https://forums.comodo.com/empty-t50860.0.html solved the problem by a rather drastic step, uninstalling all Comodo products and bleaching the registry of all Comodo refererces.
https://forums.comodo.com/empty-t50860.0.html was lucky enough that an update was ready and rebooting the PC fixed that problem.
My System Clean crashed before finishing, I had ticked to clean ‘system serives’ a non default. I’m running the freshest version CSC_SETUP_2.2.129172.4_xp_vista_server2003_win7.exe. Many tricks don’t work
- reboot 2 or more times.
- reinstall CSC
- run the diagnostic mentioned in the help file, it reports as healthy. Miccellaneous button (top right) of main window, then diagnostic.
- untick registry cleaner > settings (top right button), untick ‘use registry protection’. Reboot PC.
- the forum posts above mention a driver is loaded. I looked in Micro$ofts Control Panel, Admin tools, services and sorted by status, none of the ‘started’ services mention Comodo or System Cleaner. I was going to stop the driver by stopping it’s service.
Security products which may interfere are :
Comodo verification engine
Comodo Internet security
Peer Guardian
SuperAntiSpyware - free version.
I use a few other security products but they are non resident.
I’m running XP SP3.
I can wait for months for an update but there may be a tricky solution. The main reason for running the clean was that I changed video and sound cards and the registry was polluted with old driver settings. Even though CSC crashed my new sound card worked on reboot. CSC seems to do a deeper clean than a few other popular products.