Windows 8.1 CIS Nightmare

Comodo Internet Security - CIS Install / Setup / Configuration Help - CIS
1

Having used Comodo in the past I felt secure that I have a great product and decided to install CIS onto my HP laptop with windows 8.1 installed and fully up to date. I downloaded the free version initially to see how it had changed since my last use, this is when the problems began.

My first worry was the time it took to install, 30 minutes or so. Beforehand I had disabled the network and uninstalled my old virus protection to avoid any conflicts. But this did little to help it would seem. After the install I got the little widget onscreen and went ahead and reconnected the network and let CIS update itself.

Odd thing was the touch pad stopped responding at around this time, luckily I had a mouse plugged it at the time so just used this to restart. Ouch… I rebooted only to be left not even passing the bios check! A black screen and the Caps lock light flashing with noway to shut the laptop down. I had to pull the AC cord and battery out for a few minutes for the laptop to boot back into windows!

Not greatly happy about this, but I persisted. Got to the desktop and waited, just to make sure everything was going to work ok. 10 minutes later there was no sign of CIS running in the taskbar or widget. So i went to double click the CIS shortcut and yet again the touch pad was not responding, it was at this time I realised the entire keyboard was locked out, not a single key was working!?

So I rebooted again to see if this would clear only to be hit with the same black boot screen… Pulled the supply again and got back into windows, turns out the keyboard locks out after 5 minutes. I decided it was best to uninstall CIS due to these problems, unfortunately for me this made things worse.

Once uninstalled and rebooted I was still presented with the black boot screen. Pull the supply yet again and got back to windows, 5 minutes later the keyboard still locks up, but now with the added bonus of 5 minutes later a BSOD, shutdown and black boot screen!!! And so this continued…

After sometime of working out how to get into safe mode from within windows (boot root did not work) all was once again fine. But I have had to do a “Refresh” of the system to get it back into working order.

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So what on earth happened here? I had a perfectly running laptop one moment and then hours of hell trying to get it working again, which I am still doing by way of painful window updates just to get back to 8.1!? I believe I am not the only one to have suffered from this issue.

2

I’m not going to trivialize your problems, but are you aware that Win 8.x is so cool that M$ is making Win 10 available free of charge to all Win 8 users next year?

That notwithstanding, what version did you onstall on your Win8 system? CIS v8 or v7?

There are multiple things occurring on a new install, 1st is a comprehensive malware scan, secondly its establishing everything that’s running and trying to categorize it and whatnot, and concurrently with the first two, its updating its A/V defs for the first time. And that process can’t be terminated. If its interrupted, it resumes from where it left off at next init. And the first update is pulling down 250MB, installing, configuring and activating; its a big Biden deal.

I’ll concede that v7 was a ■■■■■■ to get installed. It took many occurrences of yanking the PSU from mains. But you know what? After pulling out my hair, it started working. And I’ve not had an issue with it once I got my brain around the differences from v5

And Killswitch is just freakishly outstanding in contrast to v5’s View Active Process List. The teething pains notwithstanding: its a keeper.

3

I never said win 8 is cool. But you don’t have a choice when you purchase a new PC, unless you want to go out and buy a licence and install win 7. You then end up with a U/S recovery partition on a new PC. Windows 8 would not be my choice of operating system had I know how bad it was, hence why its on 8.1. But hay ho… :slight_smile:

As for the version I could not tell you, I pulled it from the website yesterday so can only assume it would be the latest version.

Indeed, I did notice that which is why I sat and waited/left it alone to do its thing.

Sorry, that is a good thing? I’ve never had issue with installing an anti-virus like this before, surely there are some major issues with the software to force users to go to such extremes to get it to run?! As for differences between versions I would not know WxMan1. :slight_smile:

4

I’m running CIS 7 on Windows 8.1 and so I know are a great many others, so it rather seems that the problem is not with CIS but with your laptop.

If it’s an HP laptop did it come with a trial version of any other security software or firewall/anti-virus etc.? I’m sure that it did because they nearly all do. So, did you fully uninstall that security product (and indeed all other security products) before installing CIS?

That could well be your problem…

5

Luck of the draw I guess. Stressful when you have a new course starting in a few days time tho.

