I’ve tried to start Defender from ‘services’, but it tells me;

Error 577: Windows cannot verify the digital signature for this file. A recent hardware or software change might have installed a file that is signed incorrectly or damaged, or that might be malicious software from an unknown source.

WTactualF? this is a Microsoft product?

PUP.Optional.MultiPlug, HKLM\SOFTWARE\CLASSES\INTERFACE\{7041156A-0D2B-4DCD-A8EE-D0608BFCB2D0}, Quarantined, [7a99abddd5c49b9bd36c23a3768c8080],
…
etc.

Run this.

https://toolslib.net/downloads/viewdownload/1-adwcleaner/

WTactualF? this is a Microsoft product?

Uninstall Spybot and try again.

Removing spybot has allowed Defender to kick in, nice one 😀 I’ve run adwcleaner; it says it’s removed some stuff but I am still getting the busy circle monentarily every second. Any clues on how to get rid of spybot properly? It’s left an annoying startup reinstaller that asks me to reinstall every time I boot up. A shame that a program that used to be useful to stop annoyng programs has become what it was designed to combat.

I’m running a ‘full scan’ on windows defender now; it may take some time… 😯

It’s left an annoying startup reinstaller

Windows 10 has a good startup manager – it’s one of the tabs in the task manager. You should be able to see in that what’s causing spybot to try to reinstall itself, plus anything else that’s having an impact. Disable things in there that you don’t want by right-clicking them and selecting disable – much safer than registry edits!

Awesome, done, thanks. Would kind of like to bin it completely, mind you. It’s proper cheeky isn’t it?

A shame that a program that used to be useful to stop annoyng programs has become what it was designed to combat.

I believe this is something to do with a W10 upgrade; the point is that if you’ve got W7 / W8 installed, you uninstall Spybot before upgrading to W10, then the installer pops up to let you put it back post-install.

Regardless. See here:
https://www.safer-networking.org/faq/prompt-post-windows-10-spybot-install/

You might need to terminate the installer in Task manager first. I think it’s called “test” or something equally intuitive. EDIT: or not, if you’ve killed it in msconfig / startup manager.

Failing that, I’ve never used it myself but have heard things about Revo Uninstaller. That might kill it.

I am still getting the busy circle monentarily every second.

Is it a HP machine by any chance?

Would kind of like to bin it completely

If you’re feeling brave one of the options startup manager gives you is to open the file location. You can then just delete it.

Is it a HP machine by any chance?

No, it’s an MSI (whatever that is). My Google fu has multiple results about HP machines and the busy circle, but I can’t work out if there’s any equivelent MSI bloat ware.

Do you want me to take a look at it remotely perhaps, see if I can suss it out?

Cougar, that would be awesome. I’m at a loss, but that’s not surprising…

Hang on; you’re not from ‘Windows security in Mumbai’ are you? 😉

It seems that a recent Windows 10 update has been nuking installations of Spybot. You end up with an icon on the desktop to re-install and Spybot *mostly* uninstalled.

What I did was run the installer, let it complete, then did an uninstall. That seems to have done the job nicely.

I just watched this, I hope you have all the MS spyware disabled too!
[video]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u1kGMCfb2xw[/video]

Cougar’s fixed it. Thank you!

Yatta!

For future reference if anyone else happens across this issue: it was the Qualcomm Killer Network Manager app / service.

It’s not 100% clear to me what this app does, it appears to be some sort of network configurator which gets side-loaded with the NIC driver. I’ve since found this (fairly damning) review on PC Gamer which suggests that it’s attempting to team together different adapters to increase throughput. When I looked at the app on v8ninety’s PC it looked like it was continually cycling through different adapters rather than doing anything useful.

Potentially this could be a compatibility issue between W10 and the driver suite, and there’s every chance that there’s updated software available for it. However, we couldn’t immediately see any benefit to the app, and making changes to the network whilst connected remotely is akin to sawing through a tree branch you’re sitting on, so for simplicity we’ve just disabled it in Services.

From the PCG link there:

Don’t waste your time with the Killer Network Manager or DoubleShot. They cause more problems than they solve.

Bloody typical. Just found this.

https://service.msicomputer.com/msi_user/support/techfaqdetail.aspx?formid=3082

Heh. Typical. Do you reckon it’s worth reinstalling to see if it can be made to work properly? Or just keep it binned? I don’t see as if it really adds anything to my computing experience; not sure I entirely understand what it does to be honest…

Yeah, TBH I’d be inclined to agree. You could reinstall it and it’d probably work, but that PCG article makes me think you’d be better off without it anyway.

Seems like there are loads of ‘network manager’ apps that come with every card or manufacturer. Why the f…? Windows manages networks perfectly well, without shitty pop up bollocks installed. Grr…

Yeah. It works in the server world (well, sometimes). Like, the HP network utility lets you team NICs for performance / load balancing / redundancy reasons. On a home machine it just smacks of a branding exercise to me.

It was ever thus, mind. Remember when signing up to an ISP netted you a CD that at best did the square route of Jeff all, and at worst utterly rogered your winsock stack? (I’m looking at you, AOL.) Ditto printer drivers. I’ve lost count of the number of “yes, but I’ve got this CD…” conversations I’ve had with people over the years. Best thing you can do with that is stick it under your coffee cup.

Yes, remember those well!

People clicking on their AOL icon instead of simply dialling up to the internet – resulting in them thinking that AOL was something different and special.

AOL was something different and special.

It was most certainly both of those things, but probably not in the sense you mean.

I remember troubleshooting a slow AOL install one time. Transpired that whilst the Point Of Presence (christ, remember those?) was Manchester, all the web traffic was routed via AOL’s servers somewhere in the US (West Coast IIRC). Yeah, you’ve thought about that one lads.