Microsoft has installed the equivalent of a virus on my notebook, and it is taking me more time and causing more problems than the last time I had a real virus.
One day I booted up and had a big Bing search bar on my Firefox menu. I never installed it, had not installed any other add-ons. It was just there. I tried to uninstall it, but the uninstall button on the Bing add-on in Add-Ons was dimmed out - I was not allowed to uninstall it. There was also a new search service something add-on which also was new.
I disabled the Bing bar, but could not uninstall it. I did some Googling and apparently MS decided they would install it with a .net update. Without asking permission.
I found the Bing Bar in the Add-remove menu, uninstalled it there, but it did not really uninstall it - it remains in my Firefox menu. But in addition, suddenly my system takes forever to boot up - takes a long time before the sign-on screen comes up, and when I DO log in, I get an error message box saying “Windows cannot connect to the System Notification Service”. Logs show it is also having an error related to “Seaport” which apparently is something related to this “enhanced search service” that Microsoft decided to install on my system.
Anyone have any help other than reinstall Windows? (Oh - Windows 7 64 bit.) Anyone else have this Microsoft “virus?”
Well, I’ve tried every fix on the internet for this “Windows cannot connect” error - it appears a lot of people have it now. It takes forever for the system to get past the “please wait” stage of bootup and then I get the error message when I get into Windows. None of the online fixes work.
Also - I figured I’d just use the old reliable system restore. But when I went to restore back to, say, a week ago, the only restore point it offered me (even after I clicked “show more restore points”) was the one that listed the “critical system update.” Ok - that’s when all of this started - I’d prefer to go back about a week - but OK. Restored that, took a long time to restart - and same message. No fix.
Restore use to give me a calendar and I could pick a number of dates- when did it suddenly get so restrictive in dates it lets me choose? DAMN YOU MICROSOFT!!! (Sorry to Denny and others who work there who have nothing to do with this.)
When I did the system restore (to 7/29, the only restore point it have me- when the “critical update” occurred) it apparently restored to before that update and then immediately applied the update again. And the problem is still there.
I can’t find the options I used to have on System Restore - a calendar where I could pick a date to restore to, and also options on how often to create a restore point. Where did those go? (Windows 7)
Yeah, I always make sure I don’t click the agree when they want to install the Bing Bar or Yahoo bar or whatever. I had not installed any new add-ons. This came exactly at the same time as a “Windows Critical Update.” Looking at some MS Support forums, it has happened to a lot of other people also, though there doesn’t seem to be an apparent pattern to who it hit and who it didn’t.
It seems to not only have that Windows Services error, but other odd problems are now occurring. Since I can’t restore back without it reinstalling the update, and can’t restore back further, it looks like I need to find my Windows 7 disk and do a reinstall of Windows. Ugh.
I’ve not had Bing forced on me at all and I have auto update on and am using IE8 as my primary browser. I have to think something else is going on, as mentioned by other people. Not that it helps you.
I’ve deployed and reinstalled hundreds of machines/times with Win7 and patched to full compliance and there has never been anything like this. I am leaning towards “you installed something you shouldn’t have, accidentally or it was bundled with something else you did not read the fine print on too carefully.”
Googling around, it looks like this only affects Firefox users and was a bug/mistake. However, that was some time ago, so I don’t know why you are only now seeing this.
Well, Microsoft tech support has now told me that it did indeed effect Firefox owners, quite of few of them, in the recent update. They said they aren’t sure why it effects some people and not others. And they told me that, if the winsock reset trick didn’t work (it didn’t) that they were telling people the only other fix was to reinstall Windows 7.
It effected two of my three Windows 7 laptops. As far as I can tell, all three are set up pretty identically.
This wouldn’t be such an inconvenience if Microsoft managed to include a Repair Install function in Win7 like they did in XP. The lack of that drives me nuts and makes my job harder than it has to be.
Dynamic update? I’ve never heard of this, but if this can fix a copy of Win7 that can’t boot into the OS and won’t nuke existing software and settings, I’d like to know more.
Ha. That’s the catch – if the OS is completely non-bootable, you’re fucked. But if you can boot into it via any way (safe mode, etc) then you can run the disc and choose ‘Dynamic Update’ as an option.
However, you can not do this when booting from disc. It’s really the ultimate “fuck you” if you’ve screwed your bootfiles.
Yeah, see, that’s the problem. Nine out of ten, if I have to run a repair install, it’s because the OS is borked and can’t be booted into. There’s this fun problem called the KSOD (black screen of death) that I’ve seen on both Vista and Win 7 that cannot be resolved by any methods I’ve run across. If they had a repair function like XP did, it would be no problem, I’ve fixed XP installs with gaping holes from viruses with no problem.
It drives me up a wall that such a useful feature to technicians and computer tinkerers could be left out entirely.
I’ve done everything I know to fix this issue. Everything listed on the net, googled till my eyes bled, gone into the services.msc app to see what may be disabled, etc. Nothing works. The Microsoft support folks tell me that they are dealing with this from a number of people and for over half the only resort is to reinstall Windows. So that is the plan this afternoon.
I’m not one of those who reinstalls Windows on a regular basis: is the “best” thing to do just reinstall? Or is there a choice that will leave me less work (e.g. reinstalling drivers, etc.) that is just as likely to get everything back to pristine shape (like this Dynamic Update?)
