Windows

Help? What's THAT?

Posted by on Aug 23, 2006 | One Comment

Ever submit a problem and have the vendor flat out say “It’s not our problem?” It’s more than a little annoying in this day and age. I really thought that the PC universe had evolved beyond that kind of blatant BS. Boy, was I wrong!

Now we’ll get down to particulars. The company involved in this unbearable case of runaround is one Webroot. Yes, the Windows Washer/Spy Sweeper Webroot. The program in question is that same Spy Sweeper.

The problem with Spy Sweeper is that when the real-time shields are enabled, it interferes fatally with the installation of every Microsoft program I’ve tried putting in place. I say fatally because it keeps the installer from writing new info to the Windows registry. This has unfortunate results far beyond the failure of the program to be installed. In fact, it mucks up already installed Microsoft software. The current target seems to be Outlook 2003. Once the install ran down, I (of course) did an immediate UNinstall, but it was too late. It had messed with MAPI32.DLL and Outlook wouldn’t work at all. Nor would Word. In fact, the Registry was so munged that I couldn’t even reinstall any of the packages to try to get it working. Sadly, that was the end of the fixes that Microsoft listed in the knowledgebase. So, it was a quick trip to System Restore that saved the day.

So there you have the cause of my problem. I contacted support via its Web site and submitted a ticket explaining the situation and asking if there was some way to adjust the anti-spyware settings or to temporarily turn the shields OFF without having to quit the program and rerun it every time I wanted to install software. Now the REAL fun started. I got an e-mail from the Webroot tech support department that showed a less-than-ideal attitude towards customer problems, not to mention what read like a complete failure to understand the problem causing me grief in the first place. Take a look:

If the issue is still occurring, the problem is unrelated to Spy Sweeper. If your issue is now resolved, please respond to this ticket. To ensure Spy Sweeper is protecting your computer on startup, please open Spy Sweeper, and recheck the Load at Windows Startup box again in Options.

To me it reads like a classic case of finger-pointing and a blow-off of a customer. I leave it to you to decide if you want a company like that taking care of YOUR security.

[tags]software,anti-spyware,spy sweeper,spyware,webroot,bad service,mapi32.dll[/tags]

  • TK_M

    Not just Webroot – I ended up with a trashed system from Spybot-SD Resident doing it’s job and stopping some things from being altered. Unfortunately, the thing trying to alter them was MS’s own security updates.

    I guess I now know which programs they refer to when an install says to quit all running programs – They mean quit all your protection and leave your computer unprotected while you install their software with only a router’s firewall to cover you.

    Of course, if you have downloaded an infected file, then switching off all your protection is negating your last line of defence… Not only that, but once it’s installed, then a reboot becomes pretty much mandatory to get all your anti-malware stuff running again on a stable system. That is where you find out whether they did a good job of scanning the file as you downloaded it in the first place, or whether you have just handed your system to them on a plate by switching them all off to install it.