Hey,
I give it a chance, before formatting my pc. I battled with uninstalling Bitdefender, as I wanted to install it again to fix system crash error. Ended up with many different trials with help of chatgpt, and of course BD support procedures and Uninstall Tool. Without success.
Summary from chatgpt (just missing that I also tried with Win10 bootable USB for command prompt, but i couldnt run it as administrator)
Thanks in advance for any comments and help,
Krzysztof
Summary of attempted approaches to remove Bitdefender and boot into Safe Mode (Windows 10)
After a system crash, Windows 10 started showing the error:
regamdcomp.exe - bad image
C:\Program Files\Bitdefender Security\atcuf\dllls_...\atcuf64.dll is either not designed to run on Windows or it contains an error
Attempts to uninstall or repair Bitdefender have failed — it reinstalls itself or reappears after each reboot.
1. Standard uninstallation attempts
- Tried uninstalling Bitdefender via Windows Settings → Apps.
- Tried the official Bitdefender Uninstall Tool (run as administrator).
- After reboot, Bitdefender folders and startup entries reappeared.
2. Safe Mode boot attempts
- Could not access Advanced Boot Options with F4/F8 — system always booted normally.
- Attempted to force Safe Mode using:
msconfig → “Safe boot” option — ignored on restart.bcdedit /set {current} safeboot minimal and reboot — no effect.- Batch file with the same commands — executed, but system still booted normally.
- Desktop batch file disappeared (Safe Mode likely didn’t activate user profile).
bcdedit /deletevalue {default} safeboot returned “Element not found”, confirming no active safeboot flag.
3. Recovery Environment (WinRE) and command-line fixes
- Used Shift + Restart → Troubleshoot → Command Prompt.
- sfc /scannow /offbootdir=C:\ /offwindir=C:\Windowschkdsk C: /f→ Detected crosslinked clusters and “stale information” but didn’t trigger a full scan on reboot.
- rmdir /s /q "C:\Program Files\Bitdefender"rmdir /s /q "C:\ProgramData\Bitdefender"reg load HKLM\TempHive C:\Windows\System32\Config\SOFTWAREreg delete "HKLM\TempHive\Bitdefender" /freg unload HKLM\TempHive→ Directories removed but Bitdefender returned after restart.
- Tried renaming installation folder (
Bitdefender Security.old) — restored automatically after reboot.
4. Boot configuration repairs
- Checked BCD entries via
bcdedit /enum all → only {current} entry present, no “safeboot” flag. - Disabled Fast Startup with
powercfg /h off → no change. - Rebuilt boot files with
bcdboot C:\Windows /s C: /f ALL → booted normally, error persisted.
5. System restore & protection
- The shadow copy provider had an error (0x80042306)indicating potential VSS corruption.
6. Current status
- Windows boots normally each time, but shows the Bitdefender bad image error.
- Safe Mode cannot be triggered through any method.
- Bitdefender appears to reinstall itself automatically at startup, possibly via a stuck service or corrupted boot entry.
- System file integrity checks and boot configuration repairs have not resolved the issue.
