did that and it was off. So turned it on. Rebooted.

Searched for updates. The only available update found was Bing Bar. Installed fine and message said computer is fully up to date. But it's still on SP1.

So I downloaded SP2 again and attempted to install but got the same error message as last time.

********

I have decided in the end to use the recovery partition.
It's an Acer Aspire so I Rebooted and used Alt+F10 at the first screen (recover partition is enabled in BIOS by the way) but it wouldn't load the recovery tool.

I then found out that you can use the recovery partition by going to windows>All Programs>Acer>Empowering technology>Acer ereovery tool

BUT... the erecovery tool is not there.

I have confirmed that the recovery partition exists on the laptop.

So. I downloaded the erecovery tool directly from ACER (the correct one for the model number) and tried to install...

The install hangs at the part where it says "Acer erecovery management setup is preparing install shield wizard"

It just stops there...

HELP!

(Just thinking, this is perhaps a different topic really for using recovery partition and problems with that rather than the original topic title so will make a new thread so future users can locate it)

Edited by jayjay23, 28 December 2012 - 12:05 PM.

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#8
phillpower2

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No problem but I have also included the partition steps here in case;

1.Press the Power button to start the PC
2.At the white ACER BIOS screen, hold the Alt key and press the F10 key simultaneously to start Acer eRecovery.
3.Once eRecovery has loaded, click Restore to Factory Default Settings
4.Click OK to continue
5.From here, the eRecovery process will update all the data on the C: drive and restore a fully functional factory image (approximately 10 minutes).
6.Once eRecovery has run, press OK to reboot PC.

Note that it is advisable that the computer is connected to the Internet when the above is done.

Have you tried the System Update Readiness Tool again.

Couple of things for you to do for us if you will please;

Go to Start then to Search
Type in compmgmt.msc and click Enter
On the left side click on Disk Management
On the right side you will see your hard drive.
Now I need you to take a screenshot and attach it to your next reply.
Do the following to take a screenshot while the above is open and showing on your desktop;

To capture and post a screenshot;

Click on the ALT key + PRT SCR key..its on the top row..right hand side..now click on start...all programs...accessories...paint....left click in the white area ...press CTRL + V...click on file...click on save...save it to your desktop...name it something related to the screen your capturing... BE SURE TO SAVE IT AS A .JPG ...otherwise it may be to big to upload... then after typing in any response you have... click on browse...desktop...find the screenshot..select it and click on the upload button...then on the lower left...after it says upload successful...click on add reply like you normally would.

Screenshot instructions are provided to assist those that may read this topic but are not yet aware of the “how to”.

Run SFC (system file checker)

Go to Start and then to Search
Type in: sfc /scannow
Press the Enter key.
Have Windows CD/DVD handy (not always required).
If System File Checker (sfc) finds any errors, it may ask you for the CD/DVD.
If there are no errors you will receive the message "Windows resource protection did not find any integrity violations" if any errors are found go to C:\Windows\Logs\CBS folder, you will see a CBS.log file.
The log may be a pretty big file so upload it to http://flyupload.in/ and then post the download link here.
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#9
jayjay23

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Hi there,

I never did manage to solve the initial problem with MSE but I have finished doing what I needed to with the computer...

Thanks for the replies above, in the end I got erecovery to work from the Alt F10 - after several failed attempts to install the erecovery tool from Acer.

(Obviously I backed up first) Ran erecovery, so ended up with a fresh install of VISTA SP1 - then managed to run updates and install SP2 and everything else I needed.

Thanks for the help.
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#10
phillpower2

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Hello jayjay23

Glad you got it sorted and thanks for following up and concluding your topic so that it may help others :thumbsup:

You are welcome BTW :thumbsup:
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