Of course, you can see by my first post that I did all that. I’m not new to PCs. :slight_smile: It may well be a HP issue as I have read another post detailing the boot problems. It’s a shame really, but I really cannot risk using CIS on this laptop. :-X

6

With the current installer CIS will not start the tray icon and the widget. The widget gets started by the tray icon. The underwater processes are running and protecting you.

Why the install took so long is hard to tell. When having uninstalled security programs as an extra safe guard we encourage to run a clean up tool for the security programs installed in the past. The reason is that sometimes they don’t get uninstalled completely leaving an odd driver of service running which could cause unexpected effects. A list of such tools can be found here: ESET Knowledgebase .

The problem with your keyboard and mouse is likely caused by sandbox/HIPS. We would need a look at the D+ logs to see what is going on.

The size of AV database is a known problem.

7

Thank you for the reply EricJH.

This is a very informative post, shame I was not aware of some of these issues before installation. Thank you.

8

I’m going to guess this is a brand new install of CIS v7. And yes, vestiges of previous security suites can cause problems.

But in a public environment, e.g., at school, there’s really no better protection than CIS. I disocvered this 4 years ago after three semester ITCS at school where my system prevously protected by Norton System Works, Zone Alarm, Ad-Aware & Spybot was going serious Biden-bat feces-crazy. After availing myself of a free licensed copy of Win 2003 R2 through Gates Foundation Dreamworks program, I discovered Norton System works wouldn’t install on my server based system.

That’s when I discovered CIS v3. And you know what? It found and cleaned multitude malware on the thumb-drive I was using for school. Turns out the schools own servers were infested with this nonsense, and was being ported by the students on their thumb-drives / laptops from all across campus. There were a few comments by students that they’re getting notification of virus / malware alerts when connecting to the school’s network or downloading files from the servers. But all the instructors stated emphatically: false positive - ignore - etc. The school has fully comprehensive secutiry implemented.

Anyways, I recently discovered this thread:

https://forums.comodo.com/news-announcements-feedback-cis/wikileak-documents-show-governments-couldnt-penetrate-comodo-internet-security-t106848.0.html

So can you call me a CIS fan-boi? Unashamedly I not merely acquiesce, or concede, but proudly proclaim to be so.

That notwithstanding, I concede that installation of the product can be frustrating. It really shouldn’t be that way. Really. Not after the chaos of the v7 roll-out in Apr 2014 that horked many machines upgrading from v5 to v7. The key to the quagmire was uninstalling v5, install v6 - import exported profile from v5 and export profile again from v6, upgrade to v7. If that didn’t work, uninstall v7 and reinstall v7 and import v6 exported profile. I got it to work that way. But as far as all the problems coming out NOW? In Sept and on v7? Sheesh. v8 is still beta, so that shouldn’t be the default download at this time.

I have a very strong suspicion that the initial scan that CIS does on installation is much more robust, comprehensive and resource intensive than previous incarnations. In fact I’d almost say it smells as if CIS installation does a form of rootkit for initial malware scan. In this application of rootkit technology, its not malicious and is in fact trying to do the user a favor. Its attempting to establish the integrity, veracity and sterility of the system, before setting up and configuring the rest of its processes. But that is more of an subjective and intuitive feeling, rather than objective empirical based knowledge.

9

Most Security options that are shipped with new pc’s/laptops have their tentacles wrapped deep inside the machine. lolol. It’s very difficult sometimes to notice that, although you may have uninstalled them, there can be registry or even modules or processes still running.

Thankfully, most companies also have a “remover” that should take care of that. CIS takes a little bit more time to install in WIN8 machines, but it’s a minute or two longer.

I would recommend the following:

1 - Download CIS using the link provided in this forum post https://forums.comodo.com/news-announcements-feedback-cis/comodo-internet-security-703177994142-released-t103820.0.html

2 - Download the official “remover” of the Security option that was shipped with your machine (optional: also download ccleaner)

3 - Do a factory reset/reinstall Win8 in your machine.

4 - Uninstall the Security option that was shipped with your machine, via the normal methods (control panel, programs, uninstall)

5 - Use the remover for leftovers, reboot (optional install ccleaner and run a registry scan, fix/delete all errors, scan again 'tll 0 errors)

6 - Install CIS and use Chiron’s guide Gizmo's Best - The best of Gizmo's Freeware
(better save it to your pc, since it’s best not to connect to the internet at this point)

7 - Connect your pc to the interwebs, update and be happy ;D