GS60 Ghost antivirus Fail

If there's one thing I hate about Windows 8, this is it: Once antivirus is installed, it disables the ability to turn Windows Defender back on, no matter what. If ANYONE has any great ideas, please, now's the time. Here's the background:

Unit came with Norton. I do not like Norton, I will not pay for Norton. I removed Norton with the Norton removal tool and attempted to start the windows defender service. I fought with it for about 20 minutes, sighed, gave up, and installed Avast!. I was actually Ok with this, as I've used Avast before, though it's become a bit bloated over time. I've also run into this problem before. Last time it was *MY* machine, and I ended up doing a full format/reinstall.

This morning I went to download/run TCP optimizer and leatrix latency fix [Wife was complaining of occasional lag] and Windows installed an update. Post update, Avast startup crashes out with "Htmllayout.dll not found". I go to uninstall, cannot install with the same error. Downloaded the Avast! uninstall tool, rebooted in safe mode, and was able to uninstall.

Only, now it won't reinstall, with the SAME ERROR.

So now I'm staring at two equally bleak possibilities. One is to do a full format/reinstall, which I have no interest in doing or explaining to my wife why all her programs are gone. The other, for the moment, is to run sans ANY antivirus until I can figure out a solution. At the moment she's at work, so I have a little time, but I'm apprehensive about leaving a machine unprotected when it is not under my direct control. I love my wife, and I trust her. . but I know her browsing habits.

So, anyone out there come across this and found a resolution? I haven't tried another antivirus YET, mostly because what little I've dug off the internet suggests that this is going to be a consistent issue across any antivirus that I would trust to put on the machine. I'd like to figure out how to simply recover Windows defender if possible. Again, any advice or thoughts would be greatly appreciated.

 

Curious, what exactly is the issue with Defender you are having? I simply uinstalled all the Norton products, restarted and then turned Defender on. It's worked like this on both of my MSI's with Norton preinstalled.

 

in action center, I hit turn on and nothing happens. When i manually attempt to start the windows defender service, i get a digital signature error and it will not complete. At this point i've gone through the top three pages of google search results and have not found any way to successfully get the service to start.

 

I have never run into this on 8 or 8.1. After I remove Norton, Action Center warns me I have no anti virus enabled, I then turn Windows Defender on, it updates and performs a scan, and works behind the scenes from there on out, occasionally asking me to scan every few weeks.

It has worked this way on all of my household Window 8 equipped MSI's, Acers, Asus, and HP machines that are running third party antivirus software out of the box.

You mentioned a Norton Removal tool? Maybe this is breaking something? I use the Norton uninstall option in Windows or CCleaner to remove the bloatware and clean everything up. No idea if that is a factor.

 

This is actually pretty common with windows 8/8.1 *IF* the antivirus is not completely removed. If there are any traces of it still hanging around, Windows defender won't let it be turned on because it still detects another antivirus. That's what the removal tools are for: making sure that the antivirus is 100% uninstalled so that Windows Defender will allow itself to be turned back on. In my case, I've done everything *I* can think of to make sure everything is clear in order to activate Windows Defender. I'm the tech guy for my entire extended family and more than a few side-job clients. *I* am the guy that fixes it when it breaks.

*I* cannot figure out for the LIFE OF ME what I'm missing... Hence the entire thread. I've gone through the registry, I've run the removal tools in safe mode, I've pulled all files and folders out of the directory tree. . and nothing I do seems to shake it loose. Yes, I could do a full format reinstall and fix it THAT way, but I really don't feel like sitting in front of the machine for an entire day reinstalling everything I just got done installing for her in the first place. There's GOT to be an easier way to fix this ><

 

Crap like this is frustrating, but I have to ask for my own knowledge as I'm the similar go to guy for my extended family/friends and their businesses, did you use the removal tool to actually uninstall Norton in the first place? I always just use the normal included uninstaller, restart when requested, run CCleaner because I'm OCD, and have never once had this problem in setting up four households worth of budget laptops loaded with bloatware/Norton/Mcafee goodness on 8/8.1 machines.

I swear it's always more annoying when it's not your own machine I usually try and make sure I'm happy with the basic install image before I bother installing any additional software for this very reason... way too many landmine bugs like this to ruin a weekend! I totally feel your pain.. spent an entire Sunday a couple weeks ago getting my father's machine set back up after he decided to let a stranger remote in to "help" him setup some budget ebay wireless security cams on his router... he had space invaders scrolling across his desktop and realized something might be wrong

 

Bad browsing habits

Sent from my SGH-T999 using Tapatalk 2

 

I started with the regular uninstaller, proceeded to the uninstall tool when the initial uninstaller didn't work. I've tried the administrative command line, services.msc, and action center to get it to re-initialize. For the moment, I've gotten AVG to work [not my first choice] but I'd still LOVE to figure out exactly what's getting hung up where, so that in the future I can actually assassinate this issue once and for all. Unsolved technical problems make me grumpy...

 

Have you navigated through your Program Files folder to find and remove remnant directories for Avast! and Norton? Revo Uninstaller does a good job of scanning for remaining files, folders and registry entries during removal.

 

I cleared out all remnant folders, but I'll give Revo uninstaller a shot sometime in the next day or so IF I can get it out of her hands long enough. For some reason, she seems to be surgically attached to the thing

 

I had the same issue - really obnoxious. Uninstalled norton AV and installed avast, then after reboot got the html error. I used ccleaner and it fixed the error on startup issue. Haven't been brave enough to try and reinstall avast yet.. Oddly enough it still shows me as having norton security files to be uninstalled but when I try and uninstall them it just sits...

 

Sandboxing your web browsing (or anything with the potential to harm your OS installation) is a great way to sidestep corruption. Comodo Dragon currently offers a Virtual Mode for its web browser (based on Chromium) as long as you install a security suite from them. Or you could run a live OS or virtual environment.

A virtual machine is a little over the top just for basic web browsing, but they're more fail proof than any anti virus program.