Help!!! Something in My Vista has disabled Mcafee scanner and appears not to be malware/virus/spyware/et al...

[silverstar]

• HELP!!!! Why is my Mcafee scanner disabled? I have Windows Vista (LOL.... I know) 32 bit//Mcafee premium security
  
• Mcafee Virtual technician tool says it is a COM file corrupted,
  
• I found the following apps are stopped (or blocked) mcods.exe(Viruscan folder) mcBackmonitor.exe (MBK folder)
  
• Windows defender and windows firewall are disable in system configuration services and in start-up too they are OFF
• I had no other spyware installed before this ........until five days ago when I saw Mcafee not scanning. The spyware (Spybot) caught nothing, I run also stinger from mcafee and run windows malicious software removal tool full scans.........found nothing
  
• Symptoms: If I click button scan on the left side menu it only goes to Status screen,  Virus protection configuration forgets my custom scan schedule as soon as I close window (it does not scans default schedule either), Restore button on menu has also a small yellow message error and never opens. the message says "message from the web Error!"  <---HUH??WTH??
  
• I assume this happen after windows downloading update august 10... not certain
• my C hardisk has 41.7% free space memory and I keep my cache and temporary files very clean religiously every day to avoid sluggishness
  
• I have uninstalled and installed mcafee 9 different times unfortunately same result (Iam sick & tired of it... Rrrgh)
  
• I Proceed as followed>>>Mcafee is uninstalled first with windows default uninstall (control panel) then reboot
• then run the removal tool from mcafee +Reboot
• then I go to APPdata folders  C:\ProgramFiles, C:\ProgramData and delete manually if any Mcafee folders   and run a second time the removal tool after this. +REBOOT (restart ..LOL)
  
• I have RUN either the stinger/or malicious malware removal tool/or spybot/or the windows error checking volume (last case I have to reboot again before re-installing)  and then Re-install mcafee and installations appears successful all the way until I open mcafee window and try to scan or open the restore menu link.
  
• HELP!!! everything runs good in my laptop except this..... It does not feels like malwre or virus........(but I could be wrong LOL)

......Mcafee updates regurlarly and can do the cleaning of cookies et al' too without trouble, the status shows protected in all counts and appears (..right) to be working fine. Windows systems and software seems working fine before and after this  ..... ????if you can believe a Vista LOL  

Message was edited by: silverstar    Before and after this problem >>windows firewall and defender were OFF  on 8/23/10 3:10:31 PM CDT

Message was edited by: silverstar on 8/23/10 1:41:45 PM PDT

[ajacobs]

Moved to our Home User area for better attention. Hopefully a product expert can help you soon!

[silverstar]

Thank you  I looked for Home user thread could not find it.......

would you mind teling me how to move into Home user Area?

[ajacobs]

Strange. I moved it and then it popped back over to the Help area. I've moved it again.

I believe you should see the option on the right in the Actions widget. However, once there are replies to the thread, you may not be able to move it.

[Jubo]

So, if "......Mcafee updates regurlarly and can do the cleaning of cookies et al' too without trouble, the status shows protected in all counts and appears (..right) to be working fine" then why do you think/say the scanner is disabled? You were pretty thorough in the steps you took and I do agree it doesn't look like malware or semething else. but what makes you think it's disabled?

Your version of Windows Vista is also up-to-date and has the latest updates/patches? Did you check Microsoft Update website?

[silverstar]

Hello Jubo,     Thank you so much for your interest.... I hope you can come with some solution to this

Regarding your questions

1) when I click on the left side menu link on SCAN    It only takes you into the "Protection Status" window

2) Mcafee Virtual tecnician says cannot fix and it is a corrupted  .Com  file

3) I looked in System configuration  services and proceses and I saw the Mcafee files i cited here above disabled (blocked)

Windows update is current and automatic, I do not have any games in my laptop nor do I play them...... I use my laptop mainly to write

documents and emails (extrictly work) Nor anyone else has access to my laptop I am the sole user.

the last and only updates have been from before this incident Windows/Mcafee/itunes/thunderbird and Firefox . I have the odd suspicion that it was windows update that caused it ......... but I have absolutely no evidence of this. my only estimation comes from the the date of updates closer to the incident August 10 ....... Mcafee stopped scanning -- windows Update august 8 but mcafee updated on august 10 one hr after it was not scanning anymore. reason I know it is because the scan schedule for scanning is tuesdays at 8am and it semed stranged it never happened so i tried to open the scan and the circus commenced.

BTW>>> I cannot remember which event log I saw (probably windows error report log) but the date was confirmed as  August 10 Mcafee---- stopped on 8/27/10 1:59:23 PM PDT

[airtuna08]

It's definitely an issue Jubo. I have the same problem.

Silver, I'd be learly of any future McAfee updates that require a restart as they made my computer crash. Make sure you have a good restore point should that happen. Because when it crashed on me, I could only open windows in safe mode and had to revert to a previous time in my computer's history. Hopefully that doesn't happen to you, but I would keep it in mind because my early symptoms of missing the scan function, etc.seem identical to yours. I also did scans with other programs like you and nothing came up.