Security and Anti-Virus

[denny79]

Recently I installed the Xfinity security software to include Norton on my laptop running 64 bit Windows 7.  Before installing Xfinity I had no problems.  Now my laptop is locking up occasionally or gives a blue screen error and frequently gives a certificate content error on IE 9 when not locking up or crashing.  It has to be something clashing with Xfinity however, I haven't been able to find the problem.  Any ideas?

[rog286713]

why dont you try uninstalling the norton suite and see what happens.  Norton is known to slow down a pc, I tried it and uninstalled it the next day.  If doing this fixes your issue you know its norton.

[USAF_E-8_RET]

Hi denny79,

I disagree with rog's approach to this situation (as usual). 

Did you have any security programs installed on your system prior to installing the Xfinity programs.  In the case of Norton, it is known that other antivirus programs left on the system running with Norton's causes conflicts - which will absolutely cause problems, slow downs, freezes etc.

Please let us know which security programs you had/stillhad installed on your system prior to installing Norton.

Did you instll the entire Constant Guard Protection Suite or did you just install Norton?  If the entire suite, you may need some help from the CGPS team.

Give us some answers and we'll go from there.

[denny79]

Yes, I had Kaspersky installed before and uninstalled it before installing the Xfinity software, both Norton and Constant Guard Protection Suite. Could there be some pieces that didn't get uninstalled?  I know that it has been my experience that once you install something it is nearly impossible to get rid of everything short of a restore.

[USAF_E-8_RET]

Hi denny9,

Yes, Kaspersky needs to be totally removed - first via control panel and then by running the Kaspersky Removal Tool.  http://support.kaspersky.com/downloads/utils/kavremover.exe

After running the Kaspersky Tool and rebooting please let us know how things are running and we'll see if more needs to be done.

[denny79]

I already uninstalled Kaspersky using the uninstall link in programs.  After it finished and I restarted, I installed Constant Guard.  Some days later I realized that I hadn't installed Norton so I installed it.  My laptop is just a few months old with the fingerprint reader which may be clashing with Constant Guard. Thanks for your help thus far and I hope that you have some ideas as to what may be happening.

[denny79]

I'm at my witts end with this and seriously considering uninstalling Xfinity's Security Software as no other solution seems to be available.

To recap, my 64 bit, Windows 7 laptop is locking up and occassionally giving a blue screen error.  I had no problem before installing Xfinity's software when I was running another security suite. I strongly suspect that my fingerprint reader software is clashing with Constant Guard however, have no idea what to do about it.  I could disable the fingerprint reader however, I would prefer not to, so the only solution left is to abandon Xfinity Constant Guard and Norton software and go back to another security software as I had before.  I really hate to do this however, it seems that there is no other choice. 

[LoPhatPhuud]

Denny79,

Please download and run the Kaspersky removal program as suggested ealier. Using the Kapersky Uninstall link in the Program folder, or the one in Add/Remove Programs, does not completey remove Kaspersky.

Here is a link to the removal program:

http://support.kaspersky.com/downloads/utils/kavremover.exe

Note that this may not improve the situation, but regardless of which Antivirus program you eventually install, this still needs to be done.

Please post back and  let us know if the Kaspersky removal program helped

[denny79]

Thanks, I'll try this however, I don't believe that it will make any difference as I followed the same process with my wife's desktop which also had Kaspersky running and she isn't having the problem on her desktop that I am on my laptop.

[denny79]

Oops, I clicked on the wrong button as my laptop is still locking up.

I downloaded the Kaspersky removal utility as suggested, no change, problem persisted.  I uninstalled the first piece of Infinity's security software, Constant Guard with no change, problem persists so now I'm wondering if Norton isn't the problem.

[USAF_E-8_RET]

Hi denny79,

I take your Oops was in reference to the thread being solved - so I removed it being marked as a solution.

Please take a peek in Control Panel > Programs and Features and see if any of the following are present and uninstall them if they are listed.  ID Vault, Guarded ID, and the Xfiniinity/Comcast Toolbar.  Also please double check that Windows Defender is turned off.

Just to verify, do you have any other Security programs installed which run in real-time - such as MalwareBytes Anti-Malware Pro or SuperAntiSpyware Pro - the free versions are OK.   Or perhaps Spybot S & D with the Teatimer function enabled?

We'll be awaiting your respnonse.

[denny79]

Yes, the Xfinity Toolbar was still there as well as Guarded ID and a piece of CA was still there which I was running before I got Kaspirsky.  I uninstalled all of these and will see if my laptop locks up anymore.  Thanks for the pointers, I'll let you know how things go after uninstalling these items.

[USAF_E-8_RET]

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denny79 wrote:

Yes, the Xfinity Toolbar was still there as well as Guarded ID and a piece of CA was still there which I was running before I got Kaspirsky.  I uninstalled all of these and will see if my laptop locks up anymore.  Thanks for the pointers, I'll let you know how things go after uninstalling these items.

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Thanks for the feedback - hopefully all works out for you - got my fingers crossed!

[denny79]

My laptop didn't lock up until this morning so it seems that there is improvement yet there appears to remain a problem.

[USAF_E-8_RET]

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denny79 wrote:

My laptop didn't lock up until this morning so it seems that there is improvement yet there appears to remain a problem.

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Try running this tool - it is supposed to remove all of CGPS:

http://downloads.idvault.com/comcast/cleaner/constantguardcleaninstall.exe

At least this will make sure all of CGPS is removed.

Also please answer this queston from a prior post:

"Just to verify, do you have any other Security programs installed which run in real-time - such as MalwareBytes Anti-Malware Pro or SuperAntiSpyware Pro - the free versions are OK. Or perhaps Spybot S & D with the Teatimer function enabled?"

We'll be awaiting your response.

[denny79]

Friday after uninstalling the remnant files my laptop didn't lock-up until Sunday morning which gave me hope.  Then it locked up several times on Sunday and once again this morning.  I will run the utility as you suggested later today.  I checked and double checked to see if any other virus or antispyware software was installed or running and there are none that I am aware of. I will check again.  In troubleshooting this issue I did install a registry cleaner some weeks ago however, it doesn't run unless I tell it to.  I'll make sure that it doesn't have any antispy component that I may have missed.

Just to review the history of my laptop, I was running Kaspersky with no problems prior to uninstalling it and installing Constant Guard and Norton.

[denny79]

I have downloaded and run the link as suggested. We'll see if my laptop locks up again tonight and in the morning.

[denny79]

Something I have recently gotten a few times when shutting down is a error for comcastantispy.exe, however, when I search for it the search comes up empty.

[USAF_E-8_RET]

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denny79 wrote:

Something I have recently gotten a few times when shutting down is a error for comcastantispy.exe, however, when I search for it the search comes up empty.

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Try th following:

To find the installation location, bring up Run from the Start menu and type msconfig. Go the the Startup tab and look for the ComcastAntispy entry. Under the entry, the "X:\zzz\comcasttb" portion of the path shows the location for the uninstall program where X is the drive letter and zzz is a directory name. There should be an uninstaller in the folder.

Please post back.

[denny79]

I found it and ran the uninstall program which emptied the folder.

It may be a coincidence however, I have noticed that at least some of the time my laptop locks up that the Norton Antivirus starts running in background. My laptop is a 64 bit processor with 6 GB of memory so memory shouldn't be an issue.

I'll observe some more to see if there are any changes.

[USAF_E-8_RET]

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denny79 wrote:

I found it and ran the uninstall program which emptied the folder.

It may be a coincidence however, I have noticed that at least some of the time my laptop locks up that the Norton Antivirus starts running in background. My laptop is a 64 bit processor with 6 GB of memory so memory shouldn't be an issue.

I'll observe some more to see if there are any changes.

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True, memory should not be an issue with 6 GB.  Let us know how things progress.

[denny79]

I'm really baffled by this problem as there doesn't seem to be any pattern and everything that I try doesn't seem to make a significant difference.  I'll re-evaluate it next weekend and maybe even take Norton off and put another internet suite on to see if the problem goes away as I didn't have this problem before I installed Norton.

[denny79]

I took Norton off of my laptop this morning and loaded a basic security software to test and see if Norton was the problem. I'll run it for a few days to see if it locks up again.  One thing that I noticed immediately is that my laptop is running faster without Norton.

[USAF_E-8_RET]

Please keep us in the loop.

[denny79]

No freezing or locking up so far.  It certainly looks like something about Norton was clashing, bogging down my laptop's performance.

[USAF_E-8_RET]

Hi denny79,

I just got back in town - thanks for the feedback and I am glad you got it sorted.  Just curious - was the program you installed in place of Norton on your system at some time in the past?

[denny79]

No, I'm temporily using MS' Security Software and will find something better soon.

[USAF_E-8_RET]

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denny79 wrote:

No, I'm temporily using MS' Security Software and will find something better soon.

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Thanks for the feedback!

[denny79 · Accepted solution]

I guess that we can close this topic as I won't likely be using Norton on my newer laptop.  My wife's desktop is having no trouble with it nor is my old laptop though they are older technology without the fingerprint reader.