hallo night_hawk,
you may try this out. since there is not much to lose.
I did not go so far as to play with scheduled tasks, but there were some other attempts I tried.
In msconfig I unchecked cistray.exe in auto start (in safe mode as I was unable to start the desktop the normal way)
Then I rebooted and winXP loaded OK and then I started cis.tray by the desktop icon. It did work.
What I mean is Comodo services are booting early and doing that ok (maybe not necessary to mess with them for a while), but you may try to make a scheduled task for cistray.exe and make its delayed start.
I am home atm, and have taken the desktop back to the place I work (Had to keep it home for two days trying to sort things out). So I cannot perform “experiments”. We have a few days off for the celebrations in my place.
If you happen to find your way or try my idea out, I would be thankful to be informed if anything works reliably.
PS have a look at the registry once you uninstall the Comodo antivirus. The residues are most annoying.
My best wishes t you
UPDATE: Made some changes to this post - no comodo programs are started until the network connection is established.
Good news GreySparrowBird, the delaying of cistray.exe seems to be working! 
I tried it in the scheduled tasks folder, but ended up putting it in the startup folder. It is a 3 line batch file that will wait for the network connection, ping it, then execute cistray.exe and vkise.exe.
netsh.exe diag ping loopback
START “” “C:\Program Files\Comodo\COMODO Internet Security\cistray.exe”
START “” “C:\Program Files\Comodo\Internet Security Essentials\vkise.exe”
So all my current settings are:
A batch file in the startup folder containing the 3 lines above.
msconfig.exe (startup)
cistray.exe UNCHECKED in auto-startup
vkise.exe is UNCHECKED in auto-startup
In msconfig.exe under the services tab I’ve got “COMODO internet security helper service” and “COMODO Virtual Service manager” CHECKED.
In the control panel - adminitrative tools - services - I’ve got both the “COMODO internet security helper service” and “COMODO Virtual Service manager” set to MANUAL.
Not using any special scheduled tasks mentioned in my previous post.
You will need to manually run the .bat file while comodo is running so you can tell it that it is OK to run that particular .bat file.
hallo night_hawk,
Thank you for trying the thing out. I’ve copy-pasted your reply to keep and give it a try after I come back to work. That may take some time as I need to be away - it may take 2 days and 2 weeks - not sure atm.
I still have a hope that the Comodo team will work on this issue and find a permanent solution eventually.
Meanwhile it really is better to use the manual workaround rather than ■■■■ desktops (as old as Methuselah) by power reset button.
Thank you for participation.
My best cheeres, night_hawk
The search goes on…just like other attempts, the batch file method works most of the time, but sometimes the network connections are not made and the computer needs to be rebooted again. This is BEFORE any comodo programs are even started up. The batch file hangs on the netsh.exe command waiting for the network icon to appear - no comodo programs are even attempted to startup yet.
The problem must be with obtaining the network connections. The comodo 10 update must have changed something in the registry or elsewhere that effects this.
I’ll have to track down a program I have somewhere that monitors every system event to see if I can find what is going on when the network doesn’t properly load during bootup.
Hi night_hawk,
I did say that the registry is changed beyond repair. That may bring any fails.
My friend came to me to uninstall comodo (after that bad upgrade) and install sth else. He uses win7_32 Pro. There were some adware programs to remove too. I used Revouninstaller and it was OK until I uninstalled Comodo with it. Revouninstaller suggested to remove like 1500 Comodo related entries! I thought it was Ok and agreed and … network was lost after rebooting. I rolled the system back to a restore point, network connection was established but Comodo installation was corrupted. I re-installed it and then uninstalled in the list of programs. (I had to use sfc /scannow and even DISM.exe /Online /Cleanup-image /ScanHealth to repair the OS) That was a success but from now my firend uses some other antivirus.
I do not have many options and stay on with Comodo on those 5 WinXP desktops.
If your variant with delaying cistray.exe works in most cases that is enough for the time being. I want to wait for the improvement and if there is not, there is Version 8 to be used. But will have to say to my users not to press the YES-button when there comes suggestion to download new version.
My best wishes to you, night_hawk
- backup
- uninstall (normal method)
- reset registry & file permissions
- restart system
- use removal tool
- restart system
- use removal tool (again)
- install latest v10 build
I think I’ve found the problem. I’ve done about 40 reboots and have the comodo programs starting the normal way in startup. (no timed delay batch file like before). No error messages and no freeze-ups.
Comodo programs that are running after startup up are (cis.exe, isesrv.exe, cmdvirth.exe, cistray.exe, vkise.exe, and cmdagent.exe).
The problem in my case was a service called “Network Location Awareness”. By default, it is set to “Manual” on XP - I’ve changed it to “Automatic” so it starts right away on bootup. In “Manual” mode, it would sometimes not start quick enough and things would freeze up. That is why the time delayed batch file was working.
But with “Network Location Awareness” set to “Automatic”, I can get rid of the batch file and just start things the normal way.
This site explains what that service is:
http://www.blackviper.com/windows-services/network-location-awareness-nla/
GreySparrowBird, I would try this first and if things still aren’t working, try the batch file method. Before I stopped using the batch file, I added 2 more lines of:
netsh.exe diag ping loopback
to have a bigger delay before comodo programs would load.
If things are really messed up, you will probably need to follow windstorm’s list to get back on track. So far, I haven’t done any restores, uninstall/reinstalls, removes, or registry resets.
hallo, night_hawk,
Thanks for keeping me informed. I wish I had one of my problematic desktops at hand to try things out. But unfortunately I will reach them at the end of the week or even in two weeks’ time as I plan to be off.
The desktops are working but for the problems with booting. My colleagues will have to use hard-reboot for a while.
If the Comodo team works the things out on a permanent basis for WinXP, I may think of reinstalling the OS in June on the 5 desktops.
I keep following your posts. Any of your findings are appreciated as I am not that deep in fixing software. At the moment I am only worried if those ancient desktops will survive multiple hard-reboots.
As for resetting the register, I will keep it in mind but will not try it out as long as the desktops are functional.
many thanks, night_hawk
And my best wishes
Which XP version is it?
Which XP version is it, Cdatar?
It is XP Pro 32bit, recently a fresh install on an SSD. Minimal programs,MS Office 2007, Mozilla Firefox, not much more.
I’ve been working through the same issues discussed here (in another thread in the CIS bugs forum) and I was able to get things running normally. Running XP pro 32bit.
I had to change the service called “Network Location Awareness (NLA)” from “manual” to “automatic”. Seems like it wasn’t being started fast enough at startup when set to manual and things would freeze up and not start.
Since changing it to automatic, everything has been running smoothly. About 50 startups with no lockups or errors.
Prior to finding the NLA service solution, I had pretty good success by delaying the startup of the comodo programs - letting the computer boot up and establish the network connection, before starting the comodo programs.
XP Home. Why ?
After changing NLA to automatic, the problem persists.
Please keep in mint that other friends are suffering the same problem with XP SP3. Any suggestion from COMODO?
I asked because I thought it might be a Home problem because I had a lot of successful starts in Professional until that streak …
Check to see if dumps are created by going to %programdata%\Comodo\CisDumps go to start run and type in that path. Also try booting in safe mode and disable all comodo components and then boot into Windows normally.
OK I’ll try that.
Thing is, I wouldn’t know if ‘dumps’ are being created or not and if they’re a good or bad thing and what to do if I find them if anything. What am I looking for ? I don’t even know what dumps are.
If you find any zip it and attach it here. You will see files with a .dmp file extension and would indicate one of the comodo processes crashing.
THIS is what happened when I typed in to ‘Start Run’ what you suggested which was %programdata%\Comodo\CisDumps
Please see screenshot